Part 49
[347] The Brotherhood were forbidden by the vows they had taken to ask for alms or accept gifts, and were required to live by the labor of their hands. They devoted themselves to the duties of teaching school and copying books. At Weidenbach they were remarkably successful. They built a church in 1490 with the money they had made from the sale of manuscript and printed books. Madden says that the monastery of Weidenbach was not only a publishing house, but a prominent school of typography, and that there are reasons for believing that it gave instruction to Caxton, Jenson, Mansion and other eminent printers.
[348] This John Sensenschmidt subsequently went to Bamberg, and in 1481 there published the _Bamberg Missal_, with a text in Pointed Gothic types of five-line pica body, probably the largest text types ever used in a book. It was admirably printed and rubricated.
[349] These two thousand impressions were taken from about three hundred cuts—for the cut that served for the portrait of Paris of Troy was used for Odofredus of Germany and the poet Dante of Italy. Wood-cuts professing to represent cities and battles in Greece and Syria were repeated for battles and cities in France and Germany, with an indifference to the anachronisms and a cool disregard of the incredulity of the reader that are amazing. The author had a keen relish for the marvelous—for men with one eye, with immense ears, with enormous legs, and like monstrosities. The _Dance of Death_, which is reproduced on page 185 of this book, is one of the most meritorious designs, but most of them are of small value. The fac-simile of Koburger’s map on the opposite page should be contrasted with the map of Germany in any modern atlas. It is presented as an illustration of the medieval notion of geography, and as one of the first attempts at map-printing.
[350] In 1477, Sorg printed the first illustrated edition of the whole Bible; in 1483, a description of the council of Constance, containing nearly one thousand engravings.
[351] Representing that the use of wood-cuts by typographers was an infringement on the vested rights of the guild, the block-printers induced the magistrates to pass a law commanding printers not to use wood-cuts. Not deriving the benefits they expected from this restriction, the block-printers proposed to concede to the typographers the right to use as many cuts as they pleased, providing they would agree to use only the wood-cuts made by regular engravers.
[352] In 1472, Melchior of Stanheim, abbot of the monastery of St. Ulric at Augsburg, established a printing office in his monastery, buying types and tools from other printers. He bought five presses of Schüssler for 73 florins, and had five other presses made for him by a joiner of Augsburg. The equipment of his office cost 702 florins, which was then regarded as a large sum.
[353] See chapter XV and pages 322–325 of this book for a fuller description of the works of this printer.
[354] See notes on pages 281 and 322.
[355] Many bibliographers say that he went to Cologne in 1473. Madden regards him as a pupil of the monastery at Weidenbach. Blades thinks that he was self-taught, or taught by some unknown printer, and that, as early as 1472, he began his typographic work at Bruges, in which he was assisted by William Caxton.
[356] He printed eight books in 1478; seven in 1479; nine in 1480; ten in 1482. In fifteen days he printed three books, one of 85, and another of 305 leaves. During the seventeen years he was in business he printed 150 books. His last book at Gouda was dated June 23, 1484; on the 18th of September, 1484, he published at Antwerp, a book of 400 pages. Fifteen days after, he completed another book. During the first six months of 1485, he published one volume each month. One of these books had 34, and another 76 engravings specially cut for the work.
[357] The colophon of this book is a queer piece of mysterious English: . . . Enprentyd in the duchye of Braband, in the town of Andewarpe, in the yere of our Lord M. CCCC. XCIIII. By maistir Gerard de Leew, a man of grete wysedom in all maner of kunyng: whych nowe is come from Lyfe unto the doth, which is grete harme for many of poure man. On whas sowle God almythy for hys hygh grace haue mercy. Amen. Van der Meersch. _Imprimeurs Belges et Néerlandais_, vol. I, p. 119.
[358] The printed date of this book is M.CCCC.LXI. It is a curious circumstance that this exact printer should begin with an error which makes his first publication appear ten years earlier than it was.
[359] In 1479, Dominic made this contract for printing a book. The publisher Boniface should furnish the paper, and should pay 10 livres for 200 copies of a book of 23 or 24 leaves of royal octavo or ordinary quarto. If he printed more than 200 copies, he should forfeit all claims for work done. In another contract, made in 1480, Dominic agreed to print 100 copies of a book of 100 or 120 pages for 4 florins in gold. The prices for printing seem insufficient, but the cost of labor was small. The compositors of the Ripoli Press were the sisters of a convent.
[360] The partnership should be for three years. Zarot bound himself to furnish all the types, Latin and Greek, Roman and Gothic, and to make all the ink. The four associates were to furnish the money. One of them, De Burgo, should advance 100 ducats as soon as they could keep four presses steadily at work. If any partner should obstruct the business, he should lose all his rights. Rent should be paid out of the general fund. Profits should be divided in three parts, of which Zarot should have one part, and the four associates, two parts. Zarot should pay the associates one third the actual cost of the presses and other implements, which should become his property at the termination of the partnership. Current expenses should be paid out of the general fund from the profits of sales. The priest Gabriel (a partner) should be the agent, treasurer and general manager. He should have one copy of every book printed. Books for publication should be selected at a general meeting of all partners. The corrector and the copyists should be paid in printed books. Every workman should be bound by oath to keep the secrets of the partners, and was forbid to give any book to any other master printer of the city. If any partner wished to print a book on his own account, and could not agree with his associates, he would be permitted to have it done elsewhere.—Peter and Nicholas de Burgo immediately asked for the use of three presses or more, for works on common and civil law and medicine, they providing and paying for the presses and for working them, and half the current expenses of the office. They also agreed to give one-fourth of the profits, to pay a bonus of 25 ducats, and one copy of each book, provided the society would not sell it under price.
[361] It will be seen that the business of publishing is almost as old as that of printing. Valdarfer agreed to set up the types of the books produced at the rate of 24 imperials (?) for every 20 pages. The wary publishers took the precaution to specify in the agreement that the blank pages should not be counted.
[362] The Senate of Lucca, by a vote of 38 to 9, voted to pay the priest Clement, a professional calligrapher and bookbinder (who had applied for the means to go to Venice and get a knowledge of the art), a subvention of two florins monthly, on condition that he should practise his art as a public officer, teaching all who wished to learn. Clement declined the offer.
[363] Gering reprinted the books of Keyser and Stol as soon as he could procure copies. Each house boasted of the superior accuracy and greater cheapness of its own publications.
[364] In this style the pages were surrounded by narrow pictorial borders in pieces of irregular length. These pieces were repeatedly used on different pages, but always in new combinations, so as to present some feature of novelty. The ground-works of the borders were generally stippled. The large illustrations in the text were in outline, obviously intended for coloring. Red letters were often printed on every page, but the larger initials were painted.
[365] Blades thinks that it was printed at Bruges by Colard Mansion and William Caxton, about 1472. Madden thinks it was printed at the monastery of Weidenbach by Mansion and Caxton, who went there about 1474 to learn practical typography. Other bibliographers say that it was printed by Zell at Cologne. The types of this _Recuyell_ are thoroughly French, and are like the larger types used by Mansion. Bernard thinks that these types were made and first used at Cologne, by the order of the Duke of Burgundy for the French edition of the same work.
[366] Thomas, in his _History of Printing_, said that printing was done in Mexico before 1569. The subsequent discovery of Mexican books with earlier imprints has compelled a gradual putting back of the date to 1540, which is that of the earliest existing book. There is a tradition about a Mexican book said to be printed in 1536, but the book is not in existence, and the correctness of this date has not been proved. Harrisse quotes an author who says that printing was taken to Mexico in 1532, by the Viceroy Mendoza, and that Pablos was the first printer. But Mendoza did not go to Mexico until 1535. Pablos was the foreman of Cromberger, who had one office in Seville and one in Mexico.
[367] This is Hallam’s enumeration of the hooks printed in large cities before 1500:
Florence 300 Milan 629 Bologna 298 Rome 925 Venice 2835 London 130 Paris 751 Cologne 530 Nuremberg 382 Leipsic 351 Basle 320 Strasburg 526 Augsburg 256 Louvain 116 Mentz 134 Deventer 161
If allowance be made for the books that are lost, these numbers are too small, but the list will give a correct idea of the comparative activity of the early printers at different places. During this period were published 291 editions of Cicero, 95 of Virgil, 57 of Horace, 91 of the Latin Bible and many hundreds of the decretals and digests of canon law.
[368] The Bishop of Angers in 1470 paid 40 crowns of gold for a copy of the _Bible of 1462_. The _Catholicon_ of Gutenberg sold for 41 crowns of gold in 1465. A copy of Mansion’s edition of the _Consolation of Philosophy_ by Boethius, brought 40 crowns in 1481. A missal was sold in 1481 for 18 gold florins. Bernard notes a sale in which a printed copy brought a higher price than a manuscript. A copy on vellum of the _Summary of St. Thomas_ by Schœffer, was sold at Paris for 15 crowns of gold. A manuscript of similar size was sold for 10 crowns. It is difficult to form just conclusions from these prices, for the bindings of the books have not been described. Hallam says that the florin was worth about four francs of present money, equivalent, perhaps, to twenty-four in commodities, and that the crown was worth rather more. Another estimate allows to the money of the fifteenth century eight times its present purchasing power.
[369] The mandate is too long for an unabridged translation, but the following extracts will fairly set forth the reasons for his action:
Although, by a certain divine art of printing, abundant and easy access is obtained to books in every science . . . yet we have perceived that certain men, led by the desire of vainglory or money, do abuse this art; and that which was given for the instruction of human life is perverted to purposes of mischief and calamity. For, to the dishonoring of religion, we have seen in the hands of the vulgar certain books of the divine offices and the writings of our religion translated from the Latin into the German tongue. . . . Some volumes on this subject, certain rash unlearned simpletons have dared to translate into the vulgar tongue, whose translation . . . many learned men have declared unintelligible, in consequence of the very great misapplication and abuse of words. . . . Let such translators, if they pay any regard to truth, say whether the German language be capable of expressing that which excellent writers in Greek and in Latin have most accurately and argumentatively written on the sublime speculations of the Christian religion and the knowledge of things. They must acknowledge that the poverty of our idiom renders it insufficient, . . . they must corrupt the sense of the truth in the sacred writings . . . which, from the greatness of the danger attendant upon it, we greatly dread; for who would leave it to ignorant and unlearned men and to the female sex, into whose hands copies of the Holy Scriptures may have fallen, to find out the true meaning of them?
This was not the first restriction imposed on the liberty of the printers, for the University of Cologne in 1479 had assumed the right to control the printing of books by Quentell and Winters.
[370] Gutenberg’s employment of the goldsmith Dünne at Strasburg, and the payment to him of a big sum for work connected with printing, can be most satisfactorily explained by the conjecture that Dünne was hired to cut punches and make a mould. I find no mention of punch-cutting or mould-making at Mentz, but there is, in the accounts of the Ripoli Press, an unequivocal notice of one John Peter of Mentz, who was selling matrices to the printers of Florence in 1476. It is evident that this John Peter had experience in this branch of typography. The Ripoli Press bought of him, in 1477, the matrices of a full font of Roman, for 10 florins in gold. John Peter was not the only punch-cutter. In 1478, the Ripoli Press paid the goldsmith Benvenuto 110 livres for the punches of three fonts—two of which were of Roman and one of Gothic face. In 1481, another goldsmith, Banco, made a sale to the manager of the Ripoli Press, of “100 little letters, 3 big letters, and 3 vignettes on copper.”
[371] Square notes of music, partly written, partly printed, are seen in the _Psalter of 1457_. Greek letters were made by Schœffer and Sweinheym, but the first book in Greek was printed by Paravisinus at Milan in 1476. Hebrew types were made at Soncino in 1488. At the close of the century, a German printer at Paris made an imitation of writing, but the letters were not connected, and the only penmanlike features were in the capitals. About 1500, Manutius had the engraver Francis of Bologna cut punches for Italic types, in imitation of the handwriting of Petrarch.
[372] Jacob Bellaert of Haarlem combined isolated engravings, cut for the purpose, in the belief that each combination would seem a new engraving. Kerver tried to give variety to his pages by varying combinations of detached pictorial borders. But it was quickly demonstrated that typography could deal successfully with letters only. The large ornamental initial letters of books were not cast, but cut, sometimes on wood, oftener on metal. Small and ornamented capital letters were cast by Mentel of Strasburg, and by Ratdolt of Venice in 1477.
[373] Colonna and Manthen at Venice said that their Gothic was a “sublime letter.” John Herbort, in 1483, said his was “a most captivating letter, unquestionably excelling all others.” Nicholas Prevost said his book was printed “in types the most beautiful and most becoming for polite literature.” Chevalon said his Gothic was “the polite and fashionable letter.”
[374] In France, the punches are struck in hot copper to prevent their breakage.
[375] I know by experience that the ordinary metal used for types can be cast in a matrix of lead to the number of 125 or 150 types before the matrix will be destroyed. After 50 or 60 castings, there will be an alteration in the mould; the finer lines will disappear and ruder lines be presented. This will account for the differences that the same letters present on every page. _Magazin Encyclop. de Millin_, 1806, vol. I, p. 74, as quoted by Bernard, vol. I, p. 299.
[376] Gutenberg’s larger bodies were irregularly graduated and of Pointed Gothic face; his smaller bodies were not separated at proper distances, and were of Round Gothic face. The unknown printer had four faces and four bodies of the size English. Caxton had two faces and two bodies each of the sizes Paragon, Great-primer and English. The types of many printers at Paris and Venice show irregularities of body which seem remarkable and inexplicable to the modern printer.
[377] The smallest sizes which I have met in any book of the fifteenth century are in the _Decretals of Gregory_, printed in black and red by Andrew Torresani at Venice in 1498, in which book the text is in Bourgeois and the surrounding notes are in Brevier. Nonpareil was first made by Garamond of Paris about the middle of the sixteenth century. Diamond was made by Jannon of Sedan about 1625. Nothing smaller was attempted until 1827, when Henry Didot, then 66 years old, cut a font on the French body of 2-1/2 points—a body known to American printers as Brilliant, or Half-nonpareil—about twenty-five lines to the American inch.
[378] It has been suggested that these distinct bodies were founded in sand moulds; that a new pattern for the body was made every time a new font was cast; and that the irregularities in body are the results of unintended or undetected variations in the pattern. But this hypothesis cannot be accepted. The small bodies, the sharp edges, close fitting-up and even lining of the types, are peculiarities which could not have been produced by a sand mould, nor by a mould of any plastic material.
[379] _Lettres d’un bibliographe_, 4th series, p. 231.
[380] See page 66 of this book. Was this obscure metal antimony? The text books say that antimony was, for the first time, set apart as a distinct metal in 1490, by Basil Valentine, a monk of Erfurt. But Madden says that a book supposed to have been printed at Cologne, before the year 1473, plainly describes antimony as a metal frequently used and much abused by many monks of the thirteenth century in their pharmaceutical preparations. _Lettres d’un bibliographe_, 4th series, p. 115.
[381] It agrees exactly with the old French standard (of 1723) for height of type, which was 10-1/2 geometric lines, or, by modern French measure, 24 millimetres. Fournier, _Manuel typographique_, vol. I, p. 125.
[382] The sloping shoulder, which was in general use in the first quarter of this century, was discarded to meet the requirements of the new art of stereotyping. It was found that these sloping shoulders made projections in the plaster mould, which imperiled the making of an accurate cast. The blackening of the sheet from square shoulders was prevented by altering the mould and placing the shoulder lower on the body.
[383] See page 399 of this book.
[384] Bernard believes that Gutenberg cast for the _Bible of 42 lines_ at least 120,000 types, or enough for two sections, or forty pages. He supposes that twenty pages were perfected, and ready for press or under press, while the succeeding twenty pages were in the compositor’s hands. This would be the method adopted by the modern printer, and it may have been the method of Gutenberg, but it is probable that the difficulties connected with the new art compelled him to print the book more slowly, and with imperfect system. But the printers who followed him certainly used quick methods.
[385] Caxton said that he had “practysed & learned at [his] grete charge and dispense to ordeyne this said booke in prynte.”
[386] Many of the early master printers practised their trade for a few years in one place, and a few years in another, roving about from town to town with a seeming indifference to change which seems unaccountable to the modern printer, who knows how expensive it is to move a printing office. The roving habits of the masters will not seem so strange when it is known that the equipment of the early office was simple, and that the more expensive tools could be carried with little difficulty.
[387] The engravings of cases shown by Moxon have boxes of unequal size. No doubt, they were so made from the beginning, for a day’s experience would teach any compositor that his case must have a larger box for the letter e than for the letter x.
[388] See page 528.
[389] Bernard says that sticks of wood were used by Christopher Plantin, “king of printers.” It is characteristic of the taste of his time, that Plantin had sticks of wood, although he boasted that some of his types were cast in [matrices of] silver.
[390] Madden, in his first collection of _Lettres d’un bibliographe_,—the most curious piece of analytical criticism that has appeared in typographical literature—has demonstrated that the method of dictation was practised in the office at Weidenbach. In this series of letters he critically examines three books, printed at this office with the same types, and at the same time, and points out the peculiar errors of three different compositors, who, not seeing the copy, were misled by their misapprehension of the dictated words. He claims that these books were the practice work of three amateur compositors who were then learning the trade. Each compositor had copies of his own workmanship printed as evidences of his skill, or as a memento of his errors. Novel as they may seem, I am inclined to accept the conclusions of Madden. Many copies of early printed books, known to be of the same edition, or done at the same time, show variations in the typographical arrangement which cannot be explained by any other hypothesis than that of a double composition by compositors working from dictation.
[391] The composition of Schœffer’s edition of the _Decretals_ has been injudiciously praised by Bernard. In the fac-simile on page 463, it will be noticed that the page is crooked, and that the justification and making-up are very faulty. In a copy of Torresani’s edition of the _Decretals_, the frequent contractions make the work almost unreadable. This book has been highly commended for its even spacing; but it is a sufficient answer to say that any printer could space admirably, even in the narrowest measure, if allowed to mangle words to suit his convenience.
[392] The statement made by Lacroix that one book was paged in 1469 does not prove that this was the usage. In some books printed at Venice during the last ten years of the fifteenth century, the leaves (not the pages) are numbered on every odd page. But this was not the common practice. In the _Statius_ of Aldus, printed at Venice in 1502, and in the Italian translation of the _Commentaries of Julius Cæsar_, printed by Bernard Venetus of that city in 1517, neither leaves nor pages are numbered.
[393] Some early chases held their types not with quoins, but by the pressure of screws. A German printer’s hand-book, dated Leipsic, 1743, has diagrams of imposition in which the pages are fastened by screws perforating the chase. Quoins and bevels were not an early invention.
[394] See page 395 for illustration of primitive screw press.
[395] _Mechanick Exercises_, vol. I, pp. 52, 69. To the printer who has seen only the press in which the platen covers the bed this may seem an absurd method, but it was a method in general use even as late as the beginning of this century. Men are yet living who have printed books by the method shown in the cut—pulling down the bar when one-half of the form was under the platen—releasing the pressure—running the other half of the bed under the platen—and finishing the presswork of the other half of the sheet by a second pull.