Читать книгу Geofroy Tory. Painter and engraver; first royal printer; reformer of orthography and typography under François I онлайн

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A word regarding the method of reproduction of these illustrations may not be out of place here. More was aimed at than mere photographic copies, which are in many ways inadequate. It was thought desirable to make the decorations an integral part of the typographic treatment of the volume and to preserve when practicable their original relations to the type. To attain this end, more perfect printing plates were necessary than could be obtained directly from the old editions. The designs, therefore, were all redrawn with the greatest care over photographs of the originals, and from these drawings photo-engravings made, which were afterward perfected by hand when the forms were on the press.

Notwithstanding some inevitable slight divergences of line, this method preserves with far greater faithfulness the spirit and effect of the original prints, and the result is more truly a facsimile than a direct photographic copy would have been. Both drawing and engraving of Tory's designs were exquisite, and as a rule they were beautifully printed, especially by Colines and Robert Estienne. Some of them, however, suffered at the hands of inferior printers. Imperfections and irregularities due to the carelessness or unskilfullness of the printer are readily discernible, and in the reproductions in this volume have been eliminated. The preservation, by this treatment, of more of the beauty and interest of the originals is sufficient justification for departing to this extent from the usual methods of facsimile reproduction.