Eleven bindings are known with a gilt device on their covers modelled after the emblematic printer’s marks of the Flemish publisher Jean Bogard. They cover books printed in various formats (sextodecimo, duodecimo, octavo, quarto), seven from presses operated by Bogard at Louvain and Douai, dated 1564-1575, and the others imprints of publishers at Antwerp (1576), Geneva (1572), Lyon (1554), and Poitiers (1565). All were probably bound in this narrow period 1564-1576, for the purposes of display and sale on Bogard’s own premises.1 It is doubtful that Bogard himself maintained a bindery.2
The origins and apprenticeship of Jean Bogard (ca 1531-1616) are unknown.3 The first known work published under his name was issued at Louvain in 1556 from a shop in the Proeffstraat under the sign of the Golden Bible (“sub Bibliis aureis”).4 On its title-page is a woodcut printer’s mark (49 x 41mm) representing an open Greek Bible surmounting a winged heart, with the motto “Cor rectum inquirit scientiam” (a righteous heart seeks after knowledge) on the exergue. Five variants of the same device, now incorporating a city prospect, were cut ca 1563-1571.5 Sometime between 1572 and 1574, Bogard retreated with his presses to the Catholic safe haven of Douai, where he established himself in a house in the Rue des écoles formerly occupied by the university printer Jacques Bosschaert (Boscard). He rehung his Louvain shop sign, and proceeded to issue hundreds of editions, including school publications, devotional reading, sacred literature, and music, in Latin, French, and Flemish, likewise “Sub Bibliis Aureis,” “à la Bible d’or”, and “inden gulden Bybel”. Bogard remained in Douai until around 1608, when he returned to Louvain. His shop there had resumed activity in 1586, issuing mostly religious texts and spiritual literature in small formats, in Latin, French, or Dutch, but was closed permanently in 1598. Jean Bogard died in Louvain in 1616 leaving his printing office in Douai in the hands of his son, Jean II (1561-1627).
The devices ornamenting the eleven bindings are of two types, oval and rectangular. Georges Colin knew five bindings featuring an oval device, and discerned two stamps: “A. Cadre ovale gras” and “C. Cadre ovale maigre,” observing “La différence avec le cadre ovale gras se perçoit entre autres par les volutes, plus larges dans celui-ci.”6 Judging from illustrations, we suspect that multiple stamps of both types, oval and rectangular, were in use, and the bindings are organised here in general categories. The oval binding stamps most closely resemble the earliest of Bogard’s printer’s devices. The rectangular stamps approximate devices Bogard introduced in 1563.7
Left Device used for Bogard’s 1556 edition of Vincentius Lirinensis [link]. Right Details from I-2, I-4, I-6
Left Device used for Bogard’s 1563 edition of Gallicae lingvae institvtio [link]. Right Details from II-3, II-2
1. For the likely purposes of so-called “publisher’s bindings” see the earlier posts in this Notabilia file describing bindings bearing the names or devices of Charles L’Angelier [link], Sébastien Gryphe [link], and Jérôme de Marnef [link].
2. Léon Gruel identified Bogard as a “Libraire-Imprimeur et Relieur” (Manuel historique et bibliographique de l’amateur de reliures, Paris 1887, I, p.57), but this suggestion is discounted by Georges Colin, “Reliures à la marque de Jean Bogard” in Gutenberg Jahrbuch 1966, pp.372-377 (pp.375, 377: “Rien n’indique que cet atelier fût celui de Jean Bogard lui-même. … [A]ucun document d’époque ne permet d’affirmer qu’il eut chez lui, à Louvain ou à Douai, un atelier de reliure, encore moins qu’il fut relieur lui-même.”). Cf. Anne Rouzet, “Une lettre inédite de Jacques de Pamele a l’imprimeur Jean Bogard” in De Gulden Passer 61-63 (1983-1985), pp.447-459 (p.457: “On rencontre un fer à la marque de Jean Bogard sur des reliures couvrant des ouvrages sortis de ses presses à Louvain (1565) et Douai (1576); ces reliures ont sans doute été exécutées par un atelier spécialisé louvaniste, non dans l’imprimerie même de Bogard.” [online]).
3. Anne Rouzet, Dictionnaire des imprimeurs, libraires et éditeurs des XVe et XVIe siècles dans les limites géographiques de la Belgique actuelle (Nieuwkoop 1975), pp.20-21 (citing previous literature).
4. Vincent of Lérins, Vincentii Lirinenss Galli Pro catholicae fidei antiquitate & veritate, aduersus prophanus omnium hereseon nouationes … Louvanii: Apud Ioannem Bogardum, sub Bibliis aureis, Anno 1556 (colophon: Lovanii. Typis Stephani Valerij Typogr. Iurat.) [link]. It seems that Bogard did not acquire presses of his own until 1562; see Guido Persoons, “Joannes I Bogardus, Jean II Bogard en Pierre Bogard als muziekdrukkers te Douai van 1574 tot 1633 en hun betrekkingen met de Officina Plantiniana” in De Gulden Passer 66-67 (1988-1989), pp.613-670 (p.619 [online]).
5. Frank Vandeweghe & Bart op de Beeck, Marques typographiques employées aux XVe et XVle siècles dans les limites géographiques de la Belgique actuelle (Nieuwkoop 1993), pp.9-10, 99-101. Hubert Meeus, “From Nameplate to Emblem. The Evolution of the Printer’s Device in the Southern Low Countries up to 1600” in Typographorum Emblemata: The Printer's Mark in the Context of Early Modern Culture (Berlin 2018), pp.77-100 (p.83).
6. Georges Colin, “Les Marques de libraires et d’éditeurs dorées sur des reliures” in Bookbindings & other bibliophily: Essays in honour of Anthony Hobson (Verona 1994), pp.77-115 (pp.104-106).
7. Compare Vandeweghe & Op de Beeck, op. cit., p.9 (Merk 1), pp.9-10 (Merk 3, 4).
provisional census of copies
Type I. Oval devices
(I-1) Council of Trent, Catechismus ex decreto Concilii Tridentini, ad parochos, Pii V pontificis maximi jussu editus (Louvain: Jean Bogard, 1567)
Type II. Rectangular devices
(II-1) Aristoteles, De natura aut rerum principiis libri VIII (Douai: Jean Bogard, 1576), with: De coelo libri IIII (Douai: Jean Bogard, 1575), with: Liber de mundo, ad Alexandrum Macedoniae regem (Douai: Jean Bogard, 1575), with: Meteorologicorum, libri quator (Douai: Jean Bogard, 1575), with: De animo, libri III (Douai: Jean Bogard, 1575), with: Libelli, qui parva naturalia vulgo appellantur (Douai: Jean Bogard, 1575)
(II-3) Prosper Aquitanus, Divi Prosperi Aquitanici, episcopi Regiensis, Opera, accurata vetustorum exemplarium collatione per viros eruditos a mendis pene innumeris repurgata (Louvain: Jean Bogard, 1565)