Chapter VII: THE SPELL of the LAURENZIANA 271 (1)

INDEX 301

ILLUSTRATIONS

English Illumination, 14th Century. From _Queen Mary’s
Psalter_, Brit. Mus. Royal MS. 2B vii
(in colors and gold) _Frontis._

John Gutenberg. From Engraving by Alphonse Descaves.
Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris page 6

Aldus Manutius. From Engraving at the British Museum 10

_Dott. Comm._ Guido Biagi. Seated at one of the
_plutei_ in the Laurenziana Library, Florence (1906) 14

Hand-written Humanistic Characters. From Sinibaldi’s
_Virgil_, 1485. Laurenziana Library, Florence 16

Specimen Page of proposed Edition of Dante. To be printed by
Bertieri, of Milan, in Humanistic Type 19

Jenson’s Roman Type. From Cicero: _Rhetorica_, Venice, 1470 22

Emery Walker’s Doves Type. From _Paradise Regained_,
London, 1905 23

Autograph Letter from Charles Eliot Norton 31

Illuminated Page of Petrarch’s _Triumphs_. Set in Humanistic
Type designed by the Author 32

Autograph Page of Eugene Field Manuscript. From _Second Book of
Verse_, New York, 1892 39

Autograph Verse in Field’s own Copy of _Trumpet and Drum_ 41

John Wilson in 1891. Master-Printer 42

Page of Horace Fletcher Manuscript 77

Giambattista Bodoni. From Engraving at the Bibliothèque
Nationale, Paris 78

The Bodoni Letter compared with the Didot Letter 81

Horace Fletcher in 1915 82

Autograph Letter from Henry James to Horace Fletcher 87

Mirror Title. From Augustinus: _Opera._ 1485. Laurenziana
Library, Florence 94

T. J. Cobden-Sanderson. From Etching by Alphonse Legros, 1893 96

Carved Ivory Binding, Jeweled with Rubies and Turquoises. From
_Psalter_ (12th Century). Brit. Mus. Eger. MS. 1139 112

Byzantine Illumination (11th Century). _Psalter_ in Greek.
Brit. Mus. Add. MS. 19352 118

Celtic Illumination (8th Century). _Lindisfarne Gospels._
Brit. Mus. Cotton MS. Nero D. iv 124

Carolingian Handwriting (9th Century). _Alcuin Bible._
Brit. Mus. Add. MS. 10546 126

Carolingian Illumination (9th Century). _Golden Gospels of
St. Médard._ Bibl. Nat. MS. Lat. 8850 128

Gothic Illumination (13th Century). Miniature Page from the
_Psalter of St. Louis_. Bibl. Nat. MS. Lat. 10525 130

Gothic Illumination (13th Century). Text Page from the
_Psalter of St. Louis_. Bibl. Nat. MS. Lat. 10525 132

English Illumination (14th Century). _Queen Mary’s Psalter._
Brit. Mus. Royal MS. 2B. vii 134

French Illumination (15th Century). _Bedford Book of Hours._
Brit. Mus. Add. MS. 18850 136

French Renaissance Illumination (15th Century). _Antiquities
of the Jews._ Bibl. Nat. MS. Français 247 138

Flemish Illumination (15th Century). Miniature Page from the
_Grimani Breviary_. Bibl. S. Marco, Venice 142

Flemish Illumination (15th Century). Text Page from the
_Grimani Breviary_. Bibl. S. Marco, Venice 144

Italian Illumination (15th Century). _Book of Hours_, by
Francesco d’Antonio. R. Lau. Bibl. Ashb. 1874 146

French Illumination (16th Century). Miniature from _Hours of
Anne of Brittany_. Bibl. Nat. MS. Lat. 9474 148

French Illumination (16th Century). Text Page from _Hours of
Anne of Brittany_. Bibl. Nat. MS. Lat. 9474 150

Order for Payment of 1050 _livres tournois_ to Jean Bourdichon
for the _Hours of Anne of Brittany_, 1508 152

Autograph Letter from Maurice Hewlett 161

Autograph Poem by Austin Dobson 167

Mark Twain. At the Villa di Quarto, Florence, 1904.
From a Snap-shot 170

Autograph Letter from Mark Twain. With Snap-shot of Villa di
Quarto 172

Autograph Letter from William Dean Howells 185

Part of a Page from the Vellum Copy of the _Gutenberg Bible_.
Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris 195

Rubricator’s Mark at end of First Volume of a Defective Copy of
the _Gutenberg Bible_, Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris 196

Rubricator’s Mark at end of Second Volume of a Defective Copy of
the _Gutenberg Bible_, Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris 197

Gutenberg, Fust, Coster, Aldus Manutius, Froben. From Engraving
by Jacob Houbraken (1698-1780) 198

John Fust. From an Old Engraving 199

Device and _Explicit_ of Nicolas Jenson 203

Jenson’s Gothic Type. From Augustinus: _De Civitate Dei_,
Venice, 1475 205

Device of Aldus Manutius 208

Grolier in the Printing Office of Aldus. After Painting by
François Flameng. Through Courtesy the Grolier Club, New
York City 208

Text Page from Aldus’ _Hypnerotomachia Poliphili_, Venice, 1499 211

Illustrated Page from Aldus’ _Hypnerotomachia Poliphili_,
Venice, 1499 212

Grolier Binding. Castiglione: Cortegiano. Aldine Press, 1518.
Laurenziana Library, Florence 212

Grolier Binding. Capella: _L’Anthropologia._ Aldine Press,
1533. Laurenziana Library, Florence 214

Robert Étienne. From Engraving by Étienne Johandier Desrochers
(c. 1661-1741) 217

Title Page showing Étienne’s _Royal Greeks_, Paris, 1550 220

Text Page Showing Étienne’s Roman Face 222

Text Page showing Étienne’s _Royal Greeks_, from _Novum Jesu
Christi D. N. Testamentum_, Paris, 1550 222

Christophe Plantin. From Engraving by Edme de Boulonois (c. 1550) 225

Title Page of Plantin’s _Biblia Polyglotta_, Antwerp, 1568 228

Page of Preface of Plantin’s _Biblia Polyglotta_, Antwerp,
1568 229

Text Pages of Plantin’s _Biblia Polyglotta_, Antwerp, 1568 230

Second Page of Plantin’s _Biblia Polyglotta_, Antwerp, 1568 232

Device of Christophe Plantin 236

Title Page of Elzevir’s _Terence_, Leyden, 1635 241

Text Pages of Elzevir’s _Terence_, Leyden, 1635 242

John Baskerville 244

Title Page of Baskerville’s _Virgil_, Birmingham, 1757 247

Text Page of Baskerville’s _Virgil_, Birmingham, 1757 249

Engraving from Didot’s _Racine_, Paris, 1801. By Prud’hon 253

Title Page of Didot’s _Racine_, Paris, 1801 253

Opening Page of Didot’s _Racine_, Paris, 1801 255

Text Page of Didot’s _Racine_, Paris, 1801 256

Firmin Didot. From Engraving by Pierre Gustave Eugène Staal
(1817-1882) 256

William Morris. From Portrait by G. F. Watts, R. A., in
the National Portrait Gallery, London. Painted in 1880 258

Sir Edward Burne-Jones, Bart. From a Photograph at the British
Museum 260

Text Page of _Kelmscott Chaucer_, 1896 262

Title Page of _Doves Bible_, London, 1905 265

Text Page of _Doves Bible_, London, 1905 267

The _Sala Michelangiolo_, in the Laurenziana Library,
Florence 276

_Dott. Comm._ Guido Biagi, in 1924 278

Vestibule of the Laurenziana Library, Florence 280

Miniature Page from the _Biblia Amiatina_, R. Lau. Bibl.
Cod. Amiatinus I 288

Antonio Magliabecchi 293

Library Slips used by George Eliot while working on _Romola_
in Magliabecchian Library, Florence 296

I

IN QUEST OF THE PERFECT BOOK

“Here is a fine volume,” a friend remarked, handing me a copy of _The Ideal Book_, written and printed by Cobden-Sanderson at the Doves Press.

“It is,” I assented readily, turning the leaves, and enjoying the composite beauty of the careful typography, and the perfect impression upon the soft, handmade paper with the satisfaction one always feels when face to face with a work of art. “Have you read it?”

“Why--no,” he answered. “I picked it up in London, and they told me it was a rare volume. You don’t necessarily read rare books, do you?”

My friend is a cultivated man, and his attitude toward his latest acquisition irritated me; yet after thirty years of similar disappointments I should not have been surprised. How few, even among those interested in books, recognize the fine, artistic touches that constitute the difference between the commonplace and the distinguished! The volume under discussion was written by an authority foremost in the art of bookmaking; its producer was one of the few great master-printers and binders in the history of the world; yet the only significance it possessed to its owner was the fact that some one in whom he had confidence had told him it was rare! Being rare, he coveted the treasure, and acquired it with no greater understanding than if it had been a piece of Chinese jade.

“What makes you think this is a fine book?” I inquired, deliberately changing the approach.

He laughed consciously. “It cost me nine guineas--and I like the looks of it.”

Restraint was required not to say something that might have affected our friendship unpleasantly, and friendship is a precious thing.

“Do something for me,” I asked quietly. “That is a short book. Read it through, even though it is rare, and then let us continue this conversation we have just begun.”

A few days later he invited me to dine with him at his club. “I asked you here,” he said, “because I don’t want any one, even my family, to hear what I am going to admit to you. I have read that book, and I’d rather not know what you thought of my consummate ignorance of what really enters into the building of a well-made volume--the choice of type, the use of decoration, the arrangement of margins. Why, bookmaking is an art! Perhaps I should have known that, but I never stopped to think about it.”

One does have to stop and think about a well-made book in order to comprehend the difference between printing that is merely printing and that which is based upon art in its broadest sense and upon centuries of precedent. It does require more than a gleam of intelligence to grasp the idea that the basis of every volume ought to be the thought expressed by the writer; that the type, the illustrations, the decorations, the paper, the binding, simply combine to form the vehicle to convey that expression to the reader. When, however, this fact is once absorbed, one cannot fail to understand that if these various parts, which compositely comprise the whole, fail to harmonize with the subject and with each other, then the vehicle does not perform its full and proper function.

I wondered afterward if I had not been a bit too superior in my attitude toward my friend. As a matter of fact, printing as an art has returned to its own only within the last quarter-century. Looking back to 1891, when I began to serve my apprenticeship under John Wilson at the old University Press in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the broadness of the profession that I was adopting as my life’s work had not as yet unfolded its unlimited possibilities. At that time the three great American printers were John Wilson, Theodore L. De Vinne, and Henry O. Houghton. The volumes produced under their supervision were perfect examples of the best bookmaking of the period, yet no one of these three men looked upon printing as an art. It was William Morris who in modern times first joined these two words together by the publication of his magnificent Kelmscott volumes. Such type, such decorations, such presswork, such sheer, composite beauty!

This was in 1895. Morris, in one leap, became the most famous printer in the world. Every one tried to produce similar volumes, and the resulting productions, made without appreciating the significance of decoration combined with type, were about as bad as they could be. I doubt if, at the present moment, there exists a single one of these sham Kelmscotts made in America that the printer or the publisher cares to have recalled to him.

When the first flair of Morris’ popularity passed away, and his volumes were judged on the basis of real bookmaking, they were classified as marvelously beautiful _objets d’art_ rather than books--composites of Burne-Jones, the designer, and William Morris, the decorator-printer, co-workers in sister arts; but from the very beginning Morris’ innovations showed the world that printing still belonged among the fine arts. The Kelmscott books awoke in me an overwhelming desire to put myself into the volumes I produced. I realized that no man can give of himself beyond what he possesses, and that to make my ambition worth accomplishing I must absorb and make a part of myself the beauty of the ancient manuscripts and the early printed books. This led me to take up an exhaustive study of the history of printing.

From Engraving by Alphonse Descaves

Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris]

Until then Gutenberg’s name, in my mind, had been preëminent. As I proceeded, however, I came to know that he was not really the “inventor” of printing, as I had always thought him to be; that he was the one who first foresaw the wonderful power of movable types as a material expression of the thought of man, rather than the creator of anything previously unknown. I discovered that the Greeks and the Romans had printed from stamps centuries earlier, and that the Chinese and the Koreans had cut individual characters in metal.

I well remember the thrill I experienced when I first realized--and at the time thought my discovery was original!--that, had the Chinese or the Saracens possessed Gutenberg’s wit to join these letters together into words, the art of printing must have found its way to Constantinople, which would have thus become the center of culture and learning in the fifteenth century.

* * * * *

From this point on, my quest seemed a part of an Arabian Nights’ tale. Cautiously opening a door, I would find myself in a room containing treasures of absorbing interest. From this room there were doors leading in different directions into other rooms even more richly filled; and thus onward, with seemingly no end, to the fascinating rewards that came through effort and perseverance.

Germany, although it had produced Gutenberg, was not sufficiently developed as a nation to make his work complete. The open door led me away from Germany into Italy, where literary zeal was at its height. The life and customs of the Italian people of the fifteenth century were spread out before me. In my imagination I could see the velvet-gowned agents of the wealthy patrons of the arts searching out old manuscripts and giving commissions to the scribes to prepare hand-lettered copies for their masters’ libraries. I could mingle with the masses and discover how eager they were to learn the truth in the matter of religion, and the cause and the remedies of moral and material evils by which they felt themselves oppressed. I could share with them their expectant enthusiasm and confidence that the advent of the printing press would afford opportunity to study description and argument where previously they had merely gazed at pictorial design. I could sense the desire of the people for books, not to place in cabinets, but to read in order to know; and I could understand why workmen who had served apprenticeships in Germany so quickly sought out Italy, the country where princes would naturally become patrons of the new art, where manuscripts were ready for copy, and where a public existed eager to purchase their products.

While striving to sense the significance of the conflicting elements I felt around me, I found much of interest in watching the scribes fulfilling their commissions to prepare copies of original manuscripts, becoming familiar for the first time with the primitive methods of book manufacture and distribution. A monastery possessed an original manuscript of value. In its _scriptorium_ (the writing office) one might find perhaps twenty or thirty monks seated at desks, each with a sheet of parchment spread out before him, upon which he inscribed the words that came to him in the droning, singsong voice of the reader selected for the duty because of his familiarity with the subject matter of the volume. The number of desks the _scriptorium_ could accommodate determined the size of this early “edition.”

When these copies were completed, exchanges were made with other monasteries that possessed other original manuscripts, of which copies had been made in a similar manner. I was even more interested in the work of the secular scribes, usually executed at their homes, for it was to these men that the commissions were given for the beautiful humanistic volumes. As they had taken up the art of hand lettering from choice or natural aptitude instead of as a part of monastic routine, they were greater artists and produced volumes of surpassing beauty. A still greater interest in studying this art of hand lettering lay in the knowledge that it soon must become a lost art, for no one could doubt that the printing press had come to stay.

Then, turning to the office of Aldus, I pause for a moment to read the legend placed conspicuously over the door:

_Whoever thou art, thou art earnestly requested by Aldus to
state thy business briefly and to take thy departure promptly.
In this way thou mayest be of service even as was Hercules
to the weary Atlas, for this is a place of work
for all who may enter_

From Engraving at the British Museum]

But inside the printing office I find Aldus and his associates talking of other things than the books in process of manufacture. They are discussing the sudden change of attitude on the part of the wealthy patrons of the arts who, after welcoming the invention of printing, soon became alarmed by the enthusiasm of the people, and promptly reversed their position. No wonder that Aldus should be concerned as to the outcome! The patrons of the arts represented the culture and wealth and political power of Italy, and they now discovered in the new invention an actual menace. To them the magnificent illuminated volumes of the fifteenth century were not merely examples of decoration, but they represented the tribute that this cultured class paid to the thought conveyed, through the medium of the written page, from the author to the world. This jewel of thought they considered more valuable than any costly gem. They perpetuated it by having it written out on parchment by the most accomplished scribes; they enriched it by illuminated embellishments executed by the most famous artists; they protected it with bindings in which they actually inlaid gold and silver and jewels. To have this thought cheapened by reproduction through the commonplace medium of mechanical printing wounded their æsthetic sense. It was an expression of real love of the book that prompted Bisticci, the agent of so powerful a patron as the Duke of Urbino, to write of the Duke’s splendid collection in the latter part of the fifteenth century:

_In that library the books are all beautiful in a superlative
degree, and all written by the pen. There is not a single one
of them printed, for it would have been a shame to have one of
that sort._

Aldus is not alarmed by the solicitude of the patrons for the beauty of the book. He has always known that in order to exist at all the printed book must compete with the written volume; and he has demonstrated that, by supplying to the accomplished illuminators sheets carefully printed on parchment, he can produce volumes of exquisite beauty, of which no collector need be ashamed. Aldus knows that there are other reasons behind the change of front on the part of the patrons. Libraries made up of priceless manuscript volumes are symbols of wealth, and through wealth comes power. With the multiplication of printed books this prestige will be lessened, as the masses will be enabled to possess the same gems of thought in less extravagant and expensive form. If, moreover, the people are enabled to read, criticism, the sole property of the scholars, will come into their hands, and when they once learn self-reliance from their new intellectual development they are certain to attack dogma and political oppression, even at the risk of martyrdom. The princes and patrons of Italy are intelligent enough to know that their self-centered political power is doomed if the new art of printing secures a firm foothold.

What a relief to such a man as Aldus when it became fully demonstrated that the desire on the part of the people to secure books in order to learn was too great to be overcome by official mandate or insidious propaganda! With what silent satisfaction did he settle back to continue his splendid work! The patrons, in order to show what a poor thing the printed book really was, gave orders to the scribes and the illuminators to prepare volumes for them in such quantities that the art of hand lettering received a powerful impetus, as a result of which the hand letters themselves attained their highest point of perfection. This final struggle on the part of the wealthy overlords resulted only in redoubling the efforts of the artist master-printers to match the beauty of the written volumes with the products from their presses.

These Arabian Nights’ experiences occupied me from 1895, when Morris demonstrated the unlimited possibilities of printing as an art, until 1901, when I first visited Italy and gave myself an opportunity to become personally acquainted with the historical landmarks of printing, which previously I had known only from study. In Florence it was my great good fortune to become intimately acquainted with the late Doctor Guido Biagi, at that time librarian of the Laurenziana and the Riccardi libraries, and the custodian of the Medici, the Michelangelo, and the da Vinci archives. I like to think of him as I first saw him then, sitting on a bench in front of one of the carved _plutei_ designed by Michelangelo, in the wonderful _Sala di Michelangiolo_ in the Laurenziana Library, studying a beautifully illuminated volume resting before him, which was fastened to the desk by one of the famous old chains. He greeted me with an old-school courtesy. When he discovered my genuine interest in the books he loved, and realized that I came as a student eager to listen to the master’s word, his face lighted up and we were at once friends.

Seated at one of the _plutei_ in the Laurenziana Library, Florence (1906)]

In the quarter of a century which passed from this meeting until his death we were fellow-students, and during that period I never succeeded in exhausting the vast store of knowledge he possessed, even though he gave of it with the freest generosity. From him I learned for the first time of the far-reaching influence of the humanistic movement upon everything that had to do with the _litteræ humaniores_, and this new knowledge enabled me to crystallize much that previously had been fugitive. “The humanist,” Doctor Biagi explained to me, “whether ancient or modern, is one who holds himself open to receive Truth, unprejudiced as to its source, and--what is more important--after having received Truth realizes his obligation to the world to give it out again, made richer by his personal interpretation.”

This humanistic movement was the forerunner and the essence of the Renaissance, being in reality a revolt against the barrenness of mediævalism. Until then ignorance, superstition, and tradition had confined intellectual life on all sides, but the little band of humanists, headed by Petrarch, put forth a claim for the mental freedom of man and for the full development of his being. As a part of this claim they demanded the recognition of the rich humanities of Greece and Rome, which were proscribed by the Church. If this claim had been postponed another fifty years, the actual manuscripts of many of the present standard classics would have been lost to the world.

The significance of the humanistic movement in its bearing upon the Quest of the Perfect Book is that the invention of printing fitted exactly into the Petrarchian scheme by making it possible for the people to secure volumes that previously, in their manuscript form, could be owned only by the wealthy patrons. This was the point at which Doctor Biagi’s revelation and my previous study met. The Laurenziana Library contains more copies of the so-called humanistic manuscripts, produced in response to the final efforts on the part of patrons to thwart the increasing popularity of the new art of printing, than any other single library. Doctor Biagi proudly showed me some of these treasures, notably Antonio Sinibaldi’s _Virgil_. The contrast between the hand lettering in these volumes and the best I had ever seen before was startling. Here was a hand letter, developed under the most romantic and dramatic conditions, which represented the apotheosis of the art. The thought flashed through my mind that all the types in existence up to this point had been based upon previous hand lettering less beautiful and not so perfect in execution.

“Why is it,” I demanded excitedly, “that no type has ever been designed based upon this hand lettering at its highest point of perfection?”

From Sinibaldi’s _Virgil_, 1485

Laurenziana Library, Florence (12 × 8 inches)]

Doctor Biagi looked at me and shrugged his shoulders. “This, my friend,” he answered, smiling, “is your opportunity.”

At this point began one of the most fascinating and absorbing adventures in which any one interested in books could possibly engage. At some time, I suppose, in the life of every typographer comes the ambition to design a special type, so it was natural that the idea contained in Doctor Biagi’s remark should suggest possibilities which filled me with enthusiasm. I was familiar with the history of the best special faces, and had learned how difficult each ambitious designer had found the task of translating drawings into so rigid a medium as metal; so I reverted soberly and with deep respect to the subject of type design from the beginning.

In studying the early fonts of type, I found them exact counterfeits of the best existing forms of hand lettering at that time employed by the scribes. The first Italic font cut by Aldus, for instance, is said to be based upon the thin, inclined handwriting of Petrarch. The contrast between these slavish copies of hand-lettered models and the mechanical precision of characters turned out by modern type founders made a deep impression. Of the two I preferred the freedom of the earliest types, but appreciated how ill adapted these models were to the requirements of typography. A hand-lettered page, even with the inevitable irregularities, is pleasing because the scribe makes a slight variation in forming the various characters. When, however, an imperfect letter is cut in metal, and repeated many times upon the same page, the irregularity forces itself unpleasantly upon the eye. Nicolas Jenson was the first to realize this, and in his famous Roman type he made an exact interpretation of what the scribe intended to accomplish in each of the letters, instead of copying any single hand letter, or making a composite of many hand designs of the same character. For this reason the Jenson type has not only served as the basis of the best standard Roman fonts down to the present time, but has also proved the inspiration for later designs of distinctive type faces, such as William Morris’ Golden type, and Emery Walker’s Doves type.

To be printed by Bertieri, of Milan, in Humanistic Type (8¼ × 6)]

William Morris’ experience is an excellent illustration of the difficulties a designer experiences. He has left a record of how he studied the Jenson type with great care, enlarging it by photography, and redrawing it over and over again before he began designing his own letter. When he actually produced his Golden type the design was far too much inclined to the Gothic to resemble the model he selected. His Troy and Chaucer types that followed showed the strong effect of the German influence that the types of Schoeffer, Mentelin, and Gunther Zainer made upon him. The Doves type is based flatly upon the Jenson model; yet it is an absolutely original face, retaining all the charm of the model, to which is added the artistic genius of the designer. Each receives its personality from the understanding and interpretation of the creator (_pages 22, 23_).

From this I came to realize that it is no more necessary for a type designer to express his individuality by adding or subtracting from his model than for a portrait painter to change the features of his subject because some other artist has previously painted it. Wordsworth once said that the true portrait of a man shows him, not as he looks at any one moment of his life, but as he really looks all the time. This is equally true of a hand letter, and explains the vast differences in the cut of the same type face by various foundries and for the typesetting machines. All this convinced me that, if I were to make the humanistic letters the model for my new type, I must follow the example of Emery Walker rather than that of William Morris.

* * * * *

During the days spent in the small, cell-like alcove which had been turned over for my use in the Laurenziana Library, I came so wholly under the influence of the peculiar atmosphere of antiquity that I felt myself under an obsession of which I have not been conscious before or since. My enthusiasm was abnormal, my efforts tireless. The world outside seemed very far away, the past seemed very near, and I was indifferent to everything except the task before me. This curious experience was perhaps an explanation of how the monks had been able to apply themselves so unceasingly to their prodigious labors, which seem beyond the bounds of human endurance.

My work at first was confined to a study of the humanistic volumes in the Laurenziana Library, and the selection of the best examples to be taken as final models for the various letters. From photographed reproductions of selected manuscript pages, I took out fifty examples of each letter. Of these fifty, perhaps a half-dozen would be almost identical, and from these I learned the exact design the scribe endeavored to repeat. I also decided to introduce the innovation of having several characters for certain letters that repeated most frequently, in order to preserve the individuality of the hand lettering, and still keep my design within the rigid limitations of type. Of the letter _e_, for instance, eight different designs were finally selected; there were five _a_’s, two _m_’s, and so on (see illustration at _page 32_).

After becoming familiar with the individual letters as shown in the Laurenziana humanistic volumes, I went on to Milan and the Ambrosiana Library, with a letter from Doctor Biagi addressed to the librarian, Monsignor Ceriani, explaining the work upon which I was engaged, and seeking his co-operation. It would be impossible to estimate Ceriani’s age at that time, but he was very old. He was above middle height, his frame was slight, his eyes penetrating and burning with a fire that showed at a glance how affected he was by the influence to which I have already referred. His skin resembled in color and texture the very parchment of the volumes he handled with such affection, and in his religious habit he seemed the embodiment of ancient learning.

After expressing his deep interest in my undertaking, he turned to a publication upon which he himself was engaged, the reproduction in facsimile of the earliest known manuscript of Homer’s _Iliad_. The actual work on this, he explained, was being carried on by his assistant, a younger priest whom he desired to have me meet. His own contribution to the work was an introduction, upon which he was then engaged, and which, he said, was to be his swan song, the final message from his soul to the world.

“This, I suppose, is to be in Italian?” I inquired.

He looked at me reproachfully. “No, my son,” he answered, with deep impressiveness; “I am writing my introduction in Latin, which, though called a dead language, will be living long after the present living languages are dead.”

Ceriani placed at my disposal the humanistic volumes in the Ambrosiana, and introduced me to his assistant, whose co-operation was of the utmost value in my work. I was particularly struck by the personality of this younger priest. He was in close touch with affairs outside the Church, and asked searching questions regarding conditions in America. He spoke several languages with the same facility with which he spoke his own Italian. His knowledge of books and of bookmaking, past and present, surprised me. All in all, I found him one of the most charming men I have ever met. His name was Achille Ratti, and when he became Bishop of Milan in 1921, and was elevated to the College of Cardinals two months later, I realized how far that wonderful personality was taking him. One could scarcely have foreseen, however, that in less than a year from this time he would become Pope Pius XI.

When, after my drawings were completed, I returned to America, I took up the matter of the type design with Charles Eliot Norton, my old art professor at Harvard, then _emeritus_. Professor Norton was genuinely interested in the whole undertaking, and as the proofs of the various punches later came into my hands he became more and more enthusiastic.

I had arranged to use this type in a series of volumes to be published in London by John Murray, and in America by Little, Brown and Company. An important question arose as to what should be the first title, and after careful consideration I decided that as Petrarch was the father of humanism his _Trionfi_ would obviously be an ideal selection. The volume was to be printed in English rather than in the original Italian, and I settled upon Henry Boyd’s translation as the most distinguished.

Upon investigation it developed that the original edition of this book was long out of print and copies were exceedingly rare. The only one I could locate was in the Petrarch collection of the late Willard Fiske. I entered into correspondence with him, and he invited me to be his guest at his villa in Florence. With the type completed, and with proofs in my possession, I undertook my second humanistic Odyssey, making Florence my first objective. Professor Fiske welcomed me cordially, and in him I found a most sympathetic personality, eager to contribute in every way to the success of the undertaking. He placed the volume of Boyd’s translation in my hands, and asked that I take it with me for use until my edition was completed.

“This book is unique, and so precious that you certainly could not permit it to go out of your possession,” I protested.

His answer was characteristic. “Your love of books,” he said, “is such that this volume is as safe in your hands as it is in mine. Take it from me, and return it when it has served its purpose.”

Then came the matter of illustrations. In London I had a conference with Sir Sidney Colvin, then Keeper of Prints and Drawings at the British Museum. Colvin had been made familiar with the undertaking by John Murray, who had shown him and Alfred W. Pollard some of the earliest proofs of the punches that I had sent to England. After a careful examination of these, both men suggested to Mr. Murray that his American friend was playing a joke upon him, declaring that the proofs were hand-lettered and not taken from metal originals!

“There is a fate about this,” Colvin said, after I had explained my mission. “We have here in the Museum six original drawings of Petrarch’s _Triumphs_, attributed by some to Fra Filippo Lippi and certainly belonging to his school, which have never been reproduced. They are exactly the right size for the _format_ which you have determined upon, and if you can have the reproductions made here at the Museum the drawings are at your disposal.”

I made arrangements with Emery Walker, the designer of the Doves type and justly famous as an engraver, to etch these plates on steel, and the reproductions of the originals were extraordinarily exact. Those Walker made for the parchment edition looked as if drawn on ivory.

Parchment was required for the specially illuminated copies which were to form a feature of the edition, and before leaving America I had been told that the Roman grade was the best. I naturally assumed that I should find this in Rome, but my research developed the fact that Roman parchment is prepared in Florence. Following this lead, I examined the skins sold by Florentine dealers, but Doctor Biagi assured me that the best grade was not Roman but Florentine, and that Florentine parchment is produced in Issoudun, France. It seemed a far cry to seek out Italian skins in France, but to Issoudun I went. In the meantime I learned that there was a still better grade prepared in Brentford, England--this, in fact, being where William Morris procured the parchment for his Kelmscott publications.

At Brentford I secured my skins; and here I learned something that interested me exceedingly. Owing to the oil which remains in the parchment after it has been prepared for use, the difficulty in printing is almost as great as if on glass. To obviate this, the concern at Brentford, in preparing parchment for the Kelmscott volumes, filled in the pores of the skins with chalk, producing an artificial surface. The process of time must operate adversely upon this extraneous substance, and the question naturally arises as to whether eventually, in the Kelmscott parchment volumes, the chalk surface will flake off in spots, producing blemishes which can never be repaired.

For my own purposes I purchased the skins without the artificial surface, and overcame the difficulty in printing by a treatment of the ink which, after much experiment, enabled me to secure as fine results upon the parchment as if printing upon handmade paper.

The volumes were to be printed in the two humanistic colors, black and blue. In the original manuscript volumes this blue is a most unusual shade, the hand letterer having prepared his own ink by grinding _lapis lazuli_, in which there is no red. By artificial light the lines written in blue can scarcely be distinguished from the black. To reproduce the same effect in the printed volume I secured in Florence a limited quantity of _lapis lazuli_, and by special arrangement with the Italian Government had it crushed into powder at the Royal mint. This powder I took home to America, and arranged with a leading manufacturer to produce what I believe to be the first printing ink mixed exactly as the scribes of the fifteenth century used to prepare their pigments.

The months required to produce the _Triumphs_ represented a period alternating in anxiety and satisfaction. The greatest difficulty came in pressing upon the typesetter the fact that the various characters of these letters could not be used with mathematical precision, but that the change should come only when he felt his hand would naturally alter the design if he were writing the line instead of setting the type. The experiments required to perfect an ink that should successfully print on the oily parchment were not completed without disappointments and misgivings; the scrupulous care required in reading proofs and perfecting the spacing, was laborious and monotonous; the scrutinizing of the sheets as they came from the press was made happier when the success of the _lapis lazuli_ ink was assured.

The rewards came when Professor Norton gave the volume his unqualified approval--“so interesting and original in its typography and in its illustrations, so admirable in its presswork, its paper, its binding, and its minor accessories, ... a noble and exemplary work of the printers’ art”; when George W. Jones, England’s artist-printer, pronounced the Humanistic type “the most beautiful face in the world,” and promised to use it in what he hopes to be his masterpiece, an edition of Shakespeare’s _Sonnets_; when the jury appointed by the Italian Government to select “the most beautiful and most appropriate type face to perpetuate the divine Dante” chose the Humanistic type, and placed the important commission of producing the definitive edition of the great poet, to commemorate his sexcentenary, in the hands of that splendid printer, Bertieri, at Milan. Such rewards are not compliments, but justification. Such beauty as the Humanistic type possesses lies in the artistic ability and the marvelous skill in execution of the scribes. My part was simply seizing the development of a period apparently overlooked, and undertaking the laborious task of translating a beautiful thing from one medium to another.

Illuminated Page (10 × 6 inches)

Set in Humanistic Type designed by the Author]

The Quest of the Perfect Book must necessarily lead the seeker into far varying roads, the greatest rewards being found in straying from the main street into the fascinating bypaths. My quest has resulted in giving me greater appreciation of the accomplishments of those who successfully withstood opposition and persecution in order to make the printed book a living vehicle to convey the gems of thought from great minds to the masses, never forgetful of the value of beauty in its outward aspect. I believe it possible today to perpetuate the basic principles of the early artist master-printers by applying beauty to low-cost books as well as to limited _editions de luxe_. The story of the printed book itself is greater than that contained between the covers of any single volume, for without it the history of the world would show the masses still plodding on, swathed in theological and encyclopædic bonds, while the few would still be jealously hoarding their limited knowledge

II

THE KINGDOM OF BOOKS

A paraphrase of, “Would that mine adversary had written a book,” might well be, “Would that mine enemy had _printed_ a book”; for the building of books has always yielded smaller financial returns for the given amount of labor and ability than is offered in any other line of intelligent human effort.

“Are all the workmen in your establishment blank fools?” an irate publisher demanded of a printer after a particularly aggravating error.

“If they were not,” was the patient rejoinder, “they would not be engaged in making books!”

There is an intangible lure that keeps all those associated with the book under subjection. There is a mysterious fascination in being a party to the perpetuation of a human thought that yields something in addition to pecuniary returns. To the author, the inestimable gratification of conveying a message to the world makes him forget the tedious hours of application required before that message can be adequately expressed. To the publisher, the satisfaction of offering the opportunity for occasional genius to come into its own more than balances the frequent disappointments. To the book architect, the privilege of supplying the vehicle for thought, and of creating the physical form of its expression, yields returns not altogether measurable in coin of the realm.

* * * * *

In 1891, during my apprenticeship at the old University Press, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, John Wilson, its famous head, permitted me to sit in at a conference with Eugene Field and his friend and admirer, Francis Wilson, the actor, booklover, and collector. The subject under discussion was the manufacture of a volume of Field’s poems, then called _A New Book of Verses_, which later became famous under the title of _Second Book of Verse_.

Field’s personal appearance made a deep impression that first time I saw him. I was then an undergraduate at Harvard, and this was a live author at close range! He entered the office with a peculiar, ambling walk; his clothes were ill-fitting, accentuating his long legs and arms; his hands were delicate, with tapering fingers, like a woman’s; his face was pallid; his eyes blue, with a curiously child-like expression. I remember my feeling of respect, tinged somewhat with awe, as I saw the pages of manuscript spread out upon the table, and listened eagerly to the three-cornered conversation.

From _Second Book of Verse_, New York, 1892]

In considering the manufacture of his book, Eugene Field had clearly defined ideas of the typographical effect he wished to gain; John Wilson possessed the technical knowledge that enabled him to translate those ideas into terms of type. The examination of the various faces of type, the consideration of the proportions of the page, the selection of the paper, the plan for the design of the cover and the binding,--all came into the discussion.

As I listened, I was conscious of receiving new impressions which gave me a fuller but still incomplete understanding. Until that moment I had found little of interest in the adventure of making books. Now came a realization that the building of a book, like the designing of a house, offered opportunity for _creative_ work. This possibility removed the disturbing doubts, and I undertook to discover for myself how that creative element could be crystallized.

Years later came an unexpected echo to the Field episode. After the publication of the _Second Book of Verse_, the manuscript was returned to Field, who had it bound in half leather and placed it in his library. Upon his death many of his books went by bequest to his life-long friend, Horace Fletcher, the genial philosopher and famous apostle of dietetics. When Fletcher died, he bequeathed Field’s personal volumes to me. By this curious chain of circumstances, thirty-three years after I had seen the manuscript spread out upon the table at the University Press, it came into my possession, bearing the identical memoranda of instruction made upon it by John Wilson, whose large, flowing hand contrasted sharply with the small, copper-plate characters of the author’s handwriting.

The present generation of booklovers would think themselves transported back ages rather than decades were they to glance into a great book-printing office of thirty-five years ago. The old University Press at that time acknowledged competition only from the Riverside and the De Vinne Presses, and conditions that obtained there were typical of the times. The business office was called the “counting-room”; the bookkeeper and the head-clerk were perched up on stools at high, sloping desks, and wore long, linen dusters and black skull caps. John Wilson sat at a low table desk, and his partner, who was the financial executive, was the proud possessor of the only roll-top desk in the establishment. Near him, perhaps because of its value as a novelty and thus entitled to the same super-care as the cash, was installed the telephone. Most of the letters were written by Mr. Wilson in his own hand. One of my first responsibilities was to copy these letters on the wetted tissue pages of the copy-book with the turn-screw press.

_Master-Printer_]

There was no particular system in effect, and scientific management was unknown. Mr. Wilson used to make out his orders on fragments of paper,--whatever came to hand. When the telephone was first installed he refused to use it, as he considered this method of conducting business as “sloppy” and even discourteous. To employ a stenographer would have been an evidence of a lazy disposition, and a dictated letter was an offence against dignity and decorum.

* * * * *

A week’s work at that time consisted of fifty-nine hours instead of the present forty-eight. Hand composition and electrotyping were figured together as one process and charged at from 80 cents to $1 per thousand ems. Changes required in the type by authors cost 50 cents an hour. An author could afford in those days to rewrite his book after it was in type, but today, with alterations costing five times as much, it is a different proposition!

The wages were as ridiculously low as the prices charged to customers. The girls in the composing room made from $9 to $12 a week, and those receiving the maximum considered themselves potential Hetty Greens. Today, receiving $40 to $45 a week, they find difficulty in making both ends meet. The make-up man, with the “fat” he received in addition to his wage of $16, actually earned about $20 a week, as against $50 to $60 a week now. The foreman of the composing room, with more than two hundred employees under him, received a weekly return of $23, as against $75 to $100 now.

Typesetting, thirty-five years ago, was almost entirely by hand, as this was before the day of the linotype and the monotype. Thorne typesetting machines, which then seemed marvels of mechanical ingenuity, failed to prove economical because they required two operatives and so easily got out of order. The composing room itself was laid out with its main avenues and side streets like a well-ordered town, divisions being marked by the frames bearing the cases of type in various faces and sizes. The correcting stones ran down the center.

The foreman of the composing room was the king of his domain and a power unto himself. Each side street was an “alley,” in which from four to eight typesetters worked, back to back. These were sometimes boys or men, but usually girls or women. The “crew” in each alley was in charge of an experienced typesetter. It was he who received from the foreman the manuscript to be put into type; who distributed the copy, a few pages at a time to each of his subordinates; who supervised the work, and arranged for the galleys to be collated in their proper order for proofing; and who was generally responsible for the product of his alley. As was characteristic of the times in well-conducted industrial plants, the workers in this department, as in the others, were simply a large family presided over by the foreman, who interpreted the instructions from the management; and by the heads of the crews, who carried out the detailed instructions of the foreman.

There was a pride in workmanship that is mostly lacking in manufacturing plants today, due largely to the introduction of labor-saving machinery, and again to the introduction of efficiency methods. Both were inevitable, but the price paid for the gain in production was high. I am old-fashioned enough to hope that modern ideas of efficiency will never be applied in the printing industry to the extent of robbing the workman of his individuality. Books are such personal things! I am in full sympathy with that efficiency which cuts out duplication of effort. I believe in studying methods of performing each operation to discover which one is the most economical in time and effort. I realize that in great manufacturing plants, where machines have replaced so largely the work of the human hand, it is obviously necessary for workmen to spend their days manufacturing only a part of the complete article; but when the organization of any business goes so far as to substitute numbers for names I feel that something has been destroyed, and that in taking away his individuality from the workman the work suffers the same loss.

I have even asked myself whether the greatest underlying cause of strikes and labor disturbances during the past ten years has not been the unrest that has come to the workman because he can no longer take actual pride in the product of his hand. Years ago, after the death of one of my oldest employees, I called upon his widow, and in the simple “parlor” of the house where he had lived, prominently placed on a marble-top table as the chief ornament in the room, lay a copy of Wentworth’s “Geometry.” When I picked it up the widow said proudly, “Jim set every page of that book with his own hands.” It was a priceless heirloom in which the workman’s family took continued and justifiable pride.

The old University Press family was not only happy but loyal. When the business found itself in financial difficulties, owing to outside speculations by Mr. Wilson’s partner, the workmen brought their bankbooks, with deposits amounting to over twenty thousand dollars, and laid them on Mr. Wilson’s desk, asking him to use these funds in whatever way he chose. The sum involved was infinitesimal compared to the necessities, but the proffer was a human gesture not calculable in financial digits.

* * * * *

Proofreading was an art in the eighteen-nineties instead of an annoying necessity, as it now seems to be considered. The chief readers were highly educated men and women, some having been clergymen or schoolteachers. One proofreader at the University Press at that time could read fourteen languages, and all the readers were competent to discuss with the authors points that came up in the proof. The proof was read, not only to discover typographical errors, but also to query dates, quotations, and even statements of fact. Well-known authors were constantly running in and out of the Press, frequently going directly to the proofreaders, and sometimes even to the compositors themselves, without coming in touch with the counting-room. Mr. Wilson looked upon the authors and publishers as members of his big family, and “No Admittance” signs were conspicuous by their absence.

The modern practice of proofreading cannot produce as perfect volumes as resulted from the deliberate, painstaking, and time-consuming consideration which the old-time proofreaders gave to every book passing through their hands. Today the proof is read once, and then revised and sent out to the author. When made up into page form and sent to foundry it is again revised, but not re-read. No proof used to go out from a first-class printing office without a first and a second reading by copy. It was then read a third time by a careful foundry reader before being made into plates. Unfortunately, with labor at its present cost, no publisher could produce a volume at a price that the public would pay, if the old-time care were devoted to its manufacture.

* * * * *

Time was when a reputation for careful proofreading was an asset to a Press. One day the office boy came to my private office and said that there was a man downstairs who insisted upon seeing me personally, but who declined to give his name. From the expression on the boy’s face I concluded that the visitor must be a somewhat unique character, and I was not disappointed.

As he came into my office he had every aspect of having stepped off the vaudeville stage. He had on the loose garments of a farmer, with the broad hat that is donned only on state occasions. He wore leather boots over which were rubbers, and carried a huge, green umbrella.