Aldis, M.A.
Cambridge: at the University Press 1916
Printing Part 2 -
is, do they, in point of time, really stand between the single
woodcut pictures and the earliest books printed with
movable type and so constitute a stage in the inception of
the typographic art 1 At present no evidence is forthcoming
which definitely connects any of them with a date earlier
than that associated with the first printed books. The
enquirer may, therefore, according to his bias, either
consider them as steps towards the invention, or place them
side by side with the earliest offspring of the printing press.
.
While this method of reproduction was fairly convenient for
the class of book for which it was used, it was quite
demanding. It is possible that this demand had as much influence upon the birth of the art which was to meet it, as
the invention itself had in fostering and increasing the demand. .The immense superiority of typography over
xylography lay in the fact that while the xylographic blocks could be used only for the particular work for which they
had been cut, the movable type, being composed of separate letters, could be used over and over again for any book,
with corresponding economy both in time and in material. It was an epoch-making difference.
The actual facts as to when, where, and by whom printing with movable types was first invented are, except, perhaps,
to a few partisan writers, veiled in obscurity; the sands of time have almost obliterated the first early steps. The
relative claims of Germany, Holland, and even France, to priority have been advanced and upheld with much zeal,
edged occasionally with more than a touch of acrimony. The faint light shed by contemporary record is little better than
a will-o' -'the-wisp, and affords much room for ingenious argument and special pleading. The references to the subject
found in books before the end of the fifteenth century r agree generally in attributing the invention to Johann
Gutenberg of Mainz, but some of them are obviously inaccurate in detail.
What is termed the 'Haarlem legend,' which attributes the discovery to Laurens Janszoon Coster of Haarlem about the
year 1440, does not emerge until the second half of the sixteenth century; but it receives a certain amount of support
from the story of the invention as related, on the authority of Ulrich Zell, the printer, in the Oologne Ohronicle printed
in 1499. This account says that the art was first invented at Mainz about 1440; that for the next ten years it was
being investigated; and that in 1450 men began to print. But it goes on to say that 'Although this art was invented at
Mainz as far as regards the manner in which it is now commonly used, yet the first prefiguration (Vurbyldung) was
invented in Holland from the Donatuses which were printed there before that time. The Donatus here spoken of
is the De octo partibus orationis of Aelius Donatus, the fourth-century1 A. W. Pollard: Fine Book8 (1912), pp. 34 II.,
where the passage is printed in full.
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