16th century printings from Mulhouse

The Mulhouse municipal library holds a number of early 16th-century works printed by Peter Schmid, a mysterious printer from Mulhouse about whom little is known. Almost all of these documents were printed in Mulhouse, although some were printed in Switzerland or Germany. Some are reprints of works by great contemporary figures such as Paracelsus, Luther, and Brant. Often beautifully decorated, they bear witness to the cultural importance of the town of Mulhouse in the years 1550-1560 and its role as a major centre for the dissemination of modern ideas.

The partnership between Peter Schmid and Jean Schirenbrand (1557-1559)

In 1557, Jean Schirenbrand and Peter Schmid set up their first printing shop in the former Franciscan convent of Mulhouse, which the town rented to them for two years at a cost of 20 florins. There are no documents giving us any information about Jean Schirenbrand, his origins, his exact profession or what became of him after he parted company with his partner in April 1559. On the other hand, we know more about Peter Schmid. Originally from Wittenberg, he worked there with his father at Jean Lufft, Luther's printer. It was probably there that he learned his trade. Later, he was employed as a proofreader by Christophe Froschauer, Zwingli's printer, in Zurich. He also seems to have studied seriously, as he translated several Greek and Latin works.
Schmid faced financial difficulties as soon as he arrived in Mulhouse. In 1554, lacking the funds to set up their printing works, the two partners took out a loan from the preacher Martin Wetzler, who had taken refuge in Mulhouse at the time. They also took out a loan of 400 florins from the town of Mulhouse.

Despite this, financial difficulties began to mount for the two partners, as their printing works did not seem to be making enough money to pay the rent of 20 florins. Aware of the financial situation of their business, Jean Schirenbrand left the shop in 1559. It was at this time that the first inventory was drawn up – kept in the Mulhouse town archives – providing information on the works published between 1557 and 1559, as well as on the equipment, engravings, and drawings held at the printing works at the time. These inventories were published in extenso by archivist Jos. Coudre in the Bulletin du Musée historique de Mulhouse of 1877. The information provided by the inventories is of vital importance for the history of printing in the 16th century: they tell us the price of books and equipment.

As well as counting the books printed during the two years of the Schrienbrand-Schmid association's existence between 1557 and 1559, these inventories also list the copies still on deposit and the price of each book. This is all the more important for the history of this workshop than for all the other printing works in Strasbourg, Haguenau, Sélestat or Colmar, as we have very few sources on the price of books.
In 1877, Jos. Coudre highlighted the financial difficulties of the printing works: only a few dozen works had been printed, but they were of little importance: a prayer book, 3 books on morality and religious polemic, 4 works on medicine and hygiene, a treatise on calligraphy, a syllabary, a large number of songs, a few plays, a volume of secular oracles, a collection of stories and almanacs of various kinds.

Peter Schmid (1559-1564)

After the departure of Jean Schirenbrand and until 1564, Peter Schmid worked alone in his workshop. During this five-year period, he printed around thirty works: treatises on medicine and theology, and historical works. To these must be added the few books mentioned above that came off the Schirenbrand-Schmid presses. But these works were not enough to cover the financial costs: Schmid accumulated loans and debts throughout his activity as a printer in Mulhouse.
On 15 May 1564, he signed an acknowledgement of debt to the town of Mulhouse for 647.5 florins. It was at this point that he left Mulhouse. It is known that he continued to work in Frankfurt as a printer, in particular for the publishers Simon Huter and Sigismond Feyerabend, and that he frequently signed his Latinised name –Fabricius or Fabritius, depending on the fashion of the time. He had already used it between 1561 and 1564 while working in Mulhouse. Peter Schmid's subsequent fate is unknown. The last publication signed with his name dates from 1588. In the absence of any later discoveries, we can only assume that he died shortly afterwards.

Prints held by the Mulhouse Municipal Library

The Mulhouse municipal library now holds a number of prints by Peter Schmid, three of which date from the period when Schmid worked in collaboration with Jean Schirenbrand.

In 1558, Die Offenbarung Jesu Christi… was published; it is a theological work by Heinrich Bullinger, a Swiss reformer who was instrumental in introducing the Reformation to Zurich and succeeded Ulrich Zwingli. The work contains numerous woodcuts.

Peter Schmid's first medical publication from Mulhouse was Von allerley Speysen so dienstlichen zur menschlicher Narung, a medical treatise by Laurent Fries published in 1559. Laurent Fries, born in Colmar around 1485, was a physician, astrologer and geographer. In 1528, he declared that he lived in the Augustinian convent in Colmar. He practised medicine at the convent, whose prior, Diebolt Voegelin, was a friend of his. He treated the sick that the prior admitted to the convent's infirmary. He then set about popularising modern medicine through publications in the vernacular. On 1 September 1518, he published his masterpiece on internal medicine, the "Mirror of Medicine", in German under the title Spiegel der Artzny. This work by Fries was reprinted many times, including the one printed by Peter Schmid, which included some of the most relevant passages.
It is one of the oldest German-language treatises on internal medicine. Our digitised copy comes from the Armand Weiss collection, held by the Société Industrielle de Mulhouse (call number: AW3359) and can be consulted online.

The printer's mark appears in the centre of the title page. In an elegant frame, Terpsichore, the muse of dance, dressed in a short, flowing dress, holds a violin in one hand and two hearts in the other. Around the edge is the motto "ut in velabro olearii...", taken from a line by Plautus, meaning "we are united, as were once the oil merchants who, in the Velabro district of Rome, used to work together to get the highest possible price for their product". This publisher's mark can be found in most of Peter Schmid's works, particularly after 1559.

The last printing of the Schirenbrand-Schmid collaboration is a work on drunkenness: Wider das grausam Laster der wüsten Trunckenheit, published in 1560. The title page is adorned with a fine woodcut vignette depicting the interior of a room with six people seated and three cans behind them. There is also a figure wearing a feathered hat. An eighth figure follows him, carrying a vegetable dish. Drunkenness, the main subject of these few leaves, was often condemned by the Reformers.

Printed in 1562, Etliche Argument und beweysung das Busse predigen (see above) and Viri illustrissimi Aureoli Theophrasti ab Hohenheim, helvetii et haeremitae prudentissimi, medici praestantissimi, de gradibus, de compositionibus et dosibus receptorum ac naturalium libri septem by Paracelsus (see opposite) are also representative of 16th-century printing in Mulhouse. Donated by Mr and Mrs Jules Schwartz-Schlumberger in memory of their son Gustave Schwartz, who died for France in 1915, these two works come from the library of Jean Heilmann, a member of the Mulhouse Historical Museum Committee.

While the work carried out by the Schirenbrand-Schmid association over two years bears witness to the activity of two printers, Schmid published a large number of volumes on his own; around thirty of these are held in the Municipal Library.