Specimen Charactervm Latinorvm.
Vienna, [J.T. Edler von Trattner] 1769.
4to (228 x 176 mm.). [i], [25] leaves. PRINTED ON RECTOS ONLY. THIRTY-FOUR ROMAN FONTS, NINETEEN ITALIC FONTS, SIX ORNAMENTAL ROMAN FONTS, TWO DECORATIVE ITALIC FONTS — MANY WITH THEIR POINTS — AND REPRESENTATIVE LETTERS FROM FOUR SERIES OF ELABORATE WOODCUT INITIALS. The title and each specimen page is enclosed in a different typographic border, other fleurons and ornamental rules separate the specimens. Trattner’s etched title device shows a platen, rolling press, type case and the tools of the printing trade.
Modern modern moiré silk over heavy paper boards, flat spine, all edges gilt (original guilting), edges gauffered at the crown and base of the spine.
With: Trattner, Johann Thomas Edler von. With: Trattner, Johann Thomas Edler von. With: Trattner, Johann Thomas Edler von.
Abdruck derjenigen Deutschen Schriften,. Vienna, [J.T. Edler von Trattner] 1769. 4to. [i], [31] leaves. PRINTED ON RECTOS ONLY. FORTY GOTHIC FONTS, FIVE GOTHIC SCRIPT FONTS (including Kurrentschrift) AND FIVE LARGE CALLIGRAPHIC FONTS WITH HIGHLY DECORATIVE INITIALS (one 92 mm. high). Title and text frames and device as above (I).
Specimen Charactervm Rvssicorvm, Tvrcicorvm, Græcorvm Et Hebraicorvm. Vienna, [J.T. Edler von Trattner] 1769. 4to. [i], [19] leaves. PRINTED ON RECTOS ONLY. FOUR CYRILLIC FONTS, ONE TURKISH FONT, ELEVEN GREEK FONTS, EIGHT HEBREW FONTS AND TWO MOSAIC MUSIC FONTS — the larger printed in red and black; the smaller in a woodcut frame of instruments and musical part books. Title and text frames and device as above (I-II).
Abdruck derjenigen Röslein und Zierrathen. Vienna, [J.T. Edler von Trattner] 1769. 4to. [i], [30] leaves. PRINTED ON RECTOS ONLY.
TWO HUNDRED FOURTEEN DIFFERENT FLEURONS AND CAST METAL ORNAMENTS are arranged in numbered rows on nine pages — female heads, lions, birds, crowns, archangels, rope- and scrollwork, flaming vases, grapes, palmettos, bells….
Nineteen pages have designs of fountains, columns, firework displays, wall panels, etc. composed of these fleurons. Points, figures, medical, algebraic, mathematical, zodiacal and astrological signs fill a page and rules and brackets another. Title and text frames and device as above (I-III).
Ad I-IV: COMPLETE SUITE PRINTED ON THICK PAPER of these four type specimens showing one hundred thirty-seven fonts and over a three hundred fifty ornaments and medical and astrological signs and symbols. Every alphabetic specimen is named and numbered, and every row of ornament numbered for customers’ convenience.
Orphaned at age two in a Hungarian village, Trattner moved to Vienna and built a vertically integrated letterpress and intaglio printing, engraving, papermaking, bookselling, binding, playing card production, typecutting and typefounding conglomerate with eighteen offices across the empire. His massive six-story headquarters in Vienna, the “Typographic Palace”, housed all but the paper mills. (He also ran a lending library….) Through shrewd self-advancement at court, he obtained some dozen lucrative exclusive privileges from Empress Maria Theresa for whom he was court printer and bookseller, as well as printer to the Austrian Jesuits, University printer and bookseller, printer of all lower and middle sacred and secular schoolbooks in Austria, etc. With Maria Theresa’s favor he obtained government-guaranteed loans. He regularly appealed to her and to the imperial Chancery to handicap those threatening his monopolies or challenging his market dominance. She raised Trattner to the nobility in 1764.
To bolster his typecutting and typefounding business he secured a prohibition on the importation of fonts produced outside Austria. The trade barrier also mandated the price of domestic fonts be pegged to the retail price of foreign competitors plus their cost of transport.
These four beautiful and luxuriously executed volumes exhibit his success. In his sixty-five years in the trade, he issued three sets of specimens, dated 1759-60, 1769 and 1787. In the U.S., I have located the first at Harvard and Newberry, that offered here at Harvard (none of these four are in VD18) and the last at Library of Congress. In excellent condition.
¶The following references are to other collections or to individual volumes.
Bigmore & Wyman, A Bibliography of Printing III: 21; Mayer, Wiens Buchdrucker-Geschichte II: 31-43, esp. 33; Giese, “Johann Thomas Edler von Trattner” in Archiv für Geschichte des Buchwesens 3 (1961) 1013–1454 esp. 1031-38, 1303,490-93 & Abb. 3; Jolles et al., Die Deutsche Schriftgiesserei. Eine gewerblich Bibliographie 253-4; Capellaro, “Durch Arbeit und Gunst” in Zu den Geschäftsstrategien des typographischen Großunternehmers Johann Thomas von Trattner (18. Jahrhundert). Hausarbeit, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin 2004 online 13-14 & Abb. 1; Berlin Katalog der Ornamentstichsammlung 5344-45.
Price: $15,000.00