Sales catalogue 533: Maggs Bros

Date:
1930
Reference:
WA/HMM/CM/Sal/13/88
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Sales catalogue 533: Maggs Bros. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    63/294 page 41
    Lyons. Jean Trechsel: a.p. 1488-1498. Jean Trechsel, a German, was probably a native of Bale, according to Claudin, but earlier authorities would have him originate from Mainz, where, it seems, he would have witnessed and helped the efforts of the first printers. In 1488 he succeeded to Nicolas Philippe, whose widow he married, and the first book assigned to him bears that date. ‘The career of Jean Trechsel was very productive, and his books—notably his Terence—are justly celebrated; he died in 1498 while in course of printing a monumental edition of Avicenna, which was brought to completion by Jean Clein. He had as literary collaborator the great humanist, Josse Badius, who was his son-in-law, and later established himself at Paris. He was the first French printer to obtain from the King a Privilege to protect one of his productions. Trechsel commenced printing with a type which he himself had cut, a very small Gothic. He used also the first type, a Gothic, of Peter of Hungary, which had come into the possession of his predecessor, Nicolas Philippe. He employed for the illustrated Terence of 1493 a roman type in two sizes, called italica littera. Trechsel was, perhaps, the most scholarly printer of Lyons, and took meticulous care in preparing his texts; of this his last work, an edition of Avicenna, is a notable example. He produced only Latin works, mostly theological and scholastic, and, until 1494, only quartos. His first folio volume was an edition of the Dialogues and other works of Ockam, and to push the sale of it he issued an illustrated prospectus. The chef-d’oeuvre of Trechsel was his illustrated edition of Terence, a work of art. This has 150 cuts of scenes in the plays and a large cut of a theatre. The artist is unknown. Device (first appearing in 1489): Trechsel’s monogram in a circle surmounted by a double cross. Sometimes printed in red, also in red and black. In 1492 the device was recut to a larger size. [41]
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