Volume 1

Typographical antiquities; or the history of printing in England, Scotland, and Ireland: containing memoirs of our ancient printers, and a register of the books printed by them / Begun by the late Joseph Ames, F.R. & A.SS. Considerably augmented by William Herbert, of Cheshunt, Herts; And now greatly enlarged, with copious notes, and illustrated with appropriate engravings; comprehending the history of English literature, and view of the progress of the art of engraving, in Great Britain; by the Rev. Thomas Frognall Dibdin.

  • Joseph Ames
Date:
1810
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Typographical antiquities; or the history of printing in England, Scotland, and Ireland: containing memoirs of our ancient printers, and a register of the books printed by them / Begun by the late Joseph Ames, F.R. & A.SS. Considerably augmented by William Herbert, of Cheshunt, Herts; And now greatly enlarged, with copious notes, and illustrated with appropriate engravings; comprehending the history of English literature, and view of the progress of the art of engraving, in Great Britain; by the Rev. Thomas Frognall Dibdin. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    or Poggius have done best; he, that he might buy a country house near Florence, sold Livy, which he had writ in a very fair hand ; and I, to purchase Livy, have exposed a piece of land to sale. Your goodness and modesty have encouraged me to ask these things with familiarity of you. Farewel, and triumph/ There are several pas- sages, which shew the great value and esteem of manuscripts, and that the manner of their conveyance was by notaries, as lands, See. I have a folio manuscript in French verse called, 6 Romans de la Rose’ (from whence Chaucer’s translation) on the last leaf of which is wrote, ‘ Cest lyuir costa an palas de Parys quarante coronnes dor sans mentyr * that is, this book cost at the palace of Paris 40 crowns of gold, without lying. (About 331. 6s. 6d. sterling.)* * The following further particulars from Watson, upon this interesting subject, may be acceptable to the reader: “ All the elogiums which we make of Printing, and the honours which we pay to it, come far short of its merit; and we cannot but easily consent to this, if we consider the vast expenses which the ancients were obliged to be at, in procuring manuscripts ; whereof I shall give here a few instances. “ Galen saith, in his Commentary upon the third of the Epidemicks, and upon the first book of the 1 Nature of Man,’ that Ptolomeus Philadelphia gave to the Athenians 15 ta- lents, with exemption from all tribute, and a great convoy of provisions, for the Au- tographs and Originals of the Tragedies of Eschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. “ But there is no need of proofs so far off, since we want not examples in modern au- thors, among whom James Picolomini, Cardinal of Pavia, having intreated Donatus Ac- ciaiolus to buy him Josephus, had for an excuse, that it was too dear : page 114 of the old edition, apud P ipiens. ‘ Josephus, of which you writ, is, in my opinion, too dear, especially this year, when money is scarce with me; therefore let that book alone. “ But what Acciaiolus wrote back to him afterward, concerning the great price of some other books, is yet much more remarkable. See Papiens, as above : ‘ He has taken out the titles, as you advise me, of the 3 volumes of Plutarch, in which are contained 24 parallels. The price of it cannot be less than 80 crowns of gold. [Or rose-nobles, value Ifis. 8d. sterl. a-piece.] Of Seneca’s Treatises, we have as yet found only the Epistles, for which they ask lb, or at least 15 crowns of gold.’ “ And that it may not be thought, that this high price was only in Italy, see what Ga- guin s »ith of a book, which he sought out at Paris for one of his friends who wrote to him from Rome. ‘ I have not to this day found out a Concordance, save one that’s very