Excerpt: ...fifty tables given in Mr. Hill's valuable paper, and to this monograph students 141 are referred for details as to the development of number-forms in Europe from the tenth to the sixteenth century. It is of interest to add that he has found that among the earliest dates of European coins or medals in these numerals, after the Sicilian one already mentioned, are the following: Austria, 1484; Germany, 1489 (Cologne); Switzerland, 1424 (St. Gall); Netherlands, 1474; France, 1485; Italy, 1390.565 The earliest ...
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Excerpt: ...fifty tables given in Mr. Hill's valuable paper, and to this monograph students 141 are referred for details as to the development of number-forms in Europe from the tenth to the sixteenth century. It is of interest to add that he has found that among the earliest dates of European coins or medals in these numerals, after the Sicilian one already mentioned, are the following: Austria, 1484; Germany, 1489 (Cologne); Switzerland, 1424 (St. Gall); Netherlands, 1474; France, 1485; Italy, 1390.565 The earliest English coin dated in these numerals was struck in 1551,566 although there is a Scotch piece of 1539.567 In numbering pages of a printed book these numerals were first used in a work of Petrarch's published at Cologne in 1471.568 The date is given in the following form in the Biblia Pauperum,569 a block-book of 1470, while in another block-book which possibly goes back to c. 1430570 the numerals appear in several illustrations, with forms as follows: Many printed works anterior to 1471 have pages or chapters numbered by hand, but many of these numerals are 142 of date much later than the printing of the work. Other works were probably numbered directly after printing. Thus the chapters 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 in a book of 1470571 are numbered as follows: Capitulem m., . m., . 4m., . v, . vi, and followed by Roman numerals. This appears in the body of the text, in spaces left by the printer to be filled in by hand. Another book572 of 1470 has pages numbered by hand with a mixture of Roman and Hindu numerals, thus, for 125 for 150 for 147 for 202 As to monumental inscriptions,573 there was once thought to be a gravestone at Katharein, near Troppau, with the date 1007, and one at Biebrich of 1299. There is no doubt, however, of one at Pforzheim of 1371 and one at Ulm of 1388.574 Certain numerals on Wells Cathedral have been assigned to the thirteenth century, but they are undoubtedly considerably later.575 The table on page 143 will serve to supplement that from...
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