CHAPTER VI
Triumphs of Typography
VI
TRIUMPHS OF TYPOGRAPHY
In gathering together his book treasures, a collector naturally approaches the adventure from a personal standpoint. First editions may particularly appeal to him, or Americana, or his bibliomania may take the form of subject collecting. I once had a friend who concentrated on whales and bees! My hobby has been to acquire, so far as possible, volumes that represent the best workmanship of each epoch, and from them I have learned much of fascinating interest beyond the history of typography. A book in itself is always something more than paper and type and binder’s boards. It possesses a subtle friendliness that sets it apart from other inanimate objects about us, and stamps it with an individuality which responds to our approach in proportion to our interest. But aside from its contents, a typographical monument is a barometer of civilization. If we discover what economic or political conditions combined to make it stand out from other products of its period, we learn contemporaneous history and become acquainted with the personalities of the people and the manners and customs of the times.
No two countries, since Gutenberg first discovered the power of individual types when joined together to form words down to the present day, have stood pre-eminent in the same epoch in the art of printing. The curve of supremacy, plotted from the brief triumph of Germany successively through Italy, France, the Netherlands, England, France, and back again to England, shows that the typographical monuments of the world are not accidental, but rather the natural results of cause and effect. In some instances, the production of fine books made the city of their origin the center of culture and brought luster to the country; in others, the great master-printers were attracted from one locality to another because of the literary atmosphere in a certain city, and by their labors added to the reputation it had already attained. The volumes themselves sometimes produced vitally significant effects; sometimes their production was the result of conditions equally important.
The first example I should like to own for my collection of typographical triumphs is, of course, the Gutenberg Bible ([opp. page]); but with only forty-five copies known to be in existence (of which twelve are on vellum), I must content myself with photographic facsimile pages. The copy most recently offered for sale brought $106,000 in New York in February, 1926, and was later purchased by Mrs. Edward S. Harkness for $120,000, who presented it to the Yale University Library. This makes the Gutenberg Bible the most valuable printed book in the world,—six times as precious as a Shakespeare first folio. Fortunately, the copies are well distributed, so that one need not deny himself the pleasure of studying it. In America, there are two examples (one on vellum) in the Pierpont Morgan Library, in New York; another in the New York Public Library, and still another in the library of the General Theological School; while the private collections of Henry E. Huntington and Joseph E. Widener are also fortunate possessors. In England, one may find a copy at the British Museum or the Bodleian Library; on the Continent, at the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris, at the Vatican Library in Rome, or in the libraries of Berlin, Leipzig, Munich, or Vienna. Over twenty of the forty-five copies are imperfect, and only four are still in private hands. Of these four, one is imperfect, and two are already promised to libraries; so the copy sold in New York may be the last ever offered.
Part of a Page from the Vellum Copy of the Gutenberg Bible, Mayence, 1455
Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris (Exact size)
GUTENBERG BIBLE
And here is the end of the first part of the Bible, that is to say, the Old Testament, rubricated and bound for Henry Cremer, in the year of our Loard, one thousand four hundred and fifty-six, on the feast of the Apostle Bartholomew
Thanks be to God. Alleluia
Rubricator’s Mark at End of First Volume of a Defective Copy in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris
GUTENBERG BIBLE
This book was illuminated, bound, and completed for Henry Cremer, Vicar of Saint Stephens, of Mayence, in the year of our Lord, one thousand four hundred and fifty-six, on the feast of the Ascension of the Glorious Virgin Mary. Thanks be to God. Alleluia.
Rubricator’s Mark at End of Second Volume of a Defective Copy in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris
The copy I love best to pore over is that bound in four volumes of red morocco, stamped with the arms of Louis XVI, in the Bibliothèque Nationale. This perhaps is not so historical as the one De Bure discovered in the library of Cardinal Mazarin in Paris in 1763,—three hundred years after it was printed, and until then unknown; but the dignity of those beautifully printed types on the smooth, ivory surface of the vellum possesses a magnificence beyond that of any other copy I have seen. Also at the Bibliothèque Nationale is a defective paper copy in two volumes in which appear rubricator’s notes marking the completion of the work as August 15, 1456. Think how important this is in placing this marvel of typography; for the project of printing the Bible could not have been undertaken earlier than August, 1451, when Gutenberg formed his partnership with Fust and Schoeffer in Mayence.
GUTENBERG, FUST, COSTER, ALDUS, FROBEN
From Engraving by Jacob Houbraken (1698–1780)
To a modern architect of books the obstacles which the printer at that time encountered, with the art itself but a few years old, seem insurmountable. There was the necessity of designing and cutting the first fonts of type, based upon the hand lettering of the period. As is always inevitable in the infancy of any art, this translation from one medium to another repeated rather than corrected the errors of the human hand. The typesetter, instead of being secured from an employment office, had to be made. Gutenberg himself perhaps, had to teach the apprentice the method of joining together the various letters, in a roughly made composing stick of his own invention, in such a way as to maintain regularity in the distances between the stems of the various letters, and thus produce a uniform and pleasing appearance. There existed no proper iron chases in which to lock up the pages of the type, so that while the metal could be made secure at the top and bottom, there are frequent instances where it bulges out on the sides.
John Fust, from an Old Engraving
From the very beginning the printed book had to be a work of art. The patronage of kings and princes had developed the hand-lettered volumes to the highest point of perfection, and, on account of this keen competition with the scribes and their patrons, no printer could afford to devote to any volume less than his utmost artistic taste and mechanical ingenuity. Thus today, if a reader examines the Gutenberg Bible with a critical eye, he will be amazed by the extraordinary evenness in the printing, and the surprisingly accurate alignment of the letters. The glossy blackness of the ink still remains, and the sharpness of the impression is equal to that secured upon a modern cylinder press.
It has been estimated that no less than six hand presses were employed in printing the 641 leaves, composed in double column without numerals, catch words, or signatures. What binder today would undertake to collate such a volume in proper sequence! After the first two divisions had come off the press it was decided to change the original scheme of the pages from 40 to 42 lines. In order to get these two extra lines on the page it was necessary to set all the lines closer together. To accomplish this, some of the type was recast, with minimum shoulder, and the rest of it was actually cut down in height to such an extent that a portion of the curved dots of the i’s was clipped off.
Monographs have been written to explain the variation in the size of the type used in different sections of this book, but what more natural explanation could there be than that the change was involuntary and due to natural causes? In those days the molds which the printer used for casting his types were made sometimes of lead, but more often of wood. As he kept pouring the molten metal into these matrices, the very heat would by degrees enlarge the mold itself, and thus produce lead type of slightly larger size. From time to time, also, the wooden matrices wore out, and the duplicates would not exactly correspond with those they replaced.
In printing these volumes, the precedent was established of leaving blank spaces for the initial letters, which were later filled in by hand. Some of these are plain and some elaborate, serving to make the resemblance to the hand-lettered book even more exact; but the glory of the Gutenberg Bible lies in its typography and presswork rather than in its illuminated letters.
Germany, in the Gutenberg Bible, proved its ability to produce volumes worthy of the invention itself, but as a country it possessed neither the scholars, the manuscripts, nor the patrons to insure the development of the new art. Italy, at the end of the fifteenth century, had become the home of learning, and almost immediately Venice became the Mecca of printers. Workmen who had served their apprenticeships in Germany sought out the country where princes might be expected to become patrons of the new art, where manuscripts were available for copy, and where a public existed both able and willing to purchase the products of the press. The Venetian Republic, quick to appreciate this opportunity, offered its protection and encouragement. Venice itself was the natural market of the world for distribution of goods because of the low cost of sea transportation.
I have a fine copy of Augustinus: De Civitate Dei (page [205]) that I discovered in Rome in its original binding years ago, printed in Jenson’s Gothic type in 1475. On the first page of text, in bold letters across the top, the printer has placed the words, Nicolaus Jenson, Gallicus. In addition to this signature, the explicit reads:
This work De Civitate Dei is happily completed, being done in Venice by that excellent and diligent master, Nicolas Jenson, while Pietro Mocenigo was Doge, in the year after the birth of the Lord, one thousand four hundred and seventy-five, on the sixth day before the nones of October (2 October)
Nicolas Jenson’s Explicit and Mark
Jenson’s Gothic Type. From Augustinus: De Civitate Dei, Venice, 1475 (Exact size)
Jenson was a printer who not only took pride in his art but also in the country of his birth! He was a Frenchman, who was sent to Mayence by King Charles VII of France to find out what sort of thing this new art of printing was, and if of value to France to learn it and to bring it home. Jenson had been an expert engraver, so was well adapted to this assignment. At Mayence he quickly mastered the art, and was prepared to transport it to Paris; but by this time Charles VII had died, and Jenson knew that Louis XI, the new monarch, would have little interest in recognizing his father’s mandate. The Frenchman then set himself up in Venice, where he contributed largely to the prestige gained by this city as a center for printing as an art, and for scholarly publications.
Jenson had no monopoly on extolling himself in the explicits of his books. The cost of paper in those days was so high that a title page was considered an unnecessary extravagance, so this was the printer’s only opportunity to record his imprint. In modern times we printers are more modest, and leave it to the publishers to sound our praises, but we do like to place our signatures on well-made books!
The explicit in the hand-written book also offered a favorite opportunity for gaining immortality for the scribe. I once saw in an Italian monastery a manuscript volume containing some 600 pages, in which was recorded the fact that on such and such a day Brother So-and-So had completed the transcribing of the text; and inasmuch as he had been promised absolution, one sin for each letter, he thanked God that the sum total of the letters exceeded the sum total of his sins, even though by but a single unit!
Among Jenson’s most important contributions were his type designs, based upon the best hand lettering of the day. Other designers had slavishly copied the hand-written letter, but Jenson, wise in his acquired knowledge, eliminated the variations and produced letters not as they appeared upon the hand-written page, but standardized to the design which the artist-scribe had in mind and which his hand failed accurately to reproduce. The Jenson Roman (page [22]) and his Gothic (page [205]) types have, through all these centuries, stood as the basic patterns of subsequent type designers.
Jenson died in 1480, and the foremost rival to his fame is Aldus Manutius, who came to Venice from Carpi and established himself there in 1494. I have often conjectured what would have happened had this Frenchman printed his volumes in France and thus brought them into competition with the later product of the Aldine Press. The supremacy of Italy might have suffered,—but could Jenson have cut his types or printed his books in the France of the fifteenth century? As it was, the glories of the Aldi so closely followed Jenson’s superb work that Italy’s supreme position in the history of typography can never be challenged.
For his printer’s mark Aldus adopted the famous combination of the Dolphin and Anchor, the dolphin signifying speed in execution and the anchor firmness in deliberation. As a slogan he used the words Festina lente, of which perhaps the most famous translation is that by Sir Thomas Browne, “Celerity contempered with Cunctation.” Jenson’s printer’s mark (page [203]), by the way, has suffered the indignity of being adopted as the trademark of a popular brand of biscuits!
Device of Aldus Manutius
The printing office of Aldus stood near the Church of Saint Augustus, in Venice. Here he instituted a complete revolution in the existing methods of publishing. The clumsy and costly folios and quartos, which had constituted the standard forms, were now replaced by crown octavo volumes, convenient both to the hand and to the purse.
“I have resolved,” Aldus wrote in 1490, “to devote my life to the cause of scholarship. I have chosen, in place of a life of ease and freedom, an anxious and toilsome career. A man has higher responsibilities than the seeking of his own enjoyment; he should devote himself to honorable labor. Living that is a mere existence can be left to men who are content to be animals. Cato compared human existence to iron. When nothing is done with it, it rusts; it is only through constant activity that polish or brilliancy is secured.”
GROLIER IN THE PRINTING OFFICE OF ALDUS
After Painting by François Flameng
Courtesy The Grolier Club, New York City
The weight of responsibility felt by Aldus in becoming a printer may be better appreciated when one realizes that this profession then included the duties of editor and publisher. The publisher of today accepts or declines manuscripts submitted by their authors, and the editing of such manuscripts, if considered at all, is placed in the hands of his editorial department. Then the “copy” is turned over to the printer for manufacture. In the olden days the printer was obliged to search out his manuscripts, to supervise their editing—not from previously printed editions, but from copies transcribed by hand, frequently by careless scribes. Thus his reputation depended not only on his skill as a printer, but also upon his sagacity as a publisher, and his scholarship as shown in his text. In addition to all this, the printer had to create the demand for his product and arrange for its distribution because there were no established bookstores.
The great scheme that Aldus conceived was the publication of the Greek classics. Until then only four of the Greek authors, Æsop, Theocritus, Homer, and Isocrates, had been published in the original. Aldus gave to the world, for the first time in printed form, Aristotle, Plato, Thucydides, Xenophon, Herodotus, Aristophanes, Euripides, Sophocles, Demosthenes, Lysias, Æschines, Plutarch, and Pindar. Except for what Aldus did at this time, most of these texts would have been irrevocably lost to posterity.
When you next see Italic type you will be interested to know that it was first cut by Aldus, said to be inspired by the thin, inclined, cursive handwriting of Petrarch; when you admire the beauty added to the page by the use of small capitals, you should give Aldus credit for having been the first to use this attractive form of typography. Even in that early day Aldus objected to the inartistic, square ending of a chapter occupying but a portion of the page, and devised all kinds of type arrangements, half-diamond, goblet, and bowl, to satisfy the eye.
To me, the most interesting book that Aldus produced was the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili,—“Poliphilo’s Strife of Love in a Dream.” It stands as one of the most celebrated in the annals of Venetian printing, being the only illustrated volume issued by the Aldine Press. This work was undertaken at the very close of the fifteenth century at the expense of one Leonardo Crasso of Verona, who dedicated the book to Guidobaldo, Duke of Urbino. It was written by a Dominican friar, Francesco Colonna, who adopted an ingenious method of arranging his chapters so that the successive initial letters compose a complete sentence which, when translated, read, “Brother Francesco Colonna greatly loved Polia.” Polia has been identified as one Lucrezia Lelio, daughter of a jurisconsult of Treviso, who later entered a convent.
Text Page from Aldus’ Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, Venice, 1499 (11 × 7 inches).
It is on this model that the type used in this volume is based
Illustrated Page of Aldus’ Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, Venice, 1499 (11 × 7 inches)
GROLIER BINDING
Castiglione: Cortegiano. Aldine Press, 1518
Laurenziana Library, Florence
The volume displays a pretentious effort to get away from the commonplace. On every page Aldus expended his utmost ingenuity in the arrangement of the type,—the use of capitals and small capitals, and unusual type formations. In many cases the type balances the illustrations in such a way as to become a part of them. Based on the typographical standards of today, some of these experiments are indefensible, but in a volume issued in 1499 they stand as an extraordinary exhibit of what an artistic, ingenious printer can accomplish within the rigid limitations of metal type. The illustrations themselves, one hundred and fifty-eight in number, run from rigid architectural lines to fanciful portrayals of incidents in the story. Giovanni Bellini is supposed to have been the artist, but there is no absolute evidence to confirm this supposition.
Some years ago the Grolier Club of New York issued an etching entitled, Grolier in the Printing Office of Aldus (page [208]). I wish I might believe that this great printer was fortunate enough to have possessed such an office! In spite of valuable concessions he received from the Republic, and the success accorded to him as a printer, he was able to eke out but a bare existence, and died a poor man. The etching, however, is important as emphasizing the close relation which exited between the famous ambassador of François I at the Court of Pope Clement VII, at Rome, and the family of Aldus, to which association booklovers owe an eternal debt of gratitude. At one time the Aldine Press was in danger of bankruptcy, and Grolier not only came to its rescue with his purse but also with his personal services. Without these tangible expressions of his innate love for the book, collectors today would be deprived of some of the most interesting examples of printing and binding that they count among their richest treasures.
The general conception that Jean Grolier was a binder is quite erroneous; he was as zealous a patron of the printed book as of the binder’s art. His great intimacy in Venice was with Andrea Torresani (through whose efforts the Jenson and the Aldus offices were finally combined), and his two sons, Francesco and Federico, the father-in-law and brothers-in-law of the famous Aldus. No clearer idea can be gained of Grolier’s relations at Casa Aldo than the splendid letter which he sent to Francesco in 1519, intrusting to his hands the making of Budé’s book, De Asse:
GROLIER BINDING
Capella: L’Anthropologia Digaleazzo. Aldine Press, 1533
From which the Cover Design of this Volume was adapted
(Laurenziana Library, Florence. 7½ × 4¼ inches)
You will care with all diligence, he writes, O most beloved Francesco, that this work, when it leaves your printing shop to pass into the hands of learned men, may be as correct as it is possible to render it. I heartily beg and beseech this of you. The book, too, should be decent and elegant; and to this will contribute the choice of the paper, the excellence of the type, which should have been but little used, and the width of the margins. To speak more exactly, I should wish it were set up with the same type with which you printed your Poliziano. And if this decency and elegance shall increase your expenses, I will refund you entirely. Lastly, I should wish that nothing be added to the original or taken from it.
What better conception of a book, or of the responsibility to be assumed toward that book, both by the printer and by the publisher, could be expressed today!
The early sixteenth century marked a crisis in the world in which the book played a vital part. When Luther, at Wittenberg, burned the papal bull and started the Reformation, an overwhelming demand on the part of the people was created for information and instruction. For the first time the world realized that the printing press was a weapon placed in the hands of the masses for defence against oppression by Church or State. François I was King of France; Charles V, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire; and Henry VIII, King of England. Italy had something to think about beyond magnificently decorated volumes, and printing as an art was for the time forgotten in supplying the people with books at low cost.
François I, undismayed by the downfall of the Italian patrons, believed that he could gain for himself and for France the prestige which had been Italy’s through the patronage of learning and culture. What a pity that he had not been King of France when Jenson returned from Mayence! He was confident that he could become the Mæcenas of the arts and the father of letters, and still control the insistence of the people, which increased steadily with their growing familiarity with their new-found weapon. He determined to have his own printer, and was eager to eclipse even the high Standard the Italian master-printers had established.
ROBERT ÉTIENNE, 1503–1559
Royal Printer to François I
From Engraving by Étienne Johandier Desrochers (c. 1661–1741)
Robert Étienne (or Stephens), who in 1540 succeeded Néobar as “Printer in Greek to the King,” while not wholly accomplishing his monarch’s ambitions, was the great master-printer of his age. He came from a family of printers, and received his education and inspiration largely from the learned men who served as correctors in his father’s office. François proved himself genuinely interested in the productions of his Imprimerie Royale, frequently visiting Étienne at the Press, and encouraging him by expending vast sums for specially designed types, particularly in Greek. The story goes that on one occasion the King found Étienne engaged in correcting a proof sheet, and refused to permit the printer to be disturbed, insisting on waiting until the work was completed.
For my own collection of great typographical monuments I would select for this period the Royal Greeks of Robert Étienne. A comparison between the text page, so exquisitely balanced (page [222]), and the title page (page [220]), where the arrangement of type and printer’s mark could scarcely be worse, gives evidence enough that even the artist-printer of that time had not yet grasped the wonderful opportunity a title page offers for self-expression. Probably Étienne regarded it more as a chance to pay his sovereign the compliment of calling him “A wise king and a valiant warrior.” But are not the Greek characters marvelously beautiful! They were rightly called the Royal Greeks! The drawings were made by the celebrated calligrapher Angelos Vergetios, of Candia, who was employed by François to make transcripts of Greek texts for the Royal Collection, and whose manuscript volumes may still be seen in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. Earlier fonts had been based upon this same principle of making the Greek letters reproductions as closely as possible of the elaborate, involved, current writing hand of the day; but these new designs carried out the principle to a degree until then unattained. The real success of the undertaking was due to the skill of Claude Garamond, the famous French punchcutter and typefounder. Pierre Victoire quaintly comments:
Besides gathering from all quarters the remains of Hellenic literature, François I added another benefit, itself most valuable, to the adornment of this same honorable craft of printing; for he provided by the offer of large moneys for the making of extremely graceful letters, both of Greek and Latin. In this also he was fortunate, for they were so nimbly and so delicately devised that it can scarce be conceived that human wit may compass anything more dainty and exquisite; so that books printed from these types do not merely invite the reader,—they draw him, so to say, by an irresistible attraction.
ÉTIENNE’S ROYAL GREEKS, Paris, 1550
Title Page (10¼ × 6 inches)
Page showing Étienne’s Roman Face (Exact size)
ÉTIENNE’S ROYAL GREEKS
Text Page (10¼ × 6 inches)
From Novum Jesu Christi D. N. Testamentum, Paris, 1550
Of course, they were too beautiful to be practical. In the Roman letters typecutters had already found that hand lettering could no more be translated directly into the form of type than a painting can be translated directly into a tapestry, without sacrificing some of the characteristic features of each. With the Greek letters, the problem was even more difficult, and the Royal Greeks offered no end of complications to the compositors, and added disastrously to the expense of the production. When Plantin came along, he based his Greek type upon Étienne’s, but his modifications make it more practical. Compare the Royal Greeks with Plantin’s Greek on page 231 and see how much beauty and variety was lost in the revision.
François I found himself in an impossible position between his desire to encourage Étienne in his publications and the terrific pressure brought to bear by the ecclesiastical censors. Just as the people had awakened to the value of books, not to put on shelves, but to read in order to know, so had the Church recognized the importance of controlling and influencing what those books contained. Throughout Robert Étienne’s entire tenure of office there raged a conflict which not only seriously interfered with his work, but distinctly hampered the development of literature. Had François lived longer, Étienne’s volumes might have reached a level equal to that attained by his Italian predecessors, but Henri II was no match for the censors. In 1552 Robert Étienne, worn out by the constant struggles, transferred his office to Geneva, where he died seven years later. His son Henri continued his work, but except for his Thesaurus produced little of typographical interest.
Had it not been for this bitter censorship, France might have held her supremacy for at least another half-century; but with the experiences of Robert Étienne still in mind, it is easily understood why the Frenchman, Christophe Plantin, in whom surged the determination to become a master-printer, sought to establish himself elsewhere.
By the middle of the sixteenth century Antwerp had assumed the proud position of leading city of Europe. The success that came to the Netherlanders in commerce as a result of their genius and enterprise later stimulated their interest in matters of religion, politics, and literature. Just as the tendencies of the times caused the pendulum to swing away from Italy to France, so now it swung from France toward the Netherlands. I had never before realized that, with the possible exception of certain communities in Italy, where the old intellectual atmosphere still obtained, there was no country in the world in which culture and intelligence were so generally diffused during the sixteenth century. How much more than typography these volumes have taught me!
It was inevitable that the art of printing should find in Belgium its natural opportunity for supreme expression. At the time Plantin turned his eyes in the direction of Antwerp, one entire quarter of that city was devoted to the manufacture of books. This apparently discouraged him, for at first he established himself as a bookbinder a little way out of the city. Later he added a shop for the sale of books; but in 1555 he moved boldly into Antwerp, becoming a full-fledged printer and publisher, soon demonstrating his right to recognition as the master-printer of his time.
By this time the words of Luther had attracted the attention of the Christian world more particularly than ever to the Bible. The people considered it the single basis of their faith, and upon their familiarity with it depended their present and future welfare. It was natural that they should attach the greatest importance to the possession of the most authentic edition of the original text. What more glorious task, then, could a printer take upon himself than to provide correct texts, to translate them with scrupulous exactitude, and to produce with the greatest perfection the single book upon which was based the welfare of men and of empires!
CHRISTOPHE PLANTIN, 1514–1589
From Engraving by Edme de Boulonois (c. 1550)
This was the inspiration that came to Christophe Plantin, and which gradually took form in the Biblia Polyglotta, the great typographic achievement of the sixteenth century. On the left-hand page should appear the original Hebrew text, and in a parallel column should be a rendering into the Vulgate (page [230]). On the right-hand page the Greek version would be printed, and beside it a Latin translation (page [231]). At the foot of each page should be a Chaldean paraphrase.
Antwerp was then under Spanish domination. Plantin at once opened negotiations with Philip II of Spain, and was finally successful in securing from that monarch an agreement to subsidize the undertaking,—a promise which unfortunately was never kept. It is probable that the King was influenced toward a favorable decision by the struggle that occurred between Frankfort, Heidelberg, and even Paris, for the honor of being associated with the great work. Philip subscribed for thirteen copies upon parchment, and agreed to pay Plantin 21,200 florins. He stipulated, however, that the work should be executed under the personal supervision of one Arias Montanus, whom he would send over from Spain. Plantin accepted this condition with some misgivings, but upon his arrival Montanus captivated all by his personal charm and profound learning.
In February, 1565, Plantin employed Robert Grandjon, an engraver of Lyons, to cut the Greek characters for the work, basing his font upon the Royal Greeks. They are still beautiful because they are still unpractical, but they cannot compare with their models any more than later fonts of Greek, cut with the rigid requirements of typography in mind, can compare with these. Grandjon also supplied Plantin with all his Roman, and part of his Hebrew types, the balance being cut by Guillaume Le Bé, of Paris, Hautin of Rochelle, Van der Keere of Tours, and Corneille Bomberghe of Cologne.
PLANTIN’S BIBLIA POLYGLOTTA, Antwerp, 1568
Title Page
(13¼ × 8¼ inches)
Page of Preface from Plantin’s Biblia Polyglotta, Antwerp, 1568 (13¼ × 8¼ inches)
Text Page of Plantin’s Biblia Polyglotta, Antwerp, 1568 (13¼ × 8¼ inches)
Text Page of Plantin’s Biblia Polyglotta, Antwerp, 1568 (13¼ × 8¼ inches)
PLANTIN’S BIBLIA POLYGLOTTA, Antwerp, 1568
Second Page
(13¼ × 8¼ inches)
The eight massive parts of the Biblia Polyglotta appeared during the years 1568 to 1573. The first volume opens with a splendid engraved title, representing the union of the people in the Christian faith, and the four languages of the Old Testament ([opp. page]). In the lower, right-hand corner appears the famous Plantin mark. Immediately following are two other engraved plates (page [232]), illustrative as well as decorative in their nature. One of these pages gives to the faithless Philip an undeserved immortality. There are also single full-page engravings at the beginning of the fourth and fifth volumes. Twelve copies were printed on vellum for King Philip. A thirteenth copy on vellum was never completed. In addition to these, ten other copies were printed on large Italian imperial paper, and were sold at 200 florins per copy. There were 300 copies on imperial paper at 100 florins, and 960 printed on fine royal Troyes paper, which were offered to the public at 70 florins each, with ten florins discount to libraries. One of the vellum copies was presented by the King to the Pope, another to the Duke of Alba, and still a third to the Duke of Savoy, the remaining copies being left in the library of the Escurial.
King Philip was so pleased with the volumes that he created Plantin Prototypographe, ruler over all the printers in the city,—a polite and inexpensive way of escaping his obligations. The world acclaimed a new master-printer; but these honors meant little to pressing creditors.
What a series of misfortunes Plantin endured! Stabbed by a miscreant who mistook him for some one else; hampered by censorship in spite of previous assurances of liberty in publications; his property wiped out again and again by the clashes of arms which finally cost Antwerp her pre-eminence; forever in debt, and having to sell his books below cost, and to sacrifice his library to meet pressing financial obligations;—yet always rising above his calamities, he carried on his printing office until his death in 1589, when he left a comfortable fortune of above $200,000.
Historically, Plantin’s contribution to the art of printing can scarcely be overestimated, yet technically he should be included in the second rather than the first group of early master-printers. The century that had elapsed since Gutenberg had removed many of the mechanical difficulties which had been obstacles to his predecessors. The printer could now secure printed copy to be edited and improved. Scholars were easily obtainable from the universities for editing and proofreading. Printing machinery could be purchased instead of being manufactured from original models. The sale of books had been greatly systematized. A printer could now devote himself to his art without dividing himself into various semi-related parts. Plantin proved himself a business man. Who else ever established a printing or publishing business on such an enduring basis that it continued for three hundred years! In bequeathing it to his daughter and his son-in-law, Moretus, Plantin made the interesting injunction that the printing office was always to be maintained by the son or successor who was most competent to manage it. If no son qualified, then the successor must be selected outside the family. Fortunately, however, there were sons who, each in his generation but with diminishing ability, proved his right to assume the responsibility, and the business was actually continued in the family down to 1867. A few years later the property was purchased by the city of Antwerp for 1,200,000 francs, and turned into a public museum.
Device of Christophe Plantin
I never visit the Plantin Museum at Antwerp without feeling that I have come closer to the old master-printers and their ideals. Here is the only great printing establishment of the past that time and the inroads of man have left intact. The beauty of the building, the harmony of the surroundings, the old portraits, the comfort yet the taste shown in the living-rooms,—all show that the artist-printer sought the same elements in his life that he expressed in his work. Entering from the Marché du Vendredi, I find myself face to face with a small tablet over the door on which is the device of Christophe Plantin, “first printer to the King, and the king of printers.” Here the familiar hand, grasping a pair of compasses, reaches down from the clouds, holding the compasses so that one leg stands at rest while the other describes a circle, enclosing the legend Labore et Constantia. Within the house one finds the actual types, and presses, and designs by Rubens and other famous artists, that were employed in making the Plantin books. The rooms in which the master printer lived make his personality very real. In those days a man’s business was his life, and the home and the workshop were not far separated. Here the family life and the making of books were so closely interwoven that the visitor can scarcely tell where one leaves off and the other begins.
In the vocabulary of booklovers, the name Elzevir suggests something particularly choice and unique in the making of books. These volumes cannot compare favorably with many products of the press which preceded and followed them, yet the prestige which attended their publication has endured down to the present day. The original popularity of the Elzevirs was due to the fact that after a century of degradation, some one at last undertook to reclaim printing from the depths.
Printing, after reaching such heights so soon after its beginnings, had steadily declined. The art may really be said to have had its origin in Italy, as the work from Gutenberg’s office, while extraordinary and epoch-making, could not rank with the best of the fifteenth-century Italian productions. The French volumes of the early sixteenth century were splendid examples of typography and presswork, but they did not equal those of their Italian predecessors. Christophe Plantin’s work in Antwerp was typographically unimportant except for his Biblia Polyglotta; and after Plantin, which takes us to the end of the sixteenth century, printing passed from an art into a trade. The Elzevirs were craftsmen rather than artists, but the best craftsmen of their period.
All this was a natural reaction. The book-buying public had come to demand the contents of the book at a cheaper price rather than volumes of greater technical excellence at a correspondingly higher cost. As we have seen, Sweynheim and Pannartz had ruined themselves by their experiments in Greek; the Aldine Press was saved from bankruptcy only by the intervention of Grolier. Henri Étienne, son of the great Robert Étienne, who endeavored to emulate his father’s splendid work, came to financial grief in producing his Thesaurus; and Plantin could not have withstood the drain of his Biblia Polyglotta had it not been that he was commercially far-sighted enough to turn his plant over to the manufacture of inexpensive and less carefully made books.
By the end of the sixteenth century cheaper paper, made in Switzerland, came into the market, and this inferior, unbleached product largely replaced the soft, fine paper of Italian and French manufacture which had contributed in no small part to the beauty of the printed pages. Ink manufacturers had learned how to produce cheaper and poorer ink, and the types themselves, through constant use, had become worn down to such an extent that real excellence was impossible.
Holland was the natural successor to Belgium in the supremacy of printing. The devastations of war had brought trade to a standstill in the Netherlands, while the city of Leyden had won the attention and admiration of the world for its heroic resistance during the long Spanish siege. To commemorate this event, William of Orange, in 1575, founded the University of Leyden, which quickly took high rank among scholars, and became the intellectual and literary center of Europe.
Thither the battle-scarred Plantin betook himself at the suggestion of Lipsius, the historian, who was now a professor in the new University. In Leyden, Plantin established a branch printing office. He was made Printer to the University, and for a time expected to remain here, but the old man could not bring himself to voluntary exile from his beloved Antwerp. Plantin’s Leyden printing office had been placed in charge of Louis Elzevir, and when the veteran printer determined to return to Antwerp it would have seemed natural for him to leave it in Louis Elzevir’s hands instead of turning it over to his son-in-law, Raphelengius. This Elzevir, however, although the founder of the great Elzevir house, was not a practical printer, being more interested in bookselling and publishing; so distinction in printing did not come to the family until Isaac, Louis Elzevir’s grandson, became Printer to the University in 1620. Fifteen years later, Bonaventura and Abraham Elzevir made the name famous through their editions of Terence, Cæsar, and Pliny.
Up to this time the favorite format had been the quarto volume, running about 12 by 18 inches in size. The Elzevirs boldly departed from the beaten path, and produced volumes running as small as 2 by 4 inches. They cut types of small size, showing no special originality but based on good Italian models, and issued editions which at first met with small favor. “The Elzevirs are certainly great typographers,” the scholar Deput wrote to Heinsius in 1629. “I can but think, however, that their reputation will suffer in connection with these trifling little volumes with such slender type.”
Contrary to this prediction, the new format gradually gained favor, and finally became firmly established. The best publisher-printers in France and Italy copied the Elzevir model, and the folios and the quartos of the preceding ages went entirely out of style.
ELZEVIR’S TERENCE, 1635
Engraved Title Page (Exact size)
ELZEVIR’S TERENCE, Leyden, 1635
Text Pages (4 × 2 inches)
The Terence of 1635 is the volume I selected for my collection (page [242]). While not really beautiful, it is a charming little book. The copper-plate title (page [241]) serves not only its original purpose but is also an illustration. The Elzevirs were wise enough to go back a hundred years and revive the practice of the copper-plate title, which had been discarded by intermediate printers because of its expense. The types themselves, far superior to other fonts in use at that time by other printers, were especially designed for the Elzevirs by Christoffel van Dyck. The interspacing of the capitals and the small capitals, the arrangement of the margins, and the general layout all show taste and knowledge of typographical precedent. The presswork would appear to better advantage except for the impossibility of securing ink of consistent quality.
The Elzevirs showed a great advance in business organization over any of their predecessors. Freed from oppressive censorship, they were able to issue a long list of volumes which were disposed of through connections established in the principal book centers of Italy, France, Germany, and Scandinavia, as well as throughout the Netherlands themselves. There is no record of any Elzevir publication proving a failure; but, by the same token, one cannot say that the Elzevirs accomplished as much for the art to which they devoted themselves as did the master-printers in whose steps they followed.
Curiously enough, it was not until the eighteenth century that England produced volumes which were pre-eminent in any period. Caxton’s work, extraordinary as it was, competed against books made at the same time in Venice by Jenson, and were not equal to these Italian masterpieces. I have a leaf from a Caxton volume which I often place beside my Jenson volume, and the comparison always increases my wonder and admiration for the great Italian printer. Caxton’s work was epoch-making, but until John Baskerville issued his Virgil in Birmingham, in 1757, England had not produced a volume that stood out, at the moment of its publication, as the best of its time.
John Baskerville
(1706–1775)
John Baskerville is one of the most unique characters to be found in the annals of printing. He had been in turn a footman, a writing teacher, an engraver of slate gravestones, and the proprietor of a successful japanning establishment. He showed no special interest in types or books until middle age, and after he had amassed a fortune. Then, suddenly, he designed and cut types which competed successfully with the famous Caslon fonts, and produced his Virgil, which, as Benjamin Franklin wrote in presenting a copy to the Harvard College Library, was “thought to be the most curiously printed of any book hitherto done in the world.” Macaulay called it, “The first of those magnificent editions which went forth to astonish all the librarians of Europe.”
The Baskerville types were at first received with scant praise, although even the severest critics admitted that the Italic characters, from which was eliminated that cramped design seen in the Italics of other foundries of the period, were essentially beautiful. A letter written by Benjamin Franklin to Baskerville in 1760 is of amusing interest:
Let me give you a pleasant instance of the prejudice some have entertained against your work. Soon after I returned, discoursing with a gentleman concerning the artists of Birmingham, he said you would be the means of blinding all the readers of the nation, for the strokes of your letters being too thin and narrow, hurt the eye, and he could never read a line of them without pain. “I thought,” said I, “you were going to complain of the gloss on the paper some object to.” “No, no,” said he, “I have heard that mentioned, but it is not that; it is in the form and cut of the letters themselves, they have not that height and thickness of the stroke which makes the common printing so much more comfortable to the eye.” You see this gentleman was a connoisseur. In vain I endeavored to support your character against the charge; he knew what he felt, and could see the reason of it, and several other gentlemen among his friends had made the same observation, etc.
Yesterday he called to visit me, when, mischievously bent to try his judgment, I stepped into my closet, tore off the top of Mr. Caslon’s Specimen, and produced it to him as yours, brought with me from Birmingham, saying, I had been examining it, since he spoke to me, and could not for my life perceive the disproportion he mentioned, desiring him to point it out to me. He readily undertook it, and went over the several founts, showing me everywhere what he thought instances of that disproportion; and declared, that he could not then read the specimen without feeling very strongly the pain he had mentioned to me. I spared him that time the confusion of being told, that these were the types he had been reading all his life, with so much ease to his eyes; the types his adored Newton is printed with, on which he has pored not a little; nay, the very types his own book is printed with (for he is himself an author), and yet never discovered the painful disproportion in them, till he thought they were yours.
Title Page of Baskerville’s Virgil, Birmingham, 1757 (8½ × 5⅜ inches)
Text Page of Baskerville’s Virgil, Birmingham, 1757 (8½ × 5⅜ inches)
The Virgil itself, beyond the interest that exists in its type, shows grace and dignity in its composition and margins. For the first time we have a type title (page [247]) that shows a printer’s appreciation of its possibilities. Baskerville affected extreme simplicity, employing no head or tail pieces and no ornamental initials to accomplish his effects (page [249]).
The copy of Baskerville’s Virgil in my library contains a copper-plate frontispiece. The advertisement which particularly emphasized this feature excited my curiosity, as no book of Baskerville’s is known to have contained illustrations. When I secured the copy I found that the frontispiece was a steel engraving stamped on water-marked paper which indicated its age to be at least two hundred years earlier than the publication of the book. The owner of this particular copy had inserted the illustration in re-binding, and it was no part of the original edition!
The glossy paper referred to in Franklin’s letter was an outcome of Baskerville’s earlier business experience. It occurred to him that type would print better upon highly finished paper, and that this finish could be secured by pressing the regular book paper of the time between heated japan plates made at his own establishment. Baskerville is entitled to the credit of having been the first printer to use highly finished paper, and, beyond this, as Dibdin says of him, “He united, in a singularly happy manner, the elegance of Plantin with the clearness of the Elzevirs.”
Interest in the Baskerville books, and in fact in all books printed in what is known as “old-style” type, ceased suddenly with the inexplicable popularity attained about 1800 by the so-called “modern” face. The characteristics of the old-style letter are heavy ascending and descending strokes with small serifs, whereas the modern face accentuates the difference between the light and the heavy lines, and has more angular serifs. The engraved work of Thomas Bewick, in England, the publication of the Racine by the Didots, and the Bodoni volumes in Italy, offered the public an absolute innovation from the types with which they had been familiar since the invention of printing, and the new designs leaped into such popular favor that many of the foundries destroyed the matrices of their old-style faces, believing that the call for them had forever disappeared. As a matter of fact, it was not until the London publisher Pickering revived the old-style letter in 1844, that the modern face had any competition. Since then the two styles have been maintained side by side.
Thus the second supremacy of France came from a change in public taste rather than from economic causes. For a time there was a question whether Bodoni would win the distinction for Italy or the Didots for France, but the French printers possessed a typographical background that Bodoni lacked, and in their Racine produced a masterpiece which surpasses any production from the Bodoni Press. The Didots were not only printers and publishers, but manufactured paper and invented the process of stereotyping. While Minister to France, in 1780, Benjamin Franklin visited the Didot establishment, and, seizing the handle of a press, struck off several copies of a form with such professional familiarity as to cause astonishment.
“Don’t be surprised,” Franklin exclaimed smiling. “This, you know, is my real business.”
In 1797, the French Minister of the Interior placed at the disposal of Pierre Didot l’aîné that portion of the Louvre which had formerly been occupied by the Imprimerie Royale. Here was begun, and completed in 1801, an edition of Racine in three volumes that aroused the enthusiasm of booklovers all over the world, and brought to Pierre Didot the glory of being recognized as a master-printer worthy to assume the mantle of Robert Étienne. This is the typographic achievement I would select as the masterpiece of its period.
DIDOT’S RACINE, Paris, 1801
A Frontispiece
Designed by Prud’hon. Engraved by Marius (12 × 8 inches)
Title Page of Didot’s Racine, Paris, 1801 (12 × 8 inches)
Opening Page of Didot’s Racine, Paris, 1801
Text Page of Didot’s Racine, Paris, 1801
FIRMIN DIDOT, 1730–1804
From Engraving by Pierre Gustave Eugene Staal (1817–1882)
The large quarto volumes contain nearly five hundred pages each. The type was designed and cut by Firmin Didot in conjunction with, or possibly in collaboration with Giambattista Bodoni, of Parma, Italy. So closely do the two faces match that the similarity of their design could scarcely have been a coincidence (see page [81]). There is a peculiar charm in the unusual length of the ascending and descending characters; there is a grace in the slender capitals in spite of the ultra-refinement; there is satisfaction in having the weight of the Italic letter approach that of the Roman, thus preventing the usual blemish which the lighter faced Italic gives to an otherwise perfectly balanced page. The figures, really a cross between the old style and the modern, have a distinct individuality entirely lost in the so-called “lining” figures which those who have copied this face in America have introduced as an “improvement.”
The Racine contains magnificent steel engravings, of which one is reproduced at page 253. The handmade paper is a return to the beautiful sheets of the fifteenth century, and the presswork—the type just biting into the paper without leaving an impression on the reverse side—is superbly characteristic of the best French workmanship. The vellum copies show the work at its best. The engravings stand out almost as original etchings. The ink is the densest black I ever saw. Didot succeeded in overcoming the oil in the vellum without the chalk surface that is given to the Morris vellum, the ink being so heavy that it is slightly raised. I was particularly interested in this after my own experiments in printing my humanistic Petrarch on vellum.
At the Exposition of 1801, in Paris, the Racine was proclaimed by a French jury the “most perfect typographic product of any country and of any age.” Is this not too high praise? To have equaled the Italian masterpieces of the fifteenth century would have been enough glory for any printer to claim!
The Racine was a step in the direction of reclaiming typography from the trade which it had become, but it was left for William Morris to place printing squarely back among the arts.
WILLIAM MORRIS, 1834–1896
From Portrait by G. F. Watts, R. A. Painted in 1880
National Portrait Gallery, London
Morris was nearly sixty years of age when he finally settled upon the book as the medium through which to express his message to the world. The Morris wall papers, the Morris chair, the Morris end papers, are among his earlier experiments, all sufficiently unique to perpetuate his name; yet his work as a printer is what gave him undying glory. The Kelmscott Chaucer is his masterpiece, and must be included whenever great typographic monuments are named. For this the decorator-printer cut a smaller size of his Gothic font, secured the co-operation of Sir Edward Burne-Jones as illustrator, and set himself the task of designing the initial letters, borders, and decorations. This was in 1892, and for four years they worked upon it, one delay following another to make Morris fearful that the work might never be completed.
SIR EDWARD BURNE-JONES, Bart., 1833–1898
From Photograph at the British Museum
The decoration for the first page was finished in March, 1893. Morris was entirely satisfied with it, exclaiming, “My eyes! how good it is!” Then he laid the whole project aside for over a year, while he devoted himself to his metrical version of Beowulf. In the meantime Burne-Jones was experiencing great difficulty in having his designs satisfactorily translated onto wood, and Morris dolefully remarked, after comparing notes with his friend and collaborator, “We shall be twenty years at this rate in getting it out!”
It was June, 1894, before the great work was fairly under way. “Chaucer getting on well,” Morris notes in his diary,—“such lovely designs.” At the end of June he records his expectation of beginning the actual printing within a month, and that in about three months more all the pictures and nearly all the borders would be ready for the whole of the Canterbury Tales.
About this time Morris was asked if he would accept the poet-laureateship of England, made vacant by Tennyson’s death, if offered to him, and he unhesitatingly declined. His health and strength were noticeably failing, yet at the beginning of 1895, less than two years before his death, he was completely submerged by multifarious occupations. Two presses were running upon the Chaucer and still a third upon smaller books. He was designing new paper hangings and writing new romances; he was collaborating in the translation of Heimskringla and was supervising its production for the Saga Library; he was engaged in getting together his splendid collection of thirteenth- and fourteenth-century illuminated manuscripts.
It was not all smooth sailing with the Chaucer. In 1895 Morris discovered that many of the sheets had become discolored by some unfortunate ingredient of the ink, but to his immense relief he succeeded in removing the yellow stains by bleaching. “The check of the Chaucer,” he writes, “flattens life for me somewhat, but I am going hard into the matter, and in about a fortnight hope to know the worst of it.”
In December the Chaucer was sufficiently near completion to encourage him to design a binding for it. Even here he found another difficulty. “Leather is not good now,” he complained; “what used to take nine months to cure is now done in three. They used to say ‘What’s longest in the tanyard stays least time in the market,’ but that no longer holds good. People don’t know how to buy now; they’ll take anything.”
Morris’ anxiety over the Chaucer increased as it came nearer to completion. “I’d like it finished tomorrow!” he exclaimed. “Every day beyond tomorrow that it isn’t done is one too many.” To a visitor, looking through the printed sheets in his library, who remarked upon the added beauty of those sheets that follow the Canterbury Tales, where the picture pages face one another in pairs, Morris exclaimed in alarm, “Now don’t you go saying that to Burne-Jones or he’ll be wanting to do the first part over again; and the worst of that would be that he’d want to do all the rest over again because the other would be so much better, and then we should never get done, but be always going round and round in a circle.”
The daily progress of the work upon the Chaucer was the one interest that sustained his waning energies. The last three blocks were brought to him on March 21, 1896. The Easter holidays almost killed him. “Four mouldy Sundays in a mouldy row,” he writes in his diary. “The press shut and Chaucer at a standstill.”
On May 6 all the picture sheets were printed and the block for the title page was submitted for Morris’ approval, the final printing being completed two days later. On June 2 the first two bound copies were delivered to him, one of which he immediately sent to Burne-Jones, the other he placed in his own library.
Thus the Kelmscott Chaucer came to completion. Four months later William Morris was dead. The Chaucer had been nearly five years in preparation and three and a half years in execution. The printing alone had consumed a year and nine months. The volumes contain, besides eighty-seven illustrations by Burne-Jones, a full-page woodcut title, fourteen large borders, eighteen frames for pictures, and twenty-six large initial words, all designed by Morris, together with the smaller initials and the design for binding, which was in white pigskin with silver clasps, executed by Douglas Cockerell.
Text Page of Kelmscott Chaucer, London, 1896 (15 × 10¼ inches)
I have never felt that the Kelmscott volumes were books at all, but were, rather, supreme examples of a master-decorator’s taste and skill. After all, a book is made to read, and the Kelmscott Chaucer is made to be looked at. The principles which should control the design of the ideal book as laid down by William Morris cannot be improved upon, but when he undertook to put them into execution he found himself so wholly under the control of his decorating tendencies that he departed far from his text. William Morris’ work is far greater than is shown in the volumes he printed. He awoke throughout the world an interest in printing as an art beyond what any other man has ever accomplished, the results of which have been a vital factor in bringing modern bookmaking to its present high estate.
It remained for T. J. Cobden-Sanderson, Morris’ friend, admirer, and disciple, to put Morris’ principles into operation at the Doves Press, London, supplemented by Emery Walker, who designed the Doves type,—to me the most beautiful type face in existence. Cobden-Sanderson, undisturbed by counter interests, plodded along, producing volumes into which he translated Morris’ ideals far more consistently than did Morris himself. “The Book Beautiful,” Cobden-Sanderson wrote in his little masterpiece, The Ideal Book, “is a composite thing made up of many parts and may be made beautiful by the beauty of each of its parts—its literary content, its material or materials, its writing or printing, its illumination or illustration, its binding and decoration—of each of its parts in subordination to the whole which collectively they constitute; or it may be made beautiful by the supreme beauty of one or more of its parts, all the other parts subordinating or even effacing themselves for the sake of this one or more, and each in turn being capable of playing this supreme part and each in its own peculiar and characteristic way. On the other hand each contributory craft may usurp the functions of the rest and of the whole, and growing beautiful beyond all bounds ruin for its own the common cause.”
The Doves Bible is Cobden-Sanderson’s masterpiece, and one turns to it with relief after the riotous beauty of the Morris pages. It is printed throughout in one size of type with no leads between the lines and with no paragraphs, the divisions being indicated by heavy paragraph marks. The only decorative feature of any description consists of exceedingly graceful initial letters at the beginning of each new book. The type is based flatly upon Jenson’s Roman face, and exactly answers Morris’ definition of the type ideal, “Pure in form, severe, without needless excrescences, solid without the thickening and thinning of the lines, and not compressed laterally.” The presswork is superb.
Title Page of Doves Bible, London, 1905 (8 × 6 inches)
Text Page of Doves Bible, London, 1905 (8 × 6 inches)
Surely no form of bibliomania can yield greater rewards in return for study and perseverance. The great typographical monuments, dating from 1456 to 1905, have given me a composite picture of man’s successful struggle to free himself from the bonds of ignorance. I have mingled with Lorenzo the Magnificent and with the oppressed people of Florence; I have been a part of François I’s sumptuous Court, and have seen the anxious faces of the clerical faction as they read the writing on the wall; I have listened to the preaching of Luther, and have heard the Spanish guns bombarding Antwerp; I have stood with the brave defenders of Leyden, and have watched the center of learning find its place in Holland; I have enjoyed Ben Franklin’s participation in the typographical efforts of Baskerville and Didot; I have received the inspiration of seeing William Morris and Cobden-Sanderson put a great art back into its rightful place. These triumphs of the printing press are far more than books. They stand as landmarks charting the path of culture and learning through four marvelous centuries
What volume of the twentieth century and what master-printer shall be included? That is yet to be determined by the test of retrospect; but the choice will be more difficult to make. In America and England history is being made in printing as an art, and the results are full of hopefulness and promise