In the earliest printed books, with the exception of the Mentz Psalter, where engraved letters are undoubtedly used, a blank space was left for initial letters, which were inserted by hand. A small index-letter, indicating what the letter was to be, was generally printed or written in the space by the printer before handing the work over to the illuminator. The trouble and cost involved by this system early suggested the use of wood-cut initials, and Erhard Ratdolt of Venice, about 1475, is generally supposed to have been the first printer to introduce the “Literæ florentes,” which eventually superseded the hand-painted initials. These ornamental initials, called also lettres tourneures, or sometimes typi tornatissimi, were not generally adopted till the close of the century, by which time, however, they had found their way to England, where, in 1484, Caxton had introduced one or two kinds. The more elaborate initials, such as {80} that used in the Mentz Psalter, and the later beautiful letters used by Aldus at Venice, by Schoeffer at Mentz in 1518, by Tory and the Estiennes at Paris, by Froben at Basle, and by the other great printers of their day, were known as lettres grises. Besides these, the ordinary “two-line letters,” or large plain capitals, came into use; and these were generally cast—the ornamental letters being for the most part engraved on wood or metal, and shifted about from one forme to another. The general debasement of artistic taste in the latter half of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries is very apparent in the initial letters, particularly in England. Large black-letters were frequently used as initials to books in Roman type, the large plain caps appear to have been most rudely cut and cast, and when pictorial letters were made use of, the effect was not infrequently
46. Dutch Initial Letters used in Boyle’s Irish Testament, 1681. From the original matrices in the Enschedé foundry, Haarlem.
grotesque. Dutch initials found their way into this country in large numbers. They were, as a rule, heavy and indistinct, and lacked the elegance of the letters which, even as late as 1650, characterised some of the best printing in France. The best initial letters we had were those used at Oxford, and these were for the most part copperplate, and engraved by an artist specially retained
13. Blooming Initials, at the Oxford University Press. Circa 1700.
by the University for the purpose. The “Dutch Bloomers” shown by Watson in 1711 probably represented the ne plus ultra of typographical ornament at that day. With Bible printers it was not uncommon to use appropriate pictorial {81} letters, and we frequently find in their works, both sacred and profane, the initial “I” of Genesis representing the Creation, the “D” representing David playing on his harp, the “P” representing the conversion of St. Paul, and so on. Armorial initials were also occasionally used, and sometimes letters embodying portraits or landscapes. About the beginning of the seventeenth century, pierced initial ornaments—that is, wood block devices, in which a space is pierced
14. Pierced Initial, at the Oxford University Press. Ante 1700.
