FIFTEENTH CENTURY.
121
nnmber of single capital letters in their proper places in a sheet, ■with a degree of accuracy, and sharpness of impression, that I have never seen eqtudled in modern workmanship.*
1458. King Charles the Seventh, King of France, haTing received private information of the invention of printing at Mentz, sent Nicolas JeDson, or Jensonius, an engraver of coins and medals at Pans, to obtain a knowledge of the «rt. Having succeeded, he returned to France irhen he found his patron was dead ; upon which be retired to Venice and commenced letter- founder and printer ; he excelled in all branches of the art, and more than are united with it. He first determined the form and proportion of the present Roman character. The date of his first work is 1471, and the last 1481, in which year he is supposed to have died.
1458, £neus Sylvius, afterwards Pope Pius II. observed of the Italian priests, that it did not appear that they had ever so much as read the New Testament. (Hody de Bibl. Textibus, p. 464.) Robert Stephens, (who died in 1664) tells OS of the Doctors of die Sorbonne that being uked by him in what place of the New Testa- ment such a thing was written, they answered, that they* had re^ it in Jerome, or in the De- eiees, but what the New Testament was they did not faiow. — LeuHi's Hist, nf Trarul. of Bible.
Many of the Scottish clergy affirm, that Martin Luther had lately composed a wicked book called the New Testament, but that they fa their part, would adhere to the Old Testa- ment A foreign monk, declaiming in the pul- pit against Lutherans and Zuinglians, said to Us andience : ' A new language was invented some time ago, called Greek, which had been the mother of all these heresies ; a book is printed io this language, called the New Testament, wUch contains many dangerous things ! another hsguageis now forming, the Hebrew ; whoever kams it, immediately becomes a Jew.' The commissioners of the senate of Lucem, confiscat- ed the works of Aristotle, Plato, and some of the Greek poets, which they found in the library of a fnend of Zuinglius, concluding that every book printed in that language must be infected with Lutheranism. — Dr. Jf* CVie'i Life of Knox.
In a synod of the rural deans of Switzerland, only three were found who had read the Bible ; the others confessed that they were scarcely ac- voainted even with the New Testament. — Hetit uft of Zuinyliut, by Miit Aikin.
An ecclesiastic of eminence was asked what ■ere the ten commandments; he replied there was no such book in the library. Martin Luther aerer saw a bible till after he was twenty-one Tears old, and had taken a degree in arts. Car- lostadt had been a doctor of divinity twenty-eight years before he read the Scriptures, and yet when he stood for a degree in the university of Wit- tenberg, he obtained an honour, and it was en- tatd in the university records that he was tuffici- wHrnnnu. Pellican could not procure one Greek
• Hanaaid, TfpegnpUa, p. <W.
Testament in all Germany ; the first he got was from Italy; — Robinson's Eccl. Researches.
1460. The art of engraving upon copper is supposed to have been invented about this period. The origin of the art of engraving upon copper, like that of every other, is involved in obscurity. Italy, Geifnany and Holland have respectively put in their claims to the honour of the invention, but which has the greater right is hard to determine. The Italians tell us that Finiguerra, a gold- smith of Florence, hit upon the method of printing from an engraved plate in the year 1460 ; taking off the impression unon a moistened paper, and rolling it gently witn a roller. He com- municated the discovery to Baccio Baldini, of his own profession and city, who pursued it with success, and engraved several plates from draw- ings of Sandro or Alcssandro Boticelli, which being seen by Andrea Mantegna, he not only assisted Baldini .with designs, but cultivated and improved the new art himself. It was not long be/ore Ugo da Carpi used different stamps for the gradation of lights and shades, and therebv added a variety of tints. The manner in whicn Finiguerra made this discovery, is thus given by the Rev. T. F. Dibdin :—
" Of engraving upon copper the earliest known impression is that executed by one Thomaso Finiguerra, a goldsmith of Florence, with the date of 1460 upon it One of the following cir- cumstances is supposed to have given rise to the discovery. Finiguerra chanced to cast, or let fall a piece of copper, engraved and filled with ink, into melted sulphur ; and observing that the exact impression of his work was left on the sulphur, he repeated the experiment on mois- tened paper, rolling it gently with a roller. This origin has been admitted by Lord Walpole and Mr. Landseer ; but another has been also men- tioned by Huber: — ^"It is reported,' says he, ' that a washer-woman left some linen upon a plate or dish on which Finiguerra had just been engraving : and that an impression of the subject engraved, however imperfect, came off upon the linen ; occasioned by its weight and moistness. We learn also from Vasari,' continues Huber, ' that as early as the year 1460, the same artist had engravea very ingeniously, upon a chalice, (or sacramental cup) some small figures of the Passion of our Saviour, for the service of the church of St. John of Florence, &c. But,' ob- serves Huber, ' it is material to remark, that we have no direct evidence whatever of the work- manship of Finiguerra ; for his name is not sub- scribed to any of his productions. The efforts of Boticelli ana Baldini, his cotemporaries and acquaintance, seem to be.strengthened by some- what less exceptionable evidence.' "_
With respect to this grand discovery, the learned Buonarroti observes,
" That it would be sufficient to occasion oui astonishment that the ancients did not discover the art of chalcography, were it not known that discoveries of Uiis sort generally occur acci- dentally to mechanics in the exercise of their calling."
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