Indulgence, Augsburg, 1481 (verso)

On the back side of this indulgence, you can see the creases where it was folded up for safekeeping and the later repair work done to stabilize it.

Indulgence, Nuremberg, 1482

This form is an indulgence granted for "promoting the war against the Turks," in a variant designed specifically for women. The handwritten portion in the upper right corner fills in the name of the recipient, Cristina Schuczin, and her diocese, Bamberg. Indulgence forms like this one, combining print and manuscript elements, were some of the first widespread uses of printing in the Middle Ages.

Jacobus, Golden Legend, 1472 (fol. 2r)

The text of this German edition of The Golden Legend of Saints starts off with an equivalent to "incipit": "Hie hebt sich an das Sumer Teil der Heyligen Leben..." ("Here begins the Summer Part of the Holy Lives..."). A hand-colored portrait of Jacobus writing his work follows.

Jacobus, Golden Legend, 1472 (fol. 5r)

The start of the life of Saint Mary of Egypt is marked off by a hand-colored woodcut illustrating her life. Like other books from the earliest years of printing, this does not use many of the printed features that become standard, including headlines, paragraph breaks, signature marks, or catchwords.

James I, By the King, 1611

This broadside uses gothic type (or black letter as the English often called it) for the main text of its announcement, as is typical for official English documents, with roman type setting off the names of the escapees.

Kats, Ma’aseh Toviyah, 1708 (40.2v)

This imprimatur, the only page in Italian in this Hebrew encyclopedia, verifies that the book may legally be printed because the Inquisitors have found it to contain no anti-Catholic, anti-government, or immoral content.

Kats, Ma’aseh Toviyah, 1708 (8.4r)

This decorative chapter title showcases several sizes and weights of Hebrew type. The use of both elongated and regular forms of several letters, including ה (he), ת (tav), and ם (final mem), is particularly visible in the triangle of text at the top of the page. Stretching letters with horizontal lines was a common convention in Hebrew printing used to justify lines.

Kats, Ma’aseh Toviyah, 1708 (π1r)

This title page combines both Hebrew and roman type, indicating its origin at a Hebrew print studio in Venice. The main part of the title reads, "Part one of the book of worlds or Ma'aseh Toviyah containing the four worlds. And it is divided into five parts. The first part describes the world above, that is the spiritual world. The second the world of the middle, that is the world of the planets. The third is the lower world that is our world. The fourth is the small world, that is The Man. The fifth in the foundations of the world."

Keimer, Elegy, 1723 (1r)

Because broadsides weren't typically bound into books but rather distributed as single sheets, they often have very high loss rates. This is the only known copy of Keimer's Elegy, which Benjamin Franklin describes in his Autobiography as having unusually been composed as Keimer set the type. This was the first work that Keimer published in America, and Franklin's first known printing job in Philadelphia.

Keimer, Elegy, 1723 (1v)

The back of this broadsheet shows the ink bleeding through from the front, as well as the small patches that have been made to repair the damage from being folded.