The doubts that once existed as to the genuineness of the printed initials in manuscript books have been dissipated by recent investigation in another direction. It has been conclusively proved that woven fabrics of silk and of linen, ornamented with designs printed in bright colors, not unlike those of modern chintzes and calicoes, were produced between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries. The designs or patterns were printed in ink from engraved blocks of wood, by the tedious process of hand-stamping. Of this curious primitive printed work, there are, in several European collections, fragments of images, priests' robes, altar cloths, and ecclesiastic apparel of like nature. The genuineness of these relics of early printing, and the process by which the printing was done, have been established in the most satisfactory manner Weigel, in his valuable work on the Infancy of Printing, has illustrated this part of his subject with fac-similes of these fragments which prove that Italian workmen not only knew how to print, but that they printed in colors with great precision.
The modern printer who fairly appreciates the difficulties of printing colors in register, and the force required to secure a good impression from a large, flat surface, may be puzzled by the neatness of this early printing. His experience tells him that these designs should have been printed upon strong and accurately adjusted presses, and from large surfaces, in sections or forms of two or more square feet. But the method of the Italian printers was quite different; the designs were engraved on many pieces of wood of small size, made to fit each other with accuracy, and each piece was separately inked and struck by hand, or by a mallet, on the fabric. A careful workman could readily connect the different impressions of different blocks, keeping the colors in true register, and could pursue the pattern in a neat manner over any surface, however large. The work was tedious, but not more so than that of finishing, or gilding by hand tools, in ornamental book-binding, which is now done by a similar method. Slow as it may seem when compared with the rapidity of modern calico-
