Descrizione

8vo (222x140 mm). viii, 158 pp. Contemporary green leather, gilt spine with five raised bands, panels decorated with interlacing gold fillets, marbled endleaves, gilt edges, pink silk bookmark. A very good, clean copy.
First edition published in the year in which the Imprimerie Royale became the Imprimerie Nationale. A revised and enlarged edition was issued in 1861 under title Histoire de l'Imprimerie Impériale.
“The author gives an account from different state printers of France from the time of Francis I., who instituted the distinction of ‘Printer to the King'. Robert Estienne was one of the first royal printers before he went to Geneva. The history of the printing establishment originally known as ‘L'Imprimerie Royale' is then detailed, and an account of its successive directors follows. To this succeeds an elaborate description of the present establishment, its system of business, its productions, machinery, materials, &c., even to the associations for charitable or educational purposes which have been formed by the workpeople. In an appendix there is a statement of the French laws relating to printing and statistics as to the position of the art. The work includes a very interesting comparative table of the Roman and Italic characters employed by the Imperial Printing Office from 1640 up to the present day […] The author was the “Chef-du-Service” of the foundry department, and controller of the letter-press-work of the National Printing Office in Paris” (F.C. Bigmore-C.W.H. Wyman, A Bibliography of Printing, London, 1880, p. 191).
OCLC, 16285935.