But it was at Venice that Greek printing was destined to reach its greatest excellence in the fifteenth century, at the press of Aldus, who in 1495 produced his famous Aristotle, in a beautiful letter which eclipsed all its predecessors. His fount was about a Double Pica in body, and much bolder and more imposing than any which had yet appeared, as well as being better cast and justified. The splendid Greek impressions of the elder Aldus are too well known to need further notice here. Renouard mentions nine separate founts used at this press.
The fame of the Italian Greek presses early roused emulation in France. Among the first printers of Paris, however, the Greek quotations and words introduced in their works were scanty and indifferent. Gering used but a very few letters, and Jodocus Badius, in 1505, excused the poverty of his Annotationes in Nov. Testamentum, by pleading the paucity of his types. The early works of the first Henri Estienne were similarly defective. In 1507, however, Greek punches were cut and matrices struck by Gilles de Gourmont, and the first wholly Greek work was printed at his press in this year, being a Greek Alphabet, with rules for pronunciation and reading. In the same year he also printed the Batrachomyomachia. Greek printing, once started in Paris, made rapid progress. Jodocus Badius, Vidouvé, Colinæus, and Christian Wechel, all distinguished themselves. Geofroy Tory contributed largely to the improvement in the form of the character. But it was not till Robert Estienne, with the title of “Regius in Græcis Typographus,”[113] commenced his career, that Greek printing reached its greatest perfection in France. On the establishment of an Imprimerie Royale by Francis I,[114] Claude Garamond, the first typographical artist of his day, {59} was entrusted with the care of engraving punches and preparing matrices for three founts of Greek, about an English, Long Primer, and Double Pica in body, which henceforth became famous throughout Europe as the “Characteres Regii.”[115] These characters, modelled as to their capitals on the alphabet of Lascaris, and as to their “lower-case” and abbreviations from the beautiful Greek calligraphy of Angelus Vergetius of Candia, first appeared in the Eusebius, printed, in 1544,[116] by Robert Estienne, to whom the use of the types was, by virtue of his office, conceded, and who employed them in the production of some of the most brilliant Greek impressions Europe has ever seen.[117] During the seventeenth century the Royal Greek punches and matrices lay for the most part idle; but in 1691, Anisson, Director of the Imprimerie Royale, rescued them from obscurity, and caused new punches to be cut and matrices struck, to supply what were missing, by Grandjean, the famous Parisian founder.
In the Low Countries, as early as 1501, Thierry Martens, at Louvain, had Greek types with which he printed occasional words. He produced an edition of Æsop in 1513, and in 1516 a Grammar of Theodore de Gaza’s, and a little book of Hours, in Greek. The latter is considered an excellent piece of typography. Greek printing attained to considerable celebrity in the Low Countries. The Greek fount used in Plantin’s Polyglot, in 1569–72, is said to have been cut by the famous French founder and engraver, Le Bé.
Spain claims a prominent place in the history of early Greek printing in Europe, as it was at Alcala in that country that the famous Complutensian Polyglot of Cardinal Ximenes was printed in 1514–17,[118] including the entire text of the Bible in Greek. The fount employed in the New Testament is very grand and imposing, and is said to have been cut specially for the work on the models of Greek manuscripts of the eleventh or twelfth century.
Before the completion of this great work, Germany had secured the honour of producing the first entire Greek Testament at the press of Froben of Basle. Froben’s Greek is somewhat cramped and stiff. Oporinus, who printed in the {60} same city in 1551, besides using a fount identical with that of Froben, introduced a smaller and much neater letter at the same time. Numerous printers produced Greek works in Germany at this period, perhaps the most famous being Andrew Wechel, who began at Paris with types inherited from his father, but in 1573 established himself at Frankfort, where he printed several very fine works in a new and most elegant Greek, said to have been acquired from the Estiennes, to whose letter it bears the closest resemblance.
The first appearance of Greek type in England is observed in De Worde’s edition of Whitintoni Grammatices, printed in 1519, where a few words are introduced cut in wood. Cast types were used at Cambridge in a book entitled Galenus de Temperamentis, translated by Linacre, and printed by Siberch in 1521. Siberch styles himself the first Greek printer in England; but the quotations in the Galenus are very sparse, and he is not known to have printed any entire book in Greek. In 1524, Pynson also used some Greek words and lines, without accents or breathings, in Linacre’s De emendatâ structurâ Latini sermonis; but added an apology for the imperfections of the characters, which he said were but lately cast, and in a small quantity. The first printer who possessed Greek types in any quantity was Reginald Wolfe, who held a royal patent as printer in Greek, Latin, and Hebrew, and printed, in 1543, Two Homilies of Chrysostom, edited by Sir John Cheke, the first Greek Lecturer at Cambridge. Eight years later, in the first volume of Dr. Turner’s Herbal, printed at Mierdman’s press in London, the Greek words were given in Black, and quotations in Italic. In Edinburgh, in 1563, and as late as 1579, the space for Greek words was left blank in printing, to be filled in by hand. The Oxford University press, re-established in 1585, was well supplied with Greek types, which were used in the Chrysostom of 1586, and the Herodotus of 1591. The beautiful Greek fount used in the Eton Chrysostom[119] in 1610–12—a work which takes rank with the finest Greek impressions in Europe—is supposed to have been obtained from abroad, probably from Paris or Frankfort. Its similarity to the Greek of the Estiennes is remarkable. Indeed, the “characteres regii” of France were at that time, and for long afterwards, the envy and models for all Europe. The Eton Greek types, of which probably the matrices were not in England, were acquired by the Oxford University, to which body, in 1632, application was made by Cambridge for the loan of a Greek fount to print a Greek Testament, the sister University possessing no Greek types of her own. A Greek press was established in London in 1637, under peculiar circumstances, which are detailed in our account of the Oxford press. There is every reason to suppose that of the handsome Greek letter provided {61} for this press,[120] not only the types, but the matrices were acquired. After this, Greek printing became general in London and Oxford. The various typefounders all provided themselves with a good variety of sizes, some of which were very small and neat. There was a very fine Brevier Greek in Grover’s foundry in 1700, and a Nonpareil in that of Andrews in 1706; but for minute Greek printing, England could produce nothing to equal the Sedan Greek Testament, printed by Jannon in 1628.
As was the case with the Roman letter, many of our printers at the close of the seventeenth century preferred the Dutch Greeks, which at that time were good, particularly those cut by the Wetsteins. Thomas James, in 1710, brought over the matrices of four founts from Vosken’s foundry at Amsterdam. In 1700, Cambridge University, still badly off for Greek, made an offer for the purchase of a fount of the King’s Greek at Paris; but withdrew on the French Academy insisting as a condition that every work printed should bear the imprint, “Characteribus Græcis e Typographeo Regio Parisiensi.” The large number of ligatures and abbreviations in the Greek of that day made the production of a fount a serious business. The Oxford Augustin Greek comprised no fewer than 354 matrices, and the Great Primer as many as 456, and the Pica 508; Fournier, however, went beyond all these, and showed a fount containing 776 different sorts! The impracticability of such enormous founts brought about a gradual reduction of the Greek typographical ligatures—a reform for which the Dutch founders, under the guidance of Leusden, deserve the chief credit. Fournier, in 1764, stated that for some years previously, in Holland, Greek printing had been carried on with the simple letters of the alphabet. Wilson’s beautiful Double Pica Greek,[121] used in the Glasgow Homer of 1756, was in its day the finest Greek fount our country had ever seen. A new departure, however, was initiated by the production, in 1763, of Baskerville’s Greek fount[122] for the Oxford New Testament. The letter is neat, but stiff and cramped, and apparently formed on an arbitrary estimate of conventional taste, and without reference to any accepted model. The fount was praised, and provoked imitation. Baskerville’s apprentice, Martin, produced a letter still less Greek than his master’s, and the general tendency was countenanced by the form of Bodoni’s types, which were so much admired in this country at the close of the century. A reaction, however, had begun before Bodoni’s time. The Glasgow Greek kept its place in Wilson’s specimens; and Jackson, encouraged by the younger Bowyer’s remark, that the Greek types in common use “were no more Greek {62} than they were English,” cut a beautiful Pica about 1785 for his rising foundry. Early in the nineteenth century, a new fashion of Greek, for which Porson was sponsor and furnished the drawings, came into vogue, and has remained the prevailing form to this day. It may be doubted if the Porsonian letter would be recognised by an ancient Greek scribe as the character of his native land; but at any rate it is neat, elegant, and legible, and dispenses with all useless contractions and ligatures. In taking leave of this subject, it would be an omission not to mention the most beautiful little fount in which Pickering printed his Homer, in 1831. Probably no finer masterpiece of minute Greek printing exists anywhere.
HEBREW.
The first Hebrew types are generally supposed to have appeared in 1475, in a work printed by Conrad Fyner, at Esslingen in Wirtemburg, entitled Tractatus contra perfidos Judæos. In Pheibia, in Austrian Italy, also in 1475, a Hebrew work in four folio volumes, entitled the Arba Turim of Rabbi Jacob ben Ascher, is stated by De Rossi[123] to have been printed; while in the same year, a few months earlier, at Reggio in Italy, appeared Salamon Jarchi’s Commentary on the Pentateuch, by Abraham ben Garton ben Isaac. The type of this last-named work (which Schwab[124] considers without doubt to be the first Hebrew book printed) is in the Rabbinical character, somewhat rudely cut, but neat. Numerous other Hebrew works followed, earlier than 1488, at which date the first entire Hebrew Bible was printed at Soncino, by a family of German Jews. This rare Bible is printed with points, and is neat and regular in appearance. The volume itself is highly decorative, and shows a considerable amount of typographical skill on the part of its Jewish printers.
Hebrew printing did not spread very rapidly. De Rossi mentions several works printed at Constantinople during the fifteenth century, as also in the Italian towns to which the family of Soncino printers carried the art. Aldus was possessed of some rude Hebrew characters; but it was Bomberg, who established his Hebrew press in Venice in 1517, who raised the fame of that already famous city by the excellence of his types and workmanship. But as late as 1520, at Naples, in a treatise on the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin letters, by De Falco, the Hebrew words, for lack of types, were written in by hand.