English printers' ornaments

by Henry R. Plomer

They sometimes put a border partially round this first page, and they tried as far as possible to imitate the richly illuminated initial letters—but with poor results at first. They left the spaces between the divisions of the work blank, but they generally put on the last leaf below the colophon or on a leaf by itself a woodcut embodying their name or initials or the sign of the house in which they carried on their trade. They also adopted the paragraph mark and the Maltese cross, which for many years remained the only small ornaments they possessed, unless indeed we can claim for the asterisk, or, as Luckombe called it, the ‘asterism,’ an equal antiquity with the other two, which is quite possible.

This was in the infancy of the art; but as it gradually emerged from its swaddling clothes, printers discovered various ways of increasing the beauty of the printed book. First they adopted a title-page, quite a modest thing at first, which for its brevity has been called a ‘Label’ title. Next they conceived that the appearance of the title-page would be improved if it had a border like the first pages of the old manuscripts. Then it occurred to them that it would look better if the printed matter were begun lower down on the page, leaving a blank space above. In course of time these blank spaces, and those which generally followed at the end of dedicatory epistles and such like, were ornamented, whatever was used for that purpose being called by the names of head or tail piece. Occasionally the printers even went so far as to fill up the spaces at the ends of paragraphs with small ornaments, a wholly unnecessary labour which was soon dropped.

For these and other purposes new designs had to be found, and amongst them, early in the sixteenth century, appeared the fleuron. Nature was the mother of this very beautiful little ornament—a common object of the roadway—a leaf torn by a rough wind from some tree, possibly a willow. Centuries before printing was ever dreamt of, such a leaf fell at the feet of one with a soul for the beautiful, who took it home and drew it and drew it again and again, placing it in various positions and finding a hundred different treatments of the subject, and so discovered its possibilities for artistic decorations. In this way it became the basis of most of the designs in Greek and Arabesque pattern books. The architect sculptured it in stone, the lace-worker turned it into a dream of delicate beauty, the bookbinder fashioned it into a tool to stamp his bindings, and in due time the printers cut it in wood and cast it in metal, and it became a stock ornament in every printing office. In a happily inspired moment the fleuron has been used as the title of a recently published magazine dealing with typographical matters, and in an admirable article contributed to its first number by Messrs F. Meynell and S. Morrison, which I trust they will forgive me for quoting,[1] they say: “What is common to them (i.e. fleurons), what makes the system, is the fact that the unit of decoration is itself an ordinary metal type, of the varying type sizes, cast by the type-printer, set as type, and bearing, instead of a letter symbol, a formal design.... This simple tool was originally used on an Aldine binding as early as 1499, but not until 1515 have the writers discovered its first usage as a printing surface. This occurs in the title-page of Tornandes’ de Rebus Gothorum, printed by Miller of Augsburg in 1516.... Variations of the stalk developed at Augsburg (1517), Strasbourg (1519), Antwerp (1532), Paris (1537).”

In the course of the following pages it will be seen in all sections how infinite is the variety of design and treatment that this single ornament is capable of.

It is interesting to find an 18th-century view of the origin and use of flower ornaments, and therefore I am quoting a passage from Luckombe’s History of the Origin and Progress of Printing, 1770. “Metal flowers,” says the author, “are cast to all the regular bodies of letter, from great primer to nonpareil included; besides several sorts that are to the size of small pica.

“Flowers were the first ornaments which were used at the head of such pages that either began the main work, or else a separate part of it.

“Though they formerly had no great variety of flowers; yet were the few of them contrived to look neat and ornamental; being deep in body, and cast so that no bearings-off could be discovered, but looked as one solid row.

“But with the growth of printing, and when letter-cutters strove to excel each other, they introduced also flowers of several shapes and sizes, which were received, and variously employed, till cutting in wood was come to perfection; when that art was eagerly encouraged, and flowers not regarded. From that time till very lately, nothing has been thought to grace the first page of a work so well as head-pieces cut in wood; of which some have such a coarse look, that even mourning rules would look neater, were they put in the room of them.

“The invention of cutting in wood, is claimed by the Germans, though the Italians seem to have a prior right to stile themselves the authors. Nevertheless, though the former may have had their worthies of the said art, it is apparent that they have taken their knowledge with them to the grave. And this has also been the case in France, where the masters of the art of cutting in wood made a secret of their method of working and left no disciples of their abilities. Hence it was, that while Mr Jackson, an Englishman, was at Paris, he was wholly employed in furnishing printers there with head-pieces and other ornaments of his drawing and cutting. But it being above thirty years since he went to Rome, it must be supposed that his work in France is worn down before this time, which may be the reason that flowers are come into fashion again in France. But this, perhaps, would not have been so readily effected, had it not been for the particular genius and fancy of a compositor at the King’s printing-house in Paris, who restored the credit of flowers, by making them yield to every turn which is required to represent a figure answerable to the rules of drawing. Hence it may be guessed what great variety of florid sorts were used to exhibit cyphers of names, forms of crowns, figures of winged and other creatures, and whatever else fancy presented to this typographical florist. But it must be observed, that the King of France paid for this whim; the compositor having a salary and free access to the King’s founding-house, to order the cutting and casting every thing that could conduce to make his conceptions mature and the performance of them admirable.

“Thus has the use of flowers been revived in France, and has stimulated the Germans to improve their fusil ornaments, whereby they have been instrumental to the considerable augmentation made here in flowers, by all which we shall be enabled to make flower-pieces of oval, circularly, and angularly turns, instead of having hitherto been confined either to square or to circular flowers. But it is feared, that head-pieces, fats, and tail-pieces of flowers will not long continue, either in England, France or Germany, considering that the contriving and making them up, is attended with considerable trouble and loss of time; and as no allowance is made for this, it will not be strange, if but few shall be found who will give instances of their fancy. But this might be remedied, were printers to recompense the compositor for his painful application; and then to preserve the substance of his invention intire, for occasional use.