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The earliest block-books were printed page by page, and the sheets were bound up one after the other; but the Speculum is arranged in quires, though still only printed on one side of the page. In it, too, the text is, as a rule, printed from movable type, except in the case of one edition, where some pages are entirely xylographic. There are four editions known, printed, according to the best authorities, in the following order:—

1. Latin, printed with one fount. [Hessels, 2.]

2. Dutch, printed with two founts. [Hessels, 3.]

3. Latin, with twenty leaves printed xylographically. [Hessels, 1.]

4. Dutch, with one fount. [Hessels, 4.]

In all these four books the same cuts are used, and the type with which they were printed was used in other books.

Edition 1 contains sixty-four leaves, made up by one gathering of six leaves, three of fourteen, and one of sixteen; the text is throughout printed from movable type. In two copies, those in the Meerman-Westreenen Museum at the Hague, and the Pitti Palace at Florence, are to be found cancels of portions of some leaves. Either the text or the illustration has been defectively printed; in each case the defective part has been supplied by another copy pasted on.