Blowing the Crystal Goblet: Transparent Book Design 1350-1950 A Thesis Submitted to the College of Graduate Studies and Research in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of English, University of Saskatchewan Saskatoon by Jon Bath © Copyright Jon Bath, Dec. 2009. All rights reserved. Permission to Use In presenting this thesis/dissertation in partial fulfillment of the requirements for a Postgraduate degree from the University of Saskatchewan, I agree that the Libraries of this University may make it freely available for inspection. I further agree that permission for copying of this thesis/dissertation in any manner, in whole or in part, for scholarly purposes may be granted by the professor or professors who supervised my thesis/dissertation work or, in their absence, by the Head of the Department or the Dean of the College in which my thesis work was done. 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Requests for permission to copy or to make other uses of materials in this thesis/dissertation in whole or part should be addressed to: Head of the Department of English University of Saskatchewan Saskatoon, Saskatchewan S7N 5A5 Canada - or- Dean College of Graduate Studies and Research University of Saskatchewan 107 Administration Place Saskatoon, Saskatchewan S7N 5A2 Canada i Disclaimer Reference in this thesis/dissertation to any specific commercial products, process, or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise, does not constitute or imply its endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by the University of Saskatchewan. The views and opinions of the author expressed herein do not state or reflect those of the University of Saskatchewan, and shall not be used for advertising or product endorsement purposes. ii Abstract In 1932 Beatrice Warde delivered to the British Society of Typographic Designers what has since become one of the most recognizable statements about the design of books: “The Crystal Goblet, or Printing Should Be Invisible.” In it, Warde defines good typography as a crystal goblet, “because everything about it is calculated to reveal rather than hide the beautiful thing which it was meant to contain.” Her address argues that the true art of designers is the creation of transparent interfaces which allow readers to imbibe deeply of the intellect captured within the pages of the book without external distractions. Warde’s ‘Crystal Goblet’ is fundamentally contradictory. Typographers must strive to make themselves and their work invisible so that only the voice of the absent author speaks through the text; but there is no voice, only words on page produced through a great deal of human labour at a specific moment in history. But, Warde did not create her metaphor; she adopted existing imagery from the Western tradition. Nor was she the first typographer to do so. The writings and work of those involved with the creation of books has, since before the invention of the printing press, revolved around attempts to create ‘perfect’ communicative interfaces – books which allow the reader an unobscured view into the mind of the author. The resultant page is that with which we are most familiar: a block of black Roman-style text on a white or off-white page with blank margins. This study tracks the rise and influence of the ‘crystal goblet’ motif, the dream of perfect readability, in the discourse of those directly involved with the creation of books: scribes, printers, type-cutters and typographers. It postulates transparency, or perfect readability, to be the primary motive underlying the actions of those making books, but does not assume all printers in all times have been motivated by the same forces or to the same extent. Rather, it traces the thread of transparency through many incarnations and examines the social and political factors underlying each permutation and how new elements are introduced into the discourse without completely erasing all traces of the old. Chapter One studies the Italian Renaissance and how the writing style of a small group of humanist scholars comes to dominate the printed book of the sixteenth century. Chapter Two begins with an examination of the perceived decline in typographic practice in the seventeenth century and the subsequent emergence of both writings about typography and of a new style of Roman typeface: the Modern. Chapter Three deals with similar events in the nineteenth-century – first there is a perceived decline in and then a revival of printing standards. Chapter Four discusses the reconciliation of machine- production and traditional practices in the early to mid-twentieth century and the unsuccessful challenge to traditional typography posed by the Bauhaus and other Modernist schools of design. iii Acknowledgements The writing of this thesis would not have been possible, or at least not nearly as rewarding, if not for the contributions of a great many people, not all of whom I have space to thank here. I’d like to thank Peter Stoicheff for being the best supervisor, mentor, boss and friend that a graduate student could ever hope for. I’m grateful to my examination committee, Len Findlay, Ray Siemens, Eric Neufeld and David Parkinson, for strengthening my argument with their questions and for making my thesis defense a delightful conversation about books. It has been wonderful to be a part of the English Department at the University of Saskatchewan these many years. I’d especially like to thank Ron Cooley for teaching the historical methods class where I first sketched out this project, Lisa Vargo for supplying me with a steady stream of articles about the resurgence of interest in typography, and Doug Thorpe for marking so many of my papers and, in the process, teaching me how to write. I’ve had the great fortune to work out many parts of my argument in papers and conference presentations, and I’d like to thank the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading and Publication (SHARP), the American Printing History Association (APHA), Implementing New Reading Environments (INKE), the Book History program at the University of Toronto, the Humanities Computing program at the University of Alberta and Hyphen for giving a graduate student the chance to test his ideas in front of an audience of experts. Lastly I’d like to thank Brenna, William and Adelaide. Without them I would likely have finished much more quickly, but, as they remind me every day, there are more important things in life than writing your thesis. iv Table of Contents Permission to Use ............................................................................................................... i Disclaimer .......................................................................................................................... ii Abstract ............................................................................................................................ iii Acknowledgements .......................................................................................................... iv Table of Contents .............................................................................................................. v List of Figures ................................................................................................................... vi Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 1 Chapter 1: Castigata et Clara – Humanist Books, Humanist Printers ........................... 10 Chapter 2: Regression and Revolution? The Rise of the Modern Typeface .................... 54 Chapter 3: Of Machines and Men: Nineteenth Century Printing and its Discontents ... 125 Chapter 4: Too Much Rule and Too Little Taste: The New Traditionalists vs. The New Typography ............................................................................ 173 Conclusion ..................................................................................................................... 237 Works Cited ................................................................................................................... 246 v List of Figures 1.1 Humanist manuscript, Livy's History of Rome, 14th century .......................................15 1.2 Nicolas Jenson, Eusebius' De Praeparatione evangelica, 1470 .................................20 1.3 Nicolas Jenson, Justinian's Institutiones. ca. 1478-80 ............................................... 23 1.4 Aldine Press, Pietro Bembo's De Aetna, 1495 ........................................................... 25 1.5 Aldine Press, Juvenal and Persius' Satyrae, 1507 ...................................................... 27 1.6 Geoffery Tory, Champfleury, 1529 ............................................................................ 46 1.7 Garamond Roman, Egenolff-Berner specimen, 1592 ................................................ 50 1.8 Granjon Italic, Egenolff-Berner specimen, 1592 ....................................................... 51 2.1 Jospeh Moxon, Mechanick Exercises titlepage, 1685 ............................................... 57 2.2 Elzevir Press, Cicero's Opera, 1642 .........................................................................