19th Century and Ealry Innovation in Typography

The Discovery of lithography
Lithography prints from a plane surface and is therefore referred to as planographic printing.

The First Power Presses
After the industrial revolution there were new concepts of tools based on new sources of power 
the first use of a power press marked the beginning of modern printing, characterized by an emphasis on production.
1814 by the Times of London

The Modern Style and the Counterrevolution (pic)
French type founding was dominated by the Didot style during the firs half of the 19th century.

Bell represents the beginning of the modern, worked later for the Glasgow foundry of Alexander Wilson and sons where Scotch Modern was produced.

Open Press 1700-1800

The Influence of the Romain du Roi was evident throughout the eighteenth century and into the nineteenth. 
Influence of calligraphy as a model for letters forms, and with it the association of formats from the influence of manuscripts.

William Caslon (pic)
Upon the first Caslon death in 1766, William Caslon II succeeded to the leadership of the English foundry.
1734 Completed Caslon Typeface Specimen

John Baskerville (pic)
Baskerville’s letters belong to the group called transitional.
One of his special contribution was the development of hot-pressed papers.
1757 Baskerville Typeface Specimen

The Fourniers (pic)
France 1764, Pierre Fournier the youngest published the ‘Manuel typographique’ the first part of which covered subjects of type and type-founding established a scale.

The Didots (pic)
F.A. Didot was a french type-founder/printer, he was comissioned by the king himself to produce a series of French Classics.
1780 he adapted the point system for sizing type system by width.
His two sons carried on the work of the printing plant and the type foundry.

Giambatista Bodoni (pic)
Son of an Italian printer he early experimented with type-cutting
1818, ‘Manuale Typografico’ represent great technical advances, better casting, fitting, better ink and press work.
1798 Bodoni Typeface Specimen

Newspaper in England
New periodicals in England which introduced a significant dimension into journalism: 
The spectators, 1711 (pic) or New England Courant, 1721 (pic),

Thomas Bewick (pic)
Bewick made blocks for several books before he began his association with William Bulmer.
Wood engraving as practiced by Bewick represented a new technique and it played an important role in every kind of illustration printed on letterpress from the end of the 18th century until the successful introduction of photoengraving nearly a century after.

Restricted Press 1600-1700

Scientific Publication
Tuscan physicist/mathmatician/astronomer, Galileo Galilei’s early work:
Le Operazioni del Compasso Geometrico 1606 (pic)

in 1614, the Religious denounced his theories on the motion of the Earth, judging them dangerous and close to heresy.
Galileo’s presentation of heliocentrism as proven fact resulted in the Catholic Church’s prohibiting its advocacy as empirically proven fact, because it was not empirically proven at the time.
Galileo was eventually forced to spent the last years of his life under house arrest on orders of the Roman Inquisition.

Censorship in England
In 1637 the number of print shops and foundries in England had been limited by decree.
In addition to law and decrees that threatened the press, there were great upheavals disasters, from 1642 to 1646 the civil war between the Royalists and the Parliamentarians divided the country.

In the first quarter of the century, the 2 most often printed books in English were 
The King James Version of the Bible (pic) published in 1611
and the first folio of Shakspeare Plays (pic) published in 1623

John Milton’s speech for the Freedom of Press: Areopagitica (pic)
‘A speech of Mr. John Milton for the liberty of unlicensed printing to the Parliament of England’, 1644. Prose polemical against censorship. 
Areopagitica is among history’s most influential philosophical defences for the free expression.

The First Newspapers
the world’s first newspaper, ‘Avisa Relation oder Zeitung’, printed in Germany by Johan Carolus,1609.
17th was a time of serious censorship in England, John Archer’s ‘first coranto’,1621 landed him in jail.

In 1665 the London Gazette (pic) was especially favored for such American circulation. 
In several instances, issues of the Gazette were reprinted in the colonies.
The first american newspaper appeared in September 1690, Publick Occurrences (pic) published in Boston by Benjamin Harris.

The Imprimerie Royale
Romain du Roi Louis XIV, (pic)
Types of the Imprimerie were reserved to the king use only, under stiff penalties.
The master designs for this alphabet were engraved by Louis Simonneau.

Type Design (Printing Evolution and Cultural Advancement) 1500-1600

Altus Manutius: The introduction of Italic
To save space in Latin texts he had a type designed after the Italian cursive script, the italic type.
He introduced inexpensive books in small format bound in vellum called Aldine (pic)

Work on Letter Forms
Early type designers attempted to find special relationships between the proportions of the letters and the shape and dimension of the human body.

In Germany, Albrecht Duerer famous book on design fundamentals: 
“De Symmetria” (Unterweysung der Messung), in1525 (pic)
In Belgium, Geofroy Tory Tory shows how to draw letters with geometrical aids, 
and how their proportions relate to the human body: 
Champs Fleury in 1529 (pic)

Geofroy Tory
One of the major printers in Paris. He was rewarded by François I with the title of ‘Imprimeur du Roi (printer to the King) in 1530.
And made a librarian at the university of Paris, one of his apprentices was Claude Garamond who became printer to the Kimg after him.

De Humani Corporis Fabrica (pic)
Texbook of human anatomy written by Andreas Vesalius. 1543
Vesalius is often referred to as the founder of modern human anatomy.

World Atlas by Gerardus Mercator
Gerardus Mercator was a Flemish cartographer.
first modern world atlas, Theatrum Orbis Terrarum in 1570. (pic)

Textur and Roman in Germany
During the period when Tory and Garamond were contributing to the design of roman and italic types, certain ameliorations were taking place in the German ‘lettre de forme’.
The ‘Textur’ of Gutenberg’s time began to develop in 2 directions, one the pointed gothic called ‘Fraktur’
the other is a rounded version of black letter, kown as ‘schwabacher’, both by Johann Schoensperger.

Early Printer / Typografer

Nicolas Jenson (pic)
French printer/typographer, 
Printed 150 books, established a lasting reputation for his types and the money he made
like the work on Archetypal Roman Typeface 1475 (pic)

William Caxton (pic)
English printer/typographer
It was in Bruges, that Caxton printed the first book in English in 1475 (pic)

Anton Koberger and Albrecht Duerer: The Nuremberg Chronicle (pic)
Anton Koberger German successful publisher/printer, produced nuremberg Chronicle in 1493.
Albrecht Duerer painter/printmaker/typographer maded 1,809 woodcut illustrations (with many repeted uses)

The Nuremberg Chronicle was first published in Latin on 12 July 1493 in the city of Nuremberg. 
This was quickly followed by a German translation on 23 December 1493

Aldus Manutius and the Typnerotomachoa Poliphili (pic)
Italian printer/publisher Aldus Manutius 
Worked on the Romans, practiced of making the capitals shorter than the ascending letters of the lower case. 
ex. ‘Typnerotomachoa Poliphili’, printed in 1499
As the fifteenth century ended, printing was well established , but calligraphy was by no means a dying influence. As more people learned to read, more learned to write, the sixteenth century was the age of the great manuals for handwriting.

The Incunabula 1440-1500

the word incunabula can describes the earliest stages in the development of anything , but it as come to stand particularly for those books produced before 1500.

An incunabulum 
is a book, single sheet, or image that was printed not handwritten before 1500 in Europe.

Printed Word And Movable Type
Johannes Gutenberg is the first to invent a metal movable type printing system in Europe. 
Between 1436 and 1450 he developed hardware and techniques for casting letters from matrices using a device called the hand mould.
The hand mould was the first practical means of making cheap copies of letterpunches in the vast quantities needed to print complete books, making the movable type printing process a viable enterprise.

Punchcutting: (pic)
If the glyph design includes enclosed spaces (counters), a counterpunch is made. 
The counter shapes are transferred in relief onto the end of a rectangular bar of mild steel using a specialized engraving tool called a graver.
The counterpunch is then struck against the end of a similar rectangular steel bar the letterpunch to impress the counter shapes as recessed spaces. 
One counterpunch and one letterpunch are produced for every letter or glyph making up a complete font.

Matrix: (pic)
The letterpunch is used to strike a blank die of soft metal to make a negative letter mould, called a matrix.

Casting: 
The matrix is inserted into the bottom of a device called a hand mould. The mould is clamped shut and molten type metal alloy consisting mostly of lead and tin, with a small amount of antimony for hardening, is poured into a cavity from the top. When the type metal has sufficiently cooled the mould is unlocked and a rectangular block extracted. Excess casting on the end of the sort, called the tang, is later removed to make the sort the precise height required for printing, known as “type height”, approximately 0.918 inches.

Typesetting: (pic)
A case of cast metal type pieces and typeset matter in a composing stick

Gutenberg Bible 1455 (pic)
printed in Mainz, Germany, the first book using movable type system, 
it is his major work, and has iconic status in the West as the start of the “Gutenberg Revolution” and the “Age of the Printed Book”.

Early Mainz Printers
Peter Schöffer and Johann Fust, German printers, formed the firm Fust and Schöffer by 1457. 
Famous work: The Latin Psalter 1457 (pic)

Schöffer is considered the author of many innovations such as dating books, introducing the printer’s device and Greek characters in print, developing the basics of punchcutting and type-founding and using colored inks in print.

Exodus of Mainz printer
14662 Mainz was attacked and partly burned by soldiers of Nassau.
One consequence was the spread of printers to other towns and country.
In that decade, there were presses in Strasbourg and Bamberg.

‘Edelstein’ (pic)
1461, first illustrated book by Albercht Pfister, printed in Bamberg
woodcut ant type were printed as a separate impression

Other Inacubulum (pic)
Examples showed are from the end of the 15th
Italy
Germany
France

Illuminated Manuscript 7th to 15th Century

Historical Context
Medieval Europe. One of the darkest periods known to mankind: Pestilence and plague, darkness and fear, witch-hunts and illiteracy roam the land. 
In this inhospitable milieu, secluded in the scriptoria of cold monasteries, some of the book designers that ever lived, created some of the most beautiful books the world has ever seen. 
We call these books: Illuminated Manuscripts.

Illuminated manuscript 
The text is supplemented by decoration or illustration, such as decorated initials, 
borders and miniatures. 
Also refers to manuscripts decorated with gold or silver.

The Scriptorium (pic)
A scriptorium was a room in monastries devoted to the hand-lettered copying of manuscripts. 
Before the invention of printing by moveable type, a scriptorium was a normal adjunct to a library.

Insular/Celtic Manuscripts
Well known examples of Insular manuscripts are 
the Lindisfarne Gospels (c.698AD) (pic)
the Book of Durrow (c.680AD) (pic)
the Book of Kells (c.800AD) (pic)
The Codex Aureus, England, 9th century (pic)

Carolingian manuscripts (pic)
Carolingian manuscripts, France, 7th to 10th centuries

Ottonian manuscripts (pic)
Ottonian manuscripts, Germany, 10th and 11th centuries

Romanesque manuscripts (pic)
The St.Albans Psalter, England, 12th century

Gothic Manuscripts (pic) 
Gothic book pages from the 13th century to 15th

The Book of Hours (pic)
A Book of Hours is the most common type of surviving medieval illuminated manuscript. 
Each Book of Hours is unique, but all contain a collection of texts, prayers and psalms, along with appropriate illustrations.