Printers' Marks: A Chapter in the History of TypographyRoberts, W. (William)
History
Printers' Marks: A Chapter in the History of Typography
Roberts, W. (William)
Printers' marks
Of the second we give an example on p. 21. Among his publications may
be mentioned “L’Art de bien Mourir,” 1492, which Gilles Couteau and
J. Menard printed for him, whilst the punning Mark of the former is
reproduced in our first chapter (p. 4). François Regnault, who printed
a large number of books during the first half of the sixteenth century,
had six Marks, chiefly variations on the one here given. He usually
placed at the bottom of his books: “Parissis, ex officinâ honesti viri
Francissi Regnault”; the accompanying reduced facsimile of one of his
title-pages indicates the prominent position allotted at this early
period to the printer’s Mark. A very remarkable and elaborate Mark
of this family of printers was that of Pierre Regnault, who was putting
forth books during nearly the whole of the first half of the sixteenth
century. The Marchant family existed in Paris as printers for over 300
years (1481-1789). The first of the line, Guy, or Guyot, who printed
books for Jehan Petit, Geoffrey De Marnef, and others, had as Mark four
variations of the _chant gaillard_ represented by two notes, sol, la,
with one faith represented by two hands joined, in allusion to the
words, “Sola fides sufficit,” taken from the hymn, “Pange lingua.”
Beneath his Mark he placed the figures of Saints Crispin and Crispinian,
patrons of the leather-dressers who prepared the leather for the binder,
in which capacity Marchant acted on several occasions for Francis I. As
was the case with his contemporaries, Marchant’s earliest books
possessed no mark, and one of the first of the publications in which it
appeared was the “Compost et Calendrier des Bergiers,” 1496. The De
Marnef family also make a big show in the annals of French typography,
particularly in the way of Marks, the various members using, between
1481 and 1554, nearly thirty examples, including duplicates, several of
which were designed by Geoffrey Tory. Nearly all these Marks had the
subject of the Pelican feeding her young as a centre piece. Jerome,
however, used a Griffin among his several other examples, of which the
two finest of the whole series are those numbered 746 and 812 in
Silvestre, and are the work of Jean Cousin at his best. The founder of
the family, Geoffrey, used the accompanying device in two sizes. The
Janot family, of which the founder, Denys, was the most celebrated, were
issuing books in Paris from the end of the fifteenth to the middle of
the eighteenth century, and the more noticeable of their Marks contained
the device: “Amor Dei omnia vincit--amour partout, tout par amour,
partout amour, en tout bien” (see p. 15). The Macé family, which makes a
good show with eleven Marks, was also a long-lived one of over 200
years, many of the members residing at Caen, Rennes, and Rouen, besides
Paris. The same may be said to some extent of the Dupré or Du Pré
family, 1486-1775; the two first, Jean or Jehan and Galliot, were the
most celebrated.
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