August 14 and Magnificent Capital Letters

No pens allowed here

Today on August 14, 1457 the Mainz Psalter was published. It was one of the first printed books with several innovations, including two letter sizes and a colophon. The book is prefaced with this statement:

This volume of the Psalms, adorned with a magnificence of capital letters and clearly divided by rubrics, has been fashioned by a mechanical process of printing and producing characters, without use of a pen, and it was laboriously completed, for God's Holiness, by Joachim Fust, citizen of Mainz, and Peter Schoeffer of Gernsheim, on Assumption Eve in the year of Our Lord, 1457. Source.

I love this because you can feel the pride in: “adorned with a magnificence of capital letters.” Like most successful innovations, this now feels commonplace. In fact, this very newsletter is also adorned with a magnificence of capital letters and produced without the use of a pen (although it lacks clearly divided rubrics).