The Golden Compasses

The History of the House of Plantin-Moretus

[p. 302]

Chapter 12
Production Times

The speed with which a text could be set, printed, and published naturally depended directly on its length, and to a lesser degree, on the number of copies to be printed. A small text, such as a broadsheet, could if necessary be delivered in one day. One example was the notice put out by the Duke of Alva informing the citizens of the Netherlands that the sacking of Marines by his troops on 2nd-4th October 1572 had been right, proper, and justifiable.^1. Customers had to wait much longer for more considerable texts. For de Çayas Plantin calculated on 12th January 1573 that, working with one press, no printer could complete 2,000 octavo breviaries in less than 14 to 15 months; for 2,000 folio breviaries the absolute minimum was thirty months. For missals the schedules would be eighteen months for folio editions and nine months for quartos.^2.

1. Corr., III, no. 417: letter from secretary Bertin to Plantin, 5th October 1572, with a request from Alva for 2 ‘escriptz’, the one in French, the other in Dutch, to be printed at once to the number of 200 copies, most of them in Dutch, and to be posted to the Spanish camp. In the margin Plantin indicated that ‘Ayant receu la lectre à neuf heures au matin, avons l'aprèsdisnée délivré ung pacquet au Sr. Taxis [the postmaster] avec 150 exemplaires en flamand et 100 en françois a ¼ de path, pièce.’ Another example: the printing of ‘passeports en langue Almande [allemande]... que des l'heure mesmes (qui fut environ les 11 heures du matin) que je receu ladicte forme de passeports soussignee de vostre main, je commencé a y besongner de telle diligence que j'en monstray l'espreuve preste a imprimer a deux bons Signeurs qui me vindrent voir sur les quatre heures après midi du mesmes jour et leur promis qu'ils seroyent imprimés le soir mesmes ce secs le lendemain au matin comme ils furent.’ (Corr., V, no. 777: Plantin to C. Wullemans, 19th September 1577).

2. Corr., III, no. 451.

[p. 303]

A letter of 1st August 1572 shows how Plantin tried to shorten the production time of a large assignment - in this case Luis de Granada's Conciones. The 102 quires represented 1,616 pages; these were being printed on two presses; to expedite the work Plantin a month before had had extra type cast so as to be able to bring two more presses into operation.^1. Plantin set out the problem very clearly in this letter, but his explanation needs a certain amount of interpreting. The speed at which a piece of work could be done did depend on the number of presses engaged, but these presses had to be fed by compositors so that ultimately the rate depended on the number of these who could be assigned to a job, their capacity for work, and the supply of cast type available to them. When Plantin stated that he was going to bring two more presses into operation and was having new type cast, what he meant was that he was going to start two or four more compositors on the work and that this would oblige him to increase the quantity of cast type available for the Conciones.

When the need arose a considerable number of presses and thus of compositors could be put into action on a given job. Plantin did so in the case of the Conciones and also on numerous other occasions.^2. Normally, however, one or two compositors were assigned to a text. At the beginning of his career, and again in 1563-64, Plantin usually assigned two men on a manuscript - one compositor setting the text for one side of the sheets, the other for the reverse. From about 1564 or 1565, with his business expanding, and with a greater number of presses in operation and more pressmen and compositors at work on a larger number of books, Plantin found it more logical to entrust a complete text to a single compositor.^3. This meant that it was not always possible to run off one sheet daily, or even every other day, but as a number of texts were being printed concurrently, there was no need for the presses to be idle for a moment. Cornelius Muelener set

1. Corr., III, no. 408.

2. Plantin's letter to Aguilar, 29th June 1573 (Corr., III, no. 477), explaining that he could print 1,500 folio breviaries in ten months by using three presses. See p. 328, note 2.

3. Cf. p. 313.

[p. 304]

the entire text of the octavo Valerius Maximus by himself. He was paid for the first three sheets on 29th September 1566. On 1st February 1567 he received his wages for the final sheets. This meant that in a little over four months he had set the 35 quires of this quite extensive work of 560 pages and it was ready for publication.^1.

For printing editions in uncommonly large runs a special technique existed, the so-called imposition by half-sheet (impression par demifeuilles) which, though not speeding-up the actual process of printing, permitted to limit the number of compositors engaged on (and the amount of cast type tied up in) a given job. The system was not much applied in the Plantinian press though it was for the 24mo Pseaumes de David of 1564, printed in 3,000 copies.^2. Instead of formes of 24 outer and 24 inner pages, two formes of 12 pages each were made, placed side to side, and printed on one side of the paper; then the sheet was inverted and turned end-to-end, and the same pages printed on the blank side of it. Thus each sheet contained two identical quires of 24 pages, instead of one of 48 pages.^3. For the 3,000 copies of the Pseaumes de David the pressmen needed some 2½ days per press and per sheet (at 1,250 copies per day). In the ordinary way two compositors were needed to feed one press. When imposition by half-sheets was employed, one compositor could easily handle the work. If two compositors were put to work, two presses could be kept running; so with a limited amount only of cast type production was twice as fast.

Production times of illustrated books could be much prolonged by the additional complication of having wood-blocks or copperplates made, sometimes preceded by the drawing of the models from which the engravers worked. At the end of 1564 Plantin took the first step towards his publication of Reynard the Fox by engaging the Paris artist G. Ballain to draw the illustrations. In April 1565 he paid

1. Arch. 4, f^o 112 and Arch. 31, f^o 53.

2. Cf. H. Slenk, ‘Christophe Plantin and the Genevan Psalter,’ Tijdschrift van de Vereniging voor Nederlandse Muziekgeschiedenis, 1967, p. 231.

3. See for details of imposition and printing techniques Appendix 8. Cf. also plates 27-29.

[p. 305]

Ballain his fee for the 72 drawings and at the same time settled with J. de Gourmont, also a Parisian, for delivery of the first six woodcuts.^1. It was some months, however, before Gourmont was ready with the rest of the series. The text was not long, and once the illustrations were in the house the work could be ready in a few weeks. On 25th May 1566, the compositor Claes Amen was paid for the first sheet, and on 29th June 1566 for the tenth and last.^2. Three days before, Plan tin had in fact handed over the first copies to a customer.^3. The Vesalius-Valverda Vivae imagines partium corporis humani, illustrated with 42 copper engravings, dragged on even longer. The first plate was delivered on 7th July 1564, the last not until 23rd January 1566, but with the plates came the prints taken from them in the engraving studio.^4. Once this stage had been reached, work on the text could soon be completed. At least two compositors were assigned to it. The first quire was printed by 1st February 1566, the last came off the press at the beginning of March.^5. On 27th March Plantin was able to record the sales of the first copies.^6. When in his letter of 12th January 1573^7. he had quoted de Çayas production times of 14 to 15 months and more, he had not been thinking simply of the actual setting and printing, but of all the preparatory and supplementary tasks - ordering paper, casting type, making illustrations - that could prolong the process. On the other hand, to bring on the market an average edition, without illustrations or additional complications, the Plantinian press did not need more than a few months, provided the cast type was available.

1. Arch. 4, f^o 80^vo.

2. Arch. 31, f^o 15.

3. Arch. 44, f^o 87^ro.

4. Arch. 4, f^o 80^vo and Arch. 31, f^o 63^vo.

5. Arch. 31, f^os 14, 29, 48, and Arch. 4, f^o 80^vo.

6. Arch. 44, f^o 37^ro.

7. Cf. p. 302, note 2.