Gent, Joos Lambrecht, 1538

Abstract

Much of the type material used by printers in the Netherlands came from abroad, but no less important were the types cut by Netherlandish punch-cutters such as Henric Pieterszoon Lettersnijder, Jan Thibault and especially Joos Lambrecht. A typical Renaissance figure and a man of great culture and wide-ranging knowledge, Lambrecht was not only an excellent printer — possibly even the best there was in the whole of the Netherlands — but also refers to himself repeatedly in his editions as a punch-cutter. His other activities are also worthy of note: he was a writer, a poet, a philologist who played a role in the development of the Dutch language, and a sympathiser with the new ideas in religion, a circumstance which led to many of his editions becoming suspect and being placed on the Index. During the seventeen years that he worked in Ghent (1536–1553) some seventy editions, as far as is known, were produced by his printing house. They are of various sorts, but all are now extremely rare. It is interesting to note that the majority are no longer in Latin but in Dutch and French; likewise, the use of roman types, a sign of the penetration to Ghent of Italian humanism, predominates. As a graphic artist and book illustrator — whether or not he engraved his own woodcuts or had someone else do it for him is immaterial here — he had superb taste and a fine feeling for quality. In 1543 he printed the frieze Il Trionfo della fede after a drawing by Titian. Like many of his contemporaries, he was eventually obliged to leave his home for religious reasons to seek safety elsewhere. It is possible that he went to Wesel.