It was about 1455 that the Mazarin Bible was issued from the press of Fust and Gutenberg at Mentz. Lord Ashburnham’s copy of the Mazarin Bible, printed on vellum, has been sold this year (1897) for the sum of £4,000.
Peter Schœffer was in partnership some years later with Fust, and in the year 1457 they issued the famous Mentz Psalter (now in the British Museum), the first book printed in different colours from the same block, and the first printed book with a date. This book is a triumph of technical skill, and is unique in its beauty among printed books of the earliest period.
Fig. 313.—Page with the Crucifixion from the Caxton “Lyme Missal.”
There are few, if any, of the early printed books that cannot lay a great claim to artistic merit, but this would hardly have been possible if the designers of the type and ornament for the decoration of the pages, at the advent of printing, had not had before their eyes the splendid models left them by the caligraphers and illuminators of the preceding centuries.
It will be convenient here to say a few words concerning early English printing, which is associated with the name of its great founder, William Caxton (1423-1491). He was a merchant and a diplomatist, but a man of strong literary tastes. He learned the art of printing from Colard Mansion, at Bruges, where he had set up as a merchant; but leaving his business, he entered the household of the Duchess of Burgundy, sister of Edward IV., where he was engaged in literary pursuits, and for her he made a translation of Le Fevre’s “Recueil des Histoires de Troyes.” It was in order to multiply copies of this work that he learned the art of printing, and it is said that this was the first English book ever printed, which was probably printed by Mansion at Bruges, under the literary direction of Caxton, in the year 1476.
Caxton came back to England in 1477, and set up a printing press at Westminster, from which he issued a great many books during the last fourteen years of his life. His first book printed at Westminster was a work called “Dictes and Sayings of the Philosophers,” which is known to be the first English book printed in England. It is now shown in Case VIII., King’s Library, in the British Museum. Among Caxton’s other books may be mentioned several editions of the poets Chaucer, Lydgate, and Gower, Malory’s “Morte d’Arthur,” &c. He evidently sent books of his own composition to be printed on the Continent, as witness the Sarum Missal before mentioned.
The early printed books did not have title-pages. The slow development of this feature after the invention of printing is accounted for by the reason that in this respect, as in others, the first printed books were modelled in imitation of the illuminated missals, and it was not deemed necessary in the mediæval books and manuscripts to have a title-page, the scribe of the olden time merely recording in a note or label fastened to the end of the volume the name and description of his work; so this habit was continued for a long time by the early printers. This note or ending was called a Colophon.
Title-pages began to come into use about 1490, but it was not until about forty years later that they became general.
Printers’ devices, which were generally of an heraldic character, were commonly seen on the title-pages, some of which were very elaborate and finely designed. The famous printing house of Aldus at Venice had a device of an anchor with a dolphin twined around it, and the motto “Propera tarde,” or “Festina lente” (hasten slowly). It was from the printing press of Aldus, in 1499, that the celebrated book called Poliphili Hypnerotomachia, “The Dream of Poliphilus,” was issued. It is a finely illustrated book, consisting of classical compositions of figures and processions, many architectural designs, ornamental letters, emblems, and devices, all of which are executed in outline and printed from wood blocks.