THE EARLIEST DEPICTION OF HOW TO DESIGN GREEK TYPES

[FUGGERS, WOLFGANG].

Fragment from: [Ein nutzlich und wolgegrundt Formular Manncherley schöner schriefften Als Teutscher Lateinischer Griechischer unnd Hebrayscher Buchstaben sampt unterrichtung wie ein yede gebraucht und gelernt soll werden]. Constituting the main part of the Greek section.

[Nürnberg, 1553]. Small 4to-oblong. 8 leaves in later blank wrappers. Handwritten title in Swedish ("Wolfgang Fuggers/ Grækiska Abbreviaturer/ utgifne i Nürnberg 1553") to front free end-paper. Some soiling, a tear to the first leaf, and some leaves shaved, with loss of a bit of the German lettering.

Excerpt from Fugger's extremely scarce handwriting-manual, the earliest work to deal in any way with the design of types. The present leaves comprise most of the Greek part of the work, with the exception of three pages, being: o2v: the textual introduction to the Greek section, o3r+v: both depicting Greek capital letters, o3v, also with pronunciation of the letters. o2r, which constitutes the final page of the Roman section, in present, at the end, but mounted at the verso of q3.

Present is: o4-q3 + o2, in all 8 leaves, comprising 15 pages of the Greek section. The present pages constitute: Text in Greek, both in capitals and miniscules, text in German on writing Greek characters, depictions of Greek miniscules, with the names of the characters, illustrations of how to practically write the Greek characters, samples of different styles of the Greek characters, tables of how some of the characters are and can be merged and written together, what the character- and word-abbreviations look like, and the numbers. I.e. a full exposition of all the Greek characters and how to learn and use them.

Order-nr.: 45833