Page:Historic printing types, a lecture read before the Grolier club of New York, January 25, 1885, with additions and new illustrations; by De Vinne, Theodore Low, 1828-1914; Grolier Club.djvu/20

 16 HISTOEIC FEINTING TYPES. borders, did much to relieve the somberness of the black text. It was the gold and bright color put in by hand that made the book attractive. Deprived of these graces the letters were not beautiful. Without doubt, the letters were fairly copied from some unknown manuscript model ; fairly copied as to shape and size, and the form of page and arrangement of text were also imitated. The printer supposed that the blanks which had been left for initials Not attractive and border would be filled in by the buyer. The book w lie ii it wfts not decorated, was incomplete without painted initials and border, for these were the features which made the work attractive to ecclesiastics then as it does to artists now. Here was a miscalculation. Not every buyer of the printed book had the ability or the means to decorate it. We may rightfully suppose that the largest number of copies never had any decoration. Destitute of bright color the text was somber, and this somberness gradually put the edition out of fashion. In G-ermany, this pointed Black Letter was the style always preferred for the service books of the Church. The more magnificent the book, the more formal and stately pointed Black the character. Perhaps the finest specimen of this letter in a printed book was shown in the Bamberg Missal of 1481, which has text types three-quarters of an inch high. For the books that were made to be bought and read by the laity, a simpler form of Black Letter was in great favor. A good example of this form may be seen in the Catholicon