Pica Type
. The Rev. E. Mores Rowe, a
great literary author and antiquarian, born in
Kent in 1729, in his “Dissertation upon English
Typographical Founders,” says, “The
Pie was
a table showing the course of the service in
the Church in the times of darkness, and was
written in narrow columns of black and red.
There were some Friars in England called
Friars de Pie, so called from their party-coloured
raiment, black and white striped (like
the plumage of a magpie). Another definition
is from
Pie, an old Roman Catholic service-book,
so called from the manner of its printing,
presenting an appearance like the colours of
a magpie.” An old placard of Caxton’s preserved
at Oxford reads thus, “If it please any
man spirituelle or temporal to buy any
pyes,
two or three, let him come to Westminster
and he shall have them good and chepe.”
The French and Germans call it “Cicero,” so
possibly the writings of that philosopher were
printed in it.