Antoine Vérard / by John Macfarlane.

  • Macfarlane, John, 1866-1906.
Date:
1900
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Antoine Vérard / by John Macfarlane. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    “ Libraire jure de l’Universite.” 1 In January, 15c>7[o8],2 he obtains a “ privilege ” for three years from the king, forbidding any other printer or bookseller to print his books, under pain of confiscation. All Verard’s books that have the privilege in the colophon are also dated, for legal purposes no doubt, so that any book without a privi- lege may be supposed to have been issued before January, i5oy[o8]. The only exception to this is the Orose of 1509, but this is merely a reprint of an earlier edition of Verard’s, and perhaps for this reason did not require or could not be admitted to privilege. This grant of “ privilege ” would appear to have been unexpectedly received, since the Nef de Sante of 1508, issued in two forms (Nos. 85, 177), one with date and privilege, the other with neither. The death of Verard cannot be fixed with any certainty. The last dated book printed for him (vol. 5 of the Grandes Postdies, No. 99) appeared in August, 1512, and he was no longer alive in 1514, since in that year the privilege of an edition of the Chroniques de Saint Denis, printed by Guillaume Eustace, applies to him the epithet feu. The date of his death has however been placed by some as far back as the beginning of 1512. This theory is based on the existence of several books (r^Nos. 9, 108, 147, 163) bearing the following MS. note : “ Anthoine Verard libraire de Paris a donne ce pnt liure le xxe de mars Vc & onze au monastere de clervaulx. priez dieu por luy ”. If these books were a bequest, the question is settled, but they may merely have been a present in Verard’s lifetime— the concluding formula proves nothing to the contrary. We know from Lacroix du Maine 3 that there was a Claude Verard at Cler- vaulx, and it was on his account no doubt that the bequest or gift was made. But it must be admitted, in favour of those who hold the theory of bequest, that the appearance of Verard’s name in a colophon of August, 1512, proves very little, as will become evident when we have to deal with the publications of his successors. 1 See 'Jeu des eschez moralise, 1506 (No. 72); Grandes Postilles, 1511-12 (No. 99); Liber auftoritatum, 1512 (No. 102). 2 Epistres Sainft Pol (No. 84). 3 LesBibliothlques Francoises de la Croix-Dumaine et de Du Verdier, etc. Paris, 1772-73.