Triumphs of Invention and Discovery in Art and Science. Fyfe James Hamilton

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СКАЧАТЬ within about fifty miles of the city of Augsburg – the convent of Buxheim, near Memmingen. It was pasted on the inside of the right hand cover of a manuscript entitled Laus Virginis, and measures eleven and a quarter inches in height, by eight and one-eighth inches in width.

      The following description of it by Jackson is interesting: —

      "To the left of the engraving the artist has introduced, with a noble disregard of perspective, what Bewick would have called a 'bit of nature.' In the foreground a figure is seen driving an ass loaded with a sack towards a water-mill; while by a steep path a figure, perhaps intended for the miller, is seen carrying a full sack from the back-door of the mill towards a cottage. To the right is seen a hermit – known by the bell over the entrance to his dwelling – holding a large lantern to direct St. Christopher as he crosses the stream. The couplet at the foot of the cut, —

      'Cristofori faciem die quacunque tueris,

      Illa nempe die morte mala non morieris,'

      may be translated as follows, —

      Each day that thou the image of St. Christopher shall see,

      That day no frightful form of death shall chance to fall on thee.

      These lines allude to a superstition, once popular in all Catholic countries, that on the day they saw a figure or image of St. Christopher, they would be safe from a violent death, or from death unabsolved and unconfessed."

      Passing over some other woodcuts of great antiquity, in all of which the figures are accompanied by engraved letters, we come to the block books proper. Of these, the most famous are called, the Apocalypsis, seu Historia Sancti Johannis (the "Apocalypse, or History of St. John"); the Historia Virginis ex Cantico Canticorum ("Story of the Virgin, from the Song of Songs"); and the Biblia Pauperum ("Bible of the Poor"). The first is a history, pictorial and literal, of the life and revelations of St. John the Evangelist, partly derived from the book of Revelation, and partly from ecclesiastical tradition. The second is a similar biography of the Virgin Mary, as it is supposed to be typified in the Song of Solomon; and the third consists of subjects representing many of the most important passages in the Old and New Testaments, with texts to illustrate the subject, or clinch the lesson of duty it may shadow forth.

      With respect to the engraving, we are told that the cuts are executed in the simplest manner, as there is not the least attempt at shading, by means of cross lines or hatchings, to be detected in any one of the designs. The most difficult part of the engraver's task, says Jackson, supposing the drawing to have been made by another person, would be the cutting of the letters, which, in several of the subjects, must have occupied a considerable portion of time, and have demanded no small degree of perseverance, care, and skill.

      These block books were followed by others in which no illustrations appeared, but in which the entire page was occupied with text. The Grammatical Primer, called the "Donatus," from the name of its supposed compiler, was thus printed, or engraved, enabling copies of it to be multiplied at a much cheaper rate than they could be produced in manuscript.

      And thus we see that the art of printing – or, more correctly speaking, engraving on wood – has advanced from the production of a single figure, with merely a few words beneath it, to the impression of whole pages of text. Next, for the engraved page were to be substituted movable letters of metal, wedged together within an iron frame; and impressions, instead of being obtained by the slow and tedious process of friction, were to be secured by the swift and powerful action of the press.

      About the year 1400, John Gænsfleisch, or Gutenberg, was born at Mentz. He sprung from an honourable family, and it is said that he himself was by birth a knight. He seems to have been a person of some property.

      About 1434 we find him living in Strasburg, and, in partnership with a certain Andrew Drytzcher, endeavouring to perfect the art of typography. How he was induced to direct his attention towards this object, and under what circumstances he began his experiments, it is impossible to say; but there can be no doubt that he was the first person who conceived the idea of movable types– an idea which is the very foundation of the art of printing.

      An old German chronicler furnishes the following account of the early stages of the great printer's discovery: —

      "At this time (about 1438), in the city of Mentz, on the Rhine, in Germany, and not in Italy as some persons have erroneously written, that wonderful and then unheard-of art of printing and characterizing books was invented and devised by John Gutenberger, citizen of Mentz, who, having expended most of his property in the invention of this art, on account of the difficulties which he experienced on all sides, was about to abandon it altogether; when, by the advice and through the means of John Fust, likewise a citizen of Mentz, he succeeded in bringing it to perfection. At first they formed or engraved the characters or letters in written order on blocks of wood, and in this manner they printed the vocabulary called a 'Catholicon.' But with these forms or blocks they could print nothing else, because the characters could not be transposed in these tablets, but were engraved thereon, as we have said. To this invention succeeded a more subtle one, for they found out the means of cutting the forms of all the letters of the alphabet, which they called matrices, from which again they cast characters of copper or tin of sufficient hardness to resist the necessary pressure, which they had before engraved by hand."

      This is a very brief and summary account of a great invention. By comparison of other authorities we are enabled to bring together a far greater number of details, though we must acknowledge that many of these have little foundation but in tradition or romance.

      Let us, therefore, take a peep at the first printer, working in seclusion and solitude in the old historic city of Strasburg, and endeavouring to elaborate in practice the grand idea which has been conceived and matured by his energetic brain. Doubtlessly he knew not the full importance of this idea, or of how great a social and religious revolution it was to be the seed, and yet we cannot believe that he was altogether unconscious of its value to future generations.

      Shutting himself up in his own room, seeing no one, rarely crossing the threshold, allowing himself hardly any repose, he set himself to work out the plan he had formed. With a knife and some pieces of wood he constructed a set of movable types, on one face of each of which a letter of the alphabet was carved in relief, and which were strung together, in the order of words and sentences, upon a piece of wire. By means of these he succeeded in producing upon parchment a very satisfactory impression.

      To be out of the way of prying eyes, he took up his quarters in the ruins of the old monastery of St. Arbogaste, outside the town, which had long been abandoned by the monks to the rats and beggars of the neighbourhood; and the better to mask his designs, as well as to procure the funds necessary for his experiments, he set up as a sort of artificer in jewellery and metal-work, setting and polishing precious stones, and preparing Venetian glass for mirrors, which he afterwards mounted in frames of metal and carved wood. These avowed labours he openly practised, along with a couple of assistants, in a public part of the monastery; but in the depths of the cloisters, in a dark secluded spot, he fitted up a little cell as the atelier of his secret operations; and there, secured by bolts and bars, and a thick oaken door, against the intrusion of any one who might penetrate so far into the interior of the ruins, he applied himself to his great work. He quickly perceived, as a man of his inventiveness was sure to perceive, the superiority of letters of metal over those of wood. He invented various coloured inks, at once oily and dry, for printing with; brushes and rollers for transferring the ink to the face of the types; "forms," or cases, for keeping together the types arranged in pages; and a press for bringing the inked types and the paper in contact.

      Day and night, whenever he could spare an instant from his professed occupations, he devoted himself to the development of his great design. At night he could hardly sleep for thinking of it, and his hasty snatches of slumber were disturbed by agitating СКАЧАТЬ