Untitled - Monoskop

DISPLAY AND ADVERTISEMENT OF PRIVILEGES
It seems however to have been Pierre Vidoue who first wholly abandoned
gothic for the privilege, when he was printing a book in roman. He printed in
full, entirely in roman type, for Jacques Kerver's edition of a work against
Luther by Johannes Eck, the royal privilege (obtained by Conrad Resch),
making a very fine page of it, the first line beginning with a handsome
ornamental F for Francois and completed in capital letters (CH 1521, 4). He
de Parlement in the De
printed also wholly in roman the Extraict des registres
tralatione Bibliae of Pierre Sutor, published by Jean Petit (PA 1524, 14), only
the large ornamental capital S which begins the first line belonging to a more
fanciful style of design.
Hesitation about abandoning the traditional gothic type for printing the
text of the privilege may have haunted even Geofroy Tory, who probably did
more than anyone else in France to promote the advance of roman type, the
improvement of its design, and decoration in keeping with it. In his Horae,
printed for him by Simon de Colines in 1525, he revolutionised the presentation
of Books of Hours, replacing the gothic type, and the styles of
illustration which were the time-honoured way of producing them, by roman
type and elegant line-drawings and decorations in the classical taste. Yet in
the first issue of the Home, dated 1 6 January 1525 (CH 1524, 2) he or Colines
decided to print the privilege on two pages, each facing a page of roman, in
have been
gothic. In copies dated Tuesday 17 January 1525 the 'prelims'
re-arranged, and one of the results is that the privilege is now on the verso of
the title-page and the facing page and is printed in roman. If, as appears to be
the case, these alterations were made within a day or two of the first copies
being completed, it shows that Tory or Colines or both of them found the
juxtaposition of the gothic privilege with pages of roman type incongruous,
and at once set about rectifying it. In the Champ fleury, for which the privilege
was granted in 1526 but which did not appear until 1529, the text of the
privilege is printed in roman (CH 1526, 2).
To print the words 'Cum priuilegio' or 'Cum priuilegio regis' on the
title-page in gothic, even when the rest of the page and the whole book was set
in roman, remained a common custom for a long time. Here again there are
signs of change towards the end of the period. Simon de Colines began by
following the practice of his predecessor Henri Estienne. One of the last books
to appear under Henri Estienne's name, for which Colines obtained the
priuilege, the Promptuarium of Jean de Montholon (CH 1520, 7), uses gothic
for the opening word of the title and then for the words 'Cum gratia et
privilegio' which are printed across the bottom of the page, though everything
also on the page is in roman. In 1522, however, Colines printed the
Commentarii initiatorii in quatuor Euangelia ofJacques Lefevre d'Etaples, displaying
the words 'CVM PRIVILEGIO REGIS', in capitals, on the title-page,
in roman
type like everything else in the book (CH 1522, 2).
To print the words in red was another possibility (e.g. CH 1513, 5;
148