BREITKOPF ON PUNCHCUT TING AND TYPEFOUNDING

Nachricht von der Stempelschneiderey und Schriftgießerey.

Zur Erläuterung der Enschedischen Schriftprobe.
Written by J. G. I. Breitkopf
Published by Breitkopf, Leipzig 1777

A critique of Enschedé’s 1768 type specimen

Translated into English with notes
by
Dan Reynolds

Typeset in Source Serif

Berlin-Neukölln
2019
 INTRODUCTION

In the second volume of his Manuel Typographique,1 published in 1766, Pierre Si-
mon Fournier le jeune2 claimed that he had built the first typefoundry whose
products represented a common artistic vision.3 Fournier’s contemporary, the
Leipzig printer, publisher, and typefounder Johann Gottlob Immanuel Breitkopf 4
agreed with him, as he made clear in the 1777 essay reprinted below. Breitkopf
believed that Fournier had built the best European typefoundry so far, both be-
cause of the quality of his designs as well as its products all being the work of a
single artist. Breitkopf did not write his panegyric without cause; his praise of
Fournier is an instrument with which he critiques the 1768 type specimen cata-
logue5 produced by the Joh. Enschedé en Zonen printing and typefounding house
in Haarlem.6 Enschedé’s typefoundry was assembled from the contributions of
multiple punchcutters, and their most-recent typefaces were cut by Joan Michaël
Fleischman,7 a German punchcutter trained in Nuremberg who had spent most
of his career in the Netherlands. Despite Fleischman and Fournier having each
been dead for almost a decade by the time of Breitkopf’s essay, Breitkopf and
Fournier had been acquainted with one another. For example, Breitkopf had been
a customer of Fournier’s, but they could also be seen as collaborators. According
to Harry Carter,8 the information about several of the European typefoundries
that Fournier presented in the Manuel Typographique had been provided to him
by Breitkopf.9 Fournier even requested that Breitkopf compose “the formes for
the pages of flemish, fraktur, schwabacher, german script … samaritan, syriac,
arabic, coptic, armenian, and ethiopian” for the Manuel Typographique with the
Breitkopf typefoundry’s own types, and then for him to send these from Leip-
zig.10 While Breitkopf did not mention his relationship with Fournier in the essay,
its tone reads like that of a man defending the legacy of a friend.

1. Fournier 1764–66, vol. 2, p. xxviii–xxix

2. Pierre Simon Fournier le jeune (1712–1768)
3. Fournier/Carter/Mosley 1995, vol. 3, p. 266
4. Johann Gottlob Immanuel Breitkopf (1719–1794)
5. Enschedé 1768
6. For a history of the Joh. Enschedé en Zonen type foundry, see Enschedé 1908/1978, Enschedé 1953,
and Enschedé/Lane 1993, supplementary volume
7. Joan Michaël Fleischman (1707–1768). Although his birth year is often given as 1701, John A. Lane
presents evidence for 1707 on Ibid., p. 29–30
8. Harry Carter (1901–1982)
9. Fournier/Carter/Mosley 1995, vol. 3, p. 269 n. 1, p. 274 n. 2, p. 278 n. 2, p. 279 n. 1, and p. 281 n
10. Ibid., p. 256 n, 267 n and 426*–428*

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 Breitkopf ON PUNCHCUTTING AND TYPEFOUNDING
While Breitkopf’s essay does include some praise for Fleischman, he viewed
Fournier’s work more favourably, as well as the typefaces from John Baskerville11
and Jacques-François Rosart.12 The essay ends with the hope that a German
foundry might one day reach the same heights as Fournier’s; however, he also
had doubts about the feasibility of this, questioning whether a single German
punchcutter could cut enough type in one lifetime. German printers required
just as much roman and italic type as a foreign press would, but they also needed
additional varieties and sizes of blackletter type, a factor that foreign type-cutters
did not have to consider when developing their product palettes. The only Ger-
man foundry so far that had produced enough type from a single punchcutter
was Christian Zinck’s in Wittenberg;13 however, quantity did not trump quality
for Breitkopf. He did not like Zinck’s types,14 and he had more hopes for three
other German foundries. These were his own, naturally, as well as Trattner’s in
Vienna15 and the Luther family’s foundry in Frankfurt am Main.16
Breitkopf’s essay was written more than a decade before Prillwitz, Unger, or
Walbaum began to make type. Johann Carl Ludwig Prillwitz opened his type-
foundry in Jena in 1784;17 his first specimen was published in 1790. The types,
which were designed in the Didot style, were immediately criticised by Johann
Friedrich Unger.18 A printer who had just opened a typefoundry of his own, Un-
ger had purchased the rights from Paris to cast and sell the Didot types in Germa-
ny; Prillwitz represented home-grown competition from a market he had hoped
to dominate himself. Neither Prillwitz nor Unger cut a particularly-broad range
of typographic styles; Prillwitz was known for his Didot-style romans and italics,
and Unger would eventually cut fraktur types in the high-contrast, or “modern”
style, that was exhibited by e.g., the roman and italic types of Bodoni or Didot.
Justus Erich Walbaum19 was active as a punchcutter for a longer period of time
than either Prillwitz or Unger; he also cut a wider range of sizes and styles. I
like to think that Breitkopf would have judged Walbaum’s typefoundry favourably,
had he lived long enough to see its typefaces.

11. John Baskerville (1707–1775)

12. Jacques-François Rosart (1714–1777)
13. Christian Zinck (born 1698). For a brief portrait of his foundry, see Bauer/Reichardt 2011, p. 144
14. Interestingly, Christian Zinck had cut type for the Breitkopf foundry while it had still been run
by Breitkopf’s father; see the 1739 Breitkopf type specimen in Geßner/Hager 1740–45, vol. 1, p.
145–160. The types cut by Zinck are clearly attributed.
15. For a brief portrait of the Trattner foundry, see Ibid., p. 139
16. The Luther foundry is discussed at length in Enschedé 1908/1978 and Carter 1969/2002. Friedrich
Bauer’s briefer chronology of the firm is on Bauer/Reichardt 2011, p. 44–45
17. Johann Carl Ludwig Prillwitz (1759–1810). For the history of his foundry, see Ibid., p. 79 and Crous
1926
18. Johann Friedrich Unger (1753–1804). For the history of his foundry, see Bauer/Reichardt 2011, p.
21–23 and Crous 1928
19. Johann Gebhard Justus Erich Walbaum (1768–1839). For the history of the Walbaum foundry and
its typefaces, see Bauer/Reichardt 2011, p. 66 and 137, as well as Bohadti 1957, 1960, and 1964

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 Breitkopf ON PUNCHCUTTING AND TYPEFOUNDING
Until the twentieth century, the printing/publishing houses of Joh. Enschedé
en Zonen in Haarlem and Breitkopf & Härtel in Leipzig each had internal type-
founding departments that cast fonts of type for their internal use, as well as for
sale to other printers. The publishing firm that Breitkopf would have spent most
of his life inside is still in operation today. Founded by his father, the printer Bern-
hard Christoph Breitkopf in 1719,20 the firm was named Breitkopf & Härtel after
Gottfried Christoph Härtel joined the operation in 1795. Until the end of the Sec-
ond World War, Breitkopf & Härtel operated from Leipzig. Today, the firm is head-
quartered in Wiesbaden, which unlike Leipzig was not part of the Soviet Zone of
Occupation in the years following the war. Breitkopf & Härtel’s origins date back
to a printing office that had operated in Leipzig since at least 1542. Typefounding
was never their primary business activity, but Friedrich Bauer believed that Hein-
rich Eichbuchler’s printing operation must have cast type from this date as well.21
Breitkopf & Härtel is primarily known as a music publisher. The firm was likely to
have already been printing music in the sixteenth century,22 and Breitkopf him-
self invented a new system for casting and setting musical notation with printer’s
type in 1755.23 Before the firm passed into the hands of the Breitkopf family, it
had been owned by the Rambau, Deffner, Georg, and Müller families. The type-
foundry may have received increased-attention after 1702, when Johann Georg’s
printing office was acquired by the printer, punchcutter, and typefounder Johann
Caspar Müller.24 After his death, the widow Müller married Bernhard Christoph
Breitkopf. Although he was printer, the elder Breitkopf seems to have learned
to cut punches himself, and he also employed several punchcutters within his
typefoundry; Friedrich Bauer names Johann Peter Artopaeus, a Russian named
Bankow, Kauxdorf, and Christian Zinck.25 A 1739 specimen from Bernhard Chris-
toph Breitkopf’s typefoundry is included in the first volume of Christian Friedrich
Geßner and Johann Georg Hager’s four-volume printing series, Die so nöthig als
nützliche Buchdruckerkunst und Schriftgießerey.26 Two pages from that specimen
are reproduced in Daniel Berkeley Updike’s 27 1922 Printing Types.28
Of the eighteenth-century German typefoundries, I suspect that Breitkopf’s
printing house had the largest in operation. According to Friedrich Bauer, it
20. Bernhard Christoph Breitkopf (1695–1777)
21. Reichardt/Bauer 2011, p. 86
22. Reichardt/Bauer 2011, p. 89
23. Fournier/Carter/Mosley 1995, vol. 3, p. xxiii–xxiv and 64–66. Rosart had actually cut musical nota-
tion typeface a few years earlier, but Breitkopf was not aware of this, and according to Charles
Enschedé, it was “an imperfect one;” see Enschedé 1908/1978, p. xxv and 267
24. Johann Caspar Müller (born 1675)
25. Ibid., p. 87
26. Geßner/Hager 1740–45, vol. 1, p. 145–160
27. Daniel Berkeley Updike (1860–1941)
28. Updike 1922, vol. 1, illustrations 93–94 following p. 154

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 Breitkopf ON PUNCHCUTTING AND TYPEFOUNDING
employed 40 workers, who operated 12 furnaces.29 Breitkopf even sold interna-
tionally at a time when most German typefoundries were much smaller in size.
For example, in the year that Breitkopf’s essay was published, the independent
Francke typefoundry of Berlin was comprised of just six individuals.30 This num-
ber included one master, four assistants, and a boy (who was probably an ap-
prentice). The only other typefoundry in Berlin at that time was the in-house unit
inside the Decker printing house.31 That foundry was similar in size. In 1777, for
instance, Georg Jakob Decker 32 employed five typefoundry workers: a master,
three assistants, and a boy.33 Unger installed a typefoundry inside his printing
house in 1791; in 1798, all three Berlin foundries together employed a total of 45
workers.34 Several owners or principals of other nineteenth-century German
foundries began their careers as apprentices at Breitkopf & Härtel, including
the punchcutter Johann Gottfried Schelter,35 who cofounded the J.G. Shelter &
Giesecke typefoundry of Leipzig in 1819, as well as the typecasters Johann Got-
tfried Böttger,36 Friedrich Wilhelm Böttger,37 Johann August Genzsch,38 Christian
Friedrich Giesecke,39 and Martin Meusch.
Breitkopf wrote his essay Nachricht von der Stempelschneiderey und Schrift-
gießerey in response to an article40 that had appeared in the Journal zur Kunst-
geschichte und zur allgemeinen Litteratur in 1776. This article had been run in the
art news41 category,42 and was it subtitled “From Holland. Haarlem.” 43 It was
written by the journal’s editor, Christoph Gottlieb von Murr,44 who Breitkopf
mentions by name in the first line of his essay. To date, Breitkopf’s essay has
been published four times, each in its original German text. Heinrich Schwarz
reported that the first publication, in 1777, was in a periodical, but he did not
mention that publication’s title, and I have not yet been able to find it myself.45 In

29. Bauer/Reichardt 2011, p. 88

30. Crous 1928, p. 120–121. For this foundry’s history, see Bauer/Reichardt 2011, p. 18–19
31. A brief history of the Decker typefoundry is on Ibid., p. 20–21
32. Georg Jakob Decker (1732–1799)
33. Crous 1928, p. 120–121
34. Ibid.
35. Johann Andreas Gottfried Schelter (1775–1841)
36. Johann Gottfried Böttger (died 1875)
37. Friedrich Wilhelm Böttger, son of the above (died 1909)
38. Johann August Genzsch (1800–1869)
39. Christian Friedrich Giesecke (1785–1851)
40. In German, eine Nachricht. For the article, written by Christoph Gottlob von Murr, see Von Murr
1776
41. Kunstnachrichten.
42. In German, eine Rubrik.
43. Aus Holland. Harlem.
44. Christoph Gottlieb von Murr (1733–1811)
45. Breitkopf 1777/1925, p. 9

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 Breitkopf ON PUNCHCUTTING AND TYPEFOUNDING
1778, the essay was republished in the Neue Bibliothek der schönen Wissenschaften
und der freyen Künste.46 Schwarz also reported that Breitkopf published his essay
as a pamphlet, and it is this publication-form that has been digitised and made
available in various online archives. In 1925, the H. Berthold AG typefoundry in
Berlin privately-printed a new edition of Breitkopf’s essay, accompanied by three
supplementary texts. This edition’s design mimicked the format typography of
the essay’s eighteenth-century publication. Materially, Berthold’s re-publication
of the essay is a hard-bound pamphlet, measuring 21 × 26 cm when closed.47 It
is 43-pages long, printed at Breitkopf & Härtel, and primarily set in Berthold’s
Original-Breitkopf-Fraktur typeface, with occasional words in roman and schwa-
bacher. In addition to reprinting Breitkopf’s original 17-page pamphlet, Berthold’s
additions presented a two-page introduction by Schwarz, a five-page biography
of Breitkopf by Dr. Wilhelm Hitzig, the archivist at Breitkopf & Härtel, and the
text of von Murr’s 1776 review of the 1768 Enschedé type specimen that sparked
Breitkopf’s essay in the first place.
The type specimen catalogues that Breitkopf mentioned in his essay are avail-
able today in late-twentieth-century facsimile editions. In 1993, the Stichting Mu-
seum Enschedé, the Enschedé Font Foundry, and Buitenkant published a facsimile
of the 1768 Enschedé type specimen catalogue.48 The Lehrdruckerei of the Tech-
nische Hochschule Darmstadt published facsimiles of both volumes of Fournier’s
1764–66 Manuel Typographique in 1995.49 Rosart’s 1768 type specimen is available
in a facsimile published by Van Gendt & Co in 1973.50
Graphic designers, type designers, and typographers who are not also classical
musicians, or who have not read Updike’s Printing Types and Carter’s Fournier on
Typefounding are most likely to have encountered Breitkopf’s name – if at all – in
connection with a particular typeface: Breitkopf Fraktur.51 Although this is avail-
able as a digital font from two different providers, the underlying design may be
traced back to early-twentieth-century foundry-type revivals, of which there were
quite a few. According to Albert Kapr 52 and the reference volume Buchdruckschrif-
ten im 20. Jahrhundert, the Rudhard typefoundry53 acquired fraktur matrices from

46. On vol. 21, no.1, p. 72–95

47. The copy of Breitkopf 1777 in the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin – Preußischer Kulturbesitz is a two-signa-
ture pamphlet whose pages measure 21.5 × 25.5 cm; the text block’s size is approx. 10.6 × 18 cm.
48. Enschedé/Lane 1993
49. Fournier/Carter/Mosley 1995, vol. 1–2
50. Rosart/Baudin/Hoeflake 1973
51 None of the twentieth-century typefaces named Breitkopf-Fraktur were based on typefaces that
Johann Immanuel Breitkopf designed himself; see SchumacherGebler 2007.
52. Albert Kapr (1918–1995)
53. This was the typefoundry in Offenbach am Main that would renamed itself Gebr. Klingspor in
1906.

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 Breitkopf ON PUNCHCUTTING AND TYPEFOUNDING
Breitkopf & Härtel in 1899.54 After editing certain letters, designing new figures,
and adding additional sizes, they published the design as Breitkopf-Fraktur in
1905. In the mean time, the Breitkopf & Härtel, C.F. Rühl, Brüder Butter, and
Ludwig & Mayer typefoundries began casting from copies of Breitkopf & Hartel’s
eighteenth-century matrices; they called their products Breitkopf-Fraktur, too.55
The H. Berthold AG typefoundry’s Original-Breitkopf-Fraktur, also according to
Bertheau 1995, was based on both a Cicero56 and a 28-point sized fraktur that had
been cut around 1710 by Andreas Köhler in Nuremberg.57 D. Stempel AG made a
new two-weight design for themselves and Linotype, which was also named Breit-
kopf-Fraktur; Ludwig Wagner produced their own Breitkopf-Fraktur design, too.58
During the 1920s and 1930s, British Monotype produced three different Breitkopf-
Fraktur variations, the last of which even included an oblique version.59
The title of Breitkopf’s essay, in the original German, uses dative case. This
makes the direct word-for-word translation a little inelegant: “News from the
punchcuttery and typefoundry.” “Punchcuttery and typefoundry news” is better,
and “punchcutting and typefounding news” probably gets to the point best, al-
though it is not a literal translation anymore. I have titled my translation Breitkopf
on punchcutting and typefounding in a nod to publications produced by Harry Cart-
er and Frans A. Janssen. When Carter translated Fournier’s Manuel Typographique,
the short-title of his book was not “Manual of Typography” but Fournier on Type-
founding. Similarly, Janssen and Bram de Does’s edition of Fleischman’s previ-
ously-unpublished manuscript on punchcutting is called Fleischman on punchcut-
ting.60 I am sure that they had Carter’s Fournier translation in mind when they
determined their title, not least because Fleischman’s manuscript responded to
points of critique from Fournier’s Manuel Typographique itself.61

54. Kapr 1993, p. 158 and Bertheau 1995, p. 73

55. Ibid. and Wetzig 1926, p. 41. Julius Klinkhardt did this as well, from 1912. The Staatsbibliothek zu
Berlin – Preußischer Kulturbesitz has a type specimen brochure for Original Breitkopf-Fraktur from
the C.F. Rühl typefoundry of Leipzig, which they acquired at some point before 1915. This is call
number An 1744/40, item no. 18, bound into the volume; see Rühl (undated)
56. Cicero, an old type-size name, is a German unit of type-measurement equaling 12 Didot points.
57. Bertheau 1995, p. 69. This reference book also includes an Original-Breitkopf-Fraktur that was used
at the Staatliche Akademie für Graphische Künste in Leipzig; however, it was based on different sev-
enteenth and eighteenth-century models than Berthold’s typeface of the same name. See Ibid., p.
137
58. Ibid. p. 73. Bertheau 1995 states that a 12-point type from the 1750 Breitkopf type specimen served
as the model for Stempel’s Breitkopf-Fraktur.
59. Ibid., p. 340. Fraktur “italics” are generally rare; in this case, they are also somewhat anachronis-
tic.
60. Fleischman/Janssen 1994. I do not believe that Fleischman’s manuscript had a title of its own; it
was written for publication in an intended typefounding manual that the Ploos van Amstel Broth-
ers were planning, which if it had been made would probably have been similar to Fournier’s
Manuel Typographique.
61. Fournier/Carter/Mosley 1995, vol. 3, p. 32–34

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 Breitkopf ON PUNCHCUTTING AND TYPEFOUNDING
In my text, I have italicised the names of publications, typefaces, and type
sizes. Breitkopf did not make any typographic indications for publication titles,
and his lack of such indications may cause some ambiguity for present readers.
For example, at the beginning of his essay, Breitkopf mentioned the Journal zur
Kunstgeschichte und Litteratur.62 While I believe that it is clear from the context
that he is speaking of a specific publication there, he wrote a few lines later of
»Nachrichten von Künstlern und Kunstsachen«. Here, I do not believe that he
was referring to general news that readers might heard about artists, but rather to
the journal Nachrichten von Künstlern und Kunst-Sachen.63 The second issue of that
journal, for instance, had included an article casting doubt on the claim that Lau-
rens Janszoon Coster of Haarlem had been the inventor of printing, in place of
Johannes Gutenberg. As Breitkopf mentioned in his essay, Johannes Enschedé64
was a proponent of the Coster cause.
I have made some spelling changes to Breitkopf’s text in my translation. For
example, I employ English-language spellings for the names of cities, rather than
their German names, e.g., Nuremberg instead of Nürnberg. I have also used
Dutch spellings in two instances where Breitkopf did not: I write Enschedé with
the acute accent on the e, which Breitkopf did not do, and I spell Haarlem with two
a’s. It seems to me that during Breitkopf’s time, Haarlem was written with only
one a in German-language texts. I have retained Breitkopf’s manner of spelling
Fleischman’s last name, however. Since Fleischman was of German birth, Breit-
kopf referred to him as Fleischmann (with two n’s), instead of the one-n spell-
ing found in many Dutch sources, or in publications produced today. I have kept
Breitkopf’s spelling of the Wittenberg typefounder Christian Zinck’s last name;
Breitkopf did not include the c, spelling Zinck as “Zink.” I have also retained Bre-
itkopf’s Dutch spelling of roman type – Romeyn – in my translated text, as well
as the French term Romain; however, I translate Antiqua, the German-language
term, into “roman.” In the chart of type sizes cut by Fleischmann, Fournier, and
Baskerville, I have slightly changed the spellings of the names from Breitkopf’s
original text to reflect the way they are presented in the respective typefoundry
catalogues, e.g., in Enschedé 1768 and Fournier 1764–66.
Breitkopf referred to almost every individual that he mentioned in his essay
with the title Herr, meaning “mister.” In other words, he writes of »Herr Basker-
ville«, »Herr Enschede«, »Herr Fleischmann«, »Herr von Murr«, and »Herr Ro-
sart«. I have replaced all instances of Herr with “Mr.” in my translation. Where
Breitkopf used the compound word Schriftgießerei, I have translated “typefound-
62. The full name of this publication was the Journal zur Kunstgeschichte und zur allgemeinen Litteratur.
It was published in Nuremberg by Johann Eberhard Zeh.
63. This journal was edited by Karl Heinrich von Heinecken and published in Leipzig in 1768–69 by
Johann Paul Krauß, who was also a book-seller in Vienna at that time.
64. Johannes Enschedé (1708–1780)

viii
 Breitkopf ON PUNCHCUTTING AND TYPEFOUNDING
ry.” Where he wrote the shorter term Gießerei, I use “foundry.” I have done the
same with “type casters” in places where I assume that Breitkopf was referring to
the workmen who cast type, as opposed to “typefounders,” who could have theo-
retically performed any type-making task, or which can describe the owners of
typefoundries. Thus, where Breitkopf has written Schriftgießer, I have used “type
caster” or “typefounder.” Where he only wrote Gießer, I also employ the shorter
term “caster.” When it comes to the individuals who cut typographic punches for
typefounding, Breitkopf’s text alternates between the words Schriftschneider and
Stempelschneider. I have translated the former as “type-cutter” and the later as
“punchcutter.” When Harry Carter translated a few lines of Breitkopf’s essay for
a footnote in Fournier on Typefounding, he translated Schriftschneider as “letter-
cutter.”65
Breitkopf’s essay includes two footnotes; in my translation, these are denoted
with asterisks, as in the original text. The text of the footnotes appears within the
text block. On a few instances, there are areas where I have written brief notes
explaining items in Breitkopf’s text. These places are marked with a • and my
notes always appear below the text block. All words in this translation are my
own, except for two short passages of text – one in Breitkopf’s words and another
in Fournier’s – that Harry Carter previously translated in publications of his own.
The text here is composed in Source Serif, a typeface designed at Adobe by Frank
Grießhammer. Source Serif draws inspiration from Fournier’s work, which surely
would have pleased Breitkopf. The portrait of Breitkopf on page i is a reproduc-
tion of a reproduction from Konrad Friedrich Bauer’s 1940 Aventur und Kunst.66
The reproduced engraving was made by a Mr. Hüllmann. This portrait was also
reproduced in Breitkopf 1777/1925.

65. Fournier/Carter/Mosley 1995, vol. 3, p. 29 n

66. Konrad Friedrich Bauer 1940, p. 280

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 BREITKOPF ON PUNCHCUT TING AND TYPEFOUNDING

M r. von Murr in Nuremberg presented the lovers of the arts with a gift in
the third issue of his Journal of Art History and Literature, • on occasion
of a review of the Enschedé type specimen, with a bulletin from the punchcutting
and typefounding firm that must have been all the more agreeable to those who
have been less accustomed to encountering things about this trade in News from
Artists and Artist-Matters. •• Therefore, it will not be unpleasant for those enthu-
siasts to receive an explanation about one point or another, which could eluci-
date some obscure passages, and prevent them from developing the wrong idea,
which can easily happen to those who do not understand in detail the business
that is being discussed.
Mr. Enschedé, like his late father, is indisputably a commendable man for
typefounding and printing in Holland. He has taken a stand against the seem-
ing decline in printing there. He is also an avid patriot, who alongside Mr. von
Meermann has given his all for the defence of the honour of printing having been
invented in Haarlem; he uses his assets to support his zeal. Without my going
into the historical part of the invention of printing, on which his writing can give
guidance, I only want to put down a few comments about the practical part of
printing and typefounding here, as the sequence of the Enschedé type specimen
will allow.
Mr. Enschedé says in the preliminary note of his type specimen that, accord-
ing to the testimony of kings, princes and the greatest scholars, his typefoundry
is the most beautiful and the best that has ever been encountered in Europe. The
cause of this is the foundry of Mr. Wettstein in Amsterdam, and a few other older
types from foundries, which were renowned in former centuries; the remaining
types are partially fabricated by Mr. Rosart, who now has his own foundry in
Brussels, and partially by Mr. Fleischmann, a skilled Nuremberger who moved to
Holland and died there. It is really obnoxious when Mr. Enschedé says this about
his own foundry; it is unquestioningly the finest foundry in Holland, and does not
need such patents: but it is not the best in Europe by far, and according to more
than one consideration. The best and most beautiful also comprehends the most
complete in itself, and hereto belongs for the foundry, that all typefaces, from the
largest to the smallest, are cut according to the same basic rules of writing; and
that they are all cut from one and the same hand by a single artist. All beauty in
printing is grounded in this, and it is a pleasant, appealing sight, where the eye
is just as much delighted when types of different sizes appear on a page as by a
beautiful painting. A foundry comprised of so many artists, from so very distant

• Journal für Kunstgeschichte und zur allgemeine Litteratur.

•• Nachrichten von Künstler und Kunstsachen.

1
 Breitkopf ON PUNCHCUTTING AND TYPEFOUNDING
years, cannot have this beauty, and there is now only one single foundry in all of
Europe that has these particular advantages, that of the late Mr. Fournier le jeune
in Paris, and this can be proved in more than one regard.*
Mr. Fleischmann can undoubtedly be considered an artist in punchcutting,
who took it the furthest and the highest from his predecessors; in this regard, Mr.
Enschedé cannot praise him enough. In Holland, he saw nothing else except for
the examples of the letters that were customary there, and he accepted the labo-
rious, arduous and exaggerated artifice, which is the actual character of Dutch
artists; and once he was accustomed to it, he did not dare to take a step forward,
or to do anything out of the ordinary. Hence his Romeyn, or roman, and italic
types are better and smoother than the types of his predecessors: but they have
always retained the look of past centuries, and in Holland they still cannot forget
the Elzevirs, who in their day were models for the whole of Europe. In the present
century, France has won the prize in this area, and Fournier, who built upon the
foundation of his excellent predecessors Garamond, Le Bé, and the Sanlecques,
has delivered something in his art that will be hard to outdo. Imagine what an
artist Mr. Fleischmann would have become, if instead of going to Holland, he
would have gone to Paris, where he would have been surrounded by such beauti-
ful archetypes, which could have influenced him and encouraged him to go even
further. The economic rules, which the Dutch have also woven into the arts, are
complicit in this art having stayed at the same point it was a hundred years ago.
As the Dutch cornered the most important part of the book-trade in the past cen-
turies, and reprinted everything that Europe had to offer; so they invented the
style of type that stands very narrowly together, leaving little light between the
lines, even if they make a rather large figure in the process; thereby giving them
the advantage that their reprints could be set in type that was the same size as the
original, but which at the same time allowed for much more to fit onto a page,
and thus requiring fewer sheets, they could be sold for less, even if they used
better paper. They cannot yet shed this, and therefore their current books still
maintain the old reputation.
The beauty of every typeface consists in the correct relation of the strokes
with the space between the lines, which cannot be neglected even in the intervals
between one letter and the next; in the correct height and depth of the ascender’d
and descender’d letters; and in the proper length of the lines. I know of no type-
cutter who would have observed all of this as exactly and so geometrically-correct
as Fournier le jeune and those in Paris who imitated him; and Mr. Baskerville in

* Mr. Fournier does not brag when he says that there was no precedent since the origin of printing for
the making of a complete foundry by a single artist, and one must be astonished by the industriousness
of what he achieved in the 29 years between 1736 and 1766, as will subsequently be shown; for as the
largest in each country, I want to compare both foundries with each other.

2
 Breitkopf ON PUNCHCUTTING AND TYPEFOUNDING
Birmingham, England. With the exception that a full round letter is always more
pleasant to the eye than a long and condensed one: the above-mentioned rules
have the advantage that the press can print out every letter completely, and that
the print itself can be given the correct, legible blackness; whereas the Dutch, on
the other hand, have to work with a very pallid print, in order to not create blotch-
es with their narrow typefaces. This is the illusion of the beautiful, so highly-
praised Dutch printing, which has otherwise also been referred to as silver print.
If Mr. Enschedé therefore calls Mr. Fleischmann the greatest or the most ac-
complished type-cutter since the invention of printing: his gratitude to this art-
ist is either to be complimented, or he must fall under the suspicion that he is
merely placing his type-cutter above all others, so as to open the way up to also
elevate his own foundry above all others, as Mr. Rosart has accused him; but one
only need to lay the type specimen of the younger Mr. Fournier next to his own to
see who is deserving of the accolades. But even the first century of printing had
men whose art has not yet been surpassed by this work. One need only mention
Nicolaus Jenson of Venice, who improved upon of Pannartz and Sweynheym of
Rome and brought about the first serif typeface: the eye is delighted by the sight
of it in Pliny’s Natural History, which this master printed, and which has the beau-
tiful regularity that could serve as this style’s example for all future type-cutters;
and one could also inquire of every punchcutter whether or not he is capable of
surpassing the masterpiece of German type that we still admire in the famous
Theuerdank that was printed in Nuremberg, of which one was long not able to
resolve whether it had been printed from wood-cut blocks, or with cast type.
Mr. Enschedé also says that he has more than 70 complete fonts whose ma-
trices were justified by Mr. Fleischmann himself, and 160 complete-fonts-worth
of unjustified matrices. Anyone who is not acquainted with founding will be as-
tonished by this invaluable treasure trove, which is unprecedented, and which
will be able to abundantly provide for the future, and which cannot be found
elsewhere. And one must be really astonished at Mr. Enschedé’s mistrust of his
own science, as well as over his doubts about the skills of his whole nation, that
he must have made such a useless great effort to escape the possible misfortune,
that even with the possession of the punches, maybe a strike would get lost, or
a justified matrix might became unusable, and that no one would be able to be
found in Holland who could strike a new matrix, or justify an unjustified font, in
order to replace the loss. Since Mr. Enschedé does not sell strikes of his punches
to other typefounders, and a single matrix can last at least 50 years, while others
that are used less-often remain usable for 100 years: Mr. Enschedé must have
either have been so absorbed by the non plus ultra of his Fleischmann types that
he wanted to ensure enough for the whole future Dutch world; or, in what seems
more likely to me, Mr. Fleischmann took advantage of his patron’s weakness, and
sold him twice the amount that others would have purchased. This is therefore

3
 Breitkopf ON PUNCHCUTTING AND TYPEFOUNDING
a such singular gain for his foundry, from which he can reap no advantage at all,
and represents stock that will probably end up in the scrap-copper pile.
There is yet another very special benefit to Fleischmann’s types: aside from
their extraordinary beauty and cleanliness, they have additional qualities that
cannot be seen in print, but which one certainly notices when the sorts them-
selves are being used; namely, they were all cut with a counterpunch being driven
much deeper than any punchcutter ever achieved or attempted before; therefore,
these letters can last longer, and can have more use than others.* To understand
this correctly it is necessary to know that bad type-cutters, who do not properly
understand the art of softening and hardening their steel, merely cut the coun-
terforms inside of the letters on their punches out with a graver. But in this way,
the letters lose much of the fairness of their curves and the straightness of their
strokes. On the other hand, the punchcutter who understands his trade makes a
counterpunch corresponding exactly to the interior of the letter, sinks this all at
once into his punch, and finally cuts away the outside with a file. Often, a second
counterpunch is necessary, which will be sunk onto the position on the counter-
punch where something on the main punch should remain, like the dots in the
middle of Hebrew letters. The French language, despite its richness of terminol-
ogy, is poor in this case, and cannot express this in its classification, because
the second counterpunch becomes lost; it only has Poinçon and Countre-poin-
çon, while the German type-cutter expresses himself with Stempel, Punzen, and
Counterpunzen more completely and descriptively. • Mr. Fleischmann, therefore,
achieved the exquisite art of softening his steel during his work so that he could
sink his counterpunches – or as we say, Punzen – deeper into his punches than
other type-cutters, without running the risk that this would endanger the steel on
the sides, which is generally what happens when counterpunches are driven into
poorly softened steel. But what is the purpose of this superfluous depth? It is for
nothing else than to cause these typefaces to excite in people who do not know
anything in particular a commendable preference, which is nothing more than an
illusion. The printing surfaces on a font of type suffer in so many ways: they suf-
fer from the application of the ink, from the pressure of the press, from the touch
of the paper, from the rubbing of the washing brush, and from the abrasiveness
of the lye. They quickly lose their initial smoothness, gradually becoming rough.
It is not the length of time but the frequency of use that determines when a font
gets worn out, and in situations of greater use one font might wear out in a year
and a day, while another could remain sharp for 50 years. Now if Mr. Fleischmann

* In a comment on the Robyn Duits non plus ultra, he repeats this benefit, saying that “these letters can
print many thousands of impressions more than those from other foundries, because they are cut more
deeply, and can tolerate the press longer.” This claim would be very harmful to many other foundries,
if it were warranted.

• English does not have this level of differentiation either. According to the terminology used in e.g., Fred
Smeijers’s Counterpunch, the Stempel, Punzen, and Counterpunzen would be the punch, counterpunch,
and counter-counterpunch; see Smeijers 2011, p. 108

4
 Breitkopf ON PUNCHCUTTING AND TYPEFOUNDING
or Enschede had actually invented a means by which roughed-up and dulled let-
ters could be smoothed out and made sharp again, then it would be the case that
printers would have to thank them for these exceptional counters with perfectly-
vertical depths; because in this case, they would have obtained a new typeface,
similar to the first, at little cost. However, if both the interior counter and the
punch’s exterior walls are not completely perpendicular, but rather somewhat
angled, then a new, sharper typeface may indeed be made, but it would be quite
distinct from the first one, being thicker and misshapen in many places. Moreo-
ver, this would also give the letters an uneven height, and it would be difficult for
them to be used on their own, to say nothing of combining them with type that
had not be ground down, with which the letters could not be used at all. But since
this means is not something that can be invented, it therefore makes no differ-
ence if the counters in a font are 6 or 12 lines deep, • because a letter becomes
unusable as soon as its surface is roughed-up and worn-down: thus it is clear
that the depth of a letter’s counterforms must only not exceed a depth that would
cause them to fill-in with ink, causing a dirty print. The larger a letter’s counter is,
the deeper its counterpunch must be driven in, because ink balls descend more
into large counters than they do into smaller ones; every additional thing is in
vain. These deep counters have yet another inconvenience, and this is that they
disadvantage the typecaster. They require that a letter’s matrix be deeper, and so
the caster must shake the mould more vigorously in order to fill the whole letter;
so despite more-arduous work, he will cast fewer letters, and since these letters
will be more difficult to discharge from the mould, he will have to work twice as
hard to deliver the necessary amount. Therefore, instead of thanking him for this
feature, the caster will certainly curse him. What kind of verdict is one to reach,
regarding Mr. Enschedé’s knowledge of his trade? Haarlem, the sole mother of
printing, will not be bestowed with additional honour this way.
Lastly, Mr. Enschedé praised the supply of ornaments, flowers and roses, as
we call them. Here I must remind readers that the best of these are copies of Mr.
Fournier’s in Paris, and that the remaining few that are his own are readily appar-
ent. Thus he ends his rather panegyric opening remarks, and this commentary
would also come to a close here, if there were not so many things in the specimen
itself that required comment.
For a printing house to be complete, it requires that every type size be avail-
able in roman and italic. One generally begins with the large grobe Canon •• and
descends through kleine Canon, Doppelmittel, Text, Tertie, Mittel, Cicero, Descen-
dian, Corpus, Borgois, Petit, and Brevier, according to our German type names,
down to Nompareil; ••• this makes a ladder with twelve rungs, •••• and if you
want to put in a few more, such as for grobe Mittel and grobe Cicerco, then it would
have fourteen rungs. The even-larger type sizes belong in the titling cases, where

• One line equals 2.2558 mm in length.

•• Grobe Canon is 38 ¾ Didot-points in size.
••• Nompareil is 5 13/16 Didot-points in size.
•••• Breitkopf seems to mention 15 German type sizes in this paragraph, not 14. He is either not
including the largest or the smallest size in his reckoning (i.e., grobe Canon or Nompareil); I am
not sure which. To my reading, however, it seems that his original text treats the grobe Canon
and the kleine Canon as one loosely-defined size. On the page, the word »Canon« in the names
»grobe Canon« and »kleine Canon« is set in a larger size than the other words in the main
body of the text, including the adjectives »grobe« and »kleine«. The other type sizes – such
as »Doppelmittel«, »Text«, »Tertie«, etc. – are typographically-emphasised in the original text
with larger-sized type, too. The standard way that Breitkopf emphasised text in his essay was
with a larger type size.
5
 Breitkopf ON PUNCHCUTTING AND TYPEFOUNDING
one can be satisfied with capital letters alone; the even-smaller sizes may be play-
things for artists, but they are real torture for typecasters and printers, and they
will never come into use the way that other type sizes do. With these playthings,
typefounders are fond of trumpeting their own foundries’ reputations, which are
precious enough to them that they are willing to not recoup the cost of making
these types, for no one asks for them, and they are only ever seen and admired
in type specimen. Only a few printing houses are really this complete, and so the
government in Brussels has therefore ordered every printing house to have at
least eight sizes of type available.
Now let us see whether Mr. Enschedé has this ladder, all cut in one style and
by the same hand. Mr. Fleischmann’s types only start from the fifth rung; that size
that he calls Text is our Tertia, • and with the italics there are also several sizes
in the range that he did not cut; moving up the ladder, the larger types were pur-
chased from foundries of prior centuries that have closed-down, and they exhibit
the proportion of sixteenth-century Italian writing styles, which all type-cutters
in Europe looked up to after abandoning the beautiful Venetian school. Accord-
ingly, the Enschedé foundry misses out on the most important piece of beauty; on
the other hand, Fournier’s has it. If you place this man’s type specimen next to En-
schedé’s, you will see it, too. How pleasantly one is moved by the consistency of
his round Romain or roman types, cut according to a common design, which one
reads with pleasure; none of the type specimen from the other, previously-distin-
guished Parisian typefoundries come close; not the typefaces of the Sanlecques
or those of Granjon. Even the types from his father and cousin of the same name
do not, and the younger Gando, who was his strongest adversary and envier of the
glory he attained, is merely his copyist. The other typefaces that he cut according
to the narrow Dutch system, to please some booksellers, have also been given
something pleasant through his hand, which even Dutch types themselves lack.
Until now, his roman types have had no equals, except for the types of the now
also deceased Baskerville in Birmingham in England; even if they were even cut
according to a somewhat different design, almost with the appearance of a sharp
copperplate-engraving. Baskerville was actually a copperplate engraver, but one
who changed his profession very often; first a box-maker, then a buckle-manufac-
turer, he finally had the idea of becoming a type-cutter, typefounder, wood-block
engraver and printer. •• He also proved how far a happy genius could go, even
in matters that were actually foreign to him. All of his undertakings are mas-
terpieces, and many still will exhaust themselves by trying to imitate them. He
came to printing too late to be able to make his foundry so complete as his rivals
in London: but the 9 roman sizes, in a strict succession from Double Pica down
to Nonpareil, are so beautiful that the typefaces of Caslon, Moore and Cottrell in
London cannot reach the same beauty.

• Tertia is 15 ½ Didot-points in size.

•• Breitkopf does not seem to have had an accurate grasp on Baskerville’s biographic details. Addi-
tionally, I am a bit distressed to see Baskerville set on the same level as Fournier, Fleischmann,
and Rosart as a punchcutter, rather than as a type designer (despite “type designer” being an
anachronistic term for this period). Were not Baskerville’s punches cut by John Handy, rather
than by himself?
••• See chart on the next page.

6
 Breitkopf ON PUNCHCUTTING AND TYPEFOUNDING
Let us now make a comparison of the number of the roman types of our cen-
tury’s three illustrious type-cutters: Fleischmann, Fournier, and Baskerville. •
Observe the sizes where each started and stopped, beginning with the largest
sizes. According to the chart, Fleischmann cut 24 types. Fournier cut 37 types
in the French style and 14 in the Dutch. Together that makes 51. Baskerville cut
9 roman typefaces with his own hands. I am well aware that, among Fournier’s
typefaces, those with the epithet petit œil are actually the subsequently-smaller
type sizes on taller bodies, or with increased vertical space to go between lines
of text; but the same is also found among the Fleischmann’s types with the word
op in their names. Only Fournier has lengthened his ascender’d and capital let-
ters and re-cut them, so these must be accepted as wholly-new types; Mr. Fleis-
chmann, on the other hand, did not go to this trouble himself, so therefore they
are not included.
Mr. Enschedé has become accustomed to always speak with lustre of his own
products, and in every place with so much certainty that those who do not know
better will be easily seduced. Thus he says in a remark on his smallest typeface,
which he calls Diamant Romein, with the sobriquet non plus ultra, and which was
cut in 1737, that it is the smallest typeface to be found anywhere in Europe, and
that in has no equal. This he still says in 1768; even though the royal punchcutter
Louis Luce at Paris published a specimen for a much smaller type in 1740, which
almost cannot be read without a magnifying glass, and which he calls le prémier
alphabet; and what is even more: he even cut a companion italic type for it, which
is even more delicate, and which Mr. Fleischmann did not even attempt for his
own non plus ultra. However, as was already mentioned, all types that are smaller
than Nompareil are decorations for typefounders to deck out their specimen with,
while for type-cutters, casters, printers, and readers they are but pure torture,
and have no real benefits.
From the cursive or italic types, Mr. Fleischmann has only cut the most-nec-
essary sizes, and these sizes he cut many different times, but the count still only
totals up to 11. He did not even dare to try to cut the two smallest sizes. Fournier
cut 17 italic sizes, and several of these have been extended onto taller bodies, so
that his total may be increased to 31; however, the changes to those letters are
not as significant as in the roman fonts. Baskerville only cut 9 italics, which is
just as many as he did in roman. But what a difference have we not here in the
comparison of these typefaces’ relative beauty! With these types, Fleischmann
did not conceive of taking even a step past his predecessors; they have the same
features as those italic types that were introduced into Holland a hundred years
ago, little removed from Manutius’s originals. Baskerville’s are worse off, because
he tried to introduce changes, and made them unpleasantly thin. But how much

• See chart on the next page.

7
 Breitkopf ON PUNCHCUTTING AND TYPEFOUNDING

Fleischmann Fournier le jeune Baskerville

French style Dutch style
Grosse Nompareille
Triple-Canon
Double-Canon
Gros-Canon, gros œil
Gros-Canon
Trismégiste
Petit-Canon
Palestine
Gros-Parangon Double Pica Roman
Petit-Parangon, gros œil
Petit-Parangon
Text Romein op Paragon Petit-Parangon, petit œil
Text Romein Gros-Romain Great Primer Roman
Gros-Romain, petit œil Gros-Romain serré
Gros-Texte Gros-Texte serré
Augustyn Romein op Text Gros-Texte pœtique
Augustyn Romein No. 1 St. Augustin, gros œil St. Augustin hollandois English Roman
Augustyn Romein No. 2 St. Augustin, œil moyen St. Augustin poétique
St. Augustin ordinaire
Mediaan Romein op
Augustyn
Mediaan Romein Cicéro, gros œil Cicéro, gros œil Pica Roman
Dessendiaan Romein op Cicéro, œil moyen Cicéro serré
Mediaan
Cicéro ordinaire Cicéro poétique
Cicéro, petit œil
Descendiaan Romein Philosophie, gros œil Philosophie serré Small Pica Roman
No. 1
Descendiaan Romein Philosophie, petit œil Philosophie hollandois
No. 2
Descendiaan Romein Philosophie poétique
No. 3
Garmond Romein op Petit-Romain, gros œil Petit-Romain, gros œil Long Primer Roman
Descendiaan
Garmond Romein No. 1 Petit-Romain, œil moyen
Garmond Romein No. 2 Petit-Romain ordinaire
Galjart Romein No. 1 Gaillarde, gros œil Galliarde hollandois Bourgois Roman
Galjart Romein No. 2 Gaillarde, petit œil
Groote Brevier Romein Petit-Texte, gros œil Petit-Texte hollandois Brevier Roman
Brevier Romein Petit-Texte, œil moyen
Petit-Texte ordinaire
Colonell Romein Mignone, gros œil
Joly Romein N. 1 Mignone, petit œil
Nonparel Romein Nompareille, gros œil Nompareil Roman
Nompareille
Parel Romein No. 1
Parel Romein No. 2
Robyn Romein Parisienne, Romain
Diamant Romein or
Non plus ultra
 Breitkopf ON PUNCHCUTTING AND TYPEFOUNDING
the more beautiful are not Fournier’s, who actually had nothing in mind except
for the two possible type styles, the upright and the slanted, and thus avoided the
adverse meagreness of the old italics.
Fournier is not entirely the inventor of these cursive types; P. Moreau, a Paris-
ian writing master who was granted a privilege to build a foundry and printing
establishment in 1640, had the idea first. They were not well-respected after that
time, but Fournier saw the beauty that lay in them, and worked it out so that the
pleasant slanted or italic types he developed from them, which have found gen-
eral approval, will soon displace the old Italian cursive-style italics completely.
For Holland, Fleischmann’s work has an advantage in the Flemish types that
are still used there under the name Duyts in spiritual and church books. He cut 13
sizes of this style, from Grober Canon down to Robyn, which is also designated as
the non plus ultra. Here, too, the true spirit of this artist is visible, which was more
inclined to the German and to the more-striking typographic character than to
the seriffed one, and through the ruffle and the preciousness in this style of type,
he excelled more and gained admiration in his adopted country. Nothing is more
difficult than to introduce genuine beauty and pleasantness to the eyes; and here-
in Fournier has still been unsurpassed by anyone one in his art.
We now come to the presentation of the musical types, which bear the title
Volmaakte en Volkomene Muziek, and which are most beautiful of all the copies of
the Leipzig notation that has been made. Since Mr. Enschedé has already publicly
testified that he was not the inventor of them, • but rather that they were only
copied from the Leipzig originals, I would therefore not mention them here, if it
were not for the comment in praise of his artist that is placed underneath them.
It reads that, “this is the most perfect and most congenial work ever made by a
punchcutter; Mr. Fleischmann completed it in 1760, after working on it for two
years; he has demonstrated all his of art and diligence with this; everyone who
has some knowledge of the art of printing and of typefounding is astonished;
everything is mathematically arranged; this great work of art consists of 226 steel
punches, and 240 matrices, etc.” My original does even not consist of so many
punches; proof that the copy is imperfect. But my punchcutter must necessarily
have had the skill to cut the original, •• which his own has copied, ••• and the
copy even contains errors, such as strokes and lines that are too fine, which are
burdensome to the reader’s eye; a matter that can cause much hindrance during
the performance of music, given the need to read quickly.
The last work of Mr. Fleischmann’s that Mr. Enschedé advocates is the smaller
script type. •••• The whole specimen of this type contains a panegyric for Mr.
Fleisch-mann, reading that “here the lovers of the arts and sciences can see the
second of the script types that were cut for the Haarlem typefoundry by the late
Mr. Joh. Michael Fleischmann, who was the greatest and most artistic type-cutter

• Enschedé 1908/1978, p. 238 n. 3

•• Breitkopf’s punchcutter for his musical notation types was Johann Schmidt; Ibid., p. 236
••• When Breitkopf wrote “which his own has copied,” he was referring to the types that En-
schedé’s punchcutter copied (i.e., Fleischmann).
•••• This is the Dubbelde Garmond Geschreven Schrift in Enschedé 1768

9
 Breitkopf ON PUNCHCUTTING AND TYPEFOUNDING
that ever came into the world, or could ever come into it, completed in 1768; this
was his final artwork for the foundry, and the last of his justified matrices. After
many centuries, his name and art will still to be spread throughout the world of
letters, thanks to his exceptional typefaces, of which 70 different examples are to
be found in the Haarlem typefoundry.”
It is the imitation of handwriting that led to the invention of printing. The first
examples of that art were nothing else than copies of the common handwriting
then used in Germany, just as the Manutius italic was a copy of the roman chan-
cellory hand. Subsequent type-cutters only improved these features, and have
endeavoured to give them a definite and steady form, and this is the reason why
they have actually been confirmed as types for use in printing. Nevertheless, the
art of type-cutting has, from time to time, always repeated the first idea. No soon-
er than they were designed to look different from handwriting would typefaces
that were more-similar to everyday-writing styles once again be desired. Aldus
Manutius came to the fore in 1502 with the Italian script or chancellory types.
Granjon of Lyon created the French script type in 1556, which Plantin had copied
in Antwerp. • Moreau followed with his in 1640, Fournier provided the newer
French Finançiere around 1750–60, and Rosart attempted to copy the beautiful
English hand for Mr. Enschedé, which was subsequently copied by Fleischmann
twice before 1760. Yet none of these achieve the English hand’s beauty; they
are thin, and completely lack the alternation between shadow and light, which
Fournier knew much better how to achieve in his Finançiere. However, all these
new types that are made in the style of everyday writing will not be used much in
the printing houses where they may have entrenched themselves, but will remain
to only be useful for small jobs, letters and the like, which bring the printer more
cost than benefit, like all the of the ornate types that come into vogue, and all the
inventions that hope to surpass the beauty of unspoilt nature through heaped-on
ornamentation. For this reason, nothing should be said about all these, nor about
the so-called roses and flowers in the Enschedé specimen, of which the major-
ity still come from previous centuries. This, too, was not the area in which Mr.
Fleischmann’s art flourished, and all these copies are bad and without contrast
between light and shadow; and no Dutch artist has ever wanted to succeed in this
area anyway.
Mr. Enschedé has a strong opponent in Mr. Rosart in Brussels, who, as was
said towards the beginning, had previously worked in Haarlem and had cut a
few types for him, but since then has established a typefoundry of his own in
Brussels, and this is now the more formidable for Mr. Enschedé, because Ro-
sart is a very skilful type-cutter, but Mr. Enschedé is not. The type specimen that
he published in 1768 shows his strength in this art. He works through all of the

• Breitkopf did not know that Plantin purchased punches and matrices from Granjon, rather than
having other punchcutters copy Granjon’s types; indeed, I have seen Granjon punches and matri-
ces at the Plantin-Museum in Antwerp myself. Details regarding the matrices, punches, strikes,
and type that Plantin commissioned may be found e.g., in Parker/Melis 1960 and Carter 1969/2002

10
 Breitkopf ON PUNCHCUTTING AND TYPEFOUNDING
upright as well as the slanted Latin types, in the manner of the beautiful exam-
ples by Fournier le jeune, which, while they do not quite reach the heights of the
originals, still surpass all of the copies that other artists have attempted, and he
at least has the advantage of all of his foundry’s typefaces coming from one hand
and being cut according to a common design; an asset that only those foundries
whose owners are type-cutters themselves can have.
In Germany, the typefounder Zink in Wittenberg could have achieved this
level of excellence, if only he had possessed a good eye for beauty and correct-
ness, in addition to his industriousness. In Germany, we therefore cannot hope
for this to happen so soon, especially since our artists have to complete twice as
many types as our neighbours, because we have in our printing houses not only
two Latin, but also two German styes in use. • This is a task that, from the point
of view of an artist, would exceed such an artist’s life span.
The Germans, therefore, must now take care to only to enrich their typefound-
ries through a good selection of typefaces from various artists, and to restore
them into excellent condition. Germany cannot yet exhibit a comparably-strong
and complete type specimen from a typefoundry in the way that France, Hol-
land, and the Netherlands have produced; •• in the mean time, my typefoundry
in Leipzig, the Trattner foundry in Vienna, and the Luther foundry in Frankfurt
am Main are the strongest of their kind, and it is to be expected that one of these
shall make the first start.

• Here Breitkopf is referring to two styles of blackletter types that a printer could be expected to
have in a whole range of sizes: fraktur and schwabacher. The two Latin styles are roman and italic.
•• Today, in the English language, we think of Holland and the Netherlands as being synonymous;
however, in 1777, Brussels was the capital of the Austrian Netherlands, a political entity that was
entirely independent from Holland, just as Belgium and Holland/the Netherlands are today.

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 Breitkopf ON PUNCHCUTTING
B I B L I O G R A PAND
H Y TYPEFOUNDING

[Bauer/Reichardt 2011] Bauer, Friedrich: Chronik der Schriftgießereien in Deutschland und den
deutschsprachigen Nachbarländern. Bearbeitet von Friedrich Bauer, Offenbach am Main 1928. Mit
Ergänzungen und Nachträgen von Hans Reichardt. PDF file. Hans Reichardt, Frankfurt am Main
2011. <http://www.klingspor-museum.de/KlingsporKuenstler/ChronikSchriftgiessereien/
ChronikderSchriftgiesserei.pdf>, last accessed on 3 September 2017

[Konrad Friedrich Bauer 1940] Bauer, Konrad Friedrich: Aventur und Kunst – Eine Chronik des Buch-
druckgewerbes von der Erfindung der beweglichen Letter bis zur Gegenwart. Bauer’sche Gießerei,
Frankfurt am Main 1940

[Bertheau 1995] Bertheau, Philipp (ed.): Buchdruckschriften im 20. Jahrhundert – Atlas zur Geschichte
der Schrift, ausgewählt und kommentiert von Philipp Bertheau unter Mitarbeit von Eva Hanebutt-
Benz und Hans Reichardt. Technische Hochschule, Darmstadt 1995

[Bohadti 1957] Bohadti, Gustav: Von der Romain du Roi zu den Schriften J.G. Justus Erich Walbaums –
eine Schriftstudie. H. Berthold AG, Berlin 1960

[Bohadti 1960] Bohadti, Gustav: Die Walbaum-Schriften und ihre Vorläufer – eine Schriftstudie.
H. Berthold AG, Berlin 1960

[Bohadti 1964] Bohadti, Gustav: Justus Erich Walbaum – ein Lebensbild des Graveurs, Stempelschneiders
und Schriftgiessers. Staatliches Lehrinstitut für Graphik, Druck und Werbung, Berlin 1964

[Breitkopf 1777] Breitkopf, Johann Gottlob Immanuel: Nachricht von der Stempelschneiderey und
Schriftgießerey. Zur Erläuterung der Enschedischen Schriftprobe. Breitkopf, Leipzig 1777

[Breitkopf 1777/1925] Breitkopf, Johann Gottlob Immanuel, Heinrich Schwarz, Wilhelm Hitzig, and
Christoph Gottlieb von Murr: Nachricht von der Stempelschneiderey und Schriftgießerey.
Zur Erläuterung der Enschedischen Schriftprobe. H. Berthold AG, Berlin 1925

[Carter 1969/2002] Carter, Harry: A view of early typography up to about 1600. Reprinted with an intro-
duction by James Mosley. Second edition. Hyphen Press, London 2002. First edition 1969

[Crous 1926] Crous, Ernst (ed.): Die erste Probe Didotscher Lettern aus der Schriftgiesserei J. C. L. Prillwitz
zu Jena – Herrn Dr. Oscar Jolles zur vierzigsten Wiederkehr des Tages seiner Doktorpromotion zu
Jena am 23. September 1926 gewidmet. H. Berthold AG, Berlin 1926

[Crous 1928] Crous, Ernst: Die Schriftgießereien in Berlin von Thurneysser bis Unger. Nach hand-
schriftlichen und gedruckten Quellen dargestellt. H. Berthold AG, Berlin 1928

[Enschedé 1768] Joh. Enschedé: Proef van Letteren, welke gegooten worden in de Nieuwe Haerlemsche
Lettergietery van J. Enschedé. Enschedé, Haarlem 1768

[Enschedé 1953] Joh. Enschedé en Zonen: The House of Enschedé, 1703–1953. Enschedé, Haarlem 1953

[Enschedé 1908/1978] Enschedé, Charles: Typefoundries in the Netherlands from the fifteenth to the
nineteenth century – A history based mainly on the collection of Joh. Enschedé en Zonen at Haarlem.
An English translation with revisions and notes by Harry Carter and Netty Hoeflake. Edited by Lotte
Hellinga. Stichting Museum Enschedé, Haarlem 1978

[Enschedé/Lane 1993] Lane, John A.: The Enschedé type specimens of 1768 and 1773. A facsimile with
an introduction and notes. Stichting Museum Enschedé, The Enschedé Font Foundry, and Uit-
geverij De Buitenkant 1993

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 Breitkopf ON PUNCHCUTTING AND TYPEFOUNDING
[Fleischman/Janssen 1994] Janssen, Frans A. (ed.): Fleischman on punchcutting. Spectatorpers,
Aartswoud 1994

[Fournier 1764–66] Fournier le jeune, Pierre Simon: Manuel typographique utile aux gens de lettres,
& à ceux qui exercent les différentes parties de l’Art de l’Imprimerie. Two volumes. Barbou, Paris
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[Fournier/Carter/Mosley 1995] Fournier le jeune, Pierre Simon: The Manuel Typographique of Pierre-
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by Harry Carter in Facsimile. With an Introduction and Notes by James Mosley. Three Volumes.
Technische Hochschule, Darmstadt 1995

[Geßner/Hager 1740–75] Geßner, Christian Friedrich and Johann Georg Hager: Die so nöthig als nütz-
liche Buchdruckerkunst und Schriftgießerey. Four Volumes. Christian Friedrich Geßner, Leipzig
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[Kapr 1993] Kapr, Albert: Fraktur – Form und Geschichte der gebrochenen Schriften. Verlag Hermann
Schmidt Mainz, 1993

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and matrices. Museum Plantin-Moretus, Antwerp 1960

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type specimen of Jacques-François Rosart, Brussels, 1768 – a facsimile. Van Gendt & Co., Amster-
dam 1973

[Rühl (undated)] Schriftgießerei C.F. Rühl, Leipzig: Schriftproben. Bound volume of twenty-five type
specimen brochures. Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin – Preußischer Kulturbesitz (undated)

[SchumacherGebler 2007] SchumacherGebler, Eckehart: »Fraktur«. In: Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim:

Fabeln. Drey Bücher. Buchdruckerei und Verlag SchumacherGebler KG, Dresden 2007. Pages
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now. Second edition. Hyphen Press, London 2011. First edition 1996

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Version 2019-8-22
Copyright © 2019 Dan Reynolds

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