FRANCE.—The French received printing and the Roman character at the same time, the first work of the Sorbonne press in 1470 being in a handsome Roman letter about Great Primer in size, with a slight suggestion of Gothic in some of the characters. Gering, a German himself, and his associates, had learned their art at Basle; but cut, and probably designed, their own letter on the best available models. Their fount is rudely cast, so that several of their words appear only half-printed in the impression, and have been finished by hand. It has been stated erroneously, by several writers, on the authority of Chevillier, that their fount was without capitals. The fount is complete in that respect, and Chevillier’s expression, “lettres capitales,” as he himself explains, refers to the initial letters for which blank spaces were left to be filled in by hand. Besides the ordinary capital and “lower-case” alphabets, the fount abounds in abbreviations. This letter was used in all the works of the Sorbonne press, but when Gering left the Sorbonne and established himself at the “Soleil d’Or,” in 1473, he made use of a Gothic letter. In his later works, however, new and greatly improved founts of the Roman appear. Jodocus Badius, who by some is erroneously supposed to have been the first who brought the Roman letters from Italy to France, did not establish his famous “Prelum Ascensianum” in Paris till about 1500, when he printed in Roman types—not, however, before one or two other French printers had already distinguished themselves in the same direction. NETHERLANDS.—The Roman was introduced into the Netherlands by Johannes de Westfalia, who, it is said, brought it direct from Italy about the year 1472. He settled at Louvain, and after several works in semi-Gothic, published in 1483 an edition of _Æneas Silvius_ in the Italian letter. His fount is elegant, and rather a lighter face than most of the early Roman founts of other countries. This printer appears to have been the only one in the Low Countries who used this type during the fifteenth century; nor was it till Plantin, in 1555, established his famous press at Antwerp, that the Roman attained to any degree of excellence. But Plantin, and after him the Elzevirs, were destined to eclipse all other artists in their execution of this letter, which in their hands became a model for the typography of all civilisation. It should be mentioned, however, that the Elzevirs are not supposed to have cut their own punches. The Roman types which they made famous, and which are known by their name, were cut by {44} Christopher Van Dijk,[83] the form of whose letter was subsequently adopted by the English printers.