Early Printed BooksDuff, E. Gordon (Edward Gordon)
History
Early Printed Books
Duff, E. Gordon (Edward Gordon)
Incunabula -- Bibliography; Printing -- History -- Origin and antecedents
In 1459 a second edition of the _Psalter_ was issued, and also the
_Rationale Durandi_, both containing coloured capitals, though some
copies of the latter book are without the printed initials. A _Donatus_
without date, printed in the type of the forty-two line Bible, has also
the coloured capitals, and may be dated before 1460. After that time we
only find these letters in use for the editions of the _Psalter_ which
appeared in 1490, 1502, 1515, 1516; and for a _Donatus_ in the 1462
Bible type. Their size and the trouble of printing them account, no
doubt, for their disuse.
In June 1460, Schœffer issued the _Constitutions_ of Clement V., a
large folio remarkable for the care with which it was printed, and
for the clever way in which the commentary was worked round the
text. In 1462 appeared the first dated _Bible_, which is at the same
time the first book clearly divided into two volumes.[9] In the next
few years we have a number of Bulls and other such ephemeral
publications, relating mostly to the quarrels which were going on in
Mainz; but in 1465, Schœffer starts again to produce larger books, and
in this year we have the _Decretals_ of Boniface VIII. and the _De
Officiis_ of Cicero. This latter book is important as being the first
containing Greek type, that is, if it is allowed to be earlier than
the _Lactantius_ of the same year printed at Subiaco. In 1466 it was
reprinted.
[9] It has never, I think, been noticed in print that some of the
capital letters in certain sheets of this Bible are not the work of
the rubricator, but are printed. Attempts were made to print both
the blue and the red on the same page, but it apparently was found
too laborious, and was given up. The red letters were printed in
colour; the letters which were to be blue were impressed in blank, and
afterwards filled up in colour by the illuminator. He did not always
follow the impressed letter, so that its outline can be clearly seen.
Some copies of this Bible have Schœffer’s mark, and a date at the end
of the first volume; others are without them. The colophons also vary.
[Illustration: SCHOEFFER’S CATALOGUE.]
In or about 1469, Schœffer printed a most interesting document, a
catalogue of books for sale by himself or his agent. It is printed on
one side of a sheet, and was meant to be fixed up as an advertisement
in the different towns visited, the name of the place where the books
could be obtained being written at the bottom. There are altogether
twenty-one books advertised, three of which were not printed by
Schœffer, but probably by Gutenberg; and there are also in the list
three unknown books. Nearly all the important works from the press
are in it, the 1462 Bible on vellum, the _Psalter_ of 1459, the
_Decretals_, the _Cicero_, and others. At the foot of the list is
printed in the large _Psalter_ type, ‘Hec est littera psalterii,’ so
that the sheet is the earliest known type-specimen as well as catalogue.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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