The Golden Compasses

The History of the House of Plantin-Moretus

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Chapter 3
Ink

Ink is another essential material and one which plays a large part in determining the aesthetic qualities of the printed page. In a letter to Pierre Porret, who must have commented adversely on the quality of ink used by the printer, Plantin humbly accepted his friend's criticism and promised improvement.^1.

The question now arises as to how ink was made in Plantin's day. In the Dialogues françois et flamands of 1567^2. the author confines himself to a very brief observation: ‘The difference is that ours [i.e., printing ink as opposed to writing ink] is made of turpentine, oil, and lamp black.’^3. A memorandum about various tricks of the printing trade which Franciscus Joannes Moretus compiled in about 1760 contains more detail, but it is still rather vague about the exact composition of printing ink^4. - in fact he literally copied the note on making printer's ink as it appeared in the manual of recipes by Alexis Piemontois, Les secrets, various editions - both in French and in Dutch -of which were published by Plantin in the early 1560s.

Moxon in his Mechanick Exercises (1683-84) and Le Breton in the Encyclopédie française are more informative and more precise and the reader is recommended to consult their expositions.^5. The recipe

1. Corr., I, no. 53 (June-July 1567).

2. Cf. p. 15, note 1.

3. In the French text: ‘La différence est, que la nostre est faite de tormentine, huile & fumée.’

4. Arch. 696, no. 101, f^o 5^ro (text reproduced by L. Voet, ‘Een aantekenboek van Franciscus Joannes Moretus nopens technische aspecten van het drukkersbedrijf, opgesteld omstreeks 1760’, De Gulden Passer, 44, 1966, p. 233).

5. Compare too H. Klaetsch, Die Druckfarbe in vergangenen Zeiten, 1940, based mainly on German sources.

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for making black ink consisted essentially of mixing an oil-based varnish with lamp black which had been obtained by burning oil. The turpentine mentioned by the author of the Dialogues was simply a thinning agent - something that Le Breton advises strongly against.

Two kinds of ink, one fairly fluid and the other much less so, are described by Moxon and Le Breton and are also mentioned in Alexis's Secrets. Both are encountered in the Plantinian account-books under the names ‘encre faible’ and ‘encre dur’. Alexis and Moretus with him state that the ‘weak’ variety is more suitable in winter.^1. Le Breton devotes a long passage to this point. The Officina Plantiniana, however, must have used the two kinds winter and summer, for both feature in deliveries to the firm all through the year. This seems to tally with Moxon, who recommended ‘weak’ ink for the larger type sizes and ‘hard’ ink for the smaller.^2.

Plantin and his successors bought their ink from specialist firms of ‘ancriers’ or ‘faiseurs dancre’ in Antwerp.^3. These merchants did good business with the Plantin press. In the period 1563-66 Guillaume van Esche (or IJsche) delivered 1,300 lb. of ink, for which he received 199 fl. 1½ st.^4. As the firm expanded its expenditure on ink rose correspondingly. In the ten-month period from 13th January to 24th November 1568, Plantin bought 987 lb. of ink from Van Esche (427 lb. of ‘encre dur’, 252 lb. of ‘faible’ and 308 lb. of unspecified variety) at a cost of 160 fl. 7¾ st.^5.

The same prices were paid for both kinds of ink, and these prices rose over the years. In December 1563 ink cost 2¾ st. per pound; in 1564 it had risen to 3 st. per pound; and in 1568 to 3¾ st. In 1590 it

1. ‘Il le faut un peu cuire, le laissant liquide ou epaix selon qu'il sera besoin mais en hiver plus liquide qu'en été et toujours le plus epais fait la lettre plus noire, plus nette et plus reluisante...’

2. Cf. too Ord. I (1715), art. 8: ‘It is also decreed that weak ink must not be generally used, but hard ink must be used as much as possible; also that the ink must be applied using not too much grease but following the demands of the type, since the grease is only put on to save labour; and on the contrary to put it on properly and pull it off forcefully and apply it continually is necessary to produce a pure and proper work...’ See on Ord. I, p. 310, note 1.

3. Under Jan I Moretus one of the ‘faiseurs dancre’, François Bellet, was also a compositor in the Officina Plantiniana (Arch. 21, f^o 349).

4. Compiled in accordance with Arch. 3. Cf. for the year 1566, Appendix 1.

5. Arch. 756, f^o 171^vo.

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had reached 7 st. and in 1599 7½ st. per pound.^1. In 1590-91 Jan Moretus had to pay Joris Berger 330 fl. 14 st. for a little over 900 lb. of ink and an unspecified quantity of varnish,^2. whereas in 1568 his father-in-law had bought a larger amount of ink for less than half this price.

In addition to black ink, red ink was used quite extensively, especially for liturgical books. This red ink was prepared by mixing vermilion with the same varnish as was used for black printing ink.^3. It was made up as required in the printing press: ink prepared with vermilion dries up too quickly to be stored. Plantin and his successors regularly purchased quantities of varnish for red ink from their usual suppliers. Prices of this commodity followed the same upward trend as those of ink: 2½ st. per pound in 1566 and 1568; 6 st. in 1599. Vermilion itself was not obtained from the same tradespeople as ink. It was a certain Arnold Kindt, ‘marchant espissier’, who supplied Plantin with the material, as well as pepper, spices, and wine, from 1563 until the printer's death.^4. At this time vermilion came chiefly from Spain and it was probably through his contacts with the Peninsula that Kindt had started to deal in this particular substance. Plantin himself sold quite considerable quantities of it to the French paper merchant J. Moreau of Troyes in 1574-75^5. - which indicates that vermilion was then not easily obtainable in France. It is interesting to note that prices of ‘unprocessed’ vermilion fell while those of ink were rising at the rate indicated above.^6. In 1564 Plantin paid 37 st. per pound for it, and 36 st. in 1565; in 1572 the price had fallen to 18 st. Later it rose again, but as late as 1587 it was still costing the printer only 22 st. per pound.

1. Arch. 21, f^os 58 and 180 (supplied by J. Berger), f^o 349 (supplied by F. Bellet).

2. The quantity of varnish supplied cannot be given exactly.

3. As described in more detail by Moxon, Mechanick Exercises, and Le Breton in the Encyclopédie française, and also by Alexis Piemontois in his account of the preparation of ink. In this account Alexis also gives indications on the preparation of green and blue printing ink.

4. Arch. 3, f^os 10^ro, 10^vo, 30^ro; Arch. 19, f^os 20, 129, 169.

5. Corr., IV, no. 600 (letter to J. Moreau, 3rd Jan. 1575).

6. Perhaps recently discovered deposits permitted the marketing of greater amounts.

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Vermilion is a mineral. Before it could be used for making red ink it had to be crushed and ground, a job which cost time and money. The. 3 lb. which Plantin bought in April 1564 required ‘6 journées d'homme à broyer dudict vermillon’; at 6 st. a day this came to 1 fl. 16 st.^1. The 8 lb. purchased on 16th June 1565 took nine days' work at 8 st. per day.^2.

All this made ready-to-use vermilion an expensive material. At the beginning of his career Plantin did not publish many liturgical works. Purchases of vermilion in the period 1563-66 were limited to 18 lb., for which 32 fl. 8 st. was paid. Later, when service books were beginning to account for an increasingly large percentage of production, expenditure on vermilion went up accordingly. In the years 1572-75 as much as 1,174 lb. was bought, for which Arnold Kindt received a total of 1,253 fl. 2 st. In the 1586-89 period 277 lb. was purchased at a cost of about 352 fl.^3.

Although Plantin and the Moretuses had to spend quite a lot of money over the years on black and red ink, this represented a small percentage only of their total running costs. In 1566, for example, out of a total expenditure of 13,041 fl. 1¼ st., only 170 fl. 4½ st., or 1.3 per cent, went on ink.^4.

1. Arch. 3, f^o 10^vo.

2. Arch. 3, f^o 30 (paid to Guillaume Paillette of Rouen). This same G. Paillette is mentioned, again in connexion with the grinding of vermilion, in February 1566 (Arch. 31, f^o 101: twice three days at 10 st. a day). In 1568-70 it was one ‘Lievin le peinctre’ who performed the task (Arch. 31, f^o 101: 1568, twelve pounds ground in twelve days at 7 st. per day; Arch. 757, f^o 374: 1570, 6 st. per pound). He must have died on the premises from an epidemic disease, when working for Plantin, as on 1st Sept. 1571 the latter paid 14 st. ‘pour le coffre à mettre le corps dudict estant mort’ and the substantial sum of 12 fl. to the men ‘qui l'ont porté en terre et nettoyé la maison’ (Arch. 36, p. 116).

3. In the inventories the stock of vermilion is mentioned only a few times: in 1707 (Arch. 721, no. 77: under the stairs leading to the library and in the office, 151 two-pound packets, that is 302 pounds; at 3 fl. per pound representing a value of 906 fl.) and 1757 (Arch. 721, no. 81: under the stairs next to the room of J. Lipsius 187 pounds; at 2 fl. 7 st. per pound representing a value of 439 fl. 9 st.).

4. Cf. Appendix 1.