Typography Tuesday
A couple of weeks ago we mentioned that we found a couple of charming 16th-century imprints in a recent gift, and showed some of the woodcut initials from one of them. Today we show typography from the other: a 1537 Latin translation of Homer’s Odyssey taken from a Greek version published by Aldus Manutius, and printed in Venice by Jacobus Paucidrapius de Burgofranco. The translation is by the Italian Renaissance scholar Andreas Divus, and this printing is the first published Latin version of the Odyssey, which would influence the first English translation by George Chapman in 1616 and Ezra Pound’s The Cantos.
Burgofranco was one of the principal printers in Pavia starting in 1490 before moving to Venice in 1525. Here we display his woodcut initials, use of italics, and his printer’s mark. The printer’s mark incorporates initials from Jacobus Paucidrapius de Burgofranco‘s name -- I A D P B F -- and two figures identified in both Latin, Sustine et Abstine, and Greek, ανέχου κού απέχου: “Restrain and Abstain.”
View our other Typography Tuesday posts.
