Page:De Vinne, Invention of Printing (1876).djvu/472

462 The composition of pages so unevenly balanced must have taxed the ingenuity of the compositor, but he was materially aided by the licence permitting frequent use of abbreviations.

These types are cast in evener line than the types of the Rationale, but the face is not of neater cut. The presswork is not good. The colophon, which is like that of the Psalter, states that the red letters have been printed by the masterly invention of type-making; but the red letters are the ones interspersed in the text. The great initials were not printed; the blank space left for them was filled up by the illuminator. This book was even more popular than the Psalter; it was reprinted four times, but always in the same form.

In 1462 Schœffer printed a new edition of the Latin Bible, in the Great-primer types of the Constitutions, in folio form, two columns to the page, and 48 lines to the column. It is the first Bible with printed date. According to modern taste, Schœffer's change from Pointed Gothic to Round Gothic was not happy, for the new face is inferior in design and execution. But the Round Gothic permitted the compression of the book within fewer pages, and was a more economical letter for the printer. The second volume has, in some copies, a colophon worded like that of the Psalter of