s appropriate to works of the same
class; the chapter headings, headlines, initial-letters, paragraph
marks, and in some cases illustrations, would be added by hand in a
style which might closely resemble the like decorations in the
manuscript from which the text was being printed; there would be no
title-page, and very probably no statement of any kind that the book was
printed, or as to where, when or by whom it was produced. Information as
to these points, if given at all, was reserved for a paragraph at the
end of the book, called by bibliographers a colophon (q.v.), to which
the printer often attached a device consisting of his arms, or those of
the town in which he worked, or a fanciful design. These devices are
sometimes beautiful and often take the place of a statement of the
printer's name. Many facsimiles or copies of them have been
published.[1] The first dated title-page known[2] is a nine-line
paragraph on an otherwise blank page giving the title of the book,
_Sermo ad populum predicabilis in festo presentacionis Beatissime Marie
Semper Virginis_, with some words in its praise, the date 1470 in roman
numerals, and a reference to further information on the next page. The
book in which this title-page occurs was printed by Arnold ther Hoernen
at Cologne. Six years later Erhard Ratdolt and his partners at Venice
printed their names and the date, together with some verses describing
the book, on the title-page of a Latin calendar, and surrounded the
whole with a border in four pieces. For another twenty years, however,
when title-pages were used at all, they usually consisted merely of the
short title of the book, with sometimes a woodcut or the printer's
(subsequently the publisher's) device beneath it, decoration being more
often bestowed on the first page of text, which was sometimes surrounded
by an ornamental border. Title-pages completed by the addition of the
name and address of printer or publisher, and also by the date, did not
become common till about 1520.

While the development of the title-page was thus slow the completion of
the book, independently of handwork, in other respects was fairly rapid.
Printed illustrations appear first in the form of rude woodcuts in some
small books produced at Bamberg by Albrecht Pfister about 1461.
Pagination and headlines were first used by ther Hoernen at Cologne in
1470 and 1471; printed signatures to guide binders in arranging the
quires correctly (see BIBLIOGRA