1 Book Production in the Handpress Period
Since readers of this bibliography may be unfamiliar to some extent with material aspects involved in the production of printed matter during the pre-industrial handpress period, preliminary observations on pre-press preparations and relief printing techniques are now of concern in this section. Usually, publishers and printers together calculated for each single printed sheet the cost of the founts of type, the illustrations, the paper (made of cloth) and (boiled) ink (oil-based varnish mixed with lamp black obtained by burning oil according to John Moxon’s 1683 Mechanick Exercises). They calculated the wages of compositors, correctors, printers, plus other journeymen and apprentices, involved in the production of a planned pamphlet or book. Founts of smaller printing type from a typeface were much more expensive than larger founts. Other costs concerned overhead expenses and variable costs of other necessary printing materials (founts of type kept in stock, expensive leather for the ink balls), payment of labour other than that of the printers, third-party expenses (such as taxes), and other unspecified costs. Together with distribution costs these economic aspects influenced the height of book prices. Commonly, publishers and printers confirmed collaboration terms in a written contract drawn up by a public notary, too. In the case of the seventeenth-century printed works of Spinoza, contracts are unfortunately lacking. At the practical level of decision-making and logistics, historical documents describing or hinting at the role of the Dutch philosopher’s publisher Jan Rieuwertsz père have not survived.
Pre-press preparations in the printing shop concerned composition (by pages) of printing types set up from manuscript or copy and the imposition of typeset pages in ‘formes’, wooden or iron frames locking one or more pages for printing on sheets of paper. Processed copies were also proofread for flaws.1 Printing a work first required a sophisticated estimate of a book’s length via the counting of words (‘casting off’ copy) and the preparation of the copy for layout by the typesetter by making brief notes concerning italicization, capitalization, pagination, and page breaks.2 For each page of a new gathering of a text, a generally seated compositor started work by gathering singular type-metal-cast movable sorts (CAPITALS, small capitals, smaller lower-case letters) of a specific fount of printing type from a typeface required for printed matter. Each Latin alphabet (twenty-six letters), for example, included approximately 120 to 150 type-metal-cast letters (with and without diacritics), ligatures (e.g., æ and œ, so-called tied letters), abbreviations (e.g., prefixes, such as pre and pro), typographical symbols (e.g. &, *, †), in both roman and italics. In the second half of 1677, when printing Spinoza’s voluminous posthumous writings the book’s printing shop had to have in stock alphabets of the same sort in very large quantities.
The compositor at work picked type-metal-cast sorts from wooden trays divided in customary patterns (capital letters along the top of the case, small letters below them), i.e., the type-case. If required, he also picked small cast-type blocks for punctuation, indentation, special symbols, and for breaking and spacing (‘whites’).3 Next, all letters and symbols were put upside down in an adjustable, composing stick to set the ‘measure’ of the required type area (from left to right). The typesetter kept this handheld shallow tray, which can hold a small number of lines, in his left hand. Thus, a seasoned typesetter had to have been sufficiently trained in reading text upside down and in mirrored writing. He was also required to work quickly and efficiently, making as few mistakes as possible.
Prime presswork demanded skill and training. In the world of seventeenth-century printing experienced compositors had significant status. Although the training of typesetters has hardly ever been studied, it is plain they could achieve competence on the job only. Moreover, the printing shop’s compositors were required to make final decisions regarding spelling, hyphenation, syllabification, capitalization, word breaks, emphasis, and punctuation for texts composed in Dutch, Latin, Hebrew, and other languages.4 Some of them, it seems reasonable to conclude, must therefore have attended Latin Schools or even university.5
Interior (copper engraving, 1628) of a printing house in Haarlem in full operation. At the right a typesetter is composing pages. The printer at the left is busy printing imposed sheets at the handpress which are accordingly gathered and inspected by his assistant. At the outer left ink balls are lying on a cupboard. Presumably, the jugs standing on the shelf are containing ink.
Direction line with signature E2 and catchword ‘Error’, printed on page 25 of: Benedictus de Spinoza, Renati Des Cartes Principiorum philosophiae pars I et II; Cogitata metaphysica (Amsterdam: D. Bakkamude [printer], for: J. Rieuwertsz père, 1663).
During the typesetting process, the compositor tabulated lines (divided by setting rules) on each full page or each column of the text. To set sheets by formes, his work included setting in type (ornamented) capitals (mostly relief woodcuts), pagination, captions, lines, notes, signatures of gatherings, spaces, etc., on a galley. This was a wooden two- or three-sided board lying on the right-hand side of the compositor’s upper case. Printers, like the famously-known Antwerp bookseller-publisher Christophe Plantin (1520–1589), used two kind of galleys: one for composing and one for distribution. Signatures in the direction lines at the foot of recto pages were formed from twenty-three letters from the Latin alphabet and Arabic numerals (single signing), or their combinations (double or multiple signing). Commonly for quarto: A (without numeral), A2, A3, Aa, Aa2, Aa 3, Aaa, Aaa2, Aaa3 (as was practice, quarto signatures A4, Aa4, and Aaa4 were blank), without I or J, U or V, and W, etc. The typesetter at work was to determine all separate blocks of text were set in an upright position and kept in mind to avoid ‘hanging’ types.6
Should illustrations (woodcuts or engravings) be required, these then were also fixed into their position on the galley. The running headline and a page’s first line came down on the lower part of the board and the last lines on top of it, until finally all the working galley’s available space was filled and ready for relief printing. Accordingly, when the correct number of lines of all the rows of the singular sorts making up a page were set in type on the galley, the typesetter marked the place in the manuscript or copy. After this stage of the process, running headlines and page numbers were added above the text, and the direction lines with their specific signatures and catchwords (to get the pages in the correct printing order), set at the bottom of a page.
Then the compositor firmly fixed the type block (with rope, bound around its outer edges), preventing it from collapsing. Next, the compositor stored the typeset page on a wrapper and started composing all other pages until all the text intended for the forme was sorted and set in the composing stick. In this way, pages set in type were collected in an ‘outer’ and an ‘inner’ forme, containing the text which will be on the outside and inside pages of a printed sheet when folded. This is called imposition, i.e., processing the number of pages of type sufficient to cover both sides of a sheet depending on the bibliographical format required. Subsequently, the boards were brought to the hand-powered presses for processing and printing.7
At the printing press, typeset text pages were slid by the compositor for the forme onto the imposition stone. They were carefully ‘caged’, fixed in the forme in their proper order in a two-paired chase on the bed of the press with wooden blocks, pieces (‘furniture’), and wedges. The ropes were then removed and all pages in the forme were hammered down and carefully inked with balls of leather, two at a time. Next, an imposed sheet of paper comprising multiple pages – the number of which was dependent on how the quires of the book were composed – could be printed on both sides on the handpress.
A single sheet printed for a quire of sixteen pages (eight leaves), for example, required two formes of eight typeset pages for printing on each side of the same gathering. Normally, preliminary text (title-page, prefatory matter, indexes, and lists of errata) was printed after the text of a book had been finished. After sheets were printed on one side and turned over, the formes were replaced by new formes to print and perfect their versos. Generally speaking, the bibliographical format, layout, and the typeface (or fount family) influenced the number of lines of each page.8 It is estimated that, when a printing process was in full operation, a seasoned printer could print up to about three sheets per minute (180 sheets per hour), an impressive number. Remember paper, a necessity for printing, could be used only once.
After the first proofs were printed, sheets were returned to a corrector or to the typesetter to make corrections on the ‘correction stone’, usually a large slab of marble on a stand. Correcting in the metal pieces was quite simple if one letter or number had to be changed. After correction of the last press proof, the actual printing was started.9 Having been processed, printed sheets were hung up in quires for drying. Next, gatherings were combined, knocked up, collationed (to check whether any quires were missing or had mistakenly been doubled), and bound together by a gatherer to make single copies.10 Afterwards, the formes were rinsed and washed with boiled water. Next, text was broken up so sorts could be stored again into their cases.11 In several instances, though, printers kept type standing for reprinting. This probably happened, for instance, with remaining sheets with the printed title-page of the Tractatus theologico-politicus’s first quarto edition (T.1), which was reimposed to produce the title-pages of the two known issues T.2 and T.2a of the second quarto edition.12
2 The Seventeenth-Century Amsterdam Printers of Spinoza’s Writings
Having no presses of his own Jan Rieuwertsz père, being a highly-productive publisher, was obliged to turn to printing shops operating in Amsterdam.13 None of the printers who produced Spinoza’s printed works are explicitly named in those books. Recent typographical research (2013), by Jagersma and Dijkstra, has confirmed that the Amsterdam printer Daniel Bakkamude produced Renati Des Cartes Principiorum philosophiae pars I et II; Cogitata metaphysica for Rieuwertsz in 1663.14 Their study focused on the occurrence of similar old-style serifed printing types (different sizes in different bodies), initials, and ornaments (including those damaged) in books produced in Amsterdam in the later seventeenth century.
A work entitled Den Engelsen en Munstersen oorlogh (1668), known with certainty to be produced by Bakkamude, mentions his workshop’s address close to the Amsterdam Exhange Bank: ‘at the Rokin, above the Ship on the Slope’ (‘op ’t Rockin, boven ’t Schip op de Helling’). Between 1669 and 1680, he relocated his printing shop: ‘at the Rokin, alongside the three green Parrots’ (‘op ’t Rokkin, naast de drie groene Papegayen’). For Rieuwertsz, Bakkamude also turned out a notorious Socinian venture: Bibliotheca fratrum Polonorum.15 He published the book during the second half of the 1660s.16 Its printing was done clandestinely: Socinianism and with it anti-Trinitarianism had been prohibited in 1653 in a placard, condemning meetings and Socinian publications. Bakkamude also worked for the Amsterdam firm of Johannes Janssonius van Waesberge (fl.1600–1683), printer of several writings of the Voetius family and of Descartes, respectively.17
Bakkamude did not process Pieter Cornelisz Balling’s Dutch translation of the Latin edition Renatus Des Cartes Beginzelen der wysbegeerte, I en II Deel; Overnatuurkundige gedachten (1664). The book’s printer was Herman Aeltsz who had a workshop in the Amsterdam Kalverstraat.18 Evidence that Aeltsz has typeset and printed this work is particularly strongly given by a distinctively damaged ornamented initial D. That D in the Dutch rendition matches with an identical initial D gracing the text of a work published by the Dutch libertine author Adriaan Koerbagh four years later. The latter’s dictionary, Een bloemhof van allerley lieflijkheyd sonder verdriet (A Flower Garden of All Kinds of Loveliness without Sorrow), contained foreign loanwords showing several traces of what can now be qualified with the loose ‘label’ as early radical reasoning with elements of Spinoza’s philosophy, such as demythologizing the Scripture’s divine authority.19 On 12 June 1668, Aeltsz was condemned for having printed ‘seecker godtslasterlik boeck bij adryaen Koerbach’, i.e. Een bloemhof. He was sentenced by the municipal bailiff to pay the civic administration of Amsterdam a fine of 630 guilders, which in those days was a very large sum of money.20
The roman type-founts of the Dutch quarto edition printed by Bakkamude for the 1663 Latin edition of Renati Des Cartes Principiorum philosophiae pars I et II; Cogitata metaphysica, also used by Aeltsz, display typographical features occurring in editions of plays composed by Vondel. These appear to be linked to the workshop of the Amsterdam printer Thomas Fonteyn, Rieuwertsz’s business partner during the late 1640s and the 1650s.21 The ornament (or: ‘wreath’) on the title-page and all other illustrations in the 1663 Latin edition produced by Bakkamude were reused for the printing of Balling’s Dutch translation Renatus Des Cartes Beginzelen der wysbegeerte, I en II Deel; Overnatuurkundige gedachten. This indicates that, for the production of the Dutch rendition of Spinoza’s digest of ‘Principles of Philosophy’, Rieuwertsz must have passed the copperplates for the illustrations to Herman Aeltsz, its printer.
Archival records documenting the typesetting and printing process of Spinoza’s ‘Parts I and II of Descartes’s Principles of Philosophy’; ‘Metaphysical Thoughts’, or the business collaboration of Rieuwertsz père with either of the printers Bakkamude and Aeltsz are no longer extant.22 These books contain inevitable misprints. Mostly ‘literals’, errors in individual letters or numerals during imposition, but also textual corrections (inventoried in the two volumes’ lists of errata). Nevertheless, the final conclusion would be that both Bakkamude and Aeltsz produced high-quality and well-engraved books without any grave mistakes or stop-press corrections made in the metal.
Research results published in 2013 (by Jagersma and Dijkstra, and one other by Lane), in two papers in Quaerendo. A Quarterly Journal from the Low Countries Devoted to Manuscripts and Printed Books), seek to prove the first Latin quarto edition (T.1) of the Tractatus theologico-politicus (1670) was commissioned from Israel Abrahamsz de Paull. He was a compositor and master printer operating a workshop, established shortly before or in 1660 together with Gerrit Harmansz van Riemsdijck, in the Amsterdam Jordaan quarter, in the Tuinstraat.23 When his partner Van Riemsdijck passed away in 1666 De Paull took charge of the printing firm. The workshop was in full operation for about fifty years and it is documented that, at its closure, the printing office of De Paull owned about three presses. The results of my own bibliographical study seem to confirm this reputed printer produced all Latin quarto editions and their variant issues during the 1670s. The distinct possibility should be considered De Paull even printed all Latin octavos and the two editions (1678) of the French translation of Spinoza’s treatise, too. In 1677, Jan Rieuwertsz père made use of the services of De Paull once again. This time to produce the Opera posthuma and De nagelate schriften, its Dutch translation.24
Reduced version of the ‘yoke’ ornament.
The final conclusion that De Paull produced both the quarto editions of the Tractatus theologico-politicus and the posthumous writings is based on the following arguments:
The 16 mm capitals ‘Klein Canon’ roman and italics as well as probably also the Hebrew (2,5 mm mem) printing type, used in the printed quartos of the Tractatus theologico-politicus, were used by De Paull’s Tuinstraat printing firm.
Both the Tractatus theologico-politicus and the Opera posthuma are adorned with a reduced ‘yoke’ ornament, a floral tailpiece depicting a rosette with hanging ends (relief woodcut).
This vignette also decorates the prologue’s end in four out of five Latin quartos of the Tractatus theologico-politicus.
The small yoke ornament is printed on the title-page of Een brief aan een vriendt, a work perhaps composed by the dissident Dutch Reformed purist theologian Jacobus Koelman (1632–1695). The imprint of its title-page declares the work to be produced by the De Paull printing firm, located ‘in de Tuyn-straat’ in 1678.25
The small yoke vignette is also printed on the title-page of Reflexions curieuses (issue X.2), the Tractatus theologico-politicus’s French translation, and on one of the title-pages of the mixed issues Y.4/Y.5 and Y.n/Y.4/Y.5 (also entitled Reflexions curieuses).
The small yoke ornament serves as tailpiece (p. 354) in the Opera posthuma, too.
The same vignette concludes (sig. B5r) the ‘Prologus’ of the Philosophia S. Scripturae interpres, a work set in 1673 together with the Latin octavo edition of the Tractatus theologico-politicus.26
A decorated serifed roman initial A in the Opera posthuma matches with a similar initial A (including its damage) in the aforementioned Een brief printed by Israel de Paull.
A decorated initial D in Vita politica and in Een vriendelijcke samen-spraack, known to be produced by De Paull’s direct successor Abraham Olofsz, matches with an identical initial D in De nagelate schriften.27
The eight-volume Opera omnia theologica, composed by one of the fathers of Covenant theology, Johannes Coccejus, a work assumed to have been printed by Israel de Paull and issued by Jan van Someren, has a decorated initial L also matching the initial L in the Opera posthuma. Coccejus’s work also contains the aforementioned reduced ‘yoke’ emblem.28
Timotheus Philadelphus, Brief aan een vriendt, … (Amsterdam: Israel de Paull [printer], 1678). The title-page is decorated with the reduced yoke ornament.
Given its frequent usage by Jan Rieuwertsz père, the small yoke ornament was apparently one of his favourite vignettes. Moreover, the ornament also turns up in other works Amsterdam printers produced for him. Yet, the vignette, along with a larger version of it, was also in vogue amongst other publishers and printers when Rieuwertsz was actively operating as a publisher of books and other printed material.
Regarding the quality of the books produced by De Paull, the general conclusion is that the production of copies of the clandestinely-issued Tractatus theologico-politicus in particular resulted in a large quantity of mistakes made during the typesetting and the printing of the text in the Latin and in the subsidiary Hebrew language. Although probably hurriedly done, the first Latin text edition (T.1) of 1670 has ninety-seven errors in the Latin alone; thirteen misprints are listed in the list of errata. The book, printed in both a plain version and in a lavish version on luxury paper, is superior to all other quartos (and to the octavos De Paull possibly also put to press), which gradually contained a growing number of much more flaws.
Without question, T.1 is the text version most loyal to the original manuscript and/or apograph Spinoza has handed in to serve as printer’s copy in 1669. The Tractatus theologico-politicus’s compositor made many corrections in the main text, pagination, running headlines, and direction lines of the later Latin quartos and octavos. Inevitably, he also introduced new misprints. In a few cases these flaws affected the original Latin text and even changed its wording. Indications suggesting perhaps more than one single Tuinstraat compositor may have set in type the four Latin quarto editions of the Tractatus theologico-politicus will be discussed in chapter 3.
Immediately upon Spinoza’s death, a selected group of his Amsterdam friends of long standing started (after 25 March 1677) assiduously subediting his posthumous writings. They conveyed copy-texts of the main work for both the Latin edition of the Opera posthuma and its Dutch translation De nagelate schriften to press in late July 1677. The Amsterdam editors completed work on the twin volumes within four months; a relatively short period one might say. This must have been particularly stressful given the massive quantity of available material and the time needed to turn the writings and correspondence into well-edited texts reflecting and respecting Spinoza’s philosophical legacy. The two volumes were ready and printed in late December 1677; copies were first sold to the public during the first weeks of 1678.
Israel de Paull also produced the Opera posthuma (about 800 pages) and De nagelate schriften (about 700 pages), printed on both normal paper and on luxury paper. This also was a job done in haste. Reading mistakes and ‘Augensprung’, caused by slapdash editing and translating, may explain textual irregularities between the two volumes. Yet, the quality of the printed text in the two books in general is much better than in the quarto and octavo editions of the Tractatus theologico-politicus. These contain many textual mistakes, literals, misprints, and hanging sorts. Surviving copies of the posthumous writings produced by Israel de Paull for Rieuwertsz père prove to be illustrated printing products of the highest quality with few literals or misprints, most of them occurring in the two volumes’ running headlines and direction lines.
3 A Red Herring
In the Dutch Republic, the obligation to request an official privilege to publish a book, a precursor to present-day copyright securing profit and sales, which did not automatically imply the authorities had officially approved of it, had been abandoned in the early seventeenth century. Moreover, in 1650, the States of Holland also refused to appoint ‘visitatores librorum’, government officials who were to deal with pre-emptive censorship. However, continuous theological quarrels and those complaints about allegedly suspect Socinian writings made by acting officers in the Dutch Reformed Church would ultimately led to anti-Socinian legislation (19 September 1653); the foundation of theological and philosophical Dutch censorship during the second half of the seventeenth century.29
As for Jan Rieuwertsz père, even before publication of Spinoza’s Tractatus theologico-politicus, the Amsterdam book trader’s store, called ‘in ’t Martelaarsboek’, in the Dirk van Assensteeg already had, it appears, a particular clandestine aura. The first documented sign of this smack of controversy can be found in the proceedings of the city’s municipal Kerkenraad. On 29 November 1657, the latter church council discussed complaints about a ‘Mennonite bookbinder’ (‘een menisste boecken binder’) who worked in the Dirk van Assensteeg and was under the suspicion of having contacts with Socinians on a regular basis. Rieuwertsz was trained as a bookbinder and had Mennonite sympathies. The report about this bookbinder by one of the church council’s acting officials, one pastor Roehomius, reads the following:
Pastor Roehomius, charged to inform about Socinian meetings in [the] Dirk van Assensteeg, reports that in the same street [lives] a Mennonite bookbinder whose house is sometimes visited by many Socinian people to have their discussions. But that no one was able to tell [him] or find out whether any Socinian meeting was being held there. The brothers of the quarter are petitioned to keep a watchful eye on this [matter].30
Note in Jan Rieuwertsz’s own handwriting stating he had not put to press the work called Het compromis.
Another incident occurred about ten years later, in 1668, when Rieuwertsz (together with four other booksellers) was accused of illegally selling copies of Adriaan Koerbagh’s Een bloemhof van allerley lieflijkheyd sonder verdriet.31 Documented is that at least one Amsterdam publisher took advantage of Rieuwertsz’s controversial reputation. In 1665, the unnamed bookseller published, under Rieuwertsz’s name, a work entitled Het compromis tusschen d. Galenus Abramsz, nevens sijne medestanders en Tobias Govertz van den Wyngaert, nevens sijne medestanders (1665). Rieuwertsz noticed this fraud and decidedly he wrote below the imprint on the title-page of one of its extant copies the following: ‘I did not order the printing of this [work], directly or indirectly, this is false. Jan Rieuwertsz’ (‘Ik heb dit niet laten drukken direct of indirect dit is valsch. Jan Rieuwerts’).32
The Bibliotheca fratrum Polonorum, printed by Daniel Bakkamude and published by Rieuwertsz between 1665 and 1668, was seen as roundly pernicious.33 Because of the latter clandestinely issued Socinian venture, the Amsterdam Kerkenraad took the decision in late March 1669 to put Rieuwertsz’s shop under temporary surveillance again.34 Shortly afterwards, on 11 April, Protestant watchdogs reported to the consistory about his bookstore they had found out that
… several people, of different stripes, visit the store, and entertain strange discussions. Others tell that they gather in a room, but [that] is uncertain.35
Since members of the Kerkenraad were monitoring Rieuwertsz’s bookshop this may perhaps explain why Spinoza’s putative publisher chose to put to press the Tractatus theologico-politicus in late 1669 or early 1670 clandestinely. He took this bold decision to create a false trail so potential opponents of the work were thrown off the scent.
Concealment, as was the case in the majority of the editions and issues of Spinoza’s treatise, was a key technique Spinoza’s publisher (like many other publishers and printers in Amsterdam) used. He did this, arguably, to protect the author, his business interests, and those of the book’s printer, Israel de Paull. It might be conjectured Rieuwertsz had been inspired by the fictional Cologne publisher ‘Pierre Marteaux’. From about 1660 onwards, this alias was regularly used by publishers in the Netherlands and Germany who produced works ranging from political satire to illegal reprints and theology and pornography.36 Printing fictitious information on the title-pages of books had been already forbidden by the States of Holland in 1581. Whether Spinoza too was involved in the decision to mask his second book thus circumventing censorship is uncertain, but unquestionably he would have approved of this stratagem to evade an open identification with books he wrote and were launched by his publisher.
All Latin quarto editions (sigla: T.1 [1670], T.2 [1672]/T.2a [‘1670’], T.4n/T.4 [‘1670’], T.5 [‘1670’]) of the Tractatus theologico-politicus were published without Spinoza’s name. Their imprints falsely claim the work had been printed in Hamburg and issued by the fictitious publisher ‘Henricus Künraht’. From 1672 onwards, the later Latin quartos were antedated also ‘1670’. Moreover, three out of five issues of the Latin octavo edition (sigla: T.3v, T.3h, T.3s, dated 1673), printed in one volume with the explosive Philosophia S. Scripturae interpres, were cloaked with names of respected authors (Franciscus Henriquez de Villacorta, Daniel Heinsius, Frans de le Boe Sylvius), and spurious titles and imprints. Two other octavo variants were also masked.
The issue T.3e (1674) was clandestinely circulated in Britain. Because the foreign book market could not harm the publisher’s business interests he launched it with an English-style title-page layout this time openly mentioning the Tractatus theologico-politicus. Because the title-page of octavo issue T.3t (1673), modelled after the quarto editions, also mentions the Tractatus theologico-politicus and the Philosophia S. Scripturae interpres, it may be conjectured this variant had been distributed also abroad. The French pocket-sized duodecimo translation (sigla X.1, X.2, X.3; Y.1, Y.2, Y.3, Y.4/Y5, Y.n/Y.4/Y.5, all dated 1678) was even brought out with a staggering nine distinct title-pages, carrying three deliberately misleading titles.
The red herring created by the book’s publisher requires reasons that invite consideration. Disguising the books he published obviously required planning and creative title-page layout design. Before their printing, false title-pages had to be conceived or were modelled after existing works and set in type. These straightforward aspects of the book production process itself, though, probably did not require much money, time, and energy. Although copies with the fictitious title-pages were stored in bookshops to be sold to customers, it is hardly known whether and in what way Rieuwertsz père and other booksellers in the Dutch Republic displayed new books in their shopwindows, in bookcases, and on tables. An intriguing insight of this, though, is given by two unique seventeenth-century drawings, made by Dirck de Bray/Salomon de Bray, kept in the Amsterdam Rijksmuseum (illustrations 2.6 and 2.7).
From the first days after publication of the Tractatus theologico-politicus the radical contents of its first Latin quarto edition were quickly noticed, unleashed bitter dialogues, and caused controversial speculation throughout all layers of Dutch Reformed Church’s three-tier system (Kerkenraad, Classis, and Provincial Synod). Already on 8 April 1670, the Reformed church council of Utrecht requested legal measures to be taken against the ‘profane and blasphemous’ book. Documented is though that the first copies were impounded in mid-September 1671 from local bookstores on the explicit order of the Provincial States of Utrecht. On 16 May 1670, the Burgomasters of Leiden too charged the city’s first bailiff to seize all copies of ‘a certain treatise titled “Theologico-politicusˮ after similar complaints had been put forward by the municipal Kerkenraad’s watchdogs. Clearly, the local bookshops’ raiding shows booksellers risked being fined or otherwise persecuted for selling copies of Spinoza’s treatise.
Understandably, the clandestinely issued Tractatus theologico-politicus sank further underground in the early 1670s and could be sold to customers only illegally and secretly (both a product and a process, and shared knowledge about concealed information).37 Apart from the second quarto edition T.2, dated 1672, the publisher must have instructed printer De Paull to produce the title-pages of all other quartos with an imprint dated ‘1670’. Probably because the quarto variant issue T.2a, in all likelihood printed in 1672 or 1673, was also antedated ‘1670’. The third and fourth quartos carried falsely declaring the antedated publication year was ‘1670’, especially after 19 July 1674 when the provincial Hof van Holland, Zeeland, and West-Friesland officially proscribed the Tractatus theologico-politicus in a placard.
Ergo, because of this ‘libertine strategy’ copies of later newly laid-up editions with in their imprints the date ‘1670’ seemed to belong to the first and second edition produced before the authorities proscribed the book in the 1674 decree. Or, as Bamberger has put it:
Land and Gebhardt set the date of publication of T.2a as after 1674, some time between 1674 and 1677. The existence of T.2, however, invalidates their conclusion; the correct date of T.2a is 1672. Theoretically, of course, it would be possible that T.2a preceded T.2, but since all later quarto editions carry the date 1670, this possibility is unlikely. The purpose of the change from T.2 to T.2a as well as of the later editions dated 1670 was to make it appear that the copies were of the original edition, since a new edition would provide new ammunition for the groups clamoring for the ban of the book.38
In 1673, Spinoza’s publisher clandestinely issued the book once more in an octavo size, this time with fictitious title-pages mentioning false authors and titles, showing he had become even more careful. The Hof van Holland’s placard makes it plausible to hazard the guess that, from the summer of 1674 onwards, booksellers no longer openly displayed copies of Spinoza’s treatise in stalls and stores. The ruse was made complete in 1678. By that time the book’s publisher had two new editions of the French rendition and their separate issues disguised under three spurious titles (Traitté des ceremonies, Reflexions curieuses, and La Clef du santuaire) with nine title-pages in varying typographical layouts.
Although it may seem to have been relatively easy for readers in Dutch towns to lay hands on editions of Spinoza’s best-selling Tractatus theologico-politicus, one might ask how they could safely buy copies without jeopardizing their booksellers and causing problems for themselves, too. Perhaps, the red herring and the veil of secrecy created by the book’s publisher worked in two ways. First, it helped protecting Spinoza’s identity but, in particular, the publisher’s own business interests and that of the book’s printer Israel de Paull. That this worked is borne out of the fact that neither legal complaints nor indictments against these two men concerning the production of the treatise are known to have been documented. Second, one may wonder whether the ruse involving the different title-page design and the spurious titles, and especially of the Latin octavo edition and of the French translation, worked the other way around: perhaps it was intended to make it easy for readers to buy a copy of the Tractatus theologico-politicus in public without others knowing they did so.
Perhaps the fictitious title-pages and false titles of the French translation were cleverly fabricated ‘spinozist’ message forms. Messages that had a secret meaning, known only to those familiar with and sympathetic to Spinoza’s writings (or to those who were curious about it), readers who had been told about the disguise by kindred spirits. Someone in the know could buy a copy of Spinoza’s treatise under wraps by asking, for example, for the second edition of Totius medicinae idea nova by ‘Frans de le Boe Sylvius’. Or by expressing interest in the ‘sequel’ to the Operum historicum collectio by ‘Daniel Heinsius’. A customer could ask a bookseller for the Traitté des ceremonies, or order a copy of the new French translation La Clef du santuaire issued in Leiden by ‘Pierre Warnaer’. Of course, this is all a matter of speculation.
After the Hof van Holland’s 1674 placard had been issued, another stratagem to publish Spinoza’s Tractatus theologico-politicus with one or more distinct misleading spurious title-pages was perhaps to ease their way past custom officers when copies were peddled for instance to England or France. English book dealers specializing in Puritan printing shipped Bibles by the thousands and they also hid forbidden books and pirated Bibles in their ship cargo, too. Individual travellers bound for Britain also had to pass custom agents in Dutch ports. My speculation also implies booksellers involved in the clandestine booktrade selling Spinoza’s treatise must have been ‘familiar’ with the ruse and the spinozist ‘codes’ and knew what customers were actually looking for.
Whether this all was precisely how booksellers operated and readers secretly bought copies of Spinoza’s treatise is hard to know, but it would certainly explain how the publisher’s strategy may have worked in the public space of everyday life for certain ears and eyes only. The story of the treatise’s red herring is as fascinating as it is complex. It created much confusion in Spinoza’s lifetime, and even long after his death.
Even today, bibliographical entries in library catalogues make many mistakes in correctly identifying editions and issues of the Tractatus theologico-politicus. For a long period, scholars and bibliographers alike were greatly puzzled and misled by the publisher’s stratagem. Twentieth-century scholars only partially figured out the publisher’s ruse. So, it will come as no surprise that hitherto unknown facts about the editions and their variants came to light during the investigations for my bibliography.
4 Model of Description
General Introductory Remarks
All descriptions of ideal copy of each printed work in the bibliography are preceded by a concise introduction, presenting, in overview, the following series of practical rules of thumb (if known or applicable) for ready identification:
Caption indicating edition, print run, and separate issue with siglum.39
Short title, (fictitious) place of publication, (fictitious) printer, (fictitious) publisher, (fictitious) year of publication.
Introductory remarks about the work: (subsidiary) language, editor/translator, relevant information about (spurious) title-pages and/or false author, epigraphs, ornaments, tailpieces, and illustrations, (fictitious) imprint, contents, special text additions (such as poems), table of contents, indexes and lists of errata, or publication date, plain versions and lavish ones printed on luxury paper, cancels.
Key features for identification of edition and/or separate issue: prime typographical elements, unique and specific misprints, stop-press corrections, compositor’s misreading.
Additional features for identification.
Information (if any) about an edition’s surviving or lost ‘archetype’ (codex unicus, or pre-archetype, supposedly ‘free from errors’) from which, regarding textual transmission and tradition, the book’s first edition and/or issue(s) originated, such as autograph manuscripts, apographs (some of which served as printer’s copy). In the case of the Tractatus theologico-politicus also the printed exemplars of all later editions and/or issue(s), and the treatise’s translations are mentioned.40
Regarding the often misinterpreted and misleading term ‘imprint’ on printed late-seventeenth-century works’ title-pages, Spinoza’s writings included, it must be underlined imprints usually bear publishers’ names, be it true or fictitious. Only a small portion of books produced in that period have title-pages with imprints also mentioning true or false printers’ names. A rare exception, for example, is the aforementioned Een brief aan een vriendt. Its imprint refrains from mentioning a publisher’s name, but instead it states the book had been produced in Amsterdam and was ‘printed by Israel de Paull, in the Tuinstraat, [in] 1678’ (‘Gedruckt by Israël de Paull, in de Tuyn-straat, 1678’).
Description of ‘Ideal Copy’
For a vital understanding how the present bibliography should be used by readers, those distinct elements making up each separate description of ‘ideal copy’ of editions and their variant issues of Spinoza’s works printed in the seventeenth century are presented below.41 Conjectures in the descriptive models are put between square brackets.
Title-Page
A representative photograph of its title-page precedes each description of ideal copy of a single edition of a separate work. Part-title leaves are not necessarily reproduced. The title-page illustration is followed by a full quasi-facsimile description of its text (title, subtitle, imprint) in CAPITALS, small capitals, smaller lower-case letters (with their line breaks: |), according to their proper spelling, ligatures (æ and ſ [the archaic long s lower-case letter]), punctuation, indentation, and special symbols (&). Italics are indicated accordingly. Swash letters are indicated, serifed letters are not. If present, ornaments and rules are also mentioned. The year of publication is given according to its typographical appearance (for example: either ᴄ I ᴐ I ᴐ CLXX [so-called turned Cs] or in Arabic numerals: 1670). The title-pages of Spinoza’s printed works and their vignettes were all printed in black. Therefore indications of colour are lacking in the titles’ description of ‘ideal copy’.
Language(s) and Typography
Indicated are the language of the preface, main text, and glosses (either in italics and keyed letters or symbols), as well as all subsidiary languages printed throughout an edition or issue. Founts of cast type and number of lines in type area are specified as is the printing house, if known. Specimens of typography present on relevant printed text are supported by illustrations. Diacritics are used for first Latin editions.
Paper quality and watermarks are generally ignored in this bibliography.
Literals/Misprints/Hanging Sorts
Listed with their page number and lines are notable relevant literals, misprints, and/or hanging sorts on a title-page, in printed text and glosses, running headlines (captions, pagination), direction lines (signatures), even in the lists of errata. Generally, these flaws were caused by distribution by unexperienced apprentices. Subsequently, the compositor mistook those letters, numerals, and/or symbols when picking them for his composition stick. Especially in the Latin quartos of the Tractatus theologico- politicus printing flaws increased as more new editions were produced during the 1670s. Stop-press corrections are also listed, especially those helpful as key features for proper identification of editions and separate issues. The most striking disfiguring printing flaws are accompanied by illustrations. If known, peculiarities in extant copies in misprints are also indicated.
Bibliographical Fingerprints of Separate Parts
The bibliographical fingerprint allows the identification of each edition and separate issue of any given book composed by Spinoza. My approach is a variation of the Short Title Catalogue Netherlands (STCN) fingerprint.42 Valuable tools for the fingerprint are those signatures printed in each direction line directly underneath individual characters printed in the bottom text line. Each fingerprint forms a unique key for each separate impression of the handpress period (their signatures are never in the same position compared to the text printed above them). The fingerprints are taken from the first and last (if printed and visible) of the preliminaries, meaningful text portions, indexes, tables of contents, and from the appendices. Thus, in this bibliography, I have opted for a system of partial collation and the registration of a few positions of relevant signatures within the editions and issues. An example from the Latin edition (1663) of Spinoza’s ‘Principles of Philosophy’ shows how fingerprint notation can be compiled for both the first and last leaf of the prologue (with a list of errata):
The fingerprint notation for this then should be the following:
166304–a1 *2 ue$hin : a2 ** gine$pro
In this example the fingerprint includes the following details:
Year (1663).
Bibliographical format (04).
Number of each part (a1; a2), separated by a colon.
Signature (*2; **); text immediately printed above position of signature for a1 and a2 (ue$hin; gine$pro).
Spacing between words or letters indicated with the symbol $.
(Punctuation is also included in fingerprints, if applicable).
Signatures *2 and ** in the Preface of Renati Des Cartes Principiorum Philosophiae pars I et II; Cogitata Metaphysica.
Collation
The collation formula provides readers with the physical condition of a book’s contents. The Latin edition of Spinoza’s ‘Principles of Philosophy’ (as an illustration) has the following statement of format, gatherings, signatures, foliation, pagination in accordance with Bowers’s Principles of Bibliographical Description:
4o: *4 **4 A–R4 S2 [$3 (–M2 (part-title leaf)), S: $2]
78 leaves = pp. [16] 1–140
Regarding its notation, the following is given in the first line:
Bibliographical format (4o).
Signatures of all quires printed in symbols and alphabet characters in direction lines of entire work in the order they are bound; the superscript indicates the number of leaves in each gathering (*4 **4 A–R4 S2).
Information between square brackets: signing of gatherings in the volume ($3: the first three signatures of a quire are printed) and those quires lacking their specific signatures (part-title leaf M2 is missing) and/or exceptions ($2: gathering S is signed S and S2, hence: S3 is blank).
Non-signed leaves (if applicable) are indicated as
Collation Variant
Collation variants, i.e., intentional efforts to mend misprinted copy by stop-press-corrections and produce a better end product during printing of one single edition or variant issue, are separately indicated. For this reason only I consider uncorrected misprints in the text (misreading and mistakes by the typesetter, such as ‘Augensprung’ or picking the wrong type-metal cast sorts) and/or hanging sorts (caused by ink balls and/or the pressure of the press) in a single edition or issue, not as collation variants. Obviously, they are the result of the printing process during which such things happened and either remained unchanged or unnoticed for reasons of time and money. When misprints are corrected in a newly produced edition these must be considered editorial interventions by the typesetter and are part of that edition; these misprints are treated as collation variants. (In the handpress period, typesetters used [probably already corrected] printed copy as sample for the line-by-line production of reprints.)
Direction Line
All Spinoza’s printed works have signatures and catchword(s) of the first word of the following page in the direction lines at the end of the foot of each page to help the compositor in the book’s imposition. Non-verbal expressions can also be catchwords and, analogously, manuscripts can also contain such catchwords.
Running Headlines
All running headlines in the printed works are described according to their typographical appearance, position (recto/verso), and, if applicable, with the numbers of parts and chapters.
Contents
The contents of each separate edition or variant issue are listed with their signatures, including title-page, part-title leaves (if applicable), preliminaries, indexes, table of contents, and list(s) of errata.
Ornament on Title-Page
Vignettes decorating the title-pages of Spinoza’s works are described, along with their printing techniques, their dimensions (in millimeters), and their height in lines. References to literature (if applicable) and occurrences of ornaments in other printed works are given as well.
Decorated Initials
Descriptions are given of all ornamented initials in each separate edition and/or issue with their printing technique, dimensions (in millimeters), and their height in lines. Initials matching similar initials in other works are accompanied by references and illustrations.
Simple Initials
Smaller, generally closed, black initials are also described, with their technique, dimensions (in millimeters), and specific height.
Tailpiece Ornament(s)
Small tailpieces gracing Spinoza’s printed works are described with their techniques and their dimensions (in millimeters). References to literature (if applicable) and occurrences of ornaments in other printed works printed are also given.
Illustrations
All other illustrations, i.e., geometrical visuals and physical illustrations, in Renati Des Cartes Principiorum Philosophiae pars I et II; Cogitata Metaphysica (in Part 2 of the ‘Principles’), the Opera posthuma, and in De nagelate schriften (in the ‘Ethics’ and in the correspondence section), are described in their details and given with their page numbers.
Further Decoration
Other decoration in the printed works (typographical rules etc.) are treated, if applicable.
Copies
Each ‘ideal copy’ of Spinoza’s seventeenth-century printed works is followed by descriptions and provenances (if known) of extant copies (‘Copies examined’) of editions and their variant issues, either physical versions inspected in autopsy or high-quality scanned digital copies that have been given careful study.43 If known, the persistent identifiers of digitized copies of Spinoza’s printed works in specialist digital repositories and library databases available online and from Google Books are also included. Listed are also non-collated copies with specific details about work, binding, and their previous owners (if these are known). A great many copies were not physically examined. Relevant information about non-collated copies was mainly obtained from extensive email correspondence maintained with library staff members internationally, and from pictures taken from individual copies by staff members who were kindly enough to assist the project and to help solve many problems. It should be stressed, though, that in several cases material and provenance information about copies was borrowed from the bibliographical entries of electronic library catalogues.
Copies examined are listed in alphabetical order, with their library depository, and their shelf-mark. Moreover, non-collated copies are grouped by country, in alphabetical order with their separate shelf-marks. Copies reported by library holdings as having been destroyed or gone missing, as well as books offered for sale at auction or by private booksellers in the past, are not included in this bibliography for obvious reasons. These copies are ‘ghosts’; no longer available for study, they will remain hidden in collections, or be submerged within book collections of private collectors for decades to come. I have however included in the bibliography a few copies which private individuals were kind enough to bring to my notice.
All surviving copies have been assigned their own code in the present bibliography, indicating work and/or separate issue, language (if relevant for identification), bibliographical size, and numbers of single copy in the following chapters:
Chapter 2: ‘Principles of Philosophy’ and ‘Metaphysical Thoughts’, in quarto, Latin edition (PP/CM) and Dutch translation (BW/OG):
PP/CM# (followed by number of copy in chapter)
BW/OG#
Chapter 3: ‘Theological-Political Treatise’ (T), Latin quartos:
T.1# (followed by number of copy in chapter)
T.2#
T.2a#
T.4n#
T.4#
T.5#
Chapter 4: ‘Theological-Political Treatise’ (T), Latin octavos:
T.3v# (followed by number of copy in chapter)
T.3h#
T.3s#
T.3t#
T.3e#
Chapter 5: ‘Theological-Political Treatise’, French duodecimos:
X.1# (followed by number of copy in chapter)
X.2#
X.3#
Y.1#
Y.2#
Y.3#
Y.4/Y.5#
Y.n/Y.4/Y.5#
Chapter 6: ‘Theological-Political Treatise’ (T), English (E), quarto and octavo edition:
T-E/04# (followed by number of copy in chapter)
T-E/08#
Chapter 7: ‘Theological-Political Treatise’, Dutch quartos (De rechtzinnige theologant [DRT] and Een rechtsinnige theologant [ERT]):
DRT# (followed by number of copy in chapter)
ERT#
Chapter 8–10: posthumous writings, in quarto, Latin edition (OP) and Dutch translation (NS):
OP# (followed by number of copy in chapter)
NS#
If a number of a single copy is followed by a letter p in superscript it indicates the ‘Opera’ portrait is bound in.
I call upon future readers of the present study to mention in their monographs and papers individual copies with their unique code numbers.
Note
If relevant, brief notes are given about editions and their variant issues.
References
References are given to articles, monographs, and specialist studies discussing Spinoza’s seventeenth-century writings and its various printed editions and issues.
Spinoza’s printed works: identified extant copies (1,246) of editions and separate issues (1663–1694) arranged by year of publication.
Estimate of number of copies printed from one ream of paper (= 480 sheets).
For typesetting, printing, and proofreading: Wytze G. Hellinga, Kopij en druk in de Nederlanden. Atlas bij de geschiedenis van de Nederlandse typografie (Amsterdam: NV. Noord-Hollandsche Uitgeversmaatschappij, 1962); Percy Simpson, Proof-Reading in the Sixteenth, Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (London: Oxford University Press, 1970); Philip Gaskell, A New Introduction to Bibliography (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1972); Michael Twyman, The British Library Guide to Printing. History and Techniques (London: The British Library, 1998); Johan Gerritsen, ‘Printing Spinoza – Some Questions’, in Fokke Akkerman and Piet Steenbakkers (eds.), Spinoza to the Letter. Studies in Words, Texts and Books (Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill, 2005), pp. 251–262.
Tangible evidence of copy preparation is shown in three letters written by Willem van Blijenbergh* to Spinoza: 1665.01.16, Ep 20 (G 4/96–125); 1665.02.19, Ep 22 (G 4/134–144); 1665.03.27, Ep 24 (G 4/153–157). See further: Chapter 8, Initial Deliberations and Chapter 9, The Typesetting and Printing Process.
Gaskell, A New Introduction, pp. 33–38.
For compositors’ abilities: Joseph Moxon, Mechanick Exercises or the Doctrine of Handy-Works Applied to the Art of Printing. A Literal Reprint in Two Volumes of First Edition Published in the Year 1683, Theo L. de Vinne (ed.) (2 vols., New York, NY: The Typothetae of the City of New York, 1896), pp. 260–264. The first Dutch manual was published in 1801. Cf.: Philip Gaskell, etc., ‘An Annotated List of Printer’s Manuals to 1850’, Journal of the Printing Historical Society, 4 (1968), pp. 11–31.
Cornelis Kiliaan (c.1529–1607), author of the Etymologicum teutonicae linguae (Antwerp: 1574) and compositor-proofreader at Christophe Plantin’s ‘Gulden Passer’, took his academic degree from Leuven University. He studied Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and even taught law for a while.
‘New Letter is most subject to Hang, especially if not very smoothly Drest; Because the least Bur, or sharpness of its Angles, may catch in the Burs or Angles of the Letters that stand next them, and so make them stand aflope, and one Letter standing aflope is very subject to make all the other Letters in that Line stand aflope too.’ (Moxon, Mechanick Exercises, p. 216).
Ibid., pp. 228–232.
‘If two Lines of Copy make one Line in the Stick, then consequently ten Lines in the Copy will make five Lines in the Stick; twenty Lines in the Copy ten Lines in the Stick, &c.’ (ibid., p. 252).
Ibid., pp. 231 and 242–250 (correcting).
Ibid., pp. 345–356.
‘It is indeed possible to tie up the undistributed pages and keep them for reprinting, but this mostly happens only for smaller works, or for works in great demand, on account of the quantities of type needed and the dead capital represented by the stored metal.’ (Gerritsen, ‘Printing Spinoza’, pp. 251–252).
See: Chapter 3, Second Latin Quarto Edition.
Presumably, Rieuwertsz* had in any case no printing press until his official appointment as city printer, in succession to Johannes van Ravesteyn (1618–1681) in January 1675. In 1684, he is referred to in a deed as: ‘Jan Rieuwertsen, boeckdrucker’ (Isabella H. van Eeghen, De Amsterdamse boekhandel 1680–1725 [5 vols., Amsterdam: Scheltema/Holkema, 1960–1978], vol. 3, p. 63).
Rindert Jagersma and Trude Dijkstra, ‘Uncovering Spinoza’s Printers by Means of Bibliographical Research’, Quaerendo. A Quarterly Journal from the Low Countries Devoted to Manuscripts and Printed Books, 43 (2013), pp. 278–310, there at p. 292. Bakkamude: BL.
Socinians, ‘Polish Brethren’, or ‘Unitarians’, were heterodox Christians named after the Italian antitrinitarian theologian Fausto Soccini (1539–1604). Being victims of Polish Protestantism, many fled from Transylvania and East Prussia. Particularly Amsterdam became a hub of Socinian diaspora, centring around Andrej Wiszowaty (1608–1678). They accepted Jesus, believed the soul died with the body (except for those who sought to obey Christ’s commandments), and rejected many Christian dogmas while advocating separation between religion and state. For their denomination’s acceptance, they relied on Dutch Remonstrants, Collegiants (Chapter 6, n. 134), and Mennonites. For background: Lech Szczucki, ‘Socinian Historiography in the Late 17th Century. Benedykt Wiszowaty and his “Medulla historiae ecclesiasticae”’, in Frank Forrester Church and Timothy George (eds.), Continuity and Discontinuity in Church History. Essays Presented to George Huntston Williams on the Occasion of his 65th Birthday (Leiden: Brill, 1979, pp. 285–300). Tellingly, some of Spinoza’s adversaries labelled the Dutch philosopher as a supporter of Socinianism.
Anon., Bibliotheca fratrum Polonorum quos unitarios vocant, instructa Operibus Socini Senensis, nobilissimi Itali, Johannis Crellii Franci, Jonae Slichtingii à Bucowietz, equitis Poloni, exegeticis & Johannis Ludovici Wolzogenii baronis Austriaci (8 vols., Irenopoli [Amsterdam]: 1665–8). See further: Chapter 2, n. 103.
For Janssonius van Waesberge: René Descartes*, Correspondence 1643, Theo Verbeek, etc. (eds.) (Utrecht: Zeno, 2003), pp. 307–308.
Aeltsz* and Bakkamude* knew each other personally. In May 1666, both were fined and forced to pay 50 guilders for printing ‘Sinne-beelt’, an Orangist etching containing a poem by Smallegange.
‘Vreederijk Waarmond’ (Adriaan Koerbagh*), Een bloemhof van allerley lieflijkheyd sonder verdriet geplant door Vreederijk Waarmond, ondersoeker der waarheyd, … (Leiden [Amsterdam]: 1668). Cf. for the matching initial D: Jagersma and Dijkstra, ‘Uncovering Spinoza’s Printers’, pp. 290–291.
5061: ‘Inventaris van de Archieven van de Schout en Schepenen, van de Schepenen en van de Subalterne Rechtbanken’, ‘Strafzaken’, ms. ‘Schoutsrol, 1657–1797’, inv. no. 146, 23 August– 27 November 1668. Koerbagh* was in contact (late 1650s and 1660s) with the coterie around Franciscus van den Enden* and Spinoza, including among others Meyer* and Bouwmeester*. In 1668, he planned to have another work, Een ligt schijnende in duystere plaatsen, published in Utrecht. Its printing was halfway cancelled through its production and Koerbagh was arrested and interrogated. He readily admitted he had contacts with Spinoza without however detailing any information about their relations. On 27 July 1668, an Amsterdam inquiry committee sentenced him to ten years of forced labour in the Willige Rasphuis, a ten-year exile, and a penalty of 4,000 guilders for putting to press Een ligt. See for a present-day English edition: Adriaan Koerbagh, A Light Shining in Dark Places, to Illuminate on the Main Questions of Theology and Religion, Michiel Wielema (ed.) (Leiden: Brill, 2011). Aeltsz: BL.
Gerritsen, ‘Printing Spinoza’, p. 256. Fonteyn: BL.
Ibid., p. 255. Bakkamude/Aeltsz: BL.
Jagersma and Dijkstra, ‘Uncovering Spinoza’s Printers’, p. 293. The Tuinstraat was located in district 47 of the Amsterdam tax system. For De Paull’s the printing activities and his involvement in the production of Spinoza’s writings: ibid., esp. pp. 294–295 and 297–299 (list of works typeset by De Paull*). Cf. also: John Lane, ‘The Printing Office of Gerrit Harmansz van Riemsdijck, Israël Abrahamsz de Paull, Abraham Olofsz, Andries Pietersz, Jan Claesz Groenewoudt & Elizabeth Abrahams Wiaer c.1660–1709’, Quaerendo, 43 (2013), pp. 311–439, there at pp. 351–352. Lane (p. 333) concludes that in 1674 De Paull operated the office at the north of the Tuinstraat, ‘just east of the first cross street’. His research further establishes De Paull worked for and with the following book dealers and publishers: Gerrit Harmansz van Riemsdijck (1630–1666), Abraham Wittelingh (fl.1660–1664), Johannes van Someren* (1632–1678) and his later widow (fl.1679–1696), Van Someren and Jacob van Meurs (fl.1651–1680), the widow of Jan Jacobsz Schipper (fl.1670–1684/6), as well as Hendrick (1644–1709) and Dirk Boom I (1645/6–1680).
Jagersma and Dijkstra, ‘Uncovering Spinoza’s Printers’, p. 293, and passim. For the printed posthumous writings, see: Chapters 8, 9, and 10.
Timotheus Philadelphus, Een brief aan een vriendt, beschrijvende de tegenwoordige zware vervolging, en verdrukking van de vroome belijders, in Schotlandt (Amsterdam: 1678), 1678. Koelman: Wiep van Bunge, etc. (eds.), The Dictionary of Seventeenth and Eighteenth-Century Dutch Philosophers (2 vols., Bristol: Thoemmes Press, 2003), vol. 2, pp. 567–568. Title-page devices: Anja Wolkenhauer and Bernard F. Scholz (eds.), Typographorum emblemata. The Printer’s Mark in the Context of Early Modern Culture (Berlin: De Gruyter/Saur, 2018).
See: Chapter 4.
Simon Stevin, Vita politica: Het burgerlyk leven, …; Seer noodig om in alle Houkse ofte Cabeljaawse tijden: …, geleesen te warden (Amsterdam: 1684); J.R. Markon, Een vriendelijcke samen-spraack, tusschen een huysman en een heedendaaghse Quaaker, … (Amsterdam: 1684).
Johannes Coccejus*, Opera omnia theologica, exegetica, didactica, polemica, philologica (8 vols., Amsterdam: 1673–9). Cf. Gerritsen, ‘Printing Spinoza’, pp. 256–258, at n. 6.
For the 1653 placard: Koenraad O. Meinsma, Spinoza en zijn kring. Historisch-kritische studiën over Hollandsche vrijgeesten (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1896), pp. 3–5, annex 4. Dutch censorship: Weekhout, De boekencensuur.
‘Do. Roehomius in last gehadt hebbende om te vernemen naer de Sociniaentsche vergaederingen in dirk van assensteech verhaelt datter inde selve straeten is een menisste boecken binder in welcken huijse veele sociniaanse parsoonen nu en dan haeren ingank nemen, ende tsaemen haeren discourtse maecken maer bij niemant te conne vernemen ofter uijt vinden datter eenige Sociniaentse vergadering werden gehouden. Wort de broeders des quartiers gerecommandeert een waeckende oge daer tegens te houden.’ (376: ‘Archief van de Hervormde Gemeente; Kerkenraad’, ‘Algemeen’, ms. ‘Protocolboeken’, inv. no. 9, fol. 226r). The clandestine ring around Rieuwertsz’s bookshop was further criminalized in an anonymously-published pamphlet published in 1655: Het tweede deel van de ondekte veinzingh der hedendaeghze gheest-dryvers and socinianen (The Second Part of the Disclosed Disguise of the Present Ghost-Beaters and Socinians). In the broadside, it is claimed Collegiants ‘oft Galenisten’ all gathered ‘in the shop of Jan Rieuwertsz, i.e., the school of mockers’ (‘in Jan Rieuwers Winkel oft in de Schoole der spotters’). Rieuwertsz: BL.
‘Vrederijk Waarmond’ (A. Koerbagh*), Een bloemhof, 1668. Cf. further: Van Eeghen, De Amsterdamse boekhandel, vol. 3, p. 88.
Clasina G. Manusov-Verhage, ‘Jan Rieuwertsz, marchand libraire et éditeur de Spinoza’, in Akkerman and Steenbakkers (eds.), Spinoza to the Letter, pp. 237–250, there at p. 243.
Anon., Bibliotheca fratrum Polonorum. Bakkamude: BL.
[in margine: ‘winckel van Jan Riewerts’] ‘ad notam wordt genomen dat agt gegeven werde op de winckel van Jan Rieuwerts inde dirck van Assensteech.’ (376: ‘Archief van de Hervormde Gemeente; Kerkenraad’, ‘Algemeen’, ms. ‘Protocolboeken’, inv. no. 12, p. 22 [21 March 1669]); ‘Blijft ad Notam, de winckel van Jan Rieuwerts insgelijcx’ (ibid., p. 23 [28 March 1669]); ‘Broeders van dat quartier sullen vernemen naer de winckel van jan Rieuwertse en het geene daer passeert’ (ibid., p. 24 [4 April]).
‘… verscheyde menschen van alderhande soerten, daer inde winckel komen. en vreemde discoursen houden, ander seghen wel van in een kamer bij een te comen, doch is niet zeecker.’ (376: ‘Archief van de Hervormde Gemeente; Kerkenraad’, ‘Algemeen’, ms. ‘Protocolboeken’, inv. no. 12, p. 26).
Elly Groenenboom-Draai, De Rotterdamse Woelreus. De Rotterdamsche Hermes van Jacob Campo Weyerman (1720–’21): Cultuurhistorische verkenningen in een achttiende-eeuwse periodiek (Amsterdam and Atlanta, GA: Rodopi, 1994), pp. 144–146. See: Leonce Janmart de Brouillant, Histoire de Pierre du Marteau, imprimeur à Cologne (Paris: Quantin, 1888).
Background: Beryl L. Bellman, ‘The Paradox of Secrecy’, Human Studies, 4 (1981), pp. 1–24.
Frits Bamberger, ‘The Early Editions of Spinoza’s Tractatus Theologico-Politicus. A Bibliohistorical Examination’, Studies in Bibliography and Booklore, 5 (1961), pp. 9–33, there at p. 17.
The concept of ‘issue’ is discussed in: Fredson Bowers, Principles of Bibliographical Description (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1949), p. 79; G. Thomas Tanselle, ‘The Concept of Ideal Copy’, Studies of Bibliography, 33 (1980), pp. 18–53, pp. 27–31; Gaskell, A New Introduction, p. 315.
For the terms ‘exemplar’ and ‘archetype’, see: Paul Maas, Textual Criticism, Barbara Flower (ed. and transl.) (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1958), p. 25.
For a discussion on ideal copy: Bowers, Principles, pp. 113–123 and 404–406; Lorene Pouncey, ‘The Fallacy of the Ideal Copy’, The Library, 2 (1978), pp. 108–118; Tanselle, ‘The Concept’; Matthijs van Otegem, A Bibliography of the Works of Descartes (1637–1704) (2 vols., Utrecht: Zeno, 2002), vol. 1, pp. xiv–xviii.
For background: Paul C.A. Vriesema, ‘The STCN Fingerprint’, Studies in Bibliography, 39 (1986), pp. 389–401.
For background: David Pearson, Provenance Research in Book History: A Handbook (London: British Library, 1994).