DISSERTATION SUR L'ORIGINE ET LES PROGRÈS D L'ART DE GRAVER EN BOIS.
Pour éclaircir quelques traits de l"histoire de l'Imprimerie, & prouver que Guttemberg n'en est pas l'Inventeur.
- Paris: J. Barbou, 1758.
- large 12mo.
- unbound, cord tied, housed in a green half-morocco goat over cloth boards clamshell case, spine tooled in gold leaf with title, author, and date
- 92, (3) pages
- ISBN: none
Price: $5,000.00 other currencies
Order Nr. 76869
Very rare first edition. (Bigmore and Wyman p.227). Unbound textblock lightly soiled with minor creasing at corners. Faint moisture staining throughout, with some affecting the text. In this text, Fournier sets out to prove that Gutenberg was not the inventor of the printing press by examining the history of printing. He believed that the technology Gutenberg made popular existed long before the German printer's work. Fournier also followed up this text with two additional works which are not present: De l'origine et des productions de l'imprimerie primitive en taille de bois (1759) and Observations sur un ouvrage intitulé Vindiciae Typographicae (1760). These two works provided further discussion of the origins of woodcut prints, including a passage refuting popular belief about the origin wood engraving and some ideas for further study.
Fournier (1712--1768) was born in Paris and trained as a wood engraver and type founder, being a member of the 18th century dynasty of the well-known Fournier family. He later turned to steel engraving. He published a table of the proportions of the different printing characters whose purpose was to propose for all typefaces a fixed measurement in "typographic points" and a systematic gradation. He worked closely with the collaborators of the Encyclopédie, providing the printer Le Breton with all the documentation relating to the typographic foundry and plans for his own instruments, as well as providing Diderot with his collection of ancient alphabets. Finally, after multiple disputes with his Parisian colleagues, he became infamous for the printing of his famous Manuel Typographique (1764, 1766) just prior to his death.