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 3 I am assuming that Johann Gutenberg of strassburg was the inventor of movable types, and that John Fust, a goldsmith and rich burgher of Mainz, assisted him with money, the two jointly printing the Mazarin Bible. It is conjectured that the metal types used by the early printers were cut by goldsmiths, & hence it is easy to conclude that Fust's skill as well as his money contributed to Gutenberg's service. Their type was modeled on the familiar manuscript hand of the time. The Bible bears no date, but in the copy of it preserved in Paris the rubricator's inscription shows that it was completed before August 15th, 1456. The type is known to have been in existence in 1454, and it is not likely that it was cut before 1450, the date Gutenberg entered into partnership with Fust. Printing did not spread rapidly for many years after its birth. In 1462 there was one shop at Mainz under Fust & Schoeffer, and possibly Gutenberg was still working there, too; Pfister was at Bamberg, Mentelin & Eggestein were at Strassburg; these four were all. After the sack of Mainz, Ulrich Zel established a press at Cologne, and gradually printing spread throughout Europe. We come now to the first radical improvement in the printing art, the beginning of the roman type character, in 1465. It was then that Sweynheim & Pannartz began printing in the monastery of Subiaco near Rome. Theirs was the first press established in Italy, and the first book printed in that country was Cicero's De Oratore. The type used was neither black-letter nor roman, but a type that was black-letter in color but nearly roman in form. Their type shows plainly an unconscious leaning of its designer toward the mannerisms of the Gothic black-letter, the only form of letter used until these printers established their press. This transitional type, then, marks the beginning of the roman type form; it is the prototype from which all other roman types are descended, and for that reason is extremely interesting, & furthermore, it presents a valuable pattern for radical departure. Exactly as the designer of this type used the Gothic letter with which he was familiar and created a new form, so should we, in creating our new forms, make use of the letters of the great periods as a source of inspiration. Continue to page 4 |
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 |