could be more clearly construed, with letters in high relief, made from brass matrices. That Husner did not mean to say that his printing types were cut out of brass, is more clearly shown in the imprint of another book printed by him in 1476, in which he says, literally, that it was printed, "without doubt, with sculptured letters, scientifically begun in brass."[1]
That the cutting, so frequently mentioned by the early printers, was the cutting of punches, is apparent to every modern typographer who knows that, in the manufacture of types, punch-cutting is not only the first process in order of time, but first in order of artistic importance. That the types said to be made of brass were made in brass moulds and matrices could, in the absence of other proof, be inferred from the appearance of the books of the fifteenth century. These types often show varieties of the same letter and have other peculiarities disagreeable to modern tastes, but there is strict uniformity in each variety, and an accuracy of body which could have been secured by no other method than
- ↑ The text of the Speculum Durandi, the book of 1473, is exculptis ære litteris; the text of the Præceptorum Nideri, the book of 1476, is litteris exculptis artificiali certe conatu ex ære. The language is plain and cannot be construed to mean cut types. When these books were printed, the arts of typography and copper-plate printing were new and had not yet received distinctive names. The reading public knew nothing of the theory or practice of either process, and confounded the productions of one art with those of the other. The early printers had to define the respective arts as they best could, with words made from Latin. A close examination of the words selected by Husner will show their propriety. The word exculptis, sculptured, or cut out in high relief, is here used in contradistinction to inculptis, sculptured in, or cut in, as in an engraving on copper-plate. It defines typographic work from copper-plate printing. The phrase artificiali certe conatu ex ære, means something more than skillful engraving; it suggests the use of mechanism, and of a beginning of the work in brass, which can be clearly understood only by construing ex ære, from or in a brass mould, The phrase here translated in brass has been rendered of brass, but the language will not bear this construction. The phrase ex ære, in, or out of, or from brass, was frequently used by many early printers. I have rarely met the form æris, of brass. To represent that early types were of brass is as much a violation of history as it is of grammar.
