│ CITY AND COUNTRY │ YEAR THE │ BY WHOM │
│ │ ART WAS │ │
│ │INTRODUCED │ │
├──────────────────────────────┼───────────┼──────────────────────┤
│Mainz Germany│ 1450 │Johann Gutenberg │
│ │ │ │
│Strassburg Germany│ 1460 │John Mentel │
│Bamberg Germany│ 1461 │Albrecht Pfister │
│Cologne Germany│ 1464 │Ulrich Zell │
│Rome Italy│ 1465 │Conrad Schweinheim │
│ [Subiaco] │ │ Arnold Pannartz │
│Basel Switzerland│ 1468 │Bertold Ruppel │
│Augsburg Germany│ 1468 │Gunther Zainer │
│Venice Italy│ 1469 │John de Spira │
│Nuremberg Germany│ 1470 │Heinrich Keffer │
│ │ │ John Sensenschmidt │
│Paris France│ 1470 │Ulrich Gering │
│ │ │ Martin Crantz │
│ │ │ Michel Friburger │
│Florence Italy│ 1471 │Bernardo Cennini │
│Utrecht Netherlands│ 1473 │Nicholas Ketelaer │
│ │ │ Gerard de Leempt │
│Bruges Netherlands│ 1474 │Colard Mansion │
│London England│ 1477 │William Caxton │
│ [Westminster] │ │ │
│Barcelona Spain│ 1478 │Nicholas Spindeler │
│Oxford England│ 1478 │Theodoric Rood │
│Leipzig Germany│ 1481 │Marcus Brand │
│Vienna Austria│ 1482 │John Winterberger │
│Stockholm Sweden│ 1483 │John Snell │
│Haarlem Holland│ 1483 │Johannes Andriesson │
│Heidelberg Germany│ 1485 │Frederic Misch │
│Copenhagen Denmark│ 1493 │Gothofridus de Ghemen │
│Munich Germany│ 1500 │John Schobzer │
│Edinburgh Scotland│ 1507 │Androw Myllar │
│Mexico City Mexico│ 1540 │John Cromberger │
│Dublin Ireland│ 1551 │Humphrey Powell │
│Cambridge, Mass. [U.S.]│ 1639 │Stephen Daye │
└──────────────────────────────┴───────────┴──────────────────────┘
THE SPREAD OF TYPOGRAPHY FROM MAINZ
[Illustration:
PAGE PRINTED BY KOBURGER
Combination of woodcuts and typography in a book of 1493
]
_In Italy_ the first printing done with separate types was in the year
1465 in the monastery at Subiaco, a village on the outskirts of Rome.
The cardinal in charge of the monastery, impressed with the importance
of the new art and anxious to have it introduced into Italy, persuaded
Conrad Schweinheim and Arnold Pannartz to come from Germany for the
purpose. In 1467 these two printers removed to the city proper and there
printed more extensively. Many classical works were produced, but five
years later they complained that a large portion of the product had not
been sold and that they were in distress.
Ulrich Hahn was the first printer in the city of Rome proper, having
opened an office there soon after Schweinheim and Pannartz began work at
Subiaco.
John de Spira (born in Spire, Germany) was the first typographer at
Venice, the Italian city famous for the excellence of its printed books.
Setting up a press in 1469, his work was of such quality as to obtain
for him exclusive right to print by the new process at Venice. De Spira
died in 1470 and the privilege was forfeited.
Nicholas Jenson, who came to Venice in 1470, is known as the originator
of the Roman type-face. Schweinheim, Pannartz, Hahn and De Spira, all
had used type-faces based upon the letters of Italian scribes, but the
types had Gothic characteristics. Nearly all Roman type-faces of the
present day trace lineage, as it were, to the types of Jenson.
With the exception of Gutenberg, Fust and Schœffer, and perhaps Aldus,
who succeeded him, Jenson is the most conspicuous figure among the early
printers. The story of his introduction to the art is interesting:
Charles VII., King of France, in the year 1458 decided to send an
emissary to Mainz to learn the new art, which was supposed to be a
secret, and Jenson, then an engraver and master of the royal mint at
Tours, was selected for the mission. Three years later he returned to
Paris with a full knowledge of typography, but found the king had died
and that his successor was not interested in the matter. This condition
of affairs seems to have discouraged Jenson, for he did not begin to
print until 1470, and then at Venice, Italy. (A typographical error in a
printed date of one of his books makes it read 1461 instead of 1471, and
encourages some writers to claim that Jenson was the first Venetian
printer.) The death of John de Spira opened the field for other printers
in Venice, and Jenson was one of the first to take advantage of it.
Jenson cut but one set of punches for his Roman type-face, the cutting
being done so accurately that no changes were afterward necessary. The
Roman types, being less decorative and more legible than the Gothic
letters of the Germans, allowed the use of capitals for headings. A
colophon, the forerunner of the modern title-page, was set by Jenson
entirely in capitals with the lines opened up by liberal space. This
colophon, which was probably the first page of displayed type
composition, is reproduced below.
[Illustration:
THE FIRST PAGE OF DISPLAYED TYPE COMPOSITION
Arranged by Jenson at Venice in 1471
]
It is an interesting fact that the books of Jenson do not contain the
letters J, U and W, these characters not having been added to the
alphabet until some years later. To satisfy a demand he also cut and
used a round Gothic face. The product of Jenson’s presses represents the
highest attainment in the art of printing. His types were perfect, the
print clear and sharp, paper carefully selected, and margins nicely
proportioned.
Jenson died in 1481, honored and wealthy. His printing office passed
first to an association and then to one whose fame as a printer perhaps
surpasses that of Jenson.
Aldus Manutius was a learned Roman, attracted to printing about 1489 by
the pleasures it afforded in the publishing of books. He introduced the
slanting style of type known as italic, so named in honor of Italy and
fashioned after the careful handwriting of Petrarch, an Italian poet.
Italic at first consisted only of lower-case letters, small upright
Roman capitals being used with them. The reproduction below shows this
combination and also the peculiar style of inserting a space after the
capital letter beginning each line.
[Illustration:
A page (actual size) from the famous Bamberg Missal
Printed by Sensenschmidt in 1481
]
Aldus also introduced the innovation of considerably reducing the size
of books from the large folio to the convenient octavo. The size of a
folio page is about twice that of this one, which is known as a quarto,
and an octavo page is half the size of a quarto.
Aldus was the first to suggest the printing of a polyglot Bible. The
word polyglot means “many tongues” and here refers to a book giving
versions of the same text or subject matter in several languages. The
polyglot Bible of Aldus was to have been in Hebrew, Greek and Latin, but
got no further than a few specimen pages.
The first polyglot work ever printed was a Psalter of eight columns,
each a different translation, from the press of Peter Paul Porrus, at
Genoa, Italy, in 1516. This Psalter was the literary work of Augustin
Justinian, a Corsican bishop, who later also arranged an entire Bible on
similar plans.
[Illustration:
THE FIRST ITALIC TYPE-FACE
Page printed by Aldus at Venice in 1514
]
Aldus is honored wherever books are known, not only on account of the
excellence of his productions, but because of the sincerity of his
purpose and his love of printing. In the first book printed by him at
Venice he declares for himself and co-workers: “We have determined
henceforth to devote all our lives to this good work, and call God to
witness that our sincere desire is to do good to mankind.” In the
production of classical works Aldus was assisted by many
scholar-refugees from Constantinople, which city had been captured by
the Turks. Aldus’s fame spread thruout Europe, and many visitors came to
Venice to see him. This annoyed him to such an extent that he had a
notice placed above the entrance to his printing office which in part
read: “Whoever you are that wish to see Aldus, be brief; and when
business is finished, go away.” It can thus be seen that the present-day
motto cards popular in business offices are not a new idea.
Aldus’s complete name was Aldus Pius Manutius Romanus, the first word of
which is abbreviated from Theobaldus.
There were more than two hundred printing offices in Venice before the
year 1500 and two million volumes were produced. These figures may
surprise the average modern reader, who is not inclined to concede
extensive production to the past.
Bernardo Cennini, a goldsmith, introduced typography into Florence,
Italy, in the year 1471. It is claimed that he made his tools, cast his
types and printed without instruction from German typographers,
depending upon verbal reports of the process and examination of printed
books. Cennini produced only one book.
Johann Numeister, who had been a pupil of Gutenberg, after the death of
his master journeyed toward Rome, but for some reason stopped at the
little Italian city of Foligno and began to print there in 1470. He used
both Roman and Gothic types.
_In Switzerland_ the new art was first practiced at Basel about 1468 by
Bertold Ruppel or Rodt, who had been one of Gutenberg’s workmen. Basel
was an important printing center in the days when the art was young, and
gave to France its first typographers.
John Froben, who set up a press at Basel in 1491, is perhaps the best
known of the printers of that city, and because of his use of the then
new italic letters was called the “German Aldus.”
In those days lived the famous Dutch philosopher and theologian Erasmus,
one of the brightest minds of Europe. Erasmus, having heard of Froben,
came to Basel to arrange for the printing of his books, and thus began a
friendship which lasted many years. Erasmus became a guest at the house
of Froben, and his presence was a big factor in that printer’s success.
Erasmus once said of Froben that he benefited the public more than
himself, and predicted that he would leave his heirs more fame than
money. (A book of one of the works of Erasmus, printed by Hieronymus
Froben, son of John, recently sold for fifteen hundred dollars at a sale
in New York.)
_In France_ typography might have been introduced as early as 1461 had
not the death of Charles VII. interfered with the plans of Jenson and
caused him to go to Venice. As it was, in the year 1470 Ulrich Gering,
Martin Crantz and Michel Friburger, three German printers who had been
working at Basel, Switzerland, settled at Paris and began to print under
the patronage of two members of the University of Sorbonne. The early
books of this press were printed from a Roman type-face. The quality of
the work of these printers is said not to have been good. Types were
defective and presswork deficient, many of the printed letters needing
retouching by hand.
Gering became rich and upon his death left much of his fortune to the
university within whose walls he had first printed upon coming to Paris.
In order to demonstrate the success of the early printers in decorating
their books without the aid of illuminators, a page is reproduced,
printed about 1486 by Philip Pigouchet for Simon Vostre, a bookseller of
Paris. The decorations were printed from wood blocks, engraved in the
style of the Gothic period, with stippled backgrounds, and are
interesting to the printer because they show early use of the pieced
border, a method now familiar.
[Illustration:
SPECIMENS FROM THE FIRST TWO PAGES OF THE POLYGLOT BIBLE IN HEBREW,
LATIN AND GREEK. PRINTED BY PLANTIN AT ANTWERP. ABOUT 1569
]
[Illustration:
GOTHIC ORNAMENTAL PIECES
Book of Hours, printed for Simon Vostre at Paris in 1486
]
Henry Estienne settled in Paris in 1502 and was the first of an
illustrious family of typographers. The Estiennes flourished until 1664,
during that time printing many remarkable books. A grandson of Henry
Estienne was the first to apply the system of numbered verses to the
entire Bible.
Robert Estienne, a son of Henry, was the best known and most scholarly
of the Estiennes. He was patronized and favored by the King of France,
and his press may be said to have been the beginning of the celebrated
Greek Press of Paris.
Robert Estienne’s ambition, the printing of de-luxe editions of the
classics, was his undoing as well as his making. The priests of the
Sorbonne, upon the appearance of a polyglot Bible in Hebrew and Greek
from the Estienne press, became enraged and Robert had to flee to
Geneva, Switzerland, for safety. There was little demand in that city
for elaborate books, but Estienne patiently worked there until his death
in 1559. His life had been spent in a labor of love, for he had scorned
money as a reward for his work.
_In the Netherlands_ typography was not practiced so far as is known
until 1473, when a press was erected at Utrecht. While it is supposed
that printing was done before that time at Bruges, there is no direct
evidence to support the supposition. It is known, however, that Colard
Mansion printed at Bruges in 1474, and that he taught typography to
William Caxton, with him producing the first book printed in the English
language.
There is a book with the date 1472, printed at Antwerp by Van der Goes,
but this date is supposed to be a misprint, as in the case of Jenson’s
book of 1471.
Christopher Plantin, a Frenchman, who began to print at Antwerp in 1555,
gave to that city the renown which it enjoys in the printing world.
Plantin printed on a magnificent scale, his luxurious notions extending
to the casting of silver types. His printing office was considered one
of the ornaments of the city and is today used as a museum for the
display of paintings and typographical work. Plantin retained a number
of learned men as correctors of his copy and proofs, and the story is
told that his proof sheets, after undergoing every possible degree of
correction, were hung in some conspicuous place and a reward offered for
the detection of errors. Plantin’s greatest work was his polyglot Bible
of 1569, a portion of which is reproduced above.
Louis Elzevir, founder of the family of learned printers of that name,
first printed in 1595 at Leyden. The second Louis Elzevir opened an
office at Amsterdam in 1640. The product of the Elzevirs was of such
quality as to make them famous thruout Europe as printers of the
classics, and their books were extensively imitated and counterfeited.
While Haarlem is claimed to have been the birthplace of typography, a
book cannot be produced printed in that city with a date earlier than
1483, when Johannes Andriesson had an office there.
_In England_ the name of William Caxton is one to conjure with among
typographers, for Caxton was the first to set type in that country, the
event taking place about the year 1477. Perhaps the thing that endears
Caxton to the hearts of English printers is that he was born in England.
The first printers of Italy, Switzerland and France were Germans, but
Caxton was English; we have his own words to prove it: “I was born and
lerned myn englissh in Kente in the weeld where I doubte not is spoken
as brode and rude englissh as it is in ony place in englond.”
Caxton had been apprenticed when a young man to a merchant, and after
his master’s death took up residence at Bruges in the Netherlands, with
which city England did considerable trading. There he prospered and as
governor of the Merchant Adventurers had control over all English and
Scotch traders in the Low Countries. The device later used by Caxton for
his imprint is supposed to have been copied from some trading mark of
the Bruges merchants.
Caxton resigned as governor and entered the service of the Duchess of
Burgundy, who encouraged him in literary work. Under her patronage he
translated (1469–1471) a “Historie of Troye.” The demand for this work
was an incentive for Caxton to learn how to print it. This he did with
the assistance of Colard Mansion who had started a printing office at
Bruges.
Shortly afterward, Caxton returned to England and set up a press in the
vicinity of Westminster Abbey, then on the outskirts of London. The
first book with a date printed by him is “The Dictes and Sayinges of the
Philosophers,” completed in November, 1477. His type-faces are copies of
those of Mansion, who in turn imitated the letters of Dutch copyists. A
type-face based on Caxton’s letter is now made by an American foundry.
[Illustration:
PAGE BY ENGLAND’S FIRST PRINTER
How Caxton arranged a book title in 1483
]
The product of Caxton’s press during his life is estimated at eighteen
thousand pages, nearly all of folio size. Caxton did not print de-luxe
editions as did other of the early printers of Europe, but his
productions were no less interesting. On his first books the lines were
not spaced to the full length. This gave to the right side of the page a
ragged appearance, as in modern typewritten letters.
Caxton did not devote a separate page to a book title until late in his
life, when he printed a title alone in the center of the first page. The
reproduction (on the preceding page) of a part of Caxton’s “Fables of
Esope” shows how the title was arranged at the page head.
Wynken de Worde, a native of western Germany, was a workman under Caxton
and upon the latter’s death, about 1491, succeeded to the business of
his master. He continued to print in Caxton’s house for several years,
afterward removing to “Fleet-street at the sygn of the Sonne,” in London
proper. Old English black-letter, which is now so popular, was used by
De Worde to a great extent, and he was the first printer to introduce
the Roman letter into England.
Richard Pynson, another of Caxton’s workmen and friend of De Worde, set
up a press in Temple Bar, London, about 1492, and printed many useful
books.
[Illustration:
PAGE IN ENGLISH BY JOHN DAYE
From Fox’s famous “Acts and Monuments,” London, 1560
]
Richard Grafton is famous as a printer of English Bibles during the
troublous times of the Reformation. The church authorities believed it
was not good for the people in general to read the Sacred Scriptures,
and the Bible, translated into English by William Tyndale and Miles
Coverdale, and printed anonymously by Richard Grafton at Antwerp, was
the object of much concern to the ecclesiastics. The Bishop of London
complained that “Some sons of iniquity have craftily translated the Holy
Gospel of God into our vulgar English.” After a long imprisonment
Tyndale suffered death by strangulation and burning. Grafton was
imprisoned in 1540 for printing a large folio Old and New Testament
known as the “Great Bible.” This tremendous task of printing was
accomplished by Grafton in partnership with Edward Whitechurch at Paris
and London.
Shortly after this the prejudice against an English translation was
partly overcome, and in 1543 Parliament passed an act allowing the Bible
to be read by certain classes, but forbidding women, apprentices,
journeymen, husbandmen or laborers to read it privately or openly.
[Illustration:
THE FIRST PSALTER IN ENGLISH
Printed at London about 1565 by Christopher Barker
]
John Daye, who first printed about 1546, was another English typographer
to suffer imprisonment on account of activity in the Protestant cause.
Many important books were printed by Daye, and in character and
accomplishments he has been likened to Plantin who printed during the
same period at Antwerp.
The best known of the books printed by Daye is Fox’s “Acts and
Monuments,” on the subject of wrongs and persecutions in the days of the
Reformation. Dibden says it was “a work of prodigious bulk, expense and
labor.”
_In Scotland_ printing was introduced in 1507 at Edinburgh by Androw
Myllar, in partnership with Walter Chepman, under a patent granted by
King James IV.
_In Ireland_ a prayer book was printed by the new process in 1551 at
Dublin by Humphrey Powell.
_In North America_ typography was first practiced in 1540 at Mexico
City, Mexico, by John Cromberger.
_In the United States_, or rather the territory now included under that
name, typography was introduced in 1639 at Cambridge, Massachusetts, by
Stephen Daye.
[Illustration:
A title-page of many words and much type-display
(Actual size and color treatment)
]
[Illustration]
TYPOGRAPHY IN COLONIAL DAYS
Typography has been an important factor in the development of modern
civilization. In the battle for civil and religious liberty, in both
Europe and America, the man with the pen and he of the composing-stick
have been together on the firing line. With Paul they could well boast
that they had been “in perils of waters, in perils of mine own
countrymen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in
weariness and painfulness, in hunger and thirst.” William Tyndale died
at the stake, Richard Grafton and John Daye suffered imprisonment;
Robert Estienne became an exile from his own country; Jesse Glover on
his way to America found a grave in the waters of the Atlantic; Stephen
Daye set type in a wilderness; James Franklin, William Bradford and John
Peter Zenger were imprisoned, and Benjamin Franklin suffered hunger and
privation.
As ecclesiastical and political conditions in Europe strongly influenced
the practice of typography during the days of the American colonies, I
will briefly review the events of the sixteenth, seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries that the reader may better understand and
appreciate the subject.
In the year 1521, when Luther appeared before the Diet of Worms in
Germany, the English people were ardent Roman Catholics. Henry VIII. was
King of England and the great Cardinal Wolsey was in high authority.
Henry, in the early part of his reign, was exceedingly loyal to the
Catholic Church; he published a book in answer to the attacks of Luther,
for which the pope gave him the title “Defender of the Faith.” However,
when Henry wished to divorce his wife that he could marry Anne Boleyn,
the church authorities did not approve. This so angered the king that he
took from Wolsey his office and possessions, denied the authority of the
pope over the Church of England, and had himself declared the supreme
head of that organization. The king was excommunicated by the pope and
in return Catholics were persecuted and put to death, and their
monasteries, colleges and hospitals broken up. Henry repeatedly changed
his religious opinions, and for many years both Catholics and
Protestants were put to death for differing with him.
For six years after Henry’s death in 1547, during the reign of his son
Edward VI., the Protestants were in power. Then for five years under
Mary the Catholics controlled the religious affairs of the country, and
the flesh of “heresy” was toasted at the stake.
[Illustration:
THE FIRST BOOK PRINTED IN ENGLISH AMERICA
By Stephen Daye at Cambridge, Mass., 1640. (Page slightly reduced)
]
[Illustration:
TITLE-PAGE OF A SHAKESPEARE BOOK
Printed in 1600, while Shakespeare was in the midst of his literary
labors
]
Elizabeth, who began to rule in 1558, was proud of the appellation
“Virgin Queen” and gave the name “Virginia” to the English colony in
America. She never quit spinsterhood, but about the year 1570
considerable correspondence was carried on between the English and
French courts regarding her intended marriage. This resulted in the
accumulation of over three hundred letters, which eighty-five years
later were collected and printed as a 442-page quarto. (The title-page
is reproduced full size as an insert in this chapter.) A poor Puritan
named Stubbs and a poor bookseller named Page published a pamphlet
against the marriage of Queen Elizabeth to the French king’s brother,
and tho the queen herself had said she would never marry, these
unfortunate subjects were punished for their audacity by having their
right hands cut off.