for the first time pictorial statements of a kind that could 
     be exactly repeated during the effective life of the printing 
     surface. This exact repetition of pictorial statements has 
     had incalculable effects upon knowledge and thought, 
     upon science and technology, of every kind. It is hardly 
     too much to say that since the invention of writing there 
     has been no more important invention than that of the 
     exactly repeatable pictorial statement.

     The too obvious character of exact repeatability that is 
inherent in typography misses the literary man. He attaches 
little significance to this merely technological feature and 
concentrates on the “content,” as if he were listening to the 
author. As an artist aware of formal structures as complex 
statements in themselves, Ivins brought to prints and 
typography and manuscript alike, a rare mode of attention. He