Figure 40
Two pages of an Abecedarium
From Holtrop’s Monuments Typographiques des Pays-Bas au Quinzième Siècle (facsimile), Fonderies de Caractères et leur Matériel dans les Pays-bas du XVe au XIXe Siècle (scan)
1460
If we examine the facsimile of a Donatus printed with the types of the Abecedarium, is it conceivable that the printer of this book could have known anything about the exact methods of making type, or of printing with it, which Mainz printers so well understood? The Abecedarium formerly in the possession of the Enchedés at Haarlem—what a wretched little book it is! how primary in every sense!