Even a mark, however, was not infallible protection. The "prince of printers," Aldus Manutius, complains that his Florentine competitors "have affixed our well known sign of the dolphin wound around an anchor. But," he adds, "they have so managed that any person who is in the least acquainted with the books of our production cannot fail to observe that this is an impudent fraud; for the head of the dolphin is turned to the left, whereas that of ours is well known to be turned toward the right."
WILLIAM CAXTON, the first English printer, printed his own translation of a French romance, Recuyell of the Histories of Troy, in 1474. At his press at Westminster he completed nearly eighty books between 1477 and 1491, many of which he also translated from the French.
In one country only, and there for but a brief period, was the use of a mark made compulsory. In 1539, François I, in an act intended to suppress both the piracy of copyrighted works and the printing of heretical books, ordered every printer and book-seller in France to have his own device so that purchasers might easily ascertain where books were printed and sold.
Although (with this exception) the use of marks was voluntary with printers, they were early adopted. In 1457 Fust and Schöffer, the successors of Gutenberg, first employed one in the Mainz Psalter, the first book to contain the name of the printer and the place and date of printing. [Page 39.] The device consisted of two shields resembling coats of arms. Other printers quickly followed their example. As the fifteenth century saw the rise of the mercantile class, it is not surprising that printers used in their marks heraldic devices, if they had the right to bear arms, or shields displaying their merchant's marks in a manner often resembling armorial bearings.
Frequently, printers used as the central part of their marks the signs which served to designate their places of business. Pierre LeRouge, for example, used a red rosebush for his sign and in his device. The London printer, Berthelet, used in like manner the figure of Lucrece.
WILLIAM FAQUES began printing in London about 1503. His mark represents a hexagram of interlocking triangles bearing biblical quotations, which enclose his monogram pierced by an arrow. The initials "GF" are those of the French form of his name.
If the printer's name could be punned on, it was common to use for a mark an object the name of which sounded like the printer's own. Jacques Maillet's surname means mallet. He made it easy to remember by displaying a mallet in his device. [Page 47.] A few printers, among them Aldus Manutius, John Day, John Wight and Willem Vorsterman, even used their own portraits in their marks.
Many other signs and emblems were employed. In an age fond of symbolism it is not surprising to find that many marks had symbolic and mystical meanings—not only in the earlier period, when ecclesiastical symbols were often used, but in the later period also, when devices were frequently copied from emblem books. Sometimes a printer would use a woodcut to illustrate a book and then, because it struck his fancy, adopt it as his mark. Thomas Gardiner and Thomas Dawson, partners, on the other hand, had a block which contained, around a central open square, figures forming a rebus of their names: a gardener, a daw and the sun. With their initials in the open square, it served as a mark; with the appropriate display letter, it was a factotum bearing the initial letter of the first word of a chapter.