The object of the first printers was no doubt to imitate the manuscript book as closely as possible. Gutenberg in his Bible had only attempted to copy the letterpress proper. The two partners gave in 1457 as their diploma piece an edition of the Psalter with two hundred and eighty-eight capitals in two colours, besides the great initial B, the whole forming a perfect imitation by the press of a highly decorated manuscript. At the present time an expert could see at a glance that this book is printed, instead of being written. But in 1457, and until the invention of printing had become generally known, no one could have guessed that it was anything but what it appeared, a beautifully finished manuscript. Of the letters, which are mostly in red and blue, the handsomest is the initial B at the beginning of the first psalm, which is surrounded by arabesques, continued along the margin. Besides these ornaments, figures of a dog and bird are stencilled, as it were, in white on the red ground of the letter. Writers are by no means agreed as to the way in which these initials were executed, but until recently the explanation most generally accepted was that of _emboîtement_, each part of the letter being inked separately and afterwards joined. According to Mr. Gordon Duff, it is impossible to determine exactly how they were produced, but in one edition, that of 1515, the exterior ornament has been printed, while the letter itself and the interior ornament have not. This shows that the letter and ornament were not on one block, and that the exterior and interior ornaments were on different blocks. Mr. Blades thought that the design was not printed but impressed in blank, and afterwards filled in with colour by the illuminator. The last opinion, that of Mr. Weale, is that the letters were not set up and printed with the rest of the book, but subsequently to the typography, not by a pull of the press but by a blow of the mallet on the superimposed block. It is not, perhaps, without interest to note that the white ornaments which have been already mentioned are reproduced on one of the initials of the Bamberg missal. Whether or not this lends additional likelihood to the Bamberg printer having been a workman of Gutenberg, the reader must judge for himself. We have said that the object of the first printers was to produce an imitation manuscript. It has even been suggested that Scheffer tried to palm off some of the copies of the Bible as, and at the price of, the manuscripts.