Printers' devices in the Cardiff Rare Books Collection

By Ken Gibb on August 27, 2024

The printers' device is a distinctive design or visual trademark placed by the printer on the title page or elsewhere in the text of a printed book. Printers and publishers began including these identifying marks in their books almost immediately after the development of printing with movable type in the mid-15th century. Devices were originally added after the colophon, a short statement at the end of the book which provides the names of the author and printer together with the date the work was produced. Scribes had added colophons to handwritten manuscripts since medieval times and the tradition continued to be followed by early printers until the colophon was largely replaced by the modern title page.

One of Cardiff's earliest and most colourful examples from the colophon of a 1489 Biblia Latina. This device belongs to the publisher, Ottaviano Scotus (Incunabula 41)

The very first printers' device can be found in a Psalter printed in Mainz by Johann Fust and Peter Schöffer in 1457 (the design depicts two heraldic shields displaying the printers' individual coats of arms); other emerging presses quickly followed suit by adding their own distinctive logo to their works, sometimes including a motto or pun to make the brand more memorable. Later presses would also hang signs displaying their chosen device outside their workshops and the phrase 'Printed at the sign of the _____' is often found in the imprint of early printed books.

The Aldine Press symbol is a representation of the proverb 'Festina lente' (Make haste slowly' referring to the balance of speed and accuracy for which the firm became known (PA6318.A8 1522).

Perhaps the most famous printer's device is the dolphin and anchor of the Venetian printer, Aldus Manutius (1449-1515). Manutius was a revolutionary printer who introduced the small pocket-sized octavo format and founded the celebrated Aldine Press which ran for four generations. When the device of a particular printing firm became synonymous with quality and craftsmanship, as it did for the Aldine Press, it almost inevitably became vulnerable to forgery and misappropriation. Rival printing houses would adopt similar devices in the hope of tricking buyers into purchasing their inferior product, and consequently numerous copies of the anchor and dolphin logo can be found in lesser works. Similarly, the cat and mouse devices of the Sessa family, active in Italy from the 15th to the 17th century, are instantly recognisable, but endless variations of this symbol were taken up by other presses making it easy to get caught out.

The Sessa motto, 'Dissimilium in fida societas' (A partnership unequal in trust), refers to the cat and mouse of the firm's device (PQ4578.C2).

Hundreds of printers' devices can be found within Cardiff University's collections of rare and early printed books. The following are just a few of the most prominent examples as an introduction to this fascinating and somewhat neglected aspect of the history of printing.

The central glyph of Wynkyn de Worde's device (Grammaticae Whitintonianae, 1524) is taken from the printer's mark of his former master, William Caxton. Wynkyn took over Caxton's printing house in Westminster after Caxton's death in 1492 (PA2084.W4 1524).

Several versions of the device shown here were used by the 17th century Zurich printer, Christopher Froschauer. The design is a play on words, "Frosch" being the German word for frog (PN6349.H3 1636).

The leopard and lion device (1509) of Parisian publisher Jehan Petit is just one of a large number of variations that Petit employed over his career. The knot on the shield depicts his address at the sign of the knot; later versions replace the knot with a fleur-de-lys following his move to the sign of the lily (DG88.A5).

The famous Plantin-Moretus printing house used many versions of this device, but they invariably featured the hand of God with a compass and the motto 'Labore et constantia' ('By labour and constancy'). The firm was founded in Antwerp in 1549 by a French bookbinder, Christophe Plantin (PN6349.H3 1636)

This large woodcut depicting the castle of Antwerp is the printers' device of Gerard Leeu. It comes from a 1486 edition of Modus poenitendi, a 13th century treatise on the doctrine of penance (Incunabula 117)