Part 41

[4] The accompanying translation of a tablet taken from the record room of the second Assurbanipal (according to some original scholars, the Sardanapalus of the Greeks), king of Assyria, B. C. 667, will give an idea of one purpose for which the impressions were made:

Assurbanipal, the great king, the powerful king, king of nations, king of Assyria, son of Esarhaddon, king of Assyria, son of Sennacherib, king of Assyria; according to the documents and old tablets of Assyria, and Sumri and Akkadi, this tablet in the collection of tablets I wrote, I studied, I explained, and for the inspection of my kingdom within my palace I placed. Whoever my written records defaces, and his own records shall write, may Nabu all the written tablets of his records deface.

Mr. Smith of the British Museum is translating some of these tablets.

[5] Balbus, the stoic, in replying to Vellejus, the epicurean, opposes his atheistical argument that the world was made by chance, and says:

He who fancies that a number of solid and invisible bodies could be kept together by weight [gravitation?], and that a world full of order and beauty could be formed by their accidental juxtaposition—from such a man I cannot understand why he should not also believe that if he threw together, pell-mell, a great number of the twenty-one letters, either of gold or of some other material, the _Annals of Ennius_ could be legibly put together from the forms scattered on the ground. _De Natura Deorum_, book II, chap. 20.

[6] Jackson and Chatto, _Treatise on Wood Engraving_, p. 12.

[7] The emperor Justin (518–527) could not write, and was obliged to sign state papers with a stencil.

[8] When Latin ceased to be a living language, the whole treasury of knowledge was locked up from the eyes of the people. The few who might have imbibed a taste for literature, if books had been accessible to them, were reduced to abandon pursuits that could only be cultivated through a kind of education not easily within their reach. Schools confined to cathedrals and monasteries, and exclusively designed for the purposes of religion, afforded no encouragement or opportunities to the laity. Hallam, _Middle Ages_.

[9] Hallam, _Middle Ages_, vol. III, pp. 286, 287.

[10] These observations apply only to the types used for the text letters of books and newspapers. The large types made for the display lines of posters are cut on wood, but these types of wood are used only for printing single lines; they are not combined with the compactness of book types, and do not require their precision of body. The wood types of Japan are, probably, the smallest wood types in practical use; but they are much larger than our book types; they are printed in smaller pages; they are not obliged to stand truly in line, nor to conform to the standards of European and American printers. The cheapness of types which have been cast, as compared with letters which have been engraved, has been explained on page 23 of this work.

[11] The characters D, E, 1 are the private reference marks of the type-founder. In this position they cannot be reproduced on the cast type.

[12] The superfluous metal which adheres to the cast type, and is afterward broken off, is also called the Jet. The finishing of the types is comparatively simple work which does not require explanation.

[13] _Mechanick Exercises, or the Doctrine of Handy-Works, applied to the Art of Printing._ By Joseph Moxon, Member of the Royal Society, and Hydrographer to the King, etc. London, 1683.

[14] _The Book of Trades_ was popular. Two editions in Latin verse were published, one in 1568, and another in 1574, with descriptions by Hartmann Schopper. Chatto says:

This is, perhaps, the most curious and interesting series of cuts, exhibiting the various ranks and employments of men, that ever was published. Among the higher orders . . . . . . are the Pope, Emperor, King, Princes, Nobles, Priests and Lawyers; while almost every branch of labor or trade then known in Germany, from agriculture to pin-making, has its representative. There are also not a few which it would be difficult to reduce to any distinct class, as they are neither trades nor honest professions. Of these heteroclytes is the _Meretricum procurator_, or, as Captain Dugald Dalgetty says, the captain of the queans. Jackson and Chatto, _A Treatise on Wood Engraving_, p. 409.

Jost Amman was one of the many famous German designers on wood. The publishers of Nuremberg and Frankfort esteemed his ability highly and gave him constant employment.

[15] The text of the _Speculum Durandi_, the book of 1473, is _exculptis ære litteris_; the text of the _Præceptorum Nideri_, the book of 1476, is _litteris exculptis artificiali certe conatu ex ære_. The language is plain and cannot be construed to mean cut types. When these books were printed, the arts of typography and copper-plate printing were new and had not yet received distinctive names. The reading public knew nothing of the theory or practice of either process, and confounded the productions of one art with those of the other. The early printers had to define the respective arts as they best could, with words made from Latin. A close examination of the words selected by Husner will show their propriety. The word _exculptis_, sculptured, or cut out in high relief, is here used in contradistinction to _inculptis_, sculptured in, or cut in, as in an engraving on copper-plate. It defines typographic work from copper-plate printing. The phrase _artificiali certe conatu ex ære_, means something more than skillful engraving; it suggests the use of mechanism, and of a beginning of the work in brass, which can be clearly understood only by construing _ex ære_, from or in a brass mould. The phrase here translated _in_ brass has been rendered _of_ brass, but the language will not bear this construction. The phrase _ex ære_, in, or out of, or from brass, was frequently used by many early printers. I have rarely met the form _æris_, of brass. To represent that early types were of brass is as much a violation of history as it is of grammar.

[16] This book was edited and republished in the form of an octavo pamphlet of fifty-six pages, by Signor P. Vincenzo Fineschi, at Florence, in 1781. The equivalent in American currency of the Tuscan lira is calculated from a formula given with great minuteness by Blades in his _Life and Typography of William Caxton_, vol. II. p. xx.

[17] Heineken, _Idée générale d’une collection complette d’estampesavec une dissertation_, etc., p. 250.

According to the legend, it was the occupation of Saint Christopher to carry people across the stream on the banks of which he lived. He is accordingly represented as a man of gigantic stature and strength. One evening a child presented himself to be carried over the stream. At first his weight was what might be expected from his infant years; but presently it began to increase, and kept increasing, until the ferryman staggered under his burden. Then the child said, “Wonder not, my friend; I am Jesus, and you have the weight of the sins of the whole world on your back.” St. Christopher was thus regarded as a symbol of the church.

[18] The Suabia of the fifteenth century was separated by the Rhine from Switzerland and France on the south and west; its eastern boundary was Bavaria; its northern boundary, Franconia and the Palatinate of the Rhine.

[19] As these three copies have never been compared side by side, it has not been proven that they are impressions from the same block. The copy described on a preceding page has some peculiarities not found in the others.

[20] A book printed at Delft in 1480, says that when St. Gregory was pope, he celebrated mass in the church _Porta Crucis_. As he was consecrating the bread and wine, Christ appeared to him as represented in the engraving, with all the accessories to his passion. Robert of Cologne, who wrote a treatise on indulgences, published at Zutphen in 1518, adds, that Pope Gregory kindly granted 14,000 years of indulgence; that Pope Nicholas V doubled them; that Pope Calixtus, after requiring the repetition five times of the prayers, again doubled the years of indulgence; that Pope Innocent VIII, after adding seven more prayers, two other prayers, and two more of the _Pater Noster_ and the _Ave Maria_, again doubled the length of indulgence—so that the sum total amounted to at least 70,000 years: according to other computations, to 92,000 years, or 112,000 years. Holtrop, _Monuments typographiques_, p. 13. There is but one copy of this print, which recently belonged to the collection of Theodor O. Weigel of Leipsic, who published a fac-simile of it in colors, in his great work, _The Infancy of Printing_, plate 113, vol. I.

[21] Wetter says that all letters of indulgence for thousands of years are spurious; that they were made by monks and ignorant traveling priests for no other purpose than to allure simple people to church.

[22] Sweinheym and Pannartz, who were invited, in 1464, to establish a printing office in the monastery of Subiaco near Rome, were the first printers connected with any ecclesiastical institution. It may be remarked, that they did not thrive under clerical favor, for they soon found it expedient to remove to the city of Rome, where they were equally unfortunate in their efforts to find purchasers for their books.

[23] I have used the translation as I find it in Ottley’s _Inquiry into the Origin and Early History of Engraving_, vol. 1, p. 47. The original is given by Temanza, _Lettere Pittoriche_, vol. v, p. 321. Temanza found this decree in an old book of regulations which belonged to a fraternity of Venetian printers.

[24] Weigel, in his _Infancy of Printing_, plate 10, presents the fac-simile of an old printed altar-piece, about eight inches wide and twenty inches long, which contains a representation of the Virgin and the infant Christ. The engraving is in outline only. The interior was colored by stencils, like the image prints.

[25] Temanza had some old Venetian playing cards of unknown date, which he believed were made at or about the time of the publication of this decree. They were of large size, on thick paper, and elaborately decorated with gold and colors. The early Venetian playing cards were, probably, more expensively made, and were offered at higher prices than the German cards. In the field of art and ornament, and even in the trades which called for a higher degree of skill, the Venetians surpassed all their competitors. This pre-eminence was maintained many years after the invention of typography. The earlier books of Venice are famous for the whiteness of their paper and the beauty of their types, as well as for admirable presswork and solid bindings.

[26] Heineken, _Idée générale_, page 245. He does not give the date. The record from which he quotes, the Red Book of Ulm, so called because the initials were in that color, ends with the year 1474.

[27] Singer’s _Researches into the History of Playing Cards_. This book abounds in curious information and has many valuable fac-similes.

[28] Breitkopf says that the stencil painting of prints was done with great rapidity by the medieval colorist. He alludes to an old German saying of “painting the twelve apostles with one stroke,” which, no doubt, refers to the expeditious painting of a once popular image print, of which there is now no fragment in existence.

[29] Some antiquarians say that this print is a representation of Amman.

[30] Didot, _Essai sur la typographie_, p. 564.

[31] Bibliophile Jacob, _Curiosités de l’histoire des arts_, etc., p. 48.

[32] One of the cards bears the name of the maker, F. Clerc. The costumes of the figures are French, and of the fashion of the court of Charles VII. One of the queens is a rude copy of the well known portrait of the queen Marie of Anjou; another queen is from an authentic portrait of the king’s mistress, Gérarde Cassinel. The robe of one of the kings is plentifully sprinkled with the _fleur-de-lis_; the figure of another king is that of a hairy savage with a torch in his hand. These singular cards illustrate a frightful accident which made a profound impression on the people of France. To divert the half-crazed king Charles VI, a masquerade was planned for a ball given by Queen Blanche, on the 29th of January, 1392, in which masquerade the king and five of the gentlemen of the court took the parts of savages. The costumes were made by encasing the actors in tight-fitting linen garments, covered with warm pitch and tow. In this uncouth attire, and linked together with clanking chains, they danced in the ball-room to the amusement of the men and the terror of the ladies. Wishing to discover one of the maskers, the Duke of Orleans snatched a torch from the hand of a servant, and thrust it too near an unhappy masker’s face. In a moment he was covered with a blaze which quickly spread to his fellows. The king was rescued in time, but four of the masqueraders were burned to death.

[33] Breitkopf, _Versuch den Ursprung der Spielkarten_, p. 9, note g. The fac-similes of playing cards in this book are exceedingly grotesque.

[34] Cards are not mentioned in a specification of popular games in the Stadtholdt Book of Augsburg for the year 1274. The ordinances of the town of Nuremberg for the period between the years 1286 and 1299 prohibit gambling, but they do not mention cards. For the period between 1380 and 1384, they are both mentioned and permitted.

[35] In Singer’s _Researches into the History of Playing Cards_ may be found many fac-similes of early Hindostanee cards, some of which, we are told, were engraved on plates of ivory. These fac-similes show that the primitive game was a modification of the old Indian game of chess.

[36] The industry of Jost Amman was as remarkable as his skill. The old historian of early printers, Sandraart, says, on the authority of his pupil George Keller, that during the four years in which Keller lived with him, Amman produced designs enough to load a wagon.

[37] The ordinances of Nuremberg between the years 1380 and 1384 permitted gambling and betting, but in moderation: “Always excepting horse-racing, shooting with cross-bows, _cards_, shovel boards, tric-trac and bowls, at which a man may bet from two pence to a groat.” Von Murr, as quoted by Chatto, _Treatise on Wood Engraving_, p. 42.

[38] Having visited many convents in Franconia, Suabia, Bavaria, and the Austrian States, I everywhere discovered in their libraries many image prints engraved on wood and pasted either in the beginning or the end of old volumes of the fifteenth century. These facts taken together confirm me in the opinion that the next step of the engraver on wood, after playing cards, was the engraving of figures of saints, which, distributed and lost among the laity, were carefully preserved by the monks, who pasted them on the inner covers of the books with which they furnished their libraries. After the engravers had succeeded in making prints of saints, they found it very easy to engrave historical subjects, with explanations in words. Heineken, _Idée générale_, etc., p. 251.

[39] Wood-cuts of sacred subjects were known to the common people of Suabia, and the adjacent districts, by the name of _Halgen_ or _Halglein_, saints or little saints, a word which, in course of time, was also applied to prints of all kinds. In France also, the earliest prints were known as _dominos_, or lords, a word which was intended to convey the same meaning. The maker of prints was known as a _dominotier_, whether he made profane cards or pious images. In time the word so far declined from its first meaning that it was applied not only to printers of cards and images, but to the makers of fancifully colored wall-papers. _Versuch der Ursprung der Spielkarten_, etc., vol. II, p. 174.

[40] This method is still in use in many parts of the East Indies. A dried leaf is written on with a pointed steel which scratches the smooth surface. A bit of charcoal is then rubbed over the leaf; the places scratched are filled with atoms of charcoal, which make the writing as legible as it would have been if written with fluid ink.

[41] In support of this opinion he quotes the following from Pliny:

It would be improper to omit the notice of a new invention. We have been accustomed to preserve in our libraries, in gold, silver, or bronze, the personages whose immortal spirits speak to us from distances of leagues and centuries. We create statues of those who are no longer living. Our regrets invest them with features which have not been given to us by tradition, as, for example, is shown in the bust of Homer. The idea of making a collection of these portraits is due to Asinius Pollio, who was the first to throw open his library, and to make these men of genius the property of the public. That the love for portraits has always existed is sufficiently proven by Atticus, the friend of Cicero, who published a book on the subject, and also by Marcus Varro, who had the enlarged idea of inserting in his numerous books not only the names, but, by the aid of a certain invention, the images of seven hundred illustrious persons. Varro wished to save their features from oblivion, so that the length of centuries would not prevail against them. As the inventor of a benefit which will fill even the gods with jealousy, he has clothed these persons with immortality. He has made them known over the wide world, so that everywhere one can see them as if they were present. Pliny, book XXXV, chap. I.

This invention has never been clearly explained. A new invention, which exhibited in books the features of seven hundred men, which multiplied them so that they were known over the wide world, and preserved them for posterity, should have been the invention of printing. Pliny speaks of it as a well-known fact, but no other writer of his age makes any mention of it. Why did not Pliny describe the new art instead of praising it?

[42] Didot, _Essai sur la typographie_, p. 563.

[43] American engravers on wood use box which has been cut across the fibres in flat disks, ninety-two hundredths of an inch thick. Wood so cut, with its fibres like columns, perpendicular to the touch of the graver and to the line of impression, can be engraved with more delicacy, and, for printing, has more strength than wood cut in line with the fibres.

[44] The buff-tinted wrappers around fire-crackers and Chinese silks will fairly represent the quality of the paper used for Chinese books.

[45] I have before me a thick Chinese pamphlet which is bound in this style. In the essential points of strength, flexibility and convenience, this binding is much superior to that of American or European sewed pamphlets. The most famous bookbinder would be justly proud of the combination of firmness and elasticity in the sewing.

[46] To this description of Chinese typography is usually added the untrue statement that the types were made of copper. Why the Jesuit missionaries, who were amateurs in type-founding, should add to their labors by the use of such a troublesome and slowly melted metal as copper, when European type-founders preferred lead, tin and antimony, cannot be explained. I cannot find a copy of the original statement, which was, no doubt, in Latin. The phrase, types of copper, is, probably, an incorrect translation, a repetition of the error explained in a note on page 65 of this book. The missionaries intended to say, and no doubt did say, that they made types _in_ copper, or in copper matrices.

[47] _American Encyclopædia of Printing_, p. 104.

[48] Polo was more deeply interested in the simplicity of the financial method by which the Emperor filled his impoverished treasury.

He transferred the bark of the mulberry-tree into something resembling sheets of paper, and these into money, which cost him nothing at all: so that you might say he had the secret of alchemy to perfection. And these pieces of paper he made to pass current universally over all his kingdoms and provinces and territories, and whithersoever his power and sovereignty extended. And nobody, however important he thought himself, durst refuse them on pain of death. _The Book of Ser Marco Polo, the Venetian._ Translated and edited by Henry Vale, London, 1871.

With all his power, the Great Khan met the fate which comes to every financier who tries to fill up a depleted treasury by the issue of paper money. In a very short time the notes were worth but one-half of their original value. But the Emperor was equal to the emergency: when the notes fell to one-fifth of the nominal value, he called them in, and exchanged five old for one new note of the same denomination.

[49] Papillon, _Traité historique et pratique de la gravure en bois_, vol. I, pp. 76, 77. Papillon does not name this student. Lanzi describes him as the ecclesiastic Padre della Valla. Passavant (_Le peintre-graveur_, p. 18) says that the initials of like character which have been found in German manuscript books of the twelfth century, were printed.

[50]. . . If he was a wool-stapler, he stamped it on his packs; or if a fish-curer, it was branded on the end of his casks. If he built himself a new house, his mark was frequently placed between his initials over the principal doorway, or over the fireplace of the hall; if he made a gift to a church or a chapel, his mark was emblazoned on the windows, beside the knight’s or the nobleman’s shield of arms; and when he died, his mark was cut upon his tomb. Jackson and Chatto, _Treatise on Wood Engraving_, pp. 17, 18.

[51] The letters in the most meritorious manuscript books of the middle ages were not made with running hand, closely connected, like the letters of modern penmanship. The form of writing most in fashion was a spurred or pointed Gothic of remarkable blackness. Each letter was separate, carefully drawn, angled and painted, by many strokes of the reed.

[52] The text of the _Codex_ is a translation of the four Gospels, written in the Gothic character, by Ulphilas, bishop of the Goths, about the year 370. This book, which is supposed to have been made not later than the sixth century, was discovered in the year 1587, in an abbey in Westphalia, and was taken to Prague. When that city was captured by the Swedes in 1648, the book was sent as one of the trophies of war to Queen Christina. It has ever since been regarded as a great curiosity.

[53] Moorish authors tell us that in the days of the last Norman kings of Sicily, ten thousand silk looms were in active operation in Palermo; but this statement is an oriental exaggeration of a fact that required no embellishment. Others say that Jewish and Italian traders carried these silks to Italy, Germany, and the North of Europe. The earliest silk-weavers of Palermo were the captured inhabitants of Greece who had been taken there in 1147.

[54] Pliny says that the colors were produced by dyeing, but the garments described by Herodotus could not have been made by this process. We have to infer that they used some form of impression. Breitkopf tells us that the colored cloths of the Egyptians were made by printing. His conclusions seem reasonable when we consider how largely engraved stamps were used by the Egyptians for printing upon clay, and how short was the step from printing on clay to printing on cloth. The art of staining, printing or stenciling cloth with bright colors by different processes, has been practised in Hindostan from a very early period. The antiquity of the Indian manufacture may be inferred from the European adoption of Indian names. The English word _chintz_, and its German synonym _zitz_, are derived from a Hindostanee word that means both a colored printed cloth and a flower. The word _calico_ is from Calicut, the town on the Malabar coast from which calico was first exported to Europe.