Colard Mansion
Colard Mansion (* before 1440 , † after 1484 ) was a Flemish bookseller , scribe and printer of the 15th century.
Life
Mansion worked as a bookseller in Bruges from 1454 and at the same time worked as a scribe, translator and manuscript dealer . He concluded contracts with his customers from the aristocracy and the bourgeoisie for the production of certain books and coordinated the various steps such as writing the texts by hand, decorating them with colored illuminations and finally binding.
Since 1474, Mansion used the new art of letterpress printing to create the texts. From this time onwards, the first printed texts were written in English by William Caxton , who probably relied on Mansion's printing press. In addition, the first printed texts in French were created at Mansion . Two of the 25 Mansion prints that are still known today were written in Latin .
The Mansions books were lavishly furnished with illuminated manuscripts added after printing . One of his books, the Ovide Moralisé, contains woodcuts and the French translation of Boccaccio's De Casibus Virorum Illustrium and is the first book ever to contain copperplate engravings . Mansion also published less extensive books with a maximum of 20 to 30 pages. He is also known as a translator of texts from Latin into French, including Le dyalogue des creatures , which was printed in 1482 by the Dutchman Gerard Leeu .
Among the customers of the books Mansions were Charles I. de Croÿ and in 1482 Maria, the widow of Ludwig I (Ligny, St. Pol and Brienne) . Little is known about the bookseller's fate after May 1484; he probably moved to Picardy near Abbeville .
Famous works
- Illuminated manuscripts
- 1467: Romuleon , dedicated to Philip the Good of Burgundy . Author was Benvenuto Rambaldi da Imola , translation by Jean Miélot .
- 1472 or later: Penitence d'Adam (Adam's Testament), dedicated to Ludwig von Bruges .
- printed and equipped books
- 1474-1475: Recuyell of the Historyes of Troyes with William Caxton and Johann Veldener .
- 1475: The Game and Playe of Chesse with William Caxton. The author was Jacobus de Cessolis , the translation from the French was done by Caxton.
- 1476: Le Jardin de dévotion by Petrus de Alliaco . Mansion's first book as a freelance publisher.
- 1476: De la ruine des nobles hommes et femmes (De Casibus Virorum Illustrium) by Giovanni Boccaccio, translated into French by Laurent Premierfait . The stitches were probably made by Marc le Bongeteur . A collection of nine colored engravings is now in the Museum of Fine Arts , Boston , Massachusetts , USA.
- 1476: Controversie de Noblesse by Buonaccorso da Montemagno or Surse de Pistoye , translation by Jean Miélot.
- 1479: Opera: De caelesti hierarchia. De ecclesiastica hyerarchia. De divinis nominibus. De mystica theologia. Epistolae . Translation from Greek into Latin of all works of the Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagita by Ambrogio Traversari .
- after 1480: Guillaume Caoursin : Rhodiae Obsidionis urbis descriptio ( Siege of Rhodes (1480) ).
- before June 1481: Valere Maxime (The Life of St. Hubert ), dedicated to Philippe de Hornes .
- 1482: Dyalogue des creatures , translated by Mansion from the Latin text Dialogus creaturarum .
- 2012: German by Eberhard König: Confrontation of the creatures: The fable manuscript from 1482 with 121 miniatures by two Bruges masters translated by Colard Mansion for Lodewijk van Gruuthuse . Editor: Heribert Tenschert . Antiquariat Bibermühle, Ramsen, Switzerland, ISBN 978-3-906069-00-5 .
- 1484: Ovide moralisé . Ovid's Metamorphoses, rearranged and partially re-translated by Mansion. Illustrated with woodcuts.
- without a date
- Les Evangiles des quenouilles , by an anonymous poet, ca.1480 .
- La doctrine de bien vivre en ce monde , also called Donat Espirituel by Jean Gerson .
literature
- Charles Louis Carton: Colard Mansion et les imprimeurs brugeois du 15me siècle . 1848.
- William Blades: The Life and Typography of William Caxton, Englands First Printer, with Evidence of his Typographical Connection with Colard Mansion, the Printer at Bruges . Lilly, London.
- Jakob Franck : Mansion, Colard . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 20, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1884, pp. 238–245.
Web links
- Prints from Colard Mansion in the complete catalog of incandescent prints
Individual evidence
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Mansion, Colard |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Mansion, Colart |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Flemish bookseller and printer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | before 1440 |
| DATE OF DEATH | after 1484 |