Figure 225
Gothic Type: Coci, Saragossa
From a copy in the Boston Public Library (facsimile), Las quatorze decadas de Tito Liuio hystoriador de los Romanos (scan)
1520
It contains the first example of “colour printing,” as we now understand it, that I have found in a Spanish book. The title-page—a huge armorial device surrounded with the collar of the Golden Fleece—has beneath it a scroll on which is the title and “privilege” in five lines of gothic letter, printed in red. The arms above are in four colours, black, red, yellow, and green, printed from wood-blocks.
The text appears in a beautiful, rather condensed gothic type, closely set. The titles of the chapters are composed in a larger size of much the same font. Fine woodcuts extending the full width of the page are very freely introduced, and accord splendidly with the type of the book. Haebler calls it one of Coci’s most splendid productions, and certainly it is a sumptuous performance—of its kind.