William Dana Orcutt

“ When I print a book or bind one it is because I have a message in my soul which I am impelled to give mankind, and it comes out through my fingers. Other men express their messages in different media,—in stone or on canvas. I have discovered that the book is my medium. When I bind and decorate a volume I seem to be setting myself, like a magnetized needle, or like an ancient temple, in line and all square, not alone with my own ideal of society, but with that orderly and rhythmical whole which is the revelation of science and the normal of developed humanity. ”

“ François I was King of France; Charles V, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire; and Henry VIII, King of England. Italy had something to think about beyond magnificently decorated volumes, and printing as an art was for the time forgotten in supplying the people with books at low cost.
François I, undismayed by the downfall of the Italian patrons, believed that he could gain for himself and for France the prestige which had been Italy’s through the patronage of learning and culture. What a pity that he had not been King of France when Jenson returned from Mayence! ”

“ My hobby has been to acquire, so far as possible, volumes that represent the best workmanship of each epoch, and from them I have learned much of fascinating interest beyond the history of typography. A book in itself is always something more than paper and type and binder’s boards. It possesses a subtle friendliness that sets it apart from other inanimate objects about us, and stamps it with an individuality which responds to our approach in proportion to our interest. ”

“ Every now and then, superimposed upon the solid background of the margins, are tiny figures so far superior in freedom of design to the major subjects as to make one wonder why the more pretentious efforts are not farther advanced than they are. Yet why should we be surprised that an artist, under the influence of centuries of precedent and the ever-present aversion to change, should move slowly in expressing originality? As it is, the pages of Saint Médard give us for the first time motivation for the glorious development of the art to come in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. ”

“ The patrons of the arts represented the culture and wealth and political power of Italy, and they now discovered in the new invention an actual menace. To them the magnificent illuminated volumes of the fifteenth century were not merely examples of decoration, but they represented the tribute that this cultured class paid to the thought conveyed, through the medium of the written page, from the author to the world. This jewel of thought they considered more valuable than any costly gem. They perpetuated it by having it written out on parchment by the most accomplished scribes ”

“ After devoting a lifetime to printing as an art, I have naturally been gratified to discover that so large and friendly an army of readers exists to whom books mean something more than paper and type and binders’ boards. To many of my readers, the ideas advanced in this volume apparently have been novel, but appealing: “I have been over the books in my library,” writes one, “and find many that now take on new significance.” ”

“ A writer may be born who combines the wisdom of Solomon, the power of analysis of Henry James, the understanding of Plato, the philosophy of Emerson, and the style of Montaigne. This manuscript may be transformed into a book by a printer who can look beyond his cases of type, and interpret what Aldus, and Jenson, and Etienne, and Plantin saw, with the artistic temperament of William Morris and the restraint of Cobden-Sanderson. There may be a binding that represents the apotheosis of Italian, French, and English elegance. ”

“ It is a matter for consideration, when the world has shown such spectacular advance along material lines, that in painting, in sculpture, in architecture, in printing, the work of the old masters still stands supreme. In their time, when men had messages in their souls to give the world, the interpretation came out through their fingers, expressed in the medium with which each was familiar. Before the invention of printing, the masses received those messages directly from the marble or the canvas, or from the design of some great building. ”

“ In the splendor of the rebirth of Constantinople, to which all the known world contributed gold, and silver, and jewels, medieval illumination found its beginning. Artists could now afford to send to the Far East and to the southern shores of Europe for their costly materials. Brilliant minium came from India and from Spain, lapis lazuli from Persia and Bokhara, and the famous Byzantine gold ink was manufactured by the illuminators themselves out of pure Oriental gold. ”

“ The princes and patrons of Italy are intelligent enough to know that their self-centered political power is doomed if the new art of printing secures a firm foothold.
What a relief to such a man as Aldus when it became fully demonstrated that the desire on the part of the people to secure books in order to learn was too great to be overcome by official mandate or insidious propaganda! ”

“ If you print a Bible you can make a handsome job of it because there are no apostrophes or inverted commas to break up the letterpress with holes and dots. Until people are forced to have some consideration for a book as something to look at as well as something to read, we shall never get rid of these senseless disfigurements that have destroyed all the old sense of beauty in printing. ”

“ FRIENDS THROUGH TYPE
In 1903 I again visited Italy to continue my study of the art of printing in the old monasteries and libraries, sailing on the S. S. Canopic from Boston to Naples. Among the passengers on board I met Horace Fletcher, returning to his home in Venice. At that time his volume Menticulture was having a tremendous run. I had enjoyed reading the book, and in its author I discovered a unique and charming personality; in fact, I have never met so perfect an expression of practical optimism. His humor was infectious, his philosophy appealing, his quiet persistency irresistible. ”

“ I have learned from my own experience that even fragmentary study brings rich rewards:—the interest in discovering that instead of being merely decorative, the art of illumination is as definitive in recording the temporary or fashionable customs of various periods as history itself. There is a satisfaction in learning to distinguish the characteristics of each well-defined school:—of recognizing the fretted arcades and mosaics of church decoration in the Romanesque style; the stained glass of the Gothic cathedrals in the schools of England, France, Germany, or Italy ”

“ When an author has achieved the dignity of having written “works” rather than books, he has placed himself in the hands of his friends in all his varying moods. A single volume is but the fragment of any writer’s personality. I have laughed over Innocents Abroad, and other volumes which helped to make Mark Twain’s reputation, but when I seek a volume to recall the author as I knew him best it is Joan of Arc that I always take down from the shelf. ”

“ Some weeks later, in a small, second-hand bookstore in Florence, I happened upon a volume printed in the same type, which I purchased and took at once to my friend, Doctor Guido Biagi, at the Laurenziana Library.
“The work of Giambattista Bodoni is not familiar to you?” he inquired in surprise. “It is he who revived in Italy the glory of the Aldi. He and Firmin Didot in Paris were the fathers of modern type design at the beginning of the nineteenth century.” ”

“ If William James had not taken up science as a profession and thus become a philosopher, he would have been a printer. No other commercial pursuit so invited him as “the honorable, honored, and productive business of printing,” as he expressed it in a letter to his mother in 1863. Naturally, with such a conception of the practice of book manufacture, he was always particularly concerned with the physical format of his volumes. He once told me that my ability to translate his “fool ideas” into type showed the benefit of a Harvard education! ”

“ I was even more interested in the work of the secular scribes, usually executed at their homes, for it was to these men that the commissions were given for the beautiful humanistic volumes. As they had taken up the art of hand lettering from choice or natural aptitude instead of as a part of monastic routine, they were greater artists and produced volumes of surpassing beauty. A still greater interest in studying this art of hand lettering lay in the knowledge that it soon must become a lost art, for no one could doubt that the printing press had come to stay. ”

“ No demand has ever existed for volumes of this type adequate to the excessive cost involved by the perfection of materials, the accuracy of editorial detail, the supreme excellence of typography and presswork, and the glory of the binding. Sweynheim and Pannartz, Gutenberg’s successors, were ruined by their experiments in Greek; the Aldine Press in Venice was saved only by the intervention of Jean Grolier; Henri Étienne was ruined by his famous Thesaurus, and Christophe Plantin would have been bankrupted by his Polyglot Bible had he not retrieved his fortunes by later and meaner publications. ”

“ The people considered it the single basis of their faith, and upon their familiarity with it depended their present and future welfare. It was natural that they should attach the greatest importance to the possession of the most authentic edition of the original text. What more glorious task, then, could a printer take upon himself than to provide correct texts, to translate them with scrupulous exactitude, and to produce with the greatest perfection the single book upon which was based the welfare of men and of empires! ”

“ White is the enemy of the printer. Black, rich, fat, even black, without gray patches, is, or should be, his pride. Leads and quads and displays of different kinds of type should be reserved for insurance prospectuses and advertisements of lost dogs....”
His enthusiasm for William Morris’ leaf ornaments is not shared by all booklovers. Glance at any of the Kelmscott volumes, and you will find these glorified oak leaves scattered over the type page in absolutely unrelated fashion,—a greater blemish, to some eyes, than occasional variation in spacing. ”

“ The nine full-page miniatures have never been surpassed. No wonder that Lorenzo de’ Medici, lover of the beautiful, should have kept it ever beside him! The delicate work in the small scenes in the Calendar is as precise as that in the larger miniatures; the decoration, rich in the variety of its design, really surpassed the splendor and glory of the goldsmith’s art (page 146) . Some deplore the fact that England lost this treasure when the Italian government purchased the Ashburnham Collection in 1884; but if there ever was a manuscript that belongs in Florence, it is this. ”

“ My quest has resulted in giving me greater appreciation of the accomplishments of those who successfully withstood opposition and persecution in order to make the printed book a living vehicle to convey the gems of thought from great minds to the masses, never forgetful of the value of beauty in its outward aspect. I believe it possible today to perpetuate the basic principles of the early artist master-printers by applying beauty to low-cost books as well as to limited editions de luxe. ”

“ I have stood with the brave defenders of Leyden, and have watched the center of learning find its place in Holland; I have enjoyed Ben Franklin’s participation in the typographical efforts of Baskerville and Didot; I have received the inspiration of seeing William Morris and Cobden-Sanderson put a great art back into its rightful place. These triumphs of the printing [Pg 269] press are far more than books. They stand as landmarks charting the path of culture and learning through four marvelous centuries
What volume of the twentieth century and what master-printer shall be included? ”

“ To supplement my study of the Alcuin Bible, I turn to the masterpiece of the Carolingian School in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. The Golden Gospels of Saint Médard belongs to the same period as the Alcuin Bible, and its hand letters are of the same beautiful design, but more brilliant in that they are written throughout in gold. In spite of the crude and unnatural figures, I am always impressed with a feeling that the artist is, for the first time, making a definite effort to break away from past tradition toward more natural design. ”

“ At the time, the comment that came with the advice seemed a bit brutal: “A Foreword is an admission on the part of an author that he has failed to tell his story, or is an insult to the intelligence of his readers.” Since then my own feelings have come in such complete accord that the request of my publishers for a Foreword to this Third Edition comes as a surprise. But, after all, this is not my story, but the story of the Book, so, as recorder, I must recognize my responsibility. ”

“ The most fascinating city in all Europe is Florence, and the most alluring spot in all Florence is the Laurenziana Library. They say that there is something in the peculiar atmosphere of antiquity that reacts curiously upon the Anglo-Saxon temperament, producing an obsession so definite as to cause indifference to all except the magic lure of culture and learning. ”