< Page:De Vinne, Invention of Printing (1876).djvu
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XV


The Works and Workmanship of an Unknown Printer.


The Speculum not the Work of an Experimenter … Improbable that this was his only Typographic Book … Twelve Books, Eight Faces of Types and Forty-two Editions attributed to him or his Successors … Hessel's Classification of these Types … Fac-simile of the Types of the Speculum. Fac-simile of the Fables of Lorenzo Valla … Fac-simile of the Peculiarities of Criminal Law. Fac-simile of the Epitaphs of Pope Pius II … The Donatus … Fac-simile of the Abecedarium. The Eight Faces of Types were made by the same Printer … An Indication that he Wore out Types rapidly … That he Sold many Books … Trivial Character of the Books … His Types not Made of Wood … Illustrations of Types of Wood … Their Impracticability Demonstrated … Books not made from Cut Types … Cause of the Dissimilar Appearance of the Types … Were Founded. The Press of the Unknown Printer … Its Defects … Indications of the Use of a Frisket.
If any shall suggest, that some of the Enquiries here insisted upon (as particularly those about the Letters of the Alphabet) do seem too minute and trivial for any prudent man to bestow his serious thoughts and time about, such persons may know that the discovery of the true nature and cause of any the most minute thing both promote real knowledge, and therefore cannot be unfit for and Man's endeavours.

Bishop Wilkins, 1668.⁠


If the printer of the Speculum was the rightful inventor of typography, his workmanship, as shown in the different editions of the book, clearly proves that he had passed the shoals of experiment, and was on the broad sea of successful practice. We can see, even without the help of the legends or chronicles, that he cut punches, made moulds and founded types of different faces and bodies; that he compounded ink in a proper manner, and printed his types upon a press constructed for the needs of his work; that he was successful both as a publisher and a printer. He practised printing not for amusement, nor in the way of scientific experiment, but as a business. Rude as his workmanship may appear, it fairly included all departments of the art: it was not experimental, but practical typography.

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