Early Printing
.
When the art of printing
was first applied in Europe to the production
of books, they were in imitation of, and sold as,
manuscripts; and blanks were left at the commencement
of the respective divisions of the
work, for the illuminator to fill in with the proper
letters and ornaments, as was usual in manuscripts,
and so close was the imitation that, even
in our own time, it has required the assistance
of a chemical test to ascertain which was manuscript
and which was printed.
When the secret of printing was divulged, and the deception
could not be continued, ornamental letters
of a large size were introduced, and printed
with two colours, generally red and blue, the
letter being of one colour, and flourishes,
extending the whole length of the page, in the
other, so as to have the appearance of being
done with a pen; then succeeded various
grotesque figures, in attitudes to resemble
letters; afterwards small Roman capital letters,
with ornaments round them forming a square
design; subsequently the block was pierced
so that any letter could be introduced, and the
ornamented part could be used for any initial;
the next descent was for the letter-founders to
cast the ornament in type metal, and pierce it
for general use, and these cast ornaments for
letters were called Facs, as an abbreviation, it
is believed, for facsimile. The last descent
was to the extreme, to put a plain Roman
capital letter, frequently extending four or five
lines in depth; and this is the substitute for a
beautiful coloured drawing.