Untitled - Monoskop

DISPLAY AND ADVERTISEMENT OF PRIVILEGES
the king as 'trespuissant et treschrestien prince Fran^oys de Valleys par la
grace de dieu Roy de France premier de ce nom' was filled in by hand. I
think the decision to omit Louis XII's privilege from the presentation copy
must have been taken to the belief that he would no longer be alive by the
time the book was presented.
Symphorien Champier had his Grans croniques des gestes des princes des pays de
Savqye published in 1516 and dedicated it to Louise of Savoy, mother of the
new king Francis I.Jean de La Garde, who was the publisher and printer of
it, obtained a privilege for it from the Parlement of Paris (PA 1516, 4), and
he printed the privilege on the verso of the title-page, with the Arms of
France, as well as putting 'Cum priuilegio' on the title-page itself. In the
vellum copy prepared for presentation to Louise herself, however (BN Velins
1173), all reference to the privilege has been eliminated. The title-page has
been re-set by the printer without the words 'Cum priuilegio', and the verso
retains only the Arms of France, the rest of the page being left blank. Indeed
everything relating to the commercial production of the book has been
removed. The last leaf, bearing the long colophon which gives details of the
publisher and the date, has been removed, and, on the title-page, the words
'nouvellement imprimees a Paris pour Jehan de la garde. Champier.', which
follow the title of the book, have been carefully erased by hand. Instead, the
Arms of Savoy on the title-page and the Arms of France on the verso have
been gilded and coloured. Where the first page of the text, in the ordinary
copies, has a woodcut showing a scholar at work, the presentation copy has a
miniature showing Louise receiving the book, enthroned beside her son the
king, and all the illustrations and the initials are embellished with gold and
colours.
In the copy of Paulus Aemilius, De rebus gestis Francorum, presumed to have
been prepared for the king himself (BN Velins 734) the first printed leaf has
been removed, and the recto of the second leaf, carrying the beginning of the
preface, is decorated by hand in gold and colours with a border incorporating
the king's personal emblem of the salamander and the arms of France. In
eliminating the ordinary title-page, the person who prepared this copy suppressed
the summary of the privilege (CH 1517, 7), which, as we know from
paper copies of the book (e.g. BN Res.L 35 22), was printed there.
From the printer's point of view, any modifications required to produce a
unique copy for presentation might be costly, but they were not particularly
difficult. All printing on vellum demanded great skill and had to be specially
done, whether a whole book or a few pages in a book, such as the Canon of
the Mass which, receiving much harder wear than the rest of the Missal as it
was in daily use, was often printed on vellum even when the edition was in
other respects on paper. To re-set a page, omitting certain features of the
paper copies, was a relatively simple matter, if the customer wanted it so and
was ready to pay extra for it.
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