Invention of Typography

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The combination of die, matrix, and lead in the manufacture of multiples of identical durable typefaces was one of the two necessary elements in the invention of typographic printing in Europe. The second necessary element was the concept of the printing press itself, an idea never conceived of in the Far East.

Johannes Gutenberg is generally credited with the simultaneous discovery of both these elements.

It is true that his signature does not appear on any printed work. The basic assumption is that, since Gutenberg was a silversmith, he would probably have retained the role of designer in an association set up with the businessman Johann Fust and Fust's future son-in-law the calligrapher Peter Schöffer in Mainz, Germany. This assumption of affiliation is based solely on the interpretation of obscure aspects of a lawsuit that Gutenberg lost against his associates in 1455.

The most convincing argument in favour of Gutenberg having invented printing comes from his chief detractor, Johann Schöffer, the son of Peter Schöffer and grandson of Johann Fust. Though Schöffer claimed from 1509 on that the invention of printing was solely his father's and grandfather's, the fact is that in 1505 he wrote in a preface to an edition of Livy that "the admirable art of typography was invented by the ingenious Johan Gutenberg at Mainz in 1450." The assumption is that he inherited this certainty from his father, and it is hard to see what persuaded him to the contrary after 1505, since Johann Fust died in 1466 and Peter Schöffer in 1502.

The first pieces of type appear to have been made as follows: a letter die was carved in a soft metal such as brass or bronze; lead was poured around the die to form a matrix and a mold into which an alloy, which was to form the type itself, was poured.

Spectroscopic analyses of early type pieces reveal that the alloy used was a mix of lead, tin, and antimony--the same components used today: tin, because lead alone would have oxidized rapidly and would have deteriorated the lead mold matricesd in casting; antimony, because lead and tin alone would have lacked durability.

Around 1475, it was probably Peter Schöffer who, thought of replacing the soft-metal dies with steel dies, in order to produce copper letter matrices that would be identical. This method of type production continued to be made by craftsmen into the middle of the 19th century.

The typographer's work was from the beginning characterized by four operations: (1) taking the type pieces letter by letter from a typecase; (2) arranging the type pieces side by side on a composing "stick," a strip of wood with corners, held in the hand; (3) justifying the line; the spacing of the letters in each line out to a uniform length by using little blank pieces of lead between words; and (4), after printing, replacing the type, letter by letter, back in the compartments of the typecase.

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