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Margarita Davitica, seu Expositio psalmorum.
[Augsburg: Gùˆnther Zainer, not after 1476]. (07026)
The first books produced on European printing presses during the 1450s generally left blank spaces in which the owner was expected to supply the necessary initials and rubrics by hand. This continuity with traditional manuscript production lasted into the 1470s, when printers, seeking to save time and expense, began to provide ornamental initial woodcuts and typographic headings in place of rubrication by hand. In the exhibited exposition on the Psalms, the printer eliminated the need for rubrication, printing suitably elaborate initials and border decoration along with the text. Such books had the advantage of being ready for use as soon as they were bound, without the necessity of manuscript additions of any kind.
