Finis partis prime Bartholi super ff. nouum que peroptime emendata Venetiis impressionem habuit impensis Iohannis de Colonia sociique eius Iohannis manthen de Gerretzem: qui vna fideliter degentes ipsius laboratores conduxerunt. Anno M.CCCC.LXXVI.
The end of the first part of Bartolus on the New Digest, which has been very excellently corrected and printed at Venice at the expense of John of Cologne and of his partner Johann Manthen of Gerretzheim, who, loyally living together, have hired the workmen engaged on it. In the year 1476.
While many publishers pure and simple took to themselves the credit of being their own printers, these careful statements on the part of the loyal partners, that their function has been that of superintendence and finance (ductu et impensa), and as to the hiring of the workmen (laboratores conduxerunt), are rather notable. When John of Cologne joined with Jenson and others as publishers in employing Johann Herbort of Seligenstadt to print for them, he still carried with him one of his old phrases—witness this typical colophon from the “Super Decretis” of Guido de Baysio, 1481:
Guido de Baysio. Super Decretis. Venice: John of Cologne and Nicolas Jenson, 1481.
Exactum insigne hoc atque preclarum opus ductu auspitiis optimorum Iohannis de Colonia, Nicolai ienson sociorumue. Qui non tantum summam curam adhibuere ut sint hec et sua queque sine uicio et menda, verumetiam ut bene sint elaborata atque iucundissimo litterarum caractere confecta, ut unicuique prodesse possint et oblectare, more poetico, et prodesse uolunt et delectare poete. Huiusce autem operis artifex extitit summus in hac arte magister Ioannes de Selgenstat alemanus, qui sua solertia ac uigiliis diuoque imprimendi caractere facile supereminet omnes. Olympiadibus dominicis Anno uero millesimo.cccc.lxxxi. tertias nonas Apriles.
This noble and distinguished work was finished under the guidance and auspices of the most excellent John of Cologne, Nicolas Jenson, and their partners, who have applied the greatest care not only that this and all their works might be free from fault and stain, but also that they might be well finished and set up in a most pleasant style of letter, for general profit and delight, according to the fashion of the poets, who desire both to profit and please. And of this work the craftsman is the distinguished master in this art, John of Seligenstadt, a German, who in his skill and watchfulness and in the divine character of his printing easily surpasses all. In the Olympiads of the Lord and the year 1481, on April 3d.
Herbort was fond both of the phrase about the Olympiads (which might be more idiomatically translated by “in the Christian era”) and also of his eulogy on himself, and several others of his colophons run on the same lines. The pride which many of the early printers took in their work was indeed immense. Of some of its manifestations we have already had more than enough; but we may stop to note two colophons which show that they sometimes expected their customers to recognize the origin of a book by its types, though they can certainly never have anticipated the scientific investigations of Mr. Proctor in this field. The first of these is from Hain *10614, a Mandeville, of which I have never seen a copy.