The work of Nicholas Jenson, one of the printed book s most pre-eminent early fabricators, shows why the printed book came to look as it does on the inside. This paper contracts the complet legal printing that Jenson did later in his career with the simpler, lapiday classical printing that he did at first. Making saleable printed law books, like church-service books, was difficult technically because it was unnatural. What these materials are suited to do, on the other hand, is what Jenson did with them in 1470. Manuscript-making belongs with painting and calligraphy.
Printing belongs with sculpture and epigraphy.
The quality of Jenson s early accomplishment derives from recognition of this material condition. Eventually, it proved possible for a person as skilled as Jenson to make manscript-like printed books. Demonstrably, it was not easy for him to do so. In the final analysis, however, the printed page looks like a stone funerary monument because of the nature of the materials used to make it. Reasoning that the Spaniard would have no way of knowing that they had started out with two, the Chasquis were surprised when the Spaniard, holding the page of the letter in the air, demanded the second watermelon.