Page:A dictionary of printers and printing.djvu/347

 33U

HISTORY OF PRINTING.

non vu, alleri nefacerii." He was succeeded by his son John, who was also knife's printer, and carried on the business until 1585. His editions did not vicld in elegance or correctness to those of his mher, but being obliged, at the date above-mentioned, to quit his country, upon account of his religion, for he was a Protestant, he settled at Geneva, where he had every en- couragement, and in 1604 became a member of the council of two hundred. Like the Geneva printers, however, he deteriorated what he printed here, by employing bad paper. He died in 1615. His descendants continued the printing and book selling business at Geneva, where in 1726, John James and James Detournes purchased the stock of Arrison and Posnel, famous booksellers of Lyons, and obtained permission, notwithstanding their religion, to settle there; and as they also continued their houses at Geneva, greatly ex- tended their trade. In 1740, the learned John Christian Wolff dedicated to them his Monu- menta Typographica, as to the oldest printing and bookselling family in Europe. In 1780, their sons, who had amassed a plentiful fortune, sold off the whole of their stock, and retired from a business which had been carried on in their family with great reputation, for nearly two hundred and forty years.

1564, March 1. "Printing was introduced into Moscow in the reign of John Basilowitz, about the year 1553 ; but the city being shortly after- wards burnt in an irruption by the Poles, the printing-office was consumed, together with all its materials, and a large stock of paper. The only specimen from this early press now known to be remaining is part of a SlavonK New Testa, ment, executed by Ivan Fedor, and P. Timofeeu Matislauzow, of*^ the above date; the unique copy of which is preserved in the library of the imperial academy of sciences at St Petersburg. Chevillier reports, on the authority of Andrew Thevet's Travels, that the types ana materials of the first printing establishment in this century, were puroosely consumed by the Russians them- selves. Thevet's account is as follows : " They had jio printing until the year 1560, when it was discovered to Uiem by a Russian merchant, who made use of types with -which for some time afterwards they executed very handsome books. All at once, for they are scrupulous, and fond of making difficulties where there is not the least appearance of them, some persons by stratagem found means to bum their types, "from a fear that printing would introduce some changes or disturbances in their religion." He adds, that neither the prince nor his subjects took any notice of this extraordinary proceeding. The above particulars Thevet affirms that he received in 1576, from an Englishman who had been ambassador to the Russian court seven years.

After all, perhaps the best account of" the first Moscow book and printing is that furnished to us by Bachmeister, chiefly from the volume it- self, which he describes as being called Aposlol, i. e. the acts and episllet of the Apostles, a book of the very highest rarity, being the first printed

in Moscow, in the year 1564, in the time of the czar Ivan Wasilowitsch, a prince whose exer- tions were earnestly devoted to the civilization of his people, who introduced amongst them an acquaintance with the sciences and arts, and amongst others, that of printing.

The volume of the Apostol, having been acci- dentally picked up in the year 1730, was deposited by the finder in the library of the academy of St. Petersburg. The type and paper of it are repre- sented as good, the latter Bachmeister judgfes to have been brought by the merchants from Eng- land. At the end of the volume is a long^ "mandement" or ordinance.

Bachmeister remarks, that after the Apostol no Moscow book appears for thirty-two years ; but is not inclined to give entire credence to the story of the press, &c. having been utterly destroyed by the Poles, and all printing being lost until the erection of a new press by &e Czar Michael Federowitsch, in 1644; since he had himself seen and handled Moscow books of the dates 1606, 1614, 1616, 1618, 1619, &c. He informs us that in the year 1707 a fount of new and improved Russian types, cast at Amsterdam, was introduced into the Moscow printing-office. Also that in 1709 an individual of that city established a press of his own. About thirty years afterwaras a Georgian printing-office was opened in Moscow by Andrew Johnson, in the suburb railed Suesenzcha ; and Georgian types were cast by order of prince Vakuset, under whose auspices an edition of the Georgian Bible was printed here in 1743. Le Long cites an edition of St. Matthew's Gospel, in eight lan- guages, which was printed here in 1712.

1564, March 24. At the council of Trent, on this day, pope Pius IV.* was presented wiik a catalogue of books, which the council denounced ought to be forbidden: this bull not only con- firmed this list of the condemned books, but added rules how books should be judged.

In the history of literature, and perhaps in that of the human mind, says D'lsraeli, the institu- tion of the licensers of the press, and censors of books, was a bold invention, designed to counteract that of the press itself ; and even to convert this newly-discovered instrument of human freedom into one which might serve to perpetuate thatsystemof passive obedience which had so long enabled modern Rome to dictate her laws to the universe. It was thought possible in the subtilty of Italian astuzia and Spanish mona- chism, to place a sentinel oo the very thoughts as well as on the persons of authors ; and in extreme cases, that books might be condemned to the flames as well as heretics.

Of this institution, the beginnings are obscure, for it originated in caution and fear; but as the work betrays the workman, and the national physiognomy the native, it is evident that so in- quisitorial an act could only have originated in the Inquisition itself. Feeble or partial attempts

llM, in tbe S7tta year of his a^, and siath of his niga. He was a man of great munificence and uplendour.
 * John ADfccIo de Medid, vu born in IS99. died Dec. 9.

VjOOQ IC