Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 23.djvu/720

The broad outlines of the history of the earliest types are as follows:—

GothicGothic type, of the angular or pointed kind, was first used by the Haarlem printer of the Speculum, Donatus, &c. (see specimen No. 1, taken from the British Museum copy of the Speculum Humanæ Salvationis, mixed Latin edition), presumably c. 1445. An entirely similar but larger type (No. 2, taken from the British Museum copy of Ludovicus [Pontanus] de Roma, Singularia) was used, presumably by the same printer, c. 1465-1470. Gothic type appeared in Germany as a church type in 1454, in the 31-line indulgence, presumably printed by Johan Gutenberg at Mainz (No. 3, from the Gottingen copy), and in the 30-line indulgence (No. 4, taken from the British Museum copy), printed by Peter Schoeffer at Mainz. Type No. 3 was also used about the same time for the 36-line Bible and type No. 4 for the 42-line Bible. Two much larger Gothic types appeared in the psalter of 1457, published by Fust and Schoeffer (see Bernard, Origine, pl. vii.). In Italy Gothic type appears in 1468 (No. 5, taken from the British Museum copy of Cicero, De Oratore published at Rome by Ulr. Hahn, 15th December 1468, in small Roman type, with imprint in Gothic), but in a more rounded form; it is practically the ordinary Italian writing influenced by the Gothic. In France Gothic began to be used in 1473; in England it appears first in Caxton's type about the year 1480.^[1] It was employed extensively in a great many of the earliest presses all over Europe, and continued to be used largely at all times, especially for Bibles, law books, royal proclamations, &c., and even to this day it is the national character of Germany. It is now usually called lettre de forme, black letter or English in English-speaking countries, lettre Flamand in Holland, and fractur in Germany.

Bastard Italian or Roman.Bastard Italian or bastard Roman was introduced in 1454 at Mainz in the 31 -line (No. 6) and 30-line (No. 7) indulgence. It is also called lettre de somme, some think from the Summa of Thomas Aquinas, printed in the type of the Bible of 1462 by Fust and Schoeffer. Varieties of this kind of type were, like the Gothic, much used by the earliest printers, as, for instance, the printer of the 1460 Catholicon, i.e., by Mentelin of Strasburg, c. 1460, and by Ulrich Zell at Cologne, c. 1466, &c. In England it appeared in the first three books printed (1478, 1479) at Oxford (No. 8, taken from the British Museum copy of Jerome's Expositio in Simbolum Apostolorum, wrongly dated 1468 for 1478).

Roman.Roman type, the Caroline minuscule of palæography, was first used in Germany about 1464, at Strasburg, by the printer whose fount of type is known by a peculiarly shaped R, and who on that account is usually called "the R printer" (No. 9, taken from the British Museum copy of Durandus, Rationale, of which the Basel library possesses a copy which was bought in 1464).^[2] In Italy it appears in 1465 at Subiaco (see Bernard, pl. xii, No. 19), at Rome in 1467 (op. cit. pl. xiii., No. 20), but in all its purity at Venice in 1469, used by Johannes of Spires (op.cit. pl. xii., No. 23), and at Paris in 1470 (op.cit. pl. xiii., No. 25). In England it was not used before 1518, when Richard Pynson printed" Pace's Oratio in Pace Nuperrima (see facsimile in Reed's Type Foundries, p. 92).

BurgundianBurgundian type, or gros batarde or secretary, was first used about 1470-72 by Colard Mansion at Bruges (No. 10, taken from the British Museum copy of La Controversie de Noblesse, c. 1471-72). With a somewhat similar type (No. 11, taken from the British Museum copy of the Recuyell) William Caxton is presumed to have printed, likewise at Bruges, a set of five books, of which the Recuyell of the History of Troye, a translation of a work by Raoul le Fèvre, is the best known and was probably printed c. 1471.^[3] To this same class belong the first type (No. 12, from the British Museum copy of the Dictes) used in England by William Caxton for the printing of Dictes and Sayings of the Philosophers (18th November 1477), and that used by the printer of St Albans (No. 13, taken from the Cambridge university library copy of Aug. Dactus, Elegancie). It

No. 1. Speculum type, c. 1445(?).

No. 2. Pontanus type, c. 1470 (?).

Nos. 3 and 6. Mainz 31-line indulgence, 1454.

Nos. 4 and 7. Mainz 30-line indulgence, 1454.

No. 5. Cicero, De Oratore, 1468.

No. 10. Controversie de Noblesse, c. 1471-72.

No. 8. Jerome's Expositio (1468), 1478.

No. 9. Durandus, c. 1464.

No. 11. Recuyell of the Hist. of Troye, c. 1471.

No. 12. Dictes and Sayings, 1477.

No. 13. Aug. Dactus, Elegantie, 1479.

was an imitation of the manuscript hand of the English and Burgundian scribes of the 15th century, and, after having figured for a long time in several of the early London and provincial presses, was about 1534 entirely superseded by the English black letter. To this class of type belong also the later lettre de civilité (c. 1570), the script (lettre coulée, lettre de finance, Dutch geschreven schrift), set court, base secretary, and running secretary types.

On the types before 1500, consult also the facsimiles in Holtrop's Mon. Typ. des Pays-Bas, The Hague, 1868; R. C. Hawkins, First Books and Printers of the Fifteenth Century, New York, 1884; William Blades, The Life of Caxton, London, 1861-63; Bernard, Origine de l'Imprimerie, Paris, 1853, vol. i., plates iii.-xiii.; Placidus Braun, Notitia de Libris ab Artis Typogr. Jnventione usque ad Annum, 1479 Impressis, Augsburg, 1788; H. Noel Humphreys, Hist. of the Art of Printing, fol., London, 1867. The types after 1500 can best be learned from the catalogues of type-founders, among which those of Messrs Enschedé of Haarlem occupy a foremost place. Of others we may mention—Indice dei Caratteri nella Stampa Vaticana, 4to, Rome, 1628; Epreuves des Caractères qui se trouvent chez Claude Lameste, 4to, Paris, 1742; Epreuves des Car. de la Fonderie de Claude Mozet, 8vo, Nantes, 1754; Les Car. de l'Imprimerie par Fournier le Jeune, 8vo, Paris, 1764: Proef van Letteren, Bloemen, &c., van Ploos van Amstel, 8vo, Amsterdam, 1767; Epreuve de Car. de Jacques François Rosart, 8vo, Brussels, 1771; Schriften . . . bey J. H. Prentzler, 4to, Frankfort-on-Main, 1774; Epreuves des Car. de la Fond. de J. L. Joannis, 8vo, Paris, 1776; Epreuves des Car. de la Fond. de J.L.de Boubers, 8vo, Brussels, 1777; Proeve van Letteren welke gegooten worden door J. de Groot, 8vo, The Hague, 1787; Pantographie, by Edmund Fry, 8vo, London, 1799; and Manuale Typographico, by G. Bodoni, 4to, Parma, 1818.

Subsequent to 1500.

Printers after 1500.Though the Cologne Chronicle of 1499 denies to Mainz the honour of the invention of the art of printing, it was right in asserting that, after it had been brought there from Holland, it became much more masterly and exact, and more and more artistic. During the first half century of printing a good many printers distinguished themselves by the beauty, excellence, and literary value of their productions. We may mention as such:—Johan Fust and Peter Schoeffer at Mainz; Johan Mentelin and Heinrich Eggestein at Strasburg; Ulrich Zell at Cologne; Sweynheym and Pannarts at Subiaco and at Rome; Nicolas Jenson at Venice; Anton Koberger at Nuremberg; Ketelaer and De Leempt at Utrecht; Johan Veldener at Louvain, Utrecht, and Kuilenburg; Gerard Leeu at Gouda; Johan of Westphalia at Louvain; and William CAXTON (q.v.) at Westminster.

Very soon the demand for books increased, and with it came a reduction in their prices. This caused a decline in the execution of printing, which begins to be appreciable about 1480 in some localities, and may be said to have become general towards the end of the 15th century. At all times, however, we find some printers raise their art to a great height by the beauty of their types and the literary excellence of their productions. Among the later printers we may mention the Aldi of Venice (1490 to 1597; see

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1. See Blades, Life of Caxton, pl. xvii.
2. See Jules Philippe, L'Imprimerie à Paris, p. 219.
3. Cf. Blades, Life of Caxton.