Printers' Marks: A Chapter in the History of Typography

by W. Roberts

G. U. VON ANDLAU.

Shorn of all the romance and glamour which seem inevitably to surround every early phase of typographic art, a Printer’s Device may be described as nothing more or less than a trade mark. It is usually a sufficient proof that the book in which it occurs is the work of a particular craftsman. Its origin is essentially unromantic, and its employment, in the earlier stages of its history at all events, was merely an attempt to prevent the inevitable pirate from reaping where he had not sown. At one time a copy, or more correctly a forgery, of a Printer’s Mark could be detected with comparative ease, even if the body of the book had all the appearance of genuineness.

This self-protection was necessary on many grounds. First of all, the privileges of impression which were granted by kings, princes, and supreme pontiffs, were usually obtained only by circuitous routes and after the expenditure of much time and money. Moreover, the counterfeit book was rarely either typographically or textually correct, and was more often than not abridged and mutilated almost beyond recognition, to the serious detriment of the printer whose name appeared on the title-page. Places as well as individualities suffered, for very many books were sold as printed in Venice, without having the least claim to that distinction. The Lyons printers were most unblushing sinners in this respect, and Renouard cites a Memorial drawn up by Aldus himself on the subject, and published at Venice in 1503.

But apart from the foregoing reasons, it must be remembered that many of the earliest monuments of typographic art appeared not only without the name of the printer but also without that of the locality in which they were printed. Although in such cases various extraneous circumstances have enabled bibliographers to “place” these books, the Mark of the printer has almost invariably been the chief aid in this direction. The Psalter of 1457 is the first book which has the name of the place where it was printed, besides that of the printers as well as the date of the year in which it was executed. But for a long time after that date books appeared without one or the other of these attributes, and sometimes without either, so that the importance of the Printer’s Mark holds good.

A very natural question now suggests itself, “Who invented these Marks?” Laire, “Index Librorum” (Sæc. xv.), ii. 146, in speaking of a Greek Psalter says: “Habet signaturas, registrum ac custodes, sed non numerantur folia. Litteræ principales ligno incisæ sunt, sicut et in principio cujuslibet psalmi viticulæ quæ gallicé vignettes appellantur, quarum usum primus excogitavit Aldus.” The volume here described was printed about 1495, and the invention therefore has been very generally attributed to Aldus. That this is not so will be shown in the next chapter. We shall confine ourselves for the present to some of the various points which appear to be material to a proper understanding of the subject.

One of the most important and interesting phases in connection with Printers’ Marks is undoubtedly the motif of the pictorial embellishment. Both the precise origin and the object of many Marks are now lost to us, and many others are only explained after a thorough study of the life of the particular printer or the nature of the books which he generally printed or published. The majority, however, carry their own prima facie explanations. The number of “punning” devices is very large, and nearly every one has a character peculiarly its own. Their antiquity is proved by the fact that before the beginning of the fifteenth century, a picture of St. Anthony was boldly, not to say irreverently, used by Antoine Caillaut, Paris. A long series of punning devices occur in the books printed by or for the fifteenth century publishers, one of the most striking and successful is that of Michel le Noir, whose shield carries his initials, surmounted by the head of a negress and sometimes supported by canting figures in full. This Mark, with variations, was also employed by Philippe and Guillaume le Noir, the work of the three men covering a period of nearly 100 years. The device of Gilles or Gillet Couteau, Paris, 1492, is apparently a double pun, first on his Christian name, the transition from which to œillet being easy and explaining the presence of a pink in flower, and secondly on his surname by the three open knives, in one of which the end of the blade is broken. It was almost inevitable that both Denis Roce or Ross, a Paris bookseller, 1490, and Germain Rose, of Lyons, 1538, should employ a rose in their marks, and this they did, one of the latter’s examples having a dolphin twining around the stem. Jacques and Estienne Maillet, whose works at Lyons extended from the last eleven years of the fifteenth century to the middle of the sixteenth, give in the centre of their shield a picture of a mallet.

GILLET COUTEAU.	GALLIOT DU PRÉ.

One of the boldest of the early sixteenth century examples is that employed by Galliot Du Pré, Paris, and in this we have a picture of a galley propelled with the aid of sails and oars, and with the motto “Vogue la gualee.” This device (with several variations) was used by both father and son, and possesses an interest beyond the subject of Printers’ Marks, for it gives us a very clear idea of the different boats employed during the first three quarters of the sixteenth century. Another striking Mark of about the same time and covering as nearly as possible the same period, was that of the family De La Porte. The earlier example used in Paris about 1508 was a simple doorway; but the elder Hugues de la Porte, Lyons, and the successors of Aymon De La Porte of the same place, used several exceedingly bold designs in which Samson is represented carrying away the gates of Gaza, the motto on one door or gate being “libertatem meam,” and on the other “mecum porto.” The two printers of the same name, Jehan Lecoq, who were practising the art continuously during nearly the whole of the sixteenth century at Troyes, employed a Mark on the shield of which appears the figure of a cock; whilst an equally appropriate if much more ugly design, was employed by the eminent Lyons family of Sébastien Gryphe or Gryphius: he had at least eight “griffin” Marks, which differed slightly from one another. François Gryphe, who worked in Paris, had one Mark which was original to the extent of the griffin being supported by a tortoise. J. Du Moulin, Rouen, employed a little picture of a windmill on his Mark, as did Scotland’s first printer, Andro Myllar; but Jehan Petit, a prolific fifteenth century printer of Paris, confined his punning to the words “Petit à Petit,” as is seen in the reduced facsimile title, given on [p. 9], of a book printed by him for T. Kerver. Mathias Apiarius, Strassburg, used at least two Marks expressing the same idea, namely, a bear discovering a bee’s nest in the hollow of a tree—an obvious pun on his surname. The latter part of the sixteenth century is not nearly so fruitful in really good or striking devices. Guillaume Bichon, Paris, employed a realistic picture of a lap-dog (in allusion to his surname) chasing a hare, with the motto “Nunc fugiens, olim pugnabo”; and equally realistic in another way is the Mark of P. Chandelier, Caen, in which effective use is made of a candle-stick with seven holders, the motto being “Lucernis fideliter ministro.” Antoine Tardif, Lyons, employed the Aldine anchor and dolphin, and also a motto, “Festina tarde,” which is identical in meaning, if not in the exact words, of that of Aldus. Guillaume De La Rivière, Arras, used a charmingly vivid little scene of a winding river, with the motto “Madenta flumine valles”; and it is not difficult to distinguish the appropriateness of the sprig of barley in the Mark of Hugues Barbon, Limoges. The Mark of Jacques Du Puys, Paris, was possibly suggested by the word puits (or well), and of which Puys is perhaps only a form: the picture at all events is a representation of Christ at the well. In the case of Adam Du Mont, Orange, the christian name, is “taken off” in a picture of Adam and Eve at the tree of forbidden fruit; and exactly the same idea occurs with equal appropriateness in the Mark of N. Eve, Paris, the sign of whose shop was Adam and Eve. Michel Jove naturally went to profane history for the subject of his Mark, and with a considerable amount of success.

JEHAN LECOQ.

Among the numerous other examples with mottoes derived from sacred history, special mention, as showing the connection between the sign of the shop and its incorporation in the Mark, may be made to the following printers of Paris: D. De La Noue, who not only had “Jesus” as the sign of his shop, but also as his Mark; J. Gueffier had the “Amateur Divin” as his sign, and an allegorical interpretation of the device, “Fert tacitus, vivit, vincit divinus amator,” as a Mark; Guillaume Julian, or Julien, had “Amitie” as his sign, and a personification of this (Typus Amicitiæ) as his Mark, with the motto “Nil Deus hac nobis majus concessit in usus”; Abel L’Angelier (and his widow after his death) adopted the sacrifice of Abel as the subject of his Sign and Mark, with the motto “Sacrum pinque dabo nec macrum sacrificabo”; and the motto of both the first and the second Michel Sonnius was “Si Deus pro nobis, quis contra nos?”