The Printed Book: Its History, Illustration and Adornment: From the Days of Gutenberg to the Present TimeBouchot, Henri
History
The Printed Book: Its History, Illustration and Adornment: From the Days of Gutenberg to the Present Time
Bouchot, Henri
Bookbinding -- History; Books; Books -- History; Illustration of books; Printing -- History
All these remarks show that the printers did not proclaim themselves,
and were making pseudo-manuscripts. They did not make known their names
or address. The rubricators sided with them, for many of the copies are
illuminated with as much care and beauty as if they were the finest
manuscripts.
There is no record extant of the number of copies printed, but it was
done on both vellum and paper. Copies are by no means uncommon, most of
the great libraries having one, and many are in private collections. One
is shown among the typographical monuments in the King's Library of the
British Museum, and there is a finely illuminated copy in the show-room
of the Bibliothèque Nationale. From its very great importance as the
first book that is known to have been printed, its value has a constant
increase. Of the copies recently sold, one at the Perkins sale in 1873
on vellum sold for £3,400, another on paper at the same sale fetched
£2,900, while one on paper in the Syston Park Library sold in December,
1884, for £3,900. It has been asserted that the copies on paper were the
first issued by Gutenberg and his partners, and those on vellum
subsequently printed by Fust and Schoeffer, after they had obtained
possession of the inventor's stock.
But so many copies absolutely similar in aspect, and of so regular a
style, put in the market from day to day by Fust and Schoeffer, gave
rise to protests from the caligraphists. Criticism always attends upon
success, but having obtained the result, the two associates did not
hesitate to proclaim themselves the printers of the Bible. On the
publication of the Psalter, which followed the Bible at a year's
interval, they gave their names and added a date, 1457, the first
instance of a date being recorded in a book. This second work was of so
skilful a typography, that it might have been shown as the work of an
expert penman; the faults remarked in the letters of indulgence are no
longer seen; type had attained perfection; in two years printing had
reached its culminating point.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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