Brito was a member of the Fraternity of Saint John the Baptist, between the years 1454 and 1494, but he was not industrious as a printer, for Campbell can attribute but four books to him. Van Praet[1] says that he was engaged by the bishop of the church to paint or to affix this Book of Doctrine on the great tablets, which he did by the wonderful art of stenciling, with the very astonishing instruments of perforated letters, nobody having instructed him. Proud of his work, he attached this inscription. When he printed the composition in the form of a book he repeated the inscription. It is not possible that Brito intended to convey the notion that he had invented typography. So far from inventing types, Brito did not even make the types that he used in this book. They are the types of Veldener of Utrecht.[2]
From the early records we can glean nothing which will demonstrate that typography was practised in any part of the Netherlands before 1472. The workmanship of all known Netherlandish printers after this date is of every degree of merit and of demerit, but in all their books it shows the impressions of types founded in, moulds of hard metal, and properly printed on a press, on both sides of the paper, and in black ink. As it is a style of workmanship entirely unlike that of the unknown printer, it is a proper inference that typography came into the Netherlands, as it did into all other countries, through the pupils and by the method of Gutenberg.
The table annexed will show how late was the beginning of typography in the Netherlands. It also shows that printing "by the art that is now used," was introduced almost simultaneously in three different towns of the Netherlands. In the year 1473, John of Westphalia was first printer at Alost;
- ↑ Van Praet says that the word imprimit, or printed, was frequently used by the scribes and copyists of that period as the equivalent of scripsit, or wrote. It was also used to describe painting by stencils, Notice sur Colard Mansion, p. ii.
- ↑ The same face of types was used by Machlinia of London. It would seem that Veldener was not only working as a printer, but that, even at this date, he was doing business, to some extent, as a manufacturer of types for the trade.
