[SOME GENERAL ASPECTS OF THE
PRINTER’S MARK.]
| FUST AND SCHOEFFER. |
From what has already been stated, it will be seen that the Printer’s Mark plays a by no means unimportant part in the early history of illustration,—whether the phase be serious or grotesque, sublime or ridiculous, we find here manifold examples, crude as well as clever. Although it cannot be said with truth that the Mark as an institution reached, like typography itself, its highest degree of perfection at its inception, some of the earlier examples, nevertheless, are also some of the most perfect. The evolution from the small monogram, generally in white on a black ground, to an elaborate picture occupying from a quarter to a whole page, was much less gradual than is generally supposed. The unambitious marks of the first printers were clearly adopted in consonance with the traders’ or merchants’ marks which began to be so generally employed during the latter part of the fifteenth century.
The very natural question, Which was the first Printer’s Mark? admits of an easy answer. It was employed for the first time in the form of the coupled shield of Fust and Schoeffer, in the colophon of the famous Psalter printed by these two men at Mainz in 1457. This book is remarkable as being the costliest ever sold (a perfect copy is valued at 5,000 guineas by Mr. Quaritch): it is the third book printed, and the first having a date, and probably only a dozen copies were struck off for the use of the Benedictine Monastery of St. James at Mainz. It is, however, quite as remarkable for the extraordinary beauty of its initial letters, printed in red and blue ink, the letters being of one colour and the ornamental portion of the other. The Mark of Fust and Schoeffer, it may be mentioned, consists of two printer’s rules in saltaire, on two shields, hanging from a stump, the two rules on the right shield forming an angle of 45°: the adoption of a compositor’s setting-rule was very appropriate. It was nearly twenty years before the introduction of woodcuts into books became general, Gunther Zainer beginning it at Augsburg in 1471–1475. The inception of this movement was naturally followed by a general improvement, or at all events elaboration, of the Printer’s Mark, which, moreover, now began to be printed in colours, as is seen in the Fust and Schoeffer mark in red which appears beneath the colophon of Turrecremata’s Commentary on the Psalms printed by Schoeffer in 1474. Reverting for a moment to the Psalter which has been very properly described as “the grandest book ever produced by Typography,” a very curious fact not at all generally known may be here pointed out. Although the few existing examples with two dates are of the same edition, there are several very curious variations which are well worthy of notice. It will be only necessary, however, in this place to refer to the fact that the beautiful example in the Imperial Library at Vienna—which, from its spotless purity, Heineken calls the “exemplaire vierge”—differs from the others in being without the shield of Fust and Schoeffer, a fact which points to the probability of this copy having been the first struck off.
By the end of the fifteenth century the Printer’s Mark had assumed or was rapidly assuming an importance of which its original introducers had very little conception. Indeed, as early as 1539, a law, according to Dupont, in his “Histoire de l’Imprimerie,” was passed by which these marks or arms of printers and booksellers were protected. Unfortunately the designs were very rarely signed, and it is now impossible to name with any degree of certainty either the artist or engraver, both offices probably in the majority of cases being performed by one man. There is no doubt whatever that Hans Holbein designed some of the very graceful borders and title-pages of Froben, at Basle, during the first quarter of the sixteenth century, and in doing this he included the graceful Caduceus which this famous printer employed. It does not necessarily follow that he was the original designer, although he was in intimate association with Froben when the latter first used this device. The distinctive Mark of Cratander, or Cartander, which appears in the edition of Plutarch’s “Opuscula,” Basel, 1530, has also been confidently attributed to the same artist: if there is any foundation for this statement Holbein was guilty of plagiarism, for this Mark is a very slight modification on one used by the same printer in 1519, and not only so dated but having the artist’s initials, I. F. Those who have the opportunity of examining the “Noctes Atticæ” of Aulus Gellius, printed by Cratander in 1519, will come upon several highly interesting features in connection with this Mark, which is emblematical of Fortune: the elaborately engraved title-page contains an almost exact miniature of the same idea on either side, and it is repeated in a larger form in the border which surrounds the first chapter. The Mark occurs in its full size on the last page of all. The title-page, borders and Mark are all by the same artist, I. F. In the earlier example the woman’s hair completely hides her face, whilst in that of eleven years later it is as seen on the opposite page, and the whole design is more carefully finished. Dürer had dealt with the same subject. In reference to Froben, however, it should be pointed out that his Marks, of which there were several, show considerable variation in their attendant accessories, and that Holbein could not possibly have had anything to do with the majority of them.
J. FROBEN.
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