Books and Bookmen [35]
have
occasionally a rude kind of grace, with a touch of the classical
taste of the early Renaissance surviving in extreme decay.
[Illustration with title page: Les demandes tamours auec les
refpofesioyeufes. Demade refponfe.]
An excellent example is the title-page of 'Les Demandes d'amours,
avec les responses joyeuses,' published by Jacques Moderne, at Lyon,
1540. There is a certain Pagan breadth and joyousness in the figure
of Amor, and the man in the hood resembles traditional portraits of
Dante.
There is more humour, and a good deal of skill, in the title-page of
a book on late marriages and their discomforts, 'Les dictz et
complainctes de trop Tard marie' (Jacques Moderne, Lyon, 1540),
where we see the elderly and comfortable couple sitting gravely
under their own fig-tree.
[Illustration of 'Les dictz et complainctes...]
Jacques Moderne was a printer curious in these quaint devices, and
used them in most of his books: for example, in 'How Satan and the
God Bacchus accuse the Publicans that spoil the wine,' Bacchus and
Satan (exactly like each other, as Sir Wilfrid Lawson will not be
surprised to hear) are encouraging dishonest tavern-keepers to stew
in their own juice in a caldron over a huge fire. From the same
popular publisher came a little tract on various modes of sport, if
the name of sport can be applied to the netting of fish and birds.
The work is styled 'Livret nouveau auquel sont contenuz xxv receptes
de prendre poissons et oiseaulx avec les mains.' A countryman clad
in a goat's skin with the head and horns drawn over his head as a
hood, is dragging ashore a net full of fishes. There is no more
characteristic frontispiece of this black-letter sort than the
woodcut representing a gallows with three men hanging on it, which
illustrates Villon's 'Ballade des Pendus,' and is reproduced in Mr.
John Payne's 'Poems of Master Francis Villon of Paris' (London,
1878). {18}
Earlier in date than these vignettes of Jacques Moderne, but much
more artistic and refined in design, are some frontispieces of small
octavos printed en lettres rondes, about 1530. In these rubricated
letters are used with brilliant effect. One of the best is the
title-page of Galliot du Pre's edition of 'Le Rommant de la Rose'
(Paris, 1529). {19} Galliot du Pre's artist, however, surpassed
even the charming device of the Lover plucking the Rose, in his
title-page, of the same date, for the small octavo edition of Alain
Chartier's poems, which we reproduce here.
[Illustration of title page]
The arrangement of letters, and the use of red, make a charming
frame, as it were, to the drawing of the mediaeval ship, with the
Motto VOGUE LA GALEE.
Title-pages like these, with designs appropriate to the character of
the text, were superseded presently by the fashion of badges,
devices, and mottoes. As courtiers and ladies had their private
badges, not hereditary, like crests, but personal--the crescent of
Diane, the salamander of Francis I., the skulls and cross-bones of
Henri III., the marguerites of Marguerite, with mottoes like the Le
Banny de liesse, Le traverseur des voies perilleuses, Tout par
Soulas, and the like, so printers and authors had their emblems, and
their private literary slogans. These they changed, accordinging
[Another illustration titled: Le Pastissier Francois, MDCLV, title
page]
to fancy, or the vicissitudes of their lives. Clement Marot's motto
was La Mort n'y Mord. It is indicated by the letters L. M. N. M. in
the curious title of an edition of Marot's works published at Lyons
by Jean de Tournes in 1579. The portrait represents the poet when
the tide of years had borne him far from his youth, far from
L'Adolescence Clementine.
[Another illustration titled: Le Pastissier Francois, 1655, showing
a kitchen scene]
The unfortunate Etienne Dolet, perhaps the only publisher who was
ever burned, used an ominous device, a trunk of a tree, with the axe
struck into it. In publishing 'Les Marguerites de la Marguerite des
Princesses,
occasionally a rude kind of grace, with a touch of the classical
taste of the early Renaissance surviving in extreme decay.
[Illustration with title page: Les demandes tamours auec les
refpofesioyeufes. Demade refponfe.]
An excellent example is the title-page of 'Les Demandes d'amours,
avec les responses joyeuses,' published by Jacques Moderne, at Lyon,
1540. There is a certain Pagan breadth and joyousness in the figure
of Amor, and the man in the hood resembles traditional portraits of
Dante.
There is more humour, and a good deal of skill, in the title-page of
a book on late marriages and their discomforts, 'Les dictz et
complainctes de trop Tard marie' (Jacques Moderne, Lyon, 1540),
where we see the elderly and comfortable couple sitting gravely
under their own fig-tree.
[Illustration of 'Les dictz et complainctes...]
Jacques Moderne was a printer curious in these quaint devices, and
used them in most of his books: for example, in 'How Satan and the
God Bacchus accuse the Publicans that spoil the wine,' Bacchus and
Satan (exactly like each other, as Sir Wilfrid Lawson will not be
surprised to hear) are encouraging dishonest tavern-keepers to stew
in their own juice in a caldron over a huge fire. From the same
popular publisher came a little tract on various modes of sport, if
the name of sport can be applied to the netting of fish and birds.
The work is styled 'Livret nouveau auquel sont contenuz xxv receptes
de prendre poissons et oiseaulx avec les mains.' A countryman clad
in a goat's skin with the head and horns drawn over his head as a
hood, is dragging ashore a net full of fishes. There is no more
characteristic frontispiece of this black-letter sort than the
woodcut representing a gallows with three men hanging on it, which
illustrates Villon's 'Ballade des Pendus,' and is reproduced in Mr.
John Payne's 'Poems of Master Francis Villon of Paris' (London,
1878). {18}
Earlier in date than these vignettes of Jacques Moderne, but much
more artistic and refined in design, are some frontispieces of small
octavos printed en lettres rondes, about 1530. In these rubricated
letters are used with brilliant effect. One of the best is the
title-page of Galliot du Pre's edition of 'Le Rommant de la Rose'
(Paris, 1529). {19} Galliot du Pre's artist, however, surpassed
even the charming device of the Lover plucking the Rose, in his
title-page, of the same date, for the small octavo edition of Alain
Chartier's poems, which we reproduce here.
[Illustration of title page]
The arrangement of letters, and the use of red, make a charming
frame, as it were, to the drawing of the mediaeval ship, with the
Motto VOGUE LA GALEE.
Title-pages like these, with designs appropriate to the character of
the text, were superseded presently by the fashion of badges,
devices, and mottoes. As courtiers and ladies had their private
badges, not hereditary, like crests, but personal--the crescent of
Diane, the salamander of Francis I., the skulls and cross-bones of
Henri III., the marguerites of Marguerite, with mottoes like the Le
Banny de liesse, Le traverseur des voies perilleuses, Tout par
Soulas, and the like, so printers and authors had their emblems, and
their private literary slogans. These they changed, accordinging
[Another illustration titled: Le Pastissier Francois, MDCLV, title
page]
to fancy, or the vicissitudes of their lives. Clement Marot's motto
was La Mort n'y Mord. It is indicated by the letters L. M. N. M. in
the curious title of an edition of Marot's works published at Lyons
by Jean de Tournes in 1579. The portrait represents the poet when
the tide of years had borne him far from his youth, far from
L'Adolescence Clementine.
[Another illustration titled: Le Pastissier Francois, 1655, showing
a kitchen scene]
The unfortunate Etienne Dolet, perhaps the only publisher who was
ever burned, used an ominous device, a trunk of a tree, with the axe
struck into it. In publishing 'Les Marguerites de la Marguerite des
Princesses,