Page:De Vinne, Invention of Printing (1876).djvu/416

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406
JOHN GUTENBERG AT MENTZ.


Pica Body.

English Body.
of the three editions have a general resemblance,[1]
Paragon Body.

Double-pica Body.
yet they differ seriously as to face and body. They were certainly cast from different matrices and adjustments of the mould,[2] and were composed by different compositors. In the edition of 30 lines, the types of the text are on a body smaller than English, and those of the large lines are on Paragon body; in the edition of 31 lines the types of the text are on English body, and those of the large lines approximate Double-pica body.
(From De la Borde.)
The types on Double-pica body are those of the Donatus of 1451 and the Bible of 36 lines; the types on Paragon body are those of the Bible of 42 lines. The appearance of these types in the Bibles is presumptive evidence that the printer of the Bibles was the printer of the Letters. The small types are unique; they were never used, so far as we know, for any other work. The large initials may have been engraved on wood, but the text and the display lines were founded

  1. The text letters are of the form known to librarians as lettres de somme, or letters of account, which may be understood as the carelessly made letters then used in books of account. The letters of the large lines are of the form known as lettres de forme, or letters of precision, the angular and carefully made letters of fine books. The lettres de somme will be defined in this book under the name of Round Gothic; the lettres de forme, under the name of Pointed Gothic.
  2. Deceived by the close fitting-up of the matrices, earlier writers said that the letters were xylographic. The comments of Dr. Van der Linde on this error are pertinent:

    .… It was thought necessary to find the wooden letters of the imagination, and hence bibliography presents the dismal spectacle that almost all monuments of the excellent invention, that fruit of a vigorous mind, of a simple, but ample and grand idea, have been declared by would-be connoisseurs one by one to be xylographic. This caused the double trouble of first making out, with much verbosity and an air of perspicuity, incontrovertibly typographical masterpieces to be wood, and then afterward putting aside this pedantry and returning to the simple truth. The origin of typography presents nowhere anything narrow-minded, worthless, or trifling, for it belongs to the grand facts of history, but trifling minds have soiled it with their own littleness. Haarlem Legend, p. 77.