1548: Conrad Badius

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Source:

Title: ‘Poemata’
Author: Théodore de Bèze
Publisher: -
Printer: ex officina Robert Estienne et Conrad Bade
Illustrator: -
Engraver: -
Location: Paris
Year: 1548
Links: [USTC]. [BnF]. [Another example from 1558].

Comments:

Conrad Badius used four marks that show a printing press:
1. The mark of his father Jodocus Badius Ascensius in 1521 (Silvestre 774; Roche H, Madan 7, Renouard 24).
2. A mark with a younger compositor. The first use is in 1548. (Silvestre 867; Roche K, Madan 11, Renouard 26). This woodcut was later used by Éloy Gibier (1571), Le Preux (1587), and Fabian Hotot in 1599 [Source].
3. An oval mark with the motto ‘In sudore vultus tui vesceris pane tuo’ in 1550 Silvestre and Renouard do not mention this mark.
4. A mark with an older compositor. The first use is in 1555. (Silvestre 758; Roche O, Madan 12).
This is the second mark.

Philippe Renouard describes figure 26: ‘Il emploie d'autres marques à Genève (Silvestre 485, 758)’. [Note: Silvestre 485 does not show a printing press. Silvestre 758 = 1555 Conrad Badius.]

Falconer Madan (1895, page 232) writes that the marks in 1548 and 1555 ‘differ only in minor details’. [This phrase might have been causing a lot of confusion. There was a woodcut with a ‘junior team', and one with a ‘senior team’.]

Nigel Roche (2000) page 37 writes: ‘Conrad Badius, son of Jodocus, who printed at Paris and Geneva 1546 - 61, had two closely-related marks that incorporate the name PRELVM ASCENSIANVM in two panels at top and bottom.’

Auguste Bernard (1909) ‘One mark, which appears on the first edition of Théodore de Bèze’s Poemata (1548); the volume contains also a portrait of the author signed with the double cross. Conrad’s mark, like that of his father, Josse Bade, represents a printing-press. It contains also the words ‘Prelum ascensianum’; but, instead of being inscribed in a cartouche on the press, they are in two cartouches, one at the top, the other at the bottom, of the border (Silvestre, no. 867). When Conrad betook himself to Geneva, Eloi Gibier, a printer of Orléans, bought the mark. It afterwards passed to Fabian Hotot, a printer in the same city, who was using it in 1609; but before using it he had the word ‘Ascensianum’ removed.’ [Scan].

[It is not clear how Jean Le Preux in Geneva (1585 - 1600) (Image 47 in Horodisch 1974) got this same picture??]

Technique:

Woodcut.

Publications

Bernard, Auguste (1909) Geofroy Tory. Painter and engraver; first royal printer; reformer of orthography and typography under François I. [Ebook]. [Scan]

Falconer Madan (1895) ‘Early representations of the printing-Press with especial reference to that by Stradanus.’, Bibliographica. Volume 1, page 226-227. (Illustration 11)

Philippe Renouard (1928) Les marques typographiques parisiennnes des XVe et XVIe siècles. Paris: Champion. [Scan], (Illustration 26)

Nigel Roche (2000) The iconography of the printing office to 1700. Unpublished MA thesis. Library and Information Studies, University College London. (Illustration #K).

Louis Catherine Silvestre (1853) Marques typographiques, volume 2, page 497, no 867. [Scan].