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PRINTING TYPES
THEIR HISTORY, FORMS, AND USE
PRINTING TYPES
THEIR HISTORY, FORMS, AND USE A STUDY IN SURVIVALS
BY
DANIEL BERKELEY UPDIKE
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS
'^ A''unca han tenido, ni tienen las artes otros enemigos que los ignor antes''''
VOLUME I
CAMBRIDGE HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS
LONDON: HUMPHREY MILFORD
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
1922
COPYRIGHT. 1922, BY HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS
First Printing, August, 1922 Second Printing, January, 1923
I). B. L'PDIKE, THE MERRYMOUNT PRESS, BOSTON, U. S. A.
PREFACE
THE Lectures on which this book is based were delivered as part of a course on the Technique of Piinting in the Graduate School of Business Ad- ministration of Harvard University, during the years 1911 — 1916, and since then I hove recast the material into a form suitable for publication. Each season that the talks were given I saw the necessity for amplifcation and abridgment of mat- ter, and for modification of judgment, the results of which have been incorporated in these volumes; and now that my task is finished, I realize that further emendations could be continued with profit almost indefinitely. But while such a book can never, in any strict sense, be complete, it must be completed, though even the measure of perfection hoped for may not have been reached. It has been wiitten in town and in country, amid the interrup- tions of business and in intervals of leisure — and ''''in time of war and tumults'^'' that at moments made its subject, and all like subjects, seem trivial and valueless.
The chapters on Spanish printing are new — not having been part of the series of lectures. Outside Spain, little attention has been paid to its typography, and what has been written is devoted chiefiy to the period of the incunabula. From 1500 to 1800 its typographical history is, to the general student, ''terra incognita'*''; so these pages may give some information not here- tofore available to the English reader. Other chapters dealing with this period — especially those upon French and English printing — have been amplified and virtually rewritten in the light of new material, or in an effort to improve the examples
vi PREFACE
of pniitiiig selecttd — a field that affords endless oppor-timity for rei'ision.
Mr. Rudolph Ruzicka ofA'ew York, Dr. Charles L. Nichols of jrorcester, and Mr. John Bianchi have read my manuscript and given we the benefit of much helpful criticism. I am indebted for suggestions and corrections in certain chapters to Mr. irUliam Addison Diuiggms, Miss Alice Bache Gould, Mr. S. Byington, Mr. Ansel mo Bianchi, Miss Ruth S. Gran- niss. Librarian of the Gwlier Club, Neiv York, and Pmfessor E. K. Rand of Harvard University. To Mr. J. TV. Phinney, Mr. H. /v. Bulleii, and to many other friends and associates who hai'e aided me in many 7vays^ I am most grateful.
The chief part of the illustrative material has been taken from books in Harvard College Library, to the officials of which I am under particular obligation for the assistance and privileges they have so freely given me. Illustrations have also been reproduced from books and broadsides in the Boston Public Library and the Boston Athenxum; the John Carter Bwivn Li- brary, Annmar-y Brown Memorial, and Public Libr'ary, Prvvi- dence; tlie American Antiquarian Society, Worcester; the Li- Ijrary of Congress, Washington ; and tlie Tyfwgraphic Library of t lie American Type Founders Company, Jersey City. I have to thank the officials of all these libraries for their generous cooperation. To Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan I am indebted for permission to reprvduce pages from his remarkable Caxtons and from other exceedingly rare Ijooks in his library ; and to Mr's. J. Montgomery Sears, *Dr. Charles L. Nichols, Mr. C. E. Ixturiat, Jr., and Messrs. Houghton Mifflin Company, who have placed at my disposal Ijooks that could not readily be
PREFACE vii
found elsewhere. More detailed acknowledgments are made in the list of illustrations. Where no credit is given^ the illustra- tions are from books in my oxvn collection.
The index is the work of Mr. George B. Ives. In some early researches., Mr. George L. Harding^ now of Tacoma, helped me effectively; and a member of our staffs Mr. W. H. Smallfield., has been of the greatest assistance in the exact- ing task of seeing the work through the press. But perhaps the students who listened to the lectures^ and who^ by their interest and questions^ encouraged — or obliged — me to better them., are those whom I should hold in most grateful remembrance ; for they have most suffered for the truth^s sake!
D. B. Updike
The Merrymount Press, Boston
May-day, 1922
TABLE OF CONTENTS
VOLUME I p^^^
INTRODUCTION xxvii
I. THE INVENTION OF PRINTING: THE CUTTING AND
CASTING OF TYPES IN RELATION TO THEIR DESIGN 3
II. A FONT OF TYPE AND ITS CASE: THE TYPOGRAPHICAL
point: POINT-SET AND LINING TYPES 15
III. THE LATIN ALPHABET AND ITS DEVELOPMENT UP TO
THE INVENTION OF PRINTING 38
IV. TYPES OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY IN GERMANY 58
V. TYPES OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY IN ITALY 70
VI. TYPES OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY IN FRANCE 82
VII. TYPES OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY IN THE NETHER- LANDS HOLLAND AND BELGIUM 93
VIII. TYPES OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY IN SPAIN 99
IX. TYPES OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY IN ENGLAND 113
X. THE ALDINE ITALIC 125
XI. A WORD ON TYPE SPECIMENS 133
Xn. GERMAN types: 1500-1800
I. EXAMPLES OF GERMAN PRINTING 139
§ 1. XVI CENTURY 139
§ 2. XVII CENTURY 146
§ 3. XVIII CENTURY 147
II, GERMAN FOUNDRIES AND SPECIMENS 149
xii ILLUSTRATIONS
13. Type of 36-line Bib/e, Mainz^ not later than 1461 62 From Die Buchkunst Gutenbergs und Sch'Cffers
14. Type of 42-Iine Bib/e, 3Iainz, c. 1455 ' 62 From a co/iy in the Library of Mr. J. Pierfiont Morgan, jYew
York- is. Type used in Latin Psalter: Fust and Schoeffer^ Mainz.,
1457 62
From Druckschrifteti des XV bis XVIII Jahrhunderts
16. Advertisement issued by Koberg-er., Nuremberg-^ c. 1480 64 From Facsimiles from Early Printed Books in the British Museum
17. Round Gothic Type of Catholicon: Gutenberg., Mainz
1460 64
From a copy in the John Carter Brown Library, Providence, Rhode Island
18. Type prefiguring Schwabacher., used in Hortus Sanitatis: Peter Schoeffer^ Mainz, 1485 64
From a co/iy in the library of Mrs. J. Montgomery Sears, Boston
19. Pointed Gothic Type: Baemler., Augsburg:, 1474 64 From Burger^ s IMonumenla (iermanix et Italiae Typografihica
20. Gothic Types used by Koberger at Nuremberg in {a) Bible
o/' 1483; {b) Nuremberg Chronicle of 1493 66
21. Semi-Gothic Type: Mentelin., 'S'trassburg., 1460 66 From Burger's Monumenta GermaniR', et Italife Typographica
22. First Poman Type used in Germany: Rusch., S'trassburg:,
c. 1464 66
23. Transitional Roman-Gothic used in Ptolemy's Cosmo- graphia: Holle, Ulm, 1482 66 From a co/iy in (he John Carter Brown Library, Providence
24. First Type used in Italy: Shveynheym and Pannartz., S'ubiaco, 1465 72
From a co/iy of Lactantius of 1465 in the ylnnmary Brmvn Memorial Library, I^oi'idence
ILLUSTRATIONS xiii
25. Second Type of Szueyjiheym and Pamiartz^ Rome^ 1467 72
From a cofiy of S/ieculum Hwnanse Fitx of 1468 in the Ann- mary Brmvn Memorial Library, Providence
26. John and Wendel'in de Spire's Roman Type^ Venice^ 1469 72
From a cofiy of De Civitate Dei of 1470 iri Harvard College Library
27. JensorCs Roman Type used in Eiisebius^ De Praeparatione Evangelica^ Venice^ 1470 74
From, a copy in the collection of Dr. Charles L. JVichols, Worces- ter, Massachusetts
28. Page of Hypnerotomachia Poliphili: Aldus^ Venice^ 1499 76
From a copy in Harvard College Library
29. RatdoWs Gothic Type., from his Specimen 0/^1486 78 From Burger's Monumenta Germanise et Italiae Typographica
30. RatdoWs Roman and Greek Type., from his Specimen of 1486 78 From Burger's Monumenta Germanix et Italise Typographica
31. Part of a page of Horace: Miscomini., Florence., 1482 80 From a copy in Harvard College Library
32. First Roman Type used in France: Freiburger., Gering.,
and Kranz., Paris., 1470 83
From a copy of Phalaridis Epistulae in the Annmary Brown Memorial Library, Providence
33. First Gothic Type used in France: Freiburger., Gering., and Kranz., Paris., 1473 85
From a copy of Manipulus Curatorum of 1473 in the Annmary Brown Mejnorial Library, Providence
34. Type used for first Bible printed in France: Freiburger., Gering., and Kranz., Paris., 1476 86
From Claudin's Histoire de P Imprimerie en France au XV*^ et an XFP SiMe
35. Roman Type used in Virgil by Gering., Paris., 1478 86
From Claudin's Histoire de f Imprimerie en France au XV^ et au AT/e Steele
xiv ILLUSTRATIONS
36. Lettre Batardc used infrst book printed hi French: Bon- fiomme^ Paris^ c. 14-77 88 /-Vo.-w Ciaudin's Histoire de P Imfiriynerie en France an XVe el
au Xyi<= Steele
37. CoJidensed Gothic Type used by B'otticher, Paris, 1481 88 From C/audin'a Histoire de rim/irimerie en France au XV^ et
au XVF SiMe
38. Page from Book of Hours in Transitional style 88
39. First Roman Type used at Lyons: Du Pr^, 1490 92 From Cloudings Histoire de V Imfirimerie en France au XV^ et
au Xri" SiMe
40. Two pages of an Abecedarium 94 Frojn Holrrofi's Monuments Tyfiographiques des Pays-Bas au Quinzieme Siecle
41. Gothic Type used by Printer of the Speculum, c. 1471 94
From a vellum leaf of Doctrinale of Alexander Gallics in the Library of Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan, JVhiv York
42. Mansion's Ajicienne Batarde, Bruges, 1484 96 From Druc/cschriften des XV bis XVIII Jahrhunderts
43. Lettre Batarde used by Brito, Bruges 98
From HoltrofCs Monuments Tyfiographiques des Pay-Bas au Quinzieme Siecle
44. Black-letter used by Bellaert, Haarlem, 1485 98
From a cofiy of Bartholomseus jinglicus, Van den F^ofirieteyten der Dinghen, in the Library of Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan, .Vcnv York
45. Fifteenth Century 'Saint Augustin Flaniand: Enschedt'''s Proef van Letteren^ Haarlem, 1768 98
From F.nschedc's Fonderies de Caract^res et leur Materiel dans Ics Pays-Bas du XV^ au XIX« Siecle
4G. Fifteenth Century Gros-Romain Flamand : Ensched(f\s
Proef van Letteren, Haarlem, 1768 98
From Ensc/udf's Fonderies de Caract^res et leur Materiel dans U» Paya-Bas du XVe au XIX^ SiMe
ILLUSTRATIONS xv
47. John of Westphalia s Roman Type^ used at Louvain 98
From a cofiy of /Eneas Sylvius, Efiistulx Familiar es, in Har- vard College Library
48. Fifteenth Century Roman Type attributed to Schoeffer 98
From Enschede's Fonderiea de Caract^res et leur Materiel dans les Pays-Bas du XFe aii XIX'^ Siecle
49. First Roman Type used in Spain: Palmart^ Valencia, 1475 105
Fro?n a copy of Johannes, Comprehensorium, in the Library of Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan, J^few York
50. Spindeler''s Roman Type, Valencia, 1500 108 From Haebler's Typographic Iberique du Quinziime Siicle
51. Fadrique de Basiled' s Roman Type, Burgos, 1499 108 From Haebler's T\/pografihie Iberique du Quinzieme Siecle
52. Roman Type used by Ungut and Stanislaus, Seville, n.d. 108 From Haebler^s Typographic Iberique du Quinzieme Siecle
53. First Gothic Type used i?i Spain: Palmart, Valencia, 1482 108 From Haeblcr^s Typographic Iberique du Quinzieme Siecle
54. Brocars Round Gothic Type, Pamplona, 1499 108 From Hacbler's Tyfiographie Iberique du Quinzihne Siecle
55. Gothic Type used by Pablo Hunts, Saragossa, 1496 110 From Haebler^s Typographic Iberique du Quinzieme Siecle
56. Title-page of Gordonid' s Lilio de Medicina: Ungut and Stanislaus, Seville, 1495 110 From Haebler^s Early Jointers of Spain and Portugal
57. Title-page of Leyes del ^laderno, Salamanca, c. 1496 110
From a cofiy in the Annmary Brcnvn Memorial Library, Prox'i- dcnce
58. Title-page of Aureum Opus: Diego de Gumiel, Valencia,
1515 112
From a copy in the Boston Public Library
:,vi ILLUSTRATIONS
59. Caxtons Type 1. From The Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye: Caxton and Mansion^ Bruges^ c. 1475 115 /-Vow a co/iy in the Library of Mr. J. Pierfiont Morgan, jYew
York
60. Caxtons Type 2. From The Dictes or Sayengis of the Philosophres, Westminster., 14r77 116
61. Caxton's Type 3. Used in his Handbill., Westminster.,
c. U77 118
J'Yom Burger's Buchhdndleranzeigen des 15. Jahrhunderts
62. Caxton's Type 4. Frorn Godfrey of Boloyne., Westminster.,
1481 ' 118
Frotn a copy in the Library of Mr. J. Pierpont ^Morgan, J^few York
63. Caxton'' s Type 5. From The Doctrinal of Sapience., West- minster, c. \4&9 118 From a copy in the Library of Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan, JVew
York
64. Caxton'^s Types 6 and^. From Tretyse of Love., Westmin- ster, c. 1493 118 From a copy in the Library of Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan, A'civ
York
65. Caxton' s Type 7- Used in Indulgence, Westminster, 1489 118 From De Kicci's Census of Caxtons
66. Gothic Types used by Wynkyn de Worde, Westminster,
1499 121
From Gordon Duff's Early English Printing
67. Lettres dc Forme used by Notary and Barbier, Westmin- ster, 1498 122 From (iordon Duff's Early English fainting
68. Transitional Gothic Type used in Andrere Antonius, ^upstiones super Duodedm Libros Metaphysicx Aristo- telis: Lettou, London, 1480 122
From a co/ty in the Library of Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan, J^ew York
ILLUSTRATIONS xvii
69. Lettre Batarde used in The Fall of Princes: Pynson^ Lon- don, c. 1494 124
From a cofiy in the Library of Mr. J. Pierfiont Morgan, JVew York
70. Lettre de Forme used by Pynson, London, c. 1495 124 From Gordon Duff\<i Early English Printing
71. Greei Lype used in Philostratus : Aldus, Venice, 1501 128
72. Aldine Italic as used in Juvenal and Persius: Aldus,
Venice, 1501 128
From a cofiy in the John Carter Brown Library, Providence
73. Type used in Diurnale : Sch'dnsperger, Nuremberg; 1514 139 From Druckschriften des XV bis XVIII Jahrhunderts
74. Type used in Teuerdanck: Schonsperger, Nuremberg, 1517 140 From a copy in the Library of Congress, Washington
75. Title-page of Fundamentbuch: Jobin, Strassburg, 1579 142 From Druckschriften des XV bis XVIII Jahrhunderts
76. {a) Alphabet of Fifteenth Century Fraktur used by Neu- meister, Mainz, 1479. {b) Alphabet of Sixteenth Century Fraktur used by Feyerabend, Frankfort, 1566 142 From Druckschriften des XV bis XVIII Jahrhunderts
77. Cursive and Schwabacher used by Froschauer, Zurich.^
1567 142
From Druckschriften des XV bis XVIII Jahrhunderts
78. Types used by Hentzsken, Berlin, 1578 142 From Druckschriften des XV bis XVIII Jahrhunderts
79. Roman Type used in De Unitate Ecclesise Conservanda: Schoeffer, Mainz, 1520 142 From a cofiy in Harvard College Library
80. Roman Type in Erasmus'' s Adagia: Froben, Basle, 1526 144
From a copy in Harvard College Library
81. Italic in Erasmuses New Testament: Froben, Basle, 1521 144
From a cofiy in Harvard College Library
xviii ILLUSTRATIONS
82. Specimen of J. Petri, Basle, 1525 146 From facsimile issued by K. Burger
83. Title-fiag-e of K/ofistocJd's Messias: Halle, 1749 148 J-'rom KoTinecke's Bilderatlas zur Geschichte der deutschen .VationaUiteratur
84. Title-page of Winckelmaivi' s Kiinst des Alterthums: Dresden, 1764 148 From Konnecke's Bilderatlas zur Geschichte der deutschen .VationaUiteratur
85. Pages of Jacohi" s Iris, Diisseldorf 1775 148 From Konnecke's Bilderatlas zur Geschichte der deutschen
.^ ationalliteratur
86. Title-page of first edition of Faust: Goschen, Leipsic,
1790 150
From Goschen'' s Life of George Joachim Goschen
87. Title-page of Wilhelm Meister: Unger, Berlin, 1795 150
From Konnecke's Bilderatlas zur Geschichte der deutschen .Yationalliteratur
88. Fraktur, Schxvabacher, and Cursive, as shown by Four-
nier le jeune 150
89. Title-page of Pater'' s Dissertatio, Leipsic, 1710 152 From a co/iy in the Providence Fhiblic Library
90. Types from Pater's Dissertatio, Leipsic, 1710 152 From a cofiy in the Providence I*ublic Library
'Jl. Fraktur and Schxvabacher Types: Pater'* s Dissertatio,
Leipsic, 1710 152
From a co/iy in the Providence Ihiblic Library
92. Typographical Ornaments, probably from the Endters Printing-house, Nuremberg, 1721 154 From Frnesti^s Die Wol-eingerichtete Buchdruckerey
93. Fraktur Types from Breitkopfs Schrift- Probe, Leipsic,
1739 156
From Grnnncr'a Buchdruckerkunst und Schriftgiesaerey
ILLUSTRATIONS xix
94. Roman and Italic Types: Breitkopfs Schrift- Probe ^ Leipsic^ 1739 156 From Gessner'a Buchdruckerkunst unci Schriftgiesaerey
95. Schwabacher and Fraktiir : Trattner\'i Abdruck dererjeni-
gen Deuischen iSchriften^ etc.^ Vienna^ 1760 158
From a copy in the Library of the American Type Founders Company, Jersey City, JVetv Jersey
96. Ornaments: Trattner^s Abdruck von denjenigen Roslein^
etc.^ Vzentia^ 1760 158
From a copy in the Library of the American Type Founders Company, Jersey City
97. (a) Neue Deutsche Lettern and {b) Ornaments : Ung-er\s Schriftproben^ Berlin^ c. 1791 158
98. UiJger's and Didot's Modifications of German Fraktur^
1793 158
From Enschede^s Fonderies de Caractires et leur Materiel dans les Pays-Bas du XV^ au XIX'' SiMe
99. Page of Ovid: Gorgonzola^ Milan^ 1509 160
100. Gothic Type in Opera of Boethius: Giunta, Venice^ 1536 161 Fj'o?n a copy in Harvard College Library
101. Italic in Dante'' s Commedia: Marcolini^ Venice, 1544 162 FroJH a copy in Harvard College Library
102. Opening of Paolo Giovio^s Historiarum sui Temporis: Torrentino^ Florence^ 1550 162 From a copy in Harvard College Library
103. Types of FasarVs Fife: Torrentino, Florence, 1550 162 From a copy in Harvard College Library
104. Italic in Nogarola''s Dialogus: Gryphius, Venice, 1552 162
105. Types in Dante: Sessa, Venice, 1564 164 From a copy in Harvard College Library
106. Page from Decamerone: Giunta, Florence, 1573 164 From a copy in Harvard College Library
XX ILLUSTRATIONS
107. Italic in Nanninfs Considerationi Civili, Venice^ 1582 164 From a co/iy in Harvard College Library
108. Roman Tijpes of Morosini's Historia Veneta: Pinelli^ renter, 1623 166 From a copy in Nan>ard College Library
109. Address to the Reader: Stamperia Faticana Indtce de Caratteri, Rome, 1628 168 From a cofiy in Harvard College Library
110. Canon Grosso: Stamperia Vaticana Indice, Rome^
1628 168
From a copy in Harvard College Library
111. Ascendonica: Stamperia Vaticana Indice^ Rome^ 1628 168 Fro7n a copy in Harvard College Library
112. Corsivo Grosso: Stamperia Vaticana Indice^ Rome^
1628 168
FYotn a copy in Harvard College Library
113. Roman Capitals: Stamperia Vaticana Indice^ Rome,
1628 168
From a copy in Harvard College lAbrary
114. Alphabet of Greek Capitals: Stamperia Vaticana Indice^ Rome, 1628 168 From a copy in Har-vard College Library
115. Plain-Son^: Stamperia Vaticana Indice^ Rome^ 1628 168 From a copy in Harvard College Library
116. Plain-Song-: Stamperia Vaticana Indice, Rome, 1628 168 From a copy in Harx'urd College Library
117. Type used for Missals: Stamperia Vaticana Indice,
Rome, 1628 168
From a copy in Har-i'ard College Library
118. Page from La Clori: Pignoni, Florence, 1626 168 From a copy in Harvard College Library
ILLUSTRATIONS xxi
119. Roman and Italic Types shormng '"''modern'''' tendency^ used in MagalottVs Soggi di Naturali Esperieiize^ etc. : Cecchi^ Florence^ 1691 170
120. Type imitating ancient Manuscript^ used in Virgil: Manni^ Florence, 1741 172 From a cofiy in the Boston Public Library
121. Types of Arrighi\s Life of Moros'ini: Comino, Padua,
1749 172
From a cofiy in HaTvard College Library
122. Page showing light types, openly set, in Versi Sciolti
di Tre Eccellenti Moderni Autori: Fenzo, Venice, 1758 174 From a copy in Harvard College Library
123. Italic in Dedication of Gerusalemme Liberata: Albrizzi, Venice, 1745 174 From a copy in Harvard College Library
124. Page of Gerusalemme Liberata: Albrizzi, Venice, 1745 174 From a copy in Harvard College Library
125. Pages from Gerusalemme Liberata: Zatta, Venice, 1787 176 From a copy in Harvard College Library
126. Types showing '"'' modern'''' feeling, used in SardinVs Stor'ia Critica di Nicolao Jenson: Bonsigfiori, Lucca.,
c. 1796 178
127. Types showing '''' modern'''' feeling, used in PoggialVs Storia Lettereir'ia di P'lacenza: Orcesi, Piacenza, 1789 178 From a copy in Harvard College Library
128. Testo and Palestina from BodonVs Fregi e Majuscole, Parma, 1771 185
129. Ornaments from BodonVs Fregi e Majuscole, Parma,
1771 186
130. {a) Ornamented Letters, (b) Initials. From BodonVs
Fregi e Majuscole, Parma, 1771 186
xxii ILLUSTRATIONS
131. (a) Page from Sag-gio T'lpograjicQ. {b) Reverse of half- title of Fregi. From BodonVs Fregi e Majuscole^ Parma,
1771 186
132. Ti//)fs from Zatta's Saggi dei Caratteri, Venice, 1794 186
133. 'Wot/ern"' Types from Zatta's S'uggi dei Caratteri,
Venice, 1794 186
134. Borders from Zattd^s Saggi dei Caratteri, Venice, 1794 186
135. Lettres de Forme, Lettres de Sotyime, and Ancienne Ba- tarde, shown bij Fournier lejeune 188
136. Portion of page from Torifs Champfeury : Paris, 1529 194 From a copy in Harvard College Library
137. Music Types combined xvith Lettre de Forme, used by Attaingnant, Paris, 1532 196 From a copy in the Boston Mhenaeum
138. Roman of RueVs De Natura Stirpium: De Colines,
Paris, 1536 198
From a copy in Harvard College Library
139. Italic of Preface of RueVs De Natura Stirpium: De Co- lines, Paris, 1536 198 From a copy in Harvard College Library
140. Page of Songe de Poliphile: Kerver, Paris, 1546 200 From a copy in Harvard College Library
141. Types used in Oronce Fine''s De Rebus Mathematicis : Vascosan, Paris, 1556 200 From a cofiy in Harvard College Library
142. Granjon''s Civility, used in Sommaire des Singularitez de Pline: Breton, Paris, 1559 202 From a copy in Harvard College Library
143. Old Civility from Lamesle*s Epreuves GM^rales des Car- acteres, Paris; 1742 202
ILLUSTRATIONS xxiii
144. Roman of Cousiii's Livre de Perspective: Le Royer^
Paris ^ 1560 202
From a cofiy in the Boston Public Library
145. Italic in Cousin'' s Livre de Perspective: Le Royer^ Paris^ 1560 202
From a cofiy in the Boston Public Library
146. Robert Granjon's Italic used in La Vita et Metamorfo-
seo d''Ovidio: De Tournes^ Lyons^ 1584 204
147. Moreau's Calligraphic Types used in Les Saintes Meta- morphoses^ Paris^ 1644 208 From a copy in Harvard College Library
148. Old Italics from Sanlecque''s Epreuves des Caracteres^ Paris ^ 1757 213
149. Seventeenth Century Types for Liturgical Books^from Sanlecque\'i Epreuves des Caracteres^ Paris ^ 1757 214
150. Old Music Types from Sanlecque''s Epreuves des Carac- teres^ Paris ^ 1757 214
151. Seventeenth Century Ornaments from Lamesle^s Epreuves G^ne'rales des Caracte res ^ Paris ^ 1742 214
152. Early Types {oeil maigre): Delacolonge' s Caracteres et Vignettes^ Lyons ^ 1773 214
153. Early Types {peil gras): Delacolonge' s Caracteres et Vignettes^ Lyons ^177^ 214
154. Old Style Types used in De La Motte''s Fables Nouvelles: Coignard^ Paris^ 1719 220 From a co/iy in the Boston Athenseum.
155. Fournier le jeune''s Types used in CEuvres de Jean-Bap-
tiste Rousseau: Didot^ Paris^ 1743 222
From a cofiy in Harvard College Library
156. Fournier le jeune''s Types and Ornaments used in Col- lection des Auteurs Latines: Barbou^ Paris^ 1759 222 From a copy in Harvard College Library
xxiv ILLUSTRATIONS
157. Founiierlejeiines Music Types used in A/ithologie Fraii-
coise ou Chcnisons Choisies: Barbou^ Paris^ 1765 224
From a co/iy in Harvard College Library
158. Roman in •Sciint Lambert's Saisons^ Paris, 1775 226
159. Jta/ic in Saint Lamberfs Saisons, Paris, 1775 226
160. Roman Types used in Gc'orgiques de Firgile: Didot
raini\ Paris, 1782 226
From a cofiy in Harvard College Library
161. Page employing Firmin Didofs Italic Type, from Didof s Epitre sur les Progrcs de V Imprimerie, printed by F. A. Didot, Paris, 1784 226
162. Types used by F. A. Didot i?i Prospectus of Peintures Antiques, Paris, 1782 228
163. Caractere Maigre used in CEuvres de FMelon: F. A. and
P. Didot, Paris, 1787-92 228
From a cofiy in Harvard College Library
164. Caractere Gras used in Aventures de TeUmaque: Pierre Franqois Didot, Paris, 1787 228 From a cofiy in Harvard College Library
165. Baskerville's Types used in Voltaire'' s La Pucelle^ Kehl,
1789 230
166. Types of folio Horace: Pierre Didot, Paris, 1799 232
167. Page of folio Horace: Pierre Didot, Paris, 1799 232
168. Garafnond\s- Caracteres de P University, c. 1540, used in Richelieu's Les Principaux Poinds de la Foy Catho-
lique Dtfendus: Imprimerie Royale, Paris, 1642 236
169. Roman Type (Garamond?) used in Giovio''s Vitx: Rstienne, Paris, 1549 236 From a copy in Harvard College Library
170. Garamond\s Grecs du Roi {three sizes) used in Greek edi- tion of Appiani Alexandrini Romanarum Historianim: Fstienru; Paris, 1551 238
ILLUSTRATIONS xxv
171. Page of Grec du Roi from Greek edition of Appiani Alex- andrini Romanarum Histor'mrum: Estien)u\ Paris., 1551 238
172. Garam07id''s Roman arid Italic Types used in Richelieu'' s Les Principaux Poincts de la Foy Catholique Difendus: [mprimerie Royale^ Paris^ 1642 240
173. GrandjearC s Romain du Roi used in Medailles sitr les Principaux Evdnements du Regne de Louis le Grand: hnpnmerie Royale^ Paris ^ 1702 242 From a copy in the Boston Athenxum
174-. Grandjean^s Romain du Roi (italic) used in Cuivres de Cochin destines a VHistoire de Louis j^V par Mddailles: Imprimerie Nationale^ Paris., 1889 244
175. Luce's Types PoHiques compared tvith Old Style Types
of Imprimerie Roy ale 244
From Luce's Fssai d'une JVowvelle Typografihic, Paris, 1771
176. Luce'' s Types Po^ti<jues {romaii and txuo versions of italic) 246 Frotn Fssai d'ujie JVouvelle Tyfiografihie, Paris, 1771
177. Luce^s Ornaments 246 From Fssai d'une JVouvelle Tyfiographie, Paris, 1771
178. Luce's Employment of his Types and Ornaments 246 Page from Fssai d'une JVouvelle Tyfiografihie, Paris, 1771
179. Page of Cours de principaux Fleuves et Rivieres de P Eu- rope, composed arid printed by Louis XV zvhen a Child: Paris, 1718 248
180. Title-page of Fournier le jeune''s Modeles des CaractereSy Paris, 1742 252
181. Roman and Italic from Fournier lejeune''s Modeles des Caracteres, Paris, 1742 252
182. Use of Typographical Ornaments in Fourn'ier le jeune''s Modeles des Caracteres, Paris, 1742 252
xxvi ILLUSTRATIONS
183. Fournier le jeunes Types PoHiques (cic^ro^ roman and italic) 263 From Manuel Tyfio^afihique
184. Fournier le Jeune^s Types dans le gout Hollandois
(cict'ro^ roman and italic) 264
From Manuel Tyliografihique
185. (a) Fournier lejeune's Italique modeme and Italique an- cienne. {b) Fournier s Shaded Letters 264 From Manuel Tyliographique
186. Fournier lejeune's Ornam.ental Capitals used in Desor- meaux's Histoire de Louis 11^ Prince de Condd: Lottin^ Paris, 1768 264
187. Fournier le jennets Vignettes de Fonte 264 From Manuel Tyfiografihique
188. Batarde Types shoxun by Fournier 266 From Manuel Typographique
189. Financiere: Delacolonge' s Caracteres et Vignettes^
Lyons, 177 S 268
190. Method of Displaying Ornaments: Briquet'' s Epreuve
des Caracteres, Paris, 1757 270
191. Franqois Candors Italique, goilt nouveau, cut in 1754: Epreuves des Caracteres, Gando, Paris, 1760 272
192. Title-page of Caracteres de V Imprimerie de M. Pierres, Paris, 1785 274
INTRODUCTION
THE purpose of this book is to supply a basis for the intelligent appreciation of the best printing types through the study of their history, forms, and use. As a preliminary we consider briefly the invention of printing, the cutting and casting of type, a font of type and its case, the measurement of type ; supplementing this by a short account of the Latin alphabet and those manu- script book-hands which most influenced type-forms. This brings us to a study of the chief varieties of type in use in the fifteenth century, and from 1500 to 1800, in Germany, Italy, France, the Netherlands, Spain, and England. Com- ing to the nineteenth century, the types of Bodoni, Didot, and Wilson are discussed; the English and American re- vival of older type-forms, and the influence of this revival on printing at the present time. We now have a foundation for a reasoned judgment of type-design, and the practical application of this judgment is developed in suggestions as to the choice of types for a composing-room. Finally, some of the excuses made for not printing better to-day are — it is hoped — demolished in a paper on industrial condi- tions in the past.
It is a good thing to know about the ingredients of an- cient and modern type-metal; about the old manner of mak- ing types, and to what degree their manufacture has been improved; about the names and relative proportions of early types and the development of the system of nomenclature and measurement in use to-day. But it is also needful to have a knowledge of the effect of types on the eye — of how their shapes originated, were elaborated or simplified, were improved or deformed, why these changes were made, and, in short, the reason for types being in the forms that
xxviii INTRODUCTION
thev now are. Bv the time these pages have been read, and the books alhided to have been examined, one should be able to distinguish the various great type-families from one another, with the ease with \\hich we recognize English, French, or Italian, when printed; and to choose intelligendy the form of letter which, allo\\'ing for diversity in taste, is the most suitable to employ in any particular kind of print- ing; and should have, too, some knowledge of the skill and learning which, in successive centuries, men have devoted to this subject — a conception of how much there is to know, and an idea of how to know it.
The subject of type and type-forms follows a narrow path, a kind of "watershed" between biography and bibli- ographv. I have not attempted to supply lives of printers or tvpe-founders in any complete way, but merely to touch on those points in their careers which throw light on their types, and explain in part why they were what they were. This is equally true of books, which I do not try to describe bibliographically, but allude to only in so far as the types which were used to print them, or the manner of their use, illustrates my point. For, as Reed says of English types, "the Catena on Joh^ Walton's Polyglot, Boyle's Irish Tes- tament, Bowyer's Selden, rank as type specimens quite as interesting as, and far more valuable than, the ordinary letter-founders' catalogues."
While access to all the books that I have mentioned will not I)e possible to all readers, most of them will be found in any great library. Only by having the books in one's hands and examining their types can a thorough training be ac- cjuired; for my illustrations, numerous as they are, merely show landmarks in the field under discussion. I have gen- erally reproduced types in their actual size, composed in sentences, their exposition in alphabets and description of
INTRODUCTION xxix
minute changes in letter-forms being intentionally avoided. Interesting as successive variations in the design of indi- vidual letters may be, it is the eft'ect of these variations upon type in mass that is important for my purpose.
I have treated the technical side of my subject as briefly as is consistent with giving a clear idea of what is described. The historical, literary, and artistic aspect I have accented, in order to suggest to the student that immense mass of facts related to typography, without some knowledge of which it can only be imperfectly understood — and to serve as a counterweight to the vast amount of technical instruction and mechanical description given in most treatises on type and printing."! prefer no claim to originality," said William Blades in one of his treatises, "but rather rest the utility of what I have to say, upon the advantage of bringing to one focus a number of facts hitherto scattered through a num- ber of books, and by consequence but partially known." That is what I have tried to do in these pages.
In spite of the increasing interest in the history of print- ing, and the attention paid in many quarters to the work of famous typographers, a knowledge of standards among the rank and file of printers is still greatly lacking. To the aver- age printer of to-day, type is type, printing is printing — it is all about alike ; and he concerns himself only with alleged labour-saving contrivances, or new type-faces that ensure convenience at the expense of proper design. In a more advanced class is to be found the printer who, knowing something of the historical side of printing and realizing intellectually that there is a standard of excellence, yet has never considered the question as applying in any practical way to himself or his work. What he has heard or seen of people who profess to hold such standards seems to him,
XXX INTRODUCTION
sometimes very rightly, faddish and impractical; and this helps him to dismiss the subject with a plausible gener- alization on the impossibility of doing successfully to-day what (for unexplained reasons) was somehow easy in the past. Lastly, there are printers who are seriously in earn- est, but w ho permit themselves to be discouraged by the indifference of their fellows, or who with their idealism do not combine that uncommon thing — common-sense. It is precisely because all these groups of men are constantly told, and ^\ ill no doubt constantly continue to be told, so much about the advantages of modern mechanical contrivances, that I lav stress upon the artistic and idealistic side of the subject in an endeavour to show that the best printing can be done only when a man is familiar with standards to which the best printers have always adhered.
Tvpographv is closely allied to the fine arts, and types have alwavs reflected the taste or feeling of their time. The charm of the early Italian t^-pes has perhaps never been equalled; and the like is true of the Renaissance manu- scripts on which they were based — and of many other de- partments of art in that same wonderful time. Note, too, the relation of the French manuscripts and tvpes of a slightly later date to the manuscripts and the types of the Italian Renaissance. It is very much the relation of French work in the fine arts of that period to Italian work of a little earlier date. There is about the French characters, as in design, a certain excess of elegance \\hich makes them seem weak in comparison with the more sturdy and classical qualities of earlier Italian types. If this is at all true of French and Italian types, it is even truer of English types used in the middle of the eighteenth century and those used at the end of it. The mid-eighteenth century English types, of w hich Caslon u as the designer, had precisely those honest,
INTRODUCTION xxxi
somewhat heavy, but workmanlike qualities exhibited in the early furniture of Chippendale and the architecture of Vanbrugh. The types of Baskerville (the influence of which subsequently found expression in the work of Bodoni and Didot) possess a fragile and affected elegance, which culmi- nated in the light, clear, delicate characters used from 1780 to 1820 — types reflecting, in their elegance, thinness, and weakness, the distinguished but fragile decorations and fur- niture introduced into England at the end of the eighteenth century by Robert Adam. For the same reason that one fears to use Adam furniture, one is afraid to use late eigh- teenth century fonts ; for both seem in danger of breaking to pieces! Within the recollection of some of us, heavier types were revived by Mr. William Morris, and they were nearly contemporaneous with furniture forms rendered in lumber — "Mission" furniture, so "sincere" in trying to es- cape the imputation of fragility that it made "spring house- cleaning an affair of the derrick and the wrecking-crane ! " The latest development in architecture seems to be a revival of Georgian or early American architecture and ornament, and a movement toward what is somewhat absurdly called, nowadays, "period" decoration. This is reflected in printing by a return to the Georgian or early nineteenth century types for the greater part of contemporary printing, and the appearance of "period" types — reproductions more or less accurate of styles of type famous at different epochs. Thus type, which one thinks of merely as the characters compos- ing a printed word, does, when examined as design, reffect to some degree the tendencies current in other departments of contemporary art.
Just as the music of great masters like Palestrina makes some familiar compositions seem thin and trivial, so, by
xxxii INTRODUCTION
studying the monumental characters of early typography, do we learn to place in true perspective our types to-day. This means the study of types from a fresh point of view, and no study is ever a wholly amusing process if it is to be a serious training. Those who seek ivill find; but to the reader skeptical of results and critical of the value of any detailed consideration of type-forms, such a survey will seem either beside the mark or destructive. None the less, such studv is the only way I know to establish a stand- ard of taste in type-forms, or to contribute to the progress of printing as an art. For " the Arts have no real enemies except the ignorant."
PRINTING TYPES THEIR HISTORY, FORMS, AND USE
PRINTING TYPES
CHAPTER I
THE INVENTION OF PRINTING: THE CUTTING AND CASTING OF TYPES IN RELATION TO THEIR DESIGN
THE invention of movable metal types in Europe, as we all know, has been generally attributed to Gutenberg — just as the invention of the steam- enginehas popularlybeen considered that of Watt. But Watt did not invent the steam-engine; he perfected it, however, so highl}' as to make it almost a new invenUon. This is, I conceive, what Gutenberg did for printing; he was the first man to put typography on a practical and scientific basis. Before his day, printing from movable types was practised by the Dutch, and there is, perhaps, reason to believe that a man named Coster was the inventor of this process. Whether or no Coster was the first man to employ movable types, there certainly existed in Holland before Gutenberg's time, a series of books of primitive workmanship printed from type, and the roughness of the typography of some later printers — like Caxton — is considered one proof that a group of men were under the influence of this Dutch school of printing. It has always puzzled the casual student of ?';?- cimabula to account for the perfection of the books printed by Gutenberg; but if it be true that Gutenberg did not ori- ginate printing from movable types, but simply greatly im- proved the whole practice of making them, then we can see that the early and crude typography of Holland was merely the sub-structure on which Gutenberg so splendidly built. As William Blades said of the Coster-Gutenberg contro- versy, " The evidence on each side may be enlarged in the course of years, but so far as it goes at present it is strongly
4 PRINTING TYPES
in favour of a first rude invention of movable types in Hol- land bv some one who may have been Coster. The claim of Gutenberg ujjon the respect of posterity rests on his great impro\ ements — so great as to entitle him in a sense to be deemed the inventor.' . . . Just as astronomers ha\e been unable to explain certain aberrations of the planets without surmising a missing link in the chain of their knowledge, so is it w ith early typography. That such finished works as the first editions of the Bible and Psalter could be the legitimate predecessors of the Costeriana, the Bruges, the Westminster press, and others, I cannot reconcile w^ith the internal e\ idence of their ^^•orkmanship. But admit the ex- istence of an earlier and much ruder school of typography, and all is plain and harmonious. Side by side, the weakest gave place and the fittest survived, and soon, as in all sur- vivals, the existence of the former became traditionary."' Endless discussions have arisen on this question, which has a whole literature to itself. Roughly speaking, the situation to-day stands much as it did in Blades's time. Later dis- coveries of early printing have been made, some new his- torical facts have come to light ; but these have not much changed the theory that although there was an earlier Dutch school of unskilful printing, it W'as in Germany that print- ing as we know it to-day was first practised.^ " We may take our stand," says Mr. Pollard, "on the distinction drawn by the Cologne Chronicle of 1499 between the Invention made at Mainz and the Prefigurement(Vurbyldung) which
'Hlades's Books in Chains, I^ndon, 1892, p. 200. 'Ibid., pp. 157, 158. ' 'Die paper by Heinrich Wallau, Gutenberg Techniker und Kiinstler, pub- lished l)y the (iiitenberg-Gesellscliaft ( Vierter Jahres-Bericht, Mainz, 1905) , may be consulted for study of (iutenberg types. Seymour de Ricci's valua- l)le Calaloi^ue Raisonne dcs J-'retnicres Jnifivcssions dc A/oycnce (1445-67) , puljlishc-d by tlie same society in 1911, tliough primarily bibliographical, is useful to the student of types of tliis class.
THE INVENTION 5
he places elsewhere, or if it be preferred, on that subtler dis- crimination lurking in the w ord 'adinuentiones' applied to the achievements of Mainz, with its possible suggestion of earlier 'inuentiones' of another origin. Invention or Adin- vention, whether that which was not first discovered at Mainz had been discovered at Strassburg or in Holland, it was in Germany and at Mainz that the Printed Book as the ambitious rival of the Manuscript first came into being."'
Gutenberg's invention consisted, apparently, in making brass moulds and matrices by w^hich type could h^accuratdy cast in large quantities. As Mr. De Vinne reminds us, relief printing, paper, wood-engraving, printed books, even the printing-press, and perhaps the idea of movable types were not attributable to Gutenberg. These had all been thought of already. Gutenberg availed himself of the different ex- periments of his predecessors and made something which, however it has been improved upon in detail to-day, has not been improved upon in theory.
The first type-cutters and type-founders were merely somewhat servile imitators of the manuscript letter-forms to which they were already accustomed. We can understand little about the design of our present printing types, if we are not familiar with the characters in the black-letter and Humanistic manuscripts which just preceded, or were con- temporary with, the invention of printing." There appears to have been no thought in the minds of early printers other than to reproduce manuscripts quickly and inexpen- sively; and although many early printed books were very beautiful, both in type and arrangement, because modelled on
* See Introduction to Catalogue of Books firinted in the XFth Century now in the British Museum, London, 1913, Part m, p. ix. ' This is developed in the chapter on the Latin Alphabet.
6 PRINTING TYPES
fine manuscripts, I doubt if fifteenth century printers so con- sciously intended to make their books beautiful as is com- monly supposed. What an early printer ivas intent upon doing was to produce a printed book which resembled a manuscript as closely as possible ; and that such a man failed to recognize any great divergence in theory between a book in manuscript and a printed volume is shown by his ob- ^■ious endeavour to follow in type the written letter of the manuscript.^ Because of this aim, the first printers made certain errors in designing and cutting types, which have profoundly influenced typography, and not always \\ith hai)py results. Intent upon imitating manuscripts, they felt obliged to reproduce the kind of letters that a reader had been accustomed to in volumes written by hand ; and thus they had neither time, opportunity, nor desire to consider ■what types were, or to realize that they could never success- fully reproduce in metal all the forms derived from the pen. In other words, to the first type-cutters printing was merely an evolution, and did not appear a new invention in the sense that it obliged them to decide what forms of letter were best adapted to the new medium they had to employ. If these craftsmen had but thought of the whole subject from a fresh standpoint, some of the calligraphic black-letter types would never have existed, and italic and Oreek types, so far as imitative of hand\\riting, \A'Ould have been corrected. Instead of a long series of endeavours which have not yet entirely adjusted type-forms to the medium
' "Almost invariably the style of the early i^rinted book follows the contem- porar)' ms. style of its place of production. In consequence we find strongly marked national styles, though these were soon modified by the international tnide in books and especially by the influence of new classical texts distrib- uted from Italy. In scjme places and in some other classes of l)ooks, local consenatism was stronger." Syllabus of lecture on Early Printed Books, by C;.H. Palmer. Ixindon, 1913.
CUTTING AND CASTING 7
in which the type-cutter has to work, we should then have had characters designed a\ ith closer relation to the mate- rial from which the}^ were fashioned.
Ever since the sixteenth century, elaborate diagrams have been published to show how letters should be drawn, as we shall learn from some accounts given of men who sug- gested new methods of designing them. Generally a dia- gram of minute squares was first made, and on this the design and dimension of each letter were determined. Jau- geon, who was appointed by the Acadhnie des Sciences of Paris in the last years of the seventeenth century to sup- ply a scheme or series of directions by which type should be cut, began by stating that "the eye is the sovereign ruler of taste." The rules which he set forth were extremely complicated — every Roman capital was to be designed on a framework of 2304 little squares. Grandjean, the first type-cutter \\\\o attempted to follow them, is said to have observed sarcastically, that he should certainly accept Jau- geon's dictum that "the eye is the sovereign ruler of taste," and accepting this, should throw the rest of his rules over- board !
In casting type the two schools of typography spoken of on an earlier page — one experimental and crude, the other sure and perfected — had probably different methods.^ One cast letters in moulds of clay or sand ; the other under- stood something of the punch, the matrix, and the adjust- able mould, which they slowly perfected into much the kind of appliance we have now. The roughness of either form of type-casting no doubt accounts for the variation in appear- ance of the same letter in old books. The result of an acci- dental impression of a piece of type in a book printed in the last quarter of the fifteenth century is shown in the illus-
* Reed's Old English Letter Foundries, p. 29.
8 PRINTING TYPES
tration {Jig. l). This makes it clear that in appearance the earHest types much resembled those of to-day, though their heights w ere Aery irregular. While the quantity of type that was needed by any one printer was probably small, the different characters in a font were very many on ac- count of the contractions, abbreviations, etc., then consid- ered necessary.
All early types were cast by hand, and even down to the
in fequcntite: fed 5ui^;:at auttntico;^ ^^^5 pagma Atvba fitieUtci: cUK\lpt)ne^ (7 |X)ti(rtmru nifi qn alium ^dcoitm noiat \© p^oims vetfc^ jlatim feqwuttl\«tba h\ tnc*q2 ip& pttm^ vitemp coitct; mgtpi
1 . Impression of a piece of Fifteenth Century Type found on a fiage of JVider^s Li/ire Morale, firinted at Cologne about 1476
first part of the last century hand type-moulds were in use. Into such a mould hot metal was poured, and the type-caster tlien gave it a quick shake, which forced the metal into all the crannies of the matrix. By practice it became appar- ent that some letters involved a different sort of motion, and were more difficult to make than others, so I suppose that the variations just spoken of between different impressions of the same letter in early fonts may also be attributable to the varying skill of the individual workman. In an account of an English foundry, where the use of ancient hand- moulds survived well into the last century, mention is made of the uncouth movements and swaying figures of a group of gray-haired type-casters, who appeared as if demented to any one who did not know what they \\ ere about. Hand-
CUTTING AND CASTING 9
casting was a slow and tiresome process, and according to Moxon^ only about four tliousand such letters could ordi- narily be cast in one day.
In all probability lead, tin, and pewter were among the materials used for fifteenth century types. Where refer- ences are made in old books to the use of copper and bronze in type-casting, they may apply to the punches or matrices rather than to the types themselves. Steel, brass, copper, tin, lead, and iron wire were used as early as 1480 in Italy, as is distincdy stated in the "Cost Book" of the Ripoli Press ^ at
' Joseph Moxon, the first ELnglish writer on type-founding, was bom in York- shire, in 1627. He was a maker of mathematical instruments and dabbled in all kinds of mechanics. He himself said tliat he had never been properly taught the art of type-founding, but had taken it up solely tlirough his interest in the subject — as was tlie case with many celebrated type-cutters before and since. He issued a specimen sheet as early as 1669, showing characters which were not particularly good. In his book on the rules for the formation of letters ("useful for writing masters, painters, carvers, machinists, and for those who were lovers of curiosity," and dedicated to Sir Christopher Wren), he advises, as did Tory before him and Jaugeon after him, that letters should be first designed on a framework of minute squares. In 1667 he began a series of fourteen treatises in monthly numbers on the trades of the smith, joiner, carpenter, etc., and a second series, which comprised twenty-four numbers, was devoted entirely to printing, letter-cutting, and type-casting. This second volume appeared in 1 683 and was inscribed to Dr. Fell (among others) , bene- factor of the Oxford University Press. M.oxon' s JHec/ianick £jrercises, or the Doctrine of Handy-Works is the first English book on type-founding, and tlius a classic in the literature of printing — though a very dull book. ' The Ripoli Press was in a Dominican monastery, originally founded at Piano di Ripoli and later moved into the neighbouring city of Florence. This press is interesting to the student of typography because it fiimishes an early in- stance of the employment of women in composing-rooms; but specially be- cause its treasurer kept very careful accounts of its expenses, which give valuable information about the materials employed in the work of the press, the cost of production, etc. The press had sevei-al faces of roman and black- letter type cut for it, as well as ornaments, initials, etc. It was most miscel- laneous in its output. (See De Vinne's Motable Printers of Italy in the Fif- teenth Century, p. 127, with facing plate.) Portions of the Ripoli "Cost Book" were edited in 1781 by P. V. Fineschi, under the title JVotizie Storiche sofira la Stamfieria di Ri/ioli, and a monograph by M. P. Bologna, entitled La Stamfieria Fiorentina del Monastero di S. Jacofio di Ripoli e le sue edi- zfoni, was published in tlie Giornale storico della Letter, /to/.. Vols. XX, XXI.
10 PRINTING TYPES
Florence — w hich throws a good deal of light on the condi- tions of fifteenth century printing-houses. Reed thinks that steel and brass were used for the mould, steel for the punches, copper for the matrices, lead and tin for the type, and iron wire for the mould or perhaps for stringing type together. An alloy was introduced later by adding tin and iron to the lead. In the fifteenth century the discovery of the properties of andmony gave the types their required hardness. The chief ingredients of type from the earliest times have been lead and tin, and these have been hardened either with iron and bismuth, or antimony.
In cutting type by hand to-day, the first thing a type-cutter does in following his design, or that supplied him, is to make a counter-punch. This consists in cutting out the spaces inside of certain letters, such as O, or the upper part of an A. This counter-punch is sunk into the end of a bar of steel, and when this is done the inside of the model letter is finished. The outlines of the model letter are then cut until it assumes its proper shape, numerous "smoke-proofs" meanwhile having been examined to see that the letter fol- lows the form which the designer intends. After the punch is completed, the steel is hardened, and it is then punched into a bar of cold rolled copper, producing what is called a "strike." In this state it is really an unfinished matrix. It is then " fitted" so that it will cast in the proper position on its body. When this matrix is square on its sides, holds its letter in the same position as do the matrices of other letters of the new alphabet, and has the same depth throughout from the surface of the bar, it is finished. This is, roughly sj)eaking, the process by which hand-cut punches and their matrices are produced.
But all type is not cut by hand to-day; in fact, quite the
CUTTING AND CASTING 11
contrary. The theory of the pantagraph, understood as early as the seventeenth century, was adapted (in the second qimr- ter of the nineteenth century) to producing wood type, which had hitherto been cut by hand. This invention required but one model alphabet, and from it an unskilled workman could cut on wood, on which nothing had been drawn, va- rious sizes of letters. The principle was very naturally ap- plied later to cutting metal punches. Benton of Milwaukee in- vented such a punch-cutting machine, thereby at once enor- mously simpHfying the cutting of punches, as well as cheap- ening their production. At first sight it would appear that this was a wholly admirable invention; and it would be, if it did not tend to mechanize the design of types. But a design for a type alphabet that may be entirely successful for the size for -which it is drawn^ cannot be successfully applied to all other sizes of the same series. Each size is a law unto itself, and is often bettered by modifications in the original design made by the feeling and taste of the designer. To a trained eye, looking over impressions of a series of modern machine- cut types, it is often possible to tell which was the size origi- nally designed because it stands out as the most harmonious and successful. In this particular size the designer's eye had most modified his rules, and in all others the necessary modi- fications proper to the varying sizes had not been so carefully made. An authority tells us that (ideally) a new model de- sign should be made for every two sizes of type. It was because the punches for the older types were cut for each size by their designers with Jaugeon's maxim consciously or unconsciously in mind, that most old fonts were so pleas- ing in effect. Conversely, one reason why modern types are less mellow and agreeable to the eye is because, Avhen cut from a model alphabet by machine, there is too much rule and too little taste. "Even with strict instructions and with
12 PRINTING TYPES
best intentions," says Mr. Bruce Rogers/ "it is difficult for the habitual user of a very accurate machine not to insensi- blv smooth out what he has ah\ays been taught to consider 'imperfections' and to make as mechanically perfect a let- ter as is possible. ... I have come to believe that perhaps onlv hand-cut punches, cut by the designei' of the type^ can preserve the real feeling of the design ;" and he adds that the design should be drawn as nearly as possible to the exact size of the desired font.
In modern practice this is exactly -what is not done by machine. Sizes from 6-point to 120-point, or as large as de- sired, are often cut from the same model letter ; although contractions and expansions in either dimension of letter- design can be made when necessary to correct certain opti- cal illusions.^ I have sometimes questioned whether a ma- chine can be so managed that it will ever produce those fine and almost imperceptible qualities of design given to it by the hand of a clever type-cutter — which mean so much to the appearance of type in the mass, and which vary in nature and degree in different sizes of the same series of characters. In point of fact, the first types produced by punch-cutting machines did seem to show a certain rigidity from the point of view of design. That there has been an improvement of late in type cut by machine is undeniable, and yet there has been practically no change in its mech-
' In a letter to the author.
There are many optical illusions which must be guarded against in cutting an alphabet, the secrets of correcting which are still among tlie " mysteries and art of printing." If you have ever seen an inscription cut on stone in capi- tal letters, where the v's or w's did not descend below the base of the other capitals, you will have experienced an illusion of this sort. In very lai^ge sizes of type it is necessary to make the o's descend below other letters as much as a sixteenth of an inch, to produce the effect of an even line. Round lower- case lettci-s must extend above square lower-case letters as well as below, to appear to align.
CUTTING AND CASTING 13
anism.This improvement,! learn, has come to pass through a more sympathetic and subtle manipulation of the machine itself, and by modifications of rules by the eye of the work- man who operates it. And so, after all, it seems to be the eye and the hand that determine the excellence of the product of a machine, and it is only when a machine is as flexible as the hand that it is as good as the hand. In the final analysis we come back to the eye as the great factor in the success- ful operation of a punch -cutting machine. For Jaugeon was right.
Nowadays most type is cast by machine. The difference, however, between early hand type-casting and modern me- chanical type-casting is not so great as one would suppose, and is nothing more than the substitution of the movement of a machine for manual dexterity. The modern type-cast- ing machine has the advantage of infinitely greater pro- duction; and as much more care is taken in examining the types produced and discarding those with imperfections, its product is more uniform and perfect than in earlier fonts cast by hand. The modern type-casting machine is not,how"- ever, employed for everything. Hand-moulds are still used for casdng small and special sorts of characters. Some de- tails in the production of kerned letters are more success- fully managed by hand than by machine. Many script types cannot be cast by machine at all.
The ingredients of modern printing types are, roughly speaking, lead, tin, antimony, and sometimes a little copper ; these vary in proportion, according to the size of the type being cast. The end aimed at in type-metal is to obtain a material which shall be dense, ductile, and fusible at a low temperature. Lead is too soft to be used alone; antimony is therefore introduced to give it hardness ; as are copper and tin to give toughness, the last having the property of
14 PRINTING TYPES
cementing metals which fuse at different temperatures. This amalgam of metal does not rust, has the advantage of shrinking less than any other alloy, and fills the mould and matrix very perfectly.
As to the wearing qualities of type, small faces of type, with lines more delicate and closer together, wear less well than large faces, and the counters in small faces, being shallow, fill more easily. Types also wear out because of careless handling, and by constant setting, distributing, correcting, and planing down ; and therefore much depends upon good workmen A\ho handle their types carefully and, abo\e all, keep them clean. Certain printing papers cause tvpes to wear much more than others. Such are many of the interesting hand-made papers; especially rough-surfaced papers when printed dry. So it is not alone important that tvpes should be made of proper ingredients and should be made well, but they should be carefully handled and thoughtfully employed.^
' For detailed accounts of tlie processes of ancient t\'pe-cutting and type- casting, see Reed's Hintory of Old Knglish Letter Foundries, Introductory Chapter, and Moxon's Mechankk Ejcercises. For modern t)pe-cutting and tvpe-casting, see De Vinne's Plain Printing Tyfies, and Ix;gros and Grant's 'Jy/iografihical Printing- Surfaces. Tlie last is especially valuable for its diagrams.
CHAPTER II
A FONT OF TYPE AND ITS CASE: THE TYPOGRAPHICAL POINT: POINT-SET AND LINING TYPES
TYPE is defined as a right-angled, prism-shaped piece of metal, having for its face a letter or char- acter, usually in high relief, adapted for use in letter-press printing ; and type in the aggregate is described as an assemblage of the characters used for printing. In a single type the chief points to be described are the face, counter, stem, hair-line, serif, beard or neck, shoulder, body or shank, pin-mark, nick, feet, and groove.
Pin Mark
Face
Body or Shank
Niclc
2 , Diag-ram of Type
Stem- Serifs
Hair-line
/R1
^^
Sh
Counter
■Beard or Neck
ld(
ouiaer
3. Plan of its Face
The accompanving diagram of a piece of type {Jig. 2) shows its face, body, nick, groove, feet, and pin-mark ; and the plan of the face {Jig. 3) shows the stem, hair-line, serif, counter, beard, and shoulder.
The body (or shcmk) of a piece of type is the metal be- tween the shoulder and the feet (described later), and the
16 PRINTING TYPES
term "body" is also used to denote the size or thickness of types, leads, etc. The pin-mark is an indentation on the upper part of the bodv, made by the pin in casting. The ?i2ck is the groove across the lower part of the body of the type, and is a guide to the position in which it is to be set up.^ The Jeef are the projections on each side of the groove on which the tvpe stands, the groove being the hollow left be- tween the feet w here formerly was the jet.
The Jbce of a type is the letter on its upper end which carries the ink to be impressed upon the paper ; the counter is the cavitv left by the surrounding lines of the face. The stem is the thick stroke or line of the letter ; the hair-line is the thin stroke of the letter. The serif \s a short cross-line which occurs at the ends of the unconnected lines in the type-face.^ The beard, sometimes called the neck, is the slope between the outside edge of the face and the shoulder, the shoulder being the fiat top of the body which supports the neck or face.
A standard font or fount of letters consists of all the char-
' In American, Englisli, and German types, the body carries the nick on the front, but in French and Belgian type on the back. Besides showing tlie posi- tion for setting, this aids both founder and printer in distinguishing the differ- ent faces of the same type-body — by the number, kind, or situation of tlie nick on the bodies of the various faces. An extra nick is sometimes cut on small capitals — o, s, v, w, x, and z — to distinguish them from lower-case letters. Small capital i is so marked in old style faces to distinguish it from the arabic figure.
' The serif is an important feature in type-design and usually varies by the st\le of its attachment to the body strokes, according to the face of the type. In old style lower-case letters it is a sort of blunt spur; in many modem French and Italian types it is a delicate hair-line; in modem "Scotch- face" it is curved or bracketed on the inside where it meets the main line. But the design of tyjjes is not absolutely determined by the shape of the serif. The stems of letters in the great type-families, and jiarticularly the swellings and depressions in the forms of their lower-case letters, are also important to tlie design of a type-face and yet independent of tlie shajje of the serif. Serifs, taken by tliemselves, may resemble each other in quite different type- faces.
A FONT AND ITS CASE 17
acters usually needed in composition, and is made up of the
following sorts:
ROMAN
Capitals: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z, &, M, CE.
Small capitals : ^ a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i, j, k, l, m, n, o, p, q, r, s, t,
U, V, W, X, Y, Z, &, ^, (E.
Lower case: a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i, j, k, 1, m, n, o, p, q, r, s, t, u,
V, w, X, y, z, ae, oe, ff, fi, fl, ffi, ffl." Accented letters: a, a, a, a, e, e, e, e, i, i, i, i, 6, o, 6, o, u, i^i,
u, il. Figures: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 0. Marks of punctuation : - , ; : . ? ! — '[]()• Marks of reference: *, f, t §, II, \ l^^'
ITALIC
Capitals : J, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, /, /, JC, Z, M, JV, 0,
F, Q, i?, &\ r, u, F, rr, x, r, z, ^, js, (e.
Lower case : a, b, c, f/, <?,/, g, h, i,J, k, /, m, n, o, /?, ^, r, s,
t, u, V, w, X, y, r, as, oe,f,f,f, #,# Accented letters : a, a, «, a, e, ^, e, e^ 1, 2, z, ?, 6, d, 6, o, u, u,
u, il. Figures : 1, 2, 3, 4, S, 6, 7, 8, 9, 0. Marks of punctuation : - ^ ; : . ? ! ().
Spaces: en quadrat, and 3 to em, 4 to em, 5 to em, 6 to em, and hair spaces, used to separate words.
' There are seldom any italic small capitals.
" A greater number of ligatured letters occur in Caslon's fonts, viz. : <?, long/
in its combinations yZ-jy^,/, Jk, Jl,Jf, ft,Jfi,JJl, both in roman and italic. Some
other old faces or their reproductions — i.e., the Garamond italic — show
as, is, us, il, fr, U, Sp, J?, tt.
' Note references, except in rare instances, are the same for roman and italic.
18 PRINTING TYPES
Quadrats: em quadrats, and three sizes of large quadrats, viz., 2 em, 3 em, and 4 em, used chiefly to fill out lines. Miscellaneous: braces in different lengths, dashes, leaders, fractions, mathematical signs,^ degree marks, commercial signs (such as $, @, 1j^), and so forth. Occasional Characters: Hturgical signs, ^, I^^ and >J< (for the sign of blessing), characters denoting contractions (such as ^, q, 6, d", i^ p), unusual fractions, etc.
The characters which make up a complete font of type fall into six classes, which Mr. De Vinne tabulates as : "(l) Full-bodied letters, like Q and j, that occupy the entire body of the type; (2) Ascending letters, like A, b, d, h, that occupy the upper three-fourths of the body; (3) Descend- ing letters, like p, y, g, q, that occupy the lower three- fourths of the body; (4) Short letters like a, o, that occupy about one-half of the body in the middle part ; (5) Small capitals, that are sometimes in height more than one-half of the body, but not as high as the ascending letters; (6) Ir- regular characters, like the *, that have no arbitrary height, but do have a definite position." In a type of "modern" face, the figures all belong to the second class, but in "old style"' fonts they are variously short, ascending, and descending.
As far as is known, the mathematical signs + and — were first used by Wid- mann in a book j)iiblished at I^ipsic in 1489, though he does not speak of them as if they were a novelty. Robert Recorde first employed them in an Eng- lisli book. In The Whetstone of JVitte (1557) Recorde employed = as tlie sign of equality (chosen because "noe two thynges can be moar equalle" than two parallel straight lines) , though this sign had long before appeared in mediae- val manuscripts to represent the word est. William Oughtred showed the x or sign of nuiltiplication in his Clavis Mathematica, issued in 1631 . See Franz ^icfCcns^s Pa/eoffra/t/iie iMtine. 125 Facsimiles en fihototyfiie acomfiagnesde Iranscri/itions et (rexfilications, avecun exfiose systematique de V histoire de Pecriture /atine. Treves and Paris, 1910. Edited by Remi Coulon and translated into French from thcsecond (.itrman edition oi Lateinische Faleografihie, p. xl. ' To understand the terms "old style," " modem face," and "modelled " letter, it must be remembered that the earliest roman and italic types were
A FONT AND ITS CASE 19
A "sort," understood in connection with printing, is one of the pieces in a font of type considered in reference to supply or lack. To be " out of sorts " is to lack some of the necessary types in a case. To "order sorts " is to order more of the kind in which the font is deficient. The term " out of sorts," therefore, means destitute or without equipment.
The word " ampersand " is a corruption of " & per se = and," meaning the character & by itself.^ In some italic ampersands the letters e and t are easily distinguished, as in the examples shown, ^_5 , ©, ^, ^.
The Arabic numerals have an interesting history. The best forms to employ are mentioned on a later page. Arabic figures are not cast in italic except in very modern fonts.
Types have much better appearance when composed in certain languages than in others. Latin is an ideal tongue for type composition, no other language having anything like the same dignity and monumental appearance when well composed in fine type — probably one reason w^hy Latin quotations have so long survived in specimen books. This is due to the many u's, m's, and n's, the lack of y's, and the paucity of other descending letters. A page composed in Latin and a page composed in English, placed so that the lines of type are perpendicular to the eye, will at once show the difference in effect between them.
It was an early custom to display black-letter types in
of much more uniform line throughout than now. In time they began to show increasing differentiations of weight between the stem and connecting lines. The earlier form of letter, with slighter differences in conti-asting weight of stroke, we now call "'old style ; " the much later form, exhibiting greater contrasts of thick and thin lines, constitutes a " modem face " letter. And the greater the variation of weight of line in the design of a letter, the more it may be called " modelled."
' The /ler se was used with A, O, and I, to indicate that the letter, standing by itself, made a word. This led to the term a/ier se, to denote what we should call now, A No. 1. For instance, "London, thowe arte of townes A per se."
20 PRINTING TYPES
the words of the Pater Xoster or sometimes (as in Ratdoh's fifteenth centurv specimen sheet) of the Ave Maria. Classi- cal (juotations were used to show oft' roman type. No doubt the familiar opening of Cicero's oration, '"''Quousque tandem abutere^ Catilina^'' has had (since Caslon's time^) consid- erable influence on the shape of the capital letter Q ; for this sentence became so consecrated to type-specimens that most eighteenth century type-founders felt it necessary to employ it, and in order to outdo each other, they elongated the tails of their Q's more and more. I do not say that Q's have long tails because Cicero delivered an oration against Catiline ; but that the tails of some Q's would not be as long as they are if the oration had begun with some other word ! Ultimately the tail became so long that many capital Q's with their companion u were cut as logotypes, ?>., Qu.
In casting a font of type, the proportion of its letters varies according to the language for which the type is to be used. Latin and French require more of the c, i, 1, m, p, q, s, and v than English. This variation of proportion applies to almost all modern languages in different degrees. It is easy to see that in English many more letters of one sort are needed than of another. Indeed, the arrangement of type-cases is a hint as to the proportion used. This leads us to the considera- tion of the printer's case, which has some points of interest.
A case is a wooden tray divided into various compart- ments or "boxes" of different areas but of a uniform depth of about an inch, and a printer's font of type ordinarily re- quires two of these trays, one placed above the other on frames or sloping desks. The higher tray is called the upper case ; the lower tray is called the lower case ; and it is from these trays and their position that the characters are de- scribed as upper-case and lower-case letters, a term which
Caslon appears to have been the first letter-founder to employ this quotation.
A FONT AND ITS CASE
21
is merely descriptive of the relation of the cases to each other and to the compositor {Jig. 4).
The ordinary upper case has 98 equal-sized boxes and contains capital letters in order from A to Z, except for the omission of J and U, which follow the Z. The remaining
Upper Case
4. A Pair of Printer's Cases
boxes on the right hand are occupied by commercial signs, dashes, braces, diphthongs, the ampersand, and the lower- case ffl. The left-hand side of the upper case contains small capitals, arranged like the capitals on the right-hand side, and the other boxes are filled with fractions (sometimes replaced by accented letters), reference marks, such as the asterisk, dagger, section mark, etc., diphthongs for small capitals and lower case, the small capital ampersand, brackets, and parentheses.
22 PRINTING TYPES
The lower case, \vhich has 54 boxes or compartments, is laid (for that is the term used in speaking of placing type in a case) on the principle of placing the letters most needed nearest the hand of the compositor. Of these, e comes first, ha\ ing the largest compartment allotted to it of any char- acter ; and the next commonest letters are: c, d, i, s, m, n, h, o, u, t, a, and r, together with 3 em spaces and quadrats. The third class of letters, of which about half as many are required, comprise the remaining letters of the alphabet (except j, k, q, x, and z), to which add the comma and em and en quadrats.
Lower-case j, k, q, x, and z, the ligatured letters, figures, and the rest of the marks of punctuation, and 4 em, 5 em, 6 em, and hair spaces, occupy small boxes along the edge of the case. They are, in a sense, suburban letters, and live in a small way in outlying districts ; ^^•hereas the more popular letters live in the middle of the town ; like a city in ^^■hich — unlike most cities — the busiest inhabitants live in the best and largest houses!^
In early times the capital letters U and J did not exist, V being used for U,and I for J. From the eleventh to the seven- teenth century the letter I represented both the vowel sound of I and the consonant sound of J.^ Its likelihood of being
' The cases described are intended for book work. For job work — that is, for circulars, advertisements, etc. — a different case is required. Tliis "job case" is a single case somewhat varied in its arrangement from tliat used for book composition.
ITie lower-case i and j were first differentiated in Spain, where (when print- ing was introduced) j was used for the consonant and i for the vowel. At first the capital I stood for both I and J, as it now does in German type, and should in all black-letter — although some very strange J ' s have been made by modem tyi)e-founders to supply a black-letter variant. The capital J appearc^d in Spanish before 1600. Louis Elzevir, who worked at Leyden be- tween 1595 and 1616, is supposed to be the first printer who made the dis- tinction of u and v, i and j, lower case.
T\\e capital letters U and V began to be differentiated by printers in
A FONT AND ITS CASE 23
confounded with one of the strokes of some letter near it led to various efforts in writing to keep the two sounds distinct by a differentiation in the character, and from this effort came the curve of the j, though the dot of the i survived in the lower-case letter when the tail was elongated.
When these two new capital letters were first rendered in type, it is obvious that printers had become accus- tomed to an upper case arranged without them. To intro- duce them in their proper places, i.e., the J after I and the U after T, proved an inconvenience to the printer who had been trained to cases in which there were no such letters. At any given moment, it would have caused too much trouble and confusion in a printing-house to make this re- form, and by this vis inertiae the J and U still follow the Z in the upper cases, as they always have, and probably always will.
Efforts at improved arrangement of cases have been many. Lord Stanhope invented a case which varied from that described, by discarding some of the double letters, which he considered logotypes, and by introducing some new combinations. He also modified the height of the front partition of each box, in order to facilitate the compositor's work. But while his invention may have induced improve- ments in the arrangement of cases, it was considered rather
Italy as early as 1524. In England, although various attempts were made in the sixteenth century to introduce u and j, their use was by no means general until 1630. At first V continued its double function as a capital, but subse- quently U was adopted, — derived from an uncial form of V dating from the third or fourth century. This kind of capital U was employed up to the end of the seventeenth century, when it ga^'e way to the present form. The mod- ern English use of U u for the vowel and V v for the consonant dates from about 1700; but tlieir interchangeable use survived until well into the nine- teenth century. Words beginning with U are still entered under V in the catalogue of the British Museum. In Chambers' Mncyclofiedia of 1786, words beginning with U and W are placed under V.
24 PRINTING TYPES
too radical/ Lefevre, author of the classical Guide du Com- positeur^ who was "prote" (or foreman) to Didot, also ar- ranged a case which, by an elaborate series of calculations, he shows would save twenty-three days' time in a period of three hundred working days.^ In some of his proposals he foreshadowed the present idea of simplification of effort and movement as an important factor in economical production.^ There must be a variation in cases used for foreign languages. In general, European languages employing the Roman letter have cases differing slightly from one another, while cases for Greek and languages employing non-Roman characters have a great divergence. Greek cases vary in dif- ferent establishments ; and a model of a Greek case, with the simplifications proposed by Lefevre, may be consulted with profit.*
The names given to the various sizes of types in current use in England in the seventeenth century were as follows: French canon, two-line English, double pica, great primer, English, pica, long primer, brevier, nonpareil, and pearl; and small pica was also occasionally used. Half a century later, two-line letters of double pica, great primer, and pica were added ; and paragon, small pica, bourgeois, and minion were to be found in most printing-houses. Pica, equivalent
'For illustrations of Lord Stanhope's proposed cases, logotypes, etc., see Savage's Dictionary of the j4rt of Printing, London, 1841, p. 102.
LefSvre's Guide Pratique du Comfiositeur, Paris, 1883, p. 556, and facing plate.
Of late years much has been said in regard to "scientific management," and much unused or wasted energy has been liberated or saved by it. But tlie effects of scientific management, pushed to an extreme, on the trades in which elements of fine art or personal tiiste are factors, would often lead to artistic inefficiency .
I^f^vre, ]). 242 ; for plans of cases for various languages, see plates in the same work.
A FONT AND ITS CASE 25
to 12-point, was the standard English and American body and common unit of measurement for types, leads, etc., until the adoption of the point system.
The irregular bodies like small pica and bourgeois origi- nated through the widespread use of Dutch fonts by Eng- lish printers. This predilection for Dutch material forced English founders to supply types cast to the Dutch stand- ard. Some of the Dutch body -sizes were almost the same as English regular sizes, and were consequently called by the usual English name, which would thus come to stand for two or more slightly different bodies. But when a new font was imported, or cut by an unskilful English work- man, which would not fit any regular English body, it was cast on an irregular body and given a new name.'
The names of the old type-bodies varied in different countries. Although they are practically abandoned to-day, it is useful to know what their original names were — a part of the literary history of type which explains many allusions in early books on printing that would be other- wise unintelligible. At first the name was descriptive of both body and face. Later it was applied to the body only. For instance: English was the name used to describe one size and all faces of hlack-letter type ; and thus some speci- men books display black-letter of 14-point size under the heading "English English." Indeed, until about the end of the eighteenth century an "English" face was understood to be black-letter. The old names of the chief English,
To confess the truth, ' ' says Rowe Mores, * ' the irregular bodies owe their origin to the unskilfulness of workmen, who when they had cut a fount which happened to vary from the intended standard gave it the name of a beauty, and palmed it upon the printers as a purposed novelty — such are Paragon, N'onfiarnl, Pearl, Minion, Robyn and Diamond.^' Dissertation ufion English Ty/wgra}ihical Founders and Founderies, I^ndon, 1788, p. 20.
26 PRINTING TYPES
French, German, Dutch, Italian, and Spanish types with their approximate equivalent in points are shown in the accompanying lists/
That the sizes of ancient type-bodies were arbitrary was deplored bv writers as early as Moxon. In his Mechanick Exercises he gives tables showing the number of squares of a certain body which should make up an English foot. For instance, 184 squares or ems of a pearl body, or 17^ of the great-canon body, were comprised in one English foot. The relation, however, of these types to one another was extremely irregular. Dominique Fertel, of St. Omer, in his Science Pratique de Vlmprimerie^ written in 1723, alludes to the lack of precision and uniformity in sizes of type current in his time. It was to remedy this that Pierre Simon Fournier^ formulated his "point system" in the tractate issued at Paris in 1737, en tided Tables des Pro- portions qiHil faut observer entre les caracteres; describing and developing it further in the preface to his Modelesdes Car- acteres de V Imprimerie of 1742 ; and finally gi\'ing an elab- orate description of his perfected scheme of the "typo- graphic point" in his Manuel Typographique of 1764. 1 do not know how the scheme of proportion of type-bodies pro- posed in the original formulation of 1737 compares with that proposed in 1742, but the latter is neither as complete nor as practical as is the plan finally de^'eloped in 1764. In the Modeles Fournier took for his unit of measurement a line
* For names of types in French, English, German, Spanish, Dutch, Italian, and Magyar, see lists in Vocabulaire Technique de VFAiteur en Se/it Languea, licme, 1913, p. 303. The. derivations of these names are of considerable in- terest, and are treated at length in Reed's Old Kngliah Letter Foundries, pp. 35-40; also in De Vinne's Plain Printing- 7\///f«, pp. 62-68.
Commonly called Founiier le jeune. He sometimes styled himself S. P. Fournier, as in the Table des Profiortions repro<luced on a later l)age.
o
U U Oh
-2 C
Oh h
|
■« rt |
o |
•r |
rt |
|
7 |
rt |
; |
|
|
« ct; |
O |
||
|
c |
|||
|
<: ^ |
M |
cq |
0 |
2 2-5
rt S c a, c
2 t^ o 3
^^ w *>^ O 'y "■' *** r
Oh S- t^ —
S S 6 .S
O rt r! ^
^ to O h S Z q!
c o
^
3 3 2 <
QJ QJ CL) ^ _Q ^ ^ iH
o
C O
tJ .'H H rS C rt
.''^hij^,:;^ ram Z,^^^'^~'-'001^ajO-'i
s
fcS
^ C "^ •:? Oi 1"!
U u ^
O -S ^ .S
<u (U C o
a^ B
t>^ O fc^ Q e< h
cj a
1^ ° S
, .. bi) t^ i: rt
^ O I u .s p;
Q O H Oh cS O
§S
o
3 ^
o. h O fc«i o M u S.a< u 2
rt O ,0;
3
Cl, o
-a
CO
c ?i S
__ O OJ "J
cx;p^H<; Q ^h^ j^L' w re <Li •S S S S ^§ :§ .2 a .2 & 1 1 ^
6o
a, •=
jj Pl, ^
D 2 bO rt .y
o i! c .y Ph
Q O W O, _^
5 qj qj tu (u 'n
c S S .= c 3
rt -7 -7 -7 ^ O
CJ N N N N Q
— Kr, W)
■i <l> .^
h-1 pq pq
000000
CUi O, Oh CU Oh 0-,
.2 .S .S .S .S .S .S .S .S S
'So o 'o '0 '0 'o 'o 'o "0
OhOh o. OHOHO.OHa.o.OH
Goo •+ N«OC>\oot^VO
28 PRINTING TYPES
of six points, and a 10-point type would therefore be meas- ured as one line and four points — a plan somewhat cum- brous and inconvenient [Jig. 5). But in the Manuel oi 1764 he did away with the line and took the point as his unit — a much simpler plan, and one w hich by its practicality com- mended itself to printers then, as it has done ever since. His description of the first successful endeavour to place the measurements of types on a rational basis is quoted on a later page.
Before Fournier began experiments with the typographic point, there had been already some regulation of the height of French types; and a standard measurement of type-bodies had been proposed as early as 1733. But the standard to which types A\ere to conform was set arbitrarily by some characters which happened to be found in one particular office, and the regulations which were issued at the time, not having any fixed principle of universal application, were useless. The idea was that one type should be equal to the body of tw o other types, but what the form of those two other bodies was to be was not decided. Of course, so ill- defined a plan ended in nothing.
Fournier describes his invention as something "new and unknown." "I give it a place here," he says in his Manuel^ "in order to explain the new proportions which I have applied to type bodies by the fixed measures which I call typographic points, . . . introducing in this department of typography an orderliness which it has never before had. Through the invention of typographic points, I think I have been fortunate enough to succeed with an exactness and precision which leave nothing to be desired. The typo-
Mannrl Tyfirjirrafihic/ue, Utile aux Gens clc litres, iS" a ceux qui exercent leu difft-rentcH fiardcH de P Art de r Imfirimerie. Par Fournier le jeune. Paris, 1764. Tonic I, ))]). 125 ct ftrr/.
5?
TABLE
DES PROPORTIONS
DES DIFFERENS CARACTERES DE L'IMPRIMERIE
Par S. P. Fo urniesl , GraveHr & FonJeur de Cara^eres d' Imbrimcrie.
m
n
•4
DtUX roUCES.
PARISIENNE. NOMPAREILLE.
MIGNONE.
PETIT-TEXTE.
GAILLARDE.
PETIT-ROMAlN.
PHILOSOPHIE.
CICERO.
SAINT-AUGUSTIN.
GROS-TEXTE.
GROS-ROMAIN.
PET1T-PAR.ANGON.
GROS-PARANGON.
PALESTINE.
PETIT-CANON.
TRISMEGISTE.
GROS-CANON. DOUBLE-CANON. TRIPLE-CANON.
GROSSE-NOMPA- REILLE.
». Pamsiennes
— — I. P.irificrmc , i. Nompareillc.
— — 1. NoMPAREiLLES. II I . Parificnne , i. Mignone.
I. MiGNONES. II I. Nomrareille, i . Pecic-Texte.
— — I. Petits-Textes. II I . Parif. I . Philofophie. i i.Nompareil. I. Petit Remain. I i . Mignone , i : G.iillarde. II i . Parif. i . Nomp. — — 1. Gaillardes. I 3. Nompareillcs. II i. Nomp. i. Cicero. | 1 . Mign. I. Philofoph. 1 i . Pet. Text, i . Pet. Rom. 11 i. Parif. i . Pet. Text, II I . Parif. i . Nomp. i . Mignone.
i.Petits-Romains. I 4. Parifienncs. II i.Nomp. i.S.iint-Au-
gufbn. I I. Pet. Text. i.Cic. I i.Gaill. i. Philofoph. || 1. Parif i. Pet. R<>m. I I.Nomp. I, Pet. Text. I t.Mign. i.Nomp. 11 i. Parif] I.Nomp. i.GaiU. 1 i." Parif ^, Mignon. i. Pet. Text. —^ z. Philosophies, 11 i.Nomp. i.Gros-Textc. 1 i. Pet. Text. Saint-Aug. I i. Pet. Rom., i. Cic. il z. Parif i.Cic. I i.Nomp. i. Pet.Rom. 1 1. Mien. i.Pet.Texc. 1 1. Pet. Text. i.Nomp. 11 i. Parif I.Nomp, I, Philofoph. 1 i,Nomp. i.Mign. i.Gaill, 11 i. Parif 1. Nomp. I 3. Parif i, Mignon.
— — i.CiCERos. I 3.Petits-Textes. 1 4. Nomparcilles. 11 i.Nomp. I . Gros-Romain. I i. Pet. Text, i . Gr. Text. I i . Pet. Rom. i . Sain^ Aug. II 1. Parif I.S.Aug. | i.Nomp. i.Cic. 1 2. Mignon. i.Per. Rom. 1 I.Gaill. i.Nomp. 11 i. Parif i.Mign. i.Cic. 1 i. Parif r. Gail!. I, Pet. Rom. 1 i, Nomp. i.Mign. i. Philofoph. 1 i.Nomp. I. Pet. Text. I. Pet. Rom. 1 i. Migt>. i- Pet. Text, i, Gaill, 11 1. Parif i.Mign. I 3. Parif i.Gaill.
1. Saints-Augustins. I 4. Migrtones. II i.Nomp. i. Gros- Parangon. I i. Pet. Text. i. Petit-Parangon. I i. Pet.Rom. i. Gr. Rom. I I.Cic I. Gr.Text. 11 1, Parif i.Gr. Rom. 1 i.Nomp. 1. Gr.Text. j i.Mign. i.S.Aug. 1 i.Pet.Text. i.Cic. 1 i.GaiU. 1. Pet.Rom. I 1. Pet, Rom. i. Pet. Text. 1 1. Philofoph. i.Nomp. 11 1. Parif. 1. Gaill. I 1. Nomp. i. Pet. Text. I 1. Parif 3. Nomp. I 3. Nomp. I. Pet. Rom. I 4. Parif i. Pet, Text. 11 i. Parif i.Mign. I. Gr.Text. 1 i.Nomp. i.Pet.Text. i. S.Aug. 1 i. Parif i.Gaill. i.S. Aug. I I. Parif. i. Philofoph. i.Cic. 1 i.Nomp. i. Pet. Rom. I.Cic. I I.Mign. i.Gaill. i.Cic. II i.Nomp. i.Mign. i.Gaill, 1 I. Mign. I. Nomp. i. Pet. Text.
1. Gaos-RoMAiNS. I 3.Cic^ros. 1 4. Gaillardes. 1 6. Nom- pareillcs. II I.Pet.Text. I . Petit-Canon. 1 i.Cic. r. Paleftine.'l i. S. Aug. I . Gr. Parang. 1 i . Gr. Text, i . Pet. Parang.
( On ptut tnure au^mfntn df bttitcouf rajffmiU^e tie c* Corfl t!f dtl fitiv»nt, )
— — 1. Gros-Parangons. I 4. Philofophies. 11 i. Pet. Text. i. Trifm^gifte. I i.Gr. Text, i. Pet. Canon. I i . Pet. Parang, i . Paldline,
■^^— 1. Petits-Canons. I 4. Saint-Auguftins. 1 8. Mignones. 11 I.Cic. i.Gr.Canon. 1 i.Pqt. Parang. i.Trifm^g.
i.Trismegistes. I 4. Gros-Romajns. I 6. Cic^ros. I 8. Gail- lardes. I II, Nomparcilles. II i. Gr. Text, is Doubl-Canon. 1 i. Pet. Can', i, Gr. Can.
— — 4. Palestines, I S.Cic^ros. ) 1 1, Petits-Te^^tes. 1 ifi.Nom- parcilles. ii i.Paleft. i. Triple-Canon,
Tom Ics Caradires doivent avoir dix lignes & dcmic gco- mctriques dc hauteur en pa- pier , fuivanc les Rcglcmcns ; ou onze lignes trois points , mcliire dc I'EcbcUc
Les Caraftera dc t'Imprimtrie n'nyam foint eii jufquk frefent d'ordre purfait, ( Its Corps eu/it plus funs tu plus foiblts ,futvint les Imprimeries) je leur dottne ici iin corps fxe dr u«e corrcjpondinct ghinlc ; en cenfcrvunl , iiutiint que j'ai pi , Us forces de corps ordinaires : ce qui a iti approuiie des perfonnes les plus exptrimentees dans tArt.Et pour. I'exlcution , j'ai fait une Echelle queje divife en deuxpouces , lepouce en douzt lignes , cf U liene en fix points ; oil il faudra prendre exaClement U mmhrc de lignes (§■ de points que je marque pour chaque Corps.
5. Fournier's Table of Proportions of Bodies of Different Types From Modules des Caracteres de rimfirimerie. Paris, 1742 (^reduced)
THE TYPOGRAPHICAL POINT 29
graphic point is nothing but the division of the type body into equal and definite degrees which are called Points. By this means any one can know exactly the degree of differ- ence and the relation of type bodies to one another. One may combine them as numerals are combined; two and two make four; add two and you will have six; double this and you get twelve, etc. So a Nonpareille, Avhich is six points, with another Nonpareille would make a Cicero, which is twelve points. Add still a Nonpareille and you would have eighteen points, or a Gros-Romain. Double this total, which would make thirty-six points, and you have the Trisme- giste, and so on with the others, as you will see by the table of proportions. . . .
"To combine the bodies it is sufficient merely to know the number of typographical points in each. To do this, these points or given units should be invariable, so that they will serve as standards in printing-offices, like the pied du roi, the inch, and the line in geometry. To this end I have fixed the exact size which the points should have, in a scale which is at the head of my Table of Proportions, and to insure invariable exactitude in casting types, I have devised an instrument which I have called a prototype. . . .
"The invention of these points is the first tribute which I rendered to typography in 1737. Obliged since then to start on a long, difficult and laborious career by engraving all the punches necessary to the establishment of my foundry, I found no rule to guide me in fixing the body of the char- acters which I was obliged to make. I was therefore forced to formulate my own principles, which I have done, and which I have rendered comprehensible by the following table {portions shown hy Jigs. 6 and 7).
" At the head of the table is a fixed and standard scale which I have divided into two inches, the inch into 12 lines,
THE TYPOGRAPHICAL POINT 31
general relation between all bodies of types, as will be shown by the following combinations.
"This scale contains in its totality twelve bodies of Cice'ro. After printing this same table, which I published in 1737, I perceived that the paper in drying had shrunk the proper dimensions of the scale a little, and in the present table I have forestalled this fault by adding what should be allowed for the shrinkage of the paper."
Fournier's general table of proportions of the different bodies of characters is interesting. His idea of correcting the lack of system in casting types was excellent, but in the exact plan which he was proposing it was risky to make merely a rough and ready allowance for shrinkage of the paper on which his table was printed, if he intended to ar- rive at any exact result. Books at that period were printed on wet paper, and its shrinkage was very variable. It is perfectly possible, therefore, that the elaborately introduced scale, with its 144 points, varied by at least a point in dif- ferent copies of Fournier's Manuel. His prototype was of metal, a large measure of 240 points, something like a com- posing-stick, and was intended to correct this fault ; but the prototype itself was probably subject to slight variations in manufacture, and was in no sense an instrument of pre- cision.
In the succeeding steps by which the present point sys- tem was arrived at, the next advance was made by Fran- gois Ambroise Didot, of the celebrated French family of typographers. Realizing the weakness of Fournier's basis of measurement, he adopted as his standard the authori- tative pied du 7vi^ containing 12 French or 12.7892 Amer- ican inches. He preserved Fournier's subdivisions, mak- ing 72 points to the French inch. Nor did he find it dif- ficult to adjust the smaller sizes of type to his new sys-
32 PRINTING TYPES
tern. With large bodies, Didot was less fortunate. Cicero, which was, like our 12-point or pica, the standard for de- termining sizes, he changed from twelve to eleven points, which proved rather disastrous in its ^^•orking out. The traditional names of types he threw over, substituting for them (with French lucidity) the number of points which the tvpe-body covered, as we do to-day; and this uas perhaps the \'aluable feature of Didot's performance. At the loss of a certain historical and picturesque nomenclature, it placed type sizes upon a basis comprehensible to the meanest intelli- gence. The introduction of the Didot system of points was not made without confusion, however; for many printers, es- pecially in the French provinces, persisted in using the sys- tem of Fournier — a persistence continued until late in the last century. The Didot point is used in most of the foun- dries of Austria, Asia Minor, Belgium, Brazil, Denmark, Germany, Hungary, Rumania, Serbia, Sweden, Switzerland, and Turkey. Fournier's point is scarcely used nowadays, except in Belgium.
At the time that the Didot system was introduced the French metric system had not been adopted, and it is only fair to say that until a type system is formulated which is in full and regular accordance with the metric system, per- fection will not be attained. But the advance made has been very great and has infinitely simplified type-setting, the facility with which the numerical nomenclature indicates the sizes of types as compared with one another, being a by-product of a still greater mechanical advantage.
In this country, George Bruce of New York formulated, in the first quarter of the nineteenth century, a plan based on the theory that bodies of types should increase by arith- metical progression — that small pica should be made as much larger than long primer as bourgeois was larger than
THE TYPOGRAPHICAL POINT 33
brevier. This system, which De Vinne calls ingenious and scientific, was not adopted except in Bruce's own foundry.
Further advances were made, in which western type- founders took the lead. Marder, Luse & Co. of the Chicago Type Foundry began to produce types on point bodies about 1878. Influenced by this, in 1886 the United States Type Founders' Association named a committee to consider the point system. It was found that the pica body selected as a standard could be made to accord (irregularly) with the metric system, 83 picas being equal to 35 centimetres. The unit was gained by dividing the pica into 12 equal parts, each part being called a point. As in France, the old names were discarded, great primer becoming 18-point, pica becoming 12-point, long primer, 10-point. This was very much the system of Foumier and of Didot ; the only difference being that the pica selected was of a slightly different body from their standard body. It is known as the American point system, and many American printers proudly suppose that it is called so from having been wholly invented here!
The common measure for all bodies of type was de- cided by the Tjq^e Founders' Association to be 35 centi- metres or 83 picas in length. To gain a standard for de- termining the height of type it was proposed that this same standard of 35 centimetres should be chosen, and 15 type- heights were to build up to the 35 centimetres. There is a slight difference here between the old standard of ^ of an inch and the new standard. The difference amounts to only about ^ part of an inch, but this is sufficient to make it impossible to use types of the old heights in combination with those of the new.
The Type Founders' Association also considered the ad- visability of adopting the Didot point ; but this, which had a
34 PRINTING TYPES
great advantage in permitting the interchange of types be- tween France and America, Mould have involved too much of a departure bv American founders, and was thought im- practicable.
It is not fair to expect from the adoption of the Ameri- can point system that all difficulties will be overcome. Trouble in tvpes may still be caused by defective moulds, by the overheating of the metal, or by careless dressing ; and types of the same bodies from different foundries cannot always be used together with safety. There is still the great obstacle of a lack of uniformity in the height of the types themselves.^ But in spite of all this, typographical practice has been enormously simplified by the "point" system. It was adopted in England in 1898, though it had been in use by her nearest continental neighbour for well over a hun- dred and fifty years!
The adjustment to units of the width or set of types, as well as their height-to-paper and their body, has also been considered. In 1883 Mr. Linn B. Benton took out a patent for types made to units both in body and width — called "self-spacing" type. In 1894 a western firm introduced this system of self-spacing types, every type in their entire out- put being placed on a body the width of which was equal to an even division of the standard "pica em." Later the more logical unit of a point was adopted — hence the term "point-set." This was to result theoretically, as indeed it did practically, in each line ending evenly, and for the work- man trouble in spacing was avoided; but the shapes of letters and the space around them were arbitrarily rearranged by
Tlie dimension of a type as to height is measured from the face to the foot, and is termed "lieight- to-paper." 'Die standard height-to-paper is 0.918 incli. Types exceeding or falling short of this measurement are termed re- spectively " high- to-paper " and " low-to-paper."
POINT-SET AND LINING TYPES 35
such a method. Types have definite shapes already deter- mined. The bodies on which they are cast cannot be wid- ened or narrowed merely to aid mechanical convenience, with successful typographical results. In comparing fonts cast according to the old system of irregular sets and those cast on the point-set system, we find that the older font had more than ninety different sets, while the latter has but from thirteen to twenty. Something suffers when ninety different adjustments are reduced to from thirteen to twenty, and the "something" that suffers is the effect of the type.
Point-line — another so-called improvement — was intro- duced by the same western house in 1894; and has been so generally adopted by American and English foundries that it is now known as the Standard Lining System. There are mechanical advantages inherent in this scheme, but they are attained at the expense of the correct proportion of certain letters. The convenience of being able to align different sizes of type by the use of 1 -point leads or their multiples is no doubt appreciated by the compositor ; but to make this possible, types below 18-point are arranged, so far as "line" is concerned, in but three groups: in the first are 5 and 6-point types; in the second, 7 to 10-point types; and in the third, 11 to 1 6-point. Taking the second group for illustration, the "descenders" of g, j, p, q, and y can be no longer in a 10-point than in a 7-point face; and as they are none too long in 7-point they become much too short in 10-point. This disregard for proportionate length of descenders of types of different sizes pervades the whole scheme ; and consequently no size of type (excepting pos- sibly 7-point and 11-point) which is cast on Standard Line can have descenders of adequate length ; while in some sizes they are so "chopped off" as to produce real deformity. It is fair to say, however, that a few series of roman and italic
36 PRINTING TYPES
types have been arranged on Standard Script Line, which permits descenders of proper length in all except small sizes.
The shortened descender is objectionable from two points of view. In the first place, if the type in mass (especially in larger sizes, and when leaded) is not to present a squat and rolling appearance, the ascenders and descenders must be of adequate length to counteract this tendency. And in Eng- lish, especially, the slanting and vertical lines of descend- ers are particularly required to offset the preponderance of round, short letters. With the descenders shortened the page loses that texture or "woven" look which is an inte- gral part of elegance in typography. It is objectionable, sec- ondly, because the legibility of a letter has a direct connec- tion with its form; and to disregard this, for mechanical or any other reasons, makes type less "friendly to the eye."
One convenience of the lining system is that all faces of a given size, \vhatever their character, line with one an- other. This enables the compositor to give emphasis to a certain word in the body of a page by using hea\y-faced type, without the necessity of "justification." A good typog- rapher seldom, if ever, wishes to give emphasis to a word in the middle of a sentence by setting it in heavy type; nevertheless there are cases, especially in catalogue work, where it is necessary to use some heavy-faced type to pick out a title or some saHent feature akin to it. But a so-called advantage which offers facilities for wretched typography is that any italic will line with any roman — which has hith- erto been difficult and "would to God were impossible!"
In these point-set and lining types (offered to the printer on the ground of laix)ur-saving and economic advantages) care about distortion of the shape of letters, ill-fit to bodies or mixture of faces, or the effect which all this results in, was cast to the winds. Instead of being combated by larger foun-
POINT-SET AND LINING TYPES 37
dries, both point-set and lining schemes were at once fol- lowed for business reasons. But the lining system was not adopted without some objection from printers, which is now making itself distinctly felt, and type-founders are again offering fonts with long descenders — a movement that has extended to the makers of type-setting machines.
Shortened descenders are nothing new. Italian printers used such deformed types in the fifteenth century, but they had no lasting vogue. The Elzevirs used them in the seven- teenth century, — one reason why Elzevir books as reading editions now are failures, — but they did not survive. In the eighteenth century Caslon showed them as variants to his famous fonts, and Fournier possessed such types ; but they went the way of all flesh. The shortened descender tried in our day is again going out of use ; for no type-founder or machine-maker can permanently "buck" the proper pro- portions of letters.
A lining system which mutilates descenders, and self- spacing or point-set schemes which involve either lateral distortion of letters or too much space between them, may for the moment seem clever, convenient, lasting, and money- saving " improvements," but they are merely unintelligent, temporary, and inartistic expedients. The reason that such schemes met at first with instant success is attributable to that lack of standard on the printers' part to which I have alluded before. Their waning vogue has come from a little study and education. Men must show their faith by their works ; and it is of litde use to admire early typography when one is willing for money-making reasons to destroy, or permit the destruction of, the elements which made it ad- mirable. But apart from all this, the fundamental trouble with these schemes is, that they make types hard to read.
CHAPTER III
THE LATIN ALPHABET AND ITS DEVELOPMENT UP TO THE INVENTION OF PRINTING
IN the preceding chapter we considered how type was made, the sizes of types, and the systems w hich have been devised for their measurement. We must now learn something about the history and design of type itself. Whence are derived the shapes of the characters in which you read the sentence before you ; and whence comes the tvpe in which this sentence is printed? The type of this book is a font trarmtional bet\\een the "old style" types of the school of Caslon and the English equivalent of the pseudo-classic types made at the beginning of the nineteenth century under the influence of Didot of Paris, Bodoni of Parma, and Unger of Berlin. These pseudo-classic types were modifications of that old style type (as we should now call it) which was in use in Ejigland and throughout Europe in the middle of the eighteenth century. The English old style types of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were chiefly derived from Dutch models of the middle of the seventeenth century ; and these seventeenth century types in turn were modelled on earlier roman^ types com- mon in Europe which were introduced into Italy at the time of the Renaissance. Any one familiar with the earliest print- ing will note that many of the early types were black-letter characters derived from manuscripts, and at first sight it is a little perplexing to know where Roman characters come from. But the Roman characters of the Italian Renaissance were a revival, along with the revival of antique learning, of the lettering in which antique learning had been pre-
' In this book tlie words Roman and Gothic, when describing handwriting, manuscript, style, form, etc., are capital izcti. But when denominating print- ing types, they are not.
THE LATIN ALPHABET 39
served at the period of Charlemagne ; and this antique lettering, preserved in the calligraphic revival of the ninth century, was in part a return to the early Roman characters which go back to a period coeval with the Christian era. Thus the type of this page is tied historically to the written characters of the Romans.
In tracing the ancestry of any modern type-form, it is by no means sufficient to limit our research to the earliest types, for it cannot be too clearly understood that the ^r^^ printed books (as has before been said) were nothing more than imi- tations of late manuscripts. " The discovery of typographic printing did not all at once produce, it is to be understood, a radical change in the general aspect of the book. The first works which left the hands of the printers were astonish- ingly like the manuscripts of the same period, especially up to about 1475; so exactly indeed that at first sight one cannot always say, whether one has before him a piece of early printing, or a manuscript. . . . The letters of the printed text present the same characters as those w^hich were written by the calligraphers. . . . The same abbreviations, the same ligatures, and the same punctuations are found as in the manuscript. The disposition of the printer's text is the same as that of the manuscript text."^
So it is clear that we can have no knowledge of the types of to-day and their history without knowing the history of types back to the invention of printing, and that we can have no knowledge of the first types or their relative place in the scheme of things unless we know how earlier calligraphers formed the letters of their manuscript book-hands. Nor can we tell how the letter-forms themselves came to be unless
' See Leo S. Olschki's /ncuncWe* illustres imitantles Manuscrits. Le fxassage dii manuscrit au livre imfirime, Florence, 1914, p. 5. See also the illustra- tions of illuminated incunabula.
40 PRINTING TYPES
we kno^v the history of the alphabet, of the various forms of Latin writing, and its vicissitudes in different countries up to the invention of printing.
Alpliabetic writing had generally five successive stages. It began w ith ideograms, which were pictures, represent- ing to those who made them either :
(1) objects;
(2) thoughts.^
Then came phonograms, which were merely ideograms by which sounds had come to be signified instead of things, and of these there were three sorts :
(3) signs which stood for words; ^
(4) signs which stood for syllables;
(5) alphabetic signs which stood for the elementary sounds which constitute the syllable.
This last is what our alphabet is now; its letters being "phonograms which by the process of long continued detri- tion have reached an extreme stage of simplicity both as regards form and value. If the history of any one of our
* The Roman numerals are supposed by some to be ideograms — I, II, III rep- resenting the fingers of the human hand, and V representing the hand open, and signifying 5. Again IV = 1 less finger than a hand, represents 4. VI = 1 more finger than a hand, gives us 6. X was a picture or ideogram of two hands = 10. In fact, we call these figures digits = fingers.
The zodiacal and planetary signs used by astronomers are also ideograms. The symbol $ is the caduceus of Mercurj' entwined by two serpents; $ is the mirror of Venus, with its handle; and S is tiie shield and spear of Mars. I'he symbol 2/ , which denotes Ju])iter, resolves itself into an arm grasping a thunderbolt; wiiilc h , which stands for Saturn, is a mower's scytlie.
Among other ideograms which we em])loy may be enumerated tlie crown and the brcjad arrow, sundry trademarks and armorial bearings, together ■with sevenil ])rinter's signs, such as ^~ ; ! , and = ." Taylor's The Mfiha- bet, London, 1883, Vol. I, pp. 7, 8.
Such symbols as £,, s, d, though alphabetic in their origin, are now used simply as convenient phonograms, standing for the words "pounds," "shil- lings," and " pence." Ibid. Also such signs as $, tb, cwt. (c = 100, wt. = weiglit), etc.
THE LATIN ALPHABET 41
alphabetic symbols be traced backwards, it will be found to resolve itself ultimately into the conventionalized picture of some object." ^
The next question is, Where does our alphabet come from ? We derive our Latin alphabet from the Greeks and the Greeks received theirs from the Phoenicians, but from whom the Phoenicians derived their alphabet we do not know. Sixty or seventy years ago it was supposed that it could be historically connected with the Egyptian hieratic writing, but this theory is either erroneous, or at the present moment out of fashion.
The Greek alphabet had a close relation to the Phoeni- cian, or (as perhaps it is more properly called) the Semitic alphabet. In the first place, the forms were in many cases very much alike. The word "alphabet," which gives a clue to the connection, is derived from alpha and beta., the names of the first and second letters of the Greek alphabet. "The names of the Semitic letters," Sir Edward Maunde Thompson tells us, "are Semitic words, each describing the letter from its resemblance to some particular object, as, aleph^ an ox, heth^ a house. When the Greeks took over their Semitic letters, they also took over their Semitic names." ^ Both the names of the letters and their order in the two alphabets are the same. This alphabet was employed by the Phoenicians, by the Jews, and by the Moabites, and from early inscriptions, the primitive Phoenician alphabet, con- sisting of twenty-two letters, can be made up.
* Taylor's The Jlfihabet, Vol. I, p. 8. See Sir E. Maunde Thompson's Introductiov to Greek and Latin Palaeo- grafihy, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1912, p. 1: referred to henceforth as Thompson. It is not to be confused with the same author's Handbook of Greek and Latin Palaeografihy, published by Kegan Paul, Trench, Triibner & Co. in their Lnternational Scientijic Series, first issued in 1893 and since republished.
42 PRINTING TYPES
The Greeks learned the art of writing in the ninth cen- tury B.C. — perhaps earlier. The primiti\ e Greek alphabet was generally kno\vn as the Cadmean alphabet, and it had many yarieties. The alphabets first in use were written from right to left; then the houstrophedon method of writing came into yogue, in which the lines ran alternately from right to left and from left to right, like the furrows of a plough ; and finally writing all ran from left to right as it does to-day.
The Latin alphabet had twenty letters of the Greek western alphabet and three letters in addition, G, Y, and Z. Our English alphabet has tuenty-six letters, the additions being (as we know) J, an alternate form of I ; U, which is a similar form of V ; and W, \\hich is simply two ligatured V's equivalent to a double U.
Manuscripts in the Latin alphabet go back to the first cen- tury of our era, and the history of Latin writing is divided into five periods, each distinguished by its characteristic group of handwritings. These, according to Steifens's ^ con- venient divisions, are as follows: i writing of the Roman period ;
ii national handwritings ;
iii the Carolingian minuscule ;
iv the Gothic minuscule;
v Humanistic writing and modern Gothic hands.
Under each epoch there were many subdivisions. For instance, the writing of the Roman period was of several kinds, namely :
(rt) a capital letter hand (further subdivided);
{Ij) ancient Roman cursive handwriting ;
Steffens's (Franz) , Paleografihie Latine. 125 Fac-similcH en phototyfiie acom- fiagnea de tranacrifitioTiH et cVex/ilications, avec un ex/wse sy.itt'maticjuc de P/iiatoire df rccriture latine. Troves and Paris, 1910. (l-xlited by Renii Cou- lon and translated into French from tlie second German edition of Lateiniache Paleofp'afihie. )
THE LATIN ALPHABET 43
(c) uncial letters;
{(I) later Roman cursive handwriting;
(e) a half-uncial letter.
These belonged to the Roman period of writing alone. It is not necessary to describe all these variations here, except to say that there were at a very early period different kinds of handwriting intended for special purposes; just as later certain types were employed to print special classes of books. For instance, in the writing of the Roman period we find there were two forms of capital letters, which are called the square capital (or capita/is guadrata, e/egans, or scnp- tiira monumentaUs)^ and the rustic capital, which is called capitalis rustica or scriptiira actuaiia.' The former is a square, rigid, formal letter used for inscriptions and more stately kinds of manuscripts ; the latter — the rustic — is some- what freer, though employed for fine manuscripts as well. The works of the great poets were written in these styles — for the edition de luxe of books by celebrated authors is a very ancient institution.^ What the difference is between these two forms is plain. Rustic letters were easier to make and could be written more rapidly than the formal, square hands, but both forms of capitals were intended for manuscripts of books.
Now it is not to be supposed that letters, accounts, re- ceipts, and scribblings were written in these hands. The Romans had, as we have, a current running handwriting which they used for commercial and ordinary purposes, and which they called scriptura cursiva^ or littera epistolaris, to distinguish it from the straighter book-hand, which was
^ Paleografihie Latine, pi. 12; or Thompson, fac. 82.
* Paleografihie Latine, pis. 10, 19; also Thompson, facs. 84, 85, 86.
This difference appeared also in inscriptions in stone. See Votive Inscrip- tion on marble, in square and rustic capitals, reproduced in Steffens's Paleo- graphie Latine, pi. 7 .
44 PRINTING TYPES
called scriptura erecta, or lihraria} This old Roman cursive, while it was cursi\e, was a cursive of capital letters^ and in course of time these letters began to show certain ligatures as well as inequalities in their height.' In the history of any art or craft there is constant development ; and it was so in the history of writing. Letters were all the time evolving special characteristics. The capital book-hands, for instance, fell under the influence (especially in rustic forms) of cursive capital handwriting coexistent m ith them ; and inversely the cursive capital hands, as they progressed, became mod- ified bv the influence of literary book-hands of capital letters familiar to the same scribes. So the next step in the writ- ing of capital hands showed itself in a development of what was called the uncial letter, which we shall hear a good deal about.
The uncial was distinguished from the capital of the book-hands by the round character of certain letters ; the chief characteristic "test-letters" being A, D, E, H, and M.* In other words, the old informal, cursive capital hand had broken into the square capital, formal hand, and pro- duced these uncial capitals, M'hich, because they were much easier to write, follo\\'ed cursive rather than square capitals in shape. This uncial hand began to show itself as early as the third century, but was in its heyday in the fifth and sixth centuries. By the eighth century it greatly degener- ated, although there was an attempt to revive it for certain ornamental purposes.*
* Paleografihie iMtine, pi. 9.
' Ibid., pi. 13; also Tables of Latin Cursive Alfihabcts, in niompson, pp. 335-337.
* Strange's Alfihabets, I^mdon, 1898, pi. 2.
* Sec Paleoip-afihie Inline, pis. 15 (showing both early and later uncials), 17, 18; or Tliompson, facs. 87, 88.
THE LATIN ALPHABET 45
The later or new Roman cursive hand which succeeded the older cursive, like it was characterized by flowing liga- tures between letters and by characters of unequal height; but these became much more frequent and striking. The style of the letters showed that their forms had changed through the effect of rapidity and freedom of execution. Ligatured letters became more common and more varied, and from this kind of writing the black-letter ft ultimately is derived. But a chief distinction was the marked difference between tall and short letters ; and from this hand, thus de- veloped, the first minuscule alphabet — the beginnings of a printer's "lower-case" alphabet — is derived. The first square capitals were drawn as if they were between two par- allel lines. The more cursive capitals and uncial capitals showed some tendency to break through these lines, and a certain number of characters actually did so. The later Roman cursive appears as if arranged between yowr parallel lines. The short letters are compressed between the two middle lines, the bodies of other letters still coming between these two lines, but ascending and descending letters touch almost the first and fourth line of the four imaginary lines alluded to just as they do in type to-day.^
Finally, there was also a half-uncial letter which differed from uncial writing in this way — that while uncial writing was composed of capitals with a fcAv intrusions of minus- cule (or as a printer would say "lower-case") letters, the half-uncial was generally based on minuscule (or "lower- case") forms, with occasional intrusions of capital letters. This style of handwriting was revived as a part of that calHgraphic reform in which the abbey of St. Martin at Tours played so important a part in the ninth century.^
' Paleografihie Latine, pi. 22; Thompson, facs. 110, 111.
■ Tliompson, facs. 98, 99, 100 ; or Paleografihie Latine, pi. 20.
46 PRINTING TYPES
Here we have a fuller development yet of our present "lower-case" alphabet.
It has been said that Latin writing was divided into five classes, viz :
i writing of the Roman period;
ii national handwritings;
iii the Carolingian minuscule;
iv the Gothic minuscule;
V Humanistic writing and modern Gothic hands.
We have so far touched solely on the handwriting of the Roman period and the five classes into which that was sub- divided; i.e. (a) the capital letter-hand, (Z') the old Roman cursive handwriting, (c) the uncial letters, (cl) a later Roman cursive, and (e) a half-uncial letter. What is learned thus far? Merely from this we see whence Me derive capital letters, whence we derive certain uncial forms of capital letters with which we are familiar in black-letter types, and whence we derive our lower-case alphabet. Furthermore, we learn that there were three forms of writing — a formal, less formal, and informal; and perhaps it may be said that in type, capitals answer to the formal square capital hands, lower-case letters to the less formal half-uncial letter, and italic to the informal later Roman cursive hands. The square capital, the old Roman cursive, the uncial, and especially the later Roman cursive and half-uncial hands, are the sources from which we derive our present type alphabet.
From what has been said only of the Roman period, the importance of all the different epochs of the history of Latin writing, in their effect upon letter-forms, may be guessed. But we are not considering the history of all stages and variations of Latin writing except as they have to do more directly with printing types, explain the shapes which these have taken on, and the uses to which they have been
THE LATIN ALPHABET 47
put. We need, therefore, only touch on the remaining four great groups of manuscript hands: ii the national hands;
iii the Carolingian minuscule;
iv the Gothic minuscule;
V Humanistic writing and modern Gothic hands; — ^hands which had either an enormous influence on the let- ters of our present alphabet, or else actually survive in types in daily use.
During the existence of the Roman Empire diiferent west- ern countries continued to employ Roman cursive writing. But on its fall, while at first the handwriting of the pro- fessional scribes preserved more or less the old traditional forms of uncial, half-uncial, etc., the cursive characters employed for literary scripts slowly took on, in various countries, changes analogous to those which the Latin tongue underwent in the Romance languages. In Italy there was an old ItaHan cursive, a Curiale, an old Italian man- uscript hand, and the better-known Beneventan writing. These were all Italian hands, but were all derived from later Roman cursive writing. They were also all minuscule hands. In France their equivalents took on a diiferent de- velopment into what was called the Merovingian letter, a French national hand originally derived from Roman cur- sive characters but with marked, though slowly developed, French peculiarities. The Visigothic writing was nothing more than the Roman hand isolated and changed by the national genius of Spain into its characteristic Spanish form. What were called the Insular hands — i.e., Anglo- Saxon and Irish — had, too, whatever their origin, a charac- teristic development within themselves and formed a partic- ular style of writing entirely distinguishable from French, Italian, or Spanish. The student may see what these hands
48 PRINTING TYPES
were by consulting facsimiles of Visigothic, Merovingian, Franco-Lombardic, and Pre-Carolingian writing.^ "In the ^^isigothic hand," says Thompson, — and the same is true of other national book-hands, — "there is the national char- acter inherent in the script, which, quite independently of any peculiar forms of letters, reveals the nationality of a handwriting as clearly as personal handwriting reveals the individual." It will be seen later that this is true of the na- tional printing types which succeeded these national man- uscript-hands. Roughly speaking, all these forms of letter were what in type we call "lower-case," though in them some capital forms were included. These national hands pro- foundly influenced the earliest type-forms in their respective countries ; as, for instance, in certain sorts of well-known black-letter types in use to-day, which are directly derived from English and French manuscripts.
In all books on early writing, Carolingian minuscules are mentioned: a term that is readily comprehensible if it be remembered that "minuscule" may be taken for our pur- poses as meaning merely a lower-case letter, and that "Caro- lingian" indicates the epoch of Charles the Great, otherwise Charlemagne. This ruler, in the revival of learning that marked his reign, not alone collected manuscripts preserv- . ing works of antiquity, but in copying them desired that the form of letter adhered to as a model by scribes should be the most beautiful that could be found. This was eifected by a partial return to the letter-forms of Roman manu- scripts.^ As has been happily said of the revival of classical forms in ornament of Louis XVFs time: "We can see its
''lliompson, facs. 115-131.
* It should be said, however, that the revival of classical literature under Cliarlemagne was jjreceded by classical studies in Ireland, where the priest- hfxxl showed an instinct for tlie preservation of classical literature. Their spread as missionaries all over Europe played a large part in the preserva-
THE LATIN ALPHABET 49
inspiration taken from the classic which it wished to re- produce, together with its fortunate inability to do so, and its consequently successful creation of something entirely original but yet filled with classic spirit."
"The reign of Charlemagne," says Thompson, "is an epoch in the history of hand-writings of Western Europe. With the revival of learning naturally came a reform of the writing in which the works of literature were to be made known. A decree of the year 789 called for the revision of church-books; and this work naturally brought with it a great activity in the writing schools of the chief monastic centres of France. And in none was there greater activity than at Tours, where, under the rule of Alcuin of York, who was abbot of St. Martin's from 796 to 804, was spe- cially developed the exact hand which has received the name of the Carolingian Minuscule. . . . The general prac- tice followed in the production of fine mss. in this school, and no doubt in other contemporary schools also, which set the fashion for the future, was to employ majuscule letters, either capitals or uncials, for titles and other ornamental parts of the volume ; for the general text, minuscule script ; but for special passages Mdiich it was desired to bring into prominence, such as tables of chapters, prefaces, and intro- ductory sentences or paragraphs of sections of the work, a handsome style of writing was reserved which was adapted from the old half-uncial script of the fifth and sixth centuries."^ This last served the purpose of what a printer would to-day call "display type."^
"The immense services rendered by tlie Carolingians to the Latin classics consist, therefore," says Hall, "not in their
tion of ancient manuscripts. The monasteries of Bobbio, near Pavia, and St. Gall, near Lake Constance, were both founded by Irish priests. Manuscripts executed at these monasteries are important in the history of paleogi-aphy. ^Thompson, p. 367. ^ Paleografihie Latine, pi. 47.
50 PRINTING TYPES
attempts at recension which could never be systematic, but in the accuracy with which they copied the good man- uscripts which were still accessible, and in the legibility of the script in which they copied them. The last service is equally important with the first. At Tours, Fleury, Micy, and elsewhere in France, there was e^•olved from the ugly Mero\'ingian script, with its numberless ligatures and con- tractions, and from other sources, the handwriting known as the 'Caroline minuscule.' This clear and beautiful alpha- bet, in A\ hich every letter is distinctly formed, spread rap- idly over the whole of Europe, and is the parent of the mod- ern script and print which is still used by the majority of the Western nations. The difficulty of the earlier hands such as the uncial and half-uncial had often been severely felt. . . . If a difficult handwriting such as the Irish had been widely adopted in early times the havoc wrought in Latin texts by slovenly monkish scribes during the later period would have been much greater. Even the painstaking schol- ars of the Renaissance v^trt completely at a loss when they were confronted with the Irish hand or the Lombardic {e.g. in Tacitus). The soundest texts — with the exception of the few fragments of greater antiquity that are preserved — are those which are attested by manuscripts of the ninth and tenth centuries. The succeeding centuries witness only an increase in corruption."^
The "Carolingian Reform" is important to us because the letter then adopted furnished a model for the types which we use in printing; for this Carolingian minuscule spread throughout France, had a profound influence in Italy, Spain, and England, became the dominant handwriting of western Europe, and superseded all these national hand- writings except that of Ireland. It was introduced into Eng-
' V. W. Hall's Com/ianion to Classical Texts, Oxiovd, 1913, pp. 89, 90.
THE LATIN ALPHABET 51
land in the tenth century, but at first, apparently, only for Latin texts/ It was generally adopted in England after the Norman Conquest, and became common in Spain in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Its characteristic was also — for Tours — to banish cursive forms, to make letters inde- pendent of each other, to avoid ligatures (or if ligatured, the ligature made slight changes in form), and to spread the letters. It is obvious that these tendencies adapted themselves to movable types when the time came to make them.^
But the time had not yet come. "Even with this wide- spread use of the reformed hand, uniformity of character could not be ensured. National idiosyncrasies show them- selves as manifestly in the different scripts of different people as they do in their mental and moral qualities ; and although the Carolingian minuscule hand formed the basis of all mod- ern writing of Western Europe, which thus started with more chance of uniformity than the old national hands . . . yet the national character of each country soon stamped itself upon the adopted script. Thus in the later Middle Ages we have again a second series of national hands developed from the Carolingian minuscule and clearly distinguishable from each other." ^
This second national development began in the twelfth century. "It is the period of large volumes, with writing on a large scale, and adorned with initials and borders of bold de- sign. With the increasing diffusion of literature, mss. rapidly multiplied, and now the book-hands of the several countries of Western Europe, all now derived, as we have seen, from
DiflFerentiations were made between the kind of books for which these va- rious hands were used. Analogously, in the beginnings of typography certain types were used for one kind of book and others for another — not merely as a matter of taste but as a matter of tradition. * Paleografihie Latine, pis. 47, 51, 52, 60, and Thompson, facs. 132, 133.
Thompson, p. 403.
52 PRINTING TYPES
the Carolingian minuscule, exhibit their individual charac- teristics ; each one developing its own national style and, in course of time, diverging more and more from the rest. The Mss. of the northern countries of Western Europe are now to be distinguished from those of the south; the book-hands of England, France, and the Low Countries being modelled on one pattern, and, especially at first, bearing a family re- semblance to each other; and those of Italy, Southern France, and the Peninsula being of a type which was the creation of the Italian scribes. The German script, whi6h belongs to the northern group, rather holds a place by itself, being gener- ally of less graceful character than the others." ^
The Gothic minuscule of the Middle Ages was nothing more than an angular form of lower-case black-letter, the intermediate result of this second national development. It is distinguished by its pointed shape, by letters Avhich are taller than they are wide, and by their closeness to each other. "This form of writing," says Steffens, in a passage which is full of interest, "developed little by litde, and in- sensibly, at the precise period at which, in architecture, the round arch gave place to the ogee." He adds that "just as Gothic architecture had in each country certain special characteristics, so did Gothic ^^Titing receive everywhere a national impress. In the fifteenth century the humanists returned to the Carolingian writing, and it was they who gave to pointed writing (as they did to the Ogival style of architecture) the name of Gothic ; that is to say, barba- rous."^ In these various forms of writing are the precursors of black-letter types which we shall meet later on."* It cannot
Tliompson, p. 436.
This supi)orts what has been already suggested — that typogmjihy and cal- ligrajjliy are closely related to the decoi-ative and arcliitectunU feeling of their time. * Paleogra/ihic Latine, pis. 101, 104, 106, 109 (Cicero), 111.
THE LATIN ALPHABET 53
be made too clear that there was no gap between the earliest types and the Gothic minuscule characters of manuscripts of the time immediately preceding them; and that the reason the earliest German printing types were what they were, was because German manuscripts were what ^A<?y were, and that the same thing is true of the early types of other countries.^
Finally, we come to Humanistic writing and modern Gothic hands ; for from the fourteenth century there were in western Europe these two schools of writing. The Hu- manistic writing was round, and was a revival of the old Carolingian minuscule hand as then understood. The Gothic or black-letter hand was pointed and was a survival of the Gothic minuscule of the Middle Ages.
The Humanistic hand was a logical result of the revival of learning at the Renaissance. In their demand for the works of antiquity the Humanists began to revive the Carolingian minuscule in which these works had earlier been copied, and their versions of it furnished the basis of our roman type to-day.^ It was a clear, readable hand, which grew more and
* To trace more fully tlie stages by which the mediaeval minuscule book- hand, derived from the Carolingian minuscule, evolved into a black-letter hand, the student is advised to consult Thompson's Greek and Latin Palaeo- graphy, facs. 157-201, noting sfiecially facsimiles 186, 187, 188, 191, 192, 193, 194, 199, for their resemblance to early black-letter printing types.
There were two revivals : first, that of Charlemagne in the nintli century; second, that of the Italian Humanists at the Renaissance, "which period," says Hall, "may conveniently be taken to extend from the age of Petrarch and Boccaccio to the sack of Rome by the troops of Charles V in 1527. It is not to be supposed that the classical literatures would have perished but for that revival. Both, however, were at a critical period of their history. Latin might have suffered irreparable losses from the continuance of mediaeval neglect, while Greek literature, which, as far as can be seen, was but little affected by the fall of Constantinople in 1453, might have been gravely impaired by that disaster, had not the study of Greek been ti*ansplanted from Byzantium to Italy at least a century before the final victory of the Turks." (Hall's Com- fianion to Classical Texts, p. 97.) For an interesting account of the vicissi- tudes of Latin and Greek manuscripts from the Age of Charlemagne up to and during the Italian Renaissance, see Chapters IV and V.
54 PRINTING TYPES
more in favour, though for a long time used only for secu- lar literature; black-letter alone being considered proper for sacred literature. It had various names, being called in Ital- ian "Antiqua" (the name adopted by printers), although paleographers preferred to call it "handwriting of the Re- naissance" or the "Humanistic hand." Its roundness seemed to be an Italian tendency.^ In the first half of the fifteenth century, the earliest examples of this Italian hand are found; and by 1465,Sweynheym and Pannartz,at the first printing- house set up in Italy, showed the influence of this Human- istic \\Titing in their semi-gothic types, which they soon abandoned for a distinctly roman letter. In this they were followed by many other printers, and thus the roman types spread all over Europe. It must be remembered, however, that in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark these roman types (like Italian handwriting) have been employed only in the course of the last century. In Germany to-day the roman letter is used only for certain classes of literature — that be- ing the only important country where a debased mediaeval book-hand, translated into type, still persists.
Humanistic writing \\ as, of course, subdivided into groups, as were all such schools of writing. There was a Humanistic writing for books which was at its best in the fifteenth century, but which, by the sixteenth century, printing type had driven out.^ It is interesting to compare examples of the Carolingian minuscule with the Human- istic hand based upon it."* Then there was a Humanistic cursive — a flowing form of the straighter Humanistic Roman, inclined as in writing,^ and for which there seems
Even in Italian Gothic hands of tlie period a mucli greater roundness was preserved than in most other national Gothic texts (Thompson, fac. 194). ' Paleografihie iMtine, pi. 115. ' Ibid. Compare pis. 60 and 115. ' Ibid., pi. 116.
THE LATIN ALPHABET 55
to have been no model in the Carolingian minuscule. Spread- ing through Italy as a cursive letter, this later became the common handwriting of all countries which had adopted for books the Humanistic form of Roman letter. Aldus based his italic printing types on this Humanistic cursive letter, and all italic types are based on it. The handwriting which w^e employ to-day and the tasteless, typographical script equivalent thereto, is simply the cursive of our own time and country.
Nothing more need be considered, except so-called mod- ern Gothic writing. This modern Gothic writing was a cur- sive form of black-letter. After the invention of printing, the old formal pointed Gothic book-hands were given up by scribes and transmuted into type-forms. Such books as were written, were in a cursive Gothic hand, which, like the na- tional book-hands, developed characteristic national traits. The French iettre batarde^ perhaps the most characteristic of these Gothic cursives, was, however, soon rendered into type; and in England the same letter in coarser form and equivalents of the most popular current English hands were likewise adapted to typography. The close connection be- tween EngHsh Gothic vernacular book-hands^ and the ear- liest English types is obvious if we compare Thompson's reproduction of the page of a Wycliffite Bible, written be- fore 1397,^ and the Iettre de forme used by Caxton in his Boethius.^ Thompson also shows a page of a manuscript Chaucer of about 1400,^ which in writing is very like the types Caxton used in his Ars Monendi!" An early fifteenth
' Thompson, fac. 196. ' Ibid., pp. 472-490. ' Ibid., fac. 209.
* DufF (E. Gordon), Early English Printing. A Series of Facsimiles of all
the Ty/ies used in England during the XVth Century, etc. I/)ndon, 1896,
pi. II.
" Thompson, fac. 210.
" Gordon DuflF, pi. VII, second type in lower facsimile.
56 PRINTING TYPES
century manuscript of Occleve^ also suggests early Eng- lish typography. The Netherland printers' uncouth fonts closely followed the equally uncouth ^\ riting of their locality and time. And as for Germany (as has been said), its pres- ent type is simply a survival of the early German cursive Gothic, in a debased form ;' for in other European countries this cursixe Gothic letter was, fortunately, superseded by Humanistic writing. "If Humanistic writing had not been adopted," says Steffens, "to-day, according to all probability we should have a great number of different national writ- ings, difficult to read, just as in the earh' mediaeval days before the Carolingian minuscule had come to supplant the national hands." ^
To recapitulate : there were in use among the Romans divers forms of writing, which continued, with various de- velopments, until the fall of the Roman Empire. Then these forms developed still further in character, in different countries, according to the national genius. Some of these forms, through their fitness, survived ; others perished. The roman character that we employ to-day is the offspring of a form of letter partly revived from antique days by Charlemagne and partly the creation of its period. The splendid hand of this revival after a time again yielded to the play of national influences. A second time revived at the Re- naissance— a second time revived through this same devo- tion to classical learning — on the invention of printing, this
' Thompson, fac. 212.
' Paleografihie Latine, pi. 121.
In addition to the hands employed for books, there were a certain number of Gothic hands employed for documents — such as the French Civilite, etc. {Paleografihie Latine, pi. 119) — which were occasionally rendered into fonts of printing type; but they were uncommon and held much the same position in reference to type tlien, that modem script t\pes hold to other types
now.
THE LATIN ALPHABET 57
letter was transmuted in-to type and became the roman letter of our modern printin,^/ In ancient times, in the Middle Ages, and in the period immediately before the invention of printing, we can seem, too, to trace three forms of writing : the formal, to which in type our capital letter answers; the less formal, to which our lower-case type is equivalent ; and the epistolary or cursive, which is now rendered into type called "italic." Broadly speaking, all types, like all hand- writings, fall into these classes. What we have now to know, therefore, is about these three great classes of types, at various periods, and in their different forms, down to our own day.
* The reader should examine throughout Steffens's Paleografihie Latine, in the French edition cited, and the less conveniently arranged, bnt more avail- able volume, Thompson's Introduction to Greek and Latin Palaeografihy. On tliese two works most of this chapter is based.
CHAPTER IV
TYPE AND TYPE-FORMS OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY IN GERMANY
THE next step in the study of type is to learn to recognize the various forms or "tribes" of type and the subde differentiations between varieties of the same general form of type-face. These differences are verv slight ; often to the casual observer no differences ap- pear. There is no way to learn to recognize them except by training the eye. There is no better way to train the eye than to familiarize it with the type-forms common to the fifteenth century in the countries where printing was then practised, and to follow this by an examination of the type-forms of these same countries from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century. By the time the end of the eighteenth century is arrived at, one will be fitted to consider intelligendy the nineteenth and twentieth century types in use to-day. For unless we know the history of early type-forms, we cannot choose, nor have adequate reasons for choosing, the good types which should equip a modern composing-room. This is true, because much type to-day which seems desirable to the novice, to a trained eye is merely a corrupt version of older and better types ; and also because unless we know something of the historical and literary associations con- nected with certain type-forms, we shall not have a sense of the fitness of things in their use — that sense which prevents a man from printing the Marseillaise in German fraktur, or the Ode to a Grecian Urn in French l^lack-letter. Then, too, we must learn to know where modern type-forms stand in reference to earlier tvpe-forms, if we are not to give undue importance to various modern types; just as we must know where the earliest tvpes stand in reladon to the manuscripts
GERMANY: FIFTEENTH CENTURY 59
which preceded them.^ It was Benjamin Franklin who said: "A Calf is a Big Beast, until you see a Cow !"
This detailed historical study of type-forms is of such practical value, that I do not hesitate to inflict it upon the reader, although, before he has finished, he will no doubt wonder where he is "coming out ;" and wonder, too, if there be no shorter way of arriving at this knowledge.
Less than thirty-five years — from 1454 to 1487 — cov- ered the spread of printing, as we now know the process, throughout Europe. The dates at which it was introduced into the various countries were as follows: about the year 1454 in Germany; in 1465 in Italy; in 1468 in Switzerland; in 1470 in France; in 1473 in Holland — if we except the Speculum and "Costeriana," M'hich were executed before that time; in Belgium in 1473; Austria-Hungary, 1473; Spain, 1474; England, 1477; Denmark, 1482; Sweden, 1483; and Portugal, 1487.
The type-forms used in the fifteenth century fall into two classes: Gothic (a corrupt national following of the Carolingianminuscule),whichwas used earliest, and Roman (a fairly faithful return to the Carolingian minuscule), which
* As a study in "comparative typography," it is useful to see how the same book was printed at different periods, and any student who will select an early and famous book, like the Inferno or Decameron, in a first edition, and com- pare successive editions with it, will find that the different editions furnish almost a history of typography . Tlie more characteristically national the book, the better it is for pm-poses of comparison of styles in the national typography which it represents. But in comparing the printing of various countries, it is better for the student to choose a classic which belongs to the literature of them all — like the texts of Horace, Virgil, or Cicero. In this way one may study typography both ' ' perpendicularly ' ' and ' ' horizontally ' ' — perpen- dicularly, where we take a given book of an early date and trace its progress chronologically; and horizontally, where we look at its editions in various countries at the same epoch. The special collections of the works of a particu- lar author, found in most large libraries, are veiy illuminating when used in this way.
60 PRINTING TYPES
came in later. By Gothic, the mediaeval text or hlack-letter is always meant}
Fifteenth century Gothic type-forms may be roughly subdivided into Pointed, sometimes called lettre de forme; Round, sometimes called lettre de somme, and a vernacular Cursi\"e black-letter, like the French lettre batarde. Although our examples are the English lettre de fomne {fig- 8), and the French lett?-e de somme {fig. 9) and lettre batarde {fig. lO), they show the characteristics of these types sufficiently for our purpose. These three type-forms were the black- letter equivalents of the formal, less formal, and cursive manuscript-hands of the Roman period. Between the mem- bers of the Gothic type-families of the fifteenth century there is the same likeness that appears in the manuscripts of the period immediately before the invention of printing; and, too, much the same divergencies.
Roman forms of type of this period may be divided into Transitional (from Gothic to Roman) and pure Roman, the precursor of the types we now commonly use.
The first type employed in Germany was a gothic or black- letter character. The earliest dated piece of printing from German gothic type known is the Letters of Indulgence, issued at Mainz in 1454. This indulgence was granted by Pope Nicholas V to all Christians who, during three years preceding, had given money to help on the ^var against the Turks. The agents who sold manuscript copies, which were brought out in the early months of the same year (1454), apparently had heard, meanw hile, of printing, and recog- nized its utility for producing leaflets of this sort in quantity.
' Wliat is called "gothic" by type-founders has no relation to any Gothic style; and is purely an arbitrary name — unless it hints at the artistic abili- ties of its inventors. It is nothing but a diagram of a letter — all qualities of design having been left out.
Domine omnipotens, Deu0 patrum nogtrorum atitabam, et Isaac ct 31acotJ, et seminis eorum imtU quifecisti coelumet terrain cum omniornatu eorum; qui ligasti maretiertJO praecepti tui; qui conclu0i0ti atjpssum, et 0ignasti eam terribili et lauUabili no= mine tuo; quem omma parent et tremunt a tJuItu tJirtutis tuae, quia importabills egt magnificentia gloriae tuae, et in^ustentaftilis ira comminationis tuae super peccatores; immenga tiero et imoestiga'
8. Lettre de Forme
©omtnc omnipotcn0, ©cua patrum nootronim abraljam, ct Ueaac ct Jacob, ct eeminie corum j'usti, qui fccisti coclum ct tcrram cum omni ornatu corum; qui ligacti mare verbo praccpti tui; qui conclusieti abfsoum, ct aiguaaii cam tcr// ribili ct laudabili nomiuc tuo; qucm omnia pavcut et tremunt a vultu virtutie tua', quia importabilia cat magnificcntia gloria: tua:, ct inouotcntabilie ira com// minationi© tu« super pcccatorco; immcnea vcro et inveotigabilio niiscricordia promi00ioni0 tux: quoniam tu cs Pominu©, altissimuo, bcnignuo, longamtuie, ct multum misericord, et i^xnitcne super malitias Ijominum. %\x, ©omine, secundum multitudincm bonitatis tua: promisisti pccnitentiam ct remiscioncm iis, qui peccavcrunt tibi, ct multitudinc miscrationum tuarum dccrcvisti pocni// tentiam peccatoribus in salutcm. Xu igitur, pomine JDeus fustorum, non posu// isti pccnitentiam fustis, abral?am, ct 3saac ct 5acob, iis, qui tibi non peccavc// runt; scd posuisti panitcntiam propter me peccatorcm, quoniam pcccavi, super
9. Lettre de Somme
€>omtne omtripotene, €>eu6 ^aityim xKo^ttotmw Mta^am^ et Jeaac et 3aco6, eteeminie cot:um jueti, qui fecieti cccCnm et tettam cum omni omatn eorum; qui figaeti mate vctBo ptxcepti tiii] qui concCneieti a6p66um, et ei^naeti eam tettiBiii et fau5a6ifi nomine tuo-^quem omnia paventet ttef mnnt a vnUn vittutie tua*, quia impottabiCie eet masnifu centia siovim tnx^ et inmetentaBitie iva comminationie tnx enpet peccatovee; immenea veto et inveeti^abifHe mieeticovbia ptomieeionie tn-^ : quoniam tu ee Oominue, aitieeimm) 6eni^nue, Con^aminief et muftum mieecicore,
10. Lettre Batarde
GERMANY: FIFTEENTH CENTURY 61
So they ordered copies of the Indulgence in two styles : one set in 30-line form, of which there were three issues — one in 1454 and two in 1455 {Jig. 1 1), the other in 31 lines, of which four issues are known — three dated 1454 and one 1455 {Jig. 12). The gothic tj^pe was of two sizes : the larger and more pointed being used for head -lines and important words, and a smaller, rounder type for the text. Blanks were left to be filled in with names, etc. In the 30-Iine Letter of In- dulgence^ this larger character appears to be the type used in the 36-Iine Bible, printed not later than 1461, at Mainz {Jig. 13). The larger type in the 31 -line Indulgence is very much like that used in the 42-line Bible commonly ascribed to Gutenberg, but printed, perhaps, by Fust and Schoeffer at Mainz about 1455^ {Jig- l^'). This book, which it took several years to complete, was in process, it is supposed, at the time the Indulgences were printed. Nothing can be more pointed or Gothic than this large black-letter Bible type copied from the German manuscriptsof the period. It is the characteristic form of the earliest gothic type-letter of Ger- many.^ The Germans called this kind of letfre de Jorme
^Facsimiles from Early Printed Books in the British Museum, London, 1897, facs. 3, 4, which show Indulgences in complete form. ' Burger's A/oTzumeTzto Germanise et Italise Typogra/ihica, Berlin, 1913, pi. 137, for facsimile of entire page with rubrication.
Facsimiles of the types used in incunabula are contained in the Catalogue of Books firinted in the XVth Century nmv in the British Museum. The Li- brary of the British Museum contains about nine thousand books printed before 1500. The work is to be completed in six parts, and four parts are now published: I, Xylographica and books printed with types at Mainz, Sti-ass- burg, Bamberg, and Cologne (with 29 plates showing 240 types) .H, Germany: EJtvil to Trier (30 plates showing 254 types). Ill, Germany: Leipzig-Pforz- heim, German-speaking Switzerland and Austria-Hungary (l8 plates show- ing 1 75 types) . IV, Italy: Subiaco and Rome (13 plates showing 110 tyjies) . The facsimiles in most cases give only a few lines of type; so, as its intro- duction admits, " those who would know the glories of early printing must consult Burger's Monumenta .'' ' But it can be used where Burger is deficient or not available. ^ Paleografihie Latine, 1910, pis. 104, 111.
62 PRINTING TYPES
"textur" — because the effect of a page set in it was like a tissue or weave. It afterward was simplified into the type called "fraktur." The smaller type of the Indulgences, which is a rounder black-letter, has certain peculiarities later found in "schwabacher" fonts {Jigs. 11 and 12).
A book which shows clearly the form of the early gothic types of Germany is the famous Latin Psalter printed by Fust and Schoeffer at Mainz, August 14, 1457 — the first book to which the printers put their names and date of publication. This monumental volume shows a larger letter than the 42-line Bible, but of much the same pointed Gothic form ' {Jjg. 1 5). The famous decorated initials were probably stamped in after the pages were printed, one stamping be- ing used for the blue and the other for the red impression.
The same sort of letter is shown in a Missal printed at Bamberg by Sensenschmid in 1488, in type a size between that of the Mainz Psalter and the 42-line Bible." There are other examples much like it, such as the Missale Salisburg- ej2se printed at Nuremberg by Stuchs in 1492,"* and the Mainz printer Neumeister's edition of Turrecremata's Jl/c-flf- itafionesof 1479.* These all show the pointed, angular black- letter of Germany, the earliest form of type used there. The larger types of this kind were generally intended for folio volumes used in the officesof the Church ; some of the char- acters which appear in the Bamberg Missal of 1481^ being almost three-quarters of an inch high. Such volumes are rough in execution compared with manuscripts, yet never- theless magnificent in effect.
' Druckschriften des XV bis XVIII Jahrhunderts, Berlin, Reichsdruckerei,
1884-87, pis. 61, 62, 63.
* Ibid., pi. 25. "Burger, pi. 117. 'Ibid., pi. 76.
Rid., pi. 105. The right-hand plate shows a reproduction of part of the Canon of the Mass. Its ordinary pages are printed in a type much more Italian or Spanish than German in character, and of different design.
♦^ «ft ** •• ^
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o C o
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n O 3 «
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i5 *^ S rt
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H
o
«rf ip <5 ^* ** 2S
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a
H ^ ^ 5 SC3
<*^ 'C S <»> ♦•
» #i:l|l "a.
S S ^
^
tc nt atpUmrft aii mto tutm^ rumtftptuffdt rae fubito*fe fill? tint mm 5 am tram Hii^ Duirs;l& au^iutt iuDadnrut^ regit tpt 1 ixitto poitctt uinu'' tm t|cixituu regie : qur mmt m aiiimau «|n)t)ut tnt Dirprc^ fuo teat Jimitus a raftcio ♦ B mm got^as rraflm htle not- turtr nrnim! inumiM.^ qum- bat me itt montibK m Wt: f ugiut i|ti a nobie * Ik turn Dt^ ofaitus rCTctatiiarutttutias in lampi til tdb> mtUbmiroi^ tantiitqui tccrumfta % glaiJio^ non babrtiat'i^ nitrtilt rato gtittiu oaliDatrt lontatuQ % v quitatue iniircuttu rorilttr iin todi ai) prdiu^f^ ait iuDae m> ris qui rtcu ecat* ^t tinmrati^
13. Type of SQ-line Bihle^ Mainz^ not later them 1461
jCuotr tu auuifla ijauiiKtEfcmiiit in prtfciim.^tliliftiitn autan umimtcs Diffufli funt in ualle rapljaim. Jft ta* fuluit UauiU Dnm 0itEtt0.3>i aftmiB an p!;ilt&i|ra«£t fi tiabis tos i ntanu rata iit tmt Une au Dauiij. jMimte: ifattateno Uabo piiiliBtim in mann tua.Btnit Kffo iianiij aD tealp^ara* fnnrn: jpffcuffit job ibi n timMniin tim inimiros mtos rora nit:fitut tiu uiijuntaqut^ropttita uoratu cno* mtn (oriiHi? baalptjarafnn.ift rdiq* runt ibi fnilptilia fuatq mlit tauiD tt uiri ri?. ft auuiixtunt auiiut pj^ilifti* im nt altmijctentrtt Difftifli Et i xalte rapbaim-lEofuluit auteiiauiu tntm. 5)1 aftmija tott a pljilifttosn ttaija'' £06 in manu0 inras^lDm rnijit. jRo aftrnDas rotra too ftti gira pafl: ttcgu roru:^ umits aD ros aabufo piroru. jEt ru auijiccio ronitQ riainnris tfta* ijimoiratunmpiroi^tutinibisplm: qa tur tgtcaicf tino ate Farit wa: ut 5*
14. Ti/pe of42-Ihie Bible, Mainz, c. 1455
jgiref uftinr, oi| tt lronartr,oi|
OmfsfanAcoftr foz^.ozatejnoli Qmra fti'lftona' r^ii l)tm«m,o:ate jgfra maia inagS«
ii^i 111 AV W) w o
0^
15. Type used in Latin Psalter: Fust and Schoeffer MaiTiz, 1457
GERMANY: FIFTEENTH CENTURY 63
Koberger of Nuremberg used, about 1480, a type less pointed than the first gothic types, reminding one a little of the early black-letter types of Italyand Spain. The reproduc- tion here shown {Jig. 16) is interesting not only for its type but because it is an example of one of the earliest advertis- ing circulars. In the fifteenth century, printers and book- sellers who did business in a large way put agents "on the road" with a stock of their books, and circulars for distri- bution. This particular sheet advertised a theological work by Antoninus, Archbishop of Florence, and its writer, after praising literature in general, says that, theology being the crown of all sciences, the author wrote this monumental Smnma Theologica; that until then, readers could not afford to buy the expensive manuscripts of the work, and printers, owing to its enormous length, had been afraid to publish it. But at last its printing had been accomplished by Koberger and the "long-felt want "(sacred to advertisements) had been filled ! Quite in the modern manner, it is stated that the ad- vertisement is printed in the same type as the book, and that if any one wishes to buy the volume, he can do so at a cer- tain inn, where the agent has lodgings. So it would appear that travelling salesmen and book canvassers are no new thing ! ^
Besides the pointed gothic type, or lettre deforme^ used in Germany, there was a rounder gothic type known as lettre desomme.' Examples are to be seen in the Mainz Catholicon^ printed probably by Gutenberg, in 1460 {fig. 17), and in the Rationale Divinonim Officiorum by Durandus, printed
' For reproductions of similar early advertisements, see Burger's Buchhdnd- leranzeigen des\5 . Jahrhunderts . Leipsic,1907. The earliest printed book ad- vertisement known is that of Heinrich Eggestein of Strassburg, issued in 1466. ' The lettre de somme is said (without much authority) to derive its name from the Summa of St. Thomas Aquinas, for which, as well as for other scho- lastic works, it was early employed.
64 PRINTING TYPES
bv Fust and Schoeffer in 1459/ The lettre de somme was copied from less studied and formal book-hands, and was less massi\e in efiect than the pointed lettre de forme. For con- venience it may be called a "round gothic type." In a sense this letter-form was transitional, for by extending its design a little further toward modern ideas of clearness, a resem- blance exists bet\Aeen this round gothic type of the Catholi- con and the gothicized roman invented by those German printers who became influenced by Italian models.
In addition to pointed and round black-letter types, Ger- man printers had a vernacular type — intended primarily for printing books in German — later commonly known as "schwabacher." Some elements of this type maybe seen in Koberger's German Bible printed at Nuremberg in 1483, in which we find the looped b, d, h, 1, the tailed f and s, etc., characteristic of schwabacher fonts." We may see it em- ployed in a form which is clearly different from the pointed fraktur, in Peter Schoeffer's Hortus Sanitatis {Jig. 18), printed at Mainz in 1485. It flowered into the type now re- cognizable as schwabacher in the last decade of the fifteenth century. Although intended for books in German, it was used for many Latin books as well.
Thus in the fifteenth century there was a tendency in German gothic types toward the forms of letter which we associate with German text of to-day — a tendency show- ing itself in German manuscripts very early and persist- ently. Andreae's Baum der Gesippschaft^ issued at Augsburg by Johann Baemler in 1474, was printed in a pointed letter which shows a form distinctly German as we now under- stand the term {Jig. 19). This is markedly shown, too, in the rounder type-forms employed in Koberger's German
^ Druckachriflen, pi. 41 ; or Burger, pi. 7o. ' Burger, pi. 20.
Cupiete0cmerchb:o6infranotatO6DCti<cnt ad bofpO du5fubnotatumJ3encIito:embabitunlargiffimuni.
€om plurimop pBop fnCa rit.oCbue in actonite maio:c cura abbibedl elT^.tt oice Upetuitate pflarc pofTim'' : ad bac qui&e p&qndo4Ubet mo:tali8 txnct totxQ x>\tv bu0infudarc.€ldet alTcq pofle.a nfi9 maiozito crebitQ e.-fi fingfia mebitatDniba ogibufqs bonefti fo:a accuratiflTimc pponaf .•feed in bmoi pUmau affectonu gene a nonuUis illullrto oirie.buiufccmoi gfa bwerfo calle qfita cft.na; ab alije pBia nafaUe.DC platoc et areftoKleralijamojal'. ot renecamonulUe poemata.ut fama ' c te bomero n wrgiUo:plerifq3 coa eloqntia.Dt bemoflenc n cicerone. AUjs tO etK bie.ti) puerfaDie aDmiftrabifq} legito.Dt legtf tx Ugurto.folone.ettra^ano impa^ tmernecno tx iuftiniano.q pfufuj tuna co:p'^ in luce rebu)cit.q reductoe gplurea ittnrc6fulti.mte ppetuita^ pfe^arbitrati fut:oeluti €luit''muti'». paurolpian''. mfticp pttrea qa logii ect recefcrcQcp q: tbcologia Ucra oim fciap co:ona e:ma yrimc circa materia q ejngit canoito legibufue fulcita. Cluib? cm pftcit bo ft natu< rali.poeft.eloqntia fug 3ftrauolita6:fi opicitotJf ufcp iurie biuitiae pgregetretia fi Dniuerfu mdm lucre? laia 60 fui Cetrimctii patiaf f S)i j;pm fciscait mcllifluua toctozXatia c.et fi cetera nefcia.Ciuo pmof^oir pftUop clariffim''; biia Antonin'^ dim caufa^ romaefebiapitilTim''; temuarcbiepa flo:etin'^.!feiima egregia i qtu o: ptea biftincta pgefiic: q ut oere oite gpetuitatt pfcq facile poITem''. parte pri^ macreatD:i8imenfita^.crcafeq3buanenobilitatE.afq3 ne abealabozci: biuiale gc fulcita j)du)cit.g?ecuba ptecrimiofaa enozmitatea ql» bo a fua nobilitate etiaj bobie labif ♦•fubiupit.'Cercia pte ftatito uniuerfop facmetalia remebia qto qlibec reftitueref :pfcripfit.6t4rtapte ne recidiuii paceref pfuatiua fitutii.gfap <jbo nop fpulTctircoabiupit.et qz fapictirTimo telle 4 abbit fciamrabbit 1 laboze.pfce tete rriti magno fiiptu q i ppabia nolumibo impcbeb'^erat, otio aut ignauie tcbu ti.oel ab alia fe poti'^opa traftuleft.duop tante nccitati; fme buano artificio:fi^ we biuia ope fubuecii e;Dt iuenta ni^a ecate bac ipzimebi trap facilitate. plencp fe ftubija tedicariit;q puo fiiptu pfima lib:op i)olumia:b:eui tpe piitee.i oiroa da* ro9 euabe nitunf .6t q-uie 13 be magno uoluminii nuero p bap Ifap impffozeep^ fice uoletiii ncfitatipuifu fit:nC'0 tii cop ib nouilTimu Cq6 q: mobernii 1 otilimfi) op'^ejcltegroaggre(re;bct?jTitiCt>topino:)magna cobicuclfap mftitubCe. <\c^ uoluecea igif boc i aio.tbeologie facre quit6 alumni.f ej fatifdigna.«7 tan^ nouia mozbia.nouiaatibotia necelTaria.bac Ifap effigiecbaractcrisataop'^ pfectiiicoz rcctu biligeter eppUcarut.^luare ooletea C futpi'^agnitDejjficere.'z faluti^pimop falub:itBr pfulere;omi conamie curare bebec bmoi fiima Antonina k pence bfe. Cupifttfcp fibi pparc ab bofpitiu fefc recipiat fu bfcriptu Bcbitwe bitur i bcmgnui
JntbeoloGia ^ermonee
feiimaj Antonini egregia tn qtuo: Difcipulum te tem^ *? fanctt'6 per
5te9birtinct4.t)t fup:a claret. totum annum,
pantbeologia id e tota tbeologia. lOugoncj be Drato per totu annu.
e^ibliaa amcniflime impflaa. TLconbardu be ^tino be fanctia.
©lofam o:binari33 petri ILombar fiiuabragefimale leobarbi 6 otino.
bi fuper pfalterio. €luab:agefimalcgritfcb benuoco:
fepecula omcencijqudttto:. rectufib£rlitq?ipnu5boctonee)cim(j
'^tem Slitafpacrum 23ocabul3nu Sjalomonia
^uma pifani afe pifanella Docciu te confolatone pbic
ft)ecunba fccuntK beati Tbcme. ^SivJTl^^L,
16. Advertisement issued by Koberger^ Nuremberg^ c. 1480 (^reduced)
cipicbAt.aii tAmen iOtrm ^vp^cra Oidr.rionnc coi* mcu in pfcnti crat qn rtJufus eft- bomo aizro fuo in ocriurtim tibi. (Tpofirq? a? ^bcciG tci^ibuftrac tauJmuo.trlVdt uroc nioois cius ct qujjlitdtibno aliquA Dinrcmmus.Opinme qvpc .^^bcdc ncc fern pel ncc coocm modo ^bcre animu rAntjir.Aliqn cnim f]3intU0 ,vpbcdc ex plonti tancpt animuj ,p pbctanrirct ex futuro ncquacy ta»7<jit aliqn ucyo ^bcdc rpirimranimu ^bcranrifcx fUmm tan gjt.ct ex j5rcnri non tan(jit,aljqvi ^pbcrantio am mil ex pfonh paritcr ct ex hituro ran(pt.aliquan to autem ex prcriro ct ex pfcnti dtqj ex fictiino. jjjter animufrantji? <vpl^^rantio. aliqn ucro pro pbcde rpirituG ex j5trrim ta»?5it animu^ ncc ran ^r ex hituro, Aiiqvi noro ^bcric fpmtus ran 51 1 ex futuro ncc ran git ex j5teiirD./lliqn wcra jn p (cnti ex ptc ran^it ct ex gte non tangjit./lliquart to ucro rpintwe ^bcac m htturo ex gte tangpt ct ex ptc non tangit.ltcj fcias q> ^bctx? quioaj ex tpximo tan<junm2 atc^ c lon(5inq minimc ran Q^ntur.quiDam ue»t> eangimt elonajinquo ct no tanqi(n(tir ex ^ximo.qujoam ucro ct c longpnq tan^unFct ex <pximo.C|'^l>q»i AUtc^ pmpbcdc rpiritus «i¥>^<^*»5 Occfb nee fcmi3 eo2; mcntib^ pn?f to cnr.qtinuroi bunc non bnt (e.buc co^no/canC cx Cone baberc ai babenr.vnDc bclijeurol Rente funamitc mulicnym a fuis pcoibus p ^eji puz; a uclli ^bibcrcr oixir Oimittr illa.anima cnij eiuft jn amarituoinc eft" ct Cominwrcclauit me ct non inDic\uit n)icbi.7rem amoQ.qz caocm bora qua wquifitus cfir ^bcdc fibi fjp'nitum ocelTc fcnfir OJ fs Mcraater oixit.Uon fum ^pbcra.uc Dixi in ar tncntum.Sic quoqj oi iolcpbat cc ?utu.m rcqni rcret.ct ^bcdc ei fpintus cecnTcc pflxltc Fcdt ap pUcari ut propbcdc ao bunc rpiiittio pcz lauarm pfalmooic OefccnDcrct atqj ciuranimum ar iientu ris rcplcrct.vox ctenim pfalmoDic cCi p intcnco ncm cDJOis aijif.p banc omniporcnti ao cor iccr
17. Round Gothic Type of Catholkon: Gutenberg- Mainz, 1460
Ccamia S;itim*stccc dpm^^ataSicc ^mc" JQct mtiffcv (Ba^icnm intern* vt|»^uc^5C!mitt funpftciS fatmacatiu in ^ccapitc^€iptm*ib eft d^camia (ptic^t bap *?if? fy cin Saiint hc^voc^fct ^ynbct^cm mcvc vB m Cict^ta*vnb bi^ SCcttct vn ^Po/ incnnuncttnantn'ittatmcy ^n'icmBnc^citcainftan^ ^f^ti ^n vn^^ic mdftcv vn fprcc^Cft bc^'^tc^ ^mmt^ f<\Jft vicf (Tat in ctci/ vx<t*ibit {t^i^cn pwftj^tifctrcft bit bTcttct vn ^^omm x>n f^icPcn ba^
ba& ma^ man vtcPi^re &^aft:en: vnwaftta an {yntt naxxxct ibcc tttciflo: P4w?it0 paitbccm vn pPatcanwtJ in ?cm capiteP Ik^amia jprcc^cn 6a^$ 6i^ (p faG: ^n^ctn ix\lm^at vn bmcPcit an^bc attfait^ cc^ anbmx^xat^* Qcvopto fptic^t 6a$ 6i^ pitCucr^u^ fr ^cn 6rc ^0 ^a^n (tKoPiim bmJ (y nt w j?)^ ^^atttx^yn in 6cm ttiu6c» 3 tc bi^ pttfoct:sc(<>ttcnmit^t(]^enwa(]et vttb^eflrtc^cnwo ftc^ cynctQc/ Stant^ait ^n^tvtc^^it^ v^*4bie vcr^attcn cfftebbcr o6ct t^ctfetitteiT 1)0 mitsc(lvt<^cn obcvQcfx&ct mai^ct ftc xvctc^ vnb ^Pictftc^* 'iDnb J>i(|e (^e fa^aifo Sctcytwcvbcn* XXytn ^ai^m$&y a& vic^bn void: Tn mijc§cT<tt vitber^c^ pu&tcte adzamic pVatcatin^ fptic^t^a^ ^ftamia ^a^ a^c bocfent in )?m bic^an ^ait fancfut^ 6mconi^« vn roan man nit ^a&n ma^ a^camiam f> ma^ man an fyn fiat ncmctt
18. Type prefiguring Schivahacher : Peter Schoeffer^ Mainz^ 1485
tDcn bc^on Icibetbcn abgcftotbcn ift/ctbcnb [tin \>attcz vnl niutct-t>rt mbtz voz^axm ob bic aliayn wtlc^benb aup na \)m bc^gtab/bn^attc^X)Otbemanbenn obj^ibatb jnlcbci \»ctcrt ?Onb bie in glcic^citi grab fctnb etbenb gelcicl)/bte va tctltd)cn l)alb \)nb bic mute^licl)en {)alb/t^ic wol it ^al x)ngc- Icid) ift>.Cb abet mit ben vo^gemelten t^o^faren voz \)annbti I tveten bts abgeftotben celi^ leiplic!) btiebet/von vattet t)f mutee /bte etbten mitfamp t vattet vnb mutee/jr ^eglidjs aU I \)il als bas amboz /on wbeefcljaib bes gefcJ)led)t5 xmb vat - I tetlicl)et ^<tcoaUfamxn.
(ll^effante 3fl)an toebet auff ftet'genb vozfaztn/no^ ab|te%enb leibs cc - ben voz I)annben femb-©o etbenb 311 etft/bet brubet \)nb bes abgcftotben btu$ Knb/anjts vattets (tat^Oee btu§/fag idy x>nb btilbets Pmb/bievon vautz vnb muti^z^b^ brieber ge== toefen femb/bes etbfcl)afft x^oz })amb<^n ift.xoellid) perfone^
19. Pointed Gothic Type: Baemler^ Augsburg^ 1474
GERMANY: FIFTEENTH CENTURY 65
Bible just mentioned, or in his Nuremberg Chronicleo^ 1493,^ which are easily recognized as German in feeling {Jig. 20). By the end of the fifteenth century and through the six- teenth century, two thoroughly German forms of text letter had developed from the earlier and purer German black- letter characters.
But all the type used in Germany was not of Gothic form. Fonts of roman character were employed there by a few printers. Mentelin, the first Strassburg printer, used a gothic type which pointed towards roman in his Biblia Latina, finished in 1460 {Jig. 2l). But the font of the "R Bizarre," as it is often called, was the first roman letter used in Germany {Jig. 22). This ungainly roman type was used by Adolph Rusch of Ingweiden ("the R Printer"), who printed in it an edition of the Rationale of Durandus, at Strassburg, as early as 1464. Rusch married a daughter of John Mentelin, and to his business he later succeeded. Other roman types of early date were used in a Speculum Historiale printed about 1473 by Mentelin,^ and at Augs- burg in 1471 by Zainer, in his Lateinischer Einhlattkalen- dar for 1472,^ who is said to have brought this font from Italy. The 'L2\x\^x type was a fairly pure roman character, as we now understand the term, although the fitting of the type on its body is rather uncertain in effect. Pollard says that but ten fonts of roman were known to him as employed in Germany before 1480. Its use was revived in the last years of the century, when the accumulation of standard ancient literature (chiefly by foreign authors and formerly available only through manuscripts) had been pretty well ex-
^ Also Burger, pi. 258. For further examples see Druckscliriften des XV bis
XVIIIJahrhunderts, pis. 72, 53,35, and 26, of books dated respectively
1474, 1485, 1492, and 1494.
" Druckschriftcn, pi. 93; or Burger, pi. 91.
* Burger, pi. 1.
66 PRINTING TYPES
hausted by printers. Then the con temporar}- author began to appear, and roman type began to be used for these modern books as well as for editions of the classics. In Germany roman type is still called "Antiqua" in allusion to its classi- cal origin.
There were also semi-gothic types like that used by Mentelin, and puzzling transitional roman-gothic fonts, of Mhich an interesting example is that used by Holle at Ulm in 1482 in his first dated book — the Cosmographia of Ptolemy {fg. 23).
The German fifteenth century press A\as conspicuous for its fine editions of law books and its liturgical printing, in both of which departments Fust and Schoeffer stood first. Pictorial and decorative capital letters were used by many of the best printers, and some of the page-borders used in books were fine, though they were not very commonly em- ployed. Large sizes of type were cut, no doubt, mainly to save the expense of printing in two colours in lines needing to be "displayed" — as in the Indulgences. Printers who used roman fonts got over this difficulty by picking out "features" of their books in lines or masses of roman capital letters ; but massed capitals of black-letter — the type chiefly employed in Germany — were almost unreadable. This was possibly a second reason for large sizes of types, which for purposes of convenience were ordinarily made double the size of the text types with which they were used. One reason that the books of the earliest Mainz printers had such an immediate success was that they were such good imitations of the manuscripts with w hich they had to compete. If Ger- man scribes and illuminators had been as clever as those of France or Italy, the divergence between books and manu- scripts would have offered an obstacle to their sale. But this A\'as not so; and bv a happv accident the German manu-
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21. Semi-Gothic Type: Mentelin, Strassburg^ 1460
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scripts of that day lent themselves very well to typographic rendering.
The sack of Mainz in 1462 influenced the spread of typography, for it wiped out commerce there, and the con- sequent lack of money led printers, \\ho were established in a kind of industrial group, to scatter widely. This ac- counts for the German names we find among the earliest printers in other countries throughout Europe. Where these men continued to work in Germany, their difficulties were slight, and this was true where they were invited to set up their presses in some foreign place, and financial support was assured them. But in many cases the wandering printer had to take his chances as to \\ here he might find employ- ment, and to travel into a far country whose language was unfamiliar to him, before he reached an apparently favour- able spot for his enterprise. As books were printed, at first, page by page,^ and galley proofs were unknown, if he de- sired to produce a large book with any speed, a number of presses would be required, and there was the cost of other materials to be counted. So a good deal of courage, inge- nuity, and financial ability to see the undertaking through \v9.s needed, if he was to succeed. Even then it was very easy to make mistakes in the choice of books, or in the way they were printed, and either error might lead to disaster. For these men were obliged to be not merely printers, but publishers ; they had not alone to make their books, but to sell them.
Such printers found their chief customers in churches, monastic libraries, the clergy, teachers and their students, lawyers, doctors, and professors of philosophy; and there were, too, general readers and educated lovers of literature.
* It was not until between 1470 and 1480 that two pages were printed at the same moment.
68 PRINTING TYPES
For monastic libraries printers often supplied books which may be classed among those volumes "which no gentle- man's library should be without," and which so few gentle- men ever read ! Both in France and Germany, many printed service books were required, although in Italy manuscripts for some time held their own as the more orthodox form of liturgical book. "Helps for the clergy," skeletons of sermons, etc., appealed to parish priests, and law-books, school-books, and medical treatises also had their market. Then, too, there were editions of the classics which were, however, mostly produced in Italy for the rest of Europe.
As we have to do chiefly with type, the kind of types which these printers made most interests us. Mr. Pollard, in the illuminating paper on Early Printers with which he prefaces the catalogue of the Annmary Brown Memorial library,^ tells us that "At first there were special church types for service-books and Bibles, but these were soon re- served for the large service-books for use in choir, in which the type was necessarily massive and clear, both to avoid mistakes in reading and sometimes also to enable the book to be shared by several singers. Save for a few experiments, roman tj-pes in Italy and gothic in Germany were at first used for books of all kinds, but the tendency was to regard roman as specially appropriate to editions of the classics, to use upright and rather plain gothic for other Latin books, and a more sloping gothic for books in the vernaculars. . . . Besides these subject-divisions of types the local schools of
* Catalogue of Books mostly from the Presses of the First Printers shanving the Progress of Printing with Alovable Metal Tyfies through the second half of the Fifteenth Century. Collected by Rush C. Hawkins, catalogued by Al- fred IV. Pollard, and de/iosited in Annmary Bronvn Alernorial at Provi- dence, Rhode Island. Oxford, 1910. Tlie Printers, pages xix et sey.The early printer has been treated with great charm by Mr. Pollard, and I commend his paper in its entirety as indispensable to a clear idea of the subject we are considering.
GERMANY: FIFTEENTH CENTURY 69
handwriting had great influence on the forms of letters, more especially in the early days of printing, and this ac- counts for the great variety in the founts used before 1480. After about that date, types of the same general character and often indistinguishable in nearly every detail were in use in places long distances apart, in some cases because the later printers found it easier to imitate an already existing type than to adapt written characters to their needs, in others, in all probability, owing to the sale of punches or matrices.
"While great care had to be taken in choosing a good design for a type, a single fount often served an early printer for several years. There were no title-pages in these first days, and the printer's business was only to print the text of his book, leaving headings and headlines, as well as or- namental capitals, to be supplied by hand to suit purchas- ers' tastes. As the cry for cheapness grew louder printers found it necessary to leave less and less to be done by the scribes, whose bill for rubricating a book must have added very materially to its cost to the buyer. Special types were then cast for use in headings and headlines and on title- pages, and many printers provided themselves with fine sets of woodcut capitals."
Thus we see that the printer's choice of types was almost entirely governed by the kind of manuscript popular in the particular locality of the country in which he found him- self. The design of his type was also dependent on the kind of book to be printed; as various classes of books — I speak of black-letter books — employed particular forms of black-letter.
In closing, it may be noted that most Mainz printers went to Italy; none of them, apparently, to Holland. Per- haps this was because they knew that the art of printing, in rudimentary form, was already practised there.
CHAPTER V
TYPE AND TYPE-FORMS OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY
IN ITALY
THE popularity of the roman character in Itahan manuscripts was due to the Renaissance revival of classical learning, and it has already been briefly shown to what sources this letter was traceable. Italy being the seat of the Renaissance, printing in roman types very naturally became general there earlier than in any other European country. The best roman types are to be found in Italian books printed before 1500. These, as has also been said, were modelled on Humanistic characters, which were in their turn revivals of the Carolingian book-hands. To see how closely these two forms of writing agreed in general effect, it is only necessary to compare Carolingian manuscripts of the ninth with Italian manuscripts of the fifteenth century.
"At the period of the early Renaissance," says Walter Crane, "two streams met, as it were, and mingled, with very beautiful results : the freedom, the romance, the naturalism of the later Gothic, with the newly awakened Classical feel- ing, with its grace of line and mythological lore. The rich and delicate arabesques in which Italian designers delighted, and which so frequently decorated, as we have seen, the borders of the early printer, owe also something to Oriental influence, as indeed their name indicates. The decorative beauty of these early Renaissance books was really, there- fore, the outcome of a very remarkable fusion of ideas and styles. Printing, as an art, and book decoration attained a perfection it has not since reached. The genius of the great- est designers of the time was associated with the new in- vention, and expressed itself with unparalleled vigour in the
ITALY: FIFTEENTH CENTURY 71
woodcut ; while the type-founder, being still under the in- fluence of a fine traditional style in handwriting, was in per- fect harmony with the book decorator or illustrator." ^
The first press in Italy was set up at the Benedictine Mon- astery of Subiaco, near Rome. Some Germans were mem- bers of this community, and perhaps that was one reason why the German printers, Conrad Sweynheym and Arnold Pannartz, were welcomed by its abbot, Cardinal Turre- cremata. Sweynheym, a clerk of the diocese of Mainz, was possibly one of Fust and Schoeffer's workmen. Pannartz belonged to the diocese of Cologne. The theory that both men were refugees from Mainz in 1462, that Nicolas Jen- son accompanied them in their flight, and that he cut the font used by them at Subiaco, as well as that subsequently employed at Rome, has been advanced by reputable author- ities.' Be that as it may, a very beautiful type was pro- duced at Subiaco, which appears to us gothic, but which they probably considered roman; for these printers, accus- tomed to gothic types, found themselves in a country where manuscripts in the Humanistic character were the fashion. So, while their type has many details of Gothic design in it, it has roman capitals, and lower-case letters very roman in structure — though their thickness of line gives, in mass, the effect of gothic type. There is, too, a certain amount of white between the lines of type, which results in a clear- ness usually characteristic of books printed in roman fonts.^ While not a roman type as we should now understand the term, it is, in spite of its general effect, a font well on the
' Cmne's Decoratiue Illustration of Books, p. 125.
^For Claudin's account of this episode, see his Histoire de l^ Imfirimerie en
France au XFe et au XFIe sitcle, Vol. I, pp. 10 et seq.
^Burger, pi. 45.
72 PRINTING TYPES
wav thereto. Three books were printed at Subiaco — Cicero's De Oratore (which, though undated, is generally considered the first one), appearing either at the end of 1464 or the be- ginning of 1465 ; the Opera of Lactantius, printed in 1465 ; and the De Civifafe Dei of St. Augustine, finished in 1467 {Jig. 24). Possibly earlier than all of these was a Donatus, of which no copy exists, but of which there is a record.
The end of the year 1467 finds Sweynheym and Pan- nartz in Rome, where they set up a press in the palace of the De' Massimi family. Their first book printed in Rome was Cicero's Epistulx ad Familiares of 1467, followed by the Lactantius of 1468. These were set in a new font which, though far less attractive than the Subiaco letter, was a much more roman type {Jig. 25). Besides the books at Subiaco (four, if we count the Donatus) they printed about fifty at Rome, where they worked together until 1473. A roman type was also produced at Rome in 1468 by Ulrich Han for editions of Cicero's De Oratore and Tiiscularvx, Quxstio7ies, but \vhether it was a roman letter under Gothic influence, or a gothic letter under Roman influence, it is hard to say. In general effect it was certainly greatly inferior to the Sweynheym and Pannartz types.^ In all three fonts, whatever the form of lower-case letter, the capitals were dis- tinctly roman. Many roman types of varying degrees of purity and attractiveness were used by Italian printers of this period. It was reserved for John andWendelin de Spire to show a roman t3^pe which to-day appears roman to us. In the font used in the Venice editions of Cicero's Epistulx ad Familiares and Pliny's Historia JVaturaiis of John de Spire, printed in 1469, and the De Civitate Dei printed in the next year by John and Wendelin de Spire {Jig. 26), this very modern quality can be clearly recognized.
'Burger, pi. 83.
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Nicolas Jenson, whose celebrated roman types are now to be considered, was a Frenchman, a native of Somme- voire, Haiite-Marne, and for some time was mint-master at Tours. The legend is, that Charles VII of France sent Jen- son, in 1458, to Mainz, to inform himself on the subject of the new art of printing and to acquire sufficient knowledge to work in it on his return. But if Jenson ever went to Mainz, he never returned to France, and we find him in 1468 at Venice. The first roman characters, which were used by John de Spire, and for which De Spire obtained an exclusive priv- ilege for five years, have been sometimes attributed to Jen- son. In any case, De Spire's death in 1470 lifted the restric- tions on roman types from other Venetian printing-houses, and Jenson produced in that year his famous roman let- ter {Jig. 27). The tractate De Prwparatione Evangelica of Eusebius is generally considered his first book. If we look at the best Humanistic manuscripts of the period, it is readily seen whence he derived his inspiration.
The characteristics of Jenson's font were its readability, its mellowness of form, and the evenness of colour in mass. Analyzed closely, his letter-forms were not very perfect; had they been so, their effect would not have been so good; for, as an authority has said, "a type too ideal in its per- fection is not an ideal type." The eye becomes tired when each character is absolutely perfect. Thus the good effect of the type in mass depends somewhat upon the varia- tions in, and consequent "movement" of, its integral parts. Jenson's roman types have been the accepted models for roman letters ever since he made them, and, repeatedly copied in our own day, have never been equalled. There were other printers in Italy whose types rivalled his, but no other man produced quite so fine a font, or had better taste in the composition of a page and its imposition upon
74. PRINTING TYPES
paper.^ The presswork of his volumes is perhaps their weak- est point. Apparently a lighter ink was used for his roman than for his gothic types — for Jenson also used a gothic let- ter." He printed about a hundred and fifty books in some ten years, and as he prospered in the enterprise we may draw from his history the unexpected moral that if only a man does a thing well enough^ it will reward him — in reputation, or in money — perhaps in both. For Jenson in his own day had a great reputation, both as a publisher and printer. He died at Rome, in 1480, \\'hither he went at the invitation of Pope Sixtus IV. Jenson's material passed into the hands of Torresano of Venice, father-in-law of Aldus, who, after the latter's death, carried on the Aldine printing-house.
At the head of a broadside advertisement of various classes of books,^ printed (in bold gothic type) by Jenson and his associate and successor, Herbort, and brought out by the latter not many months, it is believed, after Jenson's death, there are some prefatory remarks which were per- haps written by a theologian of a Humanistic turn of mind. We quote them as a testimony to the esteem that Jenson's M'ork enjoyed in its own day : even allowing for the exagger- ation incident to advertising. After an invocation to Christ the Illuminator of the World, it reads :
"It has appeared to me to be an undertaking which would redound to the common advantage of all men, that I should in this litde discourse of mine set forth to every people the extreme usefulness of the works printed in the famous city of Venice, especially of those which are from
^ DrucknchrifCcn, pi. 67. ^ Ibid., pi. 34.
^ Discovered in the library of tlie Cai)iirhin Cloister at Burghausen, Upper Bavaria, pasted inside three books jirinted by Jenson in 1478. It is now in tlie State Librar)' at Munich. For facsimile, etc., see Wiegendrucke und Hand- schrifttn. Festgabe Konrad Haebler zuni 60. Geburtstage. Leipsic, 1919, p. 22.
qui omnibus ui aquarum fubmeifis cum filiis fuis fimul ac nuri'ous mirabili quodi modo quafi femen liuani generis confcruatus eft:qui unni quafi uiuam quandain imagincm imitan nobis connngat:& hi quidemantedi!uutumfueranc:pol^diluuuimauteinaliiquoruunus altilTimi dei f^ccidos luftitix acpietans miraculo rex iuHus lingua he^ brioru appcUatus eftrapud quos ncc circuncifionis nee mofaicx legis uUa mcntio erac . Quare nee ludxosfpollcris eni hoc nomcn fuit)neq! genn!es:quoniam non ucgentes plurahtacem deorum inducebancfed hcbra:os propne nofamus aut ab Hcbere ucdi(flu cft:auc qa id nomen tranfitiuos fignificat.Soh qppe a creatuns naturali rone k. lege inata no fcnpca ad cogmtioncueri del trafiere;S:uolupcare corporis cotepta ad rccftam uitam pueniffe fcribunc'':cum quibus omibus prxclarus ille tonus genens origo Habraam numeradus efl:cui fcriptura mirabilera iuftitia qua non a mofaica lege(feptima efm pofl: Habraa generacione Moyfes nafatur)red naturali tuit ranone confecutus fuma cum laudc atteftatur.Credidit enim Habraam deo & reputatii efl: ei in luftinam. Quare mulcarum quoq; gentium patrem diuina oracula tuturu:ac in ipT'o benedicedas oes genres hoc uidelicSC ipfum quod lam nos uideiis apcrte pra;dirtum eft:cuius lUe luftitix pertecftioem non mofaica lege fed fide cofecucus eft:qui poft multas dei uifiones legimmum genuit filium:quem pnmum omnium diuino pfuafus oraculo circucidit:£i ceteris qui ab eo nafcerctur tradidit:uel ad manifeftum mulntudinis eorum futura:fignum:uel ut hoc quafi paternsuirtutis ifignefilii re-* tinetes miiores fuos imitan conaret';aut qbufcuqj aliis decaufis.Non cnim id fcrutidum nobis modo cft.Pol^ Habraam films ems Ifaac in pietate fuccellitifoelice hac ha:reditate a parctibus accxpta:q uni uxoii coniunctus quum geminos genuiflet callitatis amore ab uxore poflea dicicurabftinuiffe.Ab ifto natuse lacob qui^pptcrcumulatu uirtutis prouetum Ifrael enam appellatus eft duobus noibus pptcr duplicem uirtutis ufu. lacob efm athleta & exercecem fe latine dicerc poflumus: quam appellatione primii habuitiquu praifticis operanoibus multos pro pietate labores krebat.Quuni aute lam ui(ftor ludando cuafit:&; fpeculanonis fruebat bonis:tLic Ifraelem ipfe deus appcllauit iterna. premia beatitudineq; ukimam qux in uifione del confi'lit ei largiens: hominem enim qui deum uideac Ifrael nomen fignificat. Ab hoc.xii. iudxorum tnbus ^fedlx fut.Innumerabilia de uicaiftorum uirorum forritudine prudencia pietatcq; dici pofl"unt:quoium alia fecundum fcnpturx uerbahiflorice confidcrantur;alia nopologice acallcgorice incerprctat^:de qbus multi cofcripferutiSC nos m libro que infcnpfiils
27. JemoR's Roman Typr used In EusMus, De Prrparalime Emngelira, Venice, 1470
ITALY: FIFTEENTH CENTURY 75
the excellent workshop of Master Nicolas Jenson the Frenchman. And in order that what is maimed and imper- fect be not bought and prized as the equal of the best, and that bad printing be not so praised as to cause men to neglect and not purchase what has been printed with the utmost care and painstaking, I made up my mind to com- municate this letter to the public. For the excellent Master Nicolas Jenson employs proofreaders who are skilled in both languages, and he seeks out the most famous men of learning and greater numbers of them, with the result that works published by him have the power of illuminating the entire world, and contain neither too much nor too little, as you will well understand if you will read through his books with the most heedful attention. Furthermore, they contain discussions, on this side and that, by the most com- petent men, in order that the truth may through the va- riety of arguments be revealed. For, as Cicero says in the Paradoxes, 'there is nothing so rough and unkempt that it cannot be glorified by the proper treatment.' But the quality and value of the types that he uses is another marvel to relate, for it ought to be ascribed rather to divine inspira- tion than to human wit, so that all may say and truly, that Master Nicolas easily surpasses all his rivals ; so that men might justly venture to repeat the saying of Virgil in the Bucolics — 'but she bears her head as high among all other cities as any cypress will do among trailing hedgerow shoots.' For his books are no hindrance to a man, nor do they produce weariness, but rather give delight by their exactness and precision; they do not harm one's eyes, but rather help them and do them good. Moreover the charac- ters themselves are so methodically and carefully finished by that famous man that the letters are not smaller or larger or thicker than reason demands or than may afford
76 PRINTING TYPES
pleasure: which he could not have done unless filled by some divine inspiration. Hence our debt to that excellent man Master Nicolas Jenson is great indeed : for through his diligence and toil all peoples, barbarous as well as Latin, have in their hands works which before could scarcely be procured : now they have these works printed with correct texts in most excellent, beautiful and agreeable books, so that they deserve praise and reverence in the highest de- gree. I for my part determined to narrate briefly their good qualities, not because of any spite or jealousy toward others, but as I have already said, for the common advantage of all men : on which we ought to insist much more than upon our own advantage: lest men, when they buy, should buy and possess the false instead of the true, the ugly instead of the beautiful, the incorrect instead of the most accurate." Five or six roman fonts were cut for the great Venetian printer-publisher, Aldus Manutius. His first roman letter, in which Bembo's JEtna appeared, was not particularly suc- cessful, but the third roman font, designed by the celebrated Francesco da Bologna (Grifii), who after\\ ard cut the Al- dine italic character, was excellent. This roman type was used in that famous book, Colonna's H ypnewtomachia Poli- phili^ or "The Strife of Love in a Dream," printed by Aldus in the last year of the century. It is remarkable for its de- lightful illustrations, drawn in a line which harmonizes with the tone of the pages of roman letter. From one of these decorations the famous Aldine printer's mark of dol- phin and anchor was derived ; although the original of this design is to be found on a coin which Erasmus says was sent to Aldus by the Renaissance scholar, Bembo. A specimen of this Aldine roman font is shown in the fac- simile from a page of the H ypnewtomachia {Jig. 28). It is distinctly inferior to Jenson's roman characters, and perhaps
POLIPHILOINCOMINCIAILSECONDO LIBRO DI LA SVA HYPHEROTOMACHIA.NEL QVALE PO- LIA ET LVI DISEKTABONDI,IN QVALE MODO ET VAKIO CASO NAKKANO INTEPvCALAKIAMEN- TE IL SVO INAMOKAMENTO,
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28. Pag-e of Hypnerotomachia Pol'iphUi: Aldus ^ Venice^ 1499 {reduced)
ITALY: FIFTEENTH CENTURY 77
to those of the Venetian printer, Ratdolt. Besides roman types, Aldus possessed fonts of his celebrated italic charac- ter in two sizes, and several fonts of Greek type. Aldus died in 1515, and when he lay in state his books were grouped about him. He directed in his will that punches begun by a certain cutter should on no account be completed by an inferior hand.
One other Venetian printer (and type-cutter) should not be forgotten — Erhard Ratdolt, who came from Augsburg, and began to print at Venice in 1476. His books are the first with decorative title-pages, and he also employed ex- tremely fine borders and initial letters.^ He issued his beau- tiful type specimen-sheet in 1486.^ It is dated Augsburg, April 1, 1486, but was probably printed at Venice, just be- fore Ratdolt left for Augsburg, and was to be used there. In this, the earliest specimen-sheet known, the Ave Mana, in its older form (which begins it with a charming initial A), is printed in a large gothic letter, derived from four- teenth century Italian manuscripts.^ The sheet exhibits ten sizes of excellent gothic letter, four of which are here re- produced {Jig. 29). There are three sizes of roman — all good — and a specimen of Greek letter of excellent early form (Jig. 30). Ratdolt's books were among the most dis- tinguished of the Venetian press. Indeed, by the sixteenth century, Venice was a centre for printing, and had some hundred and fifty printing-houses ; and over four thousand books, of remarkable excellence in workmanship, came from
' De Vinne thinks that Ratdolt's initials were probably cut in high relief on metal, as it was expensive and not particularly practical to cast these ornamen- tal letters in a mould. In books of the period much tliat is considered engrav- ing on wood, especially when of a delicate kind, is really engraving on metal. De Y'mne's Plain Printing Types, New York, 1900, p. 84.
* Burger, pi. 5, for entire sheet.
* Thompson, fac. 194.
78 PRINTING TYPES
its presses. The work of Venetian printers and type-found- ers was considered a model for the rest of Europe. Publish- ers wishing to commend their books announced that they were printed in the carattere Veneio.
The attempts of the first Italian printers, Sweynheym and Pannartz, to print in semi-roman types, have led us naturally to consider first the development of these types into pure roman letter ; but gothic types were also used in Italy by Jenson, as has been said, and by many other print- ers. A fine specimen of Jenson's work in gothic fonts is the Codex Deci-etonim of Gratian, printed in 1474.^ The forms of Italian gothic types, while pointed, in the larger sizes were rounder and less compact than the like kinds of German black-letter. In the smaller sizes this attenuated quality is very striking, and makes the character almost a condensed type. A similarly condensed letter was employed in manuscripts of a little earlier date.
For head-lines, a large, round gothic letter similar to some Spanish gothic characters was often used ; and sometimes roman capitals. Not merely the types, but their arrange- ment in general, were modelled on manuscripts of the four- teenth and fifteenth centuries. The famous manuscript Virgil, with notes, which belonged to Petrarch (now in the Ambrosian Library at Milan), shows a character of letter and an arrangement of text which were closely followed in many subsequent printed editions of Virgil. The manu- script commentary on the Decretals of Gregory IX (1353) in the Vatican Library is also very much like some books printed from Italian gothic fonts.^
The important series of plates of Italian types issued by the Type Facsimile Society (alluded to more fully later) are
* Druckschriften, pi. 34.
* Paleografihie Latine, pis. 101 and 106.
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29. RatdoWs Gothic Type^from his Specimen &/"1486
Eft homini uirtus fuluo preciofior auro: a;n«as Ingenium quondam fuerat preciofius auro. Miramurq^ magis quos munera mentis adornat: Quam qui corporeis emicuere bonis. Si quauirtute nites ne defpicc quenquam Ex alia quadam forfitan ipfe nitet
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30. RatdoWs Roman and Greek Type^from his Specvnen of 1486
ITALY: FIFTEENTH CENTURY 79
material to be consulted for the general effect of books printed in gothic letter in the last half of the fifteenth century/
Italian transitional fonts merged almost imperceptibly from a distinctly gothic into a fairly clear roman type. Start- ing from the pure gothic types, the first differentiation appears in a wider leading of lines and wider spacing of the type itself.^ The next advance shows gothic fonts with somewhat roman capital letters. This was followed by books in which head-lines and dates were set in pure roman cap- itals. An increasing clearness in cut and further separation of letters and a constant use of roman capitals finally devel- oped into tentative roman fonts. These changes can be in- terestingly traced by looking at the earliest type of Sweyn- heym and Pannartz {Jig. 24), and the improvement in the type used by them only a little later at Rome {Jig. 25) ; or, better still, the four types used by Ulrich Han in the same city.^ These transitional types form the "bridge" between Italian gothic and roman types. Italian printers were not always very particular about the unities, and sometimes mixed gothic head-lines with roman text, while some books (although but few) were set in a roman lower-case letter with gothic capitals.
The fonts of Italian roman vary greatly. The finest all have that rich, mellow character which no types before or since have ever had in