Early Printed Books

by E. Gordon Duff

The first book printed at Lerida has a curious history. It is a Breviary, according to the use of the church at Lerida, printed by a German, Henry Botel, in 1479, and the whole expense of its publication was undertaken by a certain Antonio Palares, the bell-ringer of the church. It is an extremely rare book; but there is a copy of it in the Bodleian Library, and another in the Carmelite convent at Barcelona. Two other books were printed in this town in the fifteenth century, but they bear no printer’s name; they are both commentaries on parts of Aristotle by Petrus de Castrovol, and were printed in 1488 and 1489.

A book is quoted by Caballero as having been printed at Segorbe in 1479, the Constitutiones synodales Bartholomæi Marti; but its existence is a little doubtful. Besides this one book, no other is known to have been printed at Segorbe until well on in the sixteenth century; and it is therefore quite probable that the book, if it really exists, was printed at some other town, and that the writer who saw it was misled by the occurrence of the name in the title.

Printing is said to have been introduced at Toledo in 1480. The book which bears this date, Leyes originales de los Reyes de España, has no name of place, but has been assigned to Toledo by several Spanish bibliographers who have examined a copy, and who are clear that it is printed in the same type as the Confutatorium errorum of Peter Ximenes de Prexamo, which was printed there by John Vasqui in July 1486. This latter book has been considered by many to be the first, since, as it was written by a canon of Toledo in 1478, it is argued that had that city possessed a press it would have been issued before 1486.

Salamanca, Zamora, Gerona, follow in 1481, 1482, and 1483 respectively, though the existence of a press at the last place is very doubtful. The one book said to have been printed there, Memorial del pecador remut, has the following words in the colophon: ‘impressa a despeses de Matheu Vendrell mercader en la ciutat de Girona.’ This Matthew Vendrell appears also at Barcelona in 1484; but he seems to have been a stationer rather than a printer, and the wording of the colophon mentioned above tends to confirm that idea. Unfortunately, the very great rarity of early Spanish books, at any rate in this country, precludes the comparative study of the types, and very little has yet been done to distinguish them. If this were done, it would be easy to settle the printers of such doubtful books. As there is no other book known to have been printed at Gerona till near the middle of the sixteenth century, it will be safer, until a fuller account be forthcoming, to ascribe this book, following M. Nèe de la Rochelle, to a press at Barcelona.

In 1485 we have Burgos, where Frederick of Basle (at one time an associate of Wenssler’s) printed; Palma, where Nicolas Calafati printed; and probably also Xeres, though the existence of the press in this latter place is doubtful. The only known book quoted by M. Caballero is the Constitutiones synodales urbis vel ecclesiæ Xericanæ, per Barth: Marti, 1485. This bibliographer, however, gives no information about the book, or any indication of the size or type; and as no other book is known to have been printed at Xeres within the next fifty years, it is quite probable that the book mentioned above, though relating to the town, was not printed there.

At Murcia only two or three books were issued in the fifteenth century, printed by a German named Lope de Roca. The first is the Copilacion de las Batallas campales, finished the 28th of May 1487. Panzer, Maittaire, and others speak erroneously of the printer as Juan de Roca. Lope de Roca, after printing two or three books in Murcia, left there and went to Valentia, where he printed in 1495 and 1497.

In 1489, printing was introduced into San Cucufat, into Coria, where only one book was printed in the fifteenth century, the Blason general de todas las insignias del universo, printed by Bartholomeus de Lila (Lille), a Fleming; and it is usually said into Tolosa. The history of printing in the latter town offers many difficulties. Bibliographers have confused Toulouse in France with Tolosa in Biscay; and the difficulty increases when we find that some Spanish books were certainly printed at the former place. The best authorities seem unfortunately to agree that the Cronica de España, by Diego de Valera, is the earliest book; printed by Henry Meyer or Mayer in 1489. M. Nèe de la Rochelle speaks of this Chronicle as printed in 1488, and also quotes a work by Guillaume de Deguilleville, a translation into Spanish of the Pelerinage de la vie humaine, printed by the same printer as early as 1480. The date should be 1490, but is given as 1480 in the Bibl. Hisp. vetus of Antonio (ii. 311), and also by Hain (No. 7848). This Henry Mayer, however, was certainly a printer of Toulouse in France, and not of Tolosa, so that all the remarks of the bibliographers are beside the point. His name is found mentioned in 1488 in registers at Toulouse; and he says in the colophon to the Boethius of the same year, ‘impresso en Tolosa de Francia.’ It is not at all improbable that all the early books with ‘Tolosæ’ in the colophon were printed in France, and that there was no fifteenth century press at Tolosa.

The first book printed at Valladolid is the Tractado breve de Confession of 1492; but it has no printer’s name. In the following year another book was printed, which gives the name of the printer as Johan de Francour. The next two places, Cagliari and Monterey, have each only one book printed in the fifteenth century. The book printed at Cagliari is a Speculum Ecclesiæ, and was printed by Salvador de Bolonga (Bologna), at the request of Nicholas Dagreda. The only known copy is in the Municipal Library at Palma. The book printed at Monterey was a Missal, printed by two partners, Gundisalvus Rodericus de la Passera and Johannes de Porres. Granada (1496), Tarragona (1498), the Monastery of the Blessed Virgin of Monserrat (1499), Madrid (1499), and perhaps Jaen (1500), complete the list of places where printing was practised in Spain before the end of the fifteenth century.

Numerous writers have asserted that printing began at Leiria in Estremadura as early as 1466. Antonio Ribeiro dos Santos, who wrote a learned dissertation on the subject, seems to place his chief reliance on a statement made by Pedro Affonso de Vasconcellos in 1588, that Leiria was the first town to receive the art; and on a further assertion by Soares de Silva, that he had seen a quarto volume containing the poems of the Infante Dom Pedro, which had at the end a note that it was printed nine years after the invention of printing. The particular copy here referred to was destroyed in 1755; other copies of the book contain no imprint. Whatever may be said about the probability of printing having been introduced at an early date into Portugal, the fact remains that the first authentic dated book appeared at Lisbon in 1489. It is a Commentary on the Pentateuch, by Moses ben Nachman, and was printed by two Jews, Rabbi Samuel Zorba and Rabbi Eliezer. It was through the Jews, shortly to be so ungratefully treated, that printing was introduced into two out of the three towns of Portugal in which it was practised in the fifteenth century. They were, however, a people apart, and the books which they printed were for their own use, and in a tongue not understood by others. It was not till 1495 that two other printers, Nicolaus de Saxonia and Valentinus de Moravia, started at Lisbon to issue books in other languages than Hebrew. Another Jew, Abraham, son of Don Samuel Dortas or de Orta, printed the earliest books of Leiria, The first book, the Proverbs of Solomon, with a commentary, was issued in 1492; and other books appeared in 1494 and 1496. The third and last town in Portugal where we find a printing press in the fifteenth century was Braga. Here, in 1494, a certain German named John Gherlinc, who seems to have printed later at Barcelona, printed a Breviary according to the use of the church of Braga. No other book is known to have been printed in this important town for the next forty years.