In April 1970 the British Museum bought a copy of the
Exempla of Marcus Antonius Coccius (Sabellicus), completed
at Venice on 19 September 1507. It is a quarto of 150 leaves, collating
[*4] A-Z,
AA-MM4NN6, and it bears foliation up
to fol.
CXLVI. The most interesting feature of this book is the colophon which
reads: 'MARCI ANTONII SABELLICI DECEM EXEMPLO = | RVM
LIBRI FINIVNT. IOANNES BARTHOLOMEVS | FECIT. VENETIIS.
M.D.VII. SEPTEMBRIS. MEN = | SIS: DIE. XIX. LAVREDANI
PRINCIPIS ANNO | SEXTO.'
There is no recorded printer at Venice in 1507 (or at any other time,
as far as I am aware) named Joannes Bartholomaeus.
The book is printed in type 82 R., and from the woodcut initials used
in it one can safely attribute the printing to the press of Georgius de
Rusconibus, whose main activity as a printer at Venice falls within the
period 1500-1521. The same N which appears on leaf Y4 verso of the
Coccius appears, with the same breaks, on leaf A1 recto of La vita
de
Merlino et de le sue prophetie historiade of 20 April 1507.[1] The same I on leaf FF2 verso of
the
Coccius appears on leaf P2 verso of the Merlino, with the
same
large break in the top left-hand frame-line. The capital P, showing three
boys, one of whom is wearing a mask, is found in the Coccius on CC1
recto, and also on h4 verso of the Ovid, Metamorphoses,
which
Georgius de Rusconibus printed on 2 May 1509[2]; while it is repeated on h4 recto
of the
same printer's Ovid of 20 April 1517.[3] Finally, the same capital N of the
Coccius, noted above, is found on q3 verso of the Ovid of 2 May
1509.
There seems to be no doubt that the Coccius came from the press of
Georgius de Rusconibus on 19 September 1507. What then is meant by
'Ioannes Bartholomeus fecit'?
I have found two other examples of early sixteenth-century books
which were printed by well-known printers, yet bear in their colophons,
accompanied by the verb 'fecit' or 'faciebat', the names of other persons
who are equally unrecorded as is Ioannes Bartholomaeus. The first of these
is the Compagnia del Falcone, without imprint but easily
attributable to the press of Gian Stefano di Carlo da Pavia at Florence about
1520. This ends with the words 'Tantalus Marochus faciebat'. Neither Dr.
Bühler, who owns the book, nor I have ever come across this man's
name elsewhere as author, printer, publisher or editor.[4]
Secondly, there is the case of three books by Lancinus Curtius of
which I have examined the copies in the British Museum and in All Souls
College, Oxford. They are his Epigrammaton libri decem; the
same, decados secundae; and Sylvarum libri
decem.
Each of these was printed at Milan in 1521 and each has the same imprint:
Mediolani, apud Rochum & Ambrosium fratres de Valle impressores;
Philippus Foyot faciebat.
Here it will be seen that Rochus and Ambrosius de Valle are clearly
stated to be printers. The British Museum's holdings show that the brothers
Rochus and Ambrosius de Valle (principally active from 1517 to 1521)
almost invariably printed on commission for the bookseller Nicolaus de
Gorgonzola, who as far as we know was never a printer himself. Their
other colophons make this clear. Philippus Foyot is to me otherwise
unknown. What was his role?
It is obvious that Ioannes Bartholomaeus in Venice in 1507, Tantalus
Marochus in Florence about 1520, and Philippus Foyot at Milan in 1521,
were not authors, editors (in the modern English sense) or printers; nor
were they publishers. If the colophons had meant to say 'fieri fecit' in the
sense of 'published' or 'commissioned', they would surely have said so. I
believe that the simple use of the verb 'facere' in these examples, which
must have been quite clear to customers at the time but is far less
intelligible to us, indicates that the man who supplies his name in this way
was the chief type-setter or compositor of the press. He was otherwise a
character whose name would not be likely to be recorded for posterity; but
there was nothing to prevent him from adding his name at the end of a book
just as the scribe of a manuscript might have added his name with the word
'scripsit' but be otherwise completely unknown as a calligrapher; and it was
often a matter of complete
indifference to the owner of an early press whether he put a colophon in a
book or not, or indeed what information
he put in the colophon and what he left out. There were no rules. It will be
observed that my three examples all come from the first quarter of the
sixteenth century and all come from Italian books. I have not yet found a
parallel case in the incunable period; nor have I looked for examples of the
use of 'facere' in the colophons of books printed outside Italy; but I have
by chance seen the verb 'formavit' once used in the same position.
[5]
