the discovery of printing, properly so called. One of the most celebrated is the Biblia Pauperum,[1] consisting of forty leaves, printed on one side, so as to make twenty when pasted together, on which passages from Scripture are represented by means of figures, with inscriptions. It appears to have been originally intended for the use of those poor persons who could not afford to buy complete copies of the Bible. Some fugitive sheets still attest the primitive attempts at printing, in the modern sense of the word. The Letters of Indulgence of Pope Nicholas V., two editions of which, on a small sheet of parchment, were printed in 1454, fix the earliest period of the impression of metal types, with a date subjoined.[2] The earliest known book, however, of any magnitude, and probably the first thus printed, was the undated editio princeps of the Bible, com monly known as the Mazarin Bible, from a copy having been found by De Bure in the library of the Cardinal. It is undated, but authorities generally concur in ascribing it to a period between 1450 and 1455. The work is usually divided into two volumes, the first containing 324, and the second 317 pages, each page consisting of two columns. The characters, which are Gothic, are large and handsome, and resemble manuscript. No fewer than twenty copies are known to be extant.[3] The first printed book with a date is the Psalter of Fust and Schoffer, printed at Mentz in 1457, as a somewhat pompous colophon announces. It was found, in 16G5, in the Castle of Ambras, near Innsbruck, where the Archduke Francis Sigisniund had collected a quantity of MSS. and printed books, taken chiefly from the library of Corvinus. A few other copies are in existence, one of which was bought under Louis XVIII. for the Royal Library at Paris for the sum of 12,000 francs. Whether the types employed were wooden or metallic has been disputed between Van Praet and Didot. As a specimen of early printing the work is magnificent ; it contains richly embellished capitals in blue, red, and
purple.Besides these monuments of infant typography, a special interest attaches to the productions of the 15th century. They are usually known as Incunabula, a term applied to them by modern German writers. Brunet, following Santander, estimates their number at 18,000 or 20,000; but it is probable that many duplicates are included in this reckoning. They came into demand chiefly at the beginning of the last century, and especially about 1740, at the third centenary of printing. The passion for them at first was indiscriminate, but preference afterwards was given to the presses of Mayence, Bamberg, Cologne, Strasburg, Borne, and Venice.
As regards these early printed books, a knowledge of typography is necessary to the bibliographer, to enable him to verify their identity. A brief reference to some of their leading peculiarities must suffice here. The printer s name, and the date[4] and place of printing were at first omitted, the printer imitating the reticence of the copyist, and tho book being a mere fac-sirnile of the manuscript. in Germany and the Low Countries few dated books are found before 1476 or 1480. Title-pages appear to have come in a few years later; none of Caxton s works, with one doubtful exception, have any. Titles to chapters were first used in the Epistles of Cicero, 1470. According to Palmer, the use of signatures, or letters at the bottom of the page to guide the bookbinder in the arrangement of the sheets, began with Zarot in a Terence printed by him at Milan ifl 1470. Marolles ascribes them to John of Cologne, who printed at Venice in 1474, and the Abbe" Rive to Joho Koelhof, a printer of Cologne. They were in use in that city in 1475, and at Paris the next year, but were not employed by Caxton until 1480. Catch-words, which, like signatures, preceded the numbering of pages, are found in MSS. of tho llth century, and were first applied to printing by Vindelin de Spira at Venice. Their purpose, to direct the binder, had been previously supplied by Registers, or alphabetical tables of the first word of chapters, which were introduced about 1469. The earliest system of numbering was applied, not to pages, but to leaves, a large Roman figure being placed at the top of the recto in each leaf. The characters were uniformly Gothic the foundation of our Black- letter until 1467, when Gothic was supplanted by tho Roman type, introduced in that year at Rome, and improved on by Jenson at Venice. It was first used in England by Pynson. Italics were first used by Aldus in his Virgil of 1501 ; they are said to have been suggested to him by Petrarch s writing, and were employed to compress matter into his small octavos without the inconvenience of abbre viations. Hebrew characters began at Soncino, in the duchy of Milan, in 1482, and at Naples in 1487. The only points first used were the colon and full stop ; but Aldus improved punctuation by giving a better shape to the comma and adding the semicolon. With Caxton oblique strokes took the place of commas and periods. The form of the earliest books was chiefly folio and quarto. Almost every page abounded in abbreviations or contractions. Blank spaces were left for capitals and the first letters of periods, which were afterwards filled up by the illuminator. The Basel press was noted for its ornamental initials ; and Calliergus at Rome and the Paris printers excelled in decorative printing of this kind. The taste for embellish ment led to ornamental title-pages about 1490, the usual ornament at first being the "author at his desk." Tho custom of coloured frontispieces appears to have pre vailed until the end of last century. Decorated borders appear in the first page of some of Sweynheim and Pan- nartz s productions ; few ornaments, however, were intro duced into the body of the text before the first Hebrew publications.[5] The Aulus Gellius of 1469 by the same printers is cited as the first book with a preface ; and their Apuleius of the same year contains the earliest marginal notes. For further information on the characteristics of early printed books the reader will do well to consult Palmer s General History of Printing (a work ascribed chiefly to George Psalmanazar) ; Jungendres, De Notis Characteristicis Librorum a Typographies Incunabulis ad annum 1500 imprcssorum ; and Marolle s Recherches sur V Origins des Signatures et des Chi/res de Page.
- ↑ So called first by Heinecken, Idee generate (Tune collection complete (fEstampes, 8vo., 1771. Dibdin, in his Bibl. Spenceriana, and Ottley, in his History of Engraving, have given fac-similes of the figures in several of the block-books. See also Falkenstein s Geschichte der Buchdruckerkunst in ihrcr Entsiehung und Ausbildung, 4to, 1840 ; Schelhoni s Amcen. Lit.; the works of Maittaire, D. Clement, Fonrnier, Meermann, Papillon, and De Bure; and J. P. Berjeau s Catalogue illustrt des livres xylographigues, 1865. Heinecken was the chief authority until recently, when his views, especially on the chronology of the block-books, have been much contested. Sotheby s Principia Typo- jraphica, 3 vols., 1858, is the most important work on this subject in late years. The author has also attempted to elucidate the character of the -water-marks of the period.
- ↑ Dibdin s Bill. Spencer., i. xliv.
- ↑ Before the discovery of the Mazarin Bible, the Bamberg Bible of Pfister generally passed for the first printed book. Schelhorn has mitten a treatise maintaining its priority of age. As to the Mazarin Bible, see an article by Dibdin in Valpy s Classical Journal, No. 8. The kind of types employed upon it has been the subject of much dispute.
- ↑ The date was sometimes computed by Olympiads, as in the Ausonii Epigrammata, printed at Venice in 1472. Middleton, who has written to prove that the Oxford Expositio S. Jeronimi of 1468 contains a falsified date, quotes, as an example, the Decor Pucllarum of Jenson, at Venice, which is dated 1461, instead of 1471, in order, he says, to give priority to the printer over John de Spira, whose first work appeared in 1469 (Works, iii. 236).
- ↑ For this class of books see De Rossi s A nnaks Hclr&o-Typo jraphici, 1795-99.
