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Printing, in the only sense with which we are at present concerned, differs from most if not from all the arts and crafts represented in the Exhibition
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in being comparatively modern.
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For although the Chinese took impressions from wood blocks engraved in relief for centuries before the woodcutters of the Netherlands, by a similar process
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produced the block books, which were the immediate predecessors of the true printed book,
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the invention of movable metal letters in the middle of the fifteenth century may justly be considered as the invention of the art of printing.
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And it is worth mention in passing that, as an example of fine typography,
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the earliest book printed with movable types, the Gutenberg, or "forty-two line Bible" of about fourteen fifty-five,
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has never been surpassed.
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Printing, then, for our purpose, may be considered as the art of making books by means of movable types.
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Now, as all books not primarily intended as picture-books consist principally of types composed to form letterpress,
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it is of the first importance that the letter used should be fine in form;
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especially as no more time is occupied, or cost incurred, in casting, setting, or printing beautiful letters
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than in the same operations with ugly ones.
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And it was a matter of course that in the Middle Ages, when the craftsmen took care that beautiful form should always be a part of their productions whatever they were,
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the forms of printed letters should be beautiful, and that their arrangement on the page should be reasonable and a help to the shapeliness of the letters themselves.
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The Middle Ages brought calligraphy to perfection, and it was natural therefore
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that the forms of printed letters should follow more or less closely those of the written character, and they followed them very closely.
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The first books were printed in black letter, i.e. the letter which was a Gothic development of the ancient Roman character,
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and which developed more completely and satisfactorily on the side of the "lower-case" than the capital letters;
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the "lower-case" being in fact invented in the early Middle Ages.
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The earliest book printed with movable type, the aforesaid Gutenberg Bible, is printed in letters which are an exact imitation
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of the more formal ecclesiastical writing which obtained at that time; this has since been called "missal type,"
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and was in fact the kind of letter used in the many splendid missals, psalters, etc., produced by printing in the fifteenth century.
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But the first Bible actually dated (which also was printed at Maintz by Peter Schoeffer in the year fourteen sixty-two)
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imitates a much freer hand, simpler, rounder, and less spiky, and therefore far pleasanter and easier to read.
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On the whole the type of this book may be considered the ne-plus-ultra of Gothic type,
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especially as regards the lower-case letters; and type very similar was used during the next fifteen or twenty years not only by Schoeffer,
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but by printers in Strasburg, Basle, Paris, Lubeck, and other cities.
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But though on the whole, except in Italy, Gothic letter was most often used
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a very few years saw the birth of Roman character not only in Italy, but in Germany and France.
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In fourteen sixty-five Sweynheim and Pannartz began printing in the monastery of Subiaco near Rome,
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and used an exceedingly beautiful type, which is indeed to look at a transition between Gothic and Roman,
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but which must certainly have come from the study of the twelfth or even the eleventh century MSS.
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They printed very few books in this type, three only; but in their very first books in Rome, beginning with the year fourteen sixty-eight,
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they discarded this for a more completely Roman and far less beautiful letter.
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But about the same year Mentelin at Strasburg began to print in a type which is distinctly Roman;
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and the next year Gunther Zeiner at Augsburg followed suit;
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while in fourteen seventy at Paris Udalric Gering and his associates turned out the first books printed in France, also in Roman character.
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The Roman type of all these printers is similar in character,
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and is very simple and legible, and unaffectedly designed for use; but it is by no means without beauty.
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It must be said that it is in no way like the transition type of Subiaco,
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and though more Roman than that, yet scarcely more like the complete Roman type of the earliest printers of Rome.
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A further development of the Roman letter took place at Venice.
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John of Spires and his brother Vindelin, followed by Nicholas Jenson, began to print in that city,
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fourteen sixty-nine, fourteen seventy;
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their type is on the lines of the German and French rather than of the Roman printers.
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Of Jenson it must be said that he carried the development of Roman type as far as it can go:
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his letter is admirably clear and regular, but at least as beautiful as any other Roman type.
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After his death in the "fourteen eighties," or at least by fourteen ninety, printing in Venice had declined very much;
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and though the famous family of Aldus restored its technical excellence, rejecting battered letters,
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