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
[From Heineken.]]
Another book attributed to Pfister is known as _Belial_, or the
_Consolation of the Sinner_. It is a folio of 95 leaves, which exhibits
on the last leaf the words _Albrecht Pfister su Bamberg_. Pfister
also printed two editions of the _Bible of the Poor_, one in Latin
and one in German, each containing eighteen engravings. His treatment
of the old block-book is that of a mechanic and not of an artist: the
designing, [p483] engraving and printing are of the lowest order.
He also printed the _Complaint against Death_, and the _Judgment of
Man after Death_. All were printed with the types of the _Bible of 36
lines_, and they were, apparently, his only types. [p484]
That Pfister was not a type-founder seems clearly enough established
through the fact that he did all his typographic work with only one
size and face of type. In all his books, the letters of the Latin
alphabet appear old and worn, but the _w_, _k_, and _z_, characters of
the German alphabet, are new and sharp. The types had evidently been
used before for books in Latin, but not by Pfister, for the _Bible of
the Poor_ seems to have been the only book he printed in that language.
The _Book of Fables_ bearing the date of 1461 seems the earliest of
Pfister’s books, but it was published without any explanation stating
that it was made by a new art. It may therefore be presumed that he
began to print with types before 1461. The profusion of wood-cuts in
his books is an indication that he was an engraver on wood—probably a
maker of playing cards, images, and block-books, who had profited by an
early opportunity to perceive the advantages of types. As a seller and
maker of chap-books, he would prefer the types because they explained
his pictures more cheaply than the slower process of engraving letter
by letter; but his persistent use of types which other printers would
have condemned as worn out, shows that he did not make and could not
renew them. It is not probable that a man who seems to have rated his
wretched wood-cuts as the most meritorious feature of his books could
have invented types. It is possible, however, that an image printer
of low aims and slender ability could have perceived the economical
advantages of types, and may have purchased a discarded font for the
sole purpose of printing explanations to his engravings. And this seems
the only conjecture that will explain Pfister’s ownership of the types
of the _Bible of 36 lines_.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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