The Main Reading Room (the Los Angeles Times Reading Room) of the Doheny Memorial Library is adorned with a frieze of printers’ marks used by fourteen European printers of incunabula.[1] The printers’ marks were designed by Giovanni Smeraldi in 1932. From left to right, starting from the south-west corner, are the marks of Fust and Schoeffer, Juan de Rosenbach, Johann Froben, Richard Pynson, The St. Albans Printer/Press, Guyot Marchant, Jean du Pré, William Caxton, Johannes Trechsel, Aldus Manutius, Nicolas Jenson and Johannes de Colonia, John Siberch, Berthold Rembolt, and John Scolar. Scolar’s mark appears only once, above the desk on the side wall. The other thirteen printers’ marks repeat in sequence around the frieze.
William Caxton’s mark is featured in the center, directly above the clock. He is credited with printing the first book in the English language, the Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye, ca. 1474. This was Caxton’s own translation of Recueil des Histoires de Troye by Raoul Lefèvre, a courtly romance written in 1464 for the dukes of Burgundy. The first two books of the Recueil recount the destruction of Troy by Hercules; the third book recounts the legend of the Trojan War. The dukes of Burgundy claimed to descend from the mythological Hercules, and Lefèvre’s Recueil enhanced the story of their lineage.[2] It was with the support of Margaret of York, the Duchess of Burgundy, that William Caxton chose to translate and print his Historyes of Troy.[3] He printed it in Bruges, which was under Burgundian control at the time.[4]
Each of the other thirteen printers pioneered new techniques, fonts, or established the first printing press in their city. Quite a few printed classical texts, as was valued in the Humanist tradition of the Renaissance. Fust and Schoeffer (Mainz) published Cicero’s De Officiis, the first printing of a Latin classical text north of the Alps[5]; Jean du Pré (Paris) printed a French translation of the Justinian Institutes[6]; Nicolas Jenson (Venice) printed one of the earliest editions of Caesar[7]; Richard Pynson printed the first Classic in London, the works of the Roman poet, Terence.[8]
Aldus Manutius (Venice) published many Classics, including Aristotle, Plato, Homer, and Virgil. He is best known for preserving ancient Greek literature by printing with a typeface based on classical Greek.[9] He also founded the New Academy, an association of Hellenistic scholars who spoke only in Greek.[10] He published Erasmus’ translation of Hecuba by Euripides, with permission from Erasmus to freely edit any errors.[11] In addition to his printer mark in the Reading Room, Manutius is also depicted in the Treasure Room, in a mural by Samuel Armstrong, “carrying out his dream of multiplying the Greek classics through the new invention of printing.”[12]
The St. Albans Press (St. Albans, England) printed The Chronicles of England, a legend that linked the founding of Britain to the Trojan Brutus. Brutus was the great-grandson of Aeneas, who was the cousin of Hector and one of the few to survive the Trojan War. Brutus discovered a group of Trojan descendants in Greece, living under the bondage of King Pandras as punishment for the death of Achilles. Brutus led the Trojans, overpowered the oppressive Greeks, and upon praying to Goddess Diana, was led to settle in “Ile that is called Albyon,” now known as Britain.[13] There is little historical evidence to support that Britain was actually founded by descendants of Troy. The desire to establish a connection to the legend of Troy, though, is present in some early printing, just as it is at our university today.
References:
[1] Incunable refers to books printed in Europe between 1450 - ca. 1500.
[2] Diane P. Thompson, “The Greek Gods Become Human: Raoul Lefevre’s The Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye,” Troy, Northern Virginia Community College, January 28, 2011.; Lisa Deam, “Faking It: Fact and Fabrication in the Presentation of the Past,” The Cresset: A review of Literature, the arts and public affairs 73, no. 2 (2009): 15-20.
[3] “William Caxton (c.1422 - 1492),” BBC History, 2014, https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/caxton_william.shtml.
[4] “Bruges History,” Visit Bruges, Stad Brugge, https://www.visitbruges.be/en/things-to-do/about-bruges/history.
[5] “Fust and Schoeffer in Mainz,” Gutenberg & After: Europe's First Printers, 1450-1470, Digital Princeton University Library (DPUL), 2023.
[6] Edward Eliott Willoughby,“The Cover Design,” The Library Quarterly 24, no. 3 (July 1954): 248, https://doi.org/10.1086/61808.
[7] “Jenson Caesar,” Incunabula at Vassar, Vassar College Libraries, 2023, https://www.vassar.edu/specialcollections/exhibit-highlights/2001-2005/Incunabula/image6.html.
[8] “Pynson's 'Froissart', 1623,” Frost Books & Artifacts, 2024, https://www.f-b-a.com/product/pynsons-froissart-1623/.
[9] Helen Barolini, Aldus and His Dream Book: An Illustrated Essay, (Italica Press, 1992), 13-14.
[10] Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th ed. (1911), under “Manutius."
[11] “43. Desiderius Erasmus, trans. Hecuba & Iphigenia in Aulis Euripidis tragoediae in Latinam tralatae (1507),” In aedibus Aldi: the legacy of Aldus Manutius and his press, Harold B. Lee Library, 1995, https://exhibits.lib.byu.edu/aldine/aldus.html.
[12] “Edward L. Doheny Jr. Memorial Library,” 1932, box 166, folder 1, Charlotte Brown Doheny Memorial Library files, USC Libraries Special Collections, Los Angeles, CA, 18.
[13] Friedrich W. D. Brie, The Brut: Or The Chronicles of England, (Routledge, 2019), 4.
Photo credit: "Printers marks, reference room, Doheny Library, USC, 1932-2000"
The tympanum above the main entrance of Doheny Memorial Library is adorned with a mosaic by Roger Hayward and a roundel by Joseph Conradi. Much can be learned about the intended symbolism behind these pieces in USC University archives; the Charlotte Brown records overview the library’s construction in 1932.
The relief in the center features a teacher and two students. The Master teacher points to a scroll with the Greek letters Alpha and Omega, “symbols of all knowledge past and to be.”[1] An olive tree and an oak tree appear in the background, symbolizing knowledge and strength, respectively. This medallion was meant to be timeless and universal: the clothing of the figures “belong[s] to no style or period.”[2] However, considering the bearded teacher and the letters on the scroll, it certainly seems to evoke teaching in the Ancient Greek tradition.
While the central medallion evokes knowledge, the mosaic spandrels portray legends of brain and brawn. On the left, Hercules’ eleventh labor is depicted: retrieving the golden apples. To do so, he had to pull a clever trick on Atlas. On the right, Alexander the Great is shown cutting the Gordian Knot with his sword. It was prophesied that the one to untangle the complicated knot was destined to rule Asia. Instead, Alexander the Great cut through it, demonstrating both his wit and strength.
This interpretation of the mosaics appears in the Charlotte Brown university archives:
This is the interpretation of the first allegory; Hercules is the student who is set the labor of acquiring knowledge. Atlas is that great body of research and scholarship, the library, which, if the student have the wit to turn it to his own uses, will obtain for him the rich fruits of learning. The meaning of the second allegory: whoever would inherit the kingdom of true learning must cut the knot of traditional thought.[3]
References:
[1] “Edward L. Doheny Jr. Memorial Library,” 1932, box 166, folder 1, Charlotte Brown Doheny Memorial Library files, USC Libraries Special Collections, Los Angeles, CA, 3.
[2] Ibid., 12.
[3] Ibid.
The stained glass windows in the main foyer of the Doheny Memorial Library were designed by Wilbur Herbert Burnham.[1] The style was “inspired by Fifteenth Century English glass, in which heraldic devices and medallions were placed on quarry backgrounds,” permitting both “richness in color” and “plenty of light to filter through.”[2] Each lancet window features three medallions: seals of foreign universities on the bottom, American universities in the middle, and representations of seminal philosophers and scholars on top. Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle appear in the north windows, while Moses Maimonides, Thomas Aquinas, and Francis Bacon appear in the south windows.
Socrates is depicted with the cup of poison hemlock he was ordered to drink for his death sentence. Curiously, he is shown holding a scroll, though Socrates famously avoided writing down his ideas himself. The central window portrays Plato with a book and scroll, in reference to his Republic. In the rightmost window, Aristotle holds a scroll and a rule. The medallions of the philosophers are “framed with a border of laurel, symbolizing honor and reward.”[3]
References:
[1] This main foyer is referred to as the “Delivery Hall” in the Charlotte Brown records.
[2] “Edward L. Doheny Jr. Memorial Library,” 1932, box 166, folder 1, Charlotte Brown Doheny Memorial Library files, USC Libraries Special Collections, Los Angeles, CA, 15.
[3] Ibid.