| For viij hole vynets, prise the vynet xijd | viijs | |
| Item for xxj demi-vynets ... prise the demi-vynett iiijd | vijs | |
| Item for Psalmes letters xvc and di’ ... the prise of C. iiijd | vjs | ijd |
| Item for p’ms letters lxiijc ... prise of c. jd | vs | iijd |
| Item for wrytynge of a quare and demi ... prise the quayr xxd | ijs | vjd |
| Item for wrytenge of a calender | xijd | |
| Item for iij quayres of velym, prise the quayr xxd | vs | |
| Item for notynge of v quayres and ij leves, prise of the quayr viijd | iiis | vijd |
| Item for capital drawynge iijc and di’, the prise | iijd | |
| Item for floryshynge of capytallis, vc | vd | |
| Item for byndynge of the boke | xijs | |
| —— | —— | |
| lis | ijd | |
| —— | —— |
It is possible that the work in this case was all done by one man, though it is equally possible that several were engaged on it, under the direction of a master-scrivener, but in either case the fact that vignettes and demi-vignettes, psalter letters (i.e. the small red letters at the beginning of each verse of a psalm, sometimes called versals), the mysterious “p’ms letters” (possibly the dabs of colour bestowed on small initials), the writing of the text, the writing of the calendar, the musical notation, and the drawing and flourishing the capitals, were all charged separately, at so much a piece or so much a hundred, shows how distinct each operation was kept. Partly, no doubt, from policy, so as not to rouse the wrath of more than one industry at a time, partly to save themselves trouble and expense, the earliest printers, with few exceptions, set themselves to supplant only the calligrapher, and sold their books with all the blanks and spaces, which the most modest or perfunctory scribe could have left to be filled by his kindred craftsmen.
No better starting-point for a typographical collection could be desired than fine copies of two well-printed books in which the printer has confined himself severely to reproducing the text, leaving all headings, capitals, and ornaments to be supplied by hand. In one (as in the page from a book of Jenson’s, which forms the illustration to this chapter, Plate VII) the blanks should remain blanks (as more especially in early books printed in Italy they often did remain), in the other they should have been filled in with red ink or colours by a rubricator. The owner of two such volumes is really as much at the fountain-head as the possessor of the Mainz Indulgences of 1454, or any still earlier document that may yet be found.[27] This is the logical beginning, and the logic of history is quite as interesting as the chronology.
From the starting-point of the book of which the printer printed nothing but the text the collector can advance in many different directions. There was no regular and unbroken progress in the development of the modern form of book, nor does it matter greatly that the examples of any particular improvement should be either absolutely or nearly the earliest. The main thing is that they should be good illustrations of the special feature for which they are acquired. The problem how to dispense with the aid of a rubricator had to be faced by countless printers in many different towns, for rubricating by hand must have added very considerably to the cost of a book. The obvious thing to do was to print in red all the headings, chapter-numbers, etc., which the rubricator used to add in that colour. But this was both expensive and troublesome, as it involved two printings and the placing of the paper in exactly the same position in the press in each. Caxton and one or two other early printers tried to avoid this double printing and difficulty of registration by putting on both red and black ink at the same time—very probably, where they came close together, they were rubbed on with a finger—but this so often resulted in smudges and lines half of one colour, half of another, that it was soon abandoned. Double printing was mostly soon abandoned also, except by the most expert men. It was tried and abandoned by the printer of the Forty-two Line Bible, though subsequently Fust and Schoeffer completely mastered it. Between 1472 and 1474 it was tried and abandoned by almost every printer in Strassburg. The difficulty was generally[28] overcome by substituting, for red ink used with type of the same size or face as the text, type of a larger size or heavier face, which could be printed in black ink with the text and yet stand out sufficiently clearly from it to catch the eye.
The need for this differentiation accelerated the tendency to reduce the size of types, which was doubtless in the first place dictated by a desire for economy. The earlier German text-types for ordinary books very commonly measure about 6 mm. a line. To enable small differences to be shown they are quoted in the British Museum Catalogue of Incunabula by the measurements of twenty lines, and many of the early Mainz and Strassburg types range closely round the number 120. These large text-types are often the only ones used in a book, notes or other accompaniments of the text being clumsily indicated by brackets or spaces. The better printers, however, gradually imitated Fust and Schoeffer, and along with their 120 text-types used smaller commentary types measuring about 4 to 4½ mm. a line, or from 80 to 90 mm. for twenty lines. In the great folio commentaries on the Canon and Civil Law a very fine effect is produced by two short columns of text in large type being placed two-thirds way up the page and then completely surrounded by the commentary in smaller type, also in double columns. But the economy of using the smaller type for the text of books without commentary was quickly perceived, and along with 4 to 4½ mm. small text-types, heavy and often rather fantastic types of just twice this size (8 to 9 mm. a line, 160 to 180 mm. to twenty lines) came into use for headings, and the opening words of books and chapters. The same course was followed with respect to headlines, when it was desired to add these to a book without the aid of a scribe. Eggestein printed one book with headlines in red, but the same heavy type which was used for chapter headings was soon used for headlines, and also, with very ugly effect, for numbering the leaves.
In considering what specimens of printing to collect Englishmen who have been accustomed for more than two centuries to nothing but roman types may well be bewildered, as they look through any volume of facsimiles, by the extraordinary variety of the founts. The main reasons for this variety may be sought (1) in the dependence of the first printers on the styles of writing which they found in vogue at the time, and in the countries and towns where they made their ventures; and (2) in the different styles considered appropriate to different classes of books—Latin and vernacular, liturgical and secular, etc. Even now, when bookhands can hardly be said to exist, the varieties of handwriting are endless, and there are strongly marked differences between those of one country and another. In the fifteenth century, when there was less intercommunication between distant countries, the differences were even greater. As to this, however, it is possible to make some distinctions. The unifying effect of the Church is seen in the smaller range of variations in the books for liturgical use, and the fellowship of scholars exercised at least some influence in the same direction. In Italy, the home of ancient learning, the aristocratic bookhand was the fine round minuscules which had been evolved, by a conscious antiquarian revival, from the bookhand of the twelfth century, itself a revival of the Carlovingian bookhand of the eighth and ninth. Sweynheym and Pannartz, being Germans, failed in the first instance to realize the hopelessness of seeking scholarly favour with any other kind of character, and their Subiaco books are printed in a light and pleasing gothic much admired by William Morris, and used by Mr. St. John Hornby for his splendid Ashendene Dante. When they started afresh at Rome in 1467 they gave up their gothic fount and used instead a fine roman character noticeable for its use of the long ʃ at the end of words, a peculiarity often found in Italian manuscripts of this period. The early printers at Venice made no false start, but all used roman characters from the outset, Venetian gothic type making its first appearance in 1472. That gothic type was used at all in Italy was due partly to the difficulty found in cutting very small roman type, so that gothic was used for economy, partly to the advantages of the heavy gothic face when a contrast was needed between text and commentary.
In Germany roman types were tried by Adolf Rusch (the R-printer) at Strassburg about 1464, and by both Günther Zainer at Augsburg and Johann Zainer at Ulm, but met with no favour until in the last years of the century they were reintroduced for the books written or edited by Brant, Locher, Wimpheling, Peter Schott, and the other harbingers of the new learning. In the Netherlands John of Westphalia started with a round but rather thin roman type brought from Italy. In France the scholarly ideals of the patrons of the first Paris press were reflected in the use for the books printed at the Sorbonne of a beautiful roman type, only injured by the excessive prominence of the serifs. In Spain also the first books, those printed at Valentia by Lambert Palmart, were in roman; but in both countries gothic types long commanded the favour of the general reader, while in England their supremacy was unchallenged for a third of a century, no book entirely in roman type appearing until 1508.
As regards the æsthetic value of the different roman types in use during the fifteenth century, the superiority of the Italian is so marked that, with the exception of the first French type, the rest, from this point of view, may be neglected. Almost all the roman types used in Italy until late in the ’seventies are either beautiful or at least interesting, and it is remarkable that some of the most beautiful are found in small places like Cagli, Mondovi, Viterbo, and Aquila, or in the hands of obscure printers, such as the self-taught priest Clemente of Padua, who worked at Venice in 1471. The pre-eminence of Jenson’s fount is indisputable, though he often did it injustice by his poor presswork. But those used by John and Wendelin of Speier, and at a later date by Antonio Miscomini, were also good, as also were several of the founts used at Rome and Milan. At Naples and Bologna, on the other hand, some quite early roman founts are curiously hard and heavy.
After about 1480 roman types in Italy enter on a second stage. They no longer have the appearance of being founded directly on handwriting. Doubtless the typecutters were so used to their work that they no longer needed models, but designed new types according to their own ideas. Naturally the letters are more uniform and regular than in the earlier founts, but naturally also they have less charm, and the ordinary close-set Venetian type of the end of the century is singularly dull. Even the large roman type used by Aldus to print the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili is no real exception, as the letters are narrow for their height. A far finer fount is the large text type used by the Silbers at Rome, on both sides of 1500. This is well proportioned and beautifully round, and it is surprising that it has not yet been imitated by any modern typecutter.
When we pass from roman to gothic types there is a bewildering field from which to choose. Here again dull commercialism gained the upper hand about 1480, and towards the end of the century an ugly upright text-type of 80 mm. to twenty lines, with a fantastic headline type of twice its size, or a little more, found its way all over Germany. But types with a twenty-line measurement ranging round 120 mm., such as those of Peter Schoeffer or the Printer of Henricus Ariminensis, are often extraordinarily handsome. Both of Schoeffer’s earlier small types and the small type of Ulrich Zell at Cologne are engagingly neat, and at the opposite end there is the magnificently round gothic used by Ulrich Han at Rome.