[41] It would be more correct to say the discovery of the properties of antimony, which were first described by Basil Valentin about the end of the 15th century, in a treatise entitled Currus triumphalis Antimonii.
[42] Printing was practised at Lyons in 1473, three years only later than at Paris. From the year 1476 the art extended rapidly in the city. Panzer mentions some 250 works printed here during the 15th century by nearly forty printers, among whom was Badius Ascensius. The earlier Lyons printers are supposed to have had their type from Basle, and their city shortly became a depôt for the supply of type to the printers of Southern France and Spain.
[43] Histoire de l’Invention de l’Imprimerie par les Monuments. Paris, 1840, fol., p. 12.
[44] Lettres d’un Bibliographe. Paris, 1875, 8vo, Ser. iv, letter 16.
[45] Begins “Incipit Liber de Laudibus ac Festis Gloriose Virginis Matris Marie alias Marionale Dictus per Doctores eximeos editus et compilatus”; at end, “Explicit Petrus Damasceni de laudibus gloriose Virginis Marie.” The book is mentioned in Hain, 5918. The drawn-up type occurs on the top of folio b 4 verso.
[46] It will be understood that in each case the outline of the types being merely a depressed edge in the original, the black outline of the facsimiles represents shadow only, and not, as might appear at first glance, inked surface. M. Madden’s facsimile is apparently drawn. In the photograph facsimile of the “De laudibus” type, the distribution of black represents the distribution of shadow caused by the somewhat uneven or tilted indentation of the side of the type in the paper.
[47] Such projections or “drags” in the mould are not unknown in modern typefounding, where they are purposely inserted so as to leave the newly cast type, on the opening of the mould, always adhering to one particular side.
[48] Life of Caxton, i, 39. Later on (p 52), Mr. Blades points out, as an argument against the supposed typographical connection between Caxton and Zel of Cologne, that the latter, from an early period, printed two pages at a time.
[49] Haarlem Legend, p. xxiii.
[50] Mr. Skeen (Early Typography, p. 299) speaks of 300 matrices as constituting a complete fount; he appears accidentally, in calculating for two pages instead of one, to have assumed that a double number of matrices would be requisite for the double quantity of type.