The Printed Book part 2

“Medieval and Renaissance Book Production - Printed Books” is listed as an essential reading for this topic in ART317, and I can see why. Richard W. Clement's section of the ORB Online Encyclopedia is remiss in only 1 thing - the links to his images are broken - I can't see them on Internet Explorer or Firefox! Having said that though, there were lots of other titbits...

I wanted to know more about the compositing part of the printing process. Matthew G. Kirschenbaum came to the rescue at his site with images showing how a compositor assembles lines of text, transfers it to a galley tray, imposes it and pulls the press as mentioned in the reading.

Many of the web sites and readings talk about how multiple woodcut blocks were used to print large illustrations. I'd really like to see how this was done but I can't find anything on the net that shows it. How was this printing done so there were no gaps or overlaps where the blocks meet?

What techniques the woodblock-cutters used to get the reversed image onto a block of wood was another thing that piqued my curiosity. Was it by tracing the image through the back of the paper on which it was drawn to create a reverse, then drawing a grid over the top of it to provide a guide for the cutter to copy the image onto his block of wood? Or was the cutter also the illustrator? I found an example of this last possibility here. Alternatively: “the sketch is pasted face down and then the back of the paper is carefully rubbed off until the remaining paper is nearly transparent.” But surely this couldn’t be done with original artwork? Or perhaps the cutters used the technique of pasting a drawing directly onto the block of wood and then cutting through, which is a Japanese technique that I found here.

I found the development of the printers mark interesting. “At first the device was placed at the end of the book below the colophon.” “But in Paris, the printer's (sic) 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.”

"Medieval and Renaissance Book Production" uses the term ‘registration’ to mean lining one side of the printed sheet up with the printing on the reverse side of the same sheet; "...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." The term is used the same way in our reading. It’s taken me several re-reads to finally understand this, as registration to me means the exact placement of colour separations over the top of each other in the process of colour printing. It’s a cornerstone principle in my old trade of graphic reproduction. It can also refer to how pages back each other (perfecting), but this process is attended to before the artwork is given to the reproducer i.e. it’s done during the creation of the artwork, by hand drawing corner marks onto a piece of artwork or by placing them digitally.

I think it’s interesting that as part of the printing process the paper had to be dampned so that the image could be correctly transferred. I understand that not enough pressure could be applied to dry paper for it to take up ink, but it contributes to my curiosity raised in the “Gutenberg and After: The Development of Print Technology” reading about the printing inks that Guttenberg used.

Clement states “Because the size of the platen was limited, it was only possible to print half a forme at a pull” - so what was the maximum page size? When printing smaller books, were multiple pages printed in the same way as layouts are done today? The contemporary example below is from the Colchester Press web site.

Coleman's web site doesn't show what the ribbed spines, tooling, or the more detailed panel stamping of renaissance books looked like, and I was curious, so I found a few examples.

This example shows the spines of Braun & Hogenberg’s Civitates Orbis Terrarum printed in 1575-1588 by G. von Kempen. There are loads more examples of old and rare books and their bindings at The Librairie Camille Sourget.

This example is a gorgeous hand-tooled cover for “Biblia Latina”, made in Venice by Hieronymus de Paganinis, 7 September 1497. It looks like an error was made on the second line in ‘CHRISTO’, where we can see a ‘T’ as well as the ‘C’. It’s interesting to note the embellishments, those in the corner in particular; I have some very similar in my rubber stamps. I had no idea they had been used so long ago – never had the need or opportunity to find out, I suppose. The bible is only 18cm high. It's from The Infacy of Printing's web site.

Finally, with the topics for this course running from papyri scrolls to vellum manuscripts to paper incunabula, I wondered how paper made its way from China to Europe. “Paper was being used in China by AD 105. It was originally made from the inner barks of mulberry trees, soaked in water to make a pulp. This was pressed into sheets and dried. Later, old rags, rope and even fishing nets were used. Coarser papers, made from straw or wood were also manufactured, not for writing but for lanterns or fans or wrapping. Chinese prisoners captured in central Asia had brought the secret of papermaking to the Arab world by AD 795. it reached Spain by the 12^th century and then Italy and England by the 14^th century.” Tames, R. Turning Points in History: The Printing Press: A Breakthrough in Communication. 2nd Edition, Heinemann Library: Oxford 2006, p7.