CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
 Jane Kaufman, '60 
 
 In Mfemory Of 
 Rosalind Kaufm?n 
 
no «^ J „9? rne " University Library 
 
 PS 3513.0915C5 
 
 The City of Crafts :a phantasy : being s 
 
 3 1924 022 453 710 
 
1 Cornell University 
 7 Library 
 
 The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://archive.org/details/cu31 92402245371 
 
>**v 
 
THE 
 
 CITY OF CRAFTS 
 
 A Phantasy 
 
 BEING SOME ACCOUNT 
 OF A JOURNEY TO THE COURT OF THE 
 
 PRINTERS' GUILD 
 
 'Told by 
 
 A member of the American Institute 
 of Graphic Arts of what he saw and 
 heard there, and the printers he talked 
 with ; illustrated by pictures with a lan- 
 tern at a meeting of the Institute on the 
 eveningofWednesday,February 15,1922 
 
 New York 
 
 American Institute of Graphic Arts 
 
 1922 
 
Wbte 
 
 In the summer of 1921, while in London, the writer 
 of the "City of Crafts" one day, while sauntering 
 down Charing Cross Road, chanced to see in the 
 window of one of the many book-sellers in that 
 street, a little pamphlet — "The Court of the 
 Printers' Guild," written by W. Loftus Hare and 
 decorated by the late Lovat Fraser. 
 
 The pamphlet had been issued some seven or 
 eight years ago, primarily to advertise the Cran- 
 ford Press, which is the trade name of George Pul- 
 man 6? Sons, a firm of London printers, but the 
 decorations by Fraser, whose untimely death is so 
 generally deplored, soon made it sought for, and 
 copies are not now easy to come upon. Issued origin- 
 ally at a shilling, the present writer paid "seven and 
 six" for his copy, and glad to get it at that. 
 
 While reading the pamphlet, it occurred to the 
 writer that it might be made the basis for an eve- 
 ning's entertainment for The American Institute of 
 Graphic Arts, of which he was President, thinking 
 then only to use Mr. Hare's text and add slides of 
 pages from the works of the old printers mentioned. 
 But on attempting to employ the text for the pro- 
 posed use, it was found that some of it was too 
 closely linked up with the work of the printers issu- 
 ing the pamphlet to make the adaptation satis- 
 factory; it seemed advisable, then, to disregard 
 
some of his text, reconstruct the whole and add 
 something more suited to the purpose intended. 
 
 Mr. Clarence White kindly consented to make 
 slides for use that evening from pages supplied by 
 the writer; Mr. William E. Rudge arranged to print 
 the whole, from letters cast and composed by the 
 machine whose work deWorde objected to, in order 
 that those present might have something tangible 
 to carry away with them, other copies to be sent 
 to members of the Institute not able to be present 
 on that occasion, and possibly a few at a nominal 
 charge for those interested. The receipts therefrom 
 are to defray expenses of other efforts for entertain- 
 ment and instruction of the membership. 
 
 Intended only as an evening's entertainment, it 
 is hoped that failure to include the names and work 
 of many notable printers will not be criticized, nor 
 what is said of those there mentioned taken too 
 seriously. It can readily be understood that the 
 references to the present-day printers — members 
 of the Institute, and friends of the writer — are in- 
 tended to be good-natured fun only. If perchance 
 anything has been said that invites criticism, it is 
 due merely to the heavy hand of the writer and 
 should not be taken too literally; nor are invidious 
 
 comparisons intended or expected. 
 
 F. W. G. 
 
 FOREST HILLS GARDENS 
 JANUARY 30, I922 
 
THE CITY OF CRAFTS 
 
 H 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Long way from here, in 
 thePrinters' Paradise, lies the 
 City of Crafts, a city peopled 
 only by workers in the art 
 preservative of all arts, and 
 toward which place journey 
 all who excel in good work. 
 Tonight we are to hear news 
 from there, of famous men long since gone and what 
 they do, news from the City of Crafts and the Print- 
 ers' Court established there. Excepting now and 
 then only, none leave that place; but recently one 
 from the Court, anxious for greater news than ordi- 
 narily comes to them, found his way among us and 
 I met with him. He told me that the great printers 
 of the past are to be found in that City, and that their 
 chief occupation is recounting among themselves the 
 difficulties, and pleasures too, incident to the begin- 
 nings of typography ; and while few leave them, news 
 of what is going on in the world above reaches the 
 members of the Court, who pass judgment and enter 
 in a large Book kept in the great Printers' Hall the 
 names of those of the upper world found worthy of 
 the honor. All the things he told me and the things 
 he shewed me, gave me joy and made me wish to go 
 with him when again he went back to that City. 
 Later I did go with him, and tonight I am to tell 
 you what I found there. 
 
First, while the members of the Court were gather- 
 ing, was I allowed to look at the Book kept in the 
 great Hall in which are written many names — not, 
 indeed, every printer's name, but only those who 
 had been judged and found worthy of the honor. 
 As often as one among the earthly craftsmen is 
 found to excel above others the Court is convened, 
 but talk of printing and its wondrous improve- 
 ments since their day, goes on all days. 
 
 The Governor of the Court is one Arnold Pan- 
 nartz, the partner of Conrad Sweynheim. These 
 two disciples of Fust, while on their way to Rome, 
 stopped at the Monastery of St. Scholastica and 
 printed four books there for the Abbot. I heard them 
 laughing as they talked together of the terror they 
 were in when surprised by the monk Clement, who 
 was on his way to obey the Pope's summons to 
 teach at the University of Basle. It seems Clement 
 one Sunday morning had preached at a small Italian 
 town and afterward continued his way on foot. He 
 came upon two tired craftsmen resting in the deep 
 shade of a great chestnut tree ; near them was a 
 little cart and in it a printing press, rude and clumsy. 
 How Clement knew them to call their names when 
 he never before had seen them nor they him, they 
 could not understand."My children," said Clement, 
 "I saw a 'Lactantius' in Rome, printed by Sweyn- 
 heim and Pannartz, disciples of Fust. By your 
 blue eyes and flaxen hair I wist ye were Germans. 
 Who then should ye be but Fust's disciples?" And 
 they took the press out of the cart and presently 
 printed a quarto sheet of eight pages for which the 
 
types already were set up. "What," said Clement, 
 "are these words really fast upon the paper ? Will 
 they not disappear as quickly as they came ? Why, 
 'tis Augustine's c De Civitate Dei' itself! My sons, 
 you carry here the very wings of knowledge !" 
 
 The Councillors of the Governor, too, bore famous 
 names, and came to the Court from many lands. 
 One, I was told, was named Waldfogel, of Avignon 
 in France, who claimed to be the inventor of print- 
 ing; and indeed, many in France today think so 
 too, from certain documents found in the legal ar- 
 chives of Avignon, but no books to substantiate his 
 claims by direct evidence. Another who wished to 
 be thought the first to print was Laurens Coster of 
 Haarlem, but few gave heed to him, as scholars dis- 
 pute his claims to be the first who "shortened the 
 labor of copyists by the device of movable types . . . 
 disbanding hired armies and cashiering most kings 
 and senates and creating a whole new democratic 
 world." Among the company were two Germans, 
 Fust and his son-in-law Peter Schoeffer, who sat by 
 and scowled sourly at Johan Gutenberg, who nearly 
 five hundred years ago had left Mayence with 
 them. Gutenberg is generally credited with the 
 actual application of the first use of movable metal 
 types. Coster's name is not attached to any books 
 he is said to have printed, but neither do the works 
 of Gutenberg bear his name. "Why," said Guten- 
 berg, "Fust goes so far as to print at the end of one 
 of his books : 'this present work, with all its embel- 
 lishments was done, not with pen and ink, but by 
 a new invented art of casting letters, printing, by 
 
me Johan Fust and my son-in-law, Peter Schoeffer, 
 in the famous city of Mentz upon the Rhine.' " He 
 continued, "I know they helped me and lent me 
 money, but why need they try to steal the glory 
 that belongs only to me ? I hear, too, that the ex- 
 cellent 'Dictionnaire Universelle,' in which no one 
 would expect to find any mistake whatever, says 
 that John Fust, Burgomaster of Mayence, mater- 
 nal uncle of John Schoeffer, invented the art of 
 printing with brass types." 
 
 Hearing his recital of this garbled passage, I was 
 reminded of the itinerant preacher who mingled 
 and misplaced his quotations from the Scriptures 
 in a similar manner, and astonished greatly his con- 
 gregation by exclaiming, "And Moses, after he had 
 been forty days and forty nights in the whale's 
 belly, said on emerging, 'Verily, almost thou per- 
 suadest me to become a Christian !' " 
 
 Asking one near me — I think it was William Caxton 
 — who else was there present, he pointed out to me 
 Mentelen of Strasburg and Zainer of Ulm and 
 Zel from Cologne. Zel in his early days was a scribe, 
 but took up the new art soon after Gutenberg and 
 Fust had made their Latin Bibles here. Master 
 Zainer was in an ill mood because, he said, Heinrich 
 Knoblochtzer had copied his Vita Aesopi cum 
 Fabulis, claiming he had given no one any right to 
 copy his work. And Arnold Hoernen was there too, 
 he the first to put numbers on his printed pages. 
 Zainer, in turn, was taken to task by the Augsburg 
 wood-cutters because he made pictures for his 
 printed books, they claiming their Charter gave 
 
them alone the right to cut blocks; but on going be- 
 fore the Abbot with the matter, that wise man 
 judged that Master Zainer might do as he pleased 
 if he used the work of the wood-cutters'guild alone. 
 It was at that time that the wood-cutters of Nurem- 
 berg made block books without the use of metal 
 types; some had no presses but laid the paper on 
 the inked blocks and rubbed it down. They sold 
 books to the people, as the text was in the vulgar 
 tongue and the learned despised any not in Latin. 
 I saw one book called Mirabilia Romae— showing 
 the marvels of Rome and written in the German 
 tongue, and containing nearly two hundred pages, 
 all cut on wooden blocks. No one knew the name of 
 the printer of this book to tell me, although some 
 said it had been done by Ulrich Hahn. Giovanni 
 Vavassore, who lived at Venice, and the last to 
 print block books, when I told him that since his 
 day printers made casts in metal from their type 
 forms and could print more books in a week than 
 he could in a year, turned away, not believing that 
 such things could be true. Yet I could hardly expect 
 one who had printed block books many years after 
 the invention of moving types to believe me, so 
 slow-witted was he. 
 
 The Governor called the Court to order and, hap- 
 pily, I was allowed to remain through the session. 
 The Clerk of the Court read the names of those 
 present, who all gave answer when their names were 
 called. 
 
 From Venice came Joannes de Spira, and he 
 brought with him his Cicero — Epistolae ad Fami- 
 
Hares, which he printed in 1469 and was, he main- 
 tained, the first book printed there. Nicolas Jenson, 
 who had been sent by his lord, Charles VII, from 
 the mint at Tours to Mayence to spy out the new 
 art of printing of which he had heard marvels re- 
 ported, the king having learned that Messire 
 Guthenberg was making letters there with a punch. 
 Some even think that Jenson may have obtained 
 work as engraver of metal punches in the atelier of 
 Gutenberg, and even learned the art of printing 
 there. When Jenson returned to Paris he found his 
 patron Charles dead and Louis XI on the throne. 
 Louis had not the same interests as his father. Jen- 
 son, no doubt disgusted with the indifference with 
 which he was received by Louis, decided to carry 
 his new-found art elswhere. He soon found his way 
 to Venice, where he joined his art of engraving to 
 that of printing, making his first book a year after 
 de Spira's, but on the finest fount of letters ever 
 cast, more perfect in form than those of any pre- 
 vious printer and the direct parent of the Roman 
 letters in general use today. 
 
 With Jenson came Aldus Manutius, bringing his 
 Virgilius set up in a type which, he said, was copied 
 from the handwriting of the great Petrarch. And 
 Gerard Leeu of Antwerp, and Jacob Bellaert from 
 Haarlem, and Colard Mansion, who had been a cal- 
 ligrapher, but who later printed with types cut 
 after his own writing, a style he passed on to 
 William Caxton, the Englishman who, it is said, 
 learned the art of printing from Mansion while 
 Caxton was living at Bruges. Caxton had with him 
 
his assistants, Wynkyn de Worde and Richard 
 Pynson. De Worde seemed not to care for the com- 
 pany he found himself in, deeming it too slow. 
 
 As I looked about on the company assembled, I 
 recognized Christopher Plantin of Antwerp from 
 the painting of him I had seen at the museum in 
 that city, and I spoke to him. He showed still the 
 effects of the dagger thrust that a ruffian had in- 
 flicted on him, having mistaken Plantin for another. 
 Plantin, unlike Gutenberg, did not sink under mis- 
 fortunes. He told me how "nine times did he have 
 to pay ransom to save his property;" in spite there- 
 of, in the ruins of a sacked city, surrounded by sav- 
 age soldiers, discouraged with a faithless king who 
 would neither protect his property nor discharge his 
 just debts, ill at ease with clamoring creditors, con- 
 tinued yet his work. What a lesson that we too 
 might learn! 
 
 Antwerp was but the city of his adoption; he was 
 born in France. Stephens of Paris, weary of endless 
 quarrels with meddlesome ecclesiastics, fled to 
 Geneva; so Plantin, to escape the fate of Stephen 
 Dolet, who was burned at the stake, was forced 
 to forsake Paris for Antwerp. Reading the signs of 
 the times, forewarnings of the coming massacre of 
 St. Bartholomew were already plain to him. 
 
 He showed me his best work, of which he was 
 proud and justly so — the "Royal Polyglot" a mag- 
 nificent achievement in spite of its 115 errors of 
 paging in eight folio volumes. The printing of it 
 was good, but not of the highest rank. But Plan tin's 
 purposes were always beyond his rivals; he did not 
 
pander to low appetites, his aims were always high 
 and his taste severe, points that are of greater ac- 
 count than faultless technique. 
 
 And I saw also William Morris and Theodore 
 DeVinne talking together — strange looking in their 
 modern dress among the costumes of long ago. I 
 wanted to speak to Morris but did not dare ; yet draw- 
 ing as near to him as I could, I overheard DeVinne 
 tell him that he was a "dreamer of dreams, born out 
 of his due time" — and how with the same kind of 
 presses, etc., Morris had gone the early printers one 
 better. If time had permitted, he said, his Chronicles 
 of Froissart would have outrivalled any piece of 
 printing ever attempted,so sumptuous with borders, 
 initials andwood-cut illustrations; it wouldhave sur- 
 passed even the Chaucer he did finish. 
 
 Master Pannartz, the Governor of the Court, then 
 spoke to the members of the Guild, saying, it had 
 come to his ears that Master William Rudge, a 
 printer in the United States of America, was worthy 
 of having his name written in the great Book as 
 one excelling in his work. Many there were present 
 who spoke up for him. Antoine Verard of Paris 
 declared that although he himself had printed more 
 than three hundred books and had even employed 
 three other master printers in Paris to help him, 
 yet would he have liked to have had help also from 
 this Master Rudge. Gutenberg said that his own 
 work would have been as good as that of Rudge 
 had not Fust and his son-in-law, Peter Schoeffer, 
 dunned him so hard for the loan he had of them. 
 However, he did not object to entering Rudge's 
 
name in the book, but Wynkyn de Worde spoke 
 up — said he: "It is no long time since I came 
 with William Caxton from Bruges [It be over four 
 hundred years, said the Clerk of the Court in an 
 undertone] and set me down in Westminster where 
 I printed over six hundred books that still live. 
 For me, I see no good in the new-fangled printing 
 of this Master Rudge, and I hear too, he sets up the 
 letters he prints from with a machine that is made 
 in the City of Brotherly Love. How else can work 
 be but bad when so quickly done?" 
 
 Theodoric Rood, who came from Cologne and 
 joined for a press at Oxford with Thomas Hunt 
 — well-known as an Oxford University stationer 
 since 1473 — turned sour because of such great learn- 
 ing all about him, cursed the day his press was set 
 up. He said he could see no good in any printing 
 done in a land of which he had never so much as 
 heard; whereat Joannes Paulus Brissensius, a native 
 of Brescia in Italy, said that he had printed in Mex- 
 ico, in America, in 1 549, and resented Rood's slurring 
 remarks. Printing, he said, was not to be judged by 
 the place where it was done, nor by whom, but by 
 its excellence; moreover,he continued, "who fault- 
 eth not, liveth not; who mendeth faults is com- 
 mended : The Printer hath faulted a little : it may be 
 the authors oversighted more." For his part he 
 thought much printing was being done in that 
 same America, that for excellence even rivalled the 
 work of his companions whose names had been en- 
 rolled in the Book without question. 
 
 Others of the company did not agree with de 
 
Worde and Rood, the foremost among them, Geo- 
 froy Tory, who printed for Francis I, rated him 
 roundly, saying he was "out of date and a back- 
 number, forsooth," he went on,"this Master Rudge 
 has associated with him a typographer named 
 Bruce Rogers, a typographer such as never before 
 known, and with his help Master Rudge achieves 
 as correct a style and charms the eye as effectively 
 and captivates the fancy as truly as ever I was able 
 — and very like, too." And some of the company 
 asked, "why not use a machine to set the types, if 
 it does them well ? Were not our presses machines ? 
 Would we had had such wonderful aids." And "be- 
 sides," some one was heard to say, "the machine he 
 uses is made by a company of workmen that em- 
 ploys an artist to design types for it — why not put 
 his name also in the Book?" And I was confused 
 and could say naught, only glad that ever I was 
 thought worthy of so great honor, deeming my 
 handicraft but every-day commonplace work. 
 
 And then there was talk of how Master Munder, 
 of the city of Baltimore, was printing in colors so well 
 that many knew not that it was printing. One, I am 
 no t sure whether it was Ratdolt of Augsburg or Jean 
 du Pre of Paris, told the Court that some of the 
 pictures printed by Master Munder were so like 
 paintings he dared not say how like ; but Anton 
 Koburger of Nuremberg was sour — for himself, he 
 said, he "could see little need for a picture on a 
 printed page to be like the thing itself." Whereat 
 William Caxton laughed and was heard to mutter, 
 "That canwewell understand,sincein thy Chronicle, 
 
to print the likenesses of two hundred kings you 
 used no more than forty wood-cuts,and for well-nigh 
 as many Popes, less than that many blocks." In 
 this same Chronicle that Caxton refers to, many 
 cities are shown, all printed from the same block — 
 Nineveh or Babylon or Troy, it mattered not. 
 Amid the laughter Master Koburger hurried away 
 abashed. 
 
 This talk of printing in colors caught the ears of 
 Fust and Schoeffer who were quick to maintain 
 that they were the first to use red and blue initials 
 in their Psalter. Whereon Erhard Ratdolt, with 
 some heat, claimed he had printed with colors, and 
 moreover, he was indeed the first to print in gold. 
 
 And all the time this talk was going on there were 
 being shewn sheets printed by Master Marchbanks, 
 to whom merchants have recourse for lists of their 
 choicest wares, and the members of the guild mar- 
 veled that almost the things themselves appeared 
 on his pages, so like were they printed. Gunther 
 Zainer's wood-cutters could not understand what 
 I told them of the work of the photo-engravers that 
 Marchbanks employed. Nicolas Jenson was amazed 
 at the types Marchbanks printed on, more sharp 
 and clear-cut than the "white-letter" he himself 
 had printed from, whereat I was covered with con- 
 fusion and would have hidden myself if it were 
 possible, since it was of my own handiwork that he 
 was speaking. 
 
 The names of Rudge, Munder, and Marchbanks 
 were ordered set down in the book by the Court, 
 but, the hour growing late, he announced that dis- 
 
cussion of the qualifications of Masters Grabhorn, 
 and Taylor and Taylor, and D. Berkeley Updike, 
 and Everett Currier and William Kittredge and 
 others would come up at the next convening of the 
 Court though many there were present ready to 
 vouch for them. 
 
 Then the Governor took a great pen and entered 
 the names of these printers in the Book. After that 
 we all fell to eating and drinking, moderately but 
 most joyfully, as all craftsmen should after a good 
 day's work. And as they ate, good humor returned 
 — even Wynkyn deWorde joined in the feast and 
 wished to recall the ill words he had said, and Rood 
 too, was sorry that he had vented his spleen in that 
 company. 
 
 I resolved then that I would return and tell the 
 members of the American Institute and its friends 
 all I had seen and heard, and I have, but I could 
 not save with the help of Clarence White the pho- 
 tographer, Rudge the printer, and the Directors who 
 gave me leave to use this place to tell and show you 
 what I saw in the City of Crafts. 
 
 F. W. G. 
 
With apologies and thanks to Messrs. George 
 Pulman & Sons of London, whose pamphlet, The 
 Court of the 'Printers' Guild, suggested the fore- 
 going account of my journey to the City of Crafts. 
 Printed February, 1 9 2 2 ,by William Edwin Rudge, 
 Bradford Road, Mount Vernon, New York. 
 
 Decorations bv George Illian