#printer's mark

Printer’s device for Sébastien Gryphe or Sebastian Gryphius (1492-1556), showing a griffin. Gryphe was a German-born printer and bookseller in Lyon. The motto Virtute duce, comite fortuna means 'Under the guidance of valour, accompanied by good fortune.'

This device belongs to the University Press at Cambridge. This particular work was printed while the press was under the stewardship of John Hayes, whose tenure lasted from about 1669-1705. His time at the press was not without controversy. From its inception, the University Press had drawn ire from the Stationer’s Company of London, which had hitherto exercised a monopoly on all printing in England. Hayes’ appointment was secretly backed by a member the Stationer’s Company, which bound Hayes (and the University Press) to a number of disadvantageous edicts. These included production limits, mandatory warehousing of university books in London, and price controls. The terms of this agreement came to light in 1679, the end result being that the offending member of the Company recused himself from his post and a new agreement for the University Press and Hayes was drafted.

Images from:

Lactantius. Lucii Coelii Lactantii Firmiani Opera, quae extant omnia. Cambridge : John Hayes, 1685.

Call Number: BR65 .L2 1685   

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.”

Printer’s device for Guillaume de La Nouaille (Limoges, c. 1500 - c. 1560)

The motto Sic virtus oppressa resurgit means 'Thus oppressed valour rises'

Printer’s device for Kraft Müller or Crato Mylius, showing a lion carrying a column on its shoulder and holding a shield featuring a man (possibly Samson) waving a jaw bone. Kraft Müller (1503-1547) was a printer in Wittenberg and Strasbourg.

Left: Georg Variscus, Venice, 1599. Right: Nicolaus Marschalk, d. 1525.

During the Renaissance, with the rise in popularity of books due to the printing press, two-tailed sirens were a favorite printer’s device, especially in Italy, and of course, with the now-famous siren of Nicolaus Marschalk. I have a theory as to why.

To start, let’s look at the relationship between sirens and books. As scholar Thomas Dale writes:

“For other monastic writers the Siren represented more specifically the dangers of reading pagan literature. Peter Damian (d. 1072) warned his monks that those lovers of the “sirens” of pagan literature had abandoned the faith that should be their legitimate spouse and had forsaken chastity for those actress-courtesans.” 

Throughout medieval writing and into the Renaissance, sirens stood for temptation, flattery, and other vices. Sirens in Homer’s Odyssey lured men not just with the promise of sex, but the lure of forbidden knowledge. They offered to tell him the future, and it was this suggestion that lured him so. As another academic, Allison Lucas, wrote:

“The frontal, double-tailed siren might have appealed to the publisher as an alluring antiquarian device, a symbol of the attractions of learning, an apotropaic charm to ward off evil, or simply as a way of naturalizing himself to Venice.”

While the church did not oppose the printing press outright, the ease that people could make books meant the church was no longer the one in control of the spread of knowledge. In my opinion, sirens were chosen as printer’s marks because sirens stood for temptation with knowledge, and it may have been a sly dig at the church. Many of these sirens are crowned.

Let’s take a look at these sirens.

Juan Joffre, about 1530. Valencia, Spain. University of Barcelona.

Giovanni Varisco, Venice, active 1558-1590. University of Barcelona.

Simone Tini, 1584? Brescia and Milan. University of Barcelona. He printed music.

Giorgio Varisco, 1610? Venice. University of Barcelona.

Heredi di Giorgio Varisco, Venice. University of Barcelona.

Two tailed siren, Nikolaou Sarou, Greek. Wikipedia.

Vrbani Bolzanii by Urbano Bolzanio Publication 1550, Venice. Internet Archive.

Valentin Schumann of Leipzig, 1542. Penn Libraries call number: GC5 Em830 525a 1. Flickr.

Antonio Bulifon, 1649-1707, Naples. University of Barcelona.

Marco Varisco, active 1598-1607. Venice. University of Barcelona.

I have found a few others, mostly on art auction websites. But these are by far the loveliest and the best sourced two tailed sirens I've found.

I'm going to close by linking to George Seferis’s siren, likely inspired by these printer's devices, Marie Laurencin's siren, in the front paper of a bestiary she illustrated; and modern bookplates with two tailed sirens.

There's also an eternity siren as a printer's mark.

Further reading

Dale, Thomas E. A. "The Monstrous." A Companion to Medieval Art: Romanesque and Gothic in Northern Europe. Ed. Rudolph, Conrad. Malden: Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 2006. 253-73.

Luchs, Alison. The Mermaids of Venice : Fantastic Sea Creatures in Venetian Renaissance Art. Harvey Miller Publishers, 2010. Chapter 1. Tome: Marine Hybrids in Late Fifteenth Century Book Decoration. Page 53.

So while we’re all familiar with the Starbucks logo, and some of us know that she’s a siren with two tails— but who actually drew the original? That’s Nicolaus Marschalk, a German scholar, printer, and a man with two tailed sirens on his mind. A man after my own heart.

Quick review of the Starbucks logo: The original Starbucks siren came from a book, J. E. Cirlot’s Dictionary of Symbols. It was published in English in 1971, the same year the coffee company was founded. There she is on page number 297, looking a bit more serious than in Starbucks’ version: 

The coffee company took her, and made her thinner, moved where her scales started, and gave her a coy smile. The original version looks like her genitals are exposed, while Starbucks' tried to cover up her vulva:

Later, the siren was cropped at her waist, the green version we know from countless coffee cups. 

“That early siren, bare-breasted and Rubenesque, was supposed to be as seductive as coffee itself,” wrote Howard Schultz, CEO of Starbucks, when he was discussing his choice for the logo. Starbuck takes its name from the novel Moby Dick, as Starbuck is Captain Ahab’s first mate. 

The next part of the story is where Cirlot found the siren. His dictionary only identifies her as a “twin tailed siren (15th century.)” 

Well, she comes from a book titled “Deflorationes antiquitatum ab origine mundi,” published by Marschalk in 1525:

She’s a printer’s mark, which was a common symbol chosen by printers in the 1500s, especially Italian ones. Alison Luchs, author of the excellent Mermaids of Venice, suggests some possible reasons:

“The frontal, double-tailed siren might have appealed to the publisher as an alluring antiquarian device, a symbol of the attractions of learning, an apotropaic charm to ward off evil, or simply as a way of naturalizing himself to Venice.”

Nicolaus Marschalk liked two tailed sirens— hence the self portrait of him with a siren at the beginning of this post. I've found a couple more he designed:

This is from "Historia aquatilium" published in 1520. I love her— she's so done with your shit. And hat tip for the Bodleian library who originally posted her on Twitter (and her Bodleian shelfmark: Meerm. 192. No, really.)  Though here she isn't a printer's mark, she's part of an illustration of fantastic marine creatures.

Marschalk ran a print shop from 1514 until 1522, producing between 25 and 30 books, and almost all have the tailed tailed siren printer's mark. The one above is fro, his Decretum aureum, published 1514. The bearded man isn't him, it's likely his printer, Gunther Heims.

The crown she wears is likely from heraldry, as two tailed sirens were used by some families and cities in coats-of-arms.

Printer's device for Martin Schott (Strasbourg, 1498)