In another thread, Ramiro very kindly linked to my page on punchcutting literature at http://circuitousroot.com/artifice/letters/press/typemaking/literature/punchcutting/index.html But this threw me into an editorial panic, because there was a section there which was misleadingly out of date - the one having to do with the text of Jaugeon and the work of the "Bignon committee" for the Academie Royale in the 1690s. It's fixed now. The new page directly concerned with this work and its publication history is at: http://circuitousroot.com/artifice/letters/press/typemaking/literature/general/jaugeon/index.html
Briefly, in the 1690s a small group began a project for the Academie Royale which decades later was partially published as the "Descriptions des arts et metiers" (a project distinct from Diderot and d'Alambert's Encyclopedie). They began with the study of the making of type, in part because at the same time they were creating the type which has become known as the Romain du Roi. The manuscript that came out of this in 1704, along with several plates, is the second major work on type-making (after Moxon) and certainly the first well-illustrated work. But it was not published. 300 years later, it still hasn't been published. Portions of it have appeared (excerpts from the plates - especially James Mosley's 1991 reprint of them in Matrix 11 - and, importantly, Mosley's 2015 translation of the section on the hand mold), but it has been a difficult and sometimes expensive work to access in any way. Fortunately, a digital version of an 18th century copy of the MS, with plates, is now available freely online via the Gallica digital library of the Bibliotheque nationale de France. It's low-resolution, but the plates are legible and well worth your time.
More generally, on the subject of the literature of typographical punchcutting: what else is there (ancient or modern)? It is a body of literature that is small enough that we should be able to identify every work in every language in every tradition.
Briefly, in the 1690s a small group began a project for the Academie Royale which decades later was partially published as the "Descriptions des arts et metiers" (a project distinct from Diderot and d'Alambert's Encyclopedie). They began with the study of the making of type, in part because at the same time they were creating the type which has become known as the Romain du Roi. The manuscript that came out of this in 1704, along with several plates, is the second major work on type-making (after Moxon) and certainly the first well-illustrated work. But it was not published. 300 years later, it still hasn't been published. Portions of it have appeared (excerpts from the plates - especially James Mosley's 1991 reprint of them in Matrix 11 - and, importantly, Mosley's 2015 translation of the section on the hand mold), but it has been a difficult and sometimes expensive work to access in any way. Fortunately, a digital version of an 18th century copy of the MS, with plates, is now available freely online via the Gallica digital library of the Bibliotheque nationale de France. It's low-resolution, but the plates are legible and well worth your time.
More generally, on the subject of the literature of typographical punchcutting: what else is there (ancient or modern)? It is a body of literature that is small enough that we should be able to identify every work in every language in every tradition.