Primos ecce libros quos hæc industria finxit
Francorum in terris, ædibus atque tuis.
Michael, Udalricus Martinusque magistri
Hos impresserunt ac facient alios.’
The classical taste of the patrons of the first press is strongly shown by its productions, for within the first three years a most important series of classical books had been published. Florus and Sallust (both first editions), Terence, Virgil’s Eclogues and Georgics, Juvenal and Persius, Cicero’s Tusculan Disputations, and Valerius Maximus, are amongst the books they issued.
In 1470-71 these printers finished thirteen books, while in the following year, before moving from the Sorbonne, they printed no less than seventeen. Some time towards the end of 1472 they left the Sorbonne and migrated to the Rue St. Jacques, where two other printers—Kaiser and Stoll—were already settled in partnership at the sign of the Green Ball (Intersignium viridis follis).
In 1472 was issued the Gasparini Orthographia. The copy of this book in the library at Basle contains a unique supplementary letter from Fichet to Robert Gaguin, in which is the following interesting statement about the invention of printing:—‘Report says that there (in Germany), not far from the city of Mainz (Ferunt enim illic, haud procul a civitate Maguncia), there was a certain John, whose surname was Gutenberg, who first of any thought out the art of printing ... by which art books are printed from metal letters.’[24]
[24] Mr. Hessels, in his Haarlem the Birthplace of Printing, not Mentz, attempts to weaken the value of this evidence, and translates ‘ferunt enim illic’ as ‘a rumour current in Germany,’—a striking example of ingenious mistranslation. ‘Illic’ is, of course, to be taken with what follows, and is further defined by ‘haud procul a civitate Maguncia.’
Between the two printing offices in the Rue St. Jacques a keen spirit of rivalry arose; and this was carried to such an extent, that no sooner was a book printed by one than another edition was issued by the other—a sign that the demand for such books must have been large. The earliest type used by these first printers is an exquisite Roman, the letters being more square than the best Roman type of Venice, and far surpassing it in beauty. Round brackets are used, and all the generally used stops are found. The first type of Kaiser and Stoll is also Roman, with neat and very distinctive capitals, and the small l has a short stroke coming out on the left side about half-way up, a peculiarity still retained in all the Roman type belonging to the ‘Imprimerie Nationale.’ The popular taste seems to have been for Gothic type, and very few printers made use of Roman before the year 1500.