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  • 29 - The old English letter foundries

  • from THE BUSINESS OF PRINT AND THE SPACE OF READING
  • Edited by John Barnard, University of Leeds, D. F. McKenzie, University of Oxford
  • With Maureen Bell, University of Birmingham
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    14 November 2002, pp 602-619

  • Summary

    The existence of independent ?fondeurs de lettres? is recorded in Lyon in the first half of the sixteenth century. In the second half, there were several substantial independent foundries, among them that of François Guyot at Antwerp, Hendrik van den Keere's at Ghent, the Egenolff business at Frankfurt, managed by Jacob Sabon, and the Parisian foundry of three successive Guillaume Le Bés, that had grown to become substantial businesses, with several employees and a stock of matrices for use or sale, dependent on a nuclear collection of punches. Engraving letters on the tip of a narrow cylinder of steel required special tools and the skill to render letters, singly or compound, with a family resemblance to each other, usually in a small size. Originally based on handwriting, printing types came to develop their own characteristics, conventions for roman and italic and the different kinds of black letter, commonly used.