There were altogether in the Netherlands twenty-two towns whence books were issued before 1500, and in this list it will be noticed that Haarlem stands near the end. When printing had once been introduced it spread rapidly, all but three towns starting within the first ten years.
CHAPTER VII.
SPAIN AND PORTUGAL—DENMARK AND SWEDEN.
The first book printed in Spain, according to some authorities, is a small volume of poems by Bernardo Fenollar and others, written in honour of the Virgin on the occasion of a congress held at Valentia in March 1474. It is said to have been printed in that town in the same year; but it has never been fully described, nor is it known where a copy is preserved.
According to M. Salvá, the first two books printed in Spain with a certain date are the Comprehensorium (23rd February 1475), and the Sallust (13th July 1475), both printed at Valentia. As, however, the year began on Easter Day, the second book is really the earlier, and with it the authentic history of printing in Spain begins. The book itself is a small quarto, printed in Roman letter, without signatures or catchwords, and but two copies seem to be known, one in the Royal Library of Madrid, the other in the Barberini Library at Rome. The printers were Lambert Palmart, a German, and Alonzo Fernandez of Cordova; but their names are found, for the first time, in a Bible of 1478 known only from four leaves, one of them fortunately containing the colophon. It is very probable that Alonzo Fernandez, whose name only occurs in this one colophon, was not a printer, though it is not known in what capacity he was associated with Palmart. He was certainly known as a celebrated astronomer. Lambert Palmart continued to print at Valentia up to the year 1494, and by that time other printers had settled in the town. Jacobus de Villa is mentioned by Panzer in 1493 and 1495; and in this latter year we find also Peter Hagembach, who later on, at Toledo, printed the celebrated Mozarabic Missal and Breviary.
In 1475 a certain Matthæus Flandrus printed an edition of the Manipulus Curatorum at Saragossa. He is supposed to have been a wandering printer, and considered by some to be the Matthew Vendrell who printed at Barcelona in 1482, and at Gerona in 1483. Between 1475 and 1485 no book is known to have been printed at Saragossa; but in the latter year a press was started by Paul Hurus, a native of Constance, who printed till almost the end of the fifteenth century; and was followed by three Germans, George Cock, Leonard Butz, and Lupus Appentegger.
Seville was the third city of Spain where printing was practised, and the first dated book issued there was the Sacramental of Clemente Sanchez de Vercial, printed by three partners, Anton Martinez, Bartholomé Segura, and Alphonso del Puerto, in 1477. An undated edition of the same work is ascribed by Mendez and others to an earlier date, and a third edition was issued in May 1478. Another book, the Manuale seu Repertorium super Abbatem Panormitanum per Alphonsum Diaz de Montalvo, was issued by the same printers in the same year. Hain mentions sixteen printers who worked in Seville during the fifteenth century; and of these many were Germans.
The first printers at Barcelona were Peter Brun and Nicholas Spindeler, who issued, in 1478, two books by Aquinas, commentaries on parts of Aristotle. These are almost certainly the first two books printed in that town, though a large number of supposititious books, with dates from 1473 onwards, are quoted by different writers. Amongst other printers who worked at Barcelona may be mentioned John Rosembach of Heidelberg, who paid visits to various towns, being found at Tarragona in 1499, and at Perpignan in 1500. Another printer, Jaques de Gurniel, left Barcelona about the end of the century and went to Valladolid, where he printed during the first years of the sixteenth century.