The Invention of Printing.: A Collection of Facts and Opinions, Descriptive of Early Prints and Playing Cards, the Block-Books of the Fifteenth Century, the Legend of Lourens Janszoon Coster, of Haarlem, and the Work of John Gutenberg and His AssociatesDe Vinne, Theodore Low
History
The Invention of Printing.: A Collection of Facts and Opinions, Descriptive of Early Prints and Playing Cards, the Block-Books of the Fifteenth Century, the Legend of Lourens Janszoon Coster, of Haarlem, and the Work of John Gutenberg and His Associates
De Vinne, Theodore Low
Incunabula -- Bibliography; Printing -- History -- Origin and antecedents
TYPE I. In this character[144] the four notable editions of the
_Speculum_ were printed. In the same character were found the relics of
six editions of the _Donatus_. The single leaf by which one edition of
this book was identified, was pasted in a volume which once belonged to
Sion Convent, at Cologne, and which contained several treatises printed
by Ulric Zell, of Cologne. One of these treatises is dated 1467.
Another leaf, now in the city hall of the city of Haarlem, was found
in the original binding of an account book for the year 1474, which
book was kept in the cathedral of that city. The account books of this
church for the years 1476, 1485 and 1514, contain cuttings of leaves
from the same edition. The first entry in the record of 1474 is to this
effect: “_Item._ I have paid six Rhine florins to Cornelis the binder,
for the binding of books.”[145] Fragments of other little books printed
in the types of the _Speculum_ have been found:
An abridgment of the Liturgy, then known as the _Little Book of the
Mass_,[146] a small quarto, with pages of twelve lines. [p285]
A Dutch version of the _Seven Penitential Psalms_, in the form of a
very small quarto, containing but eleven lines to the page, printed on
vellum, on one side only of the leaf. The only known copy of this work
was found in Brussels.
Fragments on vellum of three editions of the _Doctrinal of Alexander
Gallus_, a Latin grammar in rhyme, noticed by Van der Linde as the
shabby compilation, by a priest of Brittany who lived in the thirteenth
century, of the old Latin grammar of Priscianus. One of these fragments
was found within the lining of a book printed at Deventer in 1495.
Four leaves of the _Couplets of Cato_, a small quarto which was then
very popular in the schools.
[Illustration: Type II. Fac-simile of the Small Types in the Third
Edition of the Speculum.
[From Holtrop.]]
TYPE II. The Dutch edition of the _Speculum_, which is described in
this book as the third, contains, on pages 49 and 60, types which
resemble those of other editions, and which seem to be the workmanship
of the same letter-cutter. As these types are of a smaller face and
body, they must have been founded in another mould. No fragments of any
book in this smaller type have been found.
[Illustration: Type III. Fac-simile of the Types of the Fables of
Lorenzo Valla.
[From Koning.]]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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