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HISTORY OF PRINTING.

ehronicon, of this date, are the following poe- tical stanzas, in which one Roger Thoomye, a meicer, is praised for ordering and encouraging the printer to undertake so laborious a per- formance : —

Prayied be icod whycbe hath so well enduyd The auctor wyth grace de proprletaUbus To see ao many natoiall thyoges renewyd Which in hia boke he hath compyled thus Where tliragh by redyuge we may comfort us And wyth conceytes dyaera fede our mynde As bokes empiynted shewyth ryght as we fynde By Wynkyn de Worde whyche thruh liia dyligence Emprentyd hath at prayer and desyre Of Roger Thoroey mercer and from thens lliis mocion aprange to sette the hertea on fyre Of such aa lone to rede in euery shire DyueiB maters in Toydinge ydylnesse Lyke lias this boke liafh shewed to yon expieaae.

1495. Printing introduced into the following places in the course of this year : —

Porli, by Jerome Medesanus and P Guarinus.

Freisittgen, by John Sch»fiSer.

Schoenhoven, no printer's name.

Limoges, by John Berton.

Scandiano, by Peregrinus de Pasqualibus. An error is found in the date of the first work printed here: — m.cccc.lcxv. for mcccc.xcv. which in- duced Marchand and some others to suppose the date M.cccc.LXXv. but as the subscription states icandiani Camillo Boyardo Comite tmprets est, and Camillus was not count of Scandiano till after the death of his father Matthew Maire Boyardo, author of Orlando Innamorato, 1494, consequently the work in question could not have been printed before 1495, which is unques- tionably its true date. — A. Clark.

During this and the following century, no town was more famous for its learned printers, or the correctness of its works than Basil, in Switzer- land ; the principal of whom was Berthold Rodt, who is supposed to have carried on the printing business here from 1460 to 1465, and printed Joannit C<Uderini repertoriumjuru, folio. Mich. Wensler, 1476; Bern. Richel, 1475 ; Frederick Blel, sin. an. ; Eberhard Fromolt, 1481 ; John Amberbach, 1481 ; John Besickein, 1483-1489 ; Peter Kolligker, 1484 ; John Meister, 1484 ; Nicholas Kessler, 1486 ; James de Fforzen, 1489 ; Mich. Furter, 1490 ; John Froben, 1491 : John Petri, 1494 ; John Bergman, 1494, and Wolfgang Lachner, 1495.

From the singular circumstance that a very large proportion of the early printers bore the name of John, (which the resider can scarcely fJEul to notice) the printers of Leipsic, and other towns of Germany, chose the festival of St. John for the celebration of their anniversary.

1496. To Aldus Manutius, a Roman by birth, we are indebted for the invention of the italic letter. In this year he erected a printing-office in Venice, where he introduced the roman types of a neater cut, and gave birth to that beauttful letter which is known to most of the nations in Europe by the name of italic; though the Ger- mans, and their adherents, show themselves as ungenerous in this respect as they did with the roman, by calling it curtiv, in order to stifle the

memory of its original descent, and deprive tit* Romans of the merit due to their ingenuity.

In the first instance it was termed tmctiaai, from Manutius being a resident at Venice, wboe he brought it to perfection ; but not long after it was dedicated to the state of Italy, to prevent any dispute that might arise from other nations claiming a priority, as was the case concerning the first inventor of printing.

Italic was originiuly designed to distinguish such parts of a lK>ok as might be ccmsiderM not strictly to belong to the body of the work, aa prefaces, introductions, annotations, &c. all which sub-parts of a work were formerly printed in this character; so that at least two-fifths of « fount was comprised of italic letter.

Aldus was extravagant in the use of his italic ; for he printed whole volumes in it. An edition of the works of Virgil, in octavo, was the first book in this letter. Several eminent printers in- serted short quotations init; but rejected it when they were long, and subtituted double commas (thus ") at the beginning of the line, to distin- guish the quoted matter from the body of the work. It is affirmed that Aldus also added the semicolon.

As soon as Aldus perfected this foimt, he ob- tained a privilege from three several popes, for the sole use of it during the space oi fifteen years ; and these pontifis give him great enco- miums on the invention.

1496. In this year Wynlqm de Worde laid the first step to classical typographv in England, by printing Orlus Vocabiuorum : (UphabeHeo,4re.

This work was the original foundation of Ainsworth's Latin and EngHsh Dictumary.

Thus while the learned Italians were printing the best Greek and Latin classics, we were amus- ing ourselves with childish works, such as Hilton's Scale of Perfection, &c. Foreign na- tions led us more than fifty years.

1496. Printing introducea into the following places in the course of this year : —

Barco, by Gerson fil. Rab. Mosis Mentslan.

Granada, by Mainard Ungut, who printed Francisci Xinunii de vita Christiana, folio.

Offenburg, no printer's name.

Provins, by William Tavemier.

Mirandula, no printer's name.

Tours, bv Matthew Lateron who printed La vie et Us miracles de Monseigneur de St. Martisi, folio.

Pampeluna,byAmoldGuillermusde Brocaiio.

A Hebrew Grammar is supposed to have been printed at Ortona de Mare, in Sicily, in this year, but the best bibliographers allow itas to be apocryphal.

1496. The first work upon Phrenotogv (which Gall asserted he had discovered) is of this date, printed at Heidelberg, a city of Germany. For the origin of the phrenological svstem, it is

? roved undeniably, that we are indebted to an rishman of the name of Johannes Scotus Eri- gena, (or John the Irish Scot,) who wrote a work entitled Margarita Philosophica, or, de divitione nattirte, (the Pearl of Philosophy, or, oftite diri-

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