the block. The fixedness of the design on the block is the great feature which separates xylography[1] from typography. The printing surfaces of the two methods are alike. Types and xylographic engravings are printed together, by the same process, and on the same press.
Printing with ink, not as an experiment, but as a practical business, is comparatively a modern art. Lithography, the most recent method, was discovered by Alois Senefelder, an actor of Munich, in 1798. Unlike other methods of printing, it was, in every detail, an entirely original invention.
The introduction of copper-plate printing is attributed to Maso Finiguerra, a goldsmith of Florence, who is supposed to have made his first print about the year 1452. It cannot be proved that Finiguerra was the inventor, for prints by this method were made in Germany as early as 1446.
The period of the invention of typography may be placed between the years 1438 and 1450. There have been many claimants for the honor of the invention. Each of the following fifteen cities or towns—Augsburg, Basle, Bologna, Dordrecht, Feltre, Florence, Haarlem, Lubeck, Mentz, Nuremberg, Rome, Russemburg, Strasburg, Schelestadt and Venice—has been specified by as many different authors as the true birthplace of typography. The names of the alleged inventors are, Castaldi, Coster, Fust, Gensfleisch, Gresmund, Gutenberg, Hahn, Mentel, Jenson, Regiomontanus, Schœffer, Pannartz and Sweinheym, and Louis de Vaelbaeske. The evidences in favor of each claimant have been fully examined, and the more foolish pretensions have been so completely suppressed that it is unnecessary to review them. The limits of the controversy have been greatly contracted: but four of the alleged inventors of types, Castaldi, Coster, Gutenberg and Schœffer, have living defenders. The legend of an invention of types
- ↑ The word xylography is little used by printers or engravers, with whom the art of making engravings in relief is usually known as engraving on wood. It is most frequently used by bibliographers to distinguish early printed work: books printed from types are now defined as typographic, and those printed from engraved blocks are xylographic.
