View of the roof of the Government Printer Building, with. Can you make out the stone devils perched at the top of the Government Printing Building? A historical symbol of the printing industry, there are seven devils on the facade of the building, and one statue hidden away inside. There are some unsual - and some far-reaching - theories to explain the notorious printer's devils... The Seven Devils of George Street ...A 'printer's devil' was a nickname given to printer's apprentices, who performed such tas
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QS Archive / Alamy Stock PhotoImage ID:
MY0G9RFile size:
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1590 x 1257 px | 26.9 x 21.3 cm | 10.6 x 8.4 inches | 150dpiDate taken:
11 May 2010More information:
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View of the roof of the Government Printer Building, with. Can you make out the stone devils perched at the top of the Government Printing Building? A historical symbol of the printing industry, there are seven devils on the facade of the building, and one statue hidden away inside. There are some unsual - and some far-reaching - theories to explain the notorious printer's devils... The Seven Devils of George Street ( http://boggoroad.blogspot.com.au/2015/07/the-seven-devils-of-george-street.html ) ...A 'printer's devil' was a nickname given to printer's apprentices, who performed such tasks as mixing ink and fetching type. These apprentices invariably stained themselves with black ink and - as black was associated with the 'black arts' - the nickname 'devil' took hold... ...A further association with the devil in printing is the name of the hellbox, which was a box that worn and broken lead type was thrown into, and which the printer's devil (apprentice) then took to the furnace for melting and recasting. Yet another link was 'Deville', the assistant of the first English printer and book publisher, William Caxton. This was said to have evolved to 'devil over time and used to describe other printers' apprentices... ...There was also said to be a 'fanciful' belief among printers that print shops were haunted by a special devil who got up to such mischief as inverting type, or misspelling words. Historically this figure was TitivillusTitivillus ) , a mythical demon that worked on behalf of Satan to introduce errors into the works of scribes. References to Titivillus date back 800 years. It had been suggested that the apprentice became a substitue scapegoat for printery mishaps, leading to the 'devil' nickname... ...Another rather implausble account of the origins of the name has John Fust - a business partner of Johannes Gutenberg - selling several of Gutenberg's bibles to King Louis XI of France, claiming that the bibles were hand-copies manuscripts. As the