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whether the text was printed first and then the plate, or the other way around.’ 5 Gri Y ths accepts without question what we have always known: the letterpress is printed first. Bowen and Imho V provide documentary evidence that Christopher Plantin’s practice in Antwerp in the sixteenth century was always to print the letter- press first. Furthermore, engravings were often printed in batches as required, one of the logical reasons why it makes sense to print the letterpress first. In typographic printing, the whole edition of each sheet must be printed in one press run so that the type can be distri buted and re-used for subsequent sheets (the cost of type normally prohibiting keeping whole books in standing type). But intaglio plates can be printed in short runs and the plates stored for later use, as demand arises. As Bowen and Imho V explain, this not only helps the publisher’s cash flow, but does not overload the printer who probably has other clients breathing down his – or in the case of Plantin’s most frequently used printer, Mynken Lieferinck, her – neck, waiting for their job to be printed. What is not known is not which was printed first, letterpress or intaglio, but how register was achieved. It was not always very precise: we are familiar with skewed engravings and overprinting of the text, but it certainly could be, witness for example, the skill of the copperplate printers commissioned by Plantin in the sixteenth century in producing neatly registered engravings in letterpress sheets. The answer to the problem of registration may be that the plates were printed face down, the reverse of the usual procedure where the inked plate is laid on the press face up, which makes it di Y cult to position accurately the damp printing paper over it. In my article I pointed out the passage in Charles-Nicolas Cochin’s 1745 revision of Abraham Bosse’s treatise where Cochin says that this is the way to print several small engravings on one sheet. 6 This would be a reliable 5 . Stijnman p. 366. 6 . ‘Cela se fait ainsi quand la sujettion le requiert, comme pour l’impression des images satinées, ou bien quand it faut tirer plusieurs petites Planches à la fois sur une meme feuille de papier, & lorsqu’on est oblige d’imprimer sur du carton ou du papier si épais qu’on ne peut appercevoir ne sentir la Planche au travers, ce qui est essential pour pou- voir la marger juste.’ Abraham Bosse, revised by Charles-Nicolas Cochin, fils, De la maniere de graver a l’eau forte et au burin … Avec la façon de construire les presses modernes,
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