Ellen van Heteren
A mystery traveller
In the mid-seventeenth century, the Dutch city of Haarlem was a centre of culture, learning and art. In this city lived Theodorus Schrevelius, humanist and poet. Born in Haarlem in 1572, Schrevelius studied the classic languages. He became conrector and later rector of the Latin School in his home city. After twenty-four years of service, he was fired because of his remonstrant religious orientation and moved to Leiden, where he also filled the role of rector. Later, he was able to move back to Haarlem. Nearing the end of his life, he wrote the Harlemias, which added to a long list of publications by his hand. After over three hundred years, a copy of this book ended up in the special collections of the Royal Dutch Institute in Rome (KNIR). What is the story of this mystery traveller?
The Harlemias, printed in Haarlem by Thomas Fonteyn in 1648, was written because of Schrevelius’s love for the city in which he was born and raised. The author wrote a history of this city from its first building blocks to his own time. In doing so, he covered many different aspects of this history, which he divided into six ‘books’. The first book tells the tale of the city’s origins, the second of the famous siege of Haarlem, and the third that of the Dutch Revolt and reformation that followed. From the fourth book on, the subjects get more thematic: The fourth book summarizes all the city’s privileges and nobility; the fifth describes the rise of institutions such as the military, schools and police; the sixth book is all about the civility of Haarlem, its important magistrates, learned men, artisans and artists, and all other workers. The work was originally written in Latin and published in 1647, but soon it was rewritten in vernacular Dutch, because the author wanted to share his love for his city with everyone and not just the learned elite, as Schrevelius shares in his foreword to the reader. The books are accompanied by several poems and laudatory speeches.
After this engraving follows the typographical title page on which it, of course, states the entire title, the author and the impressum. On the back of this folio, someone has left their initials or some type of illegible signature. The engraving was an intricate part of the book as the same engraving is found in all other books from the print of 1648. A reprint from 1754 shows a different engraving. The larger part of the book is printed in a gothic letter, but some exceptions occur when names, poems or any type of citation is written.
Overall, the book and its paper are in excellent condition. There are no tears or breaks and no signs of biological infestations except for a little bookworm who left tiny holes in pages 247-383. With the exception of the end leaves and title pages, not a single marginalium can be found. These first few pages do carry interesting information about the provenance of the book. Most of these are, unsurprisingly, stamps and pencil-written signatures of libraries that held this book. Far more interesting, however, is a loose piece of paper that was put between the pages of the book. It contains an invitation for two persons to a concert that was organised by the Acedemie de France a Rome. A previous owner thus was somehow related to the French Academy of Rome. The catalogue of the KNIR library only reveals that the object was added to the collection in 2018, although I find this somewhat unlikely. Unfortunately, the KNIR does not seem to keep any other information about when or how this book came into the possession of the KNIR, whether it has ever been in the French Institute, or when it was bought by or donated to either institution.
Bredero’s complete works incomplete
Object Description
The book has a plain, white, parchment binding with two extra large cover leaves that are folded towards the book block in order to protect it. The block itself is thick and small (octavo format), which makes quickly leafing through the book not an easy task. The pages themselves all look very similar. The paper is used optimally by printing as much text as possible on the page. This makes for a crowded layout. There is no use of initials or bigger capitals. This lack of reading markers makes navigating through the text difficult, giving the idea that the book was mainly meant to be read intensively; page by page, not to leaf through it quickly to find a specific passage.
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The work opens with only a typographical title page including the author, the title of the work, and a woodcut author’s portrait. Every other work opens with a similar titlepage with the same woodcut author’s portrait on it. The rest of the book does not include any additional engravings or woodcut images. In spite of the strong similarities between the different works, as caused by the repetition of the title page layout, the works were not printed together. Every work contains its own collation starting with ‘A’. For example the work Lucelle has the collation 8º : A – D8 E4 and Moortje, which follows Lucelle, has 8º : A – F8. Thus, all the works were printed separately and bound together in one binding.
Comparing Hartgers & Van der Plasse
The Hartgers edition differs in some respects from Van der Plasse’s one. Hartgers removed Van der Plasse’s name and address from every titlepage and replaced them with his own. The rest of the title page layout stayed intact. That makes Hartgers choice to preserve the two forewords by Van der Plasse remarkable. Not every change or choice catches the eye instantly; there are also some less visible changes. The 1644 edition contains far less songs (only 80 out of the original 200) and the letters section was removed altogether. Literary scholar Jeroen Jansen, suggests that Hartgers wanted to publish a more polite version of Bredero’s text. This might explain why Hartgers removed some of the more scandalous and amorous songs. But Jansen’s argument does not explain why the letters section is removed too. I suggest their actuality was not what is had been. Publishing the letters would have created a distance between the book and its reader, because the latter could not recognise the addressee anymore.
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Interpretation and Conclusion
Based on the observations, I suggest that Hartgers wanted to republish an inexpensive Alle de wercken edition. He tried to preserve as much as possible from the first edition: the typographic titlepages are all copied, except for the publishers name, and even the forewords by Van der Plasse got reused. The more Hartgers could take over from the former copy, the less expensive his commission was for the printer. The inexpensive character of the book also shines through in the page layout. The space on the paper is used optimally by printing as much text on it as possible without inserting any additional engravings or woodcut images. Hartgers’ changes mostly include removing original parts. He did not add any extra poems or letters for example. Although Hartgers got some parts removed on an ideological basis, his choice saved him some money too.
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All in all, Hartgers tried his best to publish a text that would not cost him too much money. Methods he used to accomplish this were the reusing and removing of different parts in order to keep the costs low.
When, during the seventeenth century, the Amsterdam book production went through an enormous growth, its literature started to bloom too. One author that made a name for himself during those days is Gerbrandt Adriaansz. Bredero (1585-1618). In the last seven years of his life, he wrote an oeuvre existing of plays, poems, songs and letters. Most of Bredero’s work was published posthumously by his long-time friend and admirer Cornelis Lodewijckz. van der Plasse (1585 – 1641). Van der Plasse got the monopoly on publishing Bredero’s work and tried to publish as much of his texts as possible. In 1638 he decided to publish Bredero’s complete works in the bundle Alle de wercken, soo spelen, gedichten, brieven en kluchten (All the works, plays, poems, letters and farces). After his death in 1641, Van der Plasse’s publishing house closed which made others able again to publish texts by Bredero.
Lisette Gosens
The first to do so in 1644 was bookseller Joost Hartgers (or ‘Hartgerszoon’), who republished Bredero’s Alle de wercken. According to the information on the many titlepages the book counts, Hartgers owned a bookshop in the Gast-huys-steeg in Amsterdam, close to Dam Square, until August 1654. Although he is named as publisher and bookseller, Hartgers left the printing process for other printing houses. In his first few years in the business, he published some literary works, those of Vondel, Hooft and Huygens for example, but later on he shifted more and more towards publishing travel books and journals. Little more is known of Hartgers and his company. In this essay I will pay attention to this lesser known edition of Bredero’s Alle de wercken and its publisher. The copy I used for research is conserved at KNIR under the signature ‘octavo L179’ (8° : A – F8 ; A – D8 E4 ; A – D8 E4 ; A – F8 ; A – D8 E4 ; A – E8 ; A – D8 E4 ; A – E8 ; A – C8 D4 ; A – C8 D4 ; A – D8; A – E8 F4).
3 - Bredero, G.A. Alle de wercken,
soo spelen, gedichten, brieven en kluchten
(Amsterdam, 1644) titlepage Treur-spel van
Roddrick ende Alphonsus, KNIR, Rome.
Bibliography
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Bredero, G.A. Alle de wercken, soo spelen, gedichten, brieven en kluchten. Amsterdam: Joost Hartgers, 1644.
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Jansen, J. ‘Drie decennia boekenzorg. Cornelis vander Plasse en Gerbrand Bredero’. In Jaarboek voor Nederlandse boekgeschiedenis. Amsterdam: Vantilt, 2019. 53-77.
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Kleerkooper, M.M. & Van Stockum, W.P. jr. De boekhandel te Amsterdam, voornamelijk in de 17e eeuw. Biographische en Geschiedkundige Aanteekeningen. Volume 1 & 2. Den Haag: Nijhoff, 1914-1916.
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STCN, ‘Joost Hartgersz.’ Geraadpleegd via https://picarta.oclc.org/psi/xslt/
DB=3.11/SET=1/TTL=131/NXT?FRST=1 on 8 december 2021. -
Van Strien, T. & Stronks, E. ‘Gerbrandt Adriaansz. Bredero’. In Het hart naar boven. Religieuze poëzie uit de zeventiende eeuw. Amsterdam: Amsterdam Univeristy Press, 1999.
1 - Bredero, G.A. Alle de wercken, soo spelen, gedichten, brieven en kluchten (Amsterdam, 1644) B8-C1, KNIR, Rome.
2 - Bredero, G.A. Alle de wercken, soo spelen, gedichten, brieven en kluchten (Amsterdam, 1644) ‘Aan den leser’, KNIR, Rome.