Saturday 11 January 2020

PGC2019: Mistress katherine kerr's Printers' Mark

I do remember an apothecary…
And in his needy shop a tortoise hung,
An alligator stuff'd, and other skins
Of ill-shaped fishes; and about his shelves
A beggarly account of empty boxes,
Green earthen pots, bladders and musty seeds,
Remnants of packthread and old cakes of roses,
Were thinly scatter'd to make up a show.



Mistress katherine kerr's printers' mark is an item used in an occupation, trade, or task, e.g. a tool, equipment, etc, and she describes it purpose and developmet:

"Father was always interested in Things Mechanikal and invested some money in a printing operation in Venice. When we returned to Scotland, he brought a small press with him and I grew up watching the activity in the workshop. It stood me good stead for taking over the operations, and I now have a printers’ mark of my own which will appear on my works.

Printers’ marks arrived with the birth of printing as a means of identifying the printer responsible for the works. The most famous is that of Aldus Manutius, the anchor and the dolphin of the Aldine Press in Venice (Williams pg 220-222). Many examples of printers’ marks bear a close resemblance to each other (eg Georg Wolf Paris 1494; de Bougne Angers 1500, Julian Notary London 1507, Jean Granjon Paris 1517).

They include a tripartite circle standing for the globe (being Europe, Asia and Africa), and a 4; the meaning of the latter is not definitively known. I have heard it said it is the alchemical symbol for antimony, the “magic” substance which made lead type functional, but it doesn’t match the symbol I’ve seen for the substance.

I’ve based my printers’ mark on the extant example, with some subtle references. It has the tripartite world containing my initials (as per Wolf, Notary and Granjon); the K is taken from the first Roman type used, the 1470 Venetian type designed by Nicholas Jenson.

The 4 comes from the Aldine typeface Bembo, made by Francesco Griffo in 1495, and used in the fabulous Hypnerotomachia Poliphi, still considered one of the most beautiful examples of the printers’ art ever.

The flowery cross is a reference to the map convention of pointing towards a cardinal point (typically a cross for East and Jerusalem, a fleur-de-lis for North); cartography is a strong interest of mine. The actual cross artwork is based on the croce used on the obverse of the Venetian scudo coin, this particular one having been issued by Doge Andrea Gritti (in office 1528-1538, or for most of katherine’s time in Venice 1526-1536)"


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