De Gulden Passer. Jaargang 37
(1959)– [tijdschrift] Gulden Passer, De–
Auteursrechtelijk beschermd
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Plantiniana in the manuscript department of the British museum and at the public records office
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Of even greater interest is the Album Amicorum of Theodorus Screvelius, which consists of a collection of autograph inscriptions collected at Leyden in the years 1597, 1598. Among the signatories are François Raphelengien, Charles de l'Ecluse, Julius Caesar Scaliger, Fr. Junius, Johannes Fabricius and Petrus Scriverius.Ga naar voetnoot(d) Add. MSS 11, 942 is a beautifully written 11th century manuscript on vellum of Macrobii in Ciceronis Somnium Scipionis Commentariorum with the signature at the foot of the first page: Christophori Plantini, adi 29 Augusti 1579. Add. MSS 21, 524 contains a letter from Corn. Valerius to J. Moretus and François Raphelengien, dated Louvain, ix Cal. Aug. 1575; the letter from Plantin to Janus Dousa, 31 Jan. 1580, published as No. 860 of the Correspondance de Christophe Plantin; several letters of Lipsius to Clusius, Raphelengien and Janus Dousa; Gerartus Falkenberg to Theodore Poelman, March, 1565; and Ortelius to Raphelengien, from Antwerp, Kal. Dec. 1591. (included in the collection of Ortelius's letters published by J. Hessels). A most interesting collection of Plantiniana is to be found in Sloane MSS 2,764, described on Fol. 1 as ‘Liber exquisitus continens epistolas, carmina graecaque nitidissima manu scripta caeteraque alia lectu jucundissima Doctiss. Clarissimorumque virorum suis manibus conscripta, etc.’ Included in this collection we find:
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Egerton 1871, one of seven volumes containing the papers of Juan de Mariana, is of considerable importance on account of the writer's connection with the dispute arising over the orthodoxy of the Polyglot Bible. These documents have been published as an appendix to Mariana Historien by Georges Cirot (Bibliothèque de la Fondation Thiers, Tome VIII, Bordeaux, 1905.) Since this work was published more than fifty years ago, it may be opportune to make a few brief remarks about these manuscripts. The seven volumes, containing miscellaneous literary works, treatises and letters, some in the handwriting of Mariana and some copied by his amanuensis, were | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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bought by a certain Felipe Antonio Fernandez de Vallejo in 1787, some twenty years after the expulsion of the Jesuits. When in 1576 Léon de Castro denounced Montano to the Inquisition, the Inquisitor General was the Cardinal Archbishop of Toledo, Don Gaspar de Quiroga, who sent the dossier to Mariana for his considered judgment. Although Mariana was not the only one consulted over this matter, it is more than likely that it was his judgment which prevailed. The document on Fol. 2 of Eegerton 1871 is a letter from Juan de Mariana announcing the despatch of his critical review and findings in the matter of the Polyglot Bible. Evidently addressed to Gaspar de Quiroga, it is signed by Juan de Mariana and dated Toledo, 16 August, 1577, though as Cirot points out, this date should perhaps be corrected to 1579. The letter is too long to be quoted in full here; moreover the findings of Mariana are known. What perhaps is worth quoting is Mariana's own private opinion of the Biblia Real, which does not, of course, appear in the official censura. ‘The king has not, in my opinion,’ he writes, ‘gained much glory in allowing his name to be associated with this publication; moreover it will soon lose its reputation and within a hundred years its imperfections will be clearly seen, whereas whatever the king puts his name to should be without blemish. It would have been better to have gone to the expense of handing the work to a body of scholars, as Cardinal Cisneros did for the Alcală Bible, for it was a mistake to entrust such a task to one man; even if he were the most distinguished in Europe, there could hardly fail to be defects and errors in the work. If it had been a question merely of reprinting the Complutensian Bible, almost anyone could have done it, and a Paris bookseller had offered to do so for a thousand ducats on better paper and with better type than those used by Plantin.’ In 1582 Mariana was asked to examine and give his views on the New Testament edited by the Jesuit of Louvain, Johannes Harlemius and published by Plantin in 1574. The draft of the censura, with corrections in Mariana's hand, is to be found on Fol. 84 of Ms. Egerton 1871, and is headed (in a later hand) ‘Censura de Juan de Mariana de la Compañia de Jesus sobre un | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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testamento nuevo en forma pequeña impresso en Anvers en casa de Plantino año de 1574.’ It begins: ‘I have seen and diligently examined the said Testament printed by Plantin and have read all the annotations placed at the end of the said Testament and also the Index.’ He goes on to say that the text, being that employed in the Hentenius recension of the Louvain Bible, 1547, contains nothing that should be prohibited; the Index, likewise, he finds very profitable as an argument against the heretics. With regard to the annotations, however, Mariana foresees certain difficulties, since some readers might think that the author was questioning the authority of the Vulgate; but he does not think that there is any necessity for prohibiting any part of them. Beginning on Fol. 9 of Ms. Egerton 1871 is a very lengthy document headed ‘Copia de una carta escripta al Mo León cathedratico de rhetorica en Salamanca por un amigo suyo.’ Don Pascual de Gayanagos author of the ‘Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Spanish language in the British Museum,’ says that this letter is in Mariana's handwriting, but a comparison with those letters signed by Mariana shows that this is not so. It may, perhaps, be a copy of a letter written by Mariana. While paying due respect to León de Castro's zeal for the Catholic faith, the letter reprimands him for the manner in which he displays it, ‘which I consider,’ writes the author of the letter ‘may be very prejudicial to the good opinion which is held of your Christianity, zeal, doctrine and judgment.’ The letter deals in great detail with the accusations made by León de Castro against Arias Montano. ***
The letter from Hadrianus de Saravia to Archbishop Bancroft respecting Justus Lipsius (Add. Mss. 28, 571), in which a conversation with Plantin is mentioned, has already been reproduced in De Gulden Passer, 1950. One rather amusing item remains to be recorded. Add. Mss. 20, 086 is a volume entitled Épreuves générales des Caractères, the author of which is ‘M. Le Clabert, Membre de l'Académie | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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d'Écriture, Écrivain imitateur de caractères d'imprimerie. Paris 1783.’ This calligrapher, whose dexterity and patience seems to have been considerably greater than his common sense, devoted his time to copying books, not in an elegant calligraphic hand, but slavishly imitating the actual typographic characters! He even went so far as to copy all the woodcuts. The performance is a remarkable one, if only there had been any sense in it. My reason for mentioning it here is that among the books so copied was Clément Perret's Exercitatio Alphabetica, published by Plantin in 1569. If he had confined himself to copying writing books there might have been some justification for M. Le Clabert's labours, but to imitate every printed letter of La Nef des Folz in pen and ink! ***
Occasional references to Plantin also occur among the State Papers in the custody of the Public Records Office. Among the Foreign Papers of the reign of Queen Elizabeth is a letter dated from Greenwich, 6 May 1578, from the queen's secretary, Dr. Thomas Wilson to Davison, the English ambassador at the Hague. It has a postscript which runs: ‘Commend me to M. Fremynge and excuse my not writing now. Will him to speak to “Plantyne” for St. Augustine's WorksGa naar voetnoot(1) once again. I will send money presently.’ And here is a letter from Plantin himself to Davison, written at Leyden, 8 February, 1585. ‘In accordance with your letters I send you the entire Théâtre en blanc, which costs 20 florinsGa naar voetnoot(2) and six “Justifications”Ga naar voetnoot(3) in French and six in Latin, that you may keep what you please of them. I have none bound, and the author, who has had them printed at his own expense, sells them to us at 5 pats. for the Latin and 6 for the French. As to the payment I will await your pleasure. If your binder had paid me for the books which he has | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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had of me, I would have made no difficulty in giving him fresh credit. ‘As to the books of the genealogies of Brandenburg and of the Foresters and Counts of Flanders,Ga naar voetnoot(4) I have none of them here, but at Antwerp, from whence, if you wish, I will send for them on the first opportunity of a ship, which is now rare, for the difficulties daily increase. The difficulty made about the Tacitus and the other is only against the credit of the said binder, having all confidence in your honour and being very wishful to do all that you shall command me.’ Was the binder in question, from whom Plantin obviously had difficulty in getting payment, Louis Elsevier? We know that at this time Elsevier was heavily in Plantin's debt. The State Papers also contain several letters from Pietro Bizarri to members of Queen Elizabeth's government, for whom he seems to have acted as a foreign agent. According to Strype (Annals of the Reformation) Bizarri ‘entertained divers years with the Earl of Bedford; and expecting preferment here, failing of it he departed and lived abroad.’ Languet, writing to Sir Philip Sidney from Vienna in November, 1573, was very sarcastic regarding the Italian. ‘I send you an epistle of Pietro Bizarro of Perugia,’ he writes, ‘that you may have before your eyes his surpassing eloquence, and make it your model. You will now perceive how unwisely you English acted in not appreciating all this excellence, and not treating it with the respect it deserves. You judged yourselves unworthy of immortality, which he surely would have bestowed on you by his eloquence, if you had known how to use the fortunate opportunity of earning the good will of such a man... I will give you leave to cull a few flowers from it.’ On 23 Sept. 1578, Bizarri writes from Antwerp to Lord Burghley, Queen Elizabeth's Secretary of State: ‘I pray you to take in good part my long silence, and to be assured that I always retain a lively memory of the service and reverence which I owe to her Majesty... Meantime, having nothing wherein it is permitted to me by the most benign stars to display with any clear testimony how much | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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I revere your honoured name, save that with my feeble wit, as in the works I have previously published, especially the works printed at Basle, De Cyprio et Pannonico Bello, I have testified my debt to you, so in my labour of the last three or four years, Annals of the Republic of Genoa, now printing at Antwerp by Mr. Christopher Plantin, the King's Printer, I have testified my humble service to her Majesty...’ In 1583 Bizarri had an unfortunate experience. Writing on March 31 to Sir Francis Walsingham, he says: ‘On leaving Antwerp for Germany I had planned to put myself in the company of the merchants who were to go to Cologne. But guided by the evil counsel of one who advised me otherwise I boarded a vessel laden with goods going to Cologne, and as a result I experienced the most uncomfortable and perilous voyage I ever went through in my life.’ He was taken prisoner when his boat, belonging to Dominic Jacson, merchant of Antwerp, was seized with two other vessels by Parma's Walloons, and the Italian was stripped and robbed of his possessions. He writes: ‘Being asked who I was and of what occupation and condition, I answered that I was neither trader, nor soldier, nor gentleman, but only a poor wayfarer; and that I devoted myself to studies as one of the correctors of the press to Mr. Christopher Plantin. Then one of the Walloons suddenly interrupted to say that Plantin had printed many books in favour of the Prince of Orange and in dispraise of His Majesty. To which I quickly replied that I was not a regular corrector, but only for a Latin work of my own, entitled Historia Rerum Persicarum, which I was taking to sell at the Frankfurt Fair. On hearing this the general and other bystanders showed a great desire to see it. But I answered that it was in the hold of the boat with other books of Plantin's.’ In conclusion I would like to point out another rather interesting entry in the Patent Rolls (Pat. 5 Edward VI. Part IV. m. 38). In April, 1549, the reformers Martin Bucer and Paul Fagius were dismissed from their offices at Strassburg for refusing to accept the Interim, a temporary formulary of the faith drawn up at | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Augsburg by Charles V. At the invitation of Archbishop Cranmer they came to England, and were accompanied on their journey by Valérand Poullain, who acted as guide and interpreter. Later Poullain became tutor to the Earl of Derby's son, which brought him to the notice of Somerset and led eventually to the foundation of the colony of strangers at Glastonbury, with Poullain as pastor. The Patent in the Record Office to which I have alluded was signed by King Edward VI, countersigned by Sir William Petre, and dated 31 Dec. 1551; it bestows upon Valérand Poullain (Pollanus) denization for life and serves as a fiat for the issue of like letters of denization to 69 others who formed the Glastonbury colony. Among them we find ‘Ravelenghyen, John, from the dominion of the Emperor. 31 Dec. 1551. Came over with Valerandus Pollanus and settled at Glastonbury.’ It would be interesting to know whether this John Ravelenghyen was a relative of François. Unfortunately the colony had to leave England on the accession of the Catholic Queen Mary, and enquiries at Glastonbury have proved fruitless. |
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