NICOLAUS JENSON
edited by: Olivera Stojadinović

BIOGRAPHY

Nicolaus Jenson was born sometime around 1420 in Sommervoire, Champagne district, France. He worked as apprentice in Paris Mint. He has been constantly promoted until he became the master of Royal Mint in Tours, where he cut the punches for money forging.

When in 1458 the news on the invention of printing reached France, the king Charles VII sent Jenson in Mainz where Gutenberg's printing house was located. His task was to discover the secrets of the “new invention” and to start a printing house in France upon his return. After three years of absence, Jenson returned to France with mission completed in 1461, right after his patron died. The throne heir Louis XI was not fond of his father's protégées. Jenson's newly acquired knowledge seemed unneeded.

Jenson was in the Mainz at same time when Konrad Sweynheim and Arnold Pannartz were learning the craft from Gutenberg. It is a known fact that in the time when Adolph II of Nassau attacked and robbed Mainz , these two printers went to Benedictine monastery Subiaco nearby Rome where they founded a printing house. There are opinions that Jenson joined them there. This theory is supported by the fact that the lettering Sweynheim and Pannartz used for Lactantius and De Oratore, first books printed in Italy, was not Gothic as used in Mainz, and was not Antiqua, but some transitional shape which reminds of the one cut by Jenson in Venice in 1470.

In that time, brothers Johann and Wendelin from Speyer worked in Venice. In Italy they were called da Spira. First Antiqua is attributed to Johann of Speyer, who printed in it in 1469. Jenson came to Venice in 1468, so there is a possibility that he made this letter for the brothers, but there is no real evidence of this. Antiqua or Roman, as letter based on Humanism shapes was called and which Jenson used for his editions, was better than the previous one and represents the modern standard for this type of typeface. The first four editions published by Jenson's Venice printing house emerged in 1470. It is considered that Eusebius' De Praeparatio Evangelica was his first printed book. Using the same font, Jenson printed Pliny's Natural History in 1472.

He published the books continually from 1470 to 1480. One source states 155 editions which are known to be his or are attributed to him because they were printed in his printing house. This number must be enlarged with several other works listed by other sources. In different times within those ten years period, he was in partnership with other people. He was the head of Venice Printers association, which accepted his printing house logo as the association logo after his death. Pope Sixtus IV awarded him with Cont Palatino title in Rome in 1475.

There are different versions about where his letterings ended up after his death. Some state that Jenson sold his matrixes and letters in 1479 to Andrea de Torresani, Aldus Manutius' father in law. Some other sources state that he bequeathed fonts and matrixes to his partner Ugelheimer, who sold them to Torresani afterwards. He died in 1480 in Rome. Jenson's name was still on the printing house logo until the end of 1481, and afterwards it disappears from Venice printing annals.

LETTER

Jenson was a publisher, a printer and a letter author. The books he published were printed in his own Antiqua he had cut himself, based on the best examples of Humanism manuscripts. His type was more perfected in form than the ones used by previous printers. This is the first proper Antiqua, and its shapes are the standard for typographic literally typefaces used today. Letters j , u and w are not in his fonts because they were not yet in usage at that time. Letter e is typical, with its slanted middle stroke partially exiting the bowl. Ascenders are higher than uppercases, so this type is listed within five-lined system.

Jenson's Antiqua is rounded and firm and some strokes break in a way typical for manuscripts written with broadnib pen. It is distinguished by great beauty, and certain forms are distinguished by symmetric shapes and the way they accord with each other. It is described as “perfect and ultimate”. Jenson had an intuitive feeling for harmony in typeset and paid a lot of attention to readability. His initial inspirations were doubtlessly some excellent manuscript books, but he realized the basic difference between the written and printed letter. In manuscript, each repetition of a letter naturally brings the subtle quality of difference and variation, while in printing each repeated letter is exact facsimile. He projected his letters as shapes cut in metal, and considered manuscript exemplars only a recommendation.

In 1471 he cut Greek typeface used for quotes and in 1473 Gothic typeface used for books in the field of history and medicine.

FOLLOWERS

Even after five centuries, Jenson's work still seems fresh and contemporary. Thus, the Jenson's literally and Gothic letter shapes were main models many artists followed throughout the history of typography.

William Morris, the founder of Arts & Crafts movement, argued the return to manual typeset because he believed the mechanic typeset emergence (in expansion at that time) took away the artistic quality of the printed page. He created Golden Type for his printing house in 1890, a type inspired by Jenson's Antiqua.

Doves Type is the type cut by Edward Prince in 1900 for Doves Press printing house, ownership of Thomas Cobden-Sanderson and Emery Walker. This successful type was cut in one size only. It was used for printing the Bible ( Doves Bible ) in five volumes, with the initials by Edward Johnston. As a sign of protest against mechanization in printing, at the same time admitting the inevitable predominance of machine typeset, Cobden-Sanderson ceremonially sunk the whole typesetting material of his printing house in Themes River in 1916, while previously he had printed the catalog of the editions of his printing house.

Cloister is the type created in 1913, and the author is Morris Fuller Benton. ATF (American Type Founders) company, founded in 1892 by merging a number of small foundries which until then made the material for manual typeset, created this typeface for machine typeset. The matrixes for this typeface were cut by the pantograph lathe which enabled cutting the drawings of larger dimension. Italic shape was added to Roman.

Sketches for Centaur, the type inspired by Jenson's edition of Eusebius, were made by Bruce Rogers in 1914 and this type was then cast for manual typeset. In 1929, Centaur was cut for machine typeset as a part of Monotype corporation collection. The idea and supervision for the collection was provided by Stanley Morison. Rogers made an extremely successful free interpretation which achieved Jenson's idea in modern circumstances. Italic based on Arrighi's originals was drawn by Frederick Ward. Centaur is still used in its digital version.

In 1996, Robert Slimbach created Adobe Jenson, a digital type in the shape of multi-master family with two axes: weight is changed based on one axis and optical size based on the second axis. This type is also a successful free reconstruction of Jenson's font used for Eusebius printing. Italic is different than the one associated with Centaur, but is also inspired by cancellaresca from the same period.

LITERATURE

Philipp Luidl: Typography — when who how, Köln, 1998
Sebastian Carter: Twentieth Century Type Designers, London, 1987
Alexander Nesbitt: The History and Technique of Lettering, New York, 1957
Stanley Morison: The Tally of Types, London, 1973