Untitled - Monoskop

ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENT OF BOO K- PRI VI LEGES
number of privileges. 1
In the first quarter of the sixteenth century the only
instance I have noticed is a privilege granted by Duke Antoine II of Lorraine
in 1518 to a priest, Pierre Jacobi, who had set up a printing press at
Saint-Nicolas-du-Port, then the most important commercial centre in the
duchy. It was for a Latin poem narrating the victory won in 1477 at the battle
of Nancy by the duke's father Rene II. The author, Pierre dc Blarru, died in
1510 without having seen it published, but it was eventually printed
as a fine
book, with a woodcut of Duke Rene on the title-page and the complete text of
the privilege on the verso, under the ducal arms, for two years (4 September
1518, renewed for five years on 21 February 1519 because printing had been
delayed). 2 The privilege advertised the duke's authorisation and approval,
which may have encouraged his loyal subjects to buy the book. The printer in
fact had no competitors to fear within the duchy, and had no protection
against those outside it. When Nicolas Volcyr de Serouville prepared his
illustrated account of the suppression of the peasants' revolt in 1525 by Duke
Antoine, he went to Paris to have it printed and obtained a privilege from the
Prevot of Paris (PR 1527, i). 3
1 Hans
Volz, 'Wittenberger Bibeldruckprivilegien des i6ten und bcginnenden lytcn Jahr-
hunderts', Gutenberg-Jahrbuch (1955), pp. 133-9.
2 Petrus de Blarrorivo, Liber Nanceidos, 1518 fol. BN Rcs.g.vc 7, 8, 9.
3 See below, p. 117.
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