Early Printed BooksDuff, E. Gordon (Edward Gordon)
History
Early Printed Books
Duff, E. Gordon (Edward Gordon)
Incunabula -- Bibliography; Printing -- History -- Origin and antecedents
Angers [Feb. 5, 1476-77], Chablis [April 1, 1478], Vienne [1478], and
Poitiers [1479], are the four remaining towns into which printing was
introduced before 1480. The first book issued at Angers, printed by
Johannes de Turre and Morelli, is an edition of Cicero’s _Rhetorica
Nova_, printed in a curious Roman type, apparently copied from that
used by Kaiser and Stoll at Paris. The first printer at Chablis was
Pierre le Rouge; but some time after 1483 he removed to Paris, and his
place was taken by Guillaume le Rouge, who moved about 1492 to Troyes,
and finally also settled in Paris. Johannes Solidi and Peter Schenck
are the two most important of the early printers at Vienne. Solidi was
the first; but Schenck, who began in 1481, printed the most interesting
books, and always in French. Two of these are of great rarity, _L’Abuze
en court_ and _Le hystoire de Griseldis_. The first book printed at
Poitiers, the _Breviarium Historiale_, 1479, has no printer’s name,
nor indeed have any of the earlier books. [Hain *13,811] gives a book,
_Casus longi super sextum decretalium_, printed by John and Stephen
de Gradibus in 1483. The discovery of some fragments of _Heures à
l’usage de l’eglise d’Angers_, with the names of the printers, Jean
Bouyer et Pierre Bellescullée, printed partly in the types of the first
books, make it possible that these two may have been the printers. The
fragments were found in the binding of a book by M. Delisle.
Caen was the first town in Normandy where printing was practised,
but only one book was printed there in the fifteenth century. It is
an edition of _Horace_, the first to appear in France, and of the
very greatest rarity, only three copies being known, one of which,
printed on vellum, is in the Spencer Library. The printers were Jacobus
Durandas and Egidius Quijoue, and the book was issued 6th June 1480.
It is a quarto of forty leaves, with twenty lines to the page, printed
in a good, bold Gothic type. There were several privileged booksellers
attached to the University of Caen, but it is improbable that any of
them printed, at any rate in the fifteenth century. They obtained their
books from either Paris or Rouen.
Within the next seven years ten towns set up presses in the following
order:—Albi (1481), Chartres (1482), Metz (1482), Troyes (1483),
Chambéry (1484), Bréhant-Loudéac (1484), Rennes (1484), Tréguier
(1485), Salins (1485), Abbeville (1486).
At Albi, on 17th November 1481, the wonderful edition of the
_Meditationes_ of Turrecremata, supposed to have been printed by
Numeister, was issued. This was preceded by a book of _Æneas Sylvius_,
without date, but ascribed to the same printer, though printed with
a different type; and Hain [8723] quotes a third book, also without
date, _Historia septem sapientum_. The arguments of M. Claudin, who has
written a book to prove that Numeister was the printer at Albi, though
ingenious, are very far from conclusive.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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