CHAPTER IV.
THE COLOPHON—TITLE-PAGE—THE FIRST BOOK WITH A DATE—COLLATING—ROMAN NOTATION—LATINISED NAMES OF PLACES, WITH THEIR MODERN EQUIVALENTS.
IT must be borne in mind that the title-page of a book, though constituting a very old method of showing at a glance the nature of the contents, together with the place of publication and frequently also the date, is by no means the earliest means of attaining that object. The title-page, such as we see it, was first adopted in England in 1490, the year before Caxton's death, having been introduced on the Continent in 1470;[5] but previously—and, indeed, for some years after that date—the Colophon was in general use.
The term "Colophon" has its origin in the Greek proverb, "to put the colophon to the matter," that is, the "finishing stroke," and contains the place or year (or both), date of publication, printer's name, and other particulars considered necessary at the time for the identification of the volume. It frequently commences somewhat after the following form: Explicit liber qui dicitur, &c.[6] The colophon, moreover, is always found on the last page, and sometimes takes the form of an inverted pyramid. In the early days, when the printer was not unfrequently author or translator as well, the completion of a work upon which he had probably been engaged for many months—or, perhaps, in some instances, years—was rightly regarded as matter for much self-congratulation, as well as for thanks to the Divine Power, by whose permission alone he had been enabled to persevere. Hence the Psalterium of Fust and Schœffer, a folio of 175 lines to the page, and remarkable as being the first book in which large capital letters, printed in colours, were employed, has for its colophon a very characteristic inscription, which may be translated as follows:—
"This book of Psalms, decorated with antique initials and sufficiently emphasised with rubricated letters, has been thus made by the masterly invention of printing and also type-making, without the writing of a pen, and is consummated to the service of God through the industry of Johann Fust, citizen of Mentz, and Peter Schœffer, of Gernsheim, in the year of our Lord MCCCCLVII., on the eve of the Assumption".
This Psalter is also the first known book which bears any date at all, and for that and other reasons is one of the most highly prized of volumes.
From what has been said, the reader will no doubt clearly understand that it does not follow that, because an old book is minus a title-page, it is necessarily imperfect. He should turn to the last leaf for the colophon; but should that be wanting also, it is probable that the book is deficient, though even this is not a conclusive test. In cases of doubt the volume must be collated, that is, critically compared with some other specimen: each leaf must be examined carefully, and notes made of any differences that may appear during the course of the examination. There is a business-like way and the reverse of tabulating these notes, so much so that an adept can see at a glance whether it has been performed by a competent man. The following is the collation of a copy of the first edition of the famous Genevan version of the Bible printed by Rowland Hall in 1560, 4to: "Four prel. leaves. Text, Genesis to ii. Maccabees, 474 ll. folioed, N. T. 122 leaves, 'A Briefe Table' HH h iii to LLl iii., 13 ll. followed by 1 p. 'The order of the yeres from Paul's conversion,' &c., rev. blank."
At first sight this may appear somewhat technical, but when a few of these collations are compared with actual copies of the works to which they refer, there will be no difficulty in understanding all the rest. The above, for instance, would read, when set out at full length, as follows: "There are four preliminary leaves, and then follows the Bible text proper, which, from Genesis to the 2nd of Maccabees, is on 474 numbered leaves. The New Testament, which follows, has 122 leaves; then comes 'A Briefe Table,' extending from signature HH h iii to LL l iii, and comprising 13 leaves, followed by one page, 'The order of the yeres from Paul's conversion,' &c. The reverse side of this page is blank." The words "page" and "leaf" have distinct meanings, the latter, of course, containing two of the former, unless, indeed, one side happens to be blank, as in the above example. If both sides are blank, the description would be simply "i 1 blank".
From 1457—the date of Fust and Schœffer's Psalter, already described as being the first printed book disclosing on its face the year of publication—until comparatively recent times, it was customary to use Roman numerals on the colophon or title-page, as the case might be. This system of notation is so well understood, or can be so speedily mastered from almost any arithmetical treatise, that it is hardly worth while to enlarge upon it here. On some old books, however, there is a dual form of the "D" representing 500, which is sometimes the cause of considerable perplexity; e.g., MIƆXL standing for the year 1540. In this example the I is equivalent to D; in fact, it would appear as if the former numeral were merely a mutilation of the latter. Again, the form CIƆ is equivalent to M or 1000. A few instances will make the distinction apparent:—
| M IƆ XXIV or M D XXIV | = 1524; |