FIFTEENTH CENTURY.
127
In 1486, King Henry VII. after his coronation, made .a proirTess to the north, with a large at- tendance of nobility. Three miles from York the king, in a gown of cloth of gold, furred with ennine, was leceired by the sheriffs and citizens with their recorder, who welcomed him with a speech. Half a mile without the gate he was lecdred by processions of friars and dignified clergy, who, with an immense multitude, at- ten£d him to the gate of the city, where was a pageant of divers persons and minstrelsy, and thereby stood a crowned king, by name Ebra- neus, who had a verified speech. At the hither end of ' House Brigge ' was another pageant, gar> Dished with ships and boats, and Solomon in his habit royally clothed, had another speech. At the turning into ' Conyenx-street' there was a pageant of the Assumption of our Lady, with her speech. At the cud of 'Conyeux-street' was another stage with a pag^eant, wherein stood King Dand, armed and crowned, with a naked sword in bis hand, also making a speech. In divers parts of the city were hung tapestry and other cloths, and galleries from one side of the street over athwart to the other, with casting out of sweet cakes, wafers, and comfits, in quanti^ like hailstones, for joy and rejoicing at the king's coming.
On the 25th of November next year, 1487, ElizabeA, Queen to Henry VII. departed from Greenwich by water, to her coronation. She was attended by uie city authorities and company in their barges, richly decorated, but especially a barge caUed the bachelors' barge, was garnished passing all the rest, with a great red dragon, spouting flames of fire into the Thames, and many other ' gentlemanlie' pageants curiously devised to do her highness sport; and so attended, she was landed at the tower, where she slept. On the morrow her progress through the city to Westminster was magnificiently welcomedf by ^nging children, some arrayed like angels, and others like virgins, to sing sweet songs as she passed along.*
1466. The learned John Bemler introduced the art of printing into the imperial city of Aus- bmgh ; but the only two books that are known to have l^en printed by him, are the Latin Bible, in folio ; and his translation of Nack's Summa Pmeipuontm Capilum Fidef Christiana, out of Latin into High Dutch, printed in 1472. There •ere in Ausburgh five other eminent persons, who, though they did not begin so early as John Btmler, yet printed many learned works : most of these printers being either citizens, or natives of Aosburgh, might, in all probability, learn the artfrom him.
1466. Printing introduced at the town of Jieutlingen, in the duchy of Wirtemberg, by John of Amerbacb, who published there a Latin bible in folio. This John Amerbacb has, by some, been confounded with the learned John Amerbach, of Basil.
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1466. Printing introduced into Rome by Conrad Sweynheim, and Arnold Pannartz, two Germans, in the second year of the pontificate of Paul II. under the patronage of John An- dreas, bishop of Aleria, who was the pope's li- braiian, and justly famed for his learning and generosity. They had previously exercised the art in themonastary of Subbiaco, in the kingdom of Naples, to which they had been invited by the monks; and where they had printed, in 1465, an edition of Lactantius's works, in which the quo- tations from the Greek authors are printed m a neat, but heavy Greek letter, of which a speci- men is given in Home's/n(ro<{ttc(ton to the Study of Bibliography, vol. I. They also were the first to introduce what has since been called the Roman character, instead of the gothic, or black letter. The paper and types made use of by these printers were both excellent, and their ink, it is observed, " may vie in blackness with the best of the present day." They were encourag- ed by all the men of letters and fortune at Rome, and even by the pope himself, who visited their printing-house, and examined, with admiration, every branch of this new art Thebishop of Aleria especially, not only furnished them with the most valuable manuscripts out of the Vatican and other libraries, but also prepared the copy, cor- rected their proofs, and prefixed dedications and prefaces to their works, in order to recommend them the more to the learned world, and follow- ed this laborious task with such application, that he scarcely allowed himself time for necessary relaxation. These printers settled in the house of the Maximis, brothers, and Roman knights, from whence their works are dated. In 1471, they published a Latin bible in 2 vols. fol. with an Epittle of the bishop of Aleria to Pope Paul III., Aristeas's Hittory of the Septuagtnt, and Jerom's Prefaces to the different books of the Old and New Testament. As this edition varies in several places from former editions, it is pro- bable the bishop of Aleria furnished the printers with a more correct manuscript copy from the library of the pope, or from some other source, or at least corrected the Mentz edition by such manuscript. Of this edition they printed 550 copies. In the same year they commenced an edition of the Postills of Le Lyra, in 5 vols. fol. which they completed the following year. This ponderous work seems to have ruined these inde- fatigable artists, for in a Latin petition of the printers to the pope, Sixtus IV. written by the bishop of Aleria, and prefixed to the fifth volume of De Lyra's Postilrs, or Commentary, they state themselves to be reduced to poverty, by the pressure of the times, and the vast expense of the works they had printed, of which great numbers remained unsold. In the course of seven years, they had published twenty-eight different works, some of them very large; the impressions of which amounted to 12,475 volumes, an immense number at that period! It is evident, however, that some method must have been taken to extricate them from their distress; for although Sweynheim published nothing after the year
