The typology of printers’ marks (with the example of printers’ logotypes used by Polish printers from the 15th to the first half of the 17 century)

Abstract

This article provides the reader with an overview of the printer marks used by printing offices and printing houses in the Polish and Lithuanian Commonwealth from the fifteenth century to the first half of the seventeenth century, i.e. from the time when the colophon, including the printer’s logotype, appeared in a Polish publication for the first time to the times when Polish typography was beset by a particularly pronounced crisis. The adopted chronological timeframe for the purpose of the article includes thus more than a hundred printers’ marks, a large enough number to be attended with the appropriate clarification and classification. A method that allows us to proceed with the task in a most clear way is to isolate individual types, which can be done in relation to particular adopted appropriate criteria. Appropriately, meaning in such a way so that they include each and every aspect of the matter under investigation and make it possible to present it in a most extensive way. In the case of printer marks, these criteria must primarily take into consideration the fact that the latter are not only typografic elements but graphical ones as well, which necessitates an approach in which they should be studied both in view of typography, or, more broadly of the study of the book, and also that of the graphical art. Taking it all into account, the rich and widely diversified group of Polish printer’s marks used from the fifteenth century to the first half of the seventeenth century can be classified according to the three following criteria: chronological, iconographical and those related to the morphology of the book.