An Essay on Colophons, with Specimens and TranslationsPollard, Alfred W. (Alfred William)
History
An Essay on Colophons, with Specimens and Translations
Pollard, Alfred W. (Alfred William)
Books -- History -- 1450-1600; Colophons; Incunabula -- Bibliography
Save that he substituted the address, “by the humble Bernhard Richel,
citizen of Basel, in the year of the Lord 1482, on February 20,” this
colophon was taken over in its entirety the following year by Richel. To
us, until we compare it with the Rougemont version, there may seem no
reason for suspicion. But if any one in those days remembered that the
year of the great floods was 1480, and not 1481, his doubts may easily
have been awakened. A Genevese printer was much more wise, for, while he
doubtless kept the Rougemont colophon in his mind, he adapted its local
coloring very skilfully, informing us that the book was:
Imprime a Genesue lan mille cccc.xcv auquel an fist si tres
grand vent le ix iour de ianuier qu’il fit remonter le Rosne
dedans le lac bien ung quart de lieue au-dedans de Geneue.
Printed at Geneva the year 1495, in which year there was so
great wind on January 9th that it made the Rhone mount back
into the lake a full quarter of a league above Geneva.
Even when a colophon was in verse it was not safe from emendation,
for when Giovanni da Reno of Vicenza in 1478 reprinted the Valdarfer
Boccaccio we find him substituting for the line and a half, “Christofal
Valdarfer Indi minprese Che naque in Ratispona,” the variant, “Giovanne
da Reno quindi minprese Cum mirabile stampa.”
For other instances of more than one printer following the same leader we
may note how Koberger in 1496, and Pierre Levet in 1497, both adopt the
colophon[11] of the 1485 Cologne edition of the “Destructorium Vitiorum,”
with its curious phrase “ad laudem summe Monadis”; how Han in his
editions of the Clementine Constitutions in 1473 and 1476, and Wenssler
in those of 1476 and 1478, copy the colophon of Schoeffer’s editions,
substituting the praises of Rome and Basel for those of Mainz; and how in
editions of the Gregorian Decretals Paganinus de Paganinis in 1489, and
Johann Hamann de Landoia in 1491, adopted the favorite tag of Jenson and
John of Cologne:
Qui non tantum summam curam adhibuere ut sint hec et sua queque
sine uicio et menda, uerum etiam ut bene sint elaborata atque
iucundissimo litterarum caractere confecta: ut unicuique et
prodesse et oblectare possint.
Who not only have taken the greatest pains that these and all
their works may be free from fault and blot, but also that they
may be well finished off and composed with the most pleasing
type, so that they may at once profit and delight every one.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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