the partners Ketelaer and De Leempt were at Utrecht; and Veldener was at Louvain. Ketelaer and De Leempt were Netherlanders, but there is no evidence to confirm the conjecture that they had been instructed by the unknown printer. Veldener of Wurtzburg, John of Westphalia, Colard Mansion, William Caxton, Arnold Ter Hoorne, Conrad of Westphalia, Richard Paffroed, Conrad Braem, and Hermann of Nassau were graduates from printing offices at Cologne. [1] It is possible that Thierry Martens also was taught typography in the same city. We have many evidences that Cologne was the school of typography for the Netherlands.
We have no evidences that the unknown printer acquired his poor knowledge of typography through any other channel. His unequal workmanship is an indication that his instruction was imperfect; the neat presswork of his wood-cuts is that of an expert printer of block-books, who, no doubt, had abundant practice in this field before he undertook to print with types; the rudeness of his typographic work is that of one who had never received regular instruction in typography. It is possible that he received only a verbal explanation of the processes of the art,[2] and that he tried, unaided, to graft the new into the old method. His workmanship seems to be that of an imitator, a curious mixture of skill and of ignorance, but its inferiority to the workmanship of other printers of his time is not proof of its greater age or of his originality; it proves only his imperfect instruction or greater incapacity. So far from showing the first steps in an immature invention, his books truly show the degradation of a perfect method. They show the ignorance of a badly taught typographic printer, and
- ↑ The date usually assigned for the introduction of printing in Cologne is 1466, but some authors suppose, and Hessels and Madden say it is probable, that Ulric Zell began to print there, as early as 1462.
- ↑ We have in this country two remarkable illustrations of attempts to make types by men who had no experience in type-founding. Benjamin Franklin's experiment is mentioned in the note on page 303. In 1794, Wing and White of Hartford, men entirely ignorant of type-founding, undertook to make type, never having seen a type-mould.
