Arnoldusque simul pannarts una aede colendi
Gente theotonica: romæ expediere sodales.
In domo Petri de Maximo. M.CCCC.LXVII.’
From this time forward, under the able supervision of the Bishop of Aleria, Sweynheym and Pannartz continued to print with the greatest industry, but they did not meet with the support which they merited. In 1472 they had become so badly off that a letter was written to Pope Sixtus IV. pointing out their distress, and asking for assistance. This letter, printed on one sheet, is usually found in the fifth volume of Nicholas de Lyra’s Commentary on the Bible, printed in 1472. Its great bibliographical interest lies in the fact that the printers gave a list of what they had printed and the number of copies they issued. In the list twenty-eight works are mentioned, and the number of volumes amounted altogether to 11,475. They usually issued 275 copies of each work which they printed.
This list also clearly shows the extraordinary influence of the new learning so actively promoted by Cosmo de Medici and encouraged by his grandson Lorenzo. The majority of the books in this list are classics, either in their original Latin or in Latin translations from the Greek; and that the printers were anxious to benefit scholars, is shown by the assertion of the Bishop of Aleria in the prefatory letter to the Ciceronis Epistolæ ad Atticum of 1470, where it is said that they had produced their editions of Cicero at the lowest possible price, “ad pauperum commoditatem.”
To judge from the results, the appeal to the Pope was of little effect, for in 1473 Conrad Sweynheym gave up the business of printing, and confined his attention to engraving on metal; while Pannartz continued to print by himself up till the end of 1476, issuing in those three years about twelve books. The last book on which Pannartz was engaged was a new edition of the Letters of St. Jerome, but he only finished one volume. Three years later, George Laver, who seems to have acquired the type, issued the second volume. It is therefore quite probable, as is generally asserted, that Pannartz died in 1476 or early in 1477. Sweynheym, ever since he had given up printing, had been engaged in engraving a series of maps to illustrate Ptolemy’s Geography; but, after working three years upon them, died before they were finished. The edition of Ptolemy was finally issued in 1478 by Arnold Buckinck, a German, who in his preface said that he was anxious ‘that the emendations of Calderinus—who also died before the book was printed—and the results of Sweynheym’s most ingenious mechanical contrivances might not be lost to the learned world.’
‘Magister vero Conradus Sweynheym, Germanus, a quo formandorum Romæ librorum ars primum profecta est, occasione hinc sumpta posteritati consulens animum primum ad hanc doctrinam capescendam applicuit. Subinde mathematicis adhibitis viris quemadmodum tabulis eneis imprimerentur edocuit, triennioque in hac cura consumpto diem obiit. In cujus vigilarum laborumque partem non inferiori ingenio ac studio Arnoldus Buckinck e Germania vir apprime eruditus ad imperfectum opus succedens, ne Domitii Conradique obitu eorum vigilæ emendationesque sine testimonio perirent neve virorum eruditorum censuram fugerent immensæ subtilitatis machinimenta, examussim ad unum perfecit.’
The book contains twenty-seven maps, each map being printed on two separate leaves facing each other, and printed only on one side. The letters which occur on the maps in the names of places are evidently punched from single dies, and not cut on the plate, as would have been expected. The letterpress of the book is not printed in any type used by Sweynheym or Pannartz, which shows that Buckinck was the absolute printer of the book.
Ulric Hahn, who contests with Sweynheym and Pannartz for the honour of having introduced printing into Rome, issued as his first book, in 1467, the Meditations of Cardinal Torquemada, better known perhaps as Turrecremata. It is illustrated with thirty-three woodcuts of inferior execution, and is printed in a large Gothic type. This type the printer discarded the following year for one of Roman letter; but odd types from the Gothic fount frequently make their appearance among the Roman, and serve as a means of distinguishing Hahn’s books from others in similar Roman type. As a case in point, we may mention the early and probably first edition of Catullus, wrongly ascribed to Andrea Belfortis of Ferrara and other printers. This book is in Hahn’s Roman type, and contains three capital letters from his Gothic fount;—a more sure means of identification than a fancied allusion to a printer’s name.[17] For a short time, from 1470 to 1472, Hahn’s books were edited by Campanus, a scholar of such fame and erudition, that the printer was able to rival Sweynheym and Pannartz, with their editor the Bishop of Aleria; but on Campanus taking his departure for Ratisbon, the prestige of Hahn’s press declined. From the pen of Campanus came perhaps the punning colophons which play upon the name of Hahn, in Latin, Gallus, meaning in English a cock. Upon the departure of Campanus, Hahn, took in partnership one Simon Nicolai Chardella of Lucca, who seems to have supplied the money as well as superintended the publishing, and they continued to work together till 1474. From this date till 1478, Hahn continued to work alone, ending in that year as he had begun, with an edition of the Meditationes of Torquemada. His former partner, Simon Nicolai, started a press on his own account, having as an associate his cousin.