Colophon

“ 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 ”

“ Where only a few years separate the dates of composition and publication the mistake is easily made and not always easily detected. The retention of the author’s original colophon is, however, common enough for cataloguers to be prepared for it; and there are plenty of cases in which a book possesses two quite distinct colophons, the first by the author, the second by the printer or publisher. ”

“ A more disgraceful trick for one printer to play another living in the same town can hardly be imagined, and Holtrop may be right in considering it a deliberate attempt to annoy Veldener and the cause of his leaving Louvain the next year. Strange to say, however, the history of the colophon does not stop here. M. Claudin has shown, in the first volume of his “Histoire de l’imprimerie en France,” that a copy of Maneken’s “Formulae” exists printed in the types of Guillaume Balsarin of Lyons, but with the name of the Paris printer Caesaris substituted for that of Veldener in the colophon. ”

“ If the title-page is more practical, the colophon is more individual and characteristic. The title-page may tell us something of the character of the author when it is his own wording, but as a rule nothing of the printer beyond the bare facts of his locality and his existence. But into the colophon the early printer has managed to put a great deal of information about himself. He often becomes, or at least hires, a poet. He boasts, and generally not without ground, of his industry and accuracy. ”

“ It is to be feared that the pay of a fifteenth-century “corrector,” when he was paid at all, was far from princely. It is pleasant, therefore, to find that at least one printer, the veteran Ulrich Zell, was so genuinely grateful to a friendly priest who had helped him in seeing Harderwyck’s “Commentaries on Logic” through the press as to make most handsome acknowledgment in his colophon and in verses added to it. ”

“ So that we pray the readers of this booklet printed by us, if they shall find any incorrectness in it, not to reproach us therefor, if they will not praise us for the great trouble which we have expended. Perfection reigns only in God.
No doubt the early printers and the editors whom they employed made the most of all these difficulties; yet they must have been real enough, so that, despite the affected language in which it is phrased, the colophon of Nicolas Kessler of Basel to his edition of the “Homeliarius Doctorum” may well command our sympathy.
Homiliae. Basel: N. Kessler, 1498. ”

“ Much more might be said about the old printer as revealed by the colophon—his trade jealousies, his disposition to monopolize, his deference to patrons, his joy at having carried his work through the press, his conviction that his labors have not been unattended by the divine blessing. That inferior person, the author, too, occasionally gets a good word, especially when his authorship assumes the form of translation or commentary. ”

“ Of course, there is no need to word the colophon always in this manner. This is merely a form221 suggested. In the case of a book where several have taken part in the work, mention should be made of this. It is not a bad plan also to include the name of the binder, in the event of the book being bound by a good craftsman. Some examples of colophons are shown in Fig. 45.
It is a mistake to make all the pages elaborate in style; in fact it is best to make the majority of them quite simple in treatment, with here and there one that is more ornate in character. ”

“ It is clear, therefore, that in an edition now lost to us Caesaris must have played Veldener the same trick as Conrad of Westphalia had already played him, and that this Paris edition must have been reprinted by Balsarin at Lyons without troubling to alter the colophon. Truly there are pitfalls for the unwary in dealing with early books!
Perhaps one reason why colophons were sometimes reprinted as they stood was that a printer without a scholarly “corrector” to aid him had a wholesome dread of plunging into the middle of a Latin sentence. ”

“ Enough, perhaps, has been said to warrant the suggestion of a little book of colophons, bringing together what must now be laboriously hunted up from Panzer, Hain, and similar authorities. Its principal aim should be to collect whatever might illustrate the feelings with which the ancient printers regarded themselves and their art in the fifteenth century; but every colophon should also be given which throws a light on contemporary history and public feeling on any subject. ”

“ But in Germany at this time, between citizens of the same town, trade rights, I fancy, were much more respected than at Venice, for instance, or at Paris, where the editions of Caesaris and Stoll were impudently pirated by two other firms in the very same street. At all events, it is worth noticing that the “Catholicon” printer’s colophon seems to have been taken over by Schoeffer, who bought some of his stock, and by the brothers Bechtermünze, who had the use of his types. ”

“ As Ihesu helpe hym for hys grete myght, as he is the seruaunt of Ihesu bothe day and nyght.
This colophon was written between Malory’s outlawry in 1468 and his death on March 14, 1471, and its request for the reader’s prayers for his “delyuerance” and [125] for the repose of his soul after death is made all the more pathetic when we remember the author’s declaration that by sickness “al welthe is birafte” from a prisoner (Book ix, ch. 37) . Caxton’s preface as editor, printer, and publisher, on the other hand, is purely businesslike, and gives us no more information about the author. ”

“ The antiquaries of Oxford and Barcelona at various times have made what fight they could for the correctness of the dates as printed, but the contest has long since been decided against them, while the careers of Ratdolt and Koelhoff are so well known that in their cases the incorrectness of the dates has always been a matter of certainty.
[5] A colophon to Wynkyn de Worde’s edition of the Lives of the Fathers (Vitas Patrum) deserves mention here as presenting us with a picture of Caxton, like the Venerable Bede, engaged in his favorite task of translation up to the very close of his life. ”

“ Caesaris, P., his copy of a Veldener colophon copied by Balsarin, 165. Calends, method of reckoning days of the month by, 182. Capitales litterae, capitalia, initial letters, not simply majuscules, 12, 81 (N. B. The explanation in the text at p. 81 is wrong, the reference being to the initial letters of the first seven lines of the colophon, which make the name Günther) . Capitalia. See Capitales litterae. Caracterizare, meaning of the word, 12 sq. Carbo, Lodovicus, his verse colophons, 31, 50 sq. ”

“ In the next year we have to deal with the little group of vernacular books printed by Jenson, to one of which the omission of an X from the date in the colophon has given such notoriety. The three which are correctly dated are: (i) “Una opera la quale se chiama Luctus Christianorum ex Passione Christi, zoe pianto de Christiani per la Passione de Christo in forma de Meditatione.”
Colophon: A Christi Natiuitate Anno M.CCCCLXXI. Pridie nonas Apriles a preclarissimo librorum exculptore Nicolao gallico. Impressa est passio christi dulcissima. ”

“ One would like to hear something more about the traitors, malignants, and shifty rogues (perfidos, maliuolos ac versutos) against whom the colophon declaims; but I have failed to discover any other references to them. The phrase “cum fido sodali,” used of Tuppo’s relations to Riessinger, raises the question as to whether any real partnership existed between them. In the colophons to three other books their names appear conjointly; three more of later date (1480-89) , of which Riessinger appears to have been the actual printer, are stated to have been printed by Tuppo. ”

“ In the year of the Lord 1580, in the month of January.
An earlier author, Bonetus de Latis, when he came to the end of his “Annulus astronomicus siue de utilitate astrologiae” (Rome, Andreas Freitag, c. 1496; Hain 9926) , dedicated to the Pope, had no complaints to make of his printer or of working after office hours, but used the colophon to ask for lenient criticism of any flaws in his Jewish Latin.
Hec sunt, Beatissime Pater, Anuli astronomici puncta peregregia una mecum ad S. tue pedes humillime oblata que positis superciliis hilari uultu, ut spes fovet, recipias. ”

“ Thus Henry VII.'s copy of L'Examen de Conscience has the colophon, in which it is stated to have been printed for Pierre Regnault of Rouen, rather carelessly erased, and in Charles VIII.'s copy of the Compost et Kalendrier des Bergers (1493) [2] Guiot Marchant's device has been [Pg 16] concealed by painting over it the royal arms, while the colophon in which his name appears has been partly erased, partly covered over by a painted copy of Vérard's well-known device. Vérard's borders, also, are as a rule heavy, consisting chiefly of flowers and arabesques arranged in clumsy squares or lozenges. ”

“ To another edition of the “Postilla” of Guillermus he adds the imprint:
[183]
Impressa Argentine Anno Domini M.cccc.xciij. Finita altera die post Reminiscere.
“Reminiscere” is the beginning of the introit for the second Sunday in Lent, and as Easter in 1493 (see our table) fell on April 7th, this was March 3d, and the “Postilla” were finished on Monday, March 4th.
The colophon to a Strassburg edition of the sermons known by the title “Dormi secure” tells us that it was issued “secunda feria post Laetare” in the same year 1493. ”

“ COLOPHON, an ancient city of Ionia, situated inland about 15 m. N. of Ephesus. Its port was at Notium or New Colophon. The site, now called Tracha (only recognized towards the end of the 19th century) , lies near Diermendere, 5 m. S. of Develikeui station on the Smyrna-Aidin railway, and about 2 m. from the farms and hamlet of Malkajik. It is almost entirely under cultivation, and there is little to be seen but remains of the walls and certain tumuli. ”

“ Perhaps they will carve her as a girl at work in the house of her father Idmon, the purple dyer of Colophon."
"Never," replied Bias in a tone of dissent. "Just imagine how the loom would look wrought in gold and ivory!"
"I thought so too," said Stephanion, in apology for the foolish idea." Daphne thinks that the two will model her in different ways: Myrtilus, as mistress in the weaving room, showing with proud delight a piece just completed to the nymphs from the Pactolus and other rivers, who sought her at Colophon to admire her work ”

“ The Latin translation of the Epistles of Phalaris, by Franciscus Aretinus, is in many ways the most interesting of this last group of Oxford books, containing as it does a very full colophon. It was printed, so the colophon tells us, in the 297th Olympiad, which those who write on the subject say was the year 1485. It is a quarto of eighty-eight leaves, and a very fine perfect copy is in the library of Wadham College, Oxford; two other copies are known, belonging to Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and the Spencer Library. ”

“ Who never ceasest to praise the devout Mary.
Thanks be to God. In addition to the “Catholicon,” the British Museum possesses three books in the same type, which are, therefore, ascribed to the same press—a “Tractatus racionis et conscientiae” of Matthew of Cracow, and two editions of the “Summa de articulis fidei” of S. Thomas Aquinas; but these, perhaps because they are only little books, have no printer’s colophon. ”

“ Passing now to other of Schoeffer’s colophons, we find in the edition of the “Officia et Paradoxa” of Cicero of this same year, 1465, a more personal form of the colophon, which gives us an explicit statement that Fust, the capitalist of the business, probably owing to failing health, now left the actual superintendence of the printing to his son-in-law Schoeffer, the quondam scribe. It runs:
Cicero. De Officiis. Mainz: Fust and Schoeffer, 1465. ”

“ In a Roman missal printed by G. Arrivabenus & P. de Paganinis at Venice in 1484 the colophon alludes to the common practice of correcting the text of a printed missal by hand, sometimes to bring it up to date, but also for the elimination of the printer’s errors. In this case [147] the printers make bold to say that their text is so correct that any one who tampers with it rashly is as likely to turn right into wrong as wrong into right. ”

“ As Brescia was subject to the Venetian Senate, Misinta, had he put his name in the colophon, could have been punished, and he therefore used a false imprint in order to divert suspicion. When restrictions, right and wrong, multiplied during the sixteenth century, false imprints became increasingly common, and they form a subject by themselves with which we must not here meddle farther. ”

“ Sometimes the inaccuracies introduced are not of a merely verbal kind. Thus at the end of an edition of the “Fasciculus Temporum” printed by Heinrich Wirzburg [167] at the Cluniac monastery at Rougemont in 1481 we have the following colophon:
Chronica que dicitur fasciculus temporum edita in alma Universitate Colonie Agrippinae super Renum, a quodam deuoto Cartusiensi finit feliciter. Sepius quidem iam impressa sed negligentia Correctorum in diuersis locis a uero originali minus iuste emendata. ”