Part 4

John, who taught Venice there might written be A hundred Plinys in months barely three, And of great Cicero as many a book, Began Augustine, but then death him took, Nor suffered that he should Venetians bless Finishing his task. Now Wendelin, no less With skill equipped, his brother, in his room Means to take Adria’s city for his home.

1470.

The business which thus passed into his hands was certainly carried on by Wendelin vigorously, for during the next three years he turned out over a dozen folios or large quartos a year. He seems, indeed, to have outrun his resources, for as early as 1471 his colophons tell us that some of his books were financed for him by John of Cologne, and after the summer of 1473 his type passed into the possession of this John and his “very faithful partner, Johann Manthen.” As Wendelin’s name disappears from colophons for three years, it is probable that his services were taken over with his types; in 1470, however, he was his own master and the object of much praise from his colophon-writer. In his Sallust of this year we read:

Quadringenta dedit formata volumina Crispi Nunc, lector, Venetis Spirea Vindelinus. Et calamo libros audes spectare notatos Aere magis quando littera ducta nitet?

To Venice Wendelin, who from Speier comes, Has given of Sallust twice two hundred tomes. And who dare glorify the pen-made book, When so much fairer brass-stamped letters look?

The Livy of the same year ends with a poem of forty-six lines, which praises Wendelin for bravely rescuing such of Livy’s Decads as remained, “saevis velut hostibus acri Bello oppugnatas,” and by multiplying copies saving them from the fate which had befallen the rest. A poem like this, however, must be reckoned rather with congratulatory verses than as a colophon, though the line in these Venetian books is not always easy to draw. Two more of Wendelin’s publications in 1470 may be pressed into our service—a Virgil and a Petrarch. Of these the Virgil ends:

Progenitus Spira formis monumenta Maronis Hoc Vindelinus scripsit apud Venetos. Laudent ergo alii Polycletos Parrhasiosue Et quosuis alios id genus artifices: Ingenuas quisquis Musarum diligit artes In primis ipsum laudibus afficiet: Nec vero tantum quia multa uolumina, quantum Quod perpulchra simul optimaque exhibeat.

M.CCCC.LXX.

Wendelin of Speier these records of the art Of Maro now to Venice doth impart. Let some of Polycletus praise the skill, Parrhasius, or what sculptor else you will; Who loves the stainless gifts the Muses give Will pray that Wendelin’s renown may live; Not that his volumes make so long a row, But rather for the grace and skill they show.

1470.

The colophon to the Petrarch claims credit for the restoration of a true text, a point on which the scholars of the Renaissance were as keen, up to their lights, as those of our own day, and which is often emphasized in their laudatory verses as the one supreme merit:

Que fuerant multis quondam confusa tenebris Petrarce Laure metra sacrata sue, Christophori et pariter feruens Cyllenia cura Transcripsit nitido lucidiora die. Vtque superueniens nequeat corrumpere tempus En Vindelinus erea plura dedit.

The songs that Petrarch to his Laura made With many a doubt obscure were overlaid: Now, by Cristoforo’s and Cyllenio’s care, Than day itself their text shall shine more fair. Lest by corrupting time they still be tried, Wendelin these printed copies multiplied.

In 1471 Wendelin, or his correctors, lest their inspiration should be too hard worked, invented a simple couplet which would apply to any book equally well.

Impressum formis iustoque nitore coruscans Hoc Vindelinus condidit artis opus.

Printed from forms, with modest splendors bright, This Wendelin designed to give delight.

This is found in the “Apophthegmata” of Plutarch, the “Memorabilia” of Valerius Maximus, the “Singularia” of Pontanus, the “Aureae Quaestiones” of Bartolus de Saxoferrato, etc.; and must have been a welcome second string in case of need. Nevertheless, when a second edition of Sallust was called for, Wendelin’s private poet was equal to the occasion, producing the quatrain:

Quadringenta iterum formata uolumina nuper Crispi dedit Venetis Spirea Vindelinus. Sed meliora quidem lector, mihi crede, secundo Et reprobata minus antea quam dederat.

The verses are so incredibly bad, not merely in their entire disregard of quantity, but in grammar as well, that it would be pleasant to reproduce the peculiar iniquity which makes their charm. What the writer meant to say was something to the effect that:

Wendelin of Speier to Venice now once more Of printed Sallusts hath given hundreds four. But here all’s better, all may trusted be: This text, good reader, is from errors free.

Faithfully to reëcho the discords of the original is above the present translator’s skill.

As money troubles thickened about him, Wendelin’s colophons became less buoyant and interesting; but in 1473, when the transfer of his business to John of Cologne and Manthen of Gerresheim was impending, we find these verses in one of the huge law-books in which the early printers were so bold in investing their money—the “Lectura Bartoli de Saxoferrato super secunda parte Digesti Veteris”:

Finis. M. cccc. lxxiii.

Non satis est Spire: gratissima carmina Phoebo, Musarum cantus, historiasque premi. Omnis habet sua vota liber. Non cessat ab arte. Has pressit leges, Iustiniane, tuas. Spira tua est virtus Italas iam nota per urbes, Ore tuum nomen posteritatis erit.

1473.

’Tis not enough for Speier to print the songs That Phoebus loves, the Muses’ tales and lays: Each book is favored. Not for rest he longs, But thus to print Justinian’s laws essays. Speier, now Italy’s cities know thy glory, And future ages shall repeat the story.

When Wendelin resumed business on his own account in 1476, he published very few books; but one of these, the “Divina Commedia” of Dante, printed in that year, has an Italian colophon in the ambitious form of a sonnet:

Finita e lopra del inclito e diuo Dante alleghieri Fiorentin poeta La cui anima sancta alberga lieta Nel ciel seren oue sempre il fia vivo. Dimola benvenuto mai fia priuo Deterna fama che sua mansueta Lyra opero comentando il poeta, Per cui il texto a noi e intellectiuo. Christofal Berardi pisaurense detti Opera e facto indegno correctore Per quanto intese di quella i subietti. De Spiera Vendelin fu il stampatore: Del mille quattrocento e settanta setti Correuan gli anni del nostro signore.

Here ends the work of Dante, the most high Florentine poet, famed to every age, Whose holy soul now finds glad harborage (Aye may he there abide!) in heaven’s clear sky. From Benvenuto d’Imola let none try To wrest the credit due for comment sage On this great poem, by which every page, Poet himself, he helps to clarify. Pesaro’s son, Christoph Berardi hight, Hath all corrected, though with many a fear Of lofty themes, hard to pursue aright. The printer Wendelin, who from Speier came here: And since Christ’s birth there urges now its flight The fourteen hundred six and seventieth year.

This putting of dates into verse is sad work. In Jenson’s early colophons, instead of dates (which are added in prose), we have the name of the reigning doge to wrestle with. Thus, in his edition of the “Rhetorica” and “De Inuentione” of Cicero we find the following verse and prose colophon:

Emendata manu sunt exemplaria docta Omniboni: quem dat utraque lingua patrem. Haec eadem Ienson Veneta Nicolaus in urbe Formauit: Mauro sub duce Christoforo.

MARCI TVLLII CICERONIS ORATORIS CLARISSIMI RHETORICORVM LIBER VLTIMVS FELICITER EXPLICIT.

.M.CCCC.LXX.

Omnibonus with his learned hand hath these Copies revised, skilled in two languages; And Nicolas Jenson shaped them by his pains At Venice, while Cristoforo Moro reigns.

The last book of the Rhetorics of Marcus Tullius Cicero, the most renowned orator, comes happily to an end. 1470.

So again in an edition, of the same year, of the Letters to Atticus we have a similar colophon, the poetical portion of which might easily have led a reader to believe that he was invited to buy a work by Atticus himself instead of letters mainly addressed to him:

Attice, nunc totus Veneta diffunderis urbe, Cum quondam fuerit copia rara tui. Gallicus hoc Ienson Nicolaus muneris orbi Attulit: ingenio daedalicaque manu. Christophorus Mauro plenus bonitate fideque Dux erat: auctorem, lector, opusque tenes.

MARCI T. C. EPISTOLAE AD ATTICVM BRVTVM et Quintum fratrem, cum ipsius Attici vita feliciter expliciunt. M.CCCC.LXX.

All Atticus is now in Venice sold, Though copies were right rare in days of old. French Nicolas Jenson this good gift has brought, And all with skill and crafty hand has wrought. Our doge, Cristoforo Moro, true and kind. Thus book and author, reader, here you find.

The Letters of Marcus Tullius Cicero to Atticus, Brutus, and his brother Quintus, with the life of the said Atticus, come happily to an end. 1470.

In the next year we have to deal with the little group of vernacular books printed by Jenson, to one of which the omission of an X from the date in the colophon has given such notoriety. The three which are correctly dated are: (i) “Una opera la quale se chiama Luctus Christianorum ex Passione Christi, zoe pianto de Christiani per la Passione de Christo in forma de Meditatione.”

COLOPHON: A Christi Natiuitate Anno M.CCCCLXXI. Pridie nonas Apriles a preclarissimo librorum exculptore Nicolao gallico. Impressa est passio christi dulcissima.

In the year 1471 from Christ’s Nativity, on April 4th, by the most famous engraver of books, Nicolas Jenson, there was printed The Most Sweet Passion of Christ.

(ii) “Parole devote de lanima inamorata in Misser Iesu.”

COLOPHON: MCCCCLXXI. Octauo Idus Aprilis: per Nicolaum Ienson gallicum opusculum hoc feliciter impressum est.

1471, April 6th, by Nicolas Jenson, a Frenchman, this booklet was happily printed.

(iii) “Una operetta la quale si chiama Palma Virtutum zioe triumpho de uirtude: la quale da Riegola forma et modo a qualunque stato,” etc.

COLOPHON: Deo Gratias. Amen. Opus Nicolai Ienson Gallici. M.CCCCLXXI.

Thanks be to God, Amen. The work of Nicolas Jenson, a Frenchman. 1471.

It will be noticed that the second colophon is shorter than the first, and it should be mentioned that in yet another book of the same kind, the “Gloria Mulierum,” Jenson did not trouble to put his name at all, doubtless thinking, according to the view propounded in our first chapter, that these little vernacular books of devotion would bring him no particular credit. If we look now at the book with the misprinted date, “Una opera la quale si chiama Decor Puellarum, zoe Honore de le Donzelle: la quale da regola forma e modo al stato de le honeste donzelle,” we find this colophon:

Anno a Christi Incarnatione MCCCCLXI per Magistrum Nicolaum Ienson hoc opus quod Puellarum Decor dicitur feliciter impressum est. Laus Deo.

In the year from Christ’s Incarnation 1461, by Master Nicolas Jenson, this book, which is called Maidens’ Honor, was happily printed. Thanks be to God.

Just as the subjects of all the books are of the same class, and just as they are all printed in the same types and the same size, so we find a general agreement in the colophons (as compared with those used by Jenson in the books issued in 1470), tempered with modifications which seem to fall into an orderly sequence. In subject the “Pianto de Christiani” and “Parole devote de l’anima inamorata” seem to pair best together, and the “Decor Puellarum” (regola de le honeste donzelle) with the “Palma Virtutum” (regola a qualunque persona). The first two are exactly dated within three days of each other, the second pair have only the date of the year. Probably there were two sets of compositors, one of whom printed the first pair, the other the second, and we see them starting by calling Jenson a “most famous engraver of books,” dropping these flowers in the “Decor Puellarum,” and quickly getting down to the curt formula of the “Palma Virtutum.” The typographical evidence, without further corroboration, would entitle us to feel sure that the omission of a second X in the date MCCCCLXI was purely accidental,[4] but it is satisfactory to find that the form of the colophon itself makes it impossible to separate it from its fellows and unreasonable to place it earlier than the fuller and more boastful form used in the “Pianto de Christiani.”

Though the colophons of his vernacular books were thus already tending to curtness in 1471, Jenson still paid some attention to those of his Latin publications. Thus, in an edition of Suetonius’s “Lives of the Caesars” of that year we find the quatrain:

Hoc ego Nicoleos Gallus cognomine Ienson Impressi: mirae quis neget artis opus? At tibi dum legitur docili Suetonius ore Artificis nomen fac, rogo, lector ames.

M.CCCC.LXXI.

Nicolas Jenson, a Frenchman, I This book have printed. Who’ll deny The skill it shows? Then, reader kind, The while ’tis read please bear in mind The printer’s name with friendly thought Who this Suetonius has wrought.

1471.

In the “De Bello Italico aduersus Gotthos” of Leonardo Aretino, printed in the same year, we find this sentiment expressed more concisely in a couplet which could be inserted in any book:

Gallicus hunc librum impressit Nicolaus Ienson. Artifici grates, optime lector, habe.

Nicolas Jenson, a Frenchman, took The pains to put in print this book. Then to the craftsman, reader good, Be pleased to show some gratitude.

Lastly, in this same year, we have two variants of a prose colophon which contains a fine phrase of epigrammatic brevity. In an edition of the “Familiar Letters of Cicero” it runs:

MCCCCLXXI.

Opus praeclarissimum M. T. Ciceronis Epistolarum Familiarium a Nicolao Ienson Gallico viuentibus necnon et posteris impressum feliciter finit.

1471.

A very notable book, the Familiar Letters of Marcus Tullius Cicero, printed by Nicolas Jenson for this and also for future generations, comes happily to an end.

The phrase, but slightly enlarged, recurs in the “Institutes of Quintilian” of the same year.

Quintilianum eloquentiae fontem ab eruditissimo Omnibono Leoniceno emendatum M. Nicolaus Ienson Gallicus viuentibus posterisque miro impressit artificio annis M.CCCC.LXXI Mense Maii die xxi.

Quintilian, the fountain of eloquence, corrected by the most learned Omnibonus Leonicenus, was printed by Nicolas Jenson, a Frenchman, with wonderful craftsmanship, for this and future generations, in the year 1471, on the 21st day of the month of May.

After this, until he joined John of Cologne, Jenson’s colophons become short and featureless. Meanwhile, however, a third printer, Christopher Valdarfer of Ratisbon, had set up a press at Venice, and toward the close of 1470 joined in the contest of poetical colophons. His first contribution to it appears to be these three couplets in praise of his edition of Cicero’s “De Oratore”:

ANNO DO. M.CCCC.LXX.

Si quem oratoris perfecti audire iuuabit Materiam: fons est hoc Ciceronis opus. Hic tersum eloquium uelut Attica lingua refulget: Christophori impressus hic liber arte fuit. Cui stirps Valdarfer patria estque Ratispona tellus. Hunc emat, orator qui uelit esse, librum.

Who’d know the perfect orator’s stock-in-trade Only this work of Cicero let him read, Where polished speech, like Greek, doth light impart, And all is printed by Cristoforo’s art, Whose clan’s Valdarfer, Ratisbon his home. The would-be orator need but buy this tome.

In the following year he issued another volume of Cicero, containing thirty orations, and added to it, doubtless by the hand of “Lodovico Carbo,” his corrector, seven couplets of verse whose phrasing has somehow impelled me to render them into disgracefully jingling rhymes:

Germani ingenii quis non miretur acumen? Quod uult Germanus protinus efficiet. Aspice quam mira libros impresserit arte: Quam subito ueterum tot monumenta dedit Nomine Christophorus, Valdarfer gentis alumnus, Ratisponensis gloria magna soli. Nunc ingens Ciceronis opus causasque forenses, Quas inter patres dixit et in populo, Cernis quam recto, quam emendato ordine struxit: Nulla figura oculis gratior esse potest. Hoc autem illustri Venetum perfecit in urbe Praestanti Mauro sub duce Christophoro. Accipite hunc librum quibus est facundia cordi: Qui te Marte colet sponte disertus erit.

M.CCCC.LXXI. LODO. CARBO.

Of praising German talent what tongue can ever tire? For what a German wishes, ’tis done as soon as said. The skilful printing of this book should cause you to admire. How quickly, too, are published all these records of the dead. ’Tis Christopher who prints them, of the old Valdarfer stock, A credit and a glory to the soil of Ratisbon; Who issues now the speeches of great Cicero _en bloc_, “To the Senate,” “To the People,” and his Pleadings every one. You may see the order follows the best editorial school: No appearance could more justly please the eye. ’Tis printed here in Venice, ’neath the noble Moro’s rule; Who Cicero reads no other road to eloquence need try.

1471. Lodo. Carbo.

After 1471 Valdarfer moved from Venice to Milan, where books from his press began to appear in 1474. Adam of Ammergau made some original contributions to the poetical tradition, but in his 1472 edition of Cicero’s Orations conveyed, and very clumsily, a couplet from Valdarfer’s edition of the previous year:

Hoc ingens Ciceronis opus, causasque forenses Quas inter patres dixit et in populo, Tu quicunque leges, Ambergau natus ahenis Impressit formis. Ecce magister Adam.

M.CCCC.LXXII.

Who prints you now the speeches of great Cicero _en bloc_, “To the Senate,” “To the People,” and his Pleadings every one? Know, reader, that in Ammergau is his ancestral stock; ’Tis Master Adam of that place has this edition done.

1472.

The Venetian verse tradition seems now to have settled down into a convention that a new printer should announce his arrival in Latin elegiacs, but need not continue the practice. Franciscus de Hailbrun complied with it to this extent in some dull lines in an edition of the “Quadragesimale” of Robertus de Licio in 1472; and it is in another edition of the same work that Panzer first records three couplets which, with the addition of a prose sentence, also constant in form, occur in numerous books printed by Bartolommeo de Cremona:

Quem legis impressus dum stabit in aere caracter Dum non longa dies uel fera fata prement, Candida perpetue non deerit fama Cremonae. Phidiacum hinc superat Bartholomeus ebur. Cedite chalcographi: millesima uestra figura est, Archetypas fingit solus at iste notas.

M.CCCC.LXXII. NICOLAO TRVNO DVCE VENETIARVM REGNANTE IMPRESSVM FVIT HOC OPVS FOELICITER.

There is nothing very remarkable in these lines, but they are better than most of those with which I have been wrestling, and shall be dignified, therefore, by being rendered into prose instead of doggerel; for which also there is another reason in the fact that the meaning, just when it becomes interesting, is not as clear as could be wished. The best version I can make is as follows:

While the character which you read shall remain stamped in brass, while neither length of days nor the cruel fates destroy it, Cremona shall not lack a continuance of glittering fame. By this craft Bartolommeo surpasses the ivory of Pheidias. Give place, ye writers in brass; your number is a thousand, but he alone fashions the well-known models.

In 1472, when Nicolò Truno was ruling Doge of Venice, this book was successfully printed.

“Chalcographi,” which I have rendered literally as “writers in brass,” is, of course, no more than “typographers,” which means literally “writers with type.” But what exactly were the “notas archetypas,” the well-known models? And how did Bartolommeo of Cremona use them so as to distinguish himself from other “chalcographi”? For a moment the obvious answer appears to be that Bartolommeo is claiming credit for himself, not as a printer, but as a type-founder. The explanation, however, cannot stand in any sense which would differentiate Bartolommeo from his fellows in the way in which a modern type-founder differs from the printers who buy their types of him. For we know that Bartolommeo was himself a printer; and, on the other hand, it was the rule at this period for every printer to cast his own types, so that in doing this he would not be accomplishing anything exceptional. If he had been a type-seller in the modern fashion, we may be assured that he would have addressed the chalcographers, his presumable customers, much more respectfully. I can only imagine, therefore, that the “notas archetypas” was simply a good font of type which Bartolommeo thought that other printers were likely to copy.

In the editions of Virgil which he printed at Padua in 1472 (unless there is a mistake in the date), and again in 1473, Leonardus Achates announces himself very concisely:

Urbs Basilea mihi, nomen est Leonardus Achates: Qui tua compressi carmina, diue Maro.

Anno Christi humanati M.CCCC.LXXII. Venet. Duce Nicol. Trono.

Basel I have for my town, for my name Leonardus Achates, I who have printed thy lays, Virgil, thou poet divine.

In the year of Christ’s taking our manhood 1472. At Venice, Nicolò Trono being Doge.

The verse tradition was also complied with by Jacobus de Fivizano in a Virgil of 1472, by Jacobus Rubeus in an Ovid of 1474, and by Erhard Ratdolt and his companions on the title-page of the Calendar of Johannes de Monteregio in 1476. Two years later, when printing was becoming so great an industry at Venice that such toys as colophons in verse must have begun to appear a little undignified, an editor in the service of John of Cologne, ordinarily a man of quite commercial colophons, burst out into this song in his praise, at the end (of all places in the world) of the Commentary of Bartolus de Saxoferrato on a section of the Justinian Code: