black lines of the writing or design were firmly set on the stone, the paper was peeled off. The black transferred lines were then cut out, or cut below the surface, as they are now done in the copper- plate process. The surface was inked, paper was laid on the stone, and an impression was taken. The result was, the appearance on the paper of the writing or design in white on a field of solid black. This method of cutting out the lines, so that they should appear white in the printed impression, is the simplest form of engraving. It is like that of the boy who cuts his name in the bark of a tree. He finds it easier to gouge out the letters than it is to raise them in high relief. Reasoning from probability, we should say that it should have been the earliest of the methods. Didot believes that it was known to the old Romans.[1] Du Halde says that this method of printing on stone was used chiefly for "epitaphs, pictures, trees, mountains and such like things." He does not fix the date of its invention, but it was probably the earlier method. Didot says that he had in his
- ↑ In support of this opinion he quotes the following from Pliny:
smaller|It would be improper to omit the notice of a new invention. We have been accustomed to preserve in our libraries, in gold, silver, or bronze, the personages whose immortal spirits speak to us from distances of leagues and centuries. We create statues of those who are no longer living. Our regrets invest them with features which have not been given to us by tradition, as, for example, is shown in the bust of Homer. The idea of making a collection of these portraits is due to Asinius Pollio, who was the first to throw open his library, and to make these men of genius the property of the public. That the love for portraits has always existed is sufficiently proven by Atticus, the friend of Cicero, who published a book on the subject, and also by Marcus Varro, who had the enlarged idea of inserting in his numerous books not only the names, but, by the aid of a certain invention, the images of seven hundred illustrious persons. Varro wished to save their features from oblivion, so that the length of centuries would not prevail against them. As the inventor of a benefit which will fill even the gods with jealousy, he has clothed these persons with immortality. He has made them known over the wide world, so that everywhere one can see them as if they were present Pliny, book xxxv, chap. i.
This invention has never been clearly explained. A new invention, which exhibited in books the features of seven hundred men, which multiplied them so that they were known over the wide world, and preserved them for posterity, should have been the invention of printing. Pliny speaks of it as a well-known fact, but no other writer of his age makes any mention of it. Why did not Pliny describe the new art instead of praising it?
