Part 9

Here ends the Quadragesimal which is called the File of Vices. To this divine work by the favor of God the Most High, and of his Mother Mary, the desired end has been put by Angelo Britannico, a citizen of Brescia, whose loyalty and skill the Venetian princes held so dear that by a decree of the Senate and by the promulgation of a penalty they gave warning that no one else should print this work within six years, or sell it, if printed elsewhere, in their dominion, against the will of the said Angelo. In the year of the Lord 1497, on the eighteenth day of April.

Martiani Capellae Liber finit: Impressus Vicentiae Anno Salutis M.cccc.xcix. xvii Kalendas Ianuarias per Henricum de Sancto Vrso. Cum gratia et priuilegio decem annorum: ne imprimatur neque cum commentariis: neque sine: & cetera: quae in ipso priuilegio continentur. Laus deo & beatae Virgini.

Here ends the book of Martianus Capella, printed at Vicenza in the year of salvation 1499, on December 16th, by Henricus de Sancto Urso. With a grace and privilege for ten years, that it be not printed either with commentaries or without, and the other particulars which are contained in the privilege itself. Praise be to God and the Blessed Virgin.

As publishers went on applying for these privileges, it is to be presumed that they found them profitable; but they were certainly sometimes contravened, and the fines do not appear to have been enforced. Nevertheless they soon spread beyond the Venetian dominions. Thus in 1496, for instance, we find Scinzenzeler obtaining one at Milan, and warning other booksellers, with effusive friendliness, not to incur these dreadful penalties by ignorant piracy.

Famosissimi iureconsulti Francisci Curtii ex proprio exemplari exceptum Consiliorum volumen primum per Iohannem Vinzalium Turrianum summa cum diligentia reuisum, ac Ulderici Scinzenzeler artificio operoso impressum Mediolani M.cccc.lxxxxvi die xx Decembris.

Ne in penam non paruam imprudenter incurras, O bibliopola au[i]dissime, scias obtentum esse ab Illustrissimo et Sapientissimo Mediolani principe rescriptum ne Curtiana Consilia ad decimum usque annum, aut imprimi possint, aut alibi impressa importari venalia in eius districtum sub poena indignationis Caesaree et eris in eo contenta. Itaque ne ignarus erres te admonitum esse voluit Iohannes Vinzalius.

The first volume of the Opinions of the most famous jurist Franciscus Curtius, taken from his own copy, revised with the greatest diligence by Giovanni Vinzalio Turriano, and by the busy skill of Ulrich Scinzenzeler printed at Milan on December 20, 1496. To save you from rashly incurring no small penalty, most greedy bookseller, you are to know that a decree has been obtained from the most illustrious and most wise prince of Milan, that until the tenth year from now no copies of the Opinions of Curtius may be printed, or if printed elsewhere may be imported for sale into his district, under the penalty of his royal indignation and a fine, as there expressed. Therefore, lest you should err in ignorance, Giovanni Vinzalio wished you to be informed.

Without attempting to follow the subject of Privileges all over Europe, it may be worth while to note a few other instances of them in different countries. Thus they begin to make their appearance in Vérard’s colophons at Paris in 1508, the earliest I can find set forth in Mr. Macfarlane’s Bibliography being that in the “Epistres Saint Pol” of 17th January of that year, called 1507 because of the Paris custom of reckoning from Easter. This reads:

Ce present liure a este acheue dimprimer par ledit Verard le xviiᵉ iour de ianuier mil cinq cens et sept. Et a le roy nostre sire donne audit Verard lectres de priuilege et terme de trois ans pour vendre et distribuer ledit pour soy rembourser des fraiz et mises par luy faictes. Et deffend le roy nostredit seigneur a tous inprimeurs libraires et autres du royaulme de france de non imprimer ledit liure de trois ans sur paine de confiscation desditz liures.

This present book has been finished printing by the said Vérard the 17th day of January, 1507. And the king our master has given to the said Vérard letters of privilege and a term of three years to sell and distribute the said book to recoup himself for the costs and charges he has been at. And the king our said lord forbids all printers, booksellers, and others of the kingdom of France to print the said book under pain of the confiscation of the copies.

From this date onwards an allusion to a privilege is found in most of Vérard’s books, but it will be noted that its term is the very moderate one of three years. In England, in the earliest instance I have noted,—Pynson’s edition of the Oration of Richard Pace in 1518,—it is shorter still. The colophon here reads:

Impressa Londini anno verbi incarnati M.D.xviii. idibus Nouembris per Richardum Pynson regium impressorem, cum priuilegio a rege indulto, ne quis hanc orationem intra biennium in regno Angliae imprimat aut alibi impressam et importatam in eodem regno Angliae vendat.

Printed at London in the year of the Incarnate Word 1518, on November 13th, by Richard Pynson, the royal printer, with a privilege granted by the king that no one is to print this speech within two years in the kingdom of England, or to sell it, if printed elsewhere and imported, in the same kingdom of England.

Herbert notes of this book, “this is the first dated book, wholly in the Roman or white letter, that I have seen of his [Pynson’s] printing, or indeed printed in England.” The foreign custom of privileges seems to have made its appearance with the foreign type.

In Spain the duration of the earliest privilege I have found (in an edition of the “Capitulos de governadores” printed in June, 1500, with the types of Pegnitzer and Herbst of Seville) is the same as in those granted to Vérard in France, and the benevolent Spanish government accompanies it by a stipulation as to the price to be charged to purchasers.

Por quanto maestre Garcia de la Torre librero vezino de Toledo & Alonso Lorenço librero vezino de Seuilla se obligaron de dar los dichos capitulos a precio de xvi [_sic_] mrs: manda su alteza & los del su muy alto consejo que ninguno no sea osado de los empremir ni vender en todos sus reynos & señorios desde el dia dela fecha destos capitulos fasta tres años primeros siguientes sin licencia d’los dichos maestre Garcia de la Torre & Alonso Lorenço libreros: so pena que el que los emprimiere [o] vendiere sin su licencia pague diez mill marauedis para la camara de sus altezas.

Forasmuch as Master Garcia de la Torre, bookseller, of Toledo, and Alonso Lorenço, bookseller, of Seville, bind themselves to offer the said Ordinances at the price of sixteen maravedis, His Highness, with those of his illustrious Council, commands that no one presume to print nor to sell copies in all his kingdoms and dominions from the day of the ratification of the said Ordinances for the first three years following, without the license of the said Master Garcia de la Torre and Alonso Lorenço, booksellers, under penalty that the unlicensed printer or vendor shall pay ten thousand maravedis for the Chamber of their Highnesses.

In Germany, on the other hand, the longer period favored in Italy seems to have been adopted. Here the earliest privileges I have come across are those granted to the Sodalitas Celtica of Nuremberg—_i.e._, to Conrad Celtes and his partners or friends—for printing books in which he was interested. In the first of these privileges—that for the Comedies of the nun Hroswitha—the period for which it held good is not specified;[9] but in that granted to Celtes in the following year for his own “Quatuor Libri Amorum” it is distinctly stated, “ut nullus haec in decem annis in Imperii urbibus imprimat”; _i.e._, that under the terms of the privilege no one might print the book in any town of the Empire for ten years.

The instances of privileges here quoted may not be the very earliest in their several countries, but they at least show how quickly the demand for this form of protection spread from one country of Europe to another. It seems to me a little remarkable that while publishers were at the pains to obtain such legal monopolies (which presumably cost money), and advertised all the other attractions of their books so freely, they should have said so little about the illustrations which often form so pleasant a feature in the editions of this period. In the colophon, as on the title-page, of the “Meditationes” of Cardinal Turrecremata printed by Ulrich Han at Rome we are informed where the woodcuts were copied from:

Contemplaciones deuotissime per reuerendissimum dominum dominum Iohannem de Turrecremata cardinalem quondam Sancti Sixti edite, atque in parietibus circuitus Marie Minerue nedum litterarum caracteribus verum eciam ymaginum figuris ornatissime descripte atque depicte, feliciter finiunt Anno salutis M.cccc.lxxii. die uero uigesima quarta mensis decembris sedente Sixto quarta [_sic_] pontifice magno, etc.

The most devout contemplations published by the most reverend lord, Lord Johannes de Turrecremata, formerly cardinal of S. Sixtus, and in the walls of the cloisters of S. Maria Minerva not only in words and letters but also in pictorial figures set forth and painted, come to a happy end, in the year of Salvation 1472, on December 24th, in the pontificate of Sixtus IV.

So again the colophon[10] of the Verona Valturius notes not only that John of Verona was the first printer in his native town, but also that the book appeared with most elegant types “et figuratis signis,” by which we must understand the pictorial representations of the numerous military engines he describes. In some of the French Horae the illustrations are just alluded to in the titles or colophons, and in Meidenbach’s “Ortus Sanitatis” there is a fairly long reference, in the Address to the Reader, to the “effigies et figuras” with which the book is so successfully adorned. But the only colophon which really does justice to the illustrations of a fifteenth-century book is that to Hartmann Schedel’s “Liber Chronicarum,” or “Nuremberg Chronicle.”

[A]Dest nunc studiose lector finis libri Cronicarum per viam epithomatis et breuiarii compilati, opus quidem preclarum et a doctissimo quoque comparandum. Continet enim gesta quecunque digniora sunt notatu ab initio mundi ad hanc usque temporis nostri calamitatem. Castigatumque a uiris doctissimis ut magis elaboratum in lucem prodiret. Ad intuitum autem et preces prouidorum ciuium Sebaldi Schreyer et Sebastiani Kamermaister hunc librum dominus Anthonius Koberger Nuremberge impressit. Adhibitis tamen uiris mathematicis pingendique arte peritissimis, Michaele Wolgemut et Wilhelmo Pleydenwurff, quorum solerti acuratissimaque animaduersione tum ciuitatum tum illustrium uirorum figure inserte sunt. Consummatum autem duodecima mensis Iulii. Anno salutis nostre 1493.

You have here, studious reader, the end of the book of Chronicles, compiled by way of an epitome and abridgment, a notable work indeed, and one to be bought by every learned man. For it records all the matters specially worthy of note from the beginning of the world to these last distressful times of our own. And it has been corrected by very learned men, that it may make a more finished appearance. Now at the respect and prayers of those prudent citizens, Sebald Schreyer and Sebastian Kamermaister, this book has been printed by Master Anton Koberger at Nuremberg, with the assistance, nevertheless, of mathematical men, well skilled in the art of painting, Michael Wolgemut and Wilhelm Pleydenwurff, by whose skilful and most accurate annotation the pictures both of cities and of illustrious men have been inserted. It has been brought to an end on July 12th. In the year of our salvation 1493.

Out of all the hundreds of fifteenth-century books with interesting pictures, this is the only one I can call to mind which gives explicit information as to its illustrations. Perhaps the publishers thought that the woodcuts were themselves more conspicuous in the books than the colophons. But it is certainly strange that when authors, editors, press-correctors, printers, patrons, and booksellers all get their due, the illustrators, save in this one instance, should have been kept in anonymous obscurity.

VI

COLOPHONS OF AUTHORS AND EDITORS

Booksellers are a much more learned body than they used to be, but few readers of second-hand catalogues can have failed to meet with ascriptions of dates for the printing of books long anterior to the invention of the art, on the ground of colophons which they know at once to have been written by the authors. Where only a few years separate the dates of composition and publication the mistake is easily made and not always easily detected. The retention of the author’s original colophon is, however, common enough for cataloguers to be prepared for it; and there are plenty of cases in which a book possesses two quite distinct colophons, the first by the author, the second by the printer or publisher. Thus, to take a simple example from a famous book, we find at the end of the text of the “Hypnerotomachia” the author’s colophon:

Taruisii cum decorissimis Poliae amore lorulis distineretur misellus Poliphilus. M.cccc.lxvii. Kalendis Maii.

At Treviso, while the wretched Polifilo was confined by love of Polia with glittering nets. May 1, 1467.

That of the printer is thirty-two years later:

Venetiis mense Decembri M I D in aedibus Aldi Manutii, accuratissime.

At Venice, in the month of December, 1499, in the house of Aldo Manuzio, with very great accuracy.

A more interesting instance of a double colophon occurs in an equally famous book, the “Morte d’Arthur” of Sir Thomas Malory. In this Malory writes:

Here is the end of the booke of Kyng Arthur and of his noble Knyghtes of the Round Table, that when they were hole togyders there was euer an C and xl, and here is the ende of the deth of Arthur. I praye you all Ientyl men and Ientyl wymmen that redeth this book of Arthur and his knyghtes from the begynnyng to the endyng, praye for me whyle I am on lyue that God sende me good delyuerance, and whan I am deed I praye you all praye for my soule. For this book was ended the ix yere of the reygne of Kyng Edward the fourth, by Syr Thomas Maleore Knyght. As Ihesu helpe hym for hys grete myght, as he is the seruaunt of Ihesu bothe day and nyght.

This colophon was written between Malory’s outlawry in 1468 and his death on March 14, 1471, and its request for the reader’s prayers for his “delyuerance” and for the repose of his soul after death is made all the more pathetic when we remember the author’s declaration that by sickness “al welthe is birafte” from a prisoner (Book ix, ch. 37). Caxton’s preface as editor, printer, and publisher, on the other hand, is purely businesslike, and gives us no more information about the author.

¶ Thus endyth thys noble and joyous book entytled Le Morte D’Arthur. Notwythstondyng it treateth of the byrth, lyf and actes of the sayd Kyng Arthur, of his noble knyghtes of the Rounde Table, theyr meruayllous enquestes and aduentures, thacheuyng of the Sangreal, & in thende the dolorous deth & departyng out of thys world of them al. Whiche book was reduced into englysshe by Syr Thomas Malory Knyght as afore is sayd, and by me deuyded in to xxi bookes, chapytred and enprynted, and fynysshed in thabbey westmestre the last day of Iuyl the yere of our Lord Mcccclxxxv.

¶ Caxton me fieri fecit.

Despite outlawry, sickness, and probably imprisonment, Malory finished his book. In the troublous days of the fifteenth century war and disease must often have proved sad interruptions to authors, and in his “Repetitio de verborum significatione” (Hain 11679) Georgius Natta is evidently as proud of having triumphed over these hindrances as of his official position. Thus he writes:

Reliquum est Deo summo gratias agere quo auctor huic operi, iam bis armis et pestilentia Pisis intermisso, Georgius Natta, iuris utriusque doctor, ciuis Astensis ac illustrissimi et excellentissimi Marchionis Montisferrati consiliarius, multis additis et priori ordine in aliquibus mutato, extremam manum imposuit anno dominice natiuitatis Millesimo.cccc.lxxxii, quo tempore pro memorabili Guilielmo Montisferrati Marchione ac ducali capitaneo generali Mediolani oratorem agebat apud illustrissimum Io. Galeam Mariam Sfortiam uicecomitem Ducem sextum, Ludouico patruo mira integritate gubernante, quippe qui Mediolanensium res iam tunc adeo gnauiter ampliabat et oranti Italie pacem adeo largiter elargiebatur ut nec superior etas optabiliorem habuerit nec nostra uiderit prestantiorem. Profecto mira res quod diuinus ille preses Marti pariter et Minerue satisfaceret.

Impressum Papie per Christoforum de Canibus Anno a natiuitate domini. M.cccc.lxxxxii. die xv septembris.

It remains to give thanks to the Most High God, by whose grace the author, Georgius Natta, doctor of both laws, a citizen of Asti and councillor of the most illustrious and most excellent Marquis of Monferrat, to this work, which had been twice interrupted by war and plague at Pisa, with many additions and some changes in the former arrangement, put the finishing touch in the year of the Lord’s nativity 1482, at which time, on behalf of the memorable Guglielmo, Marquis of Monferrat, and ducal captain-general, he was acting as ambassador at Milan, at the court of the most illustrious Viscount Giovanni Galea Maria Sforza, sixth duke, whose uncle Lodovico was governing with wondrous uprightness, inasmuch as he was already so skilfully enlarging the fortunes of the Milanese, and so liberally imparting peace to Italy which craved it, that neither did any earlier age present a more enviable person nor did our own behold one of greater excellence. Wonderful indeed was it that that heroic ruler gave their due alike to Mars and to Minerva.

Printed at Pavia by Cristoforo degli Cani in the year from the Lord’s nativity 1492, on the fifteenth day of September.

Less contented with his lot, Henricus Bruno, in his lectures “Super Institutionibus” published at Louvain, after writing the formal colophon takes up his pen anew to give eloquent expression to the woes of the professional man who devotes his leisure not to rest but to literature.

Ad laudem et honorem summi ac omnipotentis deique marie matris sue intacte Explicit Henricus de piro super Institutionibus Per Egidium van der Heerstraten in alma Louaniensi uniuersitate Impressus duodecima die Nouembris. Nouissime domini et fratres dilectissimi reminiscite queso ac tacite in animis vestris cogitate quantis laboribus quantisque capitis vexationibus Ego Henricus Brunonis alias de Piro de Colonia inter legum dectores [_sic_] minimus hoc opusculum ex scriptis aliorum pro vestris beniuolenciis atque augmentatione huius nouelli studii Louaniensis expleuerim Qui singulis diebus post lectionem fftorum mihi a publico deputatam in continenti hoc opus quasi intollerabili onere assumpsi. Quare fratres humanissimi si quicquid erroris vel dignum correctionis inueneritis oro, rogo atque obtestor vestros immortales animos vt illud benigne non mordaciter, caritatis zelo non liuoris aculeo, corrigendum ac emendandum curetis. Ad laudem summi dei qui viuit et regnat in secula benedictus. Amen.

To the praise and honor of the Most High and Almighty God and of Mary his Virgin Mother there comes to an end Henricus de Piro on the Institutions, printed by Egidius van der Heerstraten in the bounteous University of Louvain, on the twelfth day of November. Lastly, masters and most beloved brothers, remember, I pray you, and silently in your minds consider with how great toils and how great harassments of the head I, Henricus, the son of Bruno, otherwise Henricus de Piro of Cologne, the least among the doctors and readers of the law, have completed this little work out of the writings of other men for your profiting and for the advancement of this new university of Louvain. Now I, day by day, after lecturing on the Pandects according to the terms of my public appointment, forthwith took up this work, though intolerably burdensome. Wherefore, my most courteous brethren, if you find any trace of error or anything worthy of correction, I request, pray, and entreat you, by your immortal souls, that you see to its correction and amendment in a kindly rather than a biting spirit, with the zeal of love rather than the spur of envy. To the praise of the Most High God, who lives and reigns, blessed to all ages. Amen.

Even as late as 1580 an author, a musician this time, used the colophon to pour out the griefs of which nowadays we disburden ourselves in prefaces. It is thus that, in his “Cantiones seu Harmoniae sacrae quas vulgo Moteta vocant,” Johann von Cleve took advantage of the tradition of the colophon to bespeak the sympathy of students and amateurs of music for his troubles in bringing out his book:

Sub calce operis, Musicae studiosos & amatores admonere, operae pretium visum est hoc Motetorum opus, primo Philippo Vlhardo, ciui et Typographo Augustano, ad imprimendum esse delegatum, qui ob aduersam corporis valetudinem (vt fieri solet) aequo morosior, saepe nostram intentionem non est assecutus, meque opus ipsum, praetermissis quibusdam mutetis (quae tamen breui, vita comite & Deo fauente, in lucem prodibunt) abbreuiare coegit, praesertim cum idem Typographus, opere nondum finito, diem suum clauserit extremum: ac deinceps idem opus Andreae Reinheckel, ad finem deducendum, sit commissum. Quare si quid, quod curiosum turbare posset occurrerit, Musici (oro) animam ferunt aequiore. Valete. Anno Domini M.D.lxxx. Mense Ianuario.

As I come to the end of my task it seems worth while to inform students and amateurs of music that this collection of Motets was in the first place entrusted to Philip Ulhard, citizen and printer of Augsburg, to be printed, and that he (as often happens), being made unreasonably capricious by bodily ill-health, often did not carry out our intention, and compelled me, by leaving out some motets (which, however, if life bears me company and God helps, will shortly be published), to abridge the work, and more especially as the same printer, when the work was not yet finished, came to an end of his days, and thereupon the said work was entrusted to Andreas Reinheckel to be completed, if anything, therefore, is found which might disturb a connoisseur, I pray musicians to bear it with equanimity. Farewell. In the year of the Lord 1580, in the month of January.