GUY MARCHANT printed his first book at Paris in 1483. His motto, Sola fides sufficit (Faith alone suffices) appears above the clasped hands, with the first word represented by the musical notation, sol and la.
JACQUES MAILLET began publishing at Lyons in 1482, and probably began printing at the same time. His mark represents a shield, supported by two dogs, which bears his initials and a mallet (maillet in French), hanging from a tree.
The printer, to be sure, was under few of the compulsions to use a trade-mark that beset his fellow craftsmen. His patrons were literate; they could read his name and address—when he chose to set them down—either in the colophon at the end of the book or on the title page. But the example of other craftsmen was not to be resisted. Besides, a well-made printer's mark, or a publisher's device, could be both useful and ornamental. Put at the end of the book, it could give it a fitting close. Used in the middle of a book, it could set off chapters and parts. Above all, especially when it was printed in red, it could give life and balance to a title page.
ADRIEN VAN BERGHEN in his mark pictures his printing house "at the Sign of the Great Golden Mortar in the market place" at Antwerp, where he started in 1500.
By the printer's mark, also, a prospective purchaser could recognize at a glance the product of a press. It could prevent a careful purchaser from being deceived by a false imprint. "Look at my sign," warns Benedictus Hector of Bologna, "which is represented on the title page and you can never be mistaken." It was harder to counterfeit a printer's mark than to filch his name.