Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Overview
! The Manuscript, Model for Early Printed Book ! Pages and Their Technology ! Letterforms ! Gutenberg and Moveable Type ! Fust & Schoeffer ! The Sacking of Mainz Spread of Printing ! Noted Printers of Early Printed Book ! Incunabula
Origins of Printing
Mid-15th century carving & casting of letters & characters Mechanized press to the base (paper, vellum). Units of visible language include letters, punctuation, characters, spacers) Units are assembled and reassembled to print many texts
What is Printing?
! Duplicating images onto or into base through
raised image (includes: etching, drypoint) ! Planographic: Image is flush with surface and produced through chemical process/oil vs. water
Paper Technology
! Paper, word derived from papyrus, initially created in China ! Took 7-10 centuries for West to acquire ! Brought to Spain by Moors ! Over 2 centuries, production of rag paper spread ! Technology modernized by harnessing water as energy
laid paper)
! Sizing applied to dried sheets ! Sheets hung to dry
Letterforms
Scripts to Fonts
! Scripts ! Precursors of typefaces ! Some majuscule, chiefly miniscule formshalf
uncials ! Introduced to impose homogeneity of form ! Aesthetic & harmonious rhythms, legible
Carolingian Script
Scripts to Fonts
! Gothic Script ! Narrowed round forms ! Used feet and couplings clarity between words,
Gothic Scripts
! Basis for font in Gutenbergs 42-line Bible. ! Regional Names -! Germany Textura
! Text of Gutenberg Bible
! History & Comparison of Gothic Blackletter ! Gothic Script or Blackletter History & Variations
Compared
the codex Crude? Chopping up a scroll? Forming Pages Sewing them together Codex did for writing text what alphabet did for writing articulation of the text Staged the elements of the printed book
Bound Manuscripts
! Bound Manuscripts ! Models on which printed book was designed ! Mechanical printing & hand-scripted manuscripts
were not discrete separate technologies of written expression ! Early printed book aimed to replicate manuscripts ! Letterforms of first printers, including Gutenberg, copied manuscript letterforms, pages, size, bindings
Bindings
Evolution of Formats
! Folio: One fold and 4 pages ! Quarto: Two folds and 8 pages ! Octavo: Three folds and 16 pages ! Duodecimo: 24 pages. Complicated folding One sheet is
cut or folded across its long side into thirds; one of the thirds is cut away. Then the piece of 2/3s is folded twice the other way. And then the final piece of 1/3 was folded and quired into the folded sheet. Common duodecimos were folded by removing an off-cut (one of the outer thirds).
Illustration
The Handpress
! The printing press that Gutenberg invented is known
Gutenberg
! Born in Mainz, Germany in about 1397 ! Lived in Mainz until 1428 and trained as a goldsmith ! Training to work metal gave him skill needed to cut
& Fust foreclosed, taking the printing shop & all contents.
! Fust hires craftsman, Schoeffer, to help run the press &
produce Bible
Gutenbergs Technologies
! Format: Folio ! Font Blackletter, Textura ! Ink Gutenbergs ink was new development -- oil
inches)
! Vellum copies of the Bible survive (the Bible was
today ! Buyers were ecclesiastical customers near Mainz ! Wealthy gentry the Bible was expensive
! Gutenberg was the visionary ! Fust & Schoeffer firm commercial footing ! Schoeffer reputed as technical talent & typographer
Sacking Mainz
shops.
! By 1480, the number grew to more than 400
population
centers of the Early Printed Book included: ! Paris ! Basel ! Venice ! Rome ! Nuremberg ! Bruges ! Westminster/London
Basel: Froben
Frobens work is admired for his scholarship & collaboaration with Erasmus on Biblical & theological texts Hans Holbein created illustrations One of the earliest publishers whose objective turned on scholarship of the text &, in particular, controversial Protestant texts
italic font
! Purpose of creating italic: ! Smaller lettering ! Smaller book, portable ! Enabled first technology for octavo
Nuremburg: Koberger
Koberger printed
the extraordinary Nuremberg Chronicles lavishly illustrated early printed books were created by Albrecht Durer
Some woodcuts
Bruges: Caxton
! Caxton printed first book in English in Bruges,
Belgium.
! Le Fevres, Recuyell of the Histories of Troy, issued about
1475
From: Recuyell of Histories of Troy
Westminster: Caxton
! Caxton opened a print shop in Westminster (London) ! Produced his first dated book: Dictes and Sayings of the
Philosophers
! Issued first edition of Chaucers Canterbury Tales,
1478
! Printed more than 100 books.
London: Pynson
Noted for converting blackletter to roman type. Printed Boccaccios Fall of the Princes, translated by John Lydgate Technical mastery, one of Englands greatest early printers
Incunabula
database for 15th century European printing ! Incunabula Short Title Catalogue ! Additional Resources:
! Essays on the Diffusion of Print ! The Woodcut
Thank You!
Florence M. Paisey, Fall 2011