A history of alphabets from around the world
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A history of alphabets from around the world | |
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The Alphabet and Elements of Lettering by Frederic W. Goudy Chapter 8: The Beginnings of Types, page 2 The first attempt at economy in production was the reducing of white space between lines & words, and the neglect to paragraph; next, the reduction in sizes of types. Jenson, Ratdolt, & Renner had put black-letter on small bodies, but there had been no attempt to crowd the round-faced roman into smaller space. Aldus found that his beautiful books in large types and broad margins were unsalable. To get buyers he must make smaller and cheaper books and make smaller types for them. Type shaped itself, we might say, accidentally. At first, it was based on manuscript forms, probably with the intention of deceiving readers into the idea that the printed books were manuscript; whether that was the intention or not, it was the only way to make books readable to eyes accustomed only to manuscript pages. In a short time it became apparent that the considerations which controlled the scribe no longer concerned the printer. He discovered that one shape was as easy to print as another, & this discovery brought about an attempt at a revision of the alphabet in the direction of greater legibility. At first, thought was given to beauty of form as well, but later attempts to bring letters into a given space by compression or reduction to meet the exigencies of printing did not necessarily satisfy the true ends of art. The styles of the early types were not invented by the punch cutter; usually he was directed by the printer to imitate the letters of sonle preferred manuscript as closely as he could. We of today have been reared on print, with all its mechanical smoothness and precision. We have little, if any, ideal of lettering, and little feeling for the charm of character and individuality that only hand work gives. No one can look at an early printed book with-out feeling the beauty of the type page, for the old printers' types were inspired by the letters of the handwritten books, & with these for models they played endless variations on the alphabet, while our present types in the main are absolutely monotonous, with no artistic flavor or thoughtfulness. The first types were Gothic, & the earliest specimen of printing to bear an authentic date is the Letter of Indulgence issued by Pope Nicholas V to the King of Cyprus in his war with the Turks, printed at Mainz in 1454, and now preserved at The Hague. It consists of a single sheet of vellum, measuring 11 by 7 inches, & is printed on one side only. Some of it is in the same type as that used in the Mazarin Bible, and as it was issued from the press at Mainz, it is reasonable to imagine it was printed by Gutenberg. The first book to bear a printed date is the Schoeffer Codex of 1457. Continue to page 3 |
The Alphabet and Elements of Lettering by Frederic W. Goudy Introduction What Letters Are Letters in General The Development of the Roman Capital Letters Before Printing The National Hands The Development of Gothic The Beginnings of Types The Qualities of Lettering Some Practical Considerations Notes on the Plates |