Magyar Könyvszemle, 1971 (87. évfolyam, 1-4. szám)

Borsa Gedeon: Computer-assisted examination of printing types of early printings 165

Gedeon Bursa Unfortunately enough, no systematic work on the 16th-century prints is available although a methodical détermination of publications with missing imprint is inconceivable without such an aid. Somé ten million characters of hundred thousand printing types of ten thousand printers just paralyses any initiative in this field. Difficulties are increased by the fact that punches were carried from one place to another, furthermore, matrices and cast types were multiplied. Thus Haebler's above-mentioned assumption that two printing types of exactly the same form may not occur at one and the same time, does no longer hold true, without limitation, for the laté 15th Century, particularly for the more deve­loped areas (e.g. Venice). Ernst CONSENTIUS9 kept vehemently proving this fact, although he could not suggest any other more reliable method for deter­mining publications without imprint, either. Under the circumstances, for practical purposes, HAEBLER'S theorem is generally accepted for the 15th_ Century. Tasks connected with the publication of books were separated soon after GUTENBERG. The respective functions of publishers and printers took shape in the following one or two décades. Even in producing types, the work of the punchcutter and the founder was often going on separetely. For reasons stated above, the printing type in itself does not provide a reliable method for deter­mining the anonymous printer who worked in the 16th Century, particularly as regards the highly developed West European countries. However, the simultaneous occurrence of various printing types in one and the same publi­cation — especially if due considération is given to other distinctive features (e.g. language, content) — may generally make it possible, even in case of 16th-century publications, to détermine the place and the printing office, and soundly to approximate the date of publication.10 In the whirling of punches, matrices and letters, that were in increasing numbers carried from one place to another, the common occurrence of printing materials (punches, matrices, letters), Coming from différent places at a certain time, is still characteristic of one or another printing office. In vain would someone venture — even with a whole life-work — to compile a tabulation of 16th-century printing types similar to Haebler's type-repertory, it would certainly be inadéquate to help a satisfactory détermination of print­ers. To achieve this, it would be necessary to fix the ever moving printing material both in space (by printing office) and in time (almost by years). This work, however, seems to be in every respect far beyond the limits of human performance due to the vast amount of material to be registered. In the apparently hopeless circumstances, our modem âge technology lias opened up a new perspective: the computer. Its "knowledge" or rather capacity is increasing at a rapid rate, and there is a corresponding increase in its field of application. It was recently that a practically new branch what is called pattern récognition has begun developing.11 The highly accurate and mechani­cal comparison of large masses of data, characteristic of and necessary for the examination and systematization of printing material, lends itself, more 9 Die Typen der Inkunabelzeit. Berlin, 1929. 10 VERVLIET, Hendrik D. L.: Sixteenth-Century Printing Types of the Loto Countries^ Amsterdam, 1969, p. 13. 11 It has a separate journal: Pattern Récognition, started in 1968.

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