each engraved on a separate piece of wood, were made to fit each other, so that the red block should fit accurately in the mortised blue block. In the process of printing, each block was separately inked, but the red block was dropped in the mortise of the blue block before impression was taken.[1] After these painstaking preparations, exact register was inevitable.
Blades does not accept this explanation. He thinks that the engraving for the red and the blue ink was done on one block, which was not printed with ink, but was embossed in the paper as a guide to the colorist. He says that his examination of the two-colored initial letters of a Bible made by Sweynheim and Pannartz in 1467 proves that they were not printed, but embossed, in the white paper; that the paper mask on the frisket was left uncut over the engraving, so as to shield the white paper from the ink, and to deepen the indentation of the engraved lines; and that the illuminator made use of this indentation, as he would of a pencil drawing, to guide his pen or brush when laying on the colors. He further says[2] that a similar operation was carelessly done in parts of the Psalter of 1457; that some of the spiral lines, finials and ornaments v/ere left uncolored, but that the process was plainly exposed by the indentation of the engraved lines.
It is not necessary to accept Blades' opinion that the coloring was done entirely with pen or brush: the few uncolored lines in the initials of the Mentz Psalter may be regarded as blemishes occasioned by an accidental overlapping of the mask on the frisket. Savage's statement that the blocks were printed with ink is too positive to be disputed. Nor is it necessary to accept the hypothesis of Bernard that the blocks were engraved in two pieces and mortised, that they might be printed by one impression. We may rightfully suppose
- ↑ This method of printing in colors was patented by Solomon Henry of Great Britain in 1786, and in another form by Sir William Congreve in 1819, and by him applied to the printing of maps. Abridgment of Specifications relating to Printing, London, 1859. Improvements in machine presses have put out of use these methods of printing in colors.
- ↑ Life and Typography of William Caxton, vol. ii, p. liii, note.
