A short history of the printed word by Warren Chappell

Published by Knopf

Epigraph: Littera script Manet (Horace, The written word remains)

Notes

I need to read Printing Types by Daniel Updike

What prevented the invention of the printed book?

• Paper was not available in Europe until the 13th century.
• Efforts on the part of calligraphers and illuminators to resist duplication
• Lack of demand from an educated market

Earliest use of wood blocks in Europe were to produce images of saints Playing cards were also an early application

Block books were produced in Gutenberg’s time and were economical into 16th century. There was a single block per page.

A man called Tsai Lun invented paper in China in 2nd century

The first paper mill was in Spain in 1085. The moors were the ones who dispersed the technology

Gutenberg was born in Mainz in 1394. Died 1468

• He was a gold smith
• He made his bible over decades
• He used 290+ character designs to produce the ligatures which imitated calligraphy

There is possibly a Dutch Gutenberg called Laurens Janszom Coster

Three fundamental methods of printing

• Letterpress (raised, ink sits on top)
• Intaglio (depressed, ink sits in grooves)
• Planographic (flat, ink is attracted chemically to design)

Look up Roman fonts of Da Spiras, though used in 1470 are completely recognisable.

Early works on letter forms:

1509, Venice, Luca Pacioli’s De Divina Proportione 1525, Durer’s Underweysung der Messung, 1529, Tory’s Champfleury in France

John Symonds mentions these people in his ode to renaissance scholarship

• Nicolas V, who formed Vatican library in 1453
• Poggio Bracciolini who collected manuscripts across Europe
• Ficino, scholar of classics
• Poliziano, scholar of classics
• Aldus Manutius, printer
• Henricus Stephanus, printer

William Morris, founder of the Kelmscott Press Emery Walker Sydney Cockerell

They were part of this wave of medievalism, of which one ought to include the pre-Raphaelites and the art nouveau movement

Classic roman typographic model comes from Trajan’s column 114AD.

G Y and Z were roman additions to the 20 letters of Greek.

U W and J were added to latin after Trajan. Now we have 26!

Greeks started writing in the 9th century BC

Jenson was another early punch cutter, active in the 1470s and 80s. He was a mint master at Tours.

Vocabulary

Lapidary - related to stone and gems, from latin Lapid, meaning stone

Incunabulae - printed works from the first century of printing. Comes from Latin cunae, meaning cradle.

Investigate

Look up Erasmus’ book on the art of letter writing

Look up Albrecht Durer’s Unterweysung der Messung

Find copy of Aventur & Kunst by Konrad Bauer, which contains 500 examples of fine printing across 500 years.

Read more John Symonds who wrote the Renaissance in Italy in 1875. I really liked his passage.

The NY Times used to have a typographic museum. Does it still exist?

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Published November 21, 2018 in Reading notes