PRINTING is the multiplication of co pies by movable types. It superseded the once extensive business of copying. It was a mere extension of the art of coining and seal engraving, on which letters were re versed like types, but the impressions were taken in wax or metal. The first printing pages were blocks, like broad seals, cut in wood, and stamped on paper, which last was taught by card-making, cards being invented about half a century before, and the impressions made with ink and blocks.
The history of its origin is enveloped in mystery ; and this art, which commem orates all other inventions, which hands down to posterity every important event, which immortalizes the actions of the great, and which, above all, extends and diffuses the Word of God to all mankind; this very art has left its own origin in ob scurity, and has given employment to the studies and researches of the most learned men in Europe, to determine to whom the honor of the invention is due.
According to Du Halde and the mis sionaries, the art of printing from en graved blocks of wood was practised in China nearly fifty years before the Chris tian era ; and from the early commercial intercourse of the Venetians with that country, there is reason to believe that the knowledge of the art, and of its appli cation to the multiplying of books was de rived from thence ; for Venice is the first place in Europe of which we have any ac count in which it is practised, as appears by the decree above mentioned, which is the most ancient document in existence respecting printing ; but the date of this application of the art, or the place where it was first practised, it is impossible to determine. From that decree and the existence of the print of St. Christopher, it would seem that it had been long ap plied to the production of playing-cards, and of religious subjects, and when it was extended to books, they were printed by the Chinese method, still in use, each page being engraved on a block of wood: and if this plan was followed, as most probably it was, from its being the most correct—of fastening a page of manu script on the face of the block and engrav ing from that, instead of drawing the characters on the wood—it would at once account for the diversity of characters found in the block books, which varied with the different handwritings of the scribes, and has completely puzzled the learned, who endeavor to ascertain the printer by comparing the characters with some other work.
About the year 1450, the great and ac cumulating expense of engraving blocks for each separate work of the increasing number of books produced by means of printing, led to the important improve ment of the art of casting separate metal types, and substituting them for the wooden blocks previously used. This formed a new epoch in the art, and is now termed, erroneously, the origin of print ing. After it lapse of many years, several cities claimed the honor of this invention, but time has reduced these claims to two —Haarlem and Mentz.
Many of the manuscripts of the 14th and 15th centuries were written in a beau tiful manner, and embellished by borders round the pages, and by the large letters at the commencements of chapters being drawn and colored with brilliant colors, heightened with burnished gold, and fin ished with taste, delicacy, and great abil ity, so as to produce a most splendid effect. These were called illuminated manuscripts. On the first production of books by the process of printing, these ornamental letters were left blank, and both these letters and borders were fin ished by hand in the usual maner, which gave to the book a perfect resemblance to a manuscript, of which it became, by these means, a complete facsimile. This is the case with the Mentz Bible by Fust and Gutenberg. The first printers soon began to print these large ornamented letters, the letter itself being in some in stances red and the ornamental part blue, in others the letter is blue and the orna mental part red; and these were after wards finished by hand, as is apparent in the Psalter of 1457, printed by Fust and Schoeffer, who also showed great ingenu ity and skill in the large letter B in the same book, which is printed with red ink, and the ornamental kart, consisting of a flourished line, as if it had been drawn with a pen, extending from the top to the bottom of the folio page, with blue ink.