Mar 29
This printer's mark is from the last page of our copy of Idylls of Theocritus, printed in Venice in 1543.
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This printer's mark is from the last page of our copy of Idylls of Theocritus, printed in Venice in 1543.
Two tailed siren. Georg Variscus, Venice, 1599. Museum of the Decorative Arts, Prague. Photograph by me.
Two tailed sirens are common as printer's marks among Italian Renaissance printers. Alison Luchs, author of the excellent Mermaids of Venice, suggests some possible reasons:
“The frontal, double-tailed siren might have appealed to the publisher as an alluring antiquarian device, a symbol of the attractions of learning, an apotropaic charm to ward off evil, or simply as a way of naturalizing himself to Venice.”
Luchs is talking about a different printer here, not Georg Variscus specially. I need to do a longer post about sirens as printers marks, because there's a lot out there.
Further reading
Luchs, Alison. The Mermaids of Venice : Fantastic Sea Creatures in Venetian Renaissance Art. Harvey Miller Publishers, 2010. Chapter 1. Tome: Marine Hybrids in Late Fifteenth Century Book Decoration. Page 53.
Publishers have often imprinted devices on the title page of their books. This device was used by the Mohun Brothers, printers based in Washington DC. It depicts an oil lamp burning brightly, a symbol often associated with knowledge.
Images from: A tribute to Bayard Taylor...by Isaac Edwards Clarke. Washington DC: Mohun Brothers, 1879.
Printers mark
Caturday Printer’s Mark
Saturday is just purrfect for cataloging rare books. (Too much??) This muscular lion is found on the title page of an early 18th century commentary on the biblical book of Proverbs.
Lapide, Cornelius Cornelii a. Commentaria in Proverbia Salomonis ; Indicibus Necessariis Illustrata. Antverpiae: H. & C. Verdussen, 1714.
Device of Girolamo Scotto, a Venetian printer also known as Hieronymus Scotus. He was active between the years of 1539-1573 and manufactured volumes on diverse subjects including philosophy, law, medicine, and music.
Images from: Colliget Averrois totam medicinam ingentibvs volvminibvs ab aliis traditam... Venice: Apvd Hyeronimvm Scotvm, 1549.
Call Number: R128.3 .A85 1549
Catalog Record: https://bit.ly/39gtUrL
This 1542 edition of Polybius' Histories was printed by Sebastianus Gryphius. True to his name, he featured a griffin on his printer's device. This work also has historiated initials.
Images from:
Polybii historiographi Historiarvm libri qvinqve. Lvgdvni : Apvd Seb. Gryphivm, 1542. Call Number: PA4391 .A2 1542 Catalog record: https://bit.ly/2S12lvn
Sirens as printer’s marks
Left: Georg Variscus, Venice, 1599. Right: Nicolaus Marschalk, d. 1525.
During the Renaissance, with the rise in popularity of books due to the printing press, two-tailed sirens were a favorite printer’s device, especially in Italy, and of course, with the now-famous siren of Nicolaus Marschalk. I have a theory as to why.
To start, let’s look at the relationship between sirens and books. As scholar Thomas Dale writes:
“For other monastic writers the Siren represented more specifically the dangers of reading pagan literature. Peter Damian (d. 1072) warned his monks that those lovers of the “sirens” of pagan literature had abandoned the faith that should be their legitimate spouse and had forsaken chastity for those actress-courtesans.”
Throughout medieval writing and into the Renaissance, sirens stood for temptation, flattery, and other vices. Sirens in Homer’s Odyssey lured men not just with the promise of sex, but the lure of forbidden knowledge. They offered to tell him the future, and it was this suggestion that lured him so. As another academic, Allison Lucas, wrote:
“The frontal, double-tailed siren might have appealed to the publisher as an alluring antiquarian device, a symbol of the attractions of learning, an apotropaic charm to ward off evil, or simply as a way of naturalizing himself to Venice.”
While the church did not oppose the printing press outright, the ease that people could make books meant the church was no longer the one in control of the spread of knowledge. In my opinion, sirens were chosen as printer’s marks because sirens stood for temptation with knowledge, and it may have been a sly dig at the church. Many of these sirens are crowned.
Let’s take a look at these sirens.
Juan Joffre, about 1530. Valencia, Spain. University of Barcelona.
Giovanni Varisco, Venice, active 1558-1590. University of Barcelona.
Simone Tini, 1584? Brescia and Milan. University of Barcelona. He printed music.
Giorgio Varisco, 1610? Venice. University of Barcelona.
Heredi di Giorgio Varisco, Venice. University of Barcelona.
Two tailed siren, Nikolaou Sarou, Greek. Wikipedia.
Vrbani Bolzanii by Urbano Bolzanio Publication 1550, Venice. Internet Archive.
Valentin Schumann of Leipzig, 1542. Penn Libraries call number: GC5 Em830 525a 1. Flickr.
Antonio Bulifon, 1649-1707, Naples. University of Barcelona.
Marco Varisco, active 1598-1607. Venice. University of Barcelona.
I have found a few others, mostly on art auction websites. But these are by far the loveliest and the best sourced two tailed sirens I've found.
I'm going to close by linking to George Seferis’s siren, likely inspired by these printer's devices, Marie Laurencin's siren, in the front paper of a bestiary she illustrated; and modern bookplates with two tailed sirens.
There's also an eternity siren as a printer's mark.
Further reading
Dale, Thomas E. A. "The Monstrous." A Companion to Medieval Art: Romanesque and Gothic in Northern Europe. Ed. Rudolph, Conrad. Malden: Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 2006. 253-73.
Luchs, Alison. The Mermaids of Venice : Fantastic Sea Creatures in Venetian Renaissance Art. Harvey Miller Publishers, 2010. Chapter 1. Tome: Marine Hybrids in Late Fifteenth Century Book Decoration. Page 53.
Goudriaan, Koen. “The Church and the Market: Vernacular Religious Works and the Early Printing Press in the Low Countries, 1477-1540 Instructing the Soul, Feeding the Spirit, and Awakening the Passion.” Cultures of Religious Reading in the Late Middle Ages : Instructing the Soul, Feeding the Spirit, and Awakening the Passion, 2013, pp. 93–116.