#printer's marks

From: Marques typographiques des imprimeurs et libraires qui ont exercé dans les Pays Bas, : et marques typographiques des imprimeurs et libraires belges établis à l’étranger. Ghent: Université de Gand, 1894.

Pegasus Pick-Me-Up

It's Wednesday. Time to break out the flying horse.

This printer's mark for Thomas Fritschen is found on the title page for a late 17th century German book of bible quotations.

Fore Edge Friday

This week’s #Fore Edge Friday example is a 3-volume set of The Poetical Works of William Cowper printed in Chiswick by Charles Whittingham for the London publisher William Pickering in 1843. The volumes are bound in gold-tooled and stamped calf skin and all edges and endpapers are marbled in what is called a Nonpareil pattern. 

According to the University of Washington’s site on Patterned Papers, the “ pattern is created when the desired colors are dropped sequentially onto the bath using some sort of implement to regulate the drop sizes. . . .  a comb with one set of teeth set at intervals of 15-30mm is drawn through the bath horizontally, once in either direction with the second pass halving the first. Then another comb with teeth set at 2-3 mm is drawn once across the bath vertically (or horizontally).”

Fore Edge Friday

Our #Fore Edge Friday example this week is a 5-volume set of imperial Roman law, Digestum Vetu, bound in vellum over boards with blue-black sprinkled edges, published in Venice in 1592 by the mega-Florentine/Venetian Giunti family printing house. Since the early 17th century, the ‘sprinkle’ was the most common and cost-effective form of edge decoration.

According to Special Collections at the University of Adelaide, to make the sprinkle, a pigment was mixed with paste, oil, and water, and the book placed either in a lying press or on its side on a bench. The sprinkle was then applied in one of three main ways. Early binders dipped a small ‘finger-brush’ into the mixture and then drew their finger across its stiff bristles to spray the color onto the book edges. Alternatively, they may have used a larger ‘sprinkle-brush’ with hog hairs. Once dipped into the mixture, the excess was pressed out and the bristles tapped against an iron bar, making the colors fly onto the book edge. The third method involved the use of a ‘sprinkle frame’ made of interlaced copper. The binder simply took a short-bristled brush, similar to a nail brush, and rubbed it across the mesh of the frame to produce a very even sprinkle of color.

Typography Tuesday

CHRISTOFEL VAN DYCK (DIJCK)

Although much of the life and career of Dutch type designer and punchcutter Christofel van Dyck (ca. 1601-1669) are not well documented, the influence of his type designs had a powerful impact on Dutch typefaces which were prominent in northern Europe during the 17th century, especially through their use by House Elsevir. These Dutch typefaces, generally, also had a profound influence on later English type designs, especially through the Fell types and the designs of William Caslon.

Dutch types were in high demand during the 17th century and Van Dyck was the most prominent Dutch type founder of his day. His types were influenced by the types of Claude Garamond and other Parisian type designers of the previous century. Van Dyck’s renditions were more condensed and robust in weight than his French models. Clarity, openness, and high contrast are their chief characteristics, especially for their readability in the smallest sizes, which the mid-century production of House Elsevir was most noted for.

Staff Pick of the Week

For my staff pick this week I’ve selected an edition of Josephus’s Histories, Flavii Josephi des Hochberühmten Jüdischen Geschichtschreibers Historien und Bücher, published in Strasbourg by Theodosius Rihel in 1592. Ordinarily, a book like this might not have raised my interest: if you’ve seen one profusely-illustrated, late 16th- or early 17th-century German printing of Josephus, with its Gothic typefaces and its massive folio bulk bound in dirty, blind-stamped pigskin so typical of German publications of this time, then you’ve seen them all! However, it came to my attention because of some cataloging errors that needed correcting. As I absently leafed through the book, I was arrested by Rihel’s exquisite printer’s mark (top image) -- I do love a good printer’s mark! The over-100-year Rihel family printing dynasty (1535-1639) used over a dozen different printer’s marks, but all of them featured the winged figure of Sophrosyne with a rule in one hand and a bridle in the other. Sophrosyne was the Greek personification of moderation, self restraint, temperance, and discretion -- values, one would suppose, the Rihel family thought represented their printing practices.

Typography Tuesday: Printer’s Marks!

Is that the mythological lyre player, Arion of Lesbos, riding a dolphin in the sea?  Why yes, yes it is! 

The illustration above is the printer’s mark of Johannes Oporinus (1507 - 1568), who worked in Basel and was for a time employed and mentored by Johann Froben. We found this mark on the title page of Stephanos Peri poleōn = Stephanvs De vrbibvs, a geographical dictionary by the 6th-century writer Stephanus of Byzantium, published in Basil by Oporinus in 1568. Printer’s marks (also sometime’s called a printer’s device, insignia, or emblem) often saw variations and transformations through the printer’s career. Johannes Oporinus’ mark had a few variations, but always illustrated Arion and his rescuer-dolphin! In this instance, Arion appears to be holding a violin rather than his famous lyre. If you don’t know this legend, you can read a version of it here. 

Notably, this was not the first printer's mark to include the image of a dolphin. Aldus Manutius, a generation older than Oporinus had become one of the most respected and popular printers of humanist works in Venice, and used the anchor and dolphin as his famous printer’s mark, although this symbol goes back to ancient times. Perhaps Oporinus was signalling to the reading elite that he would be the next great printer of the humanist renaissance?  Today, Arion’s lyre is used as the printer’s device for the prestigious American fine-press publisher Arion Press in San Francisco. 

The illustration is circled by a border containing two phrases: “Invia virtuti nulla est via” and “Fata viam inveniunt.” The first phrase is from Ovid and roughly translates “virtue knows no obstacle” and the latter phrase has been attributed to Virgil and translates as, “the Fates will find a way.” My goodness, we’re not sure if it’s possible to fit anymore meaning into such a tiny little emblem! Regardless of hidden and not-so hidden meanings, we just can’t get enough of this bizarrely portrayed dolphin emerging from the waves of the sea!

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.”