development of typography should precede a description of the work
of the early printers. We shall form incorrect notions about the
invention of printing unless we know something about the state of the
arts of paper-making, ink-making and engraving at the beginning of the
fifteenth century. We should also know something about the books and
the book-makers of the middle ages. Nor will it be out of place to
review the mechanical processes which have been used, almost from the
beginning, for the preservation of written language. The review will
show us what elements the inventor of typography found at his hand
ready for use; what he combined from the inventions of others, and what
he invented anew. [p030]
[Illustration: A Stamped Brick from the Ruins of Babylon.
[From Hansard.]]
[Illustration: Fac-simile of the Impression on the Brick.
[From Hansard.]]
[Illustration: An Egyptian Stamp for Impressing Bricks.
[From Jackson.]]
Engraving must be regarded as the first process in every method of
printing. The impression of engraved forms on metal and wax, for the
purpose of making coins and seals, is of great antiquity, having been
practised more than three thousand years ago, and, by some people, with
a skill which cannot now be surpassed. There are old Egyptian seals
with faces of such minute delicacy that the fineness of the workmanship
can be fully perceived only by the aid of a magnifying glass. There are
coins of Macedonia which are stamped in a relief as bold as that of the
best pieces of modern mints. In Babylonia and Assyria, engraved forms
were printed or stamped on clay specially prepared for this purpose.
In the ruins of the ancient edifices of these primeval nations there
is scarcely a stone or a kiln-burnt brick without an inscription or
a stamp upon it. The inscriptions on stone appear to have been cut
with a chisel, after the usual method of stone-cutters; but the stamps
on the bricks were made from engravings on wood, or by the separate
impressions of some pointed instrument. The preceding illustration is
that of a stamped brick taken many years ago from the ruins of ancient
Babylon. When in perfect condition, it was thirteen inches square
and three inches thick. The inscription, which is in the cuneiform
or arrow-headed character, is irregularly placed on the surface, but
the letters or words are arranged in parallel rows, and are obviously
made to be read from top to bottom. The characters of this inscription
were not cut upon the brick, nor were they separately impressed. That
they were made [p032] on the plastic clay by the sudden pressure of
a xylographic block, is seen by the oblique position of the square
inscription on the brick,[4] in the nicety of the engraving and its
uniform depth, in the bulging up of the clay on the side, where it was
forced outward and upward by the impression. In old Egypt, bricks were
impressed by the same method of stamping, but not to such an extent as
they were in old Assyria. The cuts annexed represent the face and back
of an old Egyptian stamp discovered in a tomb of Thebes. The stamp is
five inches long, two and one-quarter inches broad, and half an inch
thick, and is fitted to an arched handle. The characters are engraved
below the surface of the wood, so that an impression taken from the
stamp on the clay would show the engraved characters in relief. The
inscription on the stamp [p033] has been translated, _Amenoph, beloved
of truth_. Amenoph is supposed, by some authorities, to have been the
king of Egypt at the period of the exodus of the Israelites.
The characters on the Egyptian and Babylonian bricks are much more
neatly executed than would seem necessary for inscriptions on so common
a material as clay. But they are really coarse, when compared with
the inscriptions upon the small cylinders of clay which were used by
the Assyrians for the preservation of their public documents. Layard
mentions a small six-sided Assyrian cylinder that contains sixty
lines of minute characters which could be read only by the aid of a
magnifying glass. Antiquaries are not yet perfectly agreed as to the
method by which the cylinders were made. Layard, who says that the
Babylonian bricks were stamped, thinks that the inscriptions on the
cylinders were cut on the clay. But there are many cylinders which show
the clearest indications of impression.
It is probable that they were made by both methods. The clay was
prepared for writing as well as for stamping. Ezekiel, who prophesied
by the river Chebar in Assyria, was commanded to take a tile, and
portray upon it the city of Jerusalem. The Chaldean priests informed
Callisthenes that they kept their astronomical observations on tiles
that were subsequently baked in the furnace. Four large piles of
tablets of unburned clay were found by Layard in the library or hall
of records of Assurbanipal. Some of the tablets are the grammars
and primers of the language; some are records of agreements to sell
property or slaves; some are filled with astronomical or astrological
predictions. On one of them was inscribed the Assyrian version of
the deluge. The cylinders contained the memorials which were then
considered as of most value, such as the proclamations of the king, or
the laws of the empire. In the museum of the East India Company is the
fragment of a clay cylinder which contains a portion of the decrees
or annals of Nebuchadnezzar. For perpetuating records of this nature,
the cylinders were admirably adapted. [p034] They were convenient for
reference, and their legibility, after so long an exposure, shows that
they were perfectly durable.
We do not know by what considerations Assyrian rulers were governed
when about to choose between engraving or writing on clay; but it is
not unreasonable to assume that the inscription was written or cut on
the clay, when one copy only of a record was wanted; if numerous copies
were wanted, a die or an engraving on wood was manufactured, from which
these copies were moulded. No surer method of securing exact copies of
an original could have been devised among a people that did not use
ink and paper. These cylinders are examples of printing in its most
elementary form.
[Illustration: An Assyrian Cylinder.
[From Hansard.]]
The accompanying illustration, copied from Hansard’s _Typographia_,
represents an Assyrian cylinder which presents the same indications
of impression which have been noticed upon the bricks. This cylinder,
which is seven inches wide at each end, was so thoroughly baked
in a furnace that it is partially vitrified. Around its largest
circumference is a ragged and bulging line, about a quarter of an inch
wide, which seems [p035] to have been made by the imperfect meeting of
two moulding stamps. If the inscription had been cut on the clay, this
defect would not appear; the vertical lines would have been connected,
and the ragged white line would have been made smooth.
This method of printing in clay was rude and imperfect, but, to some
extent, it did the work of modern typography. Writings were published
at small expense, and records were preserved for ages without the aid
of ink or paper. The modern printer may wonder that this skill in
printing was not developed. The engraving that was used to impress clay
could have been coated with ink and stamped on parchment. Simple as
this application of the engraving may appear, it was never made. So far
from receiving any improvement, the art of printing in clay gradually
fell into disuse. It has been neglected for more than twenty-five
centuries on the soil where it probably originated. For Layard tells
us that an Assyrian six-sided cylinder was used as a candlestick by a
reputable Turcoman family living in the village where it was found. A
hole in the centre of one of the ends received the tallow candle. There
is a practical irony in this base application of what may have been a
praise of “the great king,” which has never been surpassed by Solomon
or Shakspeare in their reflections on the vanity of human greatness.
Engraving was used by the ancient Greeks in a manner which should have
suggested the feasibility of printing with ink. Some of the maps of the
Athenians were engraved on smooth metal plates, with lines cut below
the surface, after the method of copper-plate printers, from which
impressions on vellum, or even on papyrus, could have been taken. But,
so far as we know, the impressions were not taken: for every new map
there was a new engraving.
The Assyrian method of engraving stamps for impressing clay was
practised by the old Roman potters, who marked their manufactures with
the names of the owners or with the contents of the vessel. The potters
clearly understood the [p036] value of movable types. On some of their
lamps of clay, the inscriptions were made by impressing, consecutively,
the type of each letter. These types must have been movable, and,
in appearance, somewhat like the punches or the model letters of
type-founders.
There were some men in ancient Rome who had a clear perception of
the ease with which engraved letters could be combined. Cicero,
in an argument against the hypothesis of logical results from
illogical causes, has intimated that it would be absurd to look for
an intelligible sentence from a careless mixing up of the engraved
letters of the alphabet.[5] The phrase by which he describes the
assembled letters, _formæ literarum_, was used by the early printers to
describe types. His argument implies, conversely, that if proper care
were exercised, it would be easy to arrange the letters in readable
sentences. But the speculation of Cicero did not go beyond the idea of
combination. It does not appear that he thought that the letters could
be used for printing.
Quintilian had speculations about engraved letters. He recommended to
teachers the use of a thin stencil plate of wood, on which should be
cut the letters that a boy might be required to copy when learning to
write. The boy who traced the characters with his writing implement
would have his hand guided and formed by the outlines of the perforated
letters. The curt manner in which stencil plates are noticed should
lead us to think that they were then in common use. We can see that
stencils of this nature could have been used, at least as an aid, in
the mechanical manufacture of books; but it is not probable that they
were so used. [p037]
We have some evidences that the old Romans practised, at least
experimentally, the art of printing with ink. The British Museum has a
stamp with letters engraved in relief, that was found near Rome, and
which seems to have been made for the purpose of printing the signature
of its owner. The stamp is a brass plate, about two inches long and
not quite one inch wide. A brass ring is attached to the back of the
plate which may have been used as a socket for the finger, or as a
support when it was suspended from a chain or girdle. On the face of
the stamp are engraved two lines of capital letters, huddled together
in the usual style of all old Roman inscriptions, cut the reverse way,
as it would now be done for printing, and enclosed by a border line.
An impression taken from this stamp would produce the letters in the
accompanying illustration, which may be translated, _the signature of
Cecilius Hermias_. Of Cecilius Hermias we know nothing. He may have
been a civic official who used this stamp to exempt himself from the
trouble of writing, or a citizen who tried to hide his inability to
write.
[Illustration]
If this stamp should be impressed in wax, the impression would produce
letters sunk below the surface of the wax in a manner that is unlike
the impressions of seals. The raised surface on the wax would be rough
where it should be flat and smooth. This peculiarity is significant.
As this rough field unfitted it for a neat impression on any plastic
surface, the stamp should have been used for printing with ink.
[Illustration: An Old Roman Stamp.
[From Jackson.]]
The accompanying illustration is that of a brass printing stamp in
the British Museum, which is preserved as a specimen of old Roman
workmanship.[6] The letters were cut in relief, in reverse order, and
with a rough counter or field. This roughness proves that it could not
have been used to impress wax. [p038]
Brass stamps of similar construction and of undetermined age have been
frequently found in France and Italy. All of them are of small size,
and contain names of persons only.
[Illustration: Roman Stamps.
[From Jackson.]]
The illustrations annexed, of two engraved brass stamps of eccentric
shapes, were also copied from the originals in the British Museum.
As the letters are roughly sunk in the metal, and are not fitted
for stamping in wax, it is supposed that the stamps were made for
impression with ink. They are regarded as Roman antiquities, of
undoubted authenticity, but the meaning of the inscriptions, the
special purposes for which they were made, and the period in which they
were employed, are unknown. The difficulty connected with the proper
fixing of ink upon these stamps of brass, of which a subsequent notice
will be made, is one of many causes which prevented the development of
this experimental form of printing.
A favorite method of making impressions was that of branding. Virgil,
in the third book of the Georgics, tells us of its application to
cattle. The old laws of many European states tell us of its application
to human beings. The cruel practice was kept up long after the
invention of typography. During the reign of Edward VI, of England
(1547–1553), it was enacted that, “whosoever, man or woman, not
being lame or impotent, nor so aged or diseased that he or she could
not work, should be convicted of loitering or idle wandering by the
highwayside, or in the streets, like a servant wanting a master, or
a beggar, he or she was to be marked with a hot [p039] iron upon the
breast with the letter V [for vagabond], and adjudged to the person
bringing him or her before a justice, to be his slave for two years;
and if such adjudged slave should run away, he or she, upon being taken
and convicted, was to be marked upon the forehead, or upon the ball of
the cheek, with the letter S [for slave], and adjudged to be the said
master’s slave forever.”
With these evidences before us of long continued practice in various
methods of engraving and stamping, and of a fair knowledge of some of
the advantages of movable letters, the question may be asked, Why did
the world have to wait so long for the invention of typography? This
question is based on the assumption, that the civilization of antiquity
was capable of making and preserving the invention which was missed
through accident or neglect. Here is a grave error. The elements of an
invention are like those of a chemical mixture. All the constituents
but one may be there, exact in quantity and quality, but, for the
lack of that one, the mixing of the whole in a new form cannot be
accomplished. Failure in one point is entire failure.
The ancients failed in many points. They were destitute of several
materials which we regard as indispensable in the practice of printing.
They had no ink suitable for the work. Pliny and Dioscorides have
given the formulas for the writing ink that was used by Greek and
Roman scribes during the first century. Pliny says that the ink of
book-writers was made of soot, charcoal and gum. He does not say
what fluid was used to mix these materials, but he does allude to an
occasional use of acid, to give the ink encaustic property and to
make it bite in the papyrus. Dioscorides is more specific as to the
quantities. He says that one ounce of gum should be mixed with three
ounces of soot. Another formula is, one-half pound of smoke-black
made from burned resin, one-half ounce each of copperas and ox-glue.
Dioscorides further says that the latter mixture “is a good
application in cases of gangrene, and is useful in scalds, if a little
thickened, and [p040] employed as a salve.” From this crude recipe one
may form a correct opinion of the quality of the scientific knowledge
then applied to medicine and the mechanical arts.
These mixtures, which are more like liquid shoe blacking than writing
fluid, were used, with immaterial modifications, by the scribes of the
dark ages. Useful as they may have been for their methods of writing,
they could not have been applied to the inking of a metal surface
engraved in relief. If the brass stamps described on a previous page
had been brushed over never so carefully with these watery inks, the
metal surface would not be covered with a smooth film of color. The ink
would collect in spots and blotches. When stamped on paper or vellum,
the ink thereupon impressed would be of irregular blackness, illegible
in spots, and easily effaced. Writing ink, thickened with gum, has but
a feeble encaustic property. It will not be absorbed, unless it is laid
on in little pools, and unless the writing surface is scratched by a
pen to aid the desired absorption. The flat impression of a smooth
metal stamp could not make a fluid or a gummy ink penetrate below the
writing surface. It was, no doubt, by reason of the inferior appearance
of impressions of this nature that the brass stamps described on a
previous page found so limited a use.
An unsuitable ink may seem but a trifling impediment to the development
of printing, but if there had been no other, this would have been an
insurmountable obstacle. The modern printer, who sees that the chief
ingredients of printing ink are the well-known materials smoke-black
and oil, may think that an ignorance of this mixture, or an inability
to discover it, is ridiculous and inexcusable. Modern printing ink is
but one of many inventions which could be named as illustrating the
real simplicity of a long delayed improvement. Simple as it may seem,
the mixing of color with oil was a great invention which wrought a
revolution in the art of painting.
This invention, attributed by some authors to unknown Italian painters
of the fourteenth century, and by others to [p041] Hubert Van Eyck
of Holland, at or about the beginning of the fifteenth century,
immediately preceded the invention of types. The early typographic
printers, who could not use the ink of the copyists, succeeded
only when they mixed their black with oil. After four centuries of
experience in the use of printing ink made with oil, and after repeated
experimentation with impracticable substitutes, it may be confidently
asserted that an invention of typography would have failed, if this use
of oil had not been understood. The invention of types had to wait for
the invention of ink.
Typography had to wait for the invention of paper, the only material
that is mechanically adapted for printing, the only material that
supplies the wants of the reader in his requirements for strength,
cheapness, compactness and durability. Paper was known in civilized
Europe for at least two centuries before typography was invented, but
it was not produced in sufficient quantity nor of a proper quality
until the beginning of the fifteenth century.
The old Romans had no substitute for paper that could have been
devoted to printing or book-making. The papyrus which they used was so
brittle that it could not be folded, creased and sewed like modern rag
paper. It could not be bound up in books; it could not be rolled up,
unsupported, like a sheet of parchment. It was secure only when it had
been carefully wound around a wooden roller. The scribes of Rome and
the book copyists of the middle ages preferred vellum. It was preferred
by illuminators after printing had been invented. But vellum was never
a favorite material among printers. In its dry state, it is harsh, and
wears types; it is greasy, and resists ink; in its moistened state, it
is flabby, treacherous and unmanageable. The early books on vellum are
not so neatly printed as those on paper. But these faults were trivial
as compared with the graver fault of inordinate price. When we consider
that the skins of more than three hundred sheep were used in every
copy of the first printed Bible, it is clear that typography would
have been a failure [p042] if it had depended on a liberal supply of
vellum. Even if the restricted size of vellum could have been conformed
to, there were not enough sheep at the end of the fifteenth century to
supply the demands of printing presses for a week.
If the idea of printing books from movable types had been entertained
by an ancient Roman bookseller, or by a copyist, during the earlier
part of the dark ages, it may be doubted whether he could have devised
the mechanism that is needed in the making of types. For types that
are accurate as to body, and economical as to cost, can be made by
one method only. It is, in the highest degree, improbable, that the
scientific method of making types by mechanism could have been invented
at an earlier date than the fifteenth century. There was mechanical
skill enough for the production of any kind of ingenious hand work, but
the spirit that prompted men to construct machines and labor-saving
apparatus was deficient or but feebly exercised. There was no more of
true science in mechanics than there was in chemistry. The construction
of a suitable type-mould, with its appurtenances, during the dark ages,
would have been as premature as an invention of the steam engine in the
same period.
The civilization of ancient Rome did not require printing. If all
the processes of typography had been revealed to its scholars the
art would not have been used. The wants of readers and writers were
abundantly supplied by the pen. Papyrus paper was cheap, and scribes
were numerous; Rome had more booksellers than it needed, and books were
made faster than they could be sold. The professional scribes were
educated slaves, who, fed and clothed at nominal expense, and organized
under the direction of wealthy publishers, were made so efficient in
the production of books, that typography, in an open competition, could
have offered few advantages.
Our knowledge of the Roman organization of labor in the field of
book-making is not as precise as could be wished; but the frequent
notices of books, copyists and publishers, made by many authors
during the first century, teach us that [p043] books were plentiful.
Horace, the elegant and fastidious man of letters, complained that
his books were too common, and that they were sometimes found in the
hands of vulgar snobs for whose entertainment they were not written.
Martial, the jovial man of the world, boasted that his books of
stinging epigrams were to be found in everybody’s hands or pockets.
Books were read not only in the libraries, but at the baths, in the
porticoes of houses, at private dinners and in mixed assemblies. The
business of book-making was practised by too many people, and some were
incompetent. Lucian, who had a keen perception of pretense in every
form, ridicules the publishers as ignoramuses. Strabo, who probably
wrote illegibly, says that the books of booksellers were incorrect.
[Illustration:
Tablet with Waxed Surface. Manuscript Roll, with Title on
Scrinium or Case for Manuscripts. the Ticket. Papyrus Manuscript
partially Unrolled.
Roman Scrinium, with Rolls of Papyrus.]
The prices of books made by slave labor were necessarily low. Martial
says that his first book of epigrams was sold in plain binding for six
sesterces, about twenty-four cents of American money; the same book
in sumptuous binding was valued at five denarii, about eighty cents.
He subsequently complained that his thirteenth book was sold for only
four sesterces, about sixteen cents. He frankly admits that half of
this sum was profit, but intimates, somewhat ungraciously, that the
publisher Tryphon gave him too small a share. Of the merits of this
old disagreement between the author and publisher, we have not enough
of facts to justify an opinion. We learn that some publishers, like
Tryphon and the brothers [p044] Sosii, acquired wealth, but there are
many indications that publishing was then, as it is now, one of the
most speculative kinds of business. One writer chuckles over the unkind
fate that sent so many of the unsold books of rival authors from the
warehouses of the publisher, to the shops of grocers and bakers, where
they were used to wrap up pastry and spices; another writer says that
the unsold stock of a bookseller was sometimes bought by butchers and
trunk-makers.