Erhard Ratdolt
Erhard Ratdolt (1442–1528) was an early German printer from Augsburg. He was active as a printer in Venice from 1476 to 1486, and afterwards in Augsburg. From 1476 to 1478 he was in partnership with two other German printers.
The first book the partnership produced was the Kalendario (1476), written and previously published by Regiomontanus, which offered one of the earliest examples of a modern title page. Other noteworthy publications are the Historia Romana of Appianus (1477), and the first edition of Euclid's Elements (1482), where he solved the problem of printing geometric diagrams, the Poeticon astronomicon, also from 1482, Haly Abenragel (1485), and Alchabitius (1503). Erhard Ratdolt is also famous for having produced the first known printers type specimen book (in this instance a broadsheet displaying the fonts with which he might print)[1].
His innovations of layout and typography, mixing type and woodcuts, have subsequently been much admired. His graphic choices and technical solutions influenced also those of William Morris.[2]
[edit] References
- ^ Updike, Daniel Berkeley (1922 reprinted 2009). Printing Types, Their History, Forms, and Use. General Books. pp. 196. ISBN 978-1151437389.
- ^ "Erhard Ratdolt." Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th Edition (2010): 1. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 6 Oct. 2011. .
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- Erhard Ratdolt - first publisher of Euclid
- G. R. Redgrave: Erhard Ratdolt and his work at Venice. London, 1894
