Part 836

"Before arriving at the movable type placed side by side, and forming phrases, which appears to us to-day so simple and so ordinary, many years passed. It is certain that long before Gutenberg a means was found of cutting wood and metal in relief and reproducing by application the image traced. … Remembering that the numerous guilds of 'tailleurs d' images,' or sculptors in relief, had in the Middle Ages the specialty of carving ivories and of placing effigies on tombs, it can be admitted without much difficulty that these people one day found a means of multiplying the sketches of a figure often asked for, by modelling its contour in relief on ivory or wood, and afterwards taking a reproduction on paper or parchment by means of pressure. When and where was this discovery produced? We cannot possibly say; but it is certain that playing cards were produced by this means, and that from the year 1423 popular figures were cut in wood, as we know from the St. Christopher of that date belonging to Lord Spencer. … It is a recognised fact that the single sheet with a printed figure preceded the xylographic book, in which text and illustration were cut in the same block. This process did not appear much before the second quarter of the 15th century, and it was employed principally for popular works which were then the universal taste. The engraving also was nothing more than a kind of imposition palmed off as a manuscript; the vignettes were often covered with brilliant colours and gold, and the whole sold as of the best quality. … An attempt had been made to put some text at the foot of the St. Christopher of 1423, and the idea of giving more importance to the text was to the advantage of the booksellers. … At the epoch of the St. Christopher, in 1423, several works were in vogue in the universities, the schools, and with the public. … To find a means of multiplying these treatises at little cost was a fortune to the inventor. It is to be supposed that many artisans of the time attempted it; and without doubt it was the booksellers themselves, mostly mere dealers, who were tempted to the adventure by the sculptors and wood-cutters. But none had yet been so bold as to cut in relief a series of blocks with engravings and text to compose a complete work. That point was reached very quickly when some legend was engraved at the foot of a vignette, and it may be thought that the 'Donatus' [i. e. the Latin Syntax of Ælius Donatus] was the most ancient of books so obtained among the 'Incunabuli,' as we now call them, a word that signifies origin or cradle. The first books then were formed of sheets of paper or parchment, laboriously printed from xylographic blocks, that is to say wooden blocks on which a 'tailleur d' images' had left in relief the designs and the letters of the text. He had thus to trace his characters in reverse, so that they could be reproduced as written; he had to avoid faults, because a phrase once done, well or ill, lasted. It was doubtless this difficulty of correction that gave the idea of movable types. … This at least explains the legend of Laurent Coster, of Haarlem, who, according to Hadrian Junius, his compatriot, discovered by accident the secret of separate types while playing with his children. And if the legend of which we speak contains the least truth, it must be found in the sense above indicated, that is in the correction of faults, rather than in the innocent game of a merchant of Haarlem. … Movable type, the capital point of printing, the pivot of the art of the Book, developed itself little by little, according to needs, when there was occasion to correct an erroneous inscription; but, in any case, its origin is unknown. Doubtless to vary the text, means were found to replace entire phrases by other phrases, preserving the original figures; and thus the light dawned upon these craftsmen, occupied in the manufacture and sale of their books. According to Hadrian Junius, Laurent Janszoon Coster (the latter name signifying 'the discoverer') published one of the celebrated series of works under the general title of 'Speculum' which was then so popular, … the 'Speculum Humanæ Salvationis.' … Junius, as we see, attributes to Laurent Coster the first impression of the 'Speculum,' no longer the purely xylographic impression of the 'Donatus' from an engraved block, but that of the more advanced manner in movable types [probably between 1430 and 1440]. In point of fact, this book had at least four editions, similar in engravings and body of letters, but of different text. It must then be admitted that the fount was dispersed, and typography discovered. … All the xylographic works of the 15th century may be classed in two categories: the xylographs, rightly so called, or the block books, such as the 'Donatus,' and the books with movable types, like the 'Speculum,' of which we speak. … The movable types used, cut separately in wood, were not constituted to give an ideal impression. We can understand the cost that the execution of these characters must have occasioned, made as they were one by one, without the possibility of ever making them perfectly uniform. Progress was to substitute for this irregular process types that were similar, identical, easily produced, and used for a long time without breaking. Following on the essays of Laurent Coster, continuous researches bore on this point. … Here history is somewhat confused. Hadrian Junius positively accuses one of Laurent Coster's workmen of having stolen the secrets of his master and taken flight to Mayence, where he afterwards founded a printing office. According to Junius, the metal type was the discovery of the Dutchman, and the name of the thief was John. Who was this John? Was it John Gænsefleisch, called Gutenberg, or possibly John Fust? But it is not at all apparent that Gutenberg, a gentleman of Mayence, exiled from his country, was ever in the service of the Dutch inventor. As to Fust, we believe his only intervention in the association of printers of Mayence was as a money-lender, from which may be comprehended the unlikelihood of his having been with Coster, the more so as we find Gutenberg retired to Strasbourg, where he pursued his researches. There he was, as it were, out of his sphere, a ruined noble whose great knowledge was bent entirely on invention. Doubtless, like many others, he may have had in his hands one of the printed works of Laurent Coster, and conceived the idea of appropriating the infant process. {2588} In 1439 he was associated with two artisans of the city of Strasbourg, ostensibly in the fabrication of mirrors, which may be otherwise understood as printing of 'Speculums,' the Latin word signifying the same thing. … Three problems presented themselves to him. He wanted types less fragile than wooden types and less costly than engraving. He wanted a press by the aid of which he could obtain a clear impression on parchment or paper. He desired also that the leaves of his books should not be anopistograph, or printed only on one side. … Until then, and even long after, the xylographs were printed 'au frotton,' or with a brush, rubbing the paper upon the forme coated with ink, thicker than ordinary ink. He dreamed of something better. In the course of his work John Gutenberg returned to Mayence. The idea of publishing a Bible, the Book of books, had taken possession of his heart. … The cutting of his types had ruined him. … In this unhappy situation, Gutenberg made the acquaintance of a financier of Mayence, named Fust, … who put a sum of 1,100 florins at his disposal to continue his experiments. Unfortunately this money disappeared, it melted away, and the results obtained were absolutely ludicrous. … About this time a third actor enters on the scene. Peter Schoeffer, of Gernsheim, a writer, introduced into the workshop of Gutenberg to design letters, benefited by the abortive experiments, and taking up the invention at its dead-lock, conducted it to success. John of Tritenheim, called Trithemius, the learned abbot of Spanheim, is the person who relates these facts; but as he got his information from Schoeffer himself, too much credence must not be given to his statements. Besides, Schoeffer was not at all an ordinary artisan. If we credit a Strasbourg manuscript written by his hand in 1449, he was a student of the 'most glorious university of Paris.'" How much Schoeffer contributed to the working out of the invention is a matter of conjecture; but in 1454 it was advanced to a state in which the first known application of it in practical use was made. This was in the printing of copies of the famous letters of indulgence which Pope Nicholas V. was then selling throughout Europe. Having the so far perfected invention in hand, Fust and Schoeffer (the latter now having married the former's granddaughter) wished to rid themselves of Gutenberg. "Fust had a most easy pretext, which was to demand purely and simply from his associate the sums advanced by him, and which had produced so little. Gutenberg had probably commenced his Bible, but, in face of the claims of Fust, he had to abandon it altogether, types, formes, and press. In November, 1455, he had retired to a little house outside the city, where he tried his best, by the aid of foreign help, to establish a workshop, and to preserve the most perfect secrecy. Relieved of his company, Fust and Schoeffer were able to take up the impression of the Bible and to complete it without him. … One thing is certain: that the Bible of Schoeffer, commenced by Gutenberg or not, put on sale by Fust and Schoeffer alone about the end of 1455 or beginning of 1456, proves to be the first completed book. … It is now called the Mazarine Bible, from the fact that the copy in the Mazarin Library was the first to give evidence concerning it. The book was put on sale at the end of 1455 or beginning of 1456, for a manuscript note of a vicar of St. Stephen at Mayence records that he finished the binding and illuminating of the first volume on St. Bartholomew's Day [June 13], 1456, and the second on the 15th of August. … All these remarks show that the printers did not proclaim themselves, and were making pseudo-manuscripts. … Many of the copies are illuminated with as much care and beauty as if they were the finest manuscripts. … Copies are by no means uncommon, most of the great libraries having one, and many are in private collections."

_H. Bouchot, The Printed Book, chapter 1._

"The general consent of all nations in ascribing the honour of the invention of printing to Gutenberg seems at first sight a very strong argument in his favour; but if Gutenberg were not the first to invent and use movable types, but the clever man who brought to perfection what already existed in a crude state, we can quite imagine his fame to have spread everywhere as the real inventor. As a master in the art of printing, Gutenberg's name was known in Paris so early as 1472. … Mr. Hessels … believes that the Coster mentioned in the archives as living in Haarlem, 1436-83, was the inventor of types, and that, taken as a whole, the story as told by Junius is substantially correct. Personally I should like to wait for more evidence. There is no doubt that the back-bone of the Dutch claim lies in the pieces and fragments of old books discovered for the most part in the last few decades, and which give support to, at the same time that they receive support from, the Cologne Chronicler. … These now amount to forty-seven different works. Their number is being added to continually now that the attention of librarians has been strongly called to the importance of noting and preserving them. They have been catalogued with profound insight by Mr. Hessels, and for the first time classified by internal evidence into their various types and classes. But, it may well be asked, what evidence is there that all these books were not printed long after Gutenberg's press was at work? … The earliest book of Dutch printing bears date 1473, and not a single edition out of all the so-called Costeriana has any printer's name or place or date. To this the reply is, that these small pieces were school-books or absies and such-like works, in the production of which there was nothing to boast of, as there would be in a Bible. Such things were at all times 'sine ulla nota,' and certain to be destroyed when done with, so that the wonder would be to find them so dated, and the very fact of their bearing a date would go far to prove them not genuine. These fragments have been nearly all discovered in 15th-century books, printed mostly' in various towns of Holland. … Mr. Hessels quotes forty-seven different books as 'Costeriana,' which include four editions of the Speculum, nineteen of Donatus, and seven of Doctrinale. The Donatuses are in five different types, probably from five different Dutch presses. Compared with the earliest dated books of 1473 and onwards, printed in Holland, they have nothing in common, while their brotherhood to the Dutch MSS. and block-books of about thirty years earlier is apparent. Just as astronomers have been unable to explain certain aberrations of the planets without surmising a missing link in the chain of their knowledge, so is it with 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 with the internal evidence of their workmanship. But admit the existence of an earlier and much ruder school of typography, and all is plain and harmonious."

_W. Blades, Books in Chains, and other Bibliographical Papers, pages 149-158._

ALSO IN: _J. H. Hessels, Gutenberg: was he the Inventor of Printing?_

_C. H. Timperley, Encyclopœdia of Literature and Typographical Anecdote, pages 101-120._

_H. N. Humphreys, History of the Art of Printing, chapters 3-4._

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PRINTING AND THE PRESS: A. D. 1457-1489. Progress and diffusion of the art.

After the Mazarine Bible, "then follows the Kalendar for the year 1457, most probably printed at the end of 1456. Then again the printed dates, August 14, 1457 and 1459, with place (Mentz) in the colophons of the Psalter issued by Fust and Schoeffer; the printed year 1460 (with Mentz added) in the Catholicon [a Latin Grammar and Dictionary]. &c. &c. So that, with the exception of 1458, there is no interruption in Mentz printing from the moment that we see it begin there. As regards the printed psalter, its printers are mentioned distinctly in the book itself; but the other books just mentioned are assumed to have been issued by the same two Mentz printing-offices which are supposed to be already at work there in 1454, though the 1460 Catholicon and some of the other works are ascribed by some to other printers. By the side of these dates, we find already a Bible completed in 1460 by Mentelin at Strassburg, according to a MS. note in the copy preserved at Freiburg. … Assuming then, for a moment, that Mentz is the starting-point, we see printing spread to Strassburg in 1460; to Bamberg in 1461; to Subiaco in 1465; in 1466 (perhaps already in 1463) it is established at Cologne; in 1467 at Eltville, Rome; in 1468 at Augsburg, Basle, Marienthal; in 1469 at Venice; 1470 at Nuremberg, Verona, Foligno, Trevi, Savigliano, Paris; 1471 at Spire, Bologna, Ferrara, Florence, Milan, Naples, Pavia, Treviso; 1472 at Esslingen, Cremona, Mantua, Padua, Parma, Monreale, Fivizano, Verona; 1473 at Laugingen, Ulm (perhaps here earlier), Merseburg, Alost, Utrecht, Lyons, Brescia, Messina; 1474 at Louvain, Genoa, Como, Savona, Turin, Vicenza; 1475 at Lubeck, Breslau, Blaubeuren, Burgdorf, Modena, Reggio, Cagli, Caselle or Casale, Saragossa; 1476 at Rostock, Bruges (here earlier?), Brussels; 1477 at Reichenstein, Deventer, Gouda, Delft, Westminster; 1478 at Oxford, St. Maartensdyk, Colle, Schussenried, Eichstadt; 1479 at Erfurt, Würzburg, Nymegen, Zwolle, Poitiers; 1480 at London [?], Oudenaarde, Hasselt, Reggio; 1481 at Passau, Leipzig, Magdeburg, Treves, Urach; 1482 at Reutlingen, Memmingen, Metz, Antwerp; 1483 at Leiden, Kuilenburg, Ghent, Haarlem; 1484 at Bois-le–Duc, Siena; 1485 at Heidelberg, Regensburg; 1486 at Munster, Stuttgart; 1487 at Ingolstadt; 1488 at Stendal; 1489 at Hagenau, &c."

_J. H. Hessels, Haarlem the Birth-place of Printing, not Mentz, chapter 4._

PRINTING AND THE PRESS: A. D. 1469-1515. The early Venetian printers. The Aldine Press.

"One of the famous first race of German printers, John of Spires, arrived at Venice in the year 1469, and immediately brought his art into full play; producing within the first three months his fine edition of the 'Letters of Cicero.' a masterpiece of early printing. … The success of John of Spires as a printer was at once recognized by the Venetian Republic; and Pasquale Malipiero, the reigning Doge, granted a patent conferring upon him the sole right of printing books within the territory of Venice. … But the enterprising printer did not live to enjoy the privilege," and it was not continued to any of his family, "On the withdrawal of the monopoly several new printers set up their Presses in the city, among whom was the celebrated Jenson, the ingenious Frenchman who was sent by Charles VII. to acquire the art at Mayence. … John Emeric, of Udenheim, was another of the German printers who immediately succeeded John and Vindelin of Spires; and still more successful, though somewhat later, in the field, was Erard Ratdolt. … He [Ratdolt] is said to have been the first to adopt a regular form of Title at all approaching our modern conception of a Book-Title; and he also took the lead in the production of those beautifully-engraved initials for which the books printed in Italy towards the close of the 15th century are famous. His most splendid work is undoubtedly the 'Elements of Euclid, with the Commentaries of Campanus.' … Nicholas Jenson was the most renowned of those who followed the earliest German printers in Venice, until his works were partially eclipsed by those of the Aldi. … In 1470 he [Jenson] had … completed his preparations, and the first four works which issued from his Venetian press appeared in that year. … These works were printed with Roman characters of his own engraving, more perfect in form than those of any previous printer. His types are in fact the direct parents of the letters now in general use, which only differ from them in certain small details dependent solely on fashion. … This celebrated printer died in September of the year 1481. … Andrea Torresani and others continued Jenson's Association, making use of the same types. Torresani was eventually succeeded in the same establishment by the celebrated Aldo Manuccio, who, having married his daughter, adopted the important vocation of printer, and became the first of those famous 'Aldi,' as they are commonly termed, whose fame has not only absorbed that of all the earlier Venetian printers, but that of the early printers of every other Italian seat of the art. … It was Manuccio who, among many other advances in this art, first invented the semi-cursive style of character now known as 'Italic'; and it is said that it was founded upon a close imitation of the careful handwriting of Petrarch, which, in fact, it closely resembles. This new type was used for a small octavo edition of 'Virgil,' issued in 1501, on the appearance of which he obtained from Pope Leo X. a letter of privilege, entitling him to the sole use of the new type which he had invented." The list of the productions of the elder Aldus and his son Paul "comprises nearly all the great works of antiquity, and of the best Italian authors of their own time. From their learning and general accomplishments, the Aldi might have occupied a brilliant position as scholars and authors, but preferred the useful labour of giving correctly to the world the valuable works of others. The Greek editions of the elder Aldus form the basis of his true glory, especially the 'Aristotle,' printed in 1405, a work of almost inconceivable labour and perseverance."

_H. N. Humphreys, History of the Art of Printing, chapter 8._

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"Aldus and his studio and all his precious manuscripts disappeared during the troubled years of the great Continental war in which all the world was against Venice [see VENICE: A. D. 1508-1500]. In 1510, 1511, and 1512, scarcely any book proceeded from his press. … After the war Aldus returned to his work with renewed fervour. 'It is difficult,' says Renouard, 'to form an idea of the passion with which he devoted himself to the reproduction of the great works of ancient literature. If he heard of the existence anywhere of a manuscript unpublished, or which could throw a light upon an existing text, he never rested till he had it in his possession. He did not shrink from long journeys, great expenditure, applications of all kinds.' … It is not in this way however that the publisher, that much questioned and severely criticised middleman, makes a fortune. And Aldus died poor. His privileges did not stand him in much stead, copyright, especially when not in books but in new forms of type, being non-existent in his day. In France and Germany, and still nearer home, his beautiful Italic was robbed from him, copied on all sides, notwithstanding the protection granted by the Pope and other princes as well as by the Venetian Signoria. His fine editions were printed from, and made the foundation of foreign issues which replaced his own. How far his princely patrons stood by him to repair his losses there seems no information. His father-in-law, Andrea of Asola, a printer who was not so fine a scholar, but perhaps more able to cope with the world, did come to his aid, and his son Paolo Manutio, and his grandson Aldo il Giovane, as he is called, succeeded him in turn."

_Mrs. Oliphant, The Makers of Venice, part 4, chapter 3._

Aldus died in 1515. His son Paul left Venice for Rome in 1562.

PRINTING AND THE PRESS: A. D. 1476-1491. Introduction in England. The Caxton Press.