DOI Artikel:
Tomicka, Joanna A.: The Black Art: Typography and its allegories in emblems during the 16th-18th centuries
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.18947#0066
typographer, Sambucus also sought in the epigram to win recognition for
the art of typography. The following text clearly may apply both to the
typographer in ąuestion and profession in generał;
“Quis neget inventum Germanorum ingeniosum
Cartula quo recipit tot monumenta typis?
Quo quicquid dactum est unquam scnpsitique vetustas
Asseritur, cupide posteritasue legit.
Quot regum historiae latuissent, dicta sophorum,
Theuthonicus recte ni reparaset honos!
Ni levis haec, usu sed cartula digua theatris,
Custosque aeternum nos meminisse veht!
Sunt etiam levibus pondera, commoditates
Quas redimant nullae sunt licet orbis opes.
Ergo suas vires cuncti noctesque diesque
Utilibus voveant, multa papyrus adest.
Hoc tu praeclare et solertur Oporine curas,
Quo nemo plures edit, habetque typos.”14
In the humanist tradition famę was already associated with virtue,
conceived as a morał disciplme and fulfilling 'man’s intellectual capacities:
“Gloria virtutis umbra” (Glory as a shadow of virtue). The ascent to Parnas
was possible only through devotion to conscientious and creative study, the
cultivating of art and enrichmg of the spirit.
Joannes Sambucus, Opporinus and Plantin, who are among the most
successful homines typographici,1' contmued the humanist tradition. Their
Theophrasti /Paracelsi Amamiensis postea Graecae Lmguae Pro/fessor Publ. In Academia Basiliensi
et demiąue relicta/ Professione ad Typographiam transiit/”.
14 Sambucus, op. cit.:
Who will not declare the said German invention
a stroke of genius, thanks to which a leaf of paper is
able to accommodate such testimonies of the spirit,
presents everything that has ever occurred and what
antiquity has written in order that our descendants with joy
may read it. How much history of kings, how many
sayings of the wise would remain unknown if it
were not for this wonderful discovery which
continually brings them mto the light of day;
if it were not for this sheet of paper, useful
in its lightness but nevertheless worthy of poetic
praise, and its guardians who do everything within
their power that we might be remembered for centuri.es.
15 A contemporaneous typographer carried out numerous functions which in time became
separate professions: simultaneously he was an editor, printer, chronicler responsible for deciding
the book’s finał shape and its style; cf. J. Landwehr, Emblem Book’s in the Low Countries
1554-1949, Utrecht 1970, p. IX. The typographer had at this time a professional status on
account of the high professional standard of most typographical representations; on the subject
60
the art of typography. The following text clearly may apply both to the
typographer in ąuestion and profession in generał;
“Quis neget inventum Germanorum ingeniosum
Cartula quo recipit tot monumenta typis?
Quo quicquid dactum est unquam scnpsitique vetustas
Asseritur, cupide posteritasue legit.
Quot regum historiae latuissent, dicta sophorum,
Theuthonicus recte ni reparaset honos!
Ni levis haec, usu sed cartula digua theatris,
Custosque aeternum nos meminisse veht!
Sunt etiam levibus pondera, commoditates
Quas redimant nullae sunt licet orbis opes.
Ergo suas vires cuncti noctesque diesque
Utilibus voveant, multa papyrus adest.
Hoc tu praeclare et solertur Oporine curas,
Quo nemo plures edit, habetque typos.”14
In the humanist tradition famę was already associated with virtue,
conceived as a morał disciplme and fulfilling 'man’s intellectual capacities:
“Gloria virtutis umbra” (Glory as a shadow of virtue). The ascent to Parnas
was possible only through devotion to conscientious and creative study, the
cultivating of art and enrichmg of the spirit.
Joannes Sambucus, Opporinus and Plantin, who are among the most
successful homines typographici,1' contmued the humanist tradition. Their
Theophrasti /Paracelsi Amamiensis postea Graecae Lmguae Pro/fessor Publ. In Academia Basiliensi
et demiąue relicta/ Professione ad Typographiam transiit/”.
14 Sambucus, op. cit.:
Who will not declare the said German invention
a stroke of genius, thanks to which a leaf of paper is
able to accommodate such testimonies of the spirit,
presents everything that has ever occurred and what
antiquity has written in order that our descendants with joy
may read it. How much history of kings, how many
sayings of the wise would remain unknown if it
were not for this wonderful discovery which
continually brings them mto the light of day;
if it were not for this sheet of paper, useful
in its lightness but nevertheless worthy of poetic
praise, and its guardians who do everything within
their power that we might be remembered for centuri.es.
15 A contemporaneous typographer carried out numerous functions which in time became
separate professions: simultaneously he was an editor, printer, chronicler responsible for deciding
the book’s finał shape and its style; cf. J. Landwehr, Emblem Book’s in the Low Countries
1554-1949, Utrecht 1970, p. IX. The typographer had at this time a professional status on
account of the high professional standard of most typographical representations; on the subject
60