The Art & Practice of Typography / A Manual of American Printing, Including a Brief History up to the Twentieth Century, with Reproductions of the Work of Early Masters of the Craft, and a Practical Discussion and an Extensive Demonstration of the Modern Use of Type-faces and Methods of Arrangement

by Edmund G. Gress

EXAMPLE 471
Section of manuscript of the fifteenth century, in the Charlemagne “White Letter” on which Jenson may have modeled his Roman type-face. From Humphrey

Jenson’s face was not the first Roman type made, as is sometimes supposed; others had previously been used (Example [469]), but it was the first Roman type to meet the approval of those who preferred the Italian White Letter to the Gothic Black Letter.

EXAMPLE 472
Type-face used by Paul Manutius at Venice in 1566

Sweinheim and Pannartz were German printers who, in 1465, began to print near Rome. Until this time the black Text letter such as Gutenberg had printed with ten years before was the only one used in typography, but book buyers in Italy wanted Italian lettering. The German printers attempted to cut an Italian face, but in appearance they did not advance far from Gothic lettering (Example [468]).

EXAMPLE 473
Cloister Oldstyle set in imitation of the Jenson title on page [14]. Printed and zinc-etched, as was the original

EXAMPLE 474
Type-face cut in 1693, now used by the National Printing Office, Paris. Notice slight projection on lower-case “l,” a decorative feature used by Gutenberg in his types