Johannes Arboreus, Commentaries on the Gospels
Johannes Arboreus, Commentaries on the Gospels
Doctissimi et uberrimi commentarii Ioannis Arborei Laudunensis doctoris theologi Parisiensis in quatuor Domini Evangelistas
French (Paris), 1551
Author: Johannes Arboreus
Printer/publisher: Jean de Roigny (French printer, fl. 1529-1566)
Language: Latin
height 34 cm
444 leaves, 15 unnumbered pages. Binding is blind-tooled leather-covered boards; remnants of metal clasps. Colophon: ... aere ac sumptu Ioannis de Roigny Bibliopolae Parisiensis, anno salutis humanae 1551. Nonis Ianuarij. [leaf 444]. Printer's device (printing press; "Prelvm Asce[n]sianvm") on title page. With this is bound, as issued : Commentarii Ioannis Arborei Laudunensis ... in Proverbia Salomonis. Parisiis, M. D. XLIX. 108 leaves.
Mount Angel Abbey Library, VAULT BS2555.A2 A7 1551
Diebold, William. The Illustrated Book in the Age of Printing: Books and Manuscripts from Oregon Collections. Portland, OR Douglas F. Cooley Memorial Art Gallery, 1993, p. 16 - Quoted with permission
Although not printed by Koberger, this book [reference applies to exhibitions from which this text was originally a catalog entry] shows the tool that made him famous: the printing press. This woodcut was not printed until 1551, but it is copied from the printer's device first used by the Persian printer Jodocus Badius Ascensius (Josse Bade) in 1507, the second oldest depiction of a printing press known. Even through this book was printed not by Ascensius but by his son-in-law, Jean de Roigny, the inscription on the press reads Prelum Asce[n]sianum--"Ascensuis's press."
The center of the image is taken up by the press. The pressman pulled on a bar to tighten a screw (decorated here with the head of a cherub) which forced the platen on to the sheet of paper with rested on the inked type. The type itself was locked up into frames which corresponded to one or more pages of text, depending on the size of the book. These frames, known as forms, were slid under the press with the track-like device which projects into the foreground of the image. At the left is the other pressman, who holds in his hands balls made of leather or sheepskin which were used to spread ink on the type. To the right of the press sheets of paper, both prints and unprinted, sit on at able. The two men at the right of the image or compositors, pulling individual type from job cases and setting it into lines. It is perhaps ironic that this image of a printing press is itself colored by hand.