Illustrated books -- Bibliography; Illustration of books; Printing -- History
When we pass from roman to gothic types there is a bewildering field
from which to choose. Here again dull commercialism gained the upper
hand about 1480, and towards the end of the century an ugly upright
text-type of 80 mm. to twenty lines, with a fantastic headline type of
twice its size, or a little more, found its way all over Germany. But
types with a twenty-line measurement ranging round 120 mm., such as
those of Peter Schoeffer or the Printer of Henricus Ariminensis, are
often extraordinarily handsome. Both of Schoeffer's earlier small types
and the small type of Ulrich Zell at Cologne are engagingly neat, and at
the opposite end there is the magnificently round gothic used by Ulrich
Han at Rome.
Most of the finest gothic types were used for Latin books of law and
theology, the peculiar appropriateness of roman type being considered to
be confined to works appealing to classical scholars. In Germany, for
some time, not much distinction was observed, but there was a tendency
in classical books to use an f and long [s] starting from the level of
the line, whereas in most vernacular books the tails of these letters
came below the line, giving a strangely different appearance to the
type. In the 'nineties a distinctively cursive type called Schwabacher,
usually measuring 93 mm. to twenty lines, makes its appearance all over
Germany. In Italy, both at Naples and by Ulrich Han at Rome, a very
small text type, which is certainly cursive in its affinities, was used
at the very outset, but found no favour. The typical vernacular French
types are also very often on a slope. The small cursive type cut for
Aldus in 1501 by Francesco da Bologna was thus not quite so great a
revolution as is sometimes represented. Its clearness in proportion to
its size, its extreme compactness, and the handiness of the small
octavos with which it was at first specially connected, gained for it a
great success, and it gradually, though only gradually, usurped the name
of italic, the upright Italian bookhand being distinguished from it as
roman. Few treatises on printing or the development of books give any
idea of the immense popularity of italics during the sixteenth century.
About 1570 they seemed to have established themselves as the fashionable
vernacular type both in Italy and France, and even in England whole
books were printed in them. In Switzerland also and Germany they gained
some hold; but gradually the tide turned, the upright bookhand regained
its predominance, and italics now survive chiefly for emphasis and
quotations--in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries they were often
used for proper names--giving to the page on which they occur an
unpleasantly spotty appearance. Their occasional use in prefaces and
dedicatory letters is much more appropriate.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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