Printing was introduced into Milan (Mediolanum) in 1469 or in the year following, and from the numerous presses established in this city before the end of the fifteenth century very many beautiful books were issued. Gian Giacomo di Legnano and his brothers, whose highly decorative Mark we reproduce, were working in this city from 1503–33; one of their most interesting books is a Latin translation of the first edition (Vicenza, 1507) of the “Paesi novamente retrovati, et Novo Mondo da Alberico Vesputio Florentino intitulato.” Bologna was also a busy printing centre from 1470 onwards; but it must suffice us to give the monograms of three of the more noteworthy, namely, Hercules Nanni, 1492–4; Giovanni Antonio de Benedetti (or Johannes Antonius Platonides de Benedictis), 1499, and Justinian de Ruberia, 1495–9 (see [p. 25]).
GIAN GIACOMO DI LEGNANO.
| GIAMMARIA RIZZARDI. |
The Printers’ Marks of Spain (including Portugal) need not detain us long. They cannot in any case be described as other than archaic, and they are for the most part striking on account of the coarseness of their design. A few examples are given in Fray Francisco Mendez’s “Tipografica Española,” of which the first and only volume appeared at Madrid in 1796; and of which a second edition, corrected and enlarged by Dionisio Hidalgo, was published at the same city in 1861. As the latter writer clearly points out “los del siglo XV., y aun hasta la mitad del XVI. los mas eran estranjeros, como lo demuestran sus nombres y apellidos, y algunos lo declaran espresamente en sus notas y escudos.” These “estranjeros” were almost without exception Germans.
Valencia (or Valentia Edetanorum) was the first place in Spain into which the art of printing was introduced; the earliest printers being Alfonso Fernandez de Cordova and Lambert Palomar (or Palmart) a German, whose names however do not appear on any publication (according to Cotton) antecedent to the year 1478. Although not the earliest of the Seville printers the four “alemanes, y compañeros,” Paulo de Colonia, Juan Pegnicer de Nuremberga, Magno y Thomas, their composite Mark is one of the first which appears on books printed in Spain. It is of the cross type, with two circles, one within another, the smaller divided into four compartments, each of which encircles the initials of the four printers, “P” (the lower part of which is continued so as to form an “L”), “I M T.” Among other books which they printed is the “Vidas de los Varones ilustres de Plutarco.” In 1495, Paulo de Colonia appears to have left the partnership, for the Mark appeared with its inner circle divided into three compartments in which the initials “I M” and “T” only appear. This firm continued printing at Seville until the commencement of the sixteenth century. Federico de Basilea (or, as his name appears in the imprints of his books, Fadrique Aleman de Basilea) was busy printing books at Burgos from the end of the fourteenth to the second decade of the fifteenth century; his Mark, a cross resting on a V-shaped ground, is a poor one, the motto being “sine causa nihil.” “En mushos libros de los que imprimió puso su escudo,” observes Mendez; this printer possesses an historic interest from the fact that he issued the first edition the unabridged “Chronicle of the Cid,” 1512—“Cronica del Famoso Cauallero Cid Ruy Diez Campeador,” a book of the greatest rarity. One of the early printers of Barcelona, Pedro Miguel, had a Mark, also of the cross type, the circle surrounding the bottom of which is divided into three compartments, in two of which occur his initials “P M.”
JUAN ROSEMBACH.