Encyclopedia | Library | Reference | Teaching | General | Links | About ORB | HOME


ORB Online Encyclopedia

Books and Universities

Medieval and Renaissance Book Production - Printed Books

Richard W. Clement



To return to Part 1, CLICK HERE.

To return to ORB: Books and Universities, CLICK HERE.


II. The Printed Book

As the fifteenth century progressed, so too increased the pressure on the book trade to produce ever larger quantities of books. The traditional scriptoria and ateliers were hard pressed to meet the demand. Indeed many monastic scriptoria, long dormant, found renewed life in meeting the growing demand for books. This renewal was stimulated, in part, by the ardent conviction of the importance of books and reading, and thus copying, by the Brethren of the Common Life, the Sisters of the Common Life, the Windesheim Congregation, and others.[40] Spurred on by recent reforms, many ancient Benedictine houses reestablished or greatly expanded their scriptoria. Yet even so, demand still exceeded production. The time could not have been more propitious for the introduction of a mechanical means of mass producing books.

There can be little doubt that Johann Gutenberg was the inventor, not so much of the printing press, but of the manufacture of movable type.[41] That was the key invention: the others--such as the press or the special ink--were subsidiary. The press, in the form of the common screw press used to press water from newly made paper or oil from olives, had been in existence for centuries. Printer's ink, even though a subsidiary invention, was a completely new development.[42] Unlike ink applied with the pen, printing ink had to be highly viscous, rather like a thick paste. It was made from lampblack and varnish.

Gutenberg was born into a patrician family sometime in the final decade of the fourteenth century.[43] type castingIn the 1430s and '40s we know that he was carrying on secret and expensive experiments in Strassburg which we may suppose involved typecasting and printing, but in 1448 he returned to his native Mainz. He was ready to make his first full-scale attempt at printing, but required money. This was loaned by a banker, Johann Fust, in 1450, but Gutenberg had to pledge his equipment. In designing the type, he had the assistance of a Paris educated scribe, Peter Schoeffer. The font of type designed and cut by Schoeffer and Gutenberg turned out to be too large for the projected Bible. It would allow too few lines of type per page and thus require a vast expenditure in paper and vellum. Unfortunately the capital supplied by Fust had been exhausted in the preparation of the abortive first font (subsequently known as the B36 font as it was used in the 36 line Bible printed by Gutenberg in 1458) and a second loan was required in 1452. This time, though, Fust insisted that he be made Gutenberg's partner. He sensed that the new invention had the potential to be very profitable. The partnership was formed specifically to produce the Bible and not as a general publishing venture. To this end, Gutenberg and Schoeffer produced what we know as the B42 type (because the Bible was set in 42 lines per page). This is the type which was used in the so-called Gutenberg or Mazarine Bible. When the Bible was complete in 1455, Fust dissolved the partnership, in part because Gutenberg had been printing a number of small items and works on the side, and sued Gutenberg to recover his loan and interest. Gutenberg lost the B42 type and part of the equipment, but retained the older and larger B36 type and the rest of the equipment. Peter Schoeffer first became Fust's foreman, then his partner, and finally his son-in-law, and so founded the first great publishing firm, that of Fust and Schoeffer.

Gutenberg limped along for a couple of years, publishing small but popular items such as calendars, but by 1458 he was able once again to print a Bible, the 36-line Bible. In 1460, possibly in Bamberg, he attempted to solve the problem of reprints and standing type. The nature of printing requires that type be distributed back into the type cases periodically so that new pages can be set; no printer had enough type to set a whole book without reusing it many times over. It would have been prohibitively expensive to leave a whole book in standing type over the years so that it might be reprinted when necessary. What Gutenberg did was to cast his type, not in single letters, but in two-line slugs, that is, in two lines of text in one piece of metal.[44] He tried this with a popular encyclopedia of the day, the Catholicon, containing over 700 pages. It must have taken an immense amount of metal. Yet it was a good choice as it was reprinted from the slugs in 1469 and 1472 by Gutenberg's heir, Dr. Humery, who no doubt reaped a great profit. Gutenberg's second invention, the two-line slugs, was stillborn, and indeed was never even discovered until 1982.

To print, one must have type.[45] The first step is to make a punch, a steel rod on the end of which is cut a relief pattern of each letter. The punch was then hammered into a small block of copper, called a matrix. The matrix fitted into the bottom of the mould, a steel box made in two parts and clad in wood for insulation. The typecaster held the mould in his right hand and poured liquid metal into it with his left, instantly giving the mould an upward jerk to force the metal all the way to the bottom of the matrix. Releasing a spring, the piece of type (called a sort) fell out and he repeated the process. A good typecaster could produce about 4,000 sorts in a day.

The first stage in printing is composition. When the printer had decided on a text to print, it was necessary to cast off the copy. He had to determine how many pages the work would take, how many lines per page, and so forth. This was also essential for determining the amount of paper to order. We occasionally find marks in manuscripts left by printers as they marked up copy for the compositor. The compositor, with his copy before him, began to set the text in type. The type was traditionally kept in two cases: capitals were kept in the upper case and the minuscule letters were kept in the lower case. The compositor reached into the appropriate case and assembled a line of text in a composing stick, a small adjustable tray that could accommodate several lines of type. So as to justify the line he would alter spelling, abbreviate words, or adjust the spaces between words. Once the stick was full, he would transfer its contents to a galley tray in which the page would be built up. After the page was complete, additional items might be added, such as running heads, folio numbers, catchwords, or signature marks. Signature marks were necessary because in the binding process it was essential to identify the order of the sheets, and on each sheet the order for folding. The gathering, a quire in manuscripts, is called a signature in printed books.

The next stage is imposition. The compositor took the pages and arranged them on a large flat stone, known as the imposing stone. By means of the signatures, catchwords, and folio numbers, he arranged the pages in the appropriate order. The pages of type were surrounded by the chase, a rectangular wooden frame. Wooden blocks, called furniture, were used to fill in the empty space, and wedges of wood, known as quoins, were used to lock in the type and furniture and make it secure. The finished product is called the forme. If there is one page in the forme the result will be a broadside (which is only printed on one side); two pages will produce a folio; four a quarto; eight an octavo, and so forth.

Illustration and decoration in printed books generally was achieved by the use of woodcut blocks that could be locked into the forme together with the type and printed in the same process.[46] Though woodcut blocks, and the prints made from them, had commonly circulated before the invention of printing, it was the use of such blocks in printing that created a huge demand for the services of woodcutters. In creating a block, the cutter first drew the design in reverse, or pasted a drawing of it, directly on the block. The block was typically made of a plank, a piece sawn with the grain and planed down from a tree of fairly soft wood such as sycamore, beech, apple, or pear. Those spaces that were to remain blank were cut away with a knife or a burin which left the lines or spaces that would be inked in relief. The block thus functioned in the same manner as type: the relief surface received the ink and produced a reverse (i.e. correct) black-line image on the paper. A small proportion of these relief images were cut on metal, the most common being dotted in the manière criblée, which is a white-line cuts in which the relief forms the background. A black-line version of the manière criblée was commonly used in early French printed Books of Hours.[47]

The pressman next pulled a proof sheet from the forme. common pressThis was turned over to the corrector and his reader. The reader read the original copy while the corrector followed along on the proof sheet to ensure that the text was correct. The process was often repeated with one of the first sheets from the press run. Inevitably there were corrections to be made. As the printing run continued, corrections continued to be made to the forme. This has, of course, created many intricate and interesting problems for bibliographers. It is said that because of these innumerable continuous changes, no single copy of an early printed edition is identical with any other.

The next stage is the actual presswork.[48] It was first necessary to undergo the process known as make ready. This consisted of making register, that is, laying the first forme relative to the bed of the press and the press points (which hold the paper) so that when the paper was printed on one side, turned over, and replaced on the points, the pages of the second forme would fall square on the backs of the first. Then the tympan sheet was fixed, that is, pasting a sheet of paper to the face of the tympan where it served as a guide to positioning the sheets on the tympan during the printing of the first forme. And then the tympan was finished, which consisted of wetting the tympan parchment and packing in a folded woolen blanket between the outer and inner tympan. Next the frisket was prepared by covering it, pulling an impression of the forme, and then cutting out the printed areas. Finally the forme was checked for any odd pieces of loose type lying on it.

The paper had to be prepared the day before. Several piles of about 250 sheets each were set out. The paper was wetted and allowed to stand overnight. It was necessary to use damp paper because there was not enough power in the common screw press to force dry paper to evenly take the ink. Damp paper, however, would readily and evenly take the ink.

The actual printing process involved two pressmen. One applied ink to the type, and the other pulled the bar and worked the paper. It was common that they would take turns, as pulling the bar required great exertion. The ink was applied to the forme by the use of ink balls. These were made of leather pads, mounted in wooden cups and handles, and stuffed with wool or horsehair. They were covered with a removable sheepskin pelt. A pair of balls were inked and then were moved over the forme in a rocking motion so as to spread the ink evenly over the type. The other pressman took a sheet of paper and laid it on the tympan; he then folded down the frisket, and then folded down the tympan, paper, and frisket together onto the forme. He took the handle of the windlass, called the rounce, and cranked the forme under the platen, and pulled the bar toward him, thus turning the screw and drawing the platen down and forcing the paper against the inked forme. Because the size of the platen was limited, it was only possible to print half a forme at a pull. The pressman cranked the rounce again so that the second half of the forme was under the platen and pulled the bar once again. Thus it took two pulls to print one forme. He then cranked the carriage out from under the platen. In a single flowing movement, he raised the tympan and frisket and removed the paper. This process took about fifteen seconds. press roomThe two pressmen could print about 250 sheets in one hour. Naturally the sheets would have to be printed on the other side before they were finished-- a process known as perfecting. It was important that this was done right away, because the damp paper might begin to dry out and shrink, or it could change shape if it had to be re-wet. It was essential that the textual frame printed on one side match that printed on the other side and so achieve proper register. Finally it was the compositor's job to clean the ink off the formes, to unlock the type, and to distribute it into the cases.

The finished sheets were sent to a drying room and were hung up in gatherings of one or two dozen to dry. After drying they were piled into heaps. Then on a long table, they were ordered by signatures. Finally, they were folded once, pressed, and baled up for delivery or storage.

The final stage in book production is binding.[49] Binding usually took place after the book was purchased. It was initiated by the owner of the book, often far from where it was originally copied or printed. In many instances, especially with printed books, the rubrication, decoration, and illumination were likewise initiated after the book was purchased. In any case, the sheets or quires having been delivered, the binder would make sure they were properly assembled and ordered. The gatherings were placed in a sewing frame and attached with linen thread to several leather thongs, flat or twisted strips of vellum, or cords, known generally as bands once they had been sewn to the textblock, which give medieval and Renaissance books their characteristic "ribbed" look. In the Middle Ages, the sewing of the headband was part of the whole sewing process, but in the Renaissance it became a separate step as the headband became more decorative and less functional. A binder might supply a bifolium, of vellum or paper, which would serve as a pastedown and a free endpaper, or he might supply several bifolia that functioned as flyleaves. The book might be soft- or hardbound. A softbound book was usually covered in vellum or parchment, though stiffened leather was also used. The bands, to which the quires of the textblock were attached, were laced through several slits in the cover and tied or fastened. This provided a lightweight yet durable binding even for large volumes. A hardbound book was bound in stout boards in the medieval period, or perhaps pasteboard in the Renaissance, and covered in leather, pigskin, or the like. The boards were attached to the textblock by running the bands through small holes bored in the beveled hinge edge of the boards and then fastening them on the inside with wedges, or, if they came through to the outside, with pegs. For the medieval period, the boards were made flush with the textblock as books were stored on their sides, but as books came to be stored upright, binders extended the boards to protect the textblock. As a protective measure for books laid flat, medieval binders added metal bosses to the covers and metal corners. Titles were written on the fore-edges and not the spines, and covers were usually held together with metal clasps. The covers might be decorated with simple tooling, or more detailed panel stamping, or even elaborate metalwork laden with jewels. Yet most ordinary medieval books had only modest bindings with little decoration, and indeed many books had no bindings at all beyond a protective piece of parchment that wrapped around the quires of the book and might, or might not, be loosely attached. We must remember that the nature and elaborateness of a binding was directly related to an owner's willingness to pay for it.

Given the great demand for books in the middle of the fifteenth century, it is not surprising that the art of printing spread rapidly despite any efforts Peter Schoeffer may have made to swear his workman to silence. There is some evidence that Gutenberg may have moved his press, following the breakup of the partnership, to Bamberg, but in any case printing was under way in Strassburg in 1460, in Cologne in 1465, in Basel in 1468 and continued to spread up and down the Rhine valley as former journeymen of Gutenberg and Schoeffer set up their own presses. Two intrepid Germans, Conrad Sweynheym and Arnold Pannartz, crossed the Alps in 1464 and introduced printing to Italy in Subiaco and then Rome. Many others followed. By the 1470s presses were functioning in most of the countries of western Europe, and by the end of the century every major city in Europe could boast of at least one printing establishment. Though the appearance of books changed little in the transition from manuscript to printed book, the trade itself was radically transformed. Naturally many scribes were no longer needed for book production and some became printers. Those who specialized in decoration, illumination, or painting continued to find employment for some time as such treatment continued to be applied to some printed books into the next century. However, there was still ample opportunity for former book scribes to find employment in chanceries and as notaries and in the large mercantile establishments, especially in Italy, and the image of the sudden demise of scribal culture at the hands of the printers is greatly exaggerated.[50] The early printers more than met the current demand for books. In fact, they produced far more copies than could be sold and prices plummeted, a printed book costing perhaps 20% or less of what it would cost to produce an equivalent manuscript. Though in real terms books remained expensive objects. Such quantities of books made possible the independent bookseller (as distinct from the stationer who had a hand in production). The trade became speculative and capitalistic as the volume of production kept increasing, and it was only natural that printers and publishers came to be concentrated in commercial centers, the primary one being Venice. Thus books printed and published in Venice could be marketed to booksellers throughout Europe by utilizing established trade routes. Likewise other commercial centers, such as Paris or Lyon, flourished as regional centers for book production, but, on the other hand, printers who had settled into the smaller provincial cities and towns found their markets limited and their ability to compete diminished. The production of books had become a modern business.

From the first, printed books were little different in appearance from manuscript books. Certainly the type fonts were modeled on the local scripts in common use, or the scripts appropriate for certain types of books, such as law books or service books. Signatures, foliation, and catchwords were all used in manuscripts before they were taken up in printed books. So too was the apparatus common to learned books.

There were, however, several developments which printing did stimulate.[51] The first was the register. In one way this was similar to the tabula rubricarum (which was a table that served as a guide for the rubricator) because it could also serve to indicate the completeness of a book. The tabula was in fact the forerunner of the table of contents, and this indeed is what a register is in German books. (Although it should be pointed out that tables of contents are found in many manuscripts, some very early.) The true register is a summary of the signatures of a book. It seems to have been an Italian invention of about 1470, and it took several forms. The usual early form was to arrange the catchwords in vertical columns and the beginning of each gathering was indicated by a blank line. Subsequently letters of the alphabet were added to designate the gatherings. Around 1480 the catchwords were omitted and the signatures were described in terms of the number of sheets. Finally at the end of the century we find only a list of signatures and an indication of format. The register served two functions: it informed the binder as to the particulars of a book's structure, and it enabled a buyer to determine the completeness of his potential purchase.

The printer's mark or device was another development. It was not uncommon for a scribe to sign his name in a fifteenth-century manuscript, but the use of a mark was more particularly suited to the press. These woodblock designs acted as trademarks which informed a prospective buyer at a glance that a book was the product of a known publisher. Fust and Schoeffer used the first such device in 1462. At first the device was placed at the end of the book below the colophon. But in Paris, the printer's began using larger and larger woodcuts which often could not fit in such a restricted space. When this was the case, they were transferred to the usually blank first page--a development which contributed to the development of the title page.

Although the mature title page was a product of the sixteenth century (as indeed was pagination), there were several early developments which contributed to it. The placement of the printer's device on the first leaf of a book has already been mentioned. By 1470 it was common to leave the first leaf blank, no doubt to protect the text block. The information which we are used to finding on the title page was of course in the colophon at the end of the book. By the 1480s we find half-title pages containing title and perhaps author. These half-title pages also served an advertising function, as a customer could quickly see what a book was about. However the fifteenth century never saw a truly complete title page; that belonged to the sixteenth century. Printing certainly stimulated some changes in book format, and it most certainly revolutionized the book trade, but in fact the printers merely took over and adapted a very successful and ancient format. Printing mechanized the production of books in the fifteenth century, but it did not fundamentally alter the structure of the codex, which has been one of the most successful, durable, and significant inventions of the past two-thousand years.


To return to Part 1, CLICK HERE.

To return to ORB: Books and Universities, CLICK HERE.


Sources

[40] See Albert Hyma, The Brethren of the Common Life (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1950); and Regnerus R. Post, The Modern Devotion: Confrontation with Reformation and Humanism (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1968).

[41] On Gutenberg and the first half-century of printing see Luigi Balsamo, "The Origins of Printing in Italy and England," Journal of the Printing Historical Society 11 (1975/76): 48-63; Curt F. Bühler, Early Books and Manuscripts: Forty Years of Research (New York: Grolier Club, 1973); Bühler, The University and the Press in Fifteenth-Century Bologna (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1957); Pierce Butler, The Origin of Printing in Europe (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1940); Harry Carter, A View of Early Typography up to about 1600 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969); M.T. Clanchy, "Looking Back from the Invention of Printing," Quarterly Journal of the Library of Congress 39 (1982): 168-83; L.V. Gerulaitis, Printing and Publishing in Fifteenth Century Venice (Chicago: American Library Association, 1976); The Gutenberg Documents, with translations of the texts into English by Douglas C. McMurtrie (New York: Oxford University Press, 1941); Konrad Haebler, Typenrepertorium der Wiegendrucke (Leipzig, 1905-1924); Witze and Lotte Hellinga, The Fifteenth-Century Printing Types of the Low Countries (Amsterdam: Hertzberger, 1966); Lotte Hellinga-Queridi, "Early Printing in the Low Countries: Its Survival and Importance," Delta 14 (1971): 24-43; Rudolph Hirsch, Printing, Selling and Reading, 1450-1550 (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1974); Janet Ing, "The Mainz Indulgences of 1454/5: A Review of Recent Scholarship," British Library Journal 9 (1983): 14-31; Hellmut Lehmann-Haupt, Gutenberg and the Master of Playing Cards (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1966); Lehmann-Haupt, Peter Schoeffer of Gernsheim and Mainz (Rochester, N.Y.: L. Hart, 1950); Paul Needham, "The Compositor's Hand in the Gutenberg Bible: A Review of the Todd Thesis," Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America 77 (1983): 341-71; William Pettas, "The Cost of Printing a Florentine Incunable," La bibliofilia 75 (1973): 67-85; Pierpont Morgan Library, Gutenberg and the Genesis of Printing (New York: Pierpont Morgan Library, 1994); Dennis Rhodes, Studies in Early Italian Printing (London: Pindar, 1982); Dennis Rhodes and Lotte Hellinga, "Cornelius de Zyrickzee and His Practice of Reissuing Incunables from other Presses," Quaerendo 9 (1979): 143-48; Victor Scholderer, "The Beginnings of Printing at Basel," Library 5th ser., 3 (1949): 50-54; Scholderer, Fifty Essays in Fifteenth and Sixteenth Century Bibliography (Amsterdam: Hertzberger, 1966); Scholderer, Johann Gutenberg: The Inventor of Printing (London: British Museum, 1970); Scholderer, "Printers and Readers in Italy in the Fifteenth Century," Proceedings of the British Academy 35 (1949): 25-47; Allan Stevenson, The Problem of the Missale Speciale (London: Bibliographical Society, 1967); Stevenson, "The Quincentennial of Netherlandish Blockbooks," British Museum Quarterly 31 (1967): 83-87; Margaret Bingham Stillwell, The Beginning of the World of Books, 1450-1470 (New York: Bibliographical Society of America, 1972); Stillwell, Incunabula and Americana 1450-1800: A Key to Bibliographical Study (1930; reprinted, New York: Cooper Square, 1961); J.B. Trapp, ed., Manuscripts in the Fifty Years after the Invention of Printing (London: Warburg Institute, University of London, 1983); Adrian Wilson assisted by Joyce Lancaster Wilson, The Making of the Nuremberg Chronicle (Amsterdam: Nico Israel, 1976); and Laurence Witten, "The Earliest Books Printed in Spain," Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America 53 (1959): 91-113.

[42] See C.H. Bloy, A History of Printing Ink, Balls and Rollers 1440-1850 (London: Wynkyn de Worde Society, 1967).

[43] There is a vast literature on the "Gutenberg question," much of it flawed or outdated; for a good review of Gutenberg see George D. Painter, "Gutenberg and the B36 Group: A Reconsideration," in Painter's Studies in Fifteenth- Century Printing (London: Pindar, 1984), pp. 1-31.

[44] See Paul Needham, "Johann Gutenberg and the Catholicon Press," Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America 76 (1982): 395-456.

[45] For various discussions of typography see Harry Carter, A View of Early Typography up to about 1600 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969); Henk Drost, "Punch Cutting Demonstration," Visible Language 19 (1985): 98-105; Pierre Simon Fournier, Fournier on Typefounding: the text of the Manuel Typographique (1764-1766) trans. and ed. by Harry Carter (New York: Burt Franklin, 1973); A. F. Johnson, Type Designs: Their History and Development (London: Andre Deutsch, 1966); Alexander Lawson, Printing Types: An Introduction (Boston: Beacon Press, 1971); Stanley Morison, Letter Forms: Typographic and Scriptorial: Two Essays on Their Classification, History and Bibliography (London: Nattali & Maurice, 1968); Morison, Selected Essays on the History of Letter-Forms in Manuscript and Print, edited by David McKitterick (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981); Morison, A Tally of Types (Cambridge: University Press, 1973); Stan Nelson, "Mould Making, Matrix Fitting, and Hand Casting," Visible Language 19 (1985): 106-20; Talbot Baines Reed, A History of the Old English Letter Foundries, new ed., rev. and enl. by A. F. Johnson (London: Faber and Faber, 1952); Daniel Berkeley Updike, Printing Types: Their History, Forms, and Use: A Study in Survivals, 3rd ed. (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1962); and H. D. L. Vervliet, Sixteenth-century Printing Types of the Low Countries (Amsterdam: Menno Hertzberger, 1968).

[46] For some discussions of early book illustration, see The Art of the French Book from Early Manuscripts to the Present Time, ed. by Andre Lejard (Paris: Editions du Chene, 1947); David Bland, A History of Book Illustration: The Illuminated Manuscript and Printed Book (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969); Bland, The Illustration of Books (London: Faber & Faber, 1962); Douglas Percy Bliss, A History of Wood Engraving (London: J. M. Dent and Sons, 1928); The Early Illustrated Book: Essays in Honor of Lessing J. Rosenwald, ed. by Sandra Hindman (Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, 1982); Fritz Eichenberg, The Art of the Print: Masterpieces, History, Techniques (New York: Abrams, 1976); John Harthan, The History of the Illustrated Book: The Western Tradition (New York: Thames & Hudson, 1981); Arthur M. Hind, A History of Engraving & Etching (Boston, 1923; reprinted, New York: Dover, 1963); Hind, An Introduction to a History of Woodcut (Boston, 1935; reprinted, New York: Dover, 1963); William M. Ivins, Jr., Prints and Visual Communication (Cambridge, Mass., 1953; reprinted, New York: DeCapo Press, 1969); Diana Klemin, The Illustrated Book: Its Art and Craft (New York: Clarkson N. Potter, 1970); Friedrich Lippmann, The Art of Wood-engraving in Italy in the Fifteenth Century (London, 1888; reprinted, Amsterdam: G.W. Hissink, 1969); and Alfred W. Pollard, Early Illustrated Books: A History of the Decoration and Illustration of Books in the 15th and 16th Centuries (London, 1917; reprinted, New York: Haskell House, 1968).

[47] Line-engraving was commonly used to make prints on paper in the middle of the fifteenth century, and etching was likewise used at the beginning of the sixteenth century. Neither of these processes was extensively used in books in the period under consideration, though subsequently such plates became very common, and as their production required a press wholly different than the platen press used in printing, they fall outside the scope of this essay.

[48] See D. F. McKenzie, "Printers of the Mind: Some Notes on Bibliographical Theories and Printing-House Practices," Studies in Bibliography 22 (1969): 1- 75; James Moran, Printing Presses: History and Development from the Fifteenth Century to Modern Times (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973); and Joseph Moxon, Mechanick Exercises on the Whole Art of Printing (1683-4), ed. by Herbert Davis and Harry Carter (London: Oxford University Press, 1962).

[49] Some discussions of binding are in Cyril Davenport, Royal English Book Binding (New York: Macmillan, 1896); Edith Diehl, Bookbinding: Its Background and Technique (New York: Rinehart, 1946); S. Gibson, Early Oxford Bindings (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1903); E. P. Goldschmidt, Gothic and Renaissance Bookbindings (London, 1928; reprinted, Niewkoop: De Graaf, 1967); Hellmuth Helwig, Das deutsche Buchbinder Handwerk: Handwerks- und Kulturgeschichte (Stuttgart: Hiersemann, 1962-65); Helwig, Einführung in die Einbandkunde (Stuttgart: Hiersemann, 1970); G. D. Hobson, Bindings in Cambridge Libraries (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1929); Hobson, English Binding before 1500 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1925); N. R. Ker, Fragments of Medieval Manuscripts Used in Pastedowns in Oxford Bindings, with a Survey of Oxford Binding, c. 1515-1620 (Oxford: Oxford Bibliographical Society, 1954); Dorothy Miner, The History of Bookbinding 525-1950 A.D.: An Exhibition Held at the Baltimore Museum of Art, November 12, 1957 to January 12, 1958 (Baltimore: Walters Art Gallery, 1957); Paul Needham, Twelve Centuries of Bookbinding 400-1600 (New York: Pierpont Morgan Library, 1979); Howard M. Nixon, Five Centuries of English Bookbinding (London: Scolar, 1978); Graham Pollard, "The Construction of English Twelfth-Century Bindings," Library 5th ser., 17 (1962): 1-22; and Pollard, "Describing Medieval Bookbindings," in Medieval Learning and Literature: Essays Presented to Richard William Hunt, ed. by J.J.G. Alexander and M.I. Gibson (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976), pp. 50-65.

[50] See Richard W. Clement, "Italian Sixteenth-Century Writing Books and the Scribal Reality of Verona," Visible Language 20 (1986): 393-412.

[51] See Konrad Haebler, The Study of Incunabula (New York: Grolier Club, 1933).


Copyright (C) 1997, (Richard W. Clement). This file may be copied on the condition that the entire contents, including the header and this copyright notice, remain intact. A previous version of this article appeared as "A Survey of Antique, Medieval, and Renaissance Book Production" in Art into Life: Collected Papers from the Kresge Art Museum Medieval Symposia, ed. by Carol Garrett Fisher and Kathleen Scott (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1995): 9-47. Copyright permission to reprint it here (though with some alterations) has been secured.

To return to Part 1, CLICK HERE.

To return to ORB: Books and Universities, CLICK HERE.


Encyclopedia | Library | Reference | Teaching | General | Links | About ORB | HOME