4

Notes on the illustrations of gothic types

1. In the opening paragraph of the text a reference is made to block-books, the
forerunners ofbooks printed from movable type.The front endpapers of this
book show a leaf from the first edition of the Biblia Pauperum, a block-book
printed in the Netherlands, c.1460-1470 '... consisting of scenes illustrative
of the NewTestament,with Old Testament préfigurations and prophecies'.
It was a popular work and was issued in many editions.

An interesting description of this 'Bible of the Poor' appears in the cata¬
logue of Books printed in the Fifteenth Century now in the British Museum: '40
leaves arranged in single sheets of two leaves each, printed with very thin ink,
usually brown, on one side only, each sheet containing two woodcuts print¬
ed from a double wood block. The space between the two woodcuts is some¬
times no more than one fifth of an inch, making it impossible to fold and bind
them without concealing part of the text.The cuts may thus have originally
been intended to be pasted on walls, rather than made up into books'.The
narrowness of this division between the blocks maybe seen in our example
which is printed same size. [see frontend papers]

2. From a manuscript containing the letters of the Aposdes written on parch¬
ment at Mainz circa 1440 in the Textura script.The name of the scribe is not
known. [4]

3. From the Gutenberg, Mazarin, or 42-line Bible printed at Mainz circa 1455
(not after 1456) in one of the texturas, or earliest versions of the formal gothic
or black-letter types.The text pages of this magnificent folio bible are double-
columned and the example on page 4 shows part of the first page of the Book
of Matthew.

Some of the characteristics of the texturas are noted on page 7.Types of this
kind were used throughout the fifteenth century in Germany as the standard
letter for Bibles and church service books, but with the appearance of the
Italian Rotunda the texturas waned in popularity. See note 5 below.In France
this style of letter is called 'lettre de forme'. [6]

4. A page from the Gospel of Nicodemus printed by Günther Zainer at Augs-
burg,i46oî. Mr Johnson writes 'For the printers of Latin texts, scholastic,
theological or classical, the early printers cut a less formal letter (than the
texturas), following, of course, the manuscripts.........the first of these

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