Bruges, one of the most prosperous and artistic of the towns in the Netherlands, is intimately associated with the history of English printing; for it was there that our first printer, Caxton, began to print. It was not, however, a productive town as regards printing, for only two printers, or at most three, were at work there in the fifteenth century. Of these the most important was Colard Mansion. He was by profession a writer and illuminator of manuscripts, and his name is found year by year from 1454 to 1473 in the book of the Guild of St. John. It was probably about 1475 that he began to print; but his first dated book appeared in the following year. About the years 1475-77, Caxton was in partnership with Mansion, whether generally or only for the production of certain books, we do not know. But together they printed three books, The Recuyell of the Histories of Troye, The Game and playe of the Chesse, and Les quatre derrennieres choses. After Caxton’s departure, in 1477, Mansion continued to print by himself. It is worth noticing that in 1477 he first made use of a device. The first dated book issued by Mansion, De la ruyne des nobles hommes et femmes, by Boccaccio, has a curious history. It was issued first without any woodcuts, and no spaces were left for them. Then the first leaf containing the prologue was cancelled, and reprinted so as to leave a space for a cut of the author presenting his book. At a later date, the first leaves of all the books, excepting books i. and vi., were cancelled, and reissued with spaces for engravings. Mansion printed altogether about twenty-four books, the last being a moralised version of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, issued in May 1484. Almost immediately after this book was finished, the printer fled from Bruges, and his rooms over the porch of the Church of St. Donatus were let to a bookbinder named Jean Gossin. This latter paid the rent still owing by Mansion, and is supposed to have come into possession of the stock of the Ovid, for several copies of the book are known in which the leaves 113-218, 296-389 have been reprinted, presumably by Gossin, and these examples do not contain Mansion’s device.
The other printer, Jean Brito, is little more than a name. Campbell gives four books as having been printed by him, but only one contains his name. This, however, is a book of exceptional interest, the Instruction et doctrine de tous chrétiens et chrétiennes, by Gerson; and but one copy is known, now in the Bibliothèque Nationale. It has the following curious colophon in verse:—
‘Aspice presentis scripture gracia que sit
Confer opus opere, spectetur codice codex.
Respice quam munde, quam terse quamque decore
Imprimit hec civis brugensis brito Johannes,
Inveniens artem nullo monstrante mirandam
Instrumenta quoque non minus laude stupenda.’
The last two lines, which, translated literally, say, ‘Discovering, without being shown by any one, the wonderful art, and also the tools, not less objects for wonder and praise,’ would seem to imply that Brito claimed to be a self-taught printer. That this may have been the case is quite possible, and it is the only reasonable interpretation to put upon the lines. They suggest, however, still a further inference. The type in which this book is printed seems to be identical with that used afterwards by William de Machlinia at Holborn, in London, and extraordinarily similar to the type used by Veldener at Utrecht. If Brito was a self-taught printer, who invented his own tools, he must also have been a type-founder; and if so, may very likely have supplied William de Machlinia with his type.