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Title: Fine Books
Author: Pollard, Alfred W. (Alfred William), 1859-1944
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Fine Books" ***
THE CONNOISSEUR'S LIBRARY
GENERAL EDITOR: CYRIL DAVENPORT
FINE BOOKS
[Illustration: Deucalion et Pyrrha repeuplant la Terre, Suivant l'Oracle
de Themis.]
FINE BOOKS
BY
ALFRED W. POLLARD
[Illustration: The Connoisseur's Library]
NEW YORK: G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
LONDON: METHUEN & CO. LTD.
1912
TO
SIR EDWARD MAUNDE THOMPSON, G.C.B.
DIRECTOR AND PRINCIPAL LIBRARIAN OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM
1888-1909
PREFACE
If the mere taking of trouble ensured good work, this contribution to
the _Connoisseur's Library_ should be entitled to the modest praise of
being "superior to the rest" of its author's book-makings, since it has
been ten years on the stocks and much of it has been written two or
three times over, either because the writer's own information had
increased or to take account of the successful researches of others. Yet
in the end defeat in one main point has to be acknowledged. The book was
begun with a confident determination to cover the whole ground, from the
beginnings of printing and printed book-illustration down to our own
day, and in the case of printing the survey has been carried through,
however sketchily. But the corresponding survey of book-illustration
ends, with rather obvious marks of compression and fatigue, about 1780,
leaving the story of a hundred and thirty years of very interesting
picture-work untold. Pioneering is always so exciting that recognition
of the impossibility of carrying out the full plan of the book within
the limits either of the present volume or of the author's working life
was not made without sincere regret. The subject, however, of the
abandoned chapter was not only very large, but very miscellaneous, and
the survey for it would have had to include at least three other
countries (France, Germany, and the United States) besides our own. To
one section, moreover, that of illustrations in colour, a separate
volume of this series has already been devoted. The author would,
therefore, fain console himself with the hope that in one or more other
volumes a competent account may be given by some other hand of the
wood-engravings, etchings, steel-engravings, and lithographs, with which
books have been decorated since 1780. The poorness of paper and print
with which these modern illustrated books have too often been
handicapped has caused collectors to take little interest in them--it
even suggested the unworthy excuse for the failure to write the missing
chapter that these are not really _Fine Books_, but only books with fine
pictures in them, and so are outside our subject. But both students and
collectors have their duties as well as their delights, and in view of
the high artistic value of quite a large proportion of these modern
illustrations, the preservation of clean and uncropped copies of the
books in which they occur and the tribute of careful cataloguing and
description are certainly their due.
While the desired completeness has not been attained the ground here
covered is still very wide, and for the book as a whole no more can be
claimed than that it is a compilation from the best sources--a list of
these will be found in the Bibliography--controlled by some personal
knowledge, the amount of which naturally varies very much from chapter
to chapter. The obligations incurred in writing it have thus been great,
and a sad number of these are to fellow-workers and friends--Proctor,
John Macfarlane, W. H. Allnutt, Konrad Burger, Dr. Lippmann, Anatole
Claudin, and the Prince d'Essling--who have died while the book has been
in progress. Among those still happily alive acknowledgment must
specially be made to Sir Sidney Colvin for help received from his
masterly introduction to the great monograph on _Early Engravers and
Engraving in England_ published by the Trustees of the British Museum;
to Mr. A. M. Hind for use made of the list of engravers and their works
in the same book; to Mr. Campbell Dodgson for dippings into the wealth
of information in his _Catalogue of German and Flemish Woodcuts in the
Print Room of the British Museum_ (Vols. I and II); to Mr. Gordon Duff
for help derived from his three series of Sandars Lectures on English
Printing, and to Mr. Evans for information obtained from his _American
Bibliography_. Among other obligations the chief is to the writers
(notably Mr. H. R. Plomer) of numerous papers contributed to the
_Transactions_ of the Bibliographical Society and to _The Library_, and
these are acknowledged with special pleasure.
A. W. P.
CONTENTS
PAGE
CHAPTER I. COLLECTORS AND COLLECTING 1
" II. BLOCK-BOOKS 19
" III. THE INVENTION OF PRINTING--HOLLAND 32
" IV. THE INVENTION OF PRINTING--MAINZ 44
" V. OTHER INCUNABULA 59
" VI. THE DEVELOPMENT OF PRINTING 83
" VII. EARLY GERMAN AND DUTCH ILLUSTRATED BOOKS 100
" VIII. EARLY ITALIAN ILLUSTRATED BOOKS 123
" IX. EARLY FRENCH AND SPANISH ILLUSTRATED BOOKS 143
" X. LATER FOREIGN BOOKS 165
" XI. FOREIGN ILLUSTRATED BOOKS OF THE 16TH CENTURY 180
" XII. PRINTING IN ENGLAND (1476-1580) 204
" XIII. ENGLISH BOOKS PRINTED ELSEWHERE THAN AT LONDON 224
" XIV. ENGLISH WOODCUT ILLUSTRATIONS 250
" XV. ENGRAVED ILLUSTRATIONS 267
" XVI. MODERN FINE PRINTING 297
BIBLIOGRAPHY 309
INDEX 319
LIST OF PLATES
I. Deucalion and Pyrrha repeopling the world. From Ovid's
_Metamorphoses_, Paris, 1767 _Frontispiece_
TO FACE PAGE
II. An author (Caxton?) presenting a book to Margaret of
Burgundy. Fifteenth century engraving inserted in the
Chatsworth copy of the _Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye_ 1
(From the plate made for the Bibliographical Society's edition
of Mr. Seymour De Ricci's _Census of Caxtons_.)
III. The "Bona Inspiratio angeli contra vanam gloriam." From a
smaller version of the _Ars Moriendi_. Block-book from the
Lower Rhine, _c._ 1465 26
IV. Leaf 3a of a fragment of the _Doctrinale_ of Alexander
Gallus. One of the so-called "Costeriana" 32
V. Beginning, with printed capital, of the _Rationale
Diuinorum Officiorum_ of Gulielmus Duranti. Mainz, Fust and
Schoeffer, 1459 44
VI. Leaf 7b of the first book printed at Cologne, Cicero, _De
Officiis_, Ulrich Zel, not later than 1466 60
The space left in the sixth line from the foot stands for the
words _ab ostentatione_, which the printer apparently could
not read in his manuscript. The word _vacat_ at the end was
inserted to show that the space in the last line was
accidental and that nothing had been omitted.
VII. Leaf 41a of Cicero's _Rhetorica_, Venice, Nicolas Jenson,
1470, showing spaces left for a chapter heading and capital 84
VIII. Part of leaf 4a, with woodcut, from the _Geschicht von
dem seligen Kind Symon_ of Tuberinus. Augsburg, Günther
Zainer, about 1475 100
IX. Woodcuts of Saracens and Syrians from Breidenbach's
_Sanctae Peregrinationis in montem Syon atque in montem Sinai
descriptio_. Mainz, Erhard Reuwich, 1486 114
X. Woodcut on leaf 1b of the _Egloga Theoduli_. Leipzig,
Conrad Kachelofen, 1489 116
XI. Page (sig. H 8 verso) from the _Psalterium Beatae Mariae
Virginis_ of Nitschewitz, showing the Emperor Frederick and
his son Maximilian. From a press at the Cistercian Monastery
at Zinna, _c._ 1493 118
XII. The Harrowing of Hell, with text, from leaf 4a of the
_Belial_ of Jacobus de Theramo. Haarlem, Bellaert, 1484. (Size
of the original, 7¼" × 5") 120
XIII. Woodcut of the Betrayal. From leaf 14b of the
_Meditatione sopra la Passione del Nostro Signore_ attributed
to S. Bonaventura. Venice, Geronimo di Sancti, 1487. (Size of
original, 6¾" × 5¼") 124
XIV. Woodcut, De Atheniensibus petentibus regem, illustrating
Fable xxii. in the _Aesop_ printed at Naples, by Francesco
Tuppo, 1485 126
XV. Woodcut of Lorenzo Giustiniano preceded by a crucifer,
from his _Della vita religiosa_. Venice, 1494 130
XVI. Page with woodcut of the Procession to Calvary, from the
_Meditatione sopra la Passione del Nostro Signore_ attributed
to S. Bonaventura. Florence, Ant. Miscomini, _c._ 1495 138
XVII. Titlepage of _La Festa di San Giovanni_. Florence, Bart.
di Libri, _c._ 1495 140
XVIII. Leaf 5a, with woodcut of Death seizing an Archbishop
and a Chevalier, from the _Danse Macabre_. Paris, Gui
Marchant, 1491. (Size of original 8¾" × 6¼") 144
XIX. Leaf 2a, with woodcut of Adam and Eve, from a _Bible en
Francoys_. Paris, Antoine Vérard, about 1505. (Size of
original, 9¾" × 7") 150
XX. Page (sig. C 6 verso), with woodcut of the Massacre of the
Innocents, from the _Grandes Heures_. Paris, Antoine Vérard,
about 1490. (Size of original, 7(7/8)" × 5¼") 152
XXI. Page (sig. U 7 verso) from the edition of _Terence_,
printed by J. Trechsel at Lyon, 1493 160
XXII. Titlepage from the _Improbratio Alcorani_ of Ricoldus.
Seville, Stanislaus Polonus, 1500 162
XXIII. Hroswitha presenting her plays to the Emperor Otto I,
leaf 4b of the _Opera Hrosvite_. Nuremberg, Sodalitas Celtica,
1501 180
XXIV. Titlepage of Jornandes _De rebus Gothorum_. Augsburg,
1515 186
XXV. Page (leaf 246b) of a _Missale Romanum_, printed at
Venice by Gregorius de Gregoriis, 1518 194
XXVI. Title-cut from _Les dix premiers livres de l'Iliade
d'Homère, Prince des poètes, traduictz en vers François, par
M. Hugues Salel_. Paris, Jehan Loys for Vincent Sertenas, 1545 200
XXVII. Page from the _Fifteen Oes_. Westminster, Caxton, about
1490 204
XXVIII. First page of text from the first edition (left
incomplete) of Tyndale's _New Testament_. Cologne, 1525 224
XXIX. Part of sig. K 5 recto, with woodcut of Christ raising
the Centurion's Daughter, from the _Speculum Vitae Christi_ of
S. Bonaventura. Westminster, W. Caxton, about 1488 250
XXX. Titlepage of Bishop Fisher's Funeral Sermon on Henry VII.
London, W. de Worde, 1509 254
XXXI. Woodcut of the translator presenting his book to the
Duke of Norfolk, from Alexander Barclay's version of Sallust's
_Jugurtha_. London, R. Pynson, about 1520 256
XXXII. Portrait of the Author, from John Heywood's _The Spider
and the Flie_. London, T. Powell, 1556 260
XXXIII. Woodcut of Queen Elizabeth hawking, from Turberville's
_The Booke of Faulconrie_, 1575 264
XXXIV. Engraving of Christ in a mandorla from Bettini's _Monte
Santo di Dio_. Florence, Nicolaus Laurentii, 477. (Size of
original, 10" × 7") 268
XXXV. Last page of preface, giving the arms of the Bishop of
Würzburg, from the Würzburg _Agenda_. Würzburg, G. Reyser,
1482 270
XXXVI. Titlepage of the _Dialogus_ of Amadeus Berrutus. Rome,
Gabriel of Bologna, 1517 274
XXXVII. Engraved portrait of the Author by Theodore de Bry
after J. J. Boissard, from the _Emblemata_ of Denis Le Bey.
Frankfort, De Bry, 1596 280
XXXVIII. Page 22 from the _Hieroglyphikes of the Life of Man_
by Quarles, the engraving by W. Marshall, London, 1638 286
XXXIX. Page, with engraving after Eisen, from Dorat's _Les
Baisers_, La Haye et se vend à Paris, Lambert, 1770 292
XL. Engraving by W. W. Rylands after Samuel Wale, from
Walton's _Compleat Angler_. London, T. Hope, 1760 296
[Illustration: _Engraving of an Author, possibly CAXTON, Presenting a
Book to Margaret, Duchess of Burgundy, prefixed to the Chatsworth copy
of the 'Recuyell.'_]
FINE BOOKS
CHAPTER I
COLLECTORS AND COLLECTING
From the stray notes which have come down to us about the bibliophiles
of the later Roman Empire it is evident that book-collecting in those
days had at least some modern features. Owing to the abundance of
educated slave-labour books were very cheap, almost as cheap as they are
now, and book-collectors could busy themselves about refinements not
unlike those in which their successors are now interested. But in the
Middle Ages books were by no means cheap, and until quite the close of
the fourteenth century there were few libraries in which they could be
read. Princes and other very wealthy book-buyers took pleasure in
possessing finely written and illuminated manuscripts, but the ruling
ideals were mainly literary and scholastic, the aim (the quite right and
excellent aim) being to have the best books in as many subjects as
possible. After printing had been invented the same ideals continued in
force, the only difference being that they could now be carried out on a
larger scale. Libraries like those formed in the sixteenth century by
Archbishop Cranmer and Lords Arundel and Lumley, or that gathered in
France by the historian De Thou, were essentially students' libraries,
and the books themselves and the catalogues of them were often
classified so as to show what books had been acquired in all the
different departments of human knowledge. Even in the sixteenth century,
when these literary ideals were dominant, we find some examples of
another kind. In Jean Grolier, for instance, we find the book-lover
playing the part, too seldom assumed, of the discriminating patron of
contemporary printing and bookbinding. Instead of collecting more old
books than he could find time to read, Grolier bought the best of his
own day, but of these sometimes as many as four or five copies of the
same work that he might have no difficulty in finding one for a friend;
and whatever book he bought he had bound and decorated with simple good
taste in Venice or at home in France. It would be an excellent thing if
more of our modern collectors, instead of taking up antiquarian hobbies,
were content to follow Grolier's example. Books always look best when
clad in jackets of their own time, and this in the future will apply to
the books of the twentieth century as much as to any others. Moreover,
there is more actual binding talent available in England just now than
at any previous time, and it is much to be desired that modern Groliers
would give it scope, not in pulling about old books, but in binding
beautifully those of our own day.
Grolier found a modest imitator in England in the person of Thomas
Wotton, but with some at least of the Elizabethan book-lovers the havoc
wrought in the old libraries by the commissioners of Henry VIII and
Edward VI provoked an antiquarian reaction which led them to devote all
their energies to collecting, from the unworthy hands into which they
had fallen, such treasures of English literary and bookish art as still
remained. Putting aside John Leland who worked (to what extent and with
what success is not quite clear) for Henry VIII, Matthew Parker,
Archbishop of Canterbury, was the earliest of these antiquaries, to the
great benefit of the libraries of Lambeth Palace and of Corpus Christi
College, Cambridge, though as to how he came by his books perhaps the
less said the better. Parker was soon followed by Sir Robert Cotton,
whose success in gathering books and documents illustrating English
history was so great that his library was sequestered and very nearly
altogether taken from him, on the plea that it contained state papers
which no subject had a right to possess. Owing to the carelessness and
brutality of the previous generation, Cotton's opportunities were as
great as his zeal in making use of them, and at the cost of his fortune
he laid the foundations of a national library. Humbler men imitated him
without being able to secure the same permanence for their collections,
more especially Humphrey Dyson, a notary, who seems to have acquired
early printed books and proclamations, with the same zeal which Cotton
devoted to manuscripts. Many of his treasures passed into the hands of
Richard Smith, the Secondary of the Poultry Compter, but at his sale
they were scattered beyond recall, and the unity of one of the most
interesting of English collections was thus unkindly destroyed. Both
these men, and some others of whom even less is known, worked with a
public aim, and already Sir Thomas Bodley had gone a step further by
founding anew the University Library at Oxford on lines which at once
gave it a national importance. This it preserved and developed for over
a century and a half, and has never since lost, though no national help,
unfortunately, has ever been given it, save the right already conceded
by the Stationers' Company, of claiming a copy of any new English book
offered for sale.
Bodley's munificent donation marked an epoch in the history of English
book-collecting because its tendency was to make private book-collecting
of the kind which was then admired incongruous and even absurd. When
there were no public libraries open to scholars, for a great man to
maintain a splendid library in his own house and allow students to read
in it was worthy of Aristotle's [Greek: megalopsychos], the man who does
everything on a scale that befits his dignity. But in proportion as
public collections of books and facilities for obtaining access to them
are increased, the preservation of a library on a large scale in a
private house, where none of the inmates have any desire to use it,
becomes an easy and justifiable object of satire. A man without
literary instincts who inherits a fine library is indeed in a parlous
state, for if he keeps it he is as a dog in the manger, and if he sells
it he is held up to opprobrium.
That considerations of this kind were beginning to have weight is shown
by the rapidity with which during the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries one private collection after another drifted into public
ownership. In some cases there were intermediate stages. Thus Archbishop
Usher's books were not bequeathed to Trinity College, Dublin, but were
purchased for it by the subscriptions of the soldiers of Cromwell's army
in Ireland. The manuscripts of Sir Simeon d'Ewes remained in the
possession of his family for nearly a century, were then purchased by
Harley, and came to the British Museum with Harley's collection.
Stillingfleet's manuscripts were in the same temporary ownership; his
printed books came to Dublin through the public spirit of Archbishop
Marsh. So again Bishop Moore's books were purchased for the University
Library at Cambridge by George I. Thus even when a collector was not
inspired by, or could not afford to indulge, public motives, respect for
his memory or desire to benefit an institution often brought his books
to a safe haven. But more often the munificence was personal and direct.
For some cause not quite easy to see the flow of benefactions to English
libraries has dwindled sadly of late years,[1] so that journalists with
short memories write of gifts and bequests to American libraries as if
they were unprecedented. Even of late years, however, the foundation of
the John Rylands Library, Chancellor Christie's gifts and bequest to the
Victoria University, the Sandars legacy to the University Library,
Cambridge, and Mr. Alfred Huth's bequest to the British Museum of any
fifty books it might choose to select from his fine collection, show
that the stream is not quite dried up, while for nearly two centuries
and a half from the foundation of the Bodleian it ran with splendid
freedom. Thus Archbishop Williams gave noble gifts of books to S. John's
College, Cambridge, and to the Chapter House Library at Westminster
Abbey; Selden's books enriched the Bodleian; Laud was a generous
benefactor alike to the Bodleian, to S. John's College, Oxford, and to
the library of Lambeth Palace; Sir Kenelm Digby gave both to Bodley and
to Harvard; Ralph Sheldon benefited the Heralds' College; Pepys (through
his nephew) bequeathed his collection to Magdalene College, Cambridge;
Archbishop Marsh founded a library at Dublin; Richard Rawlinson gave his
manuscripts to the Bodleian, and Harley arranged that his should be
offered to the nation.
The example of the men who bought under the influence of an intention to
bestow their books on some public institution naturally affected others,
and was responsible for a good deal of rather haphazard collecting in
the eighteenth century. The private modern library was often confused
with the antiquarian collection, and the antiquarian collection itself
was seldom dominated by any central idea. Yet collectors who devoted
themselves to one subject and knew thoroughly well what they were aiming
at were already coming into existence, and these also, when their work
was done, were inspired by an honourable ambition to preserve it intact,
and so the libraries were once more enriched. Thus Garrick, guided by
his professional interest, devoted himself to early plays, and
bequeathed his collection to the British Museum. Malone bought the books
which were useful to him as a student of Elizabethan literature, more
especially of Shakespeare, and bequeathed them to the Bodleian, while
Capell left his similar collection to Trinity College, Cambridge. The
library of Natural History books brought together by Sir Joseph Banks
and bequeathed by him to the British Museum is another example of
well-defined collecting, though of a different sort. Among men who were
not themselves specialists the vogue lay in the direction of first
editions of the Greek and Latin classics and of a few Italian and
English authors of special merit, together with books illustrating the
history of printing down to about the year 1480 or 1485. The early
classics seem to have been the indispensable element in any collection
of the first rank, and they appear with monotonous regularity in the
libraries of George III, of the Rev. Clayton Mordaunt Cracherode, and of
Thomas Grenville, which all three passed to the British Museum; in the
Spencer Collection, now in the John Rylands Library, Manchester; and in
the Sunderland Library, sold at auction in 1881-3. When these prizes
were secured the collector seems to have felt himself free to follow his
individual taste in supplementary purchases, and the Grenville Library
is a fine proof of the broader interests of its possessor. Two notable
collectors, Heber, the last of the great book-gluttons, and William
Henry Miller, founder of the famous Christie-Miller Library at Britwell,
cut themselves free from the cult of the _editio princeps_, the latter
(despite a taste for modern Latin verse) devoting himself to English
poetry, while Heber added to this the literatures of France, Italy, and
Spain.
Despite the exceptions we have mentioned, in almost all of the
collections of the early years of the nineteenth century two different
ideals were combined: the student's ideal of the best books in the best
editions, and the antiquary's ideal of the books by which the history of
printing and its kindred arts could be most vividly illustrated. The
combination is still common, for one of à Beckett's comic histories
(though I am not prepared to assert that this is a "best book") still
figures as the first entry in many sale catalogues which contain also
incunabula assuredly not bought for their literary interest. It is more
easy to defend such a medley on the ground of sentiment than of logic.
Whoever uses books has reason to be grateful to the men who invented or
diffused the art of printing, and may be interested in learning
something about them. Yet it can hardly be denied that to collect
various kinds of books from an antiquarian, æsthetic, or any other
well-defined point of view, not directly literary, is an independent
pursuit in its own right, just as to collect old or beautiful china or
silver is an independent pursuit, whether or no the china or silver be
used for eating or drinking from. It will be said, of course, that on
this view books are no better than china (or postage stamps), and there
are indeed some strange instances of men who have fallen below their
possibilities and have collected books, and not without success, despite
a most amazing indifference to their contents. This reduces the joy they
can get from their hobby to the bare pleasure of collecting for the sake
of collecting, an ignoble delight in indulging acquisitiveness, redeemed
to some extent by the higher pleasure of overcoming difficulties and
observing the rules of the game. But the ignorant book-collector, until
he has educated himself, is like a rose-fancier who cannot distinguish
one odour from another. By the time they attract the collector books
have become, or are on the road to becoming, so precious that their
primary usefulness has to be left dormant. To use them constantly for
our daily reading would approach the fault which the Greeks called
[Greek: hubris], the arrogance which makes a man esteem himself so
highly that he thinks nothing too good for his own use. But even when
this limitation is recognized, for those who can appreciate them they
preserve all the associations of their primary use, and it is because
these associations are so delightful and so various that the bookman
claims that his form of collecting is the best of all.
What then are the associations and qualities which give books value in
the eyes of a collector? We may answer the question negatively in the
first instance by reducing to their proper importance the two qualities
which are popularly supposed to be the most attractive to the
book-hunter--rarity and age. If a book is otherwise uninteresting, what
is it the better for being rare? In passing it may be noted that unless
a book is interesting for other reasons its rarity is necessarily an
unknown quantity. Sir Sidney Lee's Census of the extant copies of the
First Folio Shakespeare, a comparatively common book, but of supreme
interest for its associations, is a striking example of the zeal with
which every discoverable copy of a valuable book is now hunted down.
Those whose business it is to gather such information can tell in the
case of dozens of books of much less importance exactly how many copies
have been discovered and in whose possession they remain. But in the
case of a book of little interest the most that can be said is that it
is "undescribed," and it may be "undescribed" not in the least because
it is really rare, but because no bibliographer has troubled himself to
make a note of it. Were some real point of interest discovered in it the
chances are that the attention thus attracted would speedily bring to
light other copies, as in the case of the school magazine to which Mr.
Kipling was found to have contributed. Of this the first set catalogued
sold for over £100, with the result that so many others were unearthed
that the price speedily sank to less than as many shillings.
Granted, however, that it could be proved that a dull book is not merely
undescribed, but absolutely, what so few works are, unique, in what way
does this make it of interest to the collector? A great library might
buy it for a trifle out of compassion, or under the idea that its
registration in a catalogue might help to piece out a genealogy, or that
it might count as another unit in statistics (a poor reason), or justify
its purchase in some other haphazard way. But considerations of this
kind, such as they are, cannot affect private collectors. A really dull
book is merely a nuisance, and whether only one copy of it, or many, can
be proved to exist, nobody wants it. If this be so we are justified in
saying that, although as soon as a book is found desirable for any other
reason its rarity becomes of paramount importance in determining its
price, Rarity by itself is of no interest to collectors.
The attractiveness bestowed by Age cannot be treated quite so summarily,
because although the same line of argument can be followed, it has to
be helped out by an explanation arising from a particular case. No
collector would value a dull sermon printed in 1800 any higher than a
dull sermon printed in 1900, and if we go back two centuries instead of
one, in the case of a book printed in London its value is none the
greater for the extra hundred years. If, however, the sermon chanced to
have been printed in 1700 in some provincial town, its age would
distinctly be an element of value. Down to 1693 printing was only
permitted in London, Oxford, Cambridge, and (after the outbreak of the
Civil War[2]) at York. When the restraining Act was dropped in 1693
printing made its way, not very rapidly, into one provincial town after
another. Hence a dull sermon with a provincial imprint may be dear to
the heart of some local antiquary as the first-fruit of the press in his
neighbourhood.
If we go back another sixty years from 1700 we reach another typographic
zone, as we may call it, within which some slight interest attaches to
all examples of English printing, for the end of the year 1640 is the
limit of the special catalogues of early books published by the British
Museum, the Cambridge University Library, and the John Rylands Library,
Manchester. The first and last of these have indexes of printers; in the
second the primary arrangement is typographical. Thus all books which
are old enough to have been printed before the end of 1640 are thereby
invested with some slight interest solely as products of English
presses. When we get back to before 1600 we are in the period covered by
the different editions of the _Typographical Antiquities_ of Joseph
Ames. When we go back another hundred years we are within the fifteenth
century; printing has been introduced into England for less than
twenty-five years, and the smallest fragment of a book from one of the
early presses at work at Westminster, Oxford, St. Albans, or the City of
London, is esteemed as of interest and importance.
Thus if we go far enough back Age does add to the interest of a book,
but only by bringing it under another influence, that the interest of an
English fifteenth century book is due to its importance in the history
of printing and not to its antiquity being easily demonstrated by the
fact that a contemporary unadorned manuscript of the same work will
probably have only a fraction of the value of the printed edition. There
are, of course, other cases in which age may be said to have some
secondary influence, as in the case of books dealing with social
customs, ballads and the like. But here it is still more evident that
the social or literary interest is the primary consideration, and that
this cannot be created, though it is greatly enhanced, by Age.
Having thus to the best of our ability abated the pride both of Age and
Rarity, we come back to our original question as to what are the
qualities and associations which give books value in the eyes of a
collector.
The only good qualities which a book can possess in its own right are
those of strength and beauty of form. Everything else about it is
inherent in no single edition, though association of ideas may give
greater dignity to one edition than to another. Type, paper, ink,
presswork, the arrangement of the page, and also (though not quite in
the same way or to the same extent) the illustrations, are all part and
parcel of the book itself, and may be combined, at least so bookmen
believe, in a really beautiful unity. No doubt as to this students run
some risk of losing their sense of proportion. I myself am conscious,
for instance, that I have looked at so many fifteenth century woodcuts,
as compared with other works of art, that I distinctly overrate them.
Mr. Robert Proctor, who knew more about fifteenth century books than any
other man has ever known, or is ever likely to know, once said to me in
all seriousness, that he did not think he had ever seen an ugly one.
Allowing, however, for this very human tendency to set up our own
esoteric standard, there yet remains a more generally recognizable
beauty of form which some books possess in a higher degree than others,
and to collect such beautiful books independently of any other kind of
attraction would be no unworthy pursuit. As a matter of fact, bookmen
are more inclined to make beauty of form a secondary consideration to
which, as to age and rarity, they pay attention, but without adopting it
as the basis of their collection.
As a secondary consideration the attention collectors pay to beauty can
hardly be exaggerated in respect to the condition of copies, the ratio
of an unusually good to an unusually bad copy of the same book, even if
the bad copy have no leaves actually wanting, being often as ten to one.
The unusually bad copy, indeed, would often have no selling value at all
were it not that it may be useful to students and so win a purchaser at
a small price. The collector should leave it severely alone, partly
because such "working copies" are the rightful perquisite of poor
scholars, partly because, as he presumably buys books for his pleasure,
he defeats his own object if, except in the case of the very rarest, he
buys copies at which he cannot look without regretting that their
headlines are cut off or the paper rotten through bad cleaning. Mr.
Frederick Locker recorded in his catalogue that his copy of Blake's
_Songs of Innocence and of Experience_ had been cut down by a previous
owner to the dimensions of the old covers of a washing-book. I think it
was his chivalry, his piety toward Blake's memory, that induced him to
rescue it from this dishonour. Had he bought such a poor copy simply
because it was cheap, he would have fallen far below his standard as a
collector.
Putting on one side beauty of form, the interest of books in the eyes of
a collector lies in their associations, historical, personal, or purely
literary. For reasons touched on already but which we may now consider
more fully, among historical associations those connected with the
history of printing fill a very large place. As we have said before, the
invention of an art by which books were so greatly cheapened and
multiplied was an event of almost unique importance in the social
history of Europe, and everything which throws light on the first
discovery, on the manner in which it was carried from one country and
city to another, and on the methods and lives of the early printers, is
of interest, and in its degree and measure, of importance. Moreover,
just as foxes are hunted because they show such good sport, so these
early books are collected because the study of them combines in a
singular degree the charms of scientific and historical discovery, with
all sorts of literary, social, and human side-interests. The claim which
Henry Bradshaw put forward that antiquarian bibliography must be studied
scientifically has been perverted by the unwise into the assertion that
bibliography is a Science, or as they are sometimes pleased to put it,
an Exact Science, till sensible people are wearied of the silly phrase.
But the claim itself is absolutely true, and the gifts which enabled Mr.
Proctor to classify, exactly or approximately, any fragment of early
printing according to its country, place, printer, and date, if employed
on any other field of scientific inquiry would easily have gained him a
Fellowship of the Royal Society, besides the European recognition which,
in his own small field, was already his before he died.
A large proportion of early printed books are without any indication
whatever of their place of origin, printer, or date. The dates are
obscured by the quickness or slowness of individual printers in adopting
various improvements--sheet-numbering, leaf-numbering, printed capitals,
titlepages, methods of imposition, etc.--which thus become uncertain and
delusive landmarks. The place of origin is obscured by the existence of
almost identical types in different cities and even in different
countries. A fortiori the identity of the individual printer may baffle
research from types being transferred or copied in all but one or two
letters of the fount, which thus become the sole means of
differentiating them. As helps the bibliographer has, in the first
place, such a classification of the two or three thousand fifteenth
century types as he is able to carry in his head. This, in proportion to
its completeness, enables him to narrow down the field to be
investigated. Some small typographical peculiarity, the way in which the
illuminator or rubricator has filled the blank spaces, the note which by
good fortune he may have appended in this or some other known copy
saying when he finished his work, similar notes by early purchasers
which occasionally give the date of their bargain, these and other
points may all help forward the happy moment of final identification.
Such a hunt as this may sound alarmingly difficult, as if it were all
over five-barred gates and inconveniently hedged ditches. But facsimiles
and other aids have been greatly multiplied of late years; many a book
can be run down and the identification verified in a few minutes, and
the possibility of hunting successfully in one's own library presupposes
the purchase of many books giving full information as to their origin.
These, while offering the means of identifying other books, will
themselves raise no questions, so that the collector's life need not be
unceasingly strenuous.
The side-interests of these old books are very varied. Many of them, at
least to eyes trained to perceive it, are of great beauty. Others,
although the half century during which printing was in its infancy
produced few masterpieces of literature, have real literary interest.
More than any other single event the invention of printing hurried on
the transition from the medieval world to the modern, but while many
printers in Italy nearly ruined themselves by the zeal with which they
helped forward the classical renaissance, all over Europe the medieval
books which were still read were seized on for the press, so that in the
books printed between 1470 and 1490 we are presented with a conspectus
or summary of medieval literature. Caxton printed the works of Chaucer
and Gower and prose renderings of the old romances. The Italian presses
were busy with Boccaccio, Petrarch, and Dante. The enormous size of the
great Speculum or Encyclopædia of Vincent de Beauvais did not deter the
printers of France and Germany, and the ponderous tomes of medieval
theology and law seem to have found a ready market. Above all, the
highest skill available in the best equipped workshops was employed
almost ceaselessly in the production of beautiful and often magnificent
editions of the service-books of the Church for the use both of priests
and laity, and it is hardly possible to dabble much in old books without
acquiring an interest in liturgiology.
Owing to this fact, that the early presses were so largely occupied with
printing the works of the previous three centuries, there is
comparatively little human interest in incunabula on their literary
side. Instead of authors we have mostly to deal with editors, an
assertive and depreciatory race, always vaunting their own accuracy and
zeal and insisting on the incredible blunders by which previous editions
had been deformed past recognition. We receive, however, no small
compensation in the personal details which many of the early printers
give us about themselves. Titlepages, though they occur at haphazard in
a few books of the early seventies (and there is one still earlier
example), did not become common till about 1490, and even twenty years
later we find many books still without them. The information which we
now expect to find on a titlepage was given in a paragraph, mostly at
the end of the book, to which bibliographers have agreed to give the
name "colophon," from [Greek: kolophôn], the Greek for a "finishing
stroke." As we have already noted, in many books no information of this
kind is given, but when printers, or their proof readers or editors,
took the trouble to write a colophon at all, they had no reason to
confine themselves to the severe brevity and simplicity of statement
which marks the modern titlepage. It was in colophons that editors cast
stones at their predecessors, or demanded sympathy for the severity of
their own labours, and it is in colophons that we find the expressions
of the printer's piety and pride, his complaints of his troubles with
his workmen and rivals, his pleas for encouragement, and occasionally,
penned by another hand, the record of how he was struck down by death in
the midst of his work. I have never heard of any one making a
representative collection of books with interesting colophons, but
collecting has taken many worse forms.
To lend grace to their colophons, or sometimes as a substitute for them,
the early printers and publishers often used a woodcut containing their
mark, sign, or device. Like the colophon itself, this was printed as a
token of the master's pride in his work and his desire that it might be
recognized as his, and many printers' marks are very decorative and even
beautiful. Comparatively neglected until recently, within the last few
years the devices used in various countries have been almost
exhaustively reproduced in facsimile, thus leaving few chances of fresh
discovery.
The mention of devices brings us to a very interesting section of early
printed books, and one which has attracted only too much attention of
recent years, those decorated with the primitive cuts on wood or metal
with which fifteenth century printers endeavoured to imitate the glories
of illuminated manuscripts, or to increase the popularity of their books
with not too critical readers. Occasionally, as in the metal cuts in the
best editions of the French Horae, in the Florentine and Venetian
woodcuts of the last ten years of the century, and in the best work of
other countries, these early pictures possess real beauty. Often they
are badly spoilt by the incompetence of the cutters, who were working
without the aid of modern gravers or modern methods of preparing the
wood. The early German wood-cutters, whilst their outlines are often
less graceful than those of their French and Italian competitors, had a
special gift for characterization, and the quality of their work is much
more uniform, perhaps because even before the invention of printing with
movable types they were an organized craft. But in almost all fifteenth
century cuts there is a certain naive simplicity which captivates those
who allow themselves to study it, until they are apt, as the present
writer has confessed is probably true of himself, to rate it too
highly. As is the case with the more ambitious artists in oils of the
same periods, wherever there was any demand for book-illustrators a
local school with strongly marked characteristics at once appears. The
work of the Augsburg cutters can be told at a glance from that executed
at Strassburg, and the styles predominant at Venice and Florence, at
Milan and Naples are all absolutely distinct. With one or two exceptions
we know nothing, until after 1500, of the men who designed or cut these
illustrations, and (except in the case of those of the Low Countries)
hardly any attempt has been made, or seems possible, to subdivide the
work done in any given locality so as to group it under individual
masters. Otherwise the problems of fifteenth century book-illustrations
are much like the problems of the types with which they harmonize so
well, and the collector can either devote himself to representing as
fully as possible the work done in any single district, or range at
large over the Continent (as regards fifteenth century illustrations
England may almost be left out of account) and collect a few good
specimens of each school.
It has been made a cause of complaint recently against bibliographers
that they know more of the work done at any insignificant fifteenth
century press than of the history of printing at any subsequent time. It
is not easy to coerce men into taking up any sections of a subject
beyond those in which they are interested, and the supposed culprits
have at least this much justification for their neglect of the later
work that very little of it repays examination. Until 1465, save for
some possible Dutch experiments, Germany enjoyed the monopoly of
printing. From 1465 to about 1530 she shared the primacy in it with
Italy, though during most of this period Italy was slightly ahead; from
1530 to about 1570 France was far in advance of the rest of Europe;
after 1570 there was a higher technical level in the Low Countries than
elsewhere, and Plantin and the Elzevirs gained individual reputations.
But there was very little good taste even in the Low Countries, and
from a typographical standpoint the seventeenth century is a Sahara with
hardly any oases. From this wilderness the eighteenth century, under the
guidance of France and England, timidly felt its way back to a kind of
trim neatness, but the positive experiments of Baskerville and the
Didots, and in Italy of Bodoni, were not very exciting, and at present
are quite out of fashion. In the nineteenth century the work of the
Whittinghams in England deserves more attention from collectors than it
has received, and throughout the whole period any one working on
historical lines, with the desire to illustrate the vicissitudes of the
art of printing and not merely its successes, has an ample field. But
for positive excellence, after the period of "origins," the French books
of the middle of the sixteenth century offer almost the only hunting
ground in which the fastidious collector is likely to find an attractive
quarry, and it is no use to try to tell any other tale.
Of the later book illustrations a somewhat better account may be given.
Owing to the steady deterioration of paper and presswork, which was the
real cause of the typographical decline, woodcuts by the end of the
sixteenth century had gone quite out of fashion, the old simple style
having been lost and no printer being able to do justice to the finer
work on which designers insisted. But copper engravings throve in
Germany and the Low Countries, and when the fashion of engraved
frontispieces and titles took root in England in the last years of the
century it was pursued with considerable success for a couple of
generations, while in the eighteenth century the French _livres à
vignettes_ attained an extraordinary brilliancy and elegance, and
Gravelot and other French engravers bestowed some of their skill on
English books.
The use of wood, now worked with the graver and no longer with the
knife, was revived in England by Bewick about 1784, and was pursued with
varying success for over a century, great technical skill and, at least
in the "sixties," very fine design being marred by the poverty and
often the tawdriness of its typographical setting. Despite these
drawbacks, the collectors who are bestowing attention on all this
wood-engraved work of the nineteenth century will probably reap their
reward.
When wood engraving was killed a few years ago by the extraordinary
perfection attained, at a much smaller cost, by the process block, its
fate was shared by the line-engraved illustrations which had appeared
fitfully throughout the century, and had lingered on in the beautiful
work of C. H. Jeens, who died in 1879, and in the use of old plates. As
the wood engraving was killed by the half-tone block, so the line
engraving disappeared before the photogravure, and the colour processes
now being rapidly perfected threaten to reduce all black and white
illustrations to unimportance. In so far, however, as the new processes
necessitate the use of heavily loaded papers as a condition of their
being even tolerably well printed, the least antiquarian of collectors
may be forgiven for neglecting the books illustrated by them. Some of
them can only be preserved by every plate being backed with sound paper,
and a hundred years hence of all this illustrated work, much of it
really beautiful, which is now being produced in such quantities, very
little will remain. The modern Groliers whom we tried to call forth at
the beginning of this chapter will need to be experts both in paper and
in leather if they are to leave behind them any permanent record of
their good taste. But this is only a crowning proof of how urgently they
are needed.
It would be pleasant to glance briefly at some of the more literary
considerations which bring books within the collector's scope. But the
scheme of this series restricts the subject of the present volume to
books which are prized either for their typographical beauty, their
place in the history of printing, or the charm of their illustrations.
This is in itself so large a field that no more pages must be wasted on
introducing it.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Even Mr. Carnegie will only help to found new libraries, not to
make old ones more efficient.
[2] During the Civil War itself presses were also set up temporarily
at Newcastle-on-Tyne, at Shrewsbury, and perhaps elsewhere.
CHAPTER II
BLOCK-BOOKS
The collector of the time of George III, whose heart was set on
Typographical Antiquities, and who was ambitious enough to wish to begin
at the beginning, must have hungered after a block-book. Even in the
days of Bagford, at the very outset of the eighteenth century, interest
had been aroused in the block-printed editions of the _Speculum Humanae
Saluationis_, so that Bagford himself travelled from Amsterdam to
Haarlem on purpose to see a copy of one of the Dutch editions, and set
an English wood-cutter to work, with very poor success, to manufacture a
bogus specimen of it, wherewith "to oblige the curious." This, with a
similar imitation of a page in the _Biblia Pauperum_, was intended to
illustrate the History of Printing which Bagford had the temerity to
plan, although such of his smaller dissertations as have been preserved
show conclusively that he was quite incapable of carrying it out.
The interest thus early shown in block-books sprang from an entirely
reasonable, but probably incorrect, view of the part which they had
played in the development of printing with movable type. It was known
that woodcuts without letterpress were printed in Germany quite early in
the fifteenth century, the cut of S. Christopher, formerly in the
Spencer Collection, now in the John Rylands Library, bearing the date
1423.[3] On the other hand, printing with movable type was practised at
Mainz in the fifties, and about 1461 Albrecht Pfister published at
Bamberg several books with woodcut illustrations and printed
letterpress. In the logical order of development nothing could be more
reasonable than the sequence:
i. Woodcut pictures.
ii. Woodcut pictures and woodcut text.
iii. Woodcut pictures and text printed from movable type.
Facts, however, do not always arrange themselves with the neatness which
commends itself to an a priori historian, and the most recent students
of block-books are unable to discover sufficient justification for the
early dates which their predecessors assigned to them. On the old
theory, in order to put it in front of the invention of printing with
movable types, the _Biblia Pauperum_, which appears to be the oldest of
the block-books, was placed about 1430 or 1440, and the _Ars Moriendi_
and the other chief specimens of block-printing were all supposed to
have been produced before 1460, the main period of block-printing thus
coinciding with the interval between the S. Christopher of 1423 and
Pfister's activity at Bamberg about 1461. Positive evidence in favour of
this chronology there was none. It rested solely on the idea, at which
bibliographers had jumped, that the block-books were necessary "steps
towards the invention of printing," as they have often been called, and
on what seemed the improbability that any one, when the art of printing
with movable type had once been invented, would have troubled himself
laboriously to cut letterpress on wood.
So far from block-printing being unable to co-exist with printing from
movable type, it was not till nearly a century after printing had been
invented that block-books finally ceased to be produced. The example
generally quoted as the latest[4] is the _Opera nova contemplativa per
ogni fedel christiano laquale tratta de le figure del testamento
vecchio: le quale figure sonno verificate nel testamento nuovo_. As its
title implies, this, curiously enough, is an adaptation of the _Biblia
Pauperum_, which was thus the last, as it may have been the first, of
the block-books. It is undated, but has the name of its publisher,
Giovanni Andrea Vavassore, who worked at Venice about 1530.
The _Opera nova contemplativa_ was from one point of view a mere
survival, but Vavassore is not likely to have produced it solely to
cause twentieth century antiquaries surprise. He must have had a
business reason for having recourse to block-printing, nor is that
reason very hard to find. From the frequency with which the early
printers changed and recast their types, and the short intervals at
which popular books printed with types were set up afresh, it is clear
(1) that the type-metal[5] employed was much softer and less durable
than that now in use, and that only small impressions[6] could be taken
from the same setting up; (2) that only a small amount of type was cast
at a time, and that type was quickly distributed and used again, never
kept standing on the chance that another edition would be wanted. Now
when we come to the illustrations in printed books, we find the same
woodblocks used for five or six successive editions, and then, in many
cases, enjoying a second lease of life as job-blocks, used at haphazard
by inferior printers. It is clear, therefore, that while it was a much
more difficult and laborious business to cut the letterpress of a book
on blocks of wood than to set it up with movable types, when the blocks
were once made much more work could be got out of them. In a word, in
the case of a small book for which there was a steady demand, a printer
might be tempted to have it cut as a block-book for the same reasons as
might cause a modern publisher to have it stereotyped. The labour of
cutting the letterpress on wood was much greater than that now involved
in stereotyping, and the result clumsier. Hence it was only to short
books intended for unexacting purchasers that the process was applied
and with two or three exceptions it was used only for illustrated books
with a small amount of text. But within this restricted field it had its
own commercial possibilities, and there is thus nothing surprising in
its coexistence with printing from movable type.
When the theory that block-books were "Steps towards the Invention of
Printing" is thus opposed by the rival theory that they were forerunners
of stereotyped plates, we are left free to consider, uncoerced by
supposed necessities, such evidence as exists as to the dates of the
specimens of block-printing still extant. Putting aside the late Italian
block-book as a mere survival, we find two[7] broadly distinguished
groups, one earlier, the dates of members of which can only be
conjectured, the other later, several of which can only be definitely
connected with the years 1470 to 1473. The characteristics of the
earlier group are that they are printed (1) with a watery brown ink; (2)
always on one side of the paper only; (3) without mechanical
pressure;[8] (4) two consecutive pages at a time, so that they cannot be
arranged in quires, but must be folded and stitched separately, and the
book thus formed[9] begins and ends with a blank page and has a pair of
blank pages between each pair of printed ones. This arrangement in some
extant copies has been altered by modern binders, who have divided the
sheets, mounted each leaf on a guard, and then gathered them, at their
own will, into quires. The inconvenient intervention of the blank pages
has also sometimes been wrestled with (at an early date) by gluing the
leaves together, so that all the leaves, except the first and last, are
double, and the printed pages follow each other without interruption.
These expedients, however, are easily detected, and the original
principle of arrangement is free from doubt.
In the later block-books, on the other hand, we note one or more of the
following characteristics: (1) the use of the thick black ink (really a
kind of paint) employed in ordinary printing; (2) printing on both sides
of the paper; (3) marks of pressure, showing that the paper has been
passed through a printing-press; (4) the arrangement of the blocks in
such a way as to permit the sheets to be gathered into quires.
In the case of the more popular block-books which went through many
issues and editions[10] we can trace the gradual substitution of later
characteristics for earlier ones. At what intervals of time these changes
were made we have bibliographically no adequate grounds even for
guessing. Analogies from books printed with movable types may be quoted
on both sides. On the one hand, we find the blocks for book-illustrations
enjoying an amazingly long life. Thus blocks cut at Venice and Florence
between 1490 and 1500 continued in use for fifteen or twenty years, were
then laid aside, and reappear between 1550 and 1560, certainly the worse
for wear, but yet capable by a lucky chance of yielding quite a fair
impression. The fact that one issue of a block-book can be positively
assigned to 1470 or 1473, thus does not of itself forbid an earlier issue
being placed as far back in the fifteenth century as any one may please
to propose. On the other hand, when a printed book was a popular success
editions succeeded each other with great rapidity, and one centre of
printing vied with another in producing copies of it. The chief reason
for the current disinclination to assume a date earlier than 1450 or 1460
for any extant block-book is the total absence of any evidence demanding
it. If such evidence were forthcoming, there would be no inherent
impossibility to set against it. But in the absence of such evidence
twenty years seems an ample time to allow for the vogue of the
block-books, and (despite the neatness of the a priori theory of
development mentioned at the beginning of this chapter) this fits in
better with the history both of printing and of book-illustration than
any longer period.
The first attempt to describe the extant block-books was made by Carl
Heinrich von Heinecken in 1771, in his _Idée générale d'une collection
d'estampes_. This held the field until the publication in 1858 of Samuel
Legh Sotheby's _Principia Typographica: the block-books issued in
Holland, Flanders and Germany, during the fifteenth century_, a
painstaking and well-illustrated work in three folio volumes. The most
recent and probably the final treatment of the subject is that by Dr. W.
L. Schreiber, in Vol. IV of his _Manuel de l'Amateur de la Gravure sur
bois et sur métal au xv^e siècle_, published in 1902 (facsimiles in
Vols. VII and VIII, 1895-1900). Dr. Schreiber enumerates no fewer than
thirty-three works as existing in the form of block-books, the number of
extant issues and editions of them amounting to over one hundred. Here
it must suffice to offer brief notes on some of the more important.
_BIBLIA PAUPERUM_
A series of forty composite pictures, the central compartment in each
representing a scene from the life of Christ, while on each side of it
is an Old Testament type, and above and below are in each case two
half-figures of prophets. The explanatory letterpress is given in the
two upper corners and also on scrolls. Schreiber distinguishes ten
issues and editions, in addition to an earlier German one of a less
elaborate design and with manuscript text, which belongs to a different
tradition. The earlier of these ten editions appear to have been made in
the Netherlands. An edition with German text was published with the
colophon, "Friederich walther Mauler zu Nördlingen vnd Hans Hurning
habent dis buch mitt einender gemacht," and a second issue of this
(without the colophon) is dated 1470. In the following year another
edition, with copied cuts, was printed with the device of Hans Spoerer.
_ARS MORIENDI_
Twenty-four leaves, two containing a preface, and the remaining
twenty-two eleven pictures and eleven pages of explanatory letterpress
facing them, showing the temptations to which the dying are exposed, and
the good inspirations by which they may be resisted, and, lastly, the
final agony. The early editions are ascribed to the Netherlands or
district of the Rhine; the later to Germany. There are also editions
with German text, one of them signed "hanns Sporer," and dated 1473. A
set of engravings on copper by the Master E. S. (copied by the Master of
S. Erasmus) may be either imitations or the originals of the earliest of
these _Ars Moriendi_ designs. (See Lionel Cust's _The Master E. S. and
the Ars Moriendi_.) The designs were imitated in numerous printed
editions in various countries. In addition to a copy of the edition
usually regarded as the earliest extant, the British Museum possesses
one with the same characteristics, but of a much smaller size (the
blocks measuring 137 by 100 mm. instead of 226 by 162), and from this,
as much less known, a page is here given as an illustration.
_CANTICA CANTICORUM_
Sixteen leaves, each containing two woodcuts, illustrating the Song of
Songs as a parable of the Blessed Virgin. Produced in the Netherlands.
_APOCALYPSIS SANCTI JOHANNIS_
Fifty leaves, or in some editions forty-eight, showing scenes from the
life of S. John and illustrations of the Apocalypse, mostly with two
pictures on each leaf. The early editions are assigned to the
Netherlands, the later to Germany. A copy of the edition regarded as the
fourth, lately sold by Herr Ludwig Rosenthal, bears a manuscript note,
most probably as to the writer, just possibly as to the book, entering
the household of the Landgrave Heinrich of Hesse in 1463.
[Illustration: III. ARS MORIENDI, BLOCKBOOK, C. 1465
INSPIRATIO CONTRA VANAM GLORIAM]
_SPECULUM HUMANAE SALUATIONIS_
Scenes from Bible history, arranged in pairs, within architectural
borders, with explanatory text beneath. No complete xylographic, or
block-printed, edition is known, but twenty leaves printed from blocks
are found in conjunction with forty-four leaves printed from type, and
have not unreasonably been held to prove the previous production of a
complete block-printed edition now lost. In like manner, the fact that
two different types are used in different parts of a Dutch printed
edition has encouraged Dr. Hessels to believe that this "mixed edition"
should be regarded as proving the production of two complete editions,
one in each type. On this theory we have (1) a hypothetical Latin
block-printed edition; (2-4) three Dutch editions, each printed in a
different type; (5) a Latin edition, entirely printed from type; (6) a
Latin edition, printed partly from type, partly from some of the blocks
of No. 1. The copy of this "mixed Latin edition," as it is called, in
the University Library at Munich, is dated in manuscript 1471, and the
hypothetical complete block-printed edition may be as much earlier than
this as any one pleases to imagine. But other bibliographers recognize
only four editions and arrange them differently.
_ANTICHRISTUS_
Thirty-eight leaves, with two pictures on each leaf, illustrating the
Legends relating to the Coming of Antichrist, and the Fifteen Signs
which were to precede the Last Judgment. The text is in German, and the
block-book was executed in Germany, probably about 1470.
_FRANCISCUS DE RETZA. DEFENSORIUM INVIOLATAE CASTITATIS VIRGINIS MARIAE_
Sixteen leaves, mostly with four pictures and four pieces of explanatory
letterpress on each leaf, concerning marvels in the natural world which
were supposed to be equally wonderful with that of the Virgin Birth, and
therefore to render faith in this easier. Unfortunately the marvels are
so very marvellous that they do not inspire belief, e.g. one story
relates how the sun one day drew up the moisture from the earth with
such rapidity that an ox was drawn up with it and subsequently deposited
out of a cloud in another field. One edition was issued by a certain F.
W. in 1470, another at Ratisbon by Johann Eysenhut the following year.
_JOHANN MÜLLER (JOHANNES REGIOMONTANUS). KALENDER_
Thirty-two leaves, containing lunar tables, tables of the eclipses for
fifty-six years (1475-1530), other astronomical information, and a
figure of the human body with notes of the signs of the zodiac by which
it was influenced. Composed by the famous astronomer, Johann Müller, and
sold by Hans Briefftruck, probably Hans Spoerer, about 1474-5, at
Nuremberg and elsewhere.
_JOHANN HARTLIEB. DIE KUNST CHIROMANTIA_
Forty-four figures of hands, with a titlepage and page of text and a
printed wrapper. Early issues are printed on one side of the paper only,
later on both. The printer appears to have been Jorg Schaff, of
Augsburg, and the date of issue about 1475. The date 1448 found in the
book is that of composition, and it probably circulated in manuscript
for many years before being printed.
_MIRABILIA ROMAE_
A German guide-book for visitors to Rome. Ninety-two leaves, printed
with black ink on both sides of the leaf, with only a few illustrations.
It was perhaps first published to meet the rush of German pilgrims to
Rome at the Jubilee of Pope Sixtus IV, 1475. The blocks were probably
cut in Germany, and the printing done at Rome. Some of the ornaments are
said to have been used in type-printed editions by Stephan Plannck. This
suggests that the book may have been published by his predecessor,
Ulrich Han.
* * * * *
In addition to these block-books of Low Country and German origin,
mention must also be made of a very curious Italian one, a _Passio
domini nostri Jesu Christi_, fully described by the Prince d'Essling.
The copy of this at Berlin contains eighteen leaves, and was probably
executed at Venice about the middle of the fifteenth century. Some of
the blocks were subsequently used (after a scroll at the foot had been
cut off) for an edition of the _Devote Meditatione sopra la Passione del
Nostro Signore_ (attributed to S. Bonaventura), published at Venice in
1487 by Jeronimo di Sancti e Cornelio suo Compagno, and a page from this
is reproduced as a frontispiece to our chapter on Italian Illustrated
Books.
Mention has already been made of the _Opera nova contemplativa_, an
adaptation of the _Biblia Pauperum_, printed as a block-book at Venice
about 1530.
The only extant French block-book, if it can be called one, is that of
the "Nine Worthies" (_Les Neuf Preux_). This consists of three sheets,
the first showing three heathen worthies--Hector, Alexander, and Julius
Cæsar; the second, three from the Old Testament--Joshua, David, and
Judas Maccabæus; the third, three from medieval romance--Arthur,
Charlemagne, and Godfrey of Boulogne. Under each picture are six lines
of verse. These three triple woodcuts, with the woodcut text, are
assigned to about 1455.
No English block-book has yet been discovered, nor is it in the least
likely that one ever existed, though there are a few single woodcuts.
* * * * *
Block-books possess two permanent attractions in addition to their
supposed historical importance in the development of the invention of
printing on which doubt is now cast--the attraction of popular
literature and the attraction of the illustrated book. As we have seen,
it would not have been worth any one's while to cause a block-book to be
laboriously engraved, or cut, unless a large and speedy sale could be
expected for it. The most famous block-books are nearly all of a
religious character, and they prove a widespread desire for simple
instruction as to the incidents of the life of Christ and the events in
the Old Testament history which were regarded as prefigurements of them,
as to the dignity of the Blessed Virgin and the doctrine of the Virgin
Birth, as to the end of the world and the coming of Antichrist, and as
to the spiritual dangers and temptations of the dying and the means by
which they might be resisted. As early specimens of book-illustration
the value of the block-books varies very greatly. The majority of them
are more curious than beautiful, but the pictures of the _Cantica
Canticorum_, the _Speculum Humanae Saluationis_, and the _Ars Moriendi_
have all very great merit. The tall, slender figures in the Song of
Songs have a charm as great as any Dutch book-illustrations of the
fifteenth century; the cuts of the _Speculum_ are full of vigour, while
the serene dignity of the scenes in the _Ars Moriendi_ illustrating the
Inspirations of the Good Angel is as impressive as the grotesque force
used in depicting the diabolic suggestions. If we must grant, as the
weight of authority now bids us, that these woodcuts are copies from the
copper engravings of the Master E. S., it can hardly be disputed that
the wood-cutter was the better artist of the two.
The block-books are a striking example of the difficulty of gleaning
where the earlier collectors have reaped, a difficulty to which we shall
often have to call attention. They vary greatly in positive rarity. Of
the _Biblia Pauperum_ and _Ars Moriendi_, which in their different
issues and editions enjoyed the longest life and early attracted
attention, Dr. Schreiber (if I have counted rightly) was able to
enumerate in the one case as many as eighty-three copies--many of them,
it is true, mere fragments--in the other sixty-one. Of the _Apocalypse_
fifty-seven copies were known to him, of the _Speculum_ twenty-nine, of
the _Antichrist_ thirteen, of the _Defensorium_ twelve, and of the
_Mirabilia Romae_ six. But of these 261 copies and fragments no fewer
than 223 are recorded as being locked up in public libraries and
museums, the ownership of thirteen was doubtful, and only twenty-five
are definitely registered as being in the hands of private collectors,
viz. of the _Apocalypse_, eight copies or fragments; of the _Biblia
Pauperum_, six; of the _Speculum_ and _Ars Moriendi_, four each; of the
_Defensorium_, two; and of the _Cantica Canticorum_, one. The chief
owners known to Dr. Schreiber were the Earl of Pembroke, Baron Edmond
de Rothschild, and Major Holford, to whom must now be added Mr. Pierpont
Morgan and Mr. Perrins. No doubt the copies in public institutions are
much more easily enumerated than those in private hands, and probably
most of the untraced copies are owned by collectors. But when allowance
has been made for this, it remains obvious that this is no field where
an easy harvest can be reaped, and that the average collector may think
himself lucky if he obtains one or two single leaves. The last great
opportunity of acquiring such treasures was at the sale in 1872 of the
wonderful collection formed by T. O. Weigel,[11] at which the British
Museum bought a very fine copy of the first edition of the _Ars
Moriendi_, the first edition, dated 1470, of the _Biblia Pauperum_, in
German, a block-book illustrating the virtues of the hymn _Salve
Regina_, and the compassion of the Blessed Virgin, printed at Regensburg
about 1470, besides fragments and woodcut single sheets. The foundation
of the Museum collection of block-books had been laid by George III,
added to by Mr. Grenville, and completed by a series of purchases from
1838 to this final haul of 1872, since when there have been few
opportunities for new acquisitions. It is now quite adequate for
purposes of study, though not so rich as that of the Bibliothèque
Nationale at Paris.
FOOTNOTES:
[3] The authenticity of a still earlier date, 1418, on a cut of the
Blessed Virgin at Brussels is disputed.
[4] The _Libro di M. Giovanbattista Palatino_, printed at Rome in
1548, is spoken of by Mr. Campbell Dodgson as a "belated specimen" of
a block-book. But this was a writing-book, and hardly counts.
[5] Numerous references in colophons show that the metal mostly used
was brass, e.g. "_Primus in Adriaca formis impressit aenis Vrbe
libros Spira genitus de stirpe Johannes_," and the use of
Chalcographi as a name for printers. But there are one or two
references to printing "_stanneis typis_," with types of tin.
[6] Of the first book printed at Venice only 100 copies were struck
off, but the number was trebled in the case of its immediate
successors. At Rome Sweynheym and Pannartz mostly printed 275 copies,
only in a few instances as many as 300. But at the end of the century
Pynson was printing at least 600 copies of large books and as many as
1000 of small ones.
[7] A very small third group, earlier than either of these, consists
of woodcuts with manuscript text. The most important of these is a
German _Biblia Pauperum_ quite distinct from those started in the
Netherlands.
[8] Some early woodcuts were printed by pressing the block down on
the paper by hand; for the early block-books, however, the usual
method seems to have been to press the paper on to the face of the
block by rubbing it on the back with a burnisher. The paper was thus
quite as strongly indented as if passed through a press, but the
impression is usually less even. The friction on the back of the
paper often gives it a polished appearance. As long as this method
continued in use it was, of course, impossible to print on both sides
of the paper.
[9] It is possible that the earliest specimens of block-printing were
intended not to be bound in books but to be pasted on walls. In the
case of the _Biblia Pauperum_, for instance, the space between the
two woodcuts placed on each sheet is so small in some issues that the
sheets cannot be bound without concealing part of the pictures.
[10] Different issues are distinguished by the signs of wear in the
blocks, or occasionally by their being differently arranged, or with
changes made in the blocks. In a different edition we have to deal
with a new set of blocks.
[11] Since this was written the interesting collection formed by Dr.
Schreiber himself has been dispersed.
CHAPTER III
THE INVENTION OF PRINTING--HOLLAND
Up to the year 1465 only one firm of printers evinced any appreciation
of the uses of advertisement. In 1457 Johann Fust and Peter Schoeffer,
of Mainz, set their names at the end of the liturgical Psalter which
they were issuing from their press, and stated also the date of its
completion, "In vigilia Assumpcionis," on the vigil of the feast of the
Assumption, i.e. August 14th. Save in the case of a few unimportant
books this preference for publicity remained the settled practice of the
firm until Peter Schoeffer's death early in the sixteenth century, and
later still when it was in the hands of his son Johann. With other
printers at first the tendency was all the other way. Albrecht Pfister
placed his name in one or two of the handful of popular illustrated
books which he printed at Bamberg about 1461. No other book before 1465
contains its printer's name, and both at Strassburg and at Basel the
practice of publishing anonymously continued in fashion throughout the
'seventies--in Strassburg, indeed, for the best part of another decade.
[Illustration: IV. EARLY DUTCH PRESS
ALEXANDER GALLES, DOCTRINALE (3^a)]
While printing continued mainly anonymous chroniclers took no note of
it, but in the ten years which began in 1465 the progress of the art was
rapid and triumphant. Printers, mostly Germans, invaded the chief cities
of Europe, and boasted in their books of having been the first to
practise it in this place or that. Curiosity as to the beginnings of the
invention was thus aroused, and from 1470 onwards we meet with numerous
attempts, not always accurate, to satisfy it. The earliest of these
attempts is in a letter from Guillaume Fichet, a Professor at the
Sorbonne, who was mainly responsible for bringing the first printers to
Paris, to his friend Robert Gaguin. This is contained in one copy of the
second Paris book, the _Orthographia_ of Gasparinus Barzizius, printed
in 1470, Fichet having a fondness for giving individuality to special
copies by additions of this kind. In this letter he speaks of the great
light which he thinks learning will receive from the new kind of bookmen
whom Germany, like another Trojan Horse, has poured forth.
Ferunt enim illic, haut procul a ciuitate Maguncia, Ioannem quendam
fuisse cui cognomen bonemontano, qui primus omnium impressoriam artem
excogitauerit, qua non calamo (ut prisci quidem illi) neque penna (ut
nos fingimus) sed æreis litteris libri finguntur, et quidem expedite,
polite et pulchre. Dignus sane hic uir fuit quem omnes musæ, omnes
artes, omnesque eorum linguæ qui libris delectantur, diuinis laudibus
ornent, eoque magis dis deabusque anteponant, quo propius ac
presentius litteris ipsis ac studiosis hominibus suffragium tulit. Si
quidem deificantur Liber et alma Ceres, ille quippe dona Liei inuenit
poculaque inuentis acheloia miscuit uuis, hæc chaoniam pingui glandem
mutauit arista. Atque (ut poeta utamur altero) prima Ceres unco glebam
dimouit aratro, prima dedit fruges alimenta mitia terris. At
bonemontanus ille, longe gratiora diuinioraque inuenit, quippe qui
litteras eiusmodi exculpsit, quibus quidquid dici, aut cogitari
potest, propediem scribi ac transcribi & posteritatis mandari memoriæ
possit.
The good Fichet is absurdly rhetorical, but here in 1470 is a quite
clear statement that, according to report, there (i.e. in Germany), not
far from[12] the city of Mainz, a certain John, surnamed Gutenberg,
first of all men thought out the printing art, by which books are
fashioned not with a reed or pen, but with letters of brass, and thus
deserved better of mankind than either Bacchus or Ceres, since by his
invention whatever can be said or thought can forthwith be written and
transcribed and handed down to posterity.
Four years later in his continuation of the _Chronica Summorum
Pontificum_, begun by Riccobaldus, Joannes Philippi de Lignamine, the
physician of Pope Sixtus IV, who had set up a press of his own at Rome,
wrote as one of the events of the pontificate of Pius II (1458-64), how
"Jakob Gutenberg, a native of Strassburg, and a certain other whose name
was Fust, being skilled in printing letters on parchment with metal
forms, are known each of them to be turning out three hundred sheets a
day at Mainz, a city of Germany, and Johann Mentelin also, at
Strassburg, a city of the same province, being skilled in the same
craft, is known to be printing daily the same number of sheets."[13] A
little later De Lignamine records the arrival at Rome of Sweynheym and
Pannartz, and also of Ulrich Han, and credits them also with printing
three hundred sheets a day. Other references follow in later books
without adding to our knowledge, save by proving the widespread
recognition in the fifteenth century that printing was invented at
Mainz; but there is nothing specially to detain us until the publication
by Johann Koelhoff in 1499 of the Cologne Chronicle--_Die Cronica van
der hilliger Stat Coellen_--in which occurs a famous passage about
printing, which may be translated or paraphrased as follows:--
"This right worthy art was invented first of all in Germany, at Mainz,
on the Rhine. And that is a great honour to the German nation that such
ingenious men are found there. This happened in the year of our Lord
1440, and from that time until 1450 the art and all that pertains to it
was investigated, and in 1450, which was a Golden Year, men began to
print, and the first book that was printed was the Bible in Latin, and
this was printed with a letter as large as that now used in missals.
"Although this art was invented at Mainz, as far as regards the manner
in which it is now commonly used, yet the first prefiguration
(Vurbyldung) was invented in Holland from the Donatuses which were
printed there before that time. And from and out of these the aforesaid
art took its beginning, and was invented in a manner much more masterly
and subtler than this, and the longer it lasted the more full of art it
became.
"A certain Omnibonus wrote in the preface to a Quintilian, and also in
other books, that a Walloon from France, called Nicolaus Jenson, was the
first inventor of this masterly art--a notorious lie, for there are men
still alive who bear witness that books were printed at Venice before
the aforesaid Nicolaus Jenson came there, and began to cut and make
ready his letter. But the first inventor of printing was a Burgher at
Mainz, and was born at Strassburg, and called Yunker Johann Gutenberg.
"From Mainz the art came first of all to Cologne, after that to
Strassburg, and after that to Venice. The beginning and progress of the
art were told me by word of mouth by the Worshipful Master Ulrich Zell
of Hanau, printer at Cologne in this present year 1499, through whom the
art came to Cologne."[14]
Zell, or his interviewer, ignores the books printed anonymously at
Strassburg by Mentelin and Eggestein, and also the handful printed by
Albrecht Pfister at Bamberg; he also is misled by Gutenberg's long
residence at Strassburg into calling him a native of that city; in other
respects, so far as we are able to check this account, it is quite
accurate. It tells us emphatically that "this right worthy art was
invented first of all in Germany, at Mainz, on the Rhine"; and again,
that "the first inventor of printing was a Burgher at Mainz named Junker
Johann 'Gudenburch'"; but between these two unqualified statements is
sandwiched a reference to a prefiguration which took shape in Holland in
_Donatuses_, printed there before the Mainz presses were at work, and
much less masterly and subtle than the books which they produced. He
connects no name with this "Vorbildung," and, unhappily, he gives no
clue as to how it foreshadowed, and was yet distinct from, the real
invention.
Sixty-nine years[15] after the appearance of this carefully balanced
statement, the facts as to Dutch "prefigurations" which had inspired it
moved a Dutch chronicler, Hadrianus Junius, in compiling his _Batavia_
(not published till 1588), to write the well-known passage as to the
invention of printing, which has been summarized as follows:--
There lived, about 1440, at Haarlem, in the market-place opposite the
Town Hall, in a respectable house still in existence, a man named
Lourens Janszoon Coster, i.e. Laurence, son of John Coster. The family
name was derived from the hereditary office of Sacristan, or Coster of
the Church--a post both honourable and lucrative. The town archives
give evidence of this, his name appearing therein many times, and in
the Town Hall are preserved his seal and signature to various
documents. To this man belongs the honour of inventing Printing, an
honour of which he was unjustly robbed, and which afterwards was
ascribed to another. The said Laurence Coster, one day after dinner,
took a walk in the wood near Haarlem. While there, to amuse himself,
he began to cut letters out of some beech-bark. The idea struck him to
ink some of these letters and use them as stamps. This he did to amuse
his grandchildren, cutting them in reverse. He thus formed two or
three sentences on paper. The idea germinated, and soon with the help
of his son-in-law, and by using a thick ink, he began to print whole
pages, and to add lines of print to the block-books, the text of which
was the most difficult part to engrave. Junius had seen such a book,
called _Spieghel onzer Behoudenisse_. It should have been said that
Coster was descended from the noble house of Brederode, and that his
son-in-law was also of noble descent. Coster's first efforts were of
course very rude, and to hide the impression of the letters on the
back, they pasted the leaves, which had one side not printed,
together. His letters at first were made of lead, which he afterwards
changed for tin. Upon his death these letters were melted down and
made into wine-pots, which at the time that Junius wrote were still
preserved in the house of Gerrit Thomaszoon, the grandson of Coster.
Public curiosity was greatly excited by Coster's discovery, and he
gained much profit from his new process. His trade, indeed, so
increased that he was obliged to employ several workmen, one of whom
was named John. Some say this was John Faust, afterwards a partner
with Gutenberg, and others say he was Gutenberg's brother. This man
when he had learnt the art in all its branches, took the opportunity
one Christmas eve, when all good people are accustomed to attend
Church, to break into the rooms used for printing, and to pack up and
steal all the tools and appliances which his master, with so much care
and ingenuity, had made. He went off by Amsterdam and Cologne to
Mainz, where he at once opened a workshop and reaped rich fruit from
this theft, producing several printed books. The accuracy of this
story was attested by a respectable bookbinder, of great age but clear
memory, named Cornelis who had been a fellow-servant with the culprit
in the house of Coster, and indeed had occupied the same bed for
several months, and who could never talk of such baseness without
shedding tears and cursing the thief.
Written nearly a hundred and thirty years after the supposed events
which it narrates, this story is damned by its circumstantiality. It is
thus that legends grow, and it is not difficult to imagine Haarlem
bookmen picking up ideas out of colophons in old books and asking the
"respectable bookbinder of great age" whether it was not thus and thus
that things happened. Many of the details of the story are demonstrably
false; its one strong point is the bookbinder, Cornelis, for a binder of
this name is said to have been employed as early as 1474 and as late as
1514 to bind the account-books of Haarlem Cathedral, and in the two
years named, and also in 1476, to have strengthened his bindings by
pasting inside them fragments of _Donatuses_ printed on vellum in the
type of the _Speculum Humanae Saluationis_. The fragment in the
account-book for 1474 is rubricated, and must thus either have been sold
or prepared for selling, i.e. it is not "printer's waste," but may have
been bought by Cornelis for lining his covers in the ordinary way of
trade. But we have here a possible link between Zell's story of early
Dutch _Donatuses_ and the story of Junius about Coster and his servant
Cornelis, since we find fragments of a _Donatus_ in the possession of
this particular man.
There were plenty of such _Donatuses_ in existence in the Netherlands
about 1470. In 1887 Dr. Hessels, in his _Haarlem the Birthplace of
Printing, not Mentz_, enumerated fragments of twenty different editions,
printed in eight types, of which the type used in the _Speculum Humanae
Saluationis_ (see p. 26) is one, while the other seven are linked to it,
or to each other, in such a way that we may either suppose them to have
all belonged to the same printer, or distribute them among two or more
anonymous firms. Besides these twenty editions of _Donatus_ on the Eight
Parts of Speech, Dr. Hessels enumerated eight editions of the
_Doctrinale_ of Alexander Gallus[16] (another school book popular in the
fifteenth century), three of the Distichs of Dionysius Cato (the work
from which Dame Pertelote quoted to convince Chantecleer of the futility
of dreams), and one or two editions each of a few other works, the
_Facetiae Morales_ of Laurentius Valla (twenty-four leaves), the
_Singularia Juris_ of Ludovicus Pontanus, with a treatise of Pope Pius
II (sixty leaves), and the _De Salute Corporis_ of Gulielmus de Saliceto
with other small works (twenty-four leaves). These latter books offer no
very noticeable features; some of the _Donatus_ fragments, on the other
hand, have printing only on one side of the leaf (whence they are called
by the barbarous term "anopisthographic," "not printed on the back") and
have a very rude and primitive appearance. This may have been caused in
part at least by their having been pasted down, and possibly scraped, by
binders, for almost all of them have been found in bindings; but it
counts for something.
Not one of the books or fragments of which we have been speaking makes
any mention of its printer, or of the place or date at which it was
produced. A copy of one of the later books, the _De Salute Corporis_ of
Gulielmus de Saliceto, was purchased by Conrad du Moulin while abbot of
the Convent of S. James at Lille, a dignity which he held from 1471 to
1474. The earliest Haarlem account-book which contained _Donatus_
fragments was for the year 1474. It is entirely a matter of opinion as
to how much earlier than this any of the extant fragments can be dated.
There is no reason why some of them should not be later.
As to the place or places at which these books were printed, there is no
evidence of any weight. But, as has been already said, the whole series
can be closely or loosely connected with the types used in editions of
the _Speculum Humanae Saluationis_, and in 1481 Jan Veldener, a
wandering printer, while working at Utrecht, introduced into an edition
of the Epistles and Gospels in Dutch two woodcuts, each of which was a
half of one of the double pictures in the _Speculum_. Two years later,
when at Kuilenburg, he printed a quarto edition of the _Speculum_ itself
(Dutch version), in which he used a large number of the original
_Speculum_ blocks, all cut up into halves, so as to fit a small page. As
Veldener (as far as we know) used the _Speculum_ blocks first at
Utrecht, it is supposed that it was at Utrecht that he obtained them. If
the blocks were for sale at Utrecht, this may have been the place at
which the earlier editions of the _Speculum_ were issued, and thus, in
the absence of any evidence which they were willing to recognize in
favour of any other place, Henry Bradshaw and his disciples attributed
the whole series of editions of the _Speculum_, _Donatus_, _Doctrinale_,
etc., to Utrecht, about, or "not after," 1471-1474. Bradshaw himself
clearly indicated that this attribution was purely provisional. He felt
"compelled to leave" the books at Utrecht, so he phrased it, i.e. the
presumption that Veldener found the blocks of the _Speculum_ there
constituted a grain of evidence in favour of Utrecht; and if a balance
is sufficiently sensitive and both scales are empty, a grain thrown into
one will suffice to weigh it down. It would have been better, in the
present writer's opinion, if the grain had been disregarded, and no
attempt made to assign these books and fragments to any particular
place. As it is, Bradshaw's attribution of them to Utrecht has been
repeated without any emphasis on its entirely provisional character,
even without any mention of this at all, and perhaps with a certain
humorous enjoyment of the chance of prejudicing the claims of Haarlem by
an unusually rigorous application of the rules as to bibliographical
evidence.
In the eyes of Dr. Hessels, on the other hand, the legend narrated by
Junius offers a sufficient reason for assigning all these books to
Haarlem, and to Lourens Janszoon Coster as their printer. Dr. Hessels
was even ill-advised enough to point out that, as there are twenty
editions of _Donatus_ in this group of types, we have only to allow an
interval of a year and a half between each to take back the earliest
very close to 1440, the traditional date of the invention of printing.
This is perfectly true, but as no reason can be assigned for fixing on
this particular interval the value of such a calculation is very slight.
One result of all this controversy is that the whole series of books and
fragments have been dubbed "Costeriana," and the convenience of having a
general name for them is so great that it has been generally adopted,
even by those who have no belief in the theory which it implies. All
that is known of Lourens Janszoon Coster is that he resided at Haarlem
from 1436 to 1483, and that contemporary references show him to have
been a chandler and innkeeper, without making any mention of his having
added printing to his other occupations.
It is difficult to claim more for the story told by Junius than that it
represents an unknown quantity of fact with various legendary additions.
It is difficult to dismiss it as less than a legend which must have had
some element of fact as its basis. In so far as it goes beyond the
statements of the Cologne Chronicle, it is supported only by the
evidence that Coster and the venerable bookbinder Cornelis existed, and
that the latter bound the account-books of Haarlem Cathedral. But no
indiscretion of Hadrianus Junius writing in 1568 can affect the credit
of the statements made in the Cologne Chronicle in 1499 on the
authority of Ulrich Zell, and we have now to mention an important piece
of evidence in favour of Zell's accuracy. This is the entry in the
diaries of Jean de Robert, Abbot of Saint Aubert, Cambrai, of the
purchase in 1446 and again in 1451 of a copy of the _Doctrinale_ of
Alexander Gallus, _jeté en moule_, a phrase which, while far from
satisfactory as a description of a book printed from movable type,
cannot possibly refer to editions printed from woodblocks, even if these
existed. The _Doctrinale_, which was in verse, was a less popular
school-book than the _Donatus_. It is significant that among the
so-called "Costeriana" there are eight editions of the one against
twenty of the other. Where the _Doctrinale_ was used we may be sure that
the _Donatus_ would be used also, and in greater numbers, so that this
mention of a "mould-casted" _Doctrinale_ as purchased as early as 1446
is a real confirmation of Zell's assertion. We have no sufficient ground
for believing that any of the fragments, either of the one book or the
other, now in existence were produced as early as this. It is of the
nature of school-books to be destroyed, and every improvement in the
process of production would help to drive the earlier experiments out of
existence. But taking Zell's statement and the entries in the Abbot's
diaries together, it seems impossible to deny that there is evidence of
some kind of printing being practised in Holland not long after 1440.
An ingenious theory as to the form which these "prefigurements" may have
taken has lately been suggested, viz. that the earliest types may have
consisted simply of flat pieces of metal, without any shanks to them,
and that they were "set up" by being glued upon wood or stiff paper in
the order required. They would thus be movable, but with a very low
degree of movability, so that we can easily understand why short books
like the _Donatus_ and _Doctrinale_ were continually reprinted without
any attempt being made to produce a large work such as the Bible. It is
curious, however, that in the description of a "ciripagus" by Paulus
Paulirinus, of Prag,[17] "we have a reference" to a Bible having been
printed at Bamberg "super lamellas," a phrase which might very well
refer to types of this kind, though the sentence is usually explained as
referring to either the Latin or German edition of the _Biblia Pauperum_
issued by Albrecht Pfister. I think it just possible myself that the
reference is really to the Latin Bible known as the Thirty-six Line
Bible, which seems certainly to have been sold, if not printed, at
Bamberg a little before 1460, and that Paulirinus, having seen books
printed "super lamellas," supposed (wrongly) that this was printed in
that way. But the statement that it was printed in four weeks is against
this.
Whether the Dutch "Vorbildung" of the Art of Printing subsequently
invented at Mainz took the form of experiments with shankless types, or
fell short of the fully developed art in some other way, does not
greatly concern the collector. It is in the highest degree improbable
that the claim put forward on behalf of the so-called "Costeriana" will
ever be decisively proved or disproved. They are likely to remain as
perpetual pretenders, and as such will always retain a certain interest,
and a specimen of them always be a desirable addition to any collection
which aims at illustrating the history of the invention of printing.
Such a specimen will not be easy to procure, because many of the extant
fragments have been found in public libraries, more especially the Royal
Library at the Hague, and have never left their first homes. On the
other hand, the number of fragments known has been considerably
increased by new finds. Thus there is no reason to regard a specimen as
unattainable.
FOOTNOTES:
[12] Dr. Hessels supposes that this phrase indicates the Monastery of
Saint Victor, outside Mainz, with which Gutenberg was connected, and
that the "report," therefore, can be traced to Gutenberg himself. If
so, we have the very important fact that Gutenberg himself claimed to
be the inventor.
[13] Iacobus cognomento Gutenbergo: patria Argentinus, & quidam alter
cui nomen Fustus, imprimendarum litterarum in membranis cum
metallicis formis periti, trecentas cartas quisque eorum per diem
facere innotescunt apud Maguntiam Germanie ciuitatem. Iohannes quoque
Mentelinus nuncupatus apud Argentinam eiusdem prouincie ciuitatem: ac
in eodem artificio peritus totidem cartas per diem imprimere
agnoscitur.... Conradus Suueynem: ac Arnoldus pannarcz Vdalricus
Gallus parte ex alia Teuthones librarii insignes Romam uenientes
primi imprimendorum librorum artem in Italiam introduxere trecentas
cartas per diem imprimentes.
[14] Item dese hoichwyrdige kunst vursz is vonden aller eyrst in
Duytschlant tzo Mentz am Rijne. Ind dat is der duytschscher nacion
eyn groisse eirlicheit dat sulche synrijche mynschen syn dae tzo
vynden. Ind dat is geschiet by den iairen vns heren, anno domini.
MCCCCxl. ind van der zijt an bis men schreue. l. wart vndersoicht die
kunst ind wat dair zo gehoirt. Ind in den iairen vns heren do men
schreyff. MCCCCl. do was eyn gulden iair, do began men tzo drucken
ind was dat eyrste boich dat men druckde die Bybel zo latijn, ind
wart gedruckt mit eynre grouer schrifft. as is die schrifft dae men
nu Mysseboicher mit druckt.
Item wiewail die kunst is vonden tzo Mentz, als vursz vp die wijse,
als dan nu gemeynlich gebruicht wirt, so is doch die eyrste
vurbyldung vonden in Hollant vyss den Donaten, die dae selffst vur
der tzijt gedruckt syn. Ind van ind vyss den is genommen dat begynne
der vursz kunst. ind is vill meysterlicher ind subtilicher vonden dan
die selue manier was, vnd ye langer ye mere kunstlicher wurden.
Item eynre genant Omnebonum der schrijfft in eynre vurrede vp dat
boich Quintilianus genoempt. vnd ouch in anderen meir boicher, dat
eyn Wale vyss Vranckrijch, genant Nicolaus genson haue alre eyrst
dese meysterliche kunst vonden, mer dat is offenbairlich gelogen.
want Sij syn noch jm leuen die dat getzuigen dat men boicher druckte
tzo Venedige ee der vursz Nicolaus genson dar quame, dair he began
schrifft zo snijden vnd bereyden. Mer der eyrste vynder der druckerye
is gewest eyn Burger tzo Mentz. ind was geboren van Straiszburch. ind
hiesch joncker Johan Gudenburch. Item van Mentz is die vursz kunst
komen alre eyrst tzo Coellen. Dairnae tzo Straisburch, ind dairnae
tzo Venedige. Dat begynne ind vortganck der vursz kunst hait myr
muntlich vertzelt d' Eirsame man Meyster Vlrich tzell van Hanauwe.
boich drucker zo Coellen noch zertzijt. anno. MCCCCxcix. durch den
die kunst vursz is zo Coellen komen.
[15] The first trace of the legend is in a reference to Coster as
having "brought the first print into the world in 1446" in a
manuscript pedigree of the Coster family compiled about 1559.
[16] A page from a fragment of one of these in the British Museum
forms the frontispiece to this chapter (Plate IV).
[17] Et tempore mei Pambergæ quidam scripsit integrum Bibliam super
lamellas, et in quatuor septimanis totam Bibliam super pargameno
subtili presignavit scriptura.
CHAPTER IV
THE INVENTION OF PRINTING--MAINZ
No contrast could be much greater than that between the so-called
"Costeriana" and the incunabula printed at Mainz. Annually as a small
boy I used to be taken to the Crystal Palace, and there a recognized
part of the programme in each visit was to spend half an hour in
solemnly pedalling backwards and forwards on a semicircular track on a
machine miscalled a velocipede. Perhaps these clumsy toys really
constituted a definite stage in the invention and perfection of the
modern bicycle. On the other hand, whatever may be the historical facts,
there is no reason in the nature of things why the modern bicycle should
not have been invented quite independently of them. The relative
positions of Holland and Germany as regards the invention of printing
are very analogous to those of the old velocipede and the bicycle. Even
if it could be proved decisively that some Dutch fragment of a _Donatus_
was earlier than any experiment made at Mainz or Strassburg, it was at
Mainz that the possibility was first demonstrated of producing by print
books as beautiful as any written by the scribes, and it was from
Germany, not from Holland, that printers carried the art which they had
proved to be practicable to all parts of Europe, including Holland
itself.
[Illustration: V. MAINZ, FUST AND SCHOEFFER, 1459
DURANTI, RATIONALE DIVINORUM OFFICIORUM (1^a)]
In the development of the art of printing at Mainz three men had a
share, though the precise part which each of them played is matter of
conjecture rather than knowledge. The first of the three was Johann
Gutenberg, the Johannes Bonemontanus whom Fichet, as early as 1470,
acclaimed as the first of all men to think out the printing art, whom
the popular verdict has recognized as the inventor, and whom patriotic
German bibliographers delight to invest with every virtue that
distinguishes themselves.
Gutenberg's real name was Gänsfleisch, Gutenberg being an addition to
his mother's surname[18] which he assumed for reasons not known to us.
He was born about 1400, and just when he attained manhood his family,
which belonged to the patrician party at Mainz, was banished and sought
refuge at Strassburg. At Strassburg Gutenberg remained till about 1446,
and legal and municipal records, so far as we can trust to their
authenticity, offer us some tantalizing glimpses of his career there.
When the town clerk of Strassburg came to Mainz the exile caused him to
be arrested for a debt due to his family, and the matter had to be
arranged to avoid a quarrel between the two cities. On the other hand,
Gutenberg was himself called to account for unpaid duties on wine, and
was sued for a breach of promise of marriage. In 1437 he was the
defendant in a much more interesting trial. He had admitted two partners
to work an invention with him, and on one of these partners dying his
brother claimed, unsuccessfully, to take his place in the partnership.
The use of the words "presse," "forme," and "trucken" in connection with
this invention leaves it hardly open to doubt that it was concerned with
some kind of printing, and loans which Gutenberg negotiated in 1441 and
1442 were presumably raised for the development of this. About the
middle of the decade he returned to Mainz and there also borrowed money,
presumably again for the same object.
At this point we are confronted with five fragmentary pieces of
printing, all but one of them only recently discovered. The latest of
these, according to German bibliographers, is a fragment of an
astronomical Calendar in German verse for an unspecified year, which
might be 1429, 1448, or 1467, but does not exactly fit any of them; the
earliest is part of a leaf of a _Sibyllenbuch_ (originally known as _Das
Weltgericht_, because the text of this fragment deals with the Last
Judgment). Between these two are placed fragments of three editions of
_Donatus, De octo partibus orationis_, two found recently in copies of
an edition of Herolt's _Sermones de tempore et sanctis_ printed at
Strassburg[19] by Martin Flach in 1488 and now at Berlin, the third one
of the minor treasures of the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris, where it
has lain for over a century. Granting that the Calendar was printed for
use in 1448 (it has been argued, on the other hand, that its mention of
movable festivals was intended to be only approximate), and that the
other four pieces can be proved by typographical evidence to have
preceded it, we may suppose the _Sibyllenbuch_ to have been printed by
Gutenberg shortly after his return to Mainz, i.e. about 1445, or shortly
before this at Strassburg.
Soon after the supposed date of the Calendar the second of the three
protagonists in the development of printing at Mainz comes on the scene.
This was Johann Fust, a goldsmith, who in or about August, 1450, lent
Gutenberg eight hundred guilders to enable him to print books, himself,
nominally or truly, borrowing the money from another capitalist, and
thereby gaining the right to charge interest on it without breaking the
canon law. By about December, 1452, the loan was exhausted, and Fust
made a fresh advance of the same amount. The inner history of the next
four years is hid from us, and the undisputed facts which belong to them
have consequently been interpreted in every variety of way that human
ingenuity can devise. These facts are that--
(i) Printing was continued with the fount of type used for the Calendar
attributed to 1448, fragments of more than a dozen different editions of
_Donatus_ printed with it being still extant, also a prognostication,
_Manung widder die Durken_, printed in December, 1454, a Bull of Pope
Calixtus "widder die Turcken" of 1456, a medical Calendar for 1456, and
an undated _Cisianus_, another work of an astronomical character.
(ii) When the pardoners employed by the proctor-general of the King of
Cyprus came to Mainz in the autumn of 1454 to raise money by means of a
papal Indulgence, valid till 30 April of the following year, they were
able to substitute two typographically distinct editions for the
manuscript copies which they had previously used, the text of each of
these Indulgences being printed in a separate fount of beautifully clear
small type, while a larger type was used for a few words. In one of
these Indulgences the larger type belongs, with some differences, to the
same fount as the books named in our last paragraph. This Indulgence has
thirty-one lines, and four issues of it have been distinguished, three
of them dated 1454 (the earliest of these being the earliest dated piece
of printing) and the fourth 1455. In the other Indulgence there are only
thirty lines, the large type is neater, and three issues have been
distinguished, one dated 1454, the other two 1455.
(iii) In November, 1455, an action brought by Fust to recover the 1600
guilders which he had lent Gutenberg, with the arrears of interest,
reached its final stage. In this suit the third of the Mainz
protagonists, Peter Schoeffer, was a witness on the side of Fust, and we
hear also, as servants of Gutenberg, of Heinrich Keffer and Bertolf von
Hanau, who may apparently be identified with printers who worked
subsequently at Nuremberg and Basel. The document which has come down to
us and is now preserved at the University Library at Göttingen is that
recording the oath taken by Fust, as the successful plaintiff, in order
to obtain judgment for the amount of his claim.
(iv) In August, 1456, Heinrich Cremer, vicar of the collegiate church at
Mainz, recorded his completion of the rubrication and binding of a
magnificent printed Bible in two volumes, now preserved in the
Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris, the type of which used to be thought
identical with the larger type of the thirty-line Indulgence mentioned
above, but is now considered to be only closely similar.
For this last undoubted date of rubrication, August, 1456, German
bibliographers have lately substituted a reference to a manuscript date,
1453, in another copy of this printed Bible, now preserved in the
Buchgewerbe-Museum at Leipzig, formerly owned by a well-known German
collector of the last century, Herr Klemm. While, however, this date
appears to have been written at a period approximating to that of the
production of the book, its relevance as evidence of the date of
printing is highly disputable, more especially as there appear to be
signs of erasure near it. Its owner, Herr Klemm, preserved a discreet
silence as to its existence, and it is certainly not obligatory at
present to accept it as valid evidence.
In a work which does not pretend to the dignity of a history of printing
it is impossible to discuss, or even to enumerate, the different
theories as to the events of the years 1453-6, which have been
formulated to account for these facts. The edition of the Bible of which
Heinrich Cremer rubricated the copy now at Paris is so fine a book and
so great a landmark in typographical history, that the desire to regard
it as the production of the man who is credited with the invention of
printing, Johann Gutenberg, easily becomes irresistible. To refuse to
call it the Gutenberg Bible may, indeed, appear almost pedantic, though
its old name, the "Mazarine Bible," which it gained from the accident of
the copy in the Mazarine Library at Paris being the first to attract
attention, still survives, and it is also known among bibliographers as
the "Forty-two Line Bible," a safe uncontroversial title based on the
number of lines in most of its columns. Whoever printed it appears to
have been possessed of ample means and to have been a master of detail
and an excellent organizer. Under the minute examination to which it has
been subjected the book has yielded up some of its secrets, and we know
that it was printed simultaneously on six different presses, that the
body of the type was twice reduced, forty-two lines finally occupying
slightly less space than the forty which had at first formed a column,
that after the printing had begun it was resolved to increase the size
of the edition, and that there is some reason to think that eventually a
hundred and fifty copies were printed on paper and thirty on vellum,[20]
and that the paper was ordered in large quantities and not in small
parcels as it could be paid for. To the present writer it appears that
if Gutenberg had possessed the financial means, the patience and the
organizing power needed to push through this heavy piece of work in the
way described, it is difficult to perceive any reason why the capitalist
Fust should have quarrelled with him, or to imagine how Gutenberg
exposed himself to such an action as that which Fust successfully
carried against him. On the supposition that the Bible was completed in
or soon after 1453 the difficulty becomes almost insuperable, for it is
inconceivable that if Gutenberg had produced the book within a few
months of receiving his second loan from Fust he should not, by the
autumn of 1455, have paid his creditor a single guilder, either for
principal or interest. After his quarrel with Fust, Gutenberg apparently
had dealings with two other men, with Albrecht Pfister who is found in
possession of a later casting of the heavier fount of type in which the
Astrological Calendar attributed to 1448 had been printed, and with a
Dr. Homery. He ended his days as a pensioner at the court of the
Archbishop of Mainz, while Fust, with the aid of Peter Schoeffer, whom
he made his son-in-law, developed a great business. The inventor who
lacks organizing power and whose invention never thrives till it has
passed into other hands is no unfamiliar figure, and such a conception
of Gutenberg perhaps accords better with the known facts of his career
than that of a living incarnation of heroism and business ability such
as his German eulogists love to depict. According to a theory developed
by the present writer in an article in _The Library_ for January, 1907
(Second Series, Vol. VIII), though no originality is claimed for it, the
key to the situation lies in the assertion[21] made on behalf of Peter
Schoeffer that his skill in engraving had enabled him to attain results
denied to the two Johns, Johann Gutenberg and Johann Fust.
According to this theory, it was Schoeffer who engraved the two founts
of small type used in the two sets of Indulgences of 1454-5, and thus
demonstrated that the new art could be applied to produce every kind of
book and document which had previously circulated in manuscript. Fust
gave him his daughter Christina in marriage, and Johann Schoeffer, the
offspring of the alliance, distinctly tells us that this was in reward
for his services. From the first, or almost the first, the firm adopted
a policy of advertisement which other printers were slow to imitate, the
partners giving their names in their earliest colophons and making no
secret of the fact that they were using an "adinuentio artificiosa
imprimendi ac caracterizandi" which enabled them to dispense with the
pen. In 1460, in the _Catholicon_ of that year, the work of an anonymous
printer to which we shall have to recur (see p. 51 _sqq._), the
invention is distinctly claimed for Mainz, and from 1467 this claim was
taken over by Peter Schoeffer, who in the colophons of his subsequent
books again and again celebrated Mainz as the city singled out by divine
favour to give the art to the world. The fact that for nearly forty
years (1460-99) these statements remained unchallenged, and passed into
the contemporary history of the time, is the strongest evidence in
favour of the substantial invention of the art at Mainz that can be
conceived. A single reference in 1499[22] to prefigurations of a humbler
kind in _Donatuses_ printed in Holland and the presentation of a rival
theory in 1568 cannot deprive of its due weight the evidence that during
all the years when the facts were easily ascertainable judgment in
favour of Mainz was allowed to go by default. But the Fust and Schoeffer
colophons tell us more than this, for while they make no mention of
Gutenberg they never claim the invention of printing as their own
achievement. It is clear that Fust could not claim this himself, and
while he was alive his son-in-law did not think fit to put forward, or
allow to be put forward, any claim on his own behalf. It was only in
1468, when both Gutenberg and Fust were dead, that Schoeffer's
"corrector," or reader, Magister Franciscus, was permitted to assert on
his behalf, in the _Justinian_ of that year, that though two Johns had
the better in the race he, like his namesake S. Peter, had entered first
into the sepulchre, i.e. the inner mysteries of printing. The claim,
thus irreverently put forward, is deprived of much of its weight by the
moment at which it was made; nevertheless it can hardly have been
baseless.
The desire to credit Gutenberg with some really handsome and important
piece of printing has caused his name to be connected with two other
large folios, a Latin Bible, of thirty-six lines to a column, printed in
a variety of the type used for the _Sibyllenbuch_ and the _Kalendar_ of
"1448," and a Latin Dictionary known by the name _Catholicon_, the work
of a thirteenth century writer, Joannes Balbus, of Genoa. The type of
the Thirty-six Line Bible passed into the hands of Albrecht Pfister, of
Bamberg, who printed a number of popular German books with it in 1461
and 1462. There is considerable evidence, moreover, that a large number
of copies of the Bible itself were sold at Bamberg about 1460. The
greater part of the text appears to have been set up from a copy of the
Forty-two Line Bible. Where, when, and by whom it was printed we can
only guess, but the place was more probably Bamberg than Mainz, and as
the type is believed to have been originally Gutenberg's, and there is
evidence that Pfister, when he began printing the popular books of
1461-2, was quite inexperienced, Gutenberg has certainly a better claim
to have printed this volume than any one else who can be suggested. The
Thirty-six Line Bible is a much rarer book than the Forty-two Line, but
copies are known to exist at the British Museum, John Rylands Library,
Bibliothèque Nationale, and Musée Plantin, and at Greifswald, Jena,
Leipzig, Stuttgart, Vienna, and Wolfenbüttel. A copy is also said to be
in private hands in Great Britain, but has not been registered. None has
been sold in recent times. Besides the more complete copies mentioned
above, various fragments have been preserved and some of these are on
vellum. The vellum fragment of leaf 204 now in the British Museum was at
one time used as a book-cover.
The _Catholicon_ is printed in a small type, not very cleanly cut. It
was issued without printer's name, but with a long colophon, which has
been translated:
By the help of the Most High, at Whose will the tongues of infants
become eloquent, and who oft-times reveals to the lowly that which He
hides from the wise, this noble book Catholicon, in the year of the
Lord's Incarnation 1460, in the bounteous city of Mainz of the
renowned German nation, which the clemency of God has deigned with so
lofty a light of genius and free gift to prefer and render illustrious
above all other nations of the earth, without help of reed, stilus, or
pen, but by the wondrous agreement, proportion and harmony of punches
and types has been printed and brought to an end.
Upon this follow four Latin verses in honour of the Holy Trinity and the
Virgin Mary and the words "Deo Gracias." We can imagine an inventor who,
despite his invention, remained profoundly unsuccessful, writing the
opening words of this colophon, and it is not easy to see their
appropriateness to any one else. It is thus highly probable that
Gutenberg set up this book and refused to follow Fust and Schoeffer in
their advertising ways. He may even have had a special reason for this,
for among the forty-one copies registered (almost all in great
libraries) two groups may be distinguished, one embracing the copies on
vellum and the majority of the paper copies, the other the rest of the
paper copies. The groups are distinguished by various differences, of
which the most important is that in the one case the workmen used four
and in the other two pins to keep the paper in its place while being
printed. An attractive explanation of all this would be that while
Gutenberg set up the book and was allowed to print for himself a certain
number of copies, there was a richer partner in the enterprise whose
pressmen pulled the greater part of the edition. But Dr. Zedler, who has
brought together all the available information about the book in his
monograph _Das Mainzer Catholicon_, has a different explanation.
In the same type as the _Catholicon_ are two small tracts of little
interest, the _Summa de articulis fidei_ of Thomas Aquinas, and the
_Dialogus_ of Matthaeus de Cracovia; also an Indulgence of Pope Pius II.
In 1467 the type is found in the hands of Heinrich Bechtermünze at
Eltvil, who died while printing a vocabulary. This was completed by his
brother Nicholas, who also printed three later editions of it.
During the years which precede 1457, Johann Fust and Peter Schoeffer,
the one a goldsmith, the other a clerk in minor orders of the diocese of
Mainz, are involved in the obscurity and uncertainty which surround
Gutenberg's career. Reasons have been offered for believing that it was
Schoeffer who designed the small neat types used in the Mainz
Indulgences of 1454-5, and that he with his skill and Fust with his
money pushed the Forty-two Line Bible to a successful completion. If
they printed this, they no doubt printed also a liturgical psalter in
the same type, of which a fragment is preserved at the Bibliothèque
Nationale at Paris. But we do not touch firm ground until we come to the
famous Psalter of 1457, the colophon of which leaves us in no doubt as
to its typographical authorship. This runs:
Presens psalmorum[23] codex venustate capitalium decoratus
Rubricationibusque sufficienter distinctus Adinuentione artificiosa
imprimendi ac caracterizandi absque calami ulla exaracione sic
effigiatus, Et ad eusebiam dei industrie est consummatus, Per Iohannem
fust ciuem maguntinum, Et Petrum Schoffer de Gernszheim Anno domini
Millesimo .cccc.lvij. In vigilia Assumpcionis.
The present book of the Psalms, decorated with beautiful capitals and
sufficiently marked out with rubrics, has been thus fashioned by an
ingenious invention of printing and stamping without any ploughing of
a pen, And to the worship of God has been diligently brought to
completion by Johann Fust, a citizen of Mainz, and Peter Schoeffer of
Gernsheim, in the year of the Lord, 1457, on the vigil of the
Assumption.
Thus in the Psalter of 1457 we have the first example of a book
informing us when and by whom it was manufactured; it also illustrates
in a very remarkable way the determination of the new partners to
produce a volume which should fully rival the best shop-made
manuscripts. The effort to print rubrics had already been made in the
Forty-two Line Bible, but the red printing was abandoned in that
instance as too troublesome. Now it was revived with complete success,
and with the printed rubrics came also printed capitals or initial
letters in two colours, red and blue, and several different sizes. A
good discussion of the manner in which these were printed will be found
in the _Catalogue of the Manuscripts and Printed Books exhibited at the
Historical Music Loan Exhibition_ (1886) by Mr. W. H. J. Weale. In an
article in the first volume of _Bibliographica_ Mr. Russell Martineau
showed that part of the edition was printed twice. When Mr. Martineau
wrote nine copies were known, all on vellum, viz. (i) five of an issue
of 143 leaves containing the Psalms and Canticles only, these being at
the British Museum, Royal Library Windsor, John Rylands Library,
Bibliothèque Nationale Paris, and Royal Library Darmstadt; (ii) four of
an issue of 175 leaves, containing also the Vigils of the Dead, these
being at the Bibliothèque Nationale Paris, University Library Berlin,
Royal Library Dresden, and Imperial Library Vienna. To these must now be
added a copy of the larger issue, wanting five leaves, presented in 1465
by René d'Anjou to the Franciscans of La Baumette-les-Angiers and now in
the municipal library at Angers. The distribution of the Psalms in this
1457 edition is that of the general "Roman use," but blank spaces were
left for the insertion of the characteristic differences of the use of
any particular diocese.
Two years later (29 August, 1459) Fust and Schoeffer produced another
Psalter, in the same types and with the same capitals, with twenty-three
instead of twenty lines to a page. This was stated in the colophon to
have been printed "ad laudem dei ac honorem sancti Jacobi," and was thus
apparently commissioned by the Benedictine monastery of S. James at
Mainz. Its arrangement is that generally in use at the time in German
monasteries. Thirteen copies of this edition are preserved, all on
vellum, viz. four in England (British Museum, Bodleian, John Rylands
Library, and the Earl of Leicester's library at Holkham), two at Paris,
one at the Hague, five in Germany, and one in Mr. Morgan's collection at
New York. This last was bought by Mr. Quaritch at the sale of the
library of Sir John Thorold for £4950.
Between the production of these two Psalters Fust and Schoeffer printed
in the same types on twelve leaves of vellum the Canon of the Mass only,
obviously that it might be bought by churches which owned Missals
otherwise in good condition, but with these much-fingered leaves badly
worn. The unique copy of this edition of the Canon was discovered at the
Bodleian Library in a Mainz Missal of 1493 and identified by Mr. Gordon
Duff. It is described by Mr. Duff in his _Early Printed Books_, and by
Dr. Falk and Herr Wallau in Part III of the Publications of the
Gutenberg Gesellschaft, with facsimiles of ten pages.
In October, 1459, Fust and Schoeffer took an important step forward by
printing in small type the _Rationale Diuinorum Officiorum_ of Gulielmus
Duranti, a large work explaining the meaning of the various services of
the Church and the ceremonies used in them. The text is printed in
double columns with sixty-three lines in each column, and the type
measures 91 mm. to twenty lines. A copy at Munich is printed partly on
paper, partly on vellum. All the other forty-two copies described by Mr.
De Ricci are entirely on vellum. The book has also one large and two
smaller capitals printed in two colours, and the first of these has been
reproduced as a frontispiece to this chapter, together with a piece of
the neat small type which, by demonstrating the possibility of cheap
printing, set up a real landmark.
In 1460 Fust and Schoeffer gave another proof of their skill in their
edition of the _Constitutions_ of Pope Clement V with the commentary of
Joannes Andreae. The text of the Constitutions is printed in two columns
in the centre of each page in a type measuring 118 mm. to twenty lines,
with the commentary completely surrounding it in the 91 type used in the
_Duranti_. Headings and colophon are printed in red, and the general
effect is extremely rich and handsome. All the fourteen copies known to
Mr. De Ricci are printed on vellum.
In 1461 printing was put to a new use by the publication of a series of
eight placards (one in two editions) relative to the struggle between
the rival archbishops of Mainz--a papal bull deposing Diether von
Isenburg, the Emperor's confirmation of this, papal briefs as to the
election of Adolf von Nassau, a petition of Diether's to the Pope, and
the manifestos of the two archbishops. All these, and also a bull of the
same year as to a crusade against the Turks, are printed in the neat 91
type, and though we may be struck by the difficulty of reading the long
lines unrelieved by any headings, these publications must have been a
great advertisement for the new art.
In 1462 the archiepiscopal struggle led to Mainz being sacked, but on 14
August there was completed there perhaps the finest of all the early
Bibles, printed throughout in the 118 type, with headings in red and
numerous two-line capitals and chapter-numbers in red and blue, though
spaces were left for others to be supplied by hand. Three different
colophons to this book have been described, and examples of all of these
are in the British Museum. Of the sixty-one extant copies registered by
Mr. De Ricci at least thirty-six are printed on vellum. The Lamoignon
copy bequeathed to the Museum by Mr. Cracherode has good painted
capitals added by hand and is a singularly fine book.
The Bible of 1462 marks the close of the great period of printing at
Mainz. Whether six, seven, or nine years separate it from the Forty-two
Line Bible the time had been splendidly employed. The capacity of the
new art had been demonstrated to the full, and taken as a group these
early Fust and Schoeffer incunabula have never on their own lines been
surpassed. The disaster of the sack of Mainz and perhaps the financial
strain involved in the production of the Bible almost reduced their
press to silence until 1465, and it was during these years that their
workmen are said to have left them and begun carrying the art into other
towns and countries.[24] When the partners resumed active work in 1465
they struck out a new line in their _De Officiis_ and _Paradoxa_ of
Cicero, but attained no special excellence in such small folios and
quartos. Fust died about this time, and Schoeffer, left to himself,
displayed no further originality. The Bible of 1472, save for the
absence of printed capitals, is a close copy of that of 1462. The
Clementine Constitutions of 1460 were reprinted, and similar editions
were issued of the Institutes and Codex of Justinian, Decretals of Pope
Gregory IX, etc. For his miscellaneous books Schoeffer seems rather to
have followed the lead of other printers at Strassburg and Rome than to
have set new fashions himself. In 1483 he printed a Breslau Missal, and
this was followed by two reprints and editions for the use of Cracow,
Meissen, Gnesen, and Mainz itself. He also printed the _Hortus
Sanitatis_ in 1485, and in 1490 the first of several Psalters in the
style of the editions of 1457 and 1459. In 1503 he was succeeded by his
son Johann.
About 1476-80 a few unimportant books were issued at Mainz by an
anonymous printer known as the "Printer of the Darmstadt
Prognostication," from the fact that the first copy of the
Prognostication in question to attract notice was that in the Darmstadt
library. The books of this press attained undeserved notoriety from the
forged dates inserted in many of them about 1800, in order to connect
them with Gutenberg.
The work of three other printers, Johann Neumeister, Erhard Reuwich, and
Jacob Meidenbach is chiefly important in the history of
book-illustration, and will be found mentioned in Chapter VII. The only
other Mainz printer in the fifteenth century was Peter von Friedberg,
who is chiefly notable as having printed a little series of works by
Johannes Trithemius (Tritheim or Trittenheim), the erudite Abbot of
Spanheim.
After about 1472 Mainz was easily surpassed as a centre of printing by
Strassburg, Cologne, Augsburg, and Nuremberg. But if no book had been
printed there after the sack of the city ten years earlier, its fame as
long as civilization lasts would still be imperishable.
FOOTNOTES:
[18] Her maiden name was Elsa Wyrich, but she lived at the Hof zum
Gutenberg at Mainz, and the name Gutenberg thus came into the family.
[19] It will be noted that this connection with Strassburg offers
just a grain of evidence in favour of the _Donatuses_ having been
printed there rather than at Mainz.
[20] According to the excellent _Catalogue raisonné des premières
impressions de Mayence_ of Mr. Seymour de Ricci, eleven copies on
vellum and thirty on paper can now be located, but some of these have
only one of the two volumes. The vellum copy belonging to Mr. Robert
Hoe sold in 1911 for $50,000.
[21] In the verses by Magister Franciscus in the _Justinian_ of 1468,
subsequently twice reprinted.
[22] In the Cologne Chronicle. See _supra_, p. 34.
[23] Misprinted _spalmorum_.
[24] It seems reasonable to believe that Ulrich Zell, the first
printer at Cologne, who was a clerk of the diocese of Mainz, and
Sweynheym and Pannartz, who introduced printing into Italy, owed
their training to Fust and Schoeffer.
CHAPTER V
OTHER INCUNABULA
In August, 1462, the struggle between its rival Archbishops led to Mainz
being sacked. Very little more printing was done there until 1465, and
we need not doubt the tradition that journeymen trained by Gutenberg and
Fust and Schoeffer, finding no work for them at Mainz, carried such
experience as they had gained to other towns and countries, where they
appear, after a few years spent in manufacturing presses and types, in
all the glory of "prototypographers."
But even before 1462 two other cities possessed the art--Bamberg and
Strassburg. At Bamberg it was practised possibly by Gutenberg, who may
have printed there the Thirty-six Line Bible about 1457, certainly by
Albrecht Pfister, who is found in possession of the type of this Bible,
and may himself have had copies for sale. The books he himself printed
at Bamberg are nine in number,[25] and three or four bound volumes seem
to have preserved all the remnants of them that we possess, and all of
these have found their way to public libraries.
The large and stately folios produced by the early Strassburg printers
have naturally resisted the ravages of time better than the Bamberg
popular books. Certainly clumsier than the contemporary Mainz books,
they yet have a dignity and character of their own which command
respect. The first Strassburg printer, Johann Mentelin, was at work
there in or before 1460, and was helped during his life and succeeded
after his death (1477) by his son-in-law, Adolf Rusch, who never put his
name to a book, and most of whose impressions pass under the name of
"the R-printer," from the peculiar form of that letter found in one of
his types. Mentelin himself did not place his name at the end of a book
till he had been at work more than a dozen years; Heinrich Eggestein,
who began work about 1464, was equally reticent, and throughout the
'seventies and 'eighties a large proportion of the books printed at
Strassburg were anonymous. Heinrich Knoblochtzer, who started about
1476, combines some of the charm of the earlier printers with greater
literary interest and the attraction of illustrations and ornamental
capitals and borders. Of him we shall have to speak in a later chapter.
But after 1485 the bulk of Strassburg printing was dull and commercial.
In the fifteenth century Basel was not yet, as it became in 1501, a
member of the Swiss Confederacy, and typographically its relations with
Mainz, Strassburg, Nuremberg and other German towns were very close. In
what year printing began there is not known. There is no dated book from
a Basel press until as late as 1474, but the date of purchase, 1468, in
a book (S. Gregory's _Moralia in Job_), printed by Berthold Ruppel, of
Hanau, takes us back six years, and it is possible that Ruppel was at
work even before this. He is identified with reasonable certainty with
one of the servants of Gutenberg mentioned in connection with the
lawsuit ended in 1455, and he printed Latin Bibles and other large works
such as appealed to the ambition of the German prototypographers.
[Illustration: VI. COLOGNE, ULRICH ZELL, 1465-66
CICERO. DE OFFICIIS (7^b)]
The second and more interesting Basel printer, Michael Wenssler, seems
to have taken Schoeffer as his model, and reprinted many of Schoeffer's
editions, following the wording of his colophons and investing them
with the same glories of red ink. Whereas, however, from about 1476
Schoeffer's activity was much less conspicuous, Wenssler for the next
ten years poured out edition after edition of all the heaviest legal and
theological works, until he must have overstocked the market. Then he
devoted himself almost exclusively to liturgical printing, but his
affairs became hopelessly involved, and in 1491 he fled from his
creditors at Basel, and became a wandering printer, finding commissions
at Cluny and Maçon, and then settling for a time at Lyon. Many of the
early printers in Italy made this mistake of flooding the market with a
single class of book, but Wenssler is almost the only notable example in
Germany of this lack of business instinct.
Travelling along the Rhine from Mainz in the opposite direction we come
to Cologne, and here Ulrich Zell, like Berthold Ruppel, a native of
Hanau, but who calls himself in his books a "clerk of the diocese of
Mainz," enrolled his name on the register of the University in June,
1464, doubtless for the sake of the business privileges which the Senate
had it in its power to confer. The first dated book from his press, S.
John Chrysostom, _Super psalmo quinquagesimo_ (Psalm li., according to
our English reckoning), was issued in 1466, but before this appeared he
had almost certainly produced an edition of the _De Officiis_ (see the
frontispiece to this chapter, Plate VI), the most popular of Cicero's
works in Germany, which Fust and Schoeffer had printed in 1465 and
reprinted the next year. Avoiding the great folios on which the early
printers of Mainz, Strassburg, and Basel staked their capital, Zell's
main work was the multiplication of minor theological treatises likely
to be of practical use to priests. Of these he issued countless editions
in small quarto, along with a comparatively few small folios, in which,
however, his skill as a printer is seen to better advantage. He
continued in active work until 1494, gave, as we have seen (Chapter
III.), his version of the origin of printing to the compiler of the
Cologne Chronicle published in 1499, and was still alive as late as
1507.
Zell's earliest rival at Cologne was Arnold ther Hoernen, who printed
from 1470 to 1482. He may very likely have been self-taught, for his
early work is very uneven, but he developed into an excellent craftsman.
He is the first notable example of a printer getting into touch with a
contemporary author, and regularly printing all his works, the author in
this case being Werner Rolewinck, a Carthusian of Cologne, who wrote
sermons and historical works, including the _Fasciculus Temporum_, an
epitome of history, which found much favour all over Europe. Ther
Hoernen used to be credited with the honour of having printed the first
book with a titlepage, the _Sermo ad populum predicabilis In festo
presentacionis Beatissime Marie semper virginis_ of 1470. Schoeffer,
however, had preceded him by some seven years by devoting a separate
page to the title of each of his editions of a Bull of Pius II (see p.
93), and as neither printer continued the practice these isolated
instances must be taken as accidental. In the same book, ther Hoernen
for the first time placed printed numbers on the leaves, but this
improvement also was not followed up. The third Cologne typographer,
Johann Koelhoff the Elder, was the first (in 1472) to place printed
"signatures" on the quires of a book, so as to show the binder the order
in which they were to be arranged. Hitherto the quires had been marked
by hand, and this improvement was not suffered to drop for a time like
the others, but quickly spread all over Europe.
At Augsburg Günther Zainer completed his first book, an edition of the
Latin Meditations on the Life of Christ taken from the works of S.
Bonaventura, on the 13th March, 1468. Though he followed this with three
heavy books which had found favour at Mainz and Strassburg, Zainer had
the wisdom to strike out a line for himself. Augsburg had long been the
chief centre of the craftsmen who cut and printed the woodcuts of
saints, for which there seems to have been a large sale in Germany, and
also the pictures used for playing-cards. The cutters were at first
inclined to regard the idea of book-illustrations with suspicion, as
likely to interfere with their existing business. It was decided,
however, by the local Abbot of SS. Ulrich and Afra, an ecclesiastic with
typographical tastes, that illustrated books might be printed so long as
members of the wood-cutters' guild were employed in making the blocks.
With this as a working agreement, illustrated books greatly prospered at
Augsburg, not only Günther Zainer, but Johann Bämler and Anton Sorg (a
very prolific printer), turning them out with much success throughout
the 'seventies.
At Nuremberg printing was introduced in 1470 by Johan Sensenschmidt, who
for a short time had as his partner Heinrich Kefer, of Mainz, another of
Gutenberg's servants. Much more important, however, was the firm of
Anton Koberger, who began work the next year, and speedily developed the
largest business of any printer in Germany. Koberger was able to deal
successfully in all the heavy books, which after 1480 other firms found
it wiser to leave alone, and seems to have employed Adolf Rusch at
Strassburg and perhaps other printers elsewhere, to print for him. He
also printed towards the end of the century some very notable
illustrated books. Next to Koberger, Friedrich Creussner, who started in
1473, had the largest business in Nuremberg, and Georg Stuchs made
himself a reputation as a missal printer, a special department from
which Koberger held aloof.
At Speier, after two anonymous firms had worked in 1471 and 1472 without
much success, Peter Drach (1477) developed an important business. At Ulm
Johann Zainer, a kinsman of Günther Zainer, of Augsburg, began in 1473
by printing illustrated books, which were subsequently taken up in the
'eighties by Leonhard Holle, Conrad Dinckmut, and Johann Reger, while
Zainer himself became a miscellaneous printer. At Lübeck Lucas Brandis
produced a universal history called the _Rudimentum Nouitiorum_ in 1475
and a fine _Josephus_, important liturgical work being subsequently done
by Bartholomaeus Ghotan, Matthaeus Brandiss and Stephan Arndes, similar
work being also produced at Magdeburg partly by some of these Lübeck
printers. Fine liturgical work was also done at Würzburg by Georg
Reyser, who may previously have printed anonymously at Speier, and who
started his kinsman Michel in a similar business at Eichstätt. At
Leipzig, where Marcus Brandis printed one or two books in 1481, and the
following years, a sudden development took place about 1490, and a flood
of small educational works was poured out by some half a dozen printers,
of whom Conrad Kachelofen and Martin Landsberg were the most prolific.
Presses were also set up in numerous other places, so that by the end of
the century at least fifty German cities, towns and villages had seen a
printer at work. In many of these the art took no root, and in some the
printer was only employed for a short time to print one or more books
for a particular purpose. But the total output of incunabula in Germany
was very large, and leaving out of count the fugitive single sheets, the
scanty remnants of which can bear no relation to the thousands which
must have been produced, out of about 25,000 different books and
editions printed in the fifteenth century registered as extant at the
time of writing probably nearly a third were produced in Germany. If, as
is likely, a large proportion of the eleven thousand undescribed
incunabula (among which, however, there must be many duplicates and
triplicates) reported to have been discovered by the agents of the
German Royal Commission for a General Catalogue of Incunabula are
German, this rough estimate must be largely increased, and it may be
proved that Germany was as prolific as Italy itself.
Considerable as was this output of German printing at home, it was
probably nearly equalled by the work done by German printers in the
other countries of Europe to which they hastened to carry the new art.
Turning first to Italian incunabula we find that the first book printed
in Italy has perished utterly. The cruel little Latin grammar which
passed under the name of _Donatus_ had, as we have seen, been frequently
printed in Holland and by the first Mainz printers, and there are
several later instances of an edition of it being produced as soon as a
press was set up, merely to show the printer's types. This was done by
Conrad Sweynheym and Arnold Pannartz, the two Germans who began printing
at the monastery of Saint Scholastica at Subiaco, some forty miles from
Rome, in 1465, or perhaps in the previous year. Being a school-book, the
_Donatus_ was thumbed to pieces, so that no copy now survives, and it is
only known from the printer's allusion to it as the book "_unde
imprimendi initium sumpsimus_" in a list of their publications drawn up
in 1472. Of the three other books printed by them at Subiaco, Cicero's
_De Oratore_ has no printed date, but a copy described by Signor
Fumagalli bears a manuscript note dated Pridie Kal. Octobres M.cccclxv.,
i.e. 30 September, 1465, the authenticity of which has, however, been
challenged, though probably without good reason. The two others both
bear printed dates, the works of _Lactantius_, that of 29 October, 1465,
and S. Augustine's _De Ciuitate Dei_, 12 June, 1467. Probably even
before this last book was completed the printers were already moving
some of their material to Rome, where they found shelter in the palace
of Pietro de' Massimi, for their edition of the _Epistulae Familiares_
of Cicero was completed there in the same year, probably in or before
November. Even so it is not certain that this was the first book printed
at Rome, for Ulrich Han, a native of Vienna and citizen of Ingolstadt,
whose later work, like that of Michael Wenssler at Basel, shows a
tendency to imitate Schoeffer, completed an edition of the
_Meditationes de vita Christi_ of Cardinal Turrecremata on the last day
of the same year, and Mr. Proctor (after the publication of his _Index_)
assigned to Han's press and to an even earlier date than the
_Meditationes_ a bulky edition of the Epistles of S. Jerome, which must
certainly have taken a year to print.
The career of Sweynheym and Pannartz in partnership at Rome lasted but
little over six years, their latest book bearing the date 31 December,
1473. Already in March, 1472, they were in difficulties, and printed a
letter to Pope Sixtus IV begging for some pecuniary aid. They had
printed, they said, no fewer than 11,475 volumes, and gave a list of the
different books and of the numbers printed of each. Four of these
editions were of 300 copies, the rest of 275, and we can see from the
list that there had been three editions of the _Lactantius_ and _De
Ciuitate Dei_ and two each of Cicero's _Epistulae Familiares_, _De
Oratore_, and _Opera Philosophica_, and also of Virgil, so that clearly
some of their books had shown a profit. But the list is entirely made up
of Latin classics, "profane" and theological, and by March, 1472,
printing had been introduced into at least ten other Italian cities
(Venice, Foligno, Trevi, Ferrara, Milan, Florence, Treviso, Bologna,
Naples, and Savigliano), and in most, if not all of these, the one idea
of the first printers was to produce as many Latin classics as possible,
as though no other firm in Italy were doing the same thing. Unable to
obtain help from the Pope, Sweynheym and Pannartz dissolved partnership,
the former devoting himself to engraving maps for an edition of
Ptolemy's _Geographia_, which he did not live to see (it was printed by
Arnold Bucking in 1478), while Pannartz resumed business on a somewhat
smaller scale on his own account, and died in 1476.
At Venice, the first printer, Johann of Speier, seems to have had some
foreboding of what might happen, and thoughtfully protected himself
against competition by procuring from the Senate an exclusive privilege
for printing at Venice during the space of five years. This might
seriously have retarded the development of the press at Venice. Johann,
however, after printing two editions of Cicero's _Epistulae ad
familiares_ and Pliny's _Historia naturalis_ in 1469, was carried off by
death while working on his fourth book, S. Augustine's _De Ciuitate
Dei_, in 1470, and his brother Wendelin, or Vindelinus, who took over
the business, had no privilege to protect him from competition.
In 1470, the way thus being left clear, a Frenchman, Nicolas Jenson, set
up the second press in Venice, and by the beauty of his fine Roman type
speedily attained a reputation which has lasted to this day. Another
fine printer, Christopher Valdarfer, produced his first book in the same
year. In 1471 three other firms (an Italian priest, Clemente of Padua,
and two Germans, Adam of Ammergau and Franz Renner of Heilbronn) began
publishing, and in 1472 yet seven more (three Germans and four
Italians). But the pace was impossible, and by this time men were
rapidly falling out. As we have seen, Sweynheym and Pannartz, after
their ineffectual attempt to obtain a subsidy from the Pope, dissolved
their partnership at Rome after 1473, and Ulrich Han in 1471 had taken a
moneyed partner, with whose aid he weathered the storm. At Venice
Wendelin, after producing thirty-one books in the previous two years,
reduced his output to six in 1473, and soon after seems to have ceased
to work for himself. Jenson's numbers sank from twenty-eight in 1471-2
to six in 1473-4. Valdarfer gave up after 1471, and is subsequently
found at Milan. Other Venetian printers also dropped out, and only two
new firms began work in 1473.
At Florence after the first printer Bernardo Cennini and his sons had
produced a Virgil in 1471, and Johann Petri of Mainz Boccaccio's
_Philocolo_ and Petrarch's _Trionfi_ in 1472, printing ceased for some
years. Presses started at Foligno, Trevi, and Savigliano came to a
speedy end. At Treviso, where Gerardus Lisa had published four books in
1471, there was, according to Mr. Proctor, a gap from December in that
year till the same month in 1474, though Dr. Copinger quotes one book
each for the intervening years. Only one book was published at Ferrara
in 1473. What happened at Naples is hard to say, since Sixtus
Riessinger, the first printer there, issued many books without dates. At
Bologna trade seems to have been stationary. At Milan, where both
Antonius Larotus in 1471 and Philippus de Lavagna in 1472 had begun with
extreme caution, there was healthy progress, and these two firms
continued issuing editions of the classics, and with the great falling
off of competition may have found it profitable to do so. But of the
reality of the crisis in the Italian book trade in 1472-3, although
little is said of it in histories of printing, there can be no doubt.
When it was over there were symptoms of a similar over-production of
some of the great legal commentaries. But this danger was avoided. There
was a steady increase in the range of the literature published, and the
bourgeois book-buyer was remembered as well as the aristocratic student.
Soon there came a great extension, not only of the home but of the
foreign market, and Italy settled down to supply the world with books, a
task for which Venice, both from its geographical position and its
well-established commercial relations, was peculiarly fitted. But it is
the books printed before 1474 that form the real Italian incunabula. In
the subsequent work within the limits of the fifteenth century Rome took
no very important part. Ulrich Han continued to print till 1478. Joannes
Philippi de Lignamine, Papal Physician and native of Sicily, produced
some exceptionally interesting books between 1470 and 1476, and again in
1481-4, and Georg Lauer, who worked from 1470 to 1481, and completed an
edition of S. Jerome's Letters, left unfinished by Pannartz at the time
of his death, showed himself a good craftsman. The later printers,
especially Stephan Plannck and Eucharius Silber, had some good types,
but produced few notable books, the bulk of the Roman output after 1480
being editions in small quarto of official documents and speeches at the
Papal Court.
To devise any summary description of fifteenth century printing at
Venice is wellnigh impossible. Some 150 firms were at work there; at a
low estimate some four thousand extant books and editions must be
credited to them, and these embraced almost every kind of literature for
which readers could be found in the fifteenth century, and many
varieties of craftsmanship. From a decorative point of view, the firm of
Erhard Ratdolt did exceptionally good work, and it is also remarkable
for specializing mainly on astronomy, mathematics, and history.
Liturgical printing began somewhat late (there seems to have been a
prejudice against printed service books in Italy, and I can remember
none printed at Rome); in the fifteenth century Johann Hammann or Herzog
and Johann Emerich were its chief exponents. Franz Renner produced
chiefly Latin theology, a department much less predominant at Venice
than in Germany. Several firms, e.g. Jacques Le Rouge, Baptista de
Tortis, Andreas Torresanus (father-in-law of Aldus and a very fine
printer), and Georgius Arrivabene devoted themselves like Jenson first
mainly to Latin classics and then to law; others, such as Filippo di
Pietro mingled Latin and Italian classics. Filippo's kinsman, Gabriele
di Pietro, was one of the earliest vernacular printers. Many firms, such
as that of Bonetus Locatellus, who seems to have had a University
connection, and printed all kinds of learned Latin books, despised the
vernacular altogether. The brothers Giovanni and Gregorio dei Gregorii
were perhaps the most prolific and miscellaneous printers in both Latin
and Italian. Johannes Tacuinus, a learned printer towards the end of the
century, is notable for adorning his books with pictorial capitals,
mostly of boys at play. Aldus Manutius will be spoken of in a later
chapter.
While all this activity was displayed at Venice other cities were not
idle. At Milan upwards of eight hundred incunabula were produced,
mostly by its earliest printer, Antonius Zarotus, and two Germans,
Leonhard Pachel and Ulrich Scinzenzeler. Ferrara seems to have been able
to support only one press at a time, and at Florence it was some years
before printing flourished, but in the last quarter of the century many
interesting books were printed there, both learned and vernacular, as to
the illustrations in which much will have to be said later on. Some of
the early Treviso books from the press of Gerard Lisa are distinctly
pretty. Bologna produced about three hundred incunabula. Naples probably
not so many, but of much better quality. Altogether well over ten
thousand Italian incunabula must still be extant, and these were
produced at no fewer than seventy different places, though many of these
were of no typographical importance, and only find their way into
histories of printing from having sheltered a wandering printer for a
few weeks as he was on his way from one large town to another.
In France also the earliest books were addressed to students of the
classics, though they were produced on a much more limited scale. There
the first printers, three Germans, had been invited to set up their
presses at Paris in the Sorbonne by two of its professors, Guillaume
Fichet and Jean Heynlin, of Stein, better known in his own day as
Johannes de Lapide. Between the summer of 1470 and the autumn of 1472
eighteen works were printed at the Sorbonne, mostly of the kind which
would be of use to its students. Among them was Sallust, three works of
Cicero, Virgil's Bucolics and Georgics, the Satires of Juvenal and
Persius, Terence, some text books, the _Speculum Humanae Vitae_ of
Bishop Roderic of Zamora, and the Orations of Fichet's patron, Cardinal
Bessarion. In August, 1472, the Cardinal arrived in France on a
fruitless mission to rouse the king to a crusade against the Turks. He
was rebuffed and ordered to leave France. Fichet accompanied him, and
never returned to Paris. As early as the previous March Heynlin seems to
have been called away, and now the imported German printers, Michael
Freiburger, Ulrich Gering, and Martin Crantz, were left wholly to their
own devices. Thus abandoned they printed four books of a less special
character, for which they sought princely instead of scholarly
patronage, and then in April, 1473, moved from the Sorbonne and set up
for themselves at the sign of the Soleil d'Or in the Rue S. Jacques.
Here they printed still in Latin, but a much more popular class of
books, and soon had to contend with two rival firms, that of Pieter de
Keysere and Johann Stol, and the printers at the sign of the "Soufflet
Vert" or Green Bellows. The finest of the subsequent printers was Jean
Dupré, who used excellent capitals and issued many illustrated books,
but three prolific printers, Antoine Caillaut, Gui Marchand, and Pierre
Levet, along with many dull books issued some very interesting ones.
Towards the end of the century an enterprising publisher, Antoine
Vérard, kept many of the Paris printers busy, and Paris became noted
typographically for its fine illustrated editions of the Hours of the
Blessed Virgin, issued by Vérard, Dupré, Pigouchet (and his publisher,
Simon Vostre), and Thielman Kerver. But these with the publications of
Vérard belong to another chapter.
At Lyon printing was introduced by the enterprise of one of its
citizens, Barthélemi Buyer, who engaged Guillaume Leroy (a native of
Liège) to print for him, and subsequently employed other printers as
well. The first Lyon book was a little volume of popular religious
treatises, containing among other things the _De miseria humanae
conditionis_ of Pope Innocent III. It was completed 17 September, 1473.
Until nearly 1490 the books printed at Lyon were mainly popular in
character with a considerable proportion of French books, many of them
illustrated. From 1490 onwards learned Latin books occur more
frequently, and printing rapidly became as general or miscellaneous as
at Paris itself, although only a single attempt was made,
unsuccessfully, to rival the Paris _Horae_. The two cities between them
probably produced more than three-fourths of the three thousand
incunabula, which at a rough guess may be attributed to French presses,
the share of Paris being about twice as great as that of Lyon. According
to the stereotyped phrase, printing was introduced into no fewer than
thirty-seven other French towns during the fifteenth century, but as a
rule the printers were but birds of passage, and it was only at Poitiers
(1479) and Rouen (1487) that it took root and flourished continuously,
though on but a small scale. In other towns the struggle to maintain a
press continued for several years, as at Toulouse, or was abandoned
after the fulfilment of a single commission.
In Holland the first books which bear the name of their printer and date
and place of imprint are those produced at Utrecht by Nicolaus Ketelaer
and Gerardus Leempt, who began work in 1473. It is tolerably certain,
however, that some of the so-called "Costeriana" (see Chap. II) preceded
this date, and they are at least as likely to have been printed at
Haarlem as at Utrecht, there being no decisive evidence in favour of
either place. No namable printer appears at Haarlem until the end of
1483, when Jacob Bellaert set up a short-lived press there. For some
seven years (1477-84) excellent work was done at Gouda by Gerard Leeu,
who then moved to Antwerp. At Delft, where a fine Bible was printed by
Jacob Jacobszoen and Mauricius Yemantszoen in 1477, printing was kept up
continuously by Jacobszoen, Christian Snellaert, and Hendrik Eckert till
the end of the century, though there seems to have been only work enough
for one firm at a time. At Zwolle, Pieter van Os, who began work in
1479, was able to maintain himself, with a brief interval about 1482,
till past the magic date 1500. Lastly, at Deventer, where Richardus
Pafraet started in the same year, an output was speedily attained
greater than in any other Dutch town, and for the latter years of the
century a rival firm, that of Jacobus de Breda, shared Pafraet's
prosperity. The great majority of the Deventer books, however, belong
to the minor literature of ecclesiasticism and education, and are far
from exciting.
The beginnings of printing are much more interesting in the Southern
Netherlands, which correspond roughly to what we now call Belgium. Here
also the first positive date is 1473, the year in which Johann of
Paderborn in Westphalia, best known to English collectors as John of
Westphalia, printed three books at Alost. A fourth followed in May,
1474, but by the following December John had removed to Louvain, a
University town, where he remained doing excellent and abundant work
till nearly the end of the century. At Louvain he had found another
printer, Jan Veldener, already in the field, and seems to have hustled
him away not very honourably. Veldener, however, was not ruined, but is
subsequently found at Utrecht and Kuilenburg, and again for a short time
at Louvain.
At Bruges the first printers were Colard Mansion and William Caxton,
names well known to English book-lovers, though not all the labours of
Mr. William Blades and Mr. Gordon Duff have made it quite clear which of
the two was the leader. Only two English books were printed, the
_Recuyell of the Histories of Troy_ and _The Game and Play of the
Chess_, when Caxton returned to England and set up his presses in the
Almonry at Westminster. Whether he had any pecuniary interest in the
French _Recueil_ and the _Quatre Dernières Choses_, and whether
printings at Bruges began with the _Recuyell_, or, as Mr. Proctor
contended, with the French Boccaccio _De la ruine des nobles hommes et
femmes_ of 1476, are points of controversy. From 1477 till his flight
from Bruges to avoid arrest for debt in 1484, Mansion worked steadily by
himself, and the total output of his press amounts to twenty-five French
works and two in Latin.
At Brussels the Brothers of the Common Life, who worked also as printers
in other places, published numerous popular Latin works between 1476
and 1487, about which time their press seems to have stopped. But the
removal of Gerard Leeu's business from Gouda to Antwerp in 1484 soon
gave that town a typographical importance which (except for a few years
at the end of the century) it long maintained.
The true incunabula of the Netherlands are, of course, the "Costeriana."
Whatever view we may take of their date and birthplace, they were
undoubtedly home products, with a strongly marked individuality.
Ketelaer and Leempt, however, at Utrecht, Veldener at Louvain and
elsewhere, Caxton and Mansion at Bruges, were real pioneers. In a sense
this is true also of John of Westphalia and Gerard Leeu, notably of the
former, who had learnt his art in Italy and by the type which he had
brought thence raised the standard of printing in his new home. It is,
indeed, almost exclusively at Deventer that we get the dull commercial
work which has nothing primitive or individual about it, and thus,
perhaps because their grand total is so much smaller than in the case of
Germany, Italy, or even France, the special interest of incunabula
attaches to rather a high proportion of the early books of the
Netherlands.
If this be true of the Netherlands, it is even truer of the two
countries with which we have still to deal in this rapid survey, Spain
and England. Of Spanish incunabula about seven hundred are now
registered; of English, three hundred is a fairly liberal estimate of
the grand total still extant. Within the limits of the fifteenth century
neither country reached the purely mechanical stage of book production
to which so many German and Italian books belong after about 1485. In
England, indeed, this stage was hardly reached until the general
downfall of good printing towards the end of the sixteenth century.
The first book printed in Spain was a thin volume of poems in honour of
the Blessed Virgin, written by Bernardo Fenollar and others on the
occasion of a congress held at Valentia in March, 1474. It offers no
information itself on any bibliographical point, but it was presumably
printed not long after the congress, at Valentia where the congress was
held, and by Lambertus Palmart (or Palmaert), who on 18 August, 1477,
completed there the third part of the _Summa_ of S. Thomas Aquinas and
duly described it as "impressa Valentie per magistrum Lambertum Palmart
Alemanum, anno M.CCCC.LXXVII, die vero xviii. mensis Augusti." Palmart
is supposed to have been a Fleming (a nationality to which the
description _Alemannus_ is often applied), but nothing is known of him.
He printed a work called _Comprehensorium_ and the _Bellum Jugurthinum_
of Sallust in February and July, 1475, without putting his name to them,
and these with the Fenollar and other anonymous books now attributed to
him are in roman type. In 1478 he completed a Catalan Bible in
conjunction with a native Spaniard, Alonzo Fernandez de Cordoba, and
thereafter worked by himself until 1490, using gothic types in these
later books. Seven other firms worked at Valentia during the fifteenth
century, but none of these attained much importance.
Another Fleming, of the name of Matthew or Matthaeus, printed the
_Manipulus Curatorum_ of Guido de Monte Rotherii at Saragossa in
October, 1475, and five other presses were established there before
1500, that of Paul Hurus being the most prolific. At Tortosa a single
book (the _Rudimenta Grammaticae_ of Perottus) was printed by Nicolaus
Spindeler and Pedro Brun early in 1477, and in August of the same year
Antonio Martinez, Alonso del Puerto, and Bartolome Segura completed the
first fully dated book (the _Sacramental_ of Sanchez de Vercial) at
Seville, where printing subsequently throve as much as anywhere in
Spain. The following year Spindeler and Brun, having moved from Tortosa,
introduced printing into Barcelona, a date MCCCCLXVIII in a treatise by
Bartholomaeus Mates, _Pro condendis orationibus_, being obviously a
misprint, though to what it should be corrected cannot positively be
shown.[26]
At Salamanca printing was introduced as early as 1481, and continued
more actively after 1492, mainly for the production of educational
works. At Burgos Friedrich Biel, who had been trained under Michael
Wenssler at Basel, began printing in 1485, and a native of the place,
Juan de Burgos, brought out his first book in 1490, both of these firms
doing excellent work. Altogether, twenty-four towns and places in Spain
possessed presses during the fifteenth century, but in many cases only
for a short time.
The outline of the story of printing in England during the fifteenth
century may be very quickly sketched, fuller treatment being reserved
for a later chapter. At Michaelmas, 1476, Caxton rented premises in the
Almonry from the Abbot of Westminster, and here he stayed till his death
in 1491, printing, as far as we know, about a hundred books and
documents. In 1478 a press was set up at Oxford, presumably by Theodoric
Rood of Cologne, whose name, however, does not appear in any book until
1481. By 1485 Rood had been joined by an English stationer, Thomas
Hunte, but in 1486 or the following year the press was closed after
printing, as far as we know, only seventeen books.
The few books printed at Oxford were all more or less scholastic in
character, and six out of eight works printed by Caxton's second rival
(apparently a friendly one), the Schoolmaster-Printer at St. Albans,
belonged to the same class, his two more popular books being Caxton's
_Chronicles of England,_ with a new appendix, and the famous _Book of
St. Albans_. Of these eight works, the earliest bearing a date was
issued in 1480, the latest in 1486.
A more formidable competitor to Caxton than either the Oxford or the St.
Albans printer began work in the City of London in 1480. This was John
Lettou, i.e. John the Lithuanian, who, as Mr. Gordon Duff notes, used
type identical save in a single letter with a fount used at Rome in 1478
by Johann Bulle of Bremen. Lettou appears to have been financed in the
first instance by a Londoner, William Wilcock. In 1482 he was joined by
William Machlinia (presumably a native of Malines), and after five law
books had been printed in partnership, Lettou dropped out, and Machlinia
continued working by himself, possibly until as late as 1490 or 1491,
when his stock seems to have been taken over by Richard Pynson, a
Norman, from Rouen. On Caxton's death in 1491 his business passed into
the hands of his foreman, Wynkyn de Worde, a native of Lorraine. The
only other press started in the fifteenth century was that of Julyan
Notary, who worked at first with two partners, I.B. and I.H. Of these
I.B. was certainly Jean Barbier, and I.H. probably Jean Huvin of Rouen.
We have no information as to the nationality of Notary, but if, as seems
probable, he was a Frenchman, printing in England for some twenty years
after Caxton's death was wholly in the hands of foreigners.
* * * * *
Meagre and bare of details as is this sketch of the beginnings of
printing in the chief countries of Europe, it should yet suffice to
prove that the purely arbitrary date 1500 and the slang word
_incunabula_, used to invest all fifteenth century impressions with a
mystic value, are misleading nuisances. By the time that printing
reached England it was beginning to pass into its commercial stage in
Germany and Italy. In both of these countries, and in a less degree in
France, scores and hundreds of books were printed during the last
fifteen years of the century which have little more connection with the
invention of printing, or the story of its diffusion, than English or
Spanish books a century later. From the point of view of the history of
literature and thought there is much to be gained from the collection in
large libraries of all books printed before 1501. From the point of view
of the history of printing every decade of book-production has its
interest, and the decade 1490 to 1500 among the rest. Incidentally it
may be noted that in respect of book-illustration this particular decade
in Italy is one of exceptional interest. But books of the third
generation of German or Italian printers, men like Flach, for instance,
at Strassburg, or Plannck at Rome, should not be collected under the
idea that they are in any true sense of the word incunabula.
What constitutes a true incunable cannot be defined in a sentence. We
must consider the country or city as well as the book, the individual
man as well as the art of which he was perhaps a belated exponent. The
same piece of printing may have much more value and interest if we can
prove that it was produced in one place rather than another. After the
publication of his _Index_, Mr. Proctor satisfied himself that some
anonymous books in roman type which he had classed as the work of an
unidentified press at Naples were really among the earliest specimens of
Palmart's typography in Spain, and one does not need to be a Spaniard to
appreciate the distinction thus added to them. If sentiment is to count
for anything we must admit the interest of the first books printed in
any country which possesses an important history and literature--if only
because we may legitimately be curious to know on what books a printer,
with all the extant literature to choose from, ventured his capital as
likely in that particular country and time to bring him the quickest and
most profitable return. That the first large book in Germany was a
Bible, the first books in Italy Latin classics, the first produced for
the English market one that we must call an historical romance, cannot
be regarded as merely insignificant. Nor are the differences in the
types and appearance of the page unimportant, for these also help to
illustrate national characteristics.
If this is true of the early books printed in any country, it is also
true in only slightly less degree of those which first appeared in any
great city which afterwards became a centre of printing. Strassburg,
Cologne, and Nuremberg, Rome, Venice, and Florence, Paris and Lyon,
Antwerp and London (if we may be permitted for once to ignore the
separate existence of Westminster), each has its own individuality, and
in each case it is interesting to see with what wares, and in what form,
the first printers endeavoured to open its purse-strings. But when we
come to towns and townlets some distinction seems needed. I may be
misled by secret sympathy with that often scholarly, too often
impecunious figure, the local antiquary. To him the first book printed
in his native townlet, though by a printer merely stopping on his way
between one great city and another, must needs be of interest, and it is
hard that its price should be forced beyond his reach by the competition
between dealers keen to do business with a rich collector to whom the
book will have none of the fragrance it would possess for him.
Typographical itinerancy, this printing by the roadside, as we may
almost call it, must needs be illustrated in great collections, like any
other habit of the early printers. But the ordinary private collector
can surely dispense with buying books because they have been printed in
places which have no associations for him, of which perhaps he has never
heard.
As for the individual man, if we would keep any oases green in what may
easily become a sandy desert, we must surely treasure every trace of his
personality. One large element in the charm of incunabula is the human
interest of difficulties overcome, and wherever a craftsman began work
by cutting a distinctive type to suit the calligraphic fashion of the
neighbourhood, at whatever date he started, his books will still have
some interest. When he becomes articulate and tells us of his
difficulties, or boasts of how they have been overcome, we may value his
work still higher. As the first book printed at Florence, the Commentary
of Servius on Virgil needs no added attraction, and yet how much its
charm is enhanced by its printers' addresses to the reader. Here is the
second of them roughly Englished:
To the Reader. Bernardino Cennini, by universal allowance a most
excellent goldsmith, and Domenico his son, a youth of very good
ability, have been the printers. Pietro, son of the aforesaid
Bernardo, has acted as corrector, and has made a collation with many
very ancient copies. His first anxiety was that nothing by another
hand should be ascribed to Servius, that nothing which very old copies
showed to be the work of Honoratus should be cut down or omitted.
Since it pleases many readers to insert Greek words with their own
hand, and in their own fashion, and these in ancient codices are very
few, and the accents are very difficult to mark in printing he
determined that spaces should be left for the purpose. But since
nothing of man's making is perfect, it must needs be accounted enough
if these books (as we earnestly hope) are found exceptionally correct.
The work was finished at Florence on October 5, 1472.
It is impossible to read a colophon such as this without feeling
ourselves in the very atmosphere of the printing house, with the various
members of the printer's family at work around us. Blank spaces are
found in many early books where Greek quotations occurred in the
manuscripts from which they were printed. But it was not every printer
who took so much trouble as Cennini to justify the omission.
As many as twenty-one years later, when printing in the great towns was
becoming merely mechanical, we find the same personal note in a little
grammar-book printed at Acqui. Here the colophon tells us:
The Doctrinale of Alexander of Villedieu (God be praised!) comes to a
happy end. It has been printed amid enough inconveniences, since of
several things belonging to this art the printer, in making a
beginning with it, could obtain no proper supply, owing to the plague
raging at Genoa, Asti and elsewhere. Now this same work has been
corrected by the prior Venturinus, a distinguished grammarian, and
that so diligently that whereas previously the Doctrinale in many
places seemed by the fault of booksellers too little corrected, now by
the application of his care and diligence it will reach men's hands in
the most correct form possible. After this date books will be printed
in type of another kind, and elegantly, I trow; for both artificers
and a sufficiency of other things of which hitherto the putter forth
has been in need he now possesses by the gift of God, Who disposes all
things according to the judgement of His will.
Late as he appeared and small as was the town at which he produced his
one book--his hopes and promises as to others seem to have come to
naught--this man had the true pioneer spirit, and deserves to be
remembered for it.
Of a different kind, but no less, is the interest in what is perhaps my
own favourite colophon, that recording the death of Gerard Leeu at
Antwerp, while engaged in printing an edition of _The Chronicles of
England_ for the English market.
Here ben endyd the Cronycles of the Reame of Englond, with their
apperteignaunces. Enprentyd in the Duchy of Braband in the towne of
Andewarpe In the yere of our Lord M.cccc.xciij. By maistir Gerard de
leew a man of grete wysedom in all maner of kunnyng: whych nowe is
come from lyfe unto the deth, which is grete harme for many [a] poure
man. On whos sowle God almyghty for hys hygh grace haue mercy. Amen.
Leeu had been killed accidentally by one of his workmen in the course of
a dispute, and this testimonial to him in the colophon, which reads as
if the compositor had slipped it in of his own accord, is very gracious
and touching in its simplicity.
Just as the possession of a personal colophon brings a book within a
circle of interest to which it otherwise would not have approached, so
we may justly value a piece of printing all the more if it chances,
through any accident, to throw light on the printer's methods. I have
felt a peculiar affection for an edition of Valerius Maximus, printed by
Schoeffer in 1471, ever since I discovered that a change in the form of
the punctuation at certain points of the book makes it possible to work
out the number of presses on which it was being printed, the order in
which the sheets were being set up, and how quickly the type of the
worked pages was distributed. The slowness of the presswork in the
simple form of press at first used obliged the printers to keep several
presses, sometimes as many as six, occupied with different sections of
the same book, and the trouble they were given to make the end of one
section join neatly to the beginning of the next has left many traces.
Any book which thus lets us into the secrets of the early printing
offices possesses in a very high degree the charm which should attach to
an incunable, if that hardly used word is to retain, as it should, any
reference to the infancy of printing. But more will be said as to this
aspect of early books in our next chapter.
FOOTNOTES:
[25] Two editions of Boner's _Edelstein_, both illustrated with over
a hundred woodcuts, one dated 14th February, 1461 (copy at
Wolfenbüttel), the other undated (Royal Library, Berlin); _Die
Historij von Joseph, Danielis, Judith, Hester,_ dated in rhyming
verse 1462 "nat lang nach Sand Walpurgentag" (Rylands Library and
Bibliothèque Nationale); the _Belial seu Consolatio peccatorum_ of
Jacobus de Theramo (Rylands and Germanisches Museum, Nuremberg); two
issues of a German _Biblia Pauperum_ with thirty-four woodcuts (both
at the Bibliothèque Nationale, the first also at Rylands and
Wolfenbüttel); the same work in Latin (Rylands); lastly two editions
of a poem called _Rechtstreit des Menschen mit dem Tode_ (both at
Wolfenbüttel, the second also at the Bibliothèque Nationale).
[26] In its colophon the book is said to have been "a docto viro
Bertolommeo Mates conditus et per P. Johannem Matoses Christi
ministrum presbiterumque castigatus et emendatus sub impensis
Guillermi ros et mira arte impressa per Johannem Gherlinc alamanum."
Gherlinc is only heard of again in 1494, and then not at Barcelona.
CHAPTER VI
THE DEVELOPMENT OF PRINTING
One great cause of changes of fashion in book-collecting is that after
any particular class of book has been hotly competed for by one
generation of book-lovers, all the best prizes gradually get locked up
in great public or private collections, and come so seldom into the
market that new collectors prefer to take up some other department
rather than one in which it is impossible for them to attain any
striking success. The first-fruits of printing, if reckoned strictly
chronologically, are probably as nearly exhausted as any class of book
which can be named. No matter how rich a man may be, the chances of his
ever obtaining a copy of the Thirty-six Line Bible, the 1457 Psalter, or
the first book printed at Venice, are infinitesimally small. Other
incunabula, if not hopelessly out of reach even of the very rich, are
only likely to be acquired after many years of waiting and a heavy
expenditure when the moment of possible acquisition arrives. Many of the
books hitherto here mentioned belong to this class. And yet, from what
may be called the logical as opposed to the chronological standpoint,
incunabula little, if at all, less interesting are still to be obtained
at quite small prices by any one who knows for what to look. Any
collector who sets himself to illustrate the evolution of the printed
book from its manuscript predecessors, and the ways of the early
printers, will find that he has undertaken no impossible task, though
one which will need considerable pursuit and good taste and judgment in
the selection of appropriate specimens.
[Illustration: VII. VENICE, JENSON, 1470
CICERO. RHETORICA (41^a)]
Roughly speaking, it took about a century for printed books to shake
off the influence of manuscript and establish their own traditions. The
earliest books had no titlepage, no head-title, no running title, no
pagination, and no printed chapter-headings, also no printed initials or
illustrations, blank spaces being left often for the one and
occasionally for the other to be supplied by hand. At the time when
printing was invented the book trade in many large cities had attained a
high degree of organization, so that the work of the calligrapher or
scribe was clearly distinguished from that of the luminer or
illuminator, and even from that of the rubricator (rubrisher). Take, for
instance, this Bury St. Edmunds bill of 1467 for a Psalter, preserved
among the Paston Letters:
For viij hole vynets, prise the vynet xij^d viij^s
Item for xxj demi-vynets ... prise the demi-vynett
iiij^d vij^s
Item for Psalmes letters xv^c and di' ... the prise of
C. iiij^d vj^s ij^d
Item for p'ms letters lxiij^c ... prise of c. j^d v^s iij^d
Item for wrytynge of a quare and demi ... prise the quayr
xx^d ij^s vj^d
Item for wrytenge of a calender xij^d
Item for iij quayres of velym, prise the quayr xx^d v^s
Item for notynge of v quayres and ij leves, prise of the
quayr viij^d iii^s vij^d
Item for capital drawynge iij^c and di', the prise iij^d
Item for floryshynge of capytallis, v^c v^d
Item for byndynge of the boke xij^s
------------
li^s ij^d
------------
It is possible that the work in this case was all done by one man,
though it is equally possible that several were engaged on it, under the
direction of a master-scrivener, but in either case the fact that
vignettes and demi-vignettes, psalter letters (i.e. the small red
letters at the beginning of each verse of a psalm, sometimes called
versals), the mysterious "p'ms letters" (possibly the dabs of colour
bestowed on small initials), the writing of the text, the writing of
the calendar, the musical notation, and the drawing and flourishing the
capitals, were all charged separately, at so much a piece or so much a
hundred, shows how distinct each operation was kept. Partly, no doubt,
from policy, so as not to rouse the wrath of more than one industry at a
time, partly to save themselves trouble and expense, the earliest
printers, with few exceptions, set themselves to supplant only the
calligrapher, and sold their books with all the blanks and spaces, which
the most modest or perfunctory scribe could have left to be filled by
his kindred craftsmen.
No better starting-point for a typographical collection could be desired
than fine copies of two well-printed books in which the printer has
confined himself severely to reproducing the text, leaving all headings,
capitals, and ornaments to be supplied by hand. In one (as in the page
from a book of Jenson's, which forms the illustration to this chapter,
Plate VII) the blanks should remain blanks (as more especially in early
books printed in Italy they often did remain), in the other they should
have been filled in with red ink or colours by a rubricator. The owner
of two such volumes is really as much at the fountain-head as the
possessor of the Mainz Indulgences of 1454, or any still earlier
document that may yet be found.[27] This is the logical beginning, and
the logic of history is quite as interesting as the chronology.
From the starting-point of the book of which the printer printed nothing
but the text the collector can advance in many different directions.
There was no regular and unbroken progress in the development of the
modern form of book, nor does it matter greatly that the examples of any
particular improvement should be either absolutely or nearly the
earliest. The main thing is that they should be good illustrations of
the special feature for which they are acquired. The problem how to
dispense with the aid of a rubricator had to be faced by countless
printers in many different towns, for rubricating by hand must have
added very considerably to the cost of a book. The obvious thing to do
was to print in red all the headings, chapter-numbers, etc., which the
rubricator used to add in that colour. But this was both expensive and
troublesome, as it involved two printings and the placing of the paper
in exactly the same position in the press in each. Caxton and one or two
other early printers tried to avoid this double printing and difficulty
of registration by putting on both red and black ink at the same
time--very probably, where they came close together, they were rubbed on
with a finger--but this so often resulted in smudges and lines half of
one colour, half of another, that it was soon abandoned. Double printing
was mostly soon abandoned also, except by the most expert men. It was
tried and abandoned by the printer of the Forty-two Line Bible, though
subsequently Fust and Schoeffer completely mastered it. Between 1472 and
1474 it was tried and abandoned by almost every printer in Strassburg.
The difficulty was generally[28] overcome by substituting, for red ink
used with type of the same size or face as the text, type of a larger
size or heavier face, which could be printed in black ink with the text
and yet stand out sufficiently clearly from it to catch the eye.
The need for this differentiation accelerated the tendency to reduce the
size of types, which was doubtless in the first place dictated by a
desire for economy. The earlier German text-types for ordinary books
very commonly measure about 6 mm. a line. To enable small differences to
be shown they are quoted in the British Museum Catalogue of Incunabula
by the measurements of twenty lines, and many of the early Mainz and
Strassburg types range closely round the number 120. These large
text-types are often the only ones used in a book, notes or other
accompaniments of the text being clumsily indicated by brackets or
spaces. The better printers, however, gradually imitated Fust and
Schoeffer, and along with their 120 text-types used smaller commentary
types measuring about 4 to 4½ mm. a line, or from 80 to 90 mm. for
twenty lines. In the great folio commentaries on the Canon and Civil Law
a very fine effect is produced by two short columns of text in large
type being placed two-thirds way up the page and then completely
surrounded by the commentary in smaller type, also in double columns.
But the economy of using the smaller type for the text of books without
commentary was quickly perceived, and along with 4 to 4½ mm. small
text-types, heavy and often rather fantastic types of just twice this
size (8 to 9 mm. a line, 160 to 180 mm. to twenty lines) came into use
for headings, and the opening words of books and chapters. The same
course was followed with respect to headlines, when it was desired to
add these to a book without the aid of a scribe. Eggestein printed one
book with headlines in red, but the same heavy type which was used for
chapter headings was soon used for headlines, and also, with very ugly
effect, for numbering the leaves.
In considering what specimens of printing to collect Englishmen who have
been accustomed for more than two centuries to nothing but roman types
may well be bewildered, as they look through any volume of facsimiles,
by the extraordinary variety of the founts. The main reasons for this
variety may be sought (1) in the dependence of the first printers on the
styles of writing which they found in vogue at the time, and in the
countries and towns where they made their ventures; and (2) in the
different styles considered appropriate to different classes of
books--Latin and vernacular, liturgical and secular, etc. Even now, when
bookhands can hardly be said to exist, the varieties of handwriting are
endless, and there are strongly marked differences between those of one
country and another. In the fifteenth century, when there was less
intercommunication between distant countries, the differences were even
greater. As to this, however, it is possible to make some distinctions.
The unifying effect of the Church is seen in the smaller range of
variations in the books for liturgical use, and the fellowship of
scholars exercised at least some influence in the same direction. In
Italy, the home of ancient learning, the aristocratic bookhand was the
fine round minuscules which had been evolved, by a conscious antiquarian
revival, from the bookhand of the twelfth century, itself a revival of
the Carlovingian bookhand of the eighth and ninth. Sweynheym and
Pannartz, being Germans, failed in the first instance to realize the
hopelessness of seeking scholarly favour with any other kind of
character, and their Subiaco books are printed in a light and pleasing
gothic much admired by William Morris, and used by Mr. St. John Hornby
for his splendid Ashendene Dante. When they started afresh at Rome in
1467 they gave up their gothic fount and used instead a fine roman
character noticeable for its use of the long _[s]_ at the end of words,
a peculiarity often found in Italian manuscripts of this period. The
early printers at Venice made no false start, but all used roman
characters from the outset, Venetian gothic type making its first
appearance in 1472. That gothic type was used at all in Italy was due
partly to the difficulty found in cutting very small roman type, so that
gothic was used for economy, partly to the advantages of the heavy
gothic face when a contrast was needed between text and commentary.
In Germany roman types were tried by Adolf Rusch (the R-printer) at
Strassburg about 1464, and by both Günther Zainer at Augsburg and Johann
Zainer at Ulm, but met with no favour until in the last years of the
century they were reintroduced for the books written or edited by
Brant, Locher, Wimpheling, Peter Schott, and the other harbingers of the
new learning. In the Netherlands John of Westphalia started with a round
but rather thin roman type brought from Italy. In France the scholarly
ideals of the patrons of the first Paris press were reflected in the use
for the books printed at the Sorbonne of a beautiful roman type, only
injured by the excessive prominence of the serifs. In Spain also the
first books, those printed at Valentia by Lambert Palmart, were in
roman; but in both countries gothic types long commanded the favour of
the general reader, while in England their supremacy was unchallenged
for a third of a century, no book entirely in roman type appearing until
1508.
As regards the æsthetic value of the different roman types in use during
the fifteenth century, the superiority of the Italian is so marked that,
with the exception of the first French type, the rest, from this point
of view, may be neglected. Almost all the roman types used in Italy
until late in the 'seventies are either beautiful or at least
interesting, and it is remarkable that some of the most beautiful are
found in small places like Cagli, Mondovi, Viterbo, and Aquila, or in
the hands of obscure printers, such as the self-taught priest Clemente
of Padua, who worked at Venice in 1471. The pre-eminence of Jenson's
fount is indisputable, though he often did it injustice by his poor
presswork. But those used by John and Wendelin of Speier, and at a later
date by Antonio Miscomini, were also good, as also were several of the
founts used at Rome and Milan. At Naples and Bologna, on the other hand,
some quite early roman founts are curiously hard and heavy.
After about 1480 roman types in Italy enter on a second stage. They no
longer have the appearance of being founded directly on handwriting.
Doubtless the typecutters were so used to their work that they no longer
needed models, but designed new types according to their own ideas.
Naturally the letters are more uniform and regular than in the earlier
founts, but naturally also they have less charm, and the ordinary
close-set Venetian type of the end of the century is singularly dull.
Even the large roman type used by Aldus to print the _Hypnerotomachia
Poliphili_ is no real exception, as the letters are narrow for their
height. A far finer fount is the large text type used by the Silbers at
Rome, on both sides of 1500. This is well proportioned and beautifully
round, and it is surprising that it has not yet been imitated by any
modern typecutter.
When we pass from roman to gothic types there is a bewildering field
from which to choose. Here again dull commercialism gained the upper
hand about 1480, and towards the end of the century an ugly upright
text-type of 80 mm. to twenty lines, with a fantastic headline type of
twice its size, or a little more, found its way all over Germany. But
types with a twenty-line measurement ranging round 120 mm., such as
those of Peter Schoeffer or the Printer of Henricus Ariminensis, are
often extraordinarily handsome. Both of Schoeffer's earlier small types
and the small type of Ulrich Zell at Cologne are engagingly neat, and at
the opposite end there is the magnificently round gothic used by Ulrich
Han at Rome.
Most of the finest gothic types were used for Latin books of law and
theology, the peculiar appropriateness of roman type being considered to
be confined to works appealing to classical scholars. In Germany, for
some time, not much distinction was observed, but there was a tendency
in classical books to use an f and long [s] starting from the level of
the line, whereas in most vernacular books the tails of these letters
came below the line, giving a strangely different appearance to the
type. In the 'nineties a distinctively cursive type called Schwabacher,
usually measuring 93 mm. to twenty lines, makes its appearance all over
Germany. In Italy, both at Naples and by Ulrich Han at Rome, a very
small text type, which is certainly cursive in its affinities, was used
at the very outset, but found no favour. The typical vernacular French
types are also very often on a slope. The small cursive type cut for
Aldus in 1501 by Francesco da Bologna was thus not quite so great a
revolution as is sometimes represented. Its clearness in proportion to
its size, its extreme compactness, and the handiness of the small
octavos with which it was at first specially connected, gained for it a
great success, and it gradually, though only gradually, usurped the name
of italic, the upright Italian bookhand being distinguished from it as
roman. Few treatises on printing or the development of books give any
idea of the immense popularity of italics during the sixteenth century.
About 1570 they seemed to have established themselves as the fashionable
vernacular type both in Italy and France, and even in England whole
books were printed in them. In Switzerland also and Germany they gained
some hold; but gradually the tide turned, the upright bookhand regained
its predominance, and italics now survive chiefly for emphasis and
quotations--in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries they were often
used for proper names--giving to the page on which they occur an
unpleasantly spotty appearance. Their occasional use in prefaces and
dedicatory letters is much more appropriate.
The completion of books at first by a colophon, afterwards by a
titlepage, may be illustrated in the same way as that by which we have
traced the evolution of the text from incompleteness to completeness and
the development of different classes of types. At least one printer,
Johann Mentelin of Strassburg, seems to have considered the addition of
colophons as the proper business of the rubricator. While printed
colophons in his books are exceptionally rare, several copies have come
down to us in which full colophons have been added by hand, e.g. in a
vellum copy of the _Speculum Morale_ in the Bibliothèque Nationale,
after praise of the book, we read:
Impressumque in inclyta vrbe Argentinensium ac nitide terse
emendateque resertum per honorandum dominum Dominum Iohannem Mentelin
artis impressorie magistrum famosissimum. Anno a partu virginis
salutifero millesimo quadringentesimo septuagesimo sexto. die mensis
nouembris sexta.
Despite a few instances of this kind, however, it is certain that the
majority of printers who omitted to print colophons to their books did
so, not in the expectation that they would be supplied by hand, but in
imitation of the manuscript books to which they were accustomed, in
which it is distinctly exceptional to find any mention of the name of
the scribe. But the men who took a pride in their new art, and who
thought that their work was good enough to bring more custom to their
press if their name were associated with it, took the opposite course,
and so colophons from 1457 onwards are common in the best books, and may
perhaps be found in about 40 per cent of the incunables that have come
down to us. By the men who were skilful in using red ink they were often
thus printed, and whether in red or in black, they frequently had
appended to them the printer's mark or device, which gave a very
decorative finish to the book.
Nowadays, when we have been accustomed all our lives to the luxury of
titlepages, it may well seem to us merely perverse to hide the title of
a book, the name of the author, and information as to where, when, and
by whom it was printed in a closely set paragraph at the end of the
book. But if we think for a moment of how the manuscript books to which
the early printers were accustomed had been produced we shall see that
it was the most natural thing in the world. A scribe would take his
quire of paper or vellum, and if he were a high-class scribe, mindful of
the need of keeping his text clean, he would leave his first leaf blank
and begin at the top of his second. But here he would begin to write
straight away, sometimes with the first words of his text, sometimes
with a preliminary paragraph, which may be called the _Incipit_, from
the important word in it. In this paragraph he would give either the
name of his book or, almost as commonly, the name of the first section
of it, introducing the title only incidentally.
Incipit Racionale diuinorum officiorum.
Incipiunt Constitutiones Clementis pape V una cum apparatu Ioannis
Andree.
Marci Tullii Ciceronis Arpinatis consulisque Romani ac oratorum maximi
Ad M. Tullium Ciceronem filium suum Officiorum liber incipit.
Incipit epistola sancti Hieronimi ad Paulinum presbiterum de omnibus
diuine historie libris.
That it did not occur to him to devote his blank page to a displayed
title of the book he was copying was due to the fact that every medieval
manuscript was the direct descendant, through many or few stages, of the
author's own original draft, and that this was the most pretentious way
and least natural in which any author could begin to write a book. So
the scribes imitated the author in his normal beginning, and the early
printers imitated the scribes, and because an author was more inclined
to relieve his feelings at the end of a book than to express them
volubly at the beginning, it was only when books multiplied so greatly
that purchasers wanted to see at a glance what was the name of the book
at which they were looking that titlepages superseded colophons. The
proof of this explanation being the true one is that titlepages become
common just about the time (1480 to 1490) that book-production was
beginning to be divided up between publishers and printers, and that the
publisher very quickly claimed them for his own.
The earliest titlepages, those of the Mainz _Bul zu deutsch des bapst
Pius II_ (1463), Rolewinck's Sermon for the Feast of the Presentation
(Cologne: Arnold ther Hoernen, 1470), the _Flores Sancti Augustini_
(Cologne, 1473), and the _Kalendarium_ of Joannes de Monteregio and its
Italian translation (Venice: Ratdolt and partners, 1476), were all more
or less of the nature of "sports." When titlepages came to stay, a year
or two later than the last of these precursors, they everywhere took
the form of labels, a single sentence containing the short title of the
book, printed sometimes in large, sometimes in small type, but with no
other information. The label title, being usually printed high up on the
page, left two-thirds, or thereabouts, blank beneath it, and this space
was soon filled, sometimes by a pictorial woodcut, sometimes by a mark
or device, which at first might be either that of the printer or
publisher, but gradually came to be much more often the publisher's. The
short title and device taken together filled the page sufficiently for
decorative purposes, but they left room for a further paragraph of type
to be added if desired, and the advantage of filling this with the name
and address of the firm from whom the book might be obtained was so
obvious that the "imprint," as it is rather loosely called, soon made
its appearance and gradually became recognized as an essential part of
the titlepage. When printers and publishers lost pride in their work and
ceased to care to decorate their titlepages with pictures or devices,
the title was displayed in a series of single lines and made to straggle
down the page till it came nearly low enough to meet the imprint.
If we go back to the habits of the scribes it is easy to understand
another point in the early history of books, their make-up into quires
and the marking of these quires by signatures and catchwords. The word
_quaire_ or _quire_ is a shortened form of the Latin _quaternio_, the
name devised for four sheets of paper folded down the middle so as to
form eight leaves. A gathering of five sheets making ten leaves was
called a _quinternion_, and this, though it has yielded no modern word,
was for generations such a popular form that _quinterniones_ was
sometimes used as a general expression for manuscripts. Gatherings of
three sheets, making six leaves, were called _terniones_; gatherings of
two sheets, making four leaves, _duerniones_. A few, but only a few,
books exist--nearly all of those which I have seen are either
block-books or thin folios of poetry of the reign of Charles II--which
are made up in single sheets not placed one within the other, but
following consecutively. But the system of gathering from two to five or
more sheets together into quires was practically universal both before
and after the invention of printing, and this for the excellent reason
that it reduced the quantity of sewing necessary in binding a book, and
reduced also the risk of the sewing cutting through the paper or vellum,
as it would be very likely to do if there were only a single thickness
to resist it.
When the scribe had arranged his quire or gathering he wrote first page
by page on all the leaves on the left hand until he came to the middle
of the quire, when he proceeded to write page by page on all the leaves
on the right hand. Thus in a quire of four sheets the left half of the
first sheet would be leaf 1, pages 1 and 2, and the right half would be
leaf 8, pages 15 and 16, so that the same sheet formed the beginning and
end of the quire. In the earliest printed books the quires were printed
page by page exactly as the quires of a manuscript had been written. But
early in the 'seventies (Peter Schoeffer can be proved to have adopted
the practice between 1471 and September, 1474) the advantage was
perceived of printing both the pages on the upper or lower side of a
sheet at the same time, i.e. in a quaternion, page 16 together with page
1. As soon as a printer had learnt to print two folio pages together, it
became easy to print four quarto pages, or eight octavo pages, or
sixteen sextodecimo pages. In each case the amount of type to be printed
at a pull would be approximately the same. It thus ceased to be
disadvantageous to print small books, whereas so long as each page had
to be pulled separately it was obviously wasteful to make that page a
very small one.
Even when the printers had learnt how to print two folio pages at the
same time the presswork remained very laborious. The earliest presses
were worked with only a single screw, and when the pressman had pulled
the lever one way to bring the platen down on the type, he had to push
the lever back again in order to raise the platen and release the paper.
Thus in order to print a large book quickly four or six sets of pressmen
had to work on it at once, each at a different press. To avoid mistakes,
therefore, the practice was to allot one section of the book to each
press. Thus if a book were calculated to run to 288 leaves, six presses
might begin simultaneously at leaves 1, 49, 97, 145, 193, and 241. What
more often happened was that either to follow the natural sections of
the book, or because some of the printers were engaged on other tasks
and not ready to begin at once, the sections were of much less regular
lengths, and we can sometimes prove that the first press was far
advanced in its section before the fifth and sixth had begun. Now in all
these cases, unless they were reprinting an earlier book, page for page,
it is obvious that some nice calculations would be needed to make each
section end with the end of a quire so as to be able to join on with the
beginning of the quire containing the next section without any gap or
crowding. Hence the striking irregularities in the make-up of many early
books. Instead of a book being printed in a succession of quinternions
or a succession of quaternions we have many a make-up which can only be
expressed by a cruelly mathematical formula, such as this, which
represents the quiring of the Forty-two Line Bible.
a-i^10; k^10+1 lm^10 n^6+1; o-z^10 [inverted 2]^10 [@]^10+1; A-F^10 G^4:
aa-nn^10; oo pp^10 qq^10+1; rr-zz AA-CC^10; DD^12 EE^10+1; FF GG^10
HH^4+1 II^10.
In this the index-letter shows the number of leaves in the quire, a-i^10
being a short way of stating that each of the nine quires a b c d e f g
h i has ten leaves in it. In the tenth quire (k) there is an extra leaf,
and again in the thirteenth (n) the printer found that he had too much
copy for six leaves and not enough for eight, and was therefore obliged
to put in an odd one, because another press had already printed off the
beginning of the next quire (o). Not infrequently it would happen that
the odd amount of copy for a section was very difficult to fit exactly
into a leaf even when the printer had compressed it by using as many
contractions as possible, or eked it out by using no contractions at
all. This accounts for the occurrence of a blank space, large or small,
at the end of some sections without any break in the text, as the
printer was sometimes careful to explain by the printed notice "Hic
nihil deficit," or as in our page from Ulrich Zell, "Vacat."
As has been already noted, in a moment of enthusiasm Mr. Proctor once
said to the present writer that it was impossible to find a fifteenth
century book that was really ugly. This was certainly putting the case
for his beloved incunables a peg too high, for there were plenty of bad
printers before 1500, and even such a master as Jenson was by no means
uniformly careful as to the quality of his presswork. But one of the
legacies which the early printers received from the scribes was the art
of putting their text handsomely on the page, and the difference which
this makes in the appearance of a book is very marked, little as many
modern printers and publishers attend to it. But in the books of the
best printers of our own day, as well as in those of the best of the
fifteenth century, from 65 per cent to 72 per cent of the height of the
page is devoted to the text, from 28 per cent to 35 per cent being
reserved for the upper and lower margins, of which at least two-thirds
is for the lower and not more than one-third for the upper. As compared
with the height of a page of type the breadth is usually in the
proportion of about 45 to 70 (a trifle more in a quarto), and here again
the outer margin is at least twice as great as the inner. Thus in a book
with a page measuring 10 by 7¼ inches, the type-page should measure
about 7 by 4¾ inches, with a lower margin of about 2 inches, an upper of
1 inch, an outer of 1¾ inches, and an inner of ¾ inch.
It will be greatly to the advantage of book-buyers to bear these
proportions in mind, in order to measure how much a book offered to them
has been cut down, and also to be able to instruct their binders as to
how to reduce the absurd margins of some modern "Large Paper" copies to
more artistic dimensions. Whether it is legitimate further to reduce the
margins of an old book which has already been mangled by a binder in
order to get the proportions better balanced is a nice question of
taste. If a two-inch lower margin has been halved and a one-inch upper
margin left intact, if the upper margin is reduced, the book will become
a pleasant "working copy" instead of an obviously mangled large one, and
the collector must settle in his own conscience whether this be a
sufficient justification for snipping off a centimetre of old paper.
Exactly why the proportions here laid down, with their limits of
variation, are right for books cannot easily be set forth. It is easiest
to see in the case of the relation between the inner and outer margins.
As William Morris was never tired of insisting, the unit in a book is,
not a single page, but the two pages which can be seen at the same time.
The two inner margins separate the two type-pages by a single band of
white, which, if each inner margin were as large as the outer, would
become insufferably conspicuous. As for the proportions between the
lower and upper margins, the explanation may lie in the angle at which
we habitually read books, or by the need for leaving room for the reader
to hold the book in his hands. But whether it be a matter of inherent
rightness or merely of long-established convention, the pleasure of
handling a book with correct margins is very great, and a collector who
secures an uncut copy of even a poorly printed book of the period when
margins were understood, will find that it presents quite a pleasing and
dignified appearance. And so in regard to other points, any book which
illustrates the relations of the early printers to the scribes, the
difficulties which they experienced in their work and the expedients by
which they were surmounted deserves, whatever its date or present price,
to be reckoned as a real incunable, and the collector who gets together
a few dozen books of this kind will have far better sport for his outlay
than he who is tied down too rigorously by chronology.
FOOTNOTES:
[27] It will be so much the better if the collector can add to them a
copy of one of the early books printed at Rome (the German ones are
too rare) in which there still survives the text of the rubrics,
printed not in their appropriate places, but on a separate leaf or
quire for the guidance of the rubricator.
[28] By Jenson and many early printers in Italy, and by Husner and a
few others in Germany, the majuscules of the founts used in the text
were massed together in headings with admirable effect. But for a
time the heavy heading types carried all before them.
CHAPTER VII
EARLY GERMAN AND DUTCH ILLUSTRATED BOOKS
[Illustration: VIII. AUGSBURG, G. ZAINER, C. 1475
TUBERINUS. GESCHICHT VON DEM SELIGEN KIND SYMON]
The natural method of illustrating a book printed with type is by means
of designs cut in relief, which can be locked up in the forme with the
type, so that text and illustrations are printed together by a single
impression[29] without any special preparation of the paper. So long as
the design to be printed stands out clearly on the block it matters
nothing whether it be cut on wood or on soft metal. Even as between the
design cut by hand and the process line-block which has as its basis a
photograph taken direct from a pen drawing, the difference can hardly be
said to be one of better and worse. We lose the individuality of the
wood-cutter or wood-engraver, but we are brought into closer touch with
the individuality of the artist, and whether we gain or lose depends on
the ability of the artist to dispense with a skilled interpreter. The
one requisite for success is that either the artist, or an interpreter
for him, should recognize the limits within which his work can be
effective. The reproductions of the artist's designs will be looked at,
not in isolation, but as part of an _ensemble_ made up of two pages
printed in a type which, perhaps with a little trouble, can be
ascertained beforehand, and they will be printed not as proofs on a
special press by a special workman on paper chosen solely to suit them,
but with average skill and care in an ordinary press and on paper the
choice of which will be dictated by several considerations. Whenever
relief blocks have been used for any length of time as a method of
book-illustration the rivalry of artists has tended to cause these
restrictions to be forgotten. In our own day line-blocks have been
almost driven out of the field by "half-tones," which cannot be printed
without the aid of paper specially coated, or at least rolled or
"calendared." Shortly before the process line-block was perfected the
extreme fineness of the American school of wood-engraving had induced a
nearly similar result. The successors of Bewick worked with equal
disregard of the need for clearly defined lines, and when we travel back
to the first half of the sixteenth century we find the Holbeins,
Burgkmair, Weiditz, and other artists producing designs far too delicate
for the conditions under which they were to be reproduced. Thus the
charm of the woodcuts in books of the fifteenth century is by no means
confined to that "quaintness" which is usually the first thing on which
the casual observer comments. The "quaintness" is usually there, but
along with it is a harmony between print, paper, and woodcut which has
very rarely since been attained.
The claim made in the last paragraph must be understood as applying only
to books honestly illustrated with blocks specially made for them. Books
decorated with a job lot of cuts, as was often the case, especially
after about 1495, may accidentally be delightful and often possess some
of the charm of a scrapbook. It is good sport, for instance, to take one
of Vérard's later books and trace the origin of the cuts with which that
cheaply liberal publisher made his wares attractive. But the incongruity
is mostly manifest, and collectors might well be more fastidious than
they show themselves and refuse to waste the price of a good book with
homogeneous illustrations in buying half a dozen dull little volumes
with an old Horae cut at the beginning and the end of each.
A second exception must be recognized in the books illustrated by
untrained wood-cutters. In Germany and the Low Countries few, if any,
quite untrained wood-cutters were employed, and this is true also of
Paris and Florence. But at Lyon and other provincial towns in France
(the Abbeville cutters, who probably came from Paris, are strikingly
good), in a few books printed at Rome and Venice, here and there in
Spain, and in one or two of Caxton's and several of Wynkyn de Worde's
books in England, the cutting is so bad that, though it is possible
sometimes to see that excellent designs underlie it, the effect is
either ludicrous or repellent. Only fanatics could admire such pictures
as we find in the early Lyonnese _Quatre fils d'Aymon_ (_s.n._, but
about 1480), in the _Opuscula_ of Philippus de Barberiis printed by
Joannes de Lignamine (Rome, 1481), in a large number of the cuts of the
Malermi Bible of 1490 (Venice, G. Ragazzo for L. A. Giunta, 1490), in
_Los doze trabajos de Ercules_ (Zamora, 1483), in Caxton's _Aesop_ or in
Wynkyn de Worde's _Morte d'Arthur_ (1527). Books such as these (the
Malermi Bible is on a different footing from the rest owing to the
wonderful excellence of the good cuts) may be bought as curiosities, or
for the light they throw on the state of the book trade when such work
could be put on the market, but no artistic merit can be claimed for
them.
In Germany good work began early, because, to supply the demand for
playing-cards and pictures of saints, schools of wood-cutters had grown
up, more especially at Augsburg and at Ulm. Block-books also had come
into existence in the district of the lower Rhine, and these, which in
their earliest forms can hardly be later than 1460, must be divided
between the Low Countries and Germany and prove the existence of
competent workmen. The earliest type-printed books which possess
illustrations are the little handful printed by Albrecht Pfister at
Bamberg in and about 1461, described in Chapter V, but it was at
Augsburg in the early seventies that book-illustration first flourished.
As has been mentioned in Chapter V, trade difficulties at first stood in
the way, but by the arbitration of Melchior Stanheim, abbot of the
local monastery of SS. Ulrich and Afra, these were settled on the
sensible basis that printers might have as many illustrations in their
books as they chose to provide, but that they must be designed and cut
by Augsburg craftsmen. The series seems to have begun with some
tolerably good column-cuts to an edition of the Lives of the Saints in
German, of which the first part was issued in October, 1471, and the
second in April, 1472. In _Das guldin spiel_ of a Dominican writer,
Ingold, finished on 1 August of the latter year, we find for the first
time real power of characterization. Lovers of woodcuts owe some
gratitude to the medieval trick of attaching edifying discourses to
matters of everyday interest and amusement, for whereas the edifying
discourses themselves could hardly carry illustrations, hunting, chess,
or, as here, seven games which could be likened to the seven deadly
sins, gave opportunities for showing pictures by which the natural man
would be attracted. Another important book of this year, only known to
me in Bämler's plagiarism of it, was the first edition of the _Belial_,
the amazing book which tells the story of Christ being summoned for the
trespass committed in harrowing Hell.
In 1473 the heavy gothic type which Zainer used in these illustrated
books was put at the disposal of the Abbot of SS. Ulrich and Afra and
used to print a _Speculum Humanae Saluationis_, to which was added a
summary in verse by Frater Johannes, an inmate of his monastery. This
book was illustrated by 176 different cuts of Biblical subjects, of
varying degrees of merit. In the same year, and again in 1474, Zainer
printed an illustrated _Plenarium_, i.e. the Epistles and Gospels for
the round of the Church's year. In or shortly after 1475 he printed and
illustrated a narrative of great contemporary interest, the story,
written by one Tuberinus, of a child named Simon, who was supposed to
have been slain by the Jews out of hatred of the Christian faith and
desire to taste Christian flesh. The tale appears to contain internal
evidence of its untruth, and the unhappy Jews who were cruelly executed
had much better claims to be regarded as martyrs than "das susses Kind"
Simon. But some of the pictures are quite animated, especially one (see
Plate VIII) of the hired kidnapper beguiling the child through the
streets and then deftly hurrying him into the house of doom with a touch
of his knee.
In 1475 or 1476, and again with the date 1477, Zainer produced editions
of the German Bible in large folio, illustrated with great pictorial
capitals at the beginning of each book. But his greatest achievement was
in an undated book of this period, the _Speculum Humanae Vitae_ of
Rodericus Bishop of Zamora, in the German translation of Heinrich
Steinhowel. If this Mirror of Man's Life had been written by a man with
his eyes open instead of by a vapid rhetorician it should have been one
of the most valuable documents for the social life of the fifteenth
century, since it professes to contrast the advantages and evils of
every rank and occupation of life, from the Pope and the Emperor down to
craftsmen and labourers. There is but little joy to be gained from its
text, but the Augsburg artist has atoned for many literary shortcomings
by his vivid and charming pictures of scenes from the social life of his
day, though it is not to be supposed that German judges took bribes
quite so openly as he is pleased to represent. In addition to fifty-four
woodcuts of this kind, there is a large genealogical tree of the House
of Hapsburg, which is a triumph of decorative arrangement.
Two other early Augsburg printers devoted themselves to illustrated
work, Johann Bämler and Anton Sorg. The former at first contented
himself with prefixing a full-page frontispiece to his books, as in the
_Summa_ of Johannes Friburgensis and _Die vier und zwanzig goldenen
Harfen_, both of 1472, and again in the picture of S. Gregory and Peter
the Deacon in the Dialogues of the former printed for the monastery of
SS. Ulrich and Afra, and that of the dying Empress in the _Historie von
den sieben weisen Meistern_ of the following year. In the _Belial_ of
1473 and _Plenarium_ of 1474 Bämler was content for most of the cuts to
borrow or copy from the editions of Zainer, but in the _Alexander der
Grosse_ of the former year and _Melusine_ and _Sieben Todsünden_ of the
latter he himself led the way with some excellent sets of woodcuts,
which were copied by others. Again, in _Das Buch der Natur_ of 1475 we
find a dozen specially designed full-page cuts, one to each book,
illustrating man, the spheres, beasts, birds, mermaids, serpents,
insects, etc.; in the _Chronica von allen Kaisern and Königen_ of 1476
there are four large cuts, showing Christ in glory, the dream of the
Emperor Sigismund, the vision of S. Gregory at Mass, and S. Veronica
holding before her the cloth with the imprint of Christ's face. It was
perhaps in this same year that Bämler issued, without dating it, Jacob
Sprenger's _Die Rosenkranz Bruderschaft_, with two very striking cuts,
one of the offering of garlands to Our Lady, the other of Christ's
scourgers looking back mockingly as they leave Him. A dated edition
appeared in 1477. Another book of 1476 with a good set of cuts was the
romance of Apollonius, King of Tyre. In 1477 Bämler issued a _Buch der
Kunst_, which, like the _Buch der Natur_, went through several editions;
it must be noted, however, that there is no such contrast between Art
and Nature as the short title of this book might suggest, the full title
being _Buch der Kunst geistlich zu werden_. The illustrations for the
most part represent a soul in different situations, but there are also
many of Biblical subjects. The last book of Bämler's which need be
mentioned is the _Turken-Kreuzzüge_ of Rupertus de Sancto Remigio, which
has an effective frontispiece of the Pope preaching to the Crusaders and
some vigorous smaller cuts.
Anton Sorg began printing in 1475 and issued his first illustrated book
the next year. He was a prolific printer, and issued many close
imitations of books originated by Günther Zainer and others. The most
famous work specially connected with his name is Ulrich von
Reichenthal's _Das Conciliumbuch geschehen zu Costencz_ (1483),
illustrated with forty-four larger cuts, all in the first ninety leaves,
and 1158 coats of arms of the various dignitaries present at the
Council. The larger cuts show the knighting of the Burgermeister of
Constance, processions, a tournament, and the martyrdom of Huss (despite
his safe conduct) and the scattering of his ashes over a field. The
later Augsburg illustrated books, issued by the elder Schoensperger,
Johann Schobsser, Peter Berger, and Hans Schauer, though they maintain a
respectable level of craftsmanship, have less interest and individuality
than these earlier ones. One Augsburg printer, Erhard Ratdolt, who had
made himself a reputation by ten years' work at Venice (1476-86),
shortly after his return issued a notable illustrated book, the
_Chronica Hungarorum_ of Thwrocz. His main business was the production
of missals and other service books, in some of which he made experiments
in colour-printing.
At the neighbouring city of Ulm, where also the wood-cutters had long
been at work, illustrated books began to be issued in 1473 by Johann
Zainer, no doubt a kinsman of Günther Zainer of Augsburg. His chief
books are (1) Latin and German editions of Boccaccio's _De claris
mulieribus_ (1473), with a fine borderpiece of Adam and Eve and numerous
spirited little pictures which, though primitive both in conception and
execution, are full of life, and (2) an _Aesop_ which was reprinted at
Augsburg and copied elsewhere in Germany, and also in France, the
Netherlands, and England. From 1478 onwards he seems to have been in
continual financial trouble. He was apparently able, however, to find
funds to issue two rather notable books about 1490, the _Prognosticatio_
of Lichtenberger, and a Totentanz. The blocks of both of these passed to
Meidenbach at Mainz.
Most of the forty books of a later printer, Conrad Dinckmut (1482-96),
have illustrations. His _Seelenwurzgarten_ (1483) appears at first sight
to be a most liberally decorated book, crowded with full-page cuts, but
of its 133 illustrations only seventeen are different, one,
representing the tortures of the damned, being used as many as
thirty-seven times, a deplorable waste of good paper, which the printer
had the good sense to reduce in a later edition. Dinckmut's most famous
book is a German edition of the _Eunuchus_ of Terence "ain maisterliche
vnd wolgesetzte Comedia zelesen vnd zehören lüstig und kurtzwylig, die
der Hochgelert vnd gross Maister und Poet Therencius gar subtill mit
grosser Kunnst und hochem Flyss gesetzt hat." This has twenty-eight
nearly full-page cuts in which the characters are well drawn, the
setting for the most part showing the streets of a medieval town. A
_Chronik_, by Thomas Lirer, issued about the same time, was begun to be
illustrated on a generous scale with eighteen full-page cuts in the
first twenty-eight leaves, but was hastily finished off with only three
more cuts in the remaining thirty-six. They are less carefully executed
than those of the _Eunuchus_, but show more variety, and are on the
whole very pleasing.
Another Ulm printer, who began work in 1482, Leonhard Holl, printed in
that year a magnificent edition of Ptolemy's _Cosmographia_, with
woodcut maps (one signed "Insculptum est per Iohann[=e] Schnitzer de
Armszheim") and fine capitals. The first of these, a pictorial N, shows
the editor, Nicolaus Germanus, presenting his book to the Pope.
Of later Ulm books by far the most important are two by Gulielmus
Caoursin, published by Johann Reger in 1496, and both concerned with the
Knights of St. John of Jerusalem at Rhodes. One volume gives their
_Stabilimenta_ or Constitution, the other _Obsidionis urbis Rhodiae
descriptio_, an illustrated history of their defence of their island
against the Turks and their subsequent dealings with the infidel, who at
one time were so complaisant as to present them with no less valuable a
relic than the arm of their patron, which was duly honoured with
processions and sermons. Altogether the two books contain fifty-six
full-page pictures, rather roughly cut, but full of vigour and bringing
the course of the siege and the character of the wild Turkish horsemen
very vividly before the reader. William Morris was even tempted to
conjecture that the designs may have been made by Erhard Reuwich, the
illustrator of the Mainz _Breidenbach_, of which we shall soon have to
speak.
At Nuremberg book-illustration begins with the _Ars et modus
contemplatiuae vitae_, six leaves of which partake of the nature of a
block-book. In or about 1474 Johann Müller of Königsberg (whose variant
names, Johannes Regiomontanus, Johannes de Monteregio, have trapped more
bibliographers into inconsistencies than those of any other fifteenth
century author) issued calendars and other works with astronomical
diagrams, and prefixed to his edition of the _Philalethes_ of Maffeus
Vegius a woodcut (for which Dr. Schreiber suspects an Italian origin)
showing Philalethes in rags and Truth with no other clothing than a pair
of very small wings. In June, 1475, Sensenschmidt and Frisner
illustrated their folio edition of Justinian's _Codex_, with ten
charming little column-cuts; the following month Sensenschmidt produced
a _Heiligenleben_, with more than 250 illustrations, which, according to
Dr. Schreiber, are very noteworthy as they stand, and would have been
more so had not the wood-cutter been hurried into omitting the
backgrounds in the later cuts, those to the "Pars aestiualis."
Sensenschmidt also printed an undated German Bible with pictorial
capitals.
In 1477 Creussner issued the travels of Marco Polo with a woodcut of the
traveller, and about the same time Latin and German editions of the
tract of Tuberinus on the supposed fate suffered by "Das Kind Simon" at
the hand of the Jews.
In 1481 Anton Koberger published his first illustrated book, _Postilla
super Bibliam_ of Nicolaus de Lyra, with forty-three woodcuts, which
were imitated not only at Cologne, but at Venice, though their interest
is not very great. In his German Bible of 1483 he himself was content
to acquire blocks previously used at Cologne. The next year he prefixed
to his edition of the _Reformation der Stadt Nuremberg_ a notable
woodcut of S. Sebald and S. Laurence in the style of Michael Wolgemut.
The 252 cuts in his _Heiligenleben_ of 1488 are mainly improved
rehandlings of previous versions; of his _Schatzbehalter_ and Schedel's
Chronicle we speak later on.
At Basel Martin Flach was the first printer of illustrated books,
ornamenting his 1473 edition of the Ackermann von Böhmen with a woodcut
of Death, the labourer, and the dead woman, his _Cato_ with the usual
picture of a master and scholar, his _Rosenkranz_ with a cut of a
traveller beseeching the Virgin's protection from robbers, and another
of a scene in heaven, and his _Streit der Seele mit dem Korper_ (these
and the two preceding are undated) with eight illustrations of various
moments in the dispute. More important than these are three profusely
illustrated books from the press of Bernhard Richel. The first of these,
his 1476 _Spiegel Menschlicher Behaltnis_, has 278 woodcuts, the work of
two different hands, the earlier of the two showing less technical
skill, but much more vigour and originality.[30] The other two books are
undated editions of the romance of _Melusina_, with sixty-seven cuts, in
which suggestions from the first Augsburg edition have been improved on
by an abler workman, and a _Mandeville_ with 147 cuts, most of which
passed into the hands of M. Hupfuff at Strassburg, who used them in
1501. After this Richel turned his attention to liturgies, and is
credited by Dr. Schreiber with being the first printer to insert in his
Missals the woodcut of the Crucifixion, which thenceforth is so
frequently found facing the first page of the Canon.
After the publication of these works illustration seems to have
languished for some years at Basel, but was taken up again about 1489
by Johann von Amerbach, Lienhart Ysenhut, and Michael Furter, the work
of the two latter being mainly imitative. Johann Froben, who began work
about this time, was too learned a publisher to concern himself with
woodcuts, catering chiefly for students of the University. One of the
professors, however, at the University was far from sharing this
indifference to pictures. Born at Strassburg, Sebastian Brant was
educated at Basel, and it was while holding there the Professorship of
Laws that he ensured the popularity of his _Narrenschiff_ (1494) by
equipping it with 115 admirable illustrations. The original edition from
the press of Johann Bergmann von Olpe was published in February, and
before the end of the year Peter Wagner at Nuremberg, Greyff at
Reutlingen, Schoensperger at Augsburg had all pirated it with copies of
the Basel cuts. When the Latin translation by Brant's friend, Jakob
Locher, was published by Bergmann in 1497, the success of the book
became European, and probably no other illustrated work of the fifteenth
century is so well known.
Probably in the same year as the _Narrenschiff_ was first issued,
Bergmann printed for Brant his _In laudem gloriosae virginis Mariae_,
with sixteen woodcuts by the same hand. In 1495 Brant supplied him with
two works in honour of the Emperor Maximilian, one celebrating the
alliance with Pope Alexander VI, illustrated with coats of arms, the
other the _Origo bonorum regum_, with two woodcuts, in which the Emperor
is shown receiving a sword from heaven. Brant was now in high favour
with Maximilian, and his appointment as a Syndic and Imperial Chancellor
at Strassburg led to his return and a consequent notable quickening of
book-illustration in his native city.
At Strassburg Johann Mentelin had used woodcuts for diagrams in an
undated edition of the _Etymologiae_ of S. Isidore, printed about 1473,
but the first producer of books pictorially illustrated was Heinrich
Knoblochtzer, who worked from 1476 to 1484, and issued over thirty
books with woodcuts. Most of these were copies from other men's work,
e.g. his _Belial_ and _Melusina_ from Bämler's, his _Philalethes_ from
the Nuremberg edition of Johann Müller, his _Aesop_ and _Historie der
Sigismunda_ from Johann Zainer's, his _Leben der heiligen drei Königen_
probably from an anonymous edition by Johann Prüss. Early in his career
in 1477 he issued two books on the great subject of the hour, the death
of Charles the Bold, _Peter Hagenbach und der Burgundische Krieg_ and
the _Burgunderkrieg_ of Erhard Tusch, in both of which he used eight
woodcuts, most of them devoted to incidents of the Duke's ill-fated
campaign. An anonymous edition of the _Euryalus und Lucretia_ of Aeneas
Sylvius (Pope Pius II) has nineteen cuts, which were apparently
commissioned by Knoblochtzer, but he did not secure the services of a
sufficiently skilled wood-cutter. It should be said, however, that his
"historiated" or pictorial capitals are apparently original and mostly
good.
To Johann Prüss at Strassburg are now assigned editions in High and Low
German of the Lives of the Fathers and of Antichrist, which Mr. Proctor,
though he had a shrewd suspicion of their origin, left floating about
among the German "adespota." The cuts to the former reach the average of
early work; those to the _Antichrist_ vary greatly, that of Antichrist
preaching before a queen being extraordinarily successful as a
presentation of a type of coarse spiritual effrontery. The acknowledged
work of Prüss includes editions of the travels of _Mandeville_, of the
_Directorium Humanae Vitae_, and of the _Flores Musicae_ of Hugo
Reutlingensis, with a rather famous cut showing how musical notes are
produced by the wind, by a water wheel, by tapping stones, and hammering
on an anvil. Prüss also printed several illustrated editions of the
_Hortus Sanitatis_.
Far more prolific than either of the foregoing Strassburg printers was
Johann Reinhard of Grüningen, usually called Grüninger after his
birthplace. Setting up his press in 1483, he began book-illustration two
years later with a German Bible with woodcuts copied from those in the
Low German Bibles printed at Cologne and used in 1483 at Nuremberg by
Koberger. Some minor books followed, and in 1491 he issued the
_Antidotarius Animae_ of Nicolaus de Saliceto, with rather rude borders
to each page and a woodcut of the Assumption. This, however, like some
of his earlier illustrated books, appears to have been a commission, and
in a reprint of 1493 the decorations disappear. It was not until 1496,
under the influence of Sebastian Brant, that he undertook any important
original illustrated work on his own account. In that year he produced
his first illustrated classic, the comedies of Terence (_Terentius cum
directorio_), with a large woodcut of a theatre and eighty-seven narrow
cuts of the dramatis personae, or of scenery, used five at a time in 150
different combinations. Critically examined, the cuts are rather
unpleasing, and were regarded at the time as likely to provoke mirth
otherwise than by expressing the humorous intent of the playwright, but
another edition and a German translation similarly decorated appeared in
1499, and Grüninger issued on the same plan a _Horace_ (edited by
Locher) in 1498, and the _De consolatione philosophiae_ of Boethius in
1501. His full strength was reserved for the _Virgil_ of the following
year, which was superintended by Brant, and is crowded with wonderful
pictures, in which on the very eve of the Renaissance Virgil is
thoroughly medievalized. Besides these classics, Grüninger printed many
other illustrated editions, minor works by Brant, medical treatises by
Brunschwig, an _Evangelienbuch_, a _Legenda S. Katherinae_ in Latin and
also in German, editions of the _Hortulus Animae_, the romance of Hug
Schapler, etc., in the fifteenth century, and in the sixteenth a
sufficient number of illustrated books to bring his total up to about
150 editions. These may be said to form a school by themselves,
distinguished by a certain richness of effect partly due to heavy
cutting, but with less power of characterization and fewer gleams of
beauty than are to be found in the best work of other towns, the figures
being often unpleasing and notably lean in the legs. Martin Scott,
Hupfuff, and Kistler were other Strassburg printers of the fifteenth
century who also used illustrations.
At Cologne book-illustration began in 1474 with editions of the
_Fasciculus Temporum_ of Werner Rolewinck, from the presses of ther
Hoernen and Nicolaus Götz. But with the notable exception of two great
Bibles issued by Heinrich Quentell, illustrated books before 1490 are
neither important nor numerous. Even in 1490 the edition of the
_Historia Septem Sapientum_ of Johannes de Hauteselve, issued by the
elder Koelhoff, was adorned with cuts obtained from Gerard Leeu at
Antwerp. Quentell issued a few stock cuts in one book after another, and
Johann Landen, Martin von Werden (if he be rightly identified with the
printer "Retro Minores"), and Cornelis von Zierickzee all used a few
cuts, some of the latter's having a curiously Italian appearance. But
the only important illustrated book, other than the Bibles, is the
Cologne Chronicle, issued (not to his profit, since he was imprisoned
for it) by the younger Koelhoff in 1499, with armorial cuts and a few
pictures of kings and queens somewhat too frequently repeated.
Quentell's Bibles in High and Low German are in curious contrast to all
this work. They are illustrated with 125 large oblong pictures, firmly
if rather coarsely cut, and full of story-telling power, several
successive incidents being sometimes brought into the same picture in
true medieval fashion. The book was imitated at Nuremberg and elsewhere,
and the illustrators of the Venetian Malermi Bible of 1490, and even
Hans Holbein himself, did not disdain to take ideas from it.
At Lübeck a finely decorated edition of the _Rudimentum Noviciorum_, a
universal history, was issued by Lucas Brandis as early as 1475, with
some good pictorial capitals, and pictures beginning with the Creation
and coming down to the life of Christ. In 1484 we come to a _Levend S.
Jeronimi_, printed by Bartholomaeus Ghotan and illustrated by an
anonymous artist whose work can be traced during the next ten years in
other books of Ghotan's, in several very interesting editions by the
unidentified "Poppy-Printer" (so called from his mark), including a
_Dodendantz_ (1489 and 1496), _Imitatio Christi_, _Bergitten
Openbaringe_ (1496), _Reynke de Vos_ (1498), _Schakspil_, etc., and in
the splendid Low German Bible printed in 1494 by Stephan Arndes, with
cuts which improve on those in the Cologne editions.
[Illustration: IX. MAINZ, ERHARD REUWICH, 1486
BREIDENBACH. PEREGRINATIO IN MONTEM SYON SARACENS AND SYRIANS]
At Mainz, which led the way so energetically in typography,
book-illustration is not represented at all until 1479, and then almost
accidentally in the _Meditationes_ of Cardinal Turrecremata, printed by
Johann Neumeister "ciuem Moguntinensem," with thirty-four curious
metal-cuts imitating on a smaller scale the woodcuts in the editions
printed at Rome by Ulrich Han. Two years later these metal-cuts were
used by Neumeister at Albi, and they are subsequently found at Lyon.
That this book was printed at Mainz was made practically certain by the
type appearing subsequently in the possession of Peter von Friedberg,
but that the cuts were executed at Mainz seemed to me improbable until
the publication of Dr. Schreibers work on German illustrated books
acquainted me with the existence of an _Agenda Moguntinensis_ of 29
June, 1480, also attributed to Neumeister's press, with a metal-cut of
S. Martin and the beggar, and the arms not only of Archbishop Diether
and the province of Mainz, but of Canon Bernhard von Breidenbach, of
whom we shall soon hear again. The _Agenda_ and its metal-cuts are thus
firmly fixed as executed at Mainz, and the metal-cuts of the
_Meditationes_ must therefore be regarded as Mainz work also.
In 1486 Mainz atoned for her long delay in taking up illustrated
work, with the _Peregrinationes in Montem Syon_ of the aforesaid Canon
Bernhard von Breidenbach, printed with type of Schoeffer's, under the
superintendence of Erhard Reuwich of Utrecht, the illustrator. The text
of Breidenbach's book is full of interest, for he gives a vivid account
of the voyage and of the hardships and extortions to which pilgrims were
exposed. In his preface he states that Reuwich was expressly taken on
the expedition to illustrate the narrative, and he certainly had ample
skill to justify the engagement. Unfortunately, far too much of his
labour was spent on great maps or views of Venice, Parenzo, Rhodes and
other places passed on the way. These are certainly interesting, as they
mark all the chief buildings and are very decoratively drawn. But in the
text of the book there are just a few sketches from the life, Jewish
moneylenders and groups of Saracens, Syrians (see Plate IX), Indians,
etc., and these are so vivid and vigorous that we may well regret that
the labour bestowed on the great maps left time for very few of them.
They are interesting, moreover, not only as designs, but also for their
cutting, as they introduce cross-hatching for the first time, and that
very effectively, and are handled with equal firmness and freedom. At
the end of the book is a jest, a full-page woodcut subscribed "Hec sunt
animalia veraciter depicta sicut vidimus in terra sancta," among the
animals thus certified as having been seen personally in the Holy Land
being a unicorn and a creature (name unknown--_non constat de nomine_)
with a great mane of hair and long tail, which might well serve for the
missing link between a man and a gorilla. The frontispiece of the book,
on the other hand, is a striking design of a woman (symbolizing the city
of Mainz?) standing on a pedestal surrounded with the arms of
Breidenbach and the two friends who went with him, decoratively treated,
while above her is a canopy of trelliswork amid which children are
joyously climbing. With the Mainz _Breidenbach_ we feel that we have
passed away from the naive craftsmanship of the earliest illustrated
books into a region of conscious art.
Naturally craftsmanship was not extinguished by the arrival of a single
artist. We find it at work again in the charming and little known cut to
a Leipzig edition of the Eclogues of Theodulus, printed in 1491, which
the delight of recent discovery tempts me to show here (see Plate X),
and at Mainz itself in the simple cuts to the _Hortus Sanitatis_,
printed by Meidenbach, also in 1491, though here again there is an
advance, as instead of plants and animals drawn out of the illustrator's
head merely for decorative effect we find in many of the cuts fairly
careful copies made from the life.
In Conrad Botho's _Cronecken der Sassen_, printed by Schoeffer the
following year, most of the armorial illustrations and pictures of the
foundation of towns are merely decoratively treated, but in one cut in
which a rather wild-looking Charlemagne with lean legs is shown seated
in a chair of state surmounted by an eagle, an idol crushed under his
feet, the designer has given free play to his imagination.
[Illustration: X. LEIPZIG, CONRAD KACHELOFEN, 1489
THEODULUS. EGLOGA (I^b)]
The transition to different ideals of illustration thus begun at Mainz
was carried on at Nuremberg, where Michael Wolgemut illustrated two
important works, the _Schatzbehalter_ in 1491 and the famous _Nuremberg
Chronicle_ in 1493, this latter with the help of his stepson, Wilhelm
Pleydenwurff, and no doubt also of several inferior designers. The
_Schatzbehalter_, of which the text is ascribed to Stephanus Fridelinus,
a Nuremberg Franciscan, is one of several examples of a too ambitious
scheme of decoration perforce abandoned for lack either of time or of
money. In the first half there are ninety-two different full-page
woodcuts, mostly illustrating Scripture history, but in some cases
allegorical; in the second half the number is no more than two. The
pictures executed before the scheme was thus cut down vary greatly in
quality, from the fine design of Christ kneeling before the throne of
the Father and pointing to the emblems of the Passion, which prepares
us for the work which Dürer, who was then being trained in Wolgemut's
studio, was soon to execute, down to the amusing but uninspired
craftsmanship of the picture of Solomon and a selection of his wives
banqueting. For the _Liber Chronicarum_ of Hartman Schedel plans had
been much more carefully worked out than for the _Schatzbehalter_, and
by studying economy a seemingly profuse system of illustration was
maintained to the end. The industry of Mr. Sydney Cockerell has evolved
for us the exact figures as to the illustration of this book. Real
liberality is shown in the large, double-page topographical cuts of
twenty-six different cities, for many of which sketches must have been
specially obtained, and not one of these is used a second time; but
twenty-two other large cuts of cities and countries were made to serve
for sixty-nine different subjects, and when we come to figures of
emperors, kings, and popes we find ninety-six blocks used 598 times, or
on an average half a dozen times apiece. Mr. Cockerell's grand totals
are 1809 pictures printed from 645 different blocks, so that the
repetitions number no fewer than 1164. Both in the designs and their
execution there is great inequality, but no single picture can compare
with that of Christ kneeling before the Father in the _Schatzbehalter_,
and both books, fine as their best work is, must be regarded rather as
the crown of German medieval craftsmanship in book-building than as
belonging to the period of self-conscious artistic aim which is heralded
by the Mainz _Breidenbach_ but really begins with Dürer.
With this Nuremberg work we may perhaps class that in the one book
printed at the Cistercian monastery at Zinna, near Magdeburg, the
_Psalterium Beatae Mariae Virginis_, of Hermann Nitschewitz, the most
richly decorated German book of the fifteenth century, executed in
honour of the Emperor Frederick and his son Maximilian, who in the page
here shown (Plate XI) are both represented.
Primitive Dutch and Flemish book-illustrations when compared with
German ones exhibit just the general likeness and specific differences
which we might expect in the work of such near neighbours. The Low
Country wood-cutters are on the whole more decorative than the Germans,
they were more influenced by the work of the engravers on copper, and
they were attracted by different types of the human figure, the faces
and bodies of the men and women they drew being often long and thin, and
often also showing a slightly fantastic touch rarely found in German
work. Unfortunately, these Low Country illustrated books are even rarer
than the German ones, far fewer of them have found their way to England,
and no attempt has been made to reproduce a really representative
selection of them in facsimile. In 1884 Sir W. M. Conway, as the result
of prolonged studies on the Continent, wrote an excellent account of
these illustrations and the makers of them under the title, _The
Woodcutters of the Netherlands in the Fifteenth Century_, which was
unhappily allowed to appear without any facsimiles to elucidate the
text. Thus the study of these Low Country illustrated books is still
difficult.
[Illustration: XI. ZINNA. MONASTERIUM CISTERCIENSE, C. 1493
NITSCHEWITZ. PSALTERIUM BEATAE MARIAE VIRGINIS FREDERICK AND MAXIMILIAN]
In the production of the early block-books (see Chapter II) the Low
Countries had played a principal part, and we meet again with traces of
them in later illustrated books, cuts from the _Biblia Pauperum_ being
used by Peter van Os at Zwolle in his _Episteln ende Evangelien_ of 5
January, 1487, and one from the _Canticum Canticorum_ in his edition of
Mauberne's _Rosetum Exercitiorum Spiritualium_ in 1494. Two cut-up
pieces from the block-book _Speculum Humanae Saluationis_ were used by
Veldener in his _Episteln ende Evangelien_ completed at Utrecht 19
April, 1481, and all the old blocks, each divided in two, in a new
edition of the _Speculum_ printed at Kuilenburg 27 September, 1483, with
twelve new cuts added to them. Sir W. M. Conway has also shown that a
set of sixty-four cuts used in a _Boec van der Houte_ or Legend of the
Holy Cross, issued by Veldener at Kuilenburg earlier in 1483 (on 6
March), must have been obtained by dividing in a similar manner the
double cuts of a block-book now entirely lost.
The first printer in the Low Countries who commissioned a woodcut for a
book printed with movable type was Johann of Paderborn (John of
Westphalia) at Louvain, the cut being a curious little representation of
his own head, shown in white on a black oval. This he used in his
_Institutiones_ of Justinian of 21 November, 1475, and a few other
books, and a similar but even better likeness of his kinsman, Conrad,
appeared the next year in the _Formulae Epistularum_ of Maneken (1
December, 1476). Although Johann of Paderborn thus led the way in the
use of cuts, he only resorted to them subsequently for a few diagrams,
and towards the end of his career for some half-dozen miscellaneous
blocks for devotional books.
The portrait of Johann of Paderborn being used only as a device,
book-illustration begins, though on a very small scale, with Veldener's
edition of the _Fasciculus Temporum_ (29 December, 1475), with its
handful of poor little cuts modelled on those of the Cologne editions.
Five years later Veldener reprinted the _Fasciculus_ with a few new
cuts, the originals of which have been found in the Lübeck _Rudimentum
Noviciorum_. The only picture which seems to have been specially
designed for him was a folio cut in his _Passionael_ (Utrecht, 12
September, 1480), where in delicate simple outline a variety of
martyrdoms are shown as taking place in the hollows of a series of
hills. Mention has already been made of his two Kuilenburg reprints of
block-books. In the same place he issued Dutch and Latin Herbals with
cuts copied from Schoeffer's Mainz _Herbarius_, and this completes the
story of his illustrated ventures.
[Illustration: XII. HAARLEM, BELLAERT, 1484
JACOBUS DE THERAMO. BELIAL (4^a) THE HARROWING OF HELL]
We come now to Gerard Leeu, who on 3 June, 1480, issued at Gouda the
first completely illustrated book from a Dutch press, the _Dialogus
creaturarum moralisatus_, a glorified version of the old bestiaries,
full of wonderful stories of animals. This was illustrated with 121
specially designed cuts (mostly about four inches by two), and Leeu's
liberality was rewarded by the book passing through nine editions, six
in Latin and three in Dutch, in eleven years. The first page is
decorated with a picture of the Sun and Moon, a large capital, and an
ornamental border of foliage, but the merit of the book lies in the
simple skill with which the craftsman, working entirely in outline, has
reproduced the humour of the text. To the same hand are attributed ten
cuts for Leeu's vernacular _Gesta Romanorum_ (30 April, 1481), four for
an undated _Historia Septem Sapientum_, and four others, of the Four
Last Things, which, to our puzzlement, appear first in a French edition
printed by Arend de Keysere at Audenarde, and then (23 August, 1482) in
a Dutch one of Leeu's. In the previous month he had brought out a _Liden
ende passie ons Heeren_ with thirty-two quarto cuts, part of a set of
sixty-eight made for editions of the _Devote Ghetiden_ or Dutch version
of the _Horae_, the first of which (unless a Gouda one has perished)
appeared after his removal to Antwerp. During the following nine years
he made good use of his old blocks. For his Dutch _Aesop_ of October,
1485, and Latin edition of September, 1486, he used cuts copied from the
original Ulm and Augsburg set. These he bought from Knoblochtzer of
Strassburg and sold to Koelhoff of Cologne. In 1487 he issued an
illustrated _Reynard the Fox_, of which only a fragment survives, and
the pleasant romance of _Paris and Vienne_, with twenty-five fairly
successful cuts, with the help of which five editions were sold, the
first in French, the next three in Dutch, and the last (23 June, 1492)
in English. According to Sir W. M. Conway these _Paris and Vienne_ cuts
were the work of a Haarlem craftsman, who from 1483 to 1486 had worked
for Jacob Bellaert, whose press was intimately connected with Leeu's,
type and cuts passing freely from one to the other. Bellaert had begun
by using some of Leeu's Passion cuts for a _Liden ons Heeren_, but seems
soon to have discovered his Haarlem wood-cutter, with whose aid he
produced (15 February, 1484) _Der Sonderen troest_, The Sinners' Trust,
a Dutch version of that remarkable work the _Belial_ or _Consolatio
peccatorum_ of Jacobus de Theramo, of which the Augsburg edition has
already been mentioned. This begins with a full folio-page cut combining
in one panorama the Fall of Angels and of Adam and Eve, the Flood, the
Egyptians overtaken in the Red Sea, and the Baptism of Christ. Six of
the other cuts fill half-pages and show the Harrowing of Hell (here
reproduced, Plate XII), Devils in consultation, Satan kneeling before
the Lord, the Last Judgment, Ascension and Descent of the Holy Spirit.
The remaining half-page pictures are all composite, made up of different
combinations of eight centre-pieces and seventeen sidepieces. The
centre-pieces for the most part represent the different judges before
whom the trials are heard, the side-pieces the messengers and parties to
the suit. The combinations are occasionally a little clumsy, but far
less so than in the Strassburg books printed by Grüninger in which the
same labour-saving device was adopted, and in excellence of design and
delicacy of cutting this Dutch _Belial_ ranks high among illustrated
incunabula.
Later in 1484 (25 October) Bellaert issued a _Boeck des Golden Throens_
with four-column cuts, often repeated, of an Elder instructing a maiden;
in May, 1485, Le Fèvre's _Jason_, and a little earlier than this an
undated edition of the same author's _Recueil des histoires de Troie_,
both in Dutch and both profusely illustrated; on Christmas Eve in the
same year a Dutch _De proprietatibus rerum_, and in 1486 versions of
Pierre Michault's _Doctrinal_, in which a dreamer is shown the schools
of virtue and of vice, and of Guillaume de Deguilleville's _Pélérinage
de la vie humaine_, the medieval prototype of Bunyan's _Pilgrim's
Progress_. The _De proprietatibus_ is the only one of these books of
1485-6 that I have seen, and its full-page cuts are notable both for
their own sake and as having been widely copied, although they
illustrate only eleven of the nineteen books.
No other Low Country printer showed anything like the enterprise of Leeu
and Bellaert in commissioning long sets of original woodcuts from
competent craftsmen, but several fine illustrated books were produced by
other firms. Beginning in 1484 Peter van Os printed numerous illustrated
books at Zwolle, few of which attain excellence. Yet one of the earliest
of them, the Sermons of S. Bernard, has a frontispiece of the Virgin and
Child and the Saint gazing at them which is unequalled by any other
single cut in the Low Country book in its large pictorial effect. At
Gouda, in 1486, Gottfried van Os issued the _Chevalier Délibéré_ of
Olivier de la Marche, with sixteen large cuts, in which the author's
minute instructions for each picture are faithfully carried out with
extraordinary freedom and spirit, though the ambitious designs are more
suitable to frescoes than to book-illustrations. About the end of the
century the book was reprinted at Schiedam with the same cuts, from
which facsimiles were made in 1898 by Dr. Lippmann and published by the
Bibliographical Society.
At Louvain in 1487 Egidius van der Heerstraten issued the _De praeclaris
mulieribus_ of Boccaccio with copies of the cuts of the Ulm edition of
great interest for the differences in handling revealed when the two are
compared. A little later than this another Louvain printer, Ludovicus de
Ravescot, published the _De anno die et feria Dominicae Passionis_ of
Petrus de Rivo, with a title-cut of the author kneeling before the
Virgin and Child, and three large cuts of the Last Supper, Crucifixion,
and Resurrection, somewhat in the temper of the illustrations in the
Cologne Bibles, but with characteristic Low Country touches. Lastly,
mention must be made of the clumsy outline cuts in the Bruges edition of
Ovid's _Metamorphoses_, issued in 1484 by Caxton's partner Colard
Mansion. Mansion certainly, and possibly Caxton also, were among the
early experimenters with copperplate illustration, but the story of
these will be told in Chapter XV.
FOOTNOTES:
[29] Dr. Schreiber, in the introduction to Tome V of his _Manuel de
l'amateur de la gravure sur bois au xv^e siècle_, dealing with German
book-illustrations, shows that some little difficulty was found at
first in effecting this. In Boner's _Edelstein_ (Bamberg, 1461),
probably the first illustrated book printed in Germany, the cuts were
printed after the text. In Zainer's _Heiligenleben_, the first
illustrated book printed at Augsburg, the cuts must have been printed
first, as part of the text is sometimes printed over them.
[30] A set of proofs of cuts to this book, previously in the
possession of the Marquis of Blandford and Mr. Perkins, was among the
favourite possessions of William Morris, and is now owned by Mr.
Morgan. An illustrated _Plenarium_, assigned by Dr. Copinger to
Richel, appears to be a "ghost," due to some confusion with this
_Spiegel_.
CHAPTER VIII
EARLY ITALIAN ILLUSTRATED BOOKS
As a frontispiece to this chapter (Plate XIII) we give a page from the
1487 edition of the _Devote meditatione sopra la Passione del Nostro
Signore_, printed at Venice by "Jeronimo di Sancti e Cornelio suo
Compagno," the woodcuts in which, as already mentioned, are cut down
from those in a block-book of some twenty or five-and-twenty years
earlier, and must thus rank as the earliest Italian illustrations. The
illustration of books printed in movable type began in Italy as early as
1468, Ulrich Han issuing that year at Rome an edition of Cardinal
Turrecremata's _Meditationes_, decorated with thirty-one rude cuts
chiefly from the life of Christ. A few of these have a coarse vigour,
but in the greater number any merit in the original designs (professedly
taken from the frescoes with which the Cardinal had decorated the
cloisters of the Church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva) is lost in bad
cutting. Notwithstanding this the work went through at least three
editions (three new pictures being added to the second and one omitted),
and served as a model for the metal-cuts of Neumeister's editions at
Mainz and elsewhere, and for the small neat woodcuts of one by Plannck.
But though Han's venture was thus successful beyond its deserts, it took
Italy nearly twenty years to make up its mind to welcome printed
illustrations. During this time nothing approaching a style of
book-illustration emerges, though individual books of importance
appeared at several towns. Thus at Verona the _De re militari_ of
Robertus Valturius (written not later than 1468) was printed in 1472 by
a certain Joannes of that city, with over eighty woodcuts of weapons
and implements of war, including a galley which looks more picturesque
than seaworthy, chariots, and mangonels, all well drawn and well cut,
but a little spoilt by paper and presswork much less good than was usual
at this time. Eleven years later Latin and Italian editions with
practically the same cuts were printed, also at Verona, by Boninus de
Boninis. The only other early Veronese book with illustrations is an
Italian version of one of the medieval collections of fables which
sought shelter under the name of Aesop. This, which has some spirited
cuts, was printed by Giovanni Alvise in 1479.
[Illustration: XIII. VENICE, GERONIMO DI SANCTI, 1487
BONAVENTURA. MEDITATIONE (14^b REDUCED) THE BETRAYAL]
At Naples, Sixtus Riessinger printed Boccaccio's _Libro di Florio et di
Bianzefiore chiamato Filicolo_ in 1478, and also (without date) an
Italian version of Ovid's _Heroides_, both with numerous cuts, some of
them by no means devoid of charm. In 1485 an illustrated _Aesop_ was
produced at the expense of a book-loving jurist, Francesco Tuppo,
probably from the press of certain "fidelissimi Germani." The cuts in
this, which are hard and heavy but of considerable merit (see Plate
XIV), may possibly be due to a mixture of Italian and German influences,
but are more probably the work of a Spanish wood-cutter. A picture of an
astronomer engaged on his calculations found in the _Arte di Astrologia_
of Granollachs, probably also printed in 1485, may be from the same
hand. In the _Aesop_ each picture is placed in an architectural frame,
in the upper sections of which there are representations sometimes of
Hercules and a lion, sometimes of his wrestle with Antaeus, sometimes of
a battle of mounted pygmies. The first page of text also has a fine
decorative border, the design being in white on a black ground.
At Florence an ornamental capital in a _Psalter_ printed in 1489 is the
earliest woodcut in any extant dated book. But engravings on copper had
been employed as early as 1477 for three pictures in Bettini's _Monte
Santo di Dio,_ and in 1481 for nineteen in a _Divina Commedia_; as to
these something will be said in Chapter XV.
Two books printed at Milan in 1479 contain illustrations, the _Summula
di pacifica conscientia_ of Fra Pacifico di Novara, being ornamented
with three engravings; two of the degrees of consanguinity and the third
of a crown bearing the names of the virtues of the Madonna, while the
_Breuiarium totius juris canonici_ of Paolo Attavanti printed by Pachel
and Scinzenzeler has a little woodcut, which purports to be a portrait
of the author.
In Venice book-illustration appears to have begun in the office not of a
printer, but of an illuminator. Quite a number of books printed by
various firms during the years 1470 to 1472 have a woodcut groundwork to
their illuminated borders, and in the Spencer copy of the Italian Bible
(Malermi's translation), printed in 1471 by Adam of Ammergau, the six
miniatures of the Creation, with which the blanks left on leaves 11 and
12 are filled, have in the same way rough woodcuts beneath their
colouring.[31] The workshop in which these decorated borders and
miniatures were supplied seems to have closed or given up the practice
in 1473, and until Erhard Ratdolt and his partners Löslein and Maler
began publishing in 1476, no more woodcuts were produced at Venice. The
work of the new firm was decorative rather than pictorial, consisting
mainly of the fine borders and capital letters with which they
ornamented their Calendars (1476, 1477, and 1482), their _Appian, Gesta
Petri Mocenici_ of Coriolanus Cepio and _De situ orbis_ of Dionysius
Periegetes, all in 1477, _Arte di ben morire_ of the following year, and
_Euclid_ of 1482. With the exception of the earlier Calendars, where the
borders to the titlepage (the first so decorated) are of flower-vases,
these consist of highly conventionalized foliage (jasmine? vine, oak,
etc.) or strapwork, some of them unequalled in their own kind until
William Morris combined the same skill with a much bolder and richer
treatment of his material. Illustration properly so called begins with
Georg Walch's edition (1479) of the _Fasciculus Temporum_, a
chronological epitome by Werner Rolewinck of Cologne. This has a quaint
little view of the Piazza of San Marco and other pictures, which
Ratdolt, not at all handsomely, proceeded to copy the next year. In 1481
Ratdolt adorned the _Tractatus de Actionibus_ oi Baptista de Sancto
Blasio with rather a graceful little figure of a woman holding the stem
of a tree. In 1482 he produced an edition of the _Poeticon Astronomicon_
of Hyginus with some figures of the planets which, rude as they were,
served as models for many subsequent editions. In the same year the
_Oratoriae artis epitomata_ of Jacobus Publicius was ornamented with
some figures including a chessboard, cut in white on black, designed to
assist the memory.
[Illustration: XIV. NAPLES, FRANCESCO TUPPO, 1485
AESOP. FABULA XXII., DE ATHENIENSIBUS PETENTIBUS REGEM]
In the later years of his stay at Venice, Ratdolt seems to have lost
interest in book-decoration, but the popularity of woodcuts steadily
increased throughout the 'eighties, and by the end of the decade was in
full tide. In 1484 Bernardinus Benalius gave some rough illustrations to
the _Fioretti_ of Saint Francis; in 1486 Pietro Cremonese bestowed a
formal but quite interesting decorated titlepage on the _Doctrinale_ of
Alexander Gallus, with the title inscribed in a cartouche, above which
rise an urn and lamps. In the same year we have in the _Supplementum
Chronicarum_ printed by Bernardinus Benalius a few cuts of some size
"translated" into an Italian style from those on the same subject in
Quentell's Cologne Bible (c. 1480), also a little view of Venice copied
in reverse from the _Fasciculus Temporum_. The _Supplementum
Chronicarum_ was re-issued several times (the author, Jacobus Philippus
Bergomensis, bringing the statement of his age up to date in each
edition which he revised), and changes were constantly made in the cuts.
In 1486 also came an edition of the _Libro de la divina lege_ of
Marco del Monte S. Maria, with cuts of Mount Sinai and its desert,
notable as having been copied by a much more skilful wood-cutter at
Florence eight years later; 1487 produced the first of the Venetian
illustrated _Aesops_, the cuts having borders of white scroll-work on a
black ground and being influenced by the Naples edition of 1485. With
this must be mentioned a _Fior di virtu_, with a title cut of a Friar
plucking blossoms from a tree, which was thought good enough to be
copied at Milan, but was replaced at Venice three years later by a
delightful picture of a walled garden. It was in 1487 also that there
appeared the edition of the _Devote Meditatione sopra la Passione_, with
cuts taken from the old block-book (see p. 123). In subsequent editions
(of 1489, etc.) these were replaced by new woodcuts of varying merit. A
later edition still (1500) has a fine picture of the Entry into
Jerusalem which Prince d'Essling connects with the _Hypnerotomachia_ of
1499. In 1488 we come to the first illustrated edition of the _Trionfi_
of Petrarch, printed by Bernardino de Novara. This has six large cuts,
showing respectively the triumphs of Love, of Chastity, Death, Fame,
Time, and the Divinity. All are well designed, but spoilt by weak
cutting. In the same year appeared two other illustrated books, a
_Sphaera Mundi_, with a few cuts not in themselves of great importance,
and the _De Essent et Essenta_ of S. Thomas Aquinas, with a striking
little picture of a child lighting a fire by means of a burning-glass.
By studying these books in conjunction Prince d'Essling has shown that
they were designed by one of their printers, Johann Santritter, and
executed by the other, Hieronymus de Sanctis, and that to the latter may
thus be attributed the illustrations (one at least of them of unusual
beauty) in an _Officium Beatae Virginis_ which issued from his press 26
April, 1494.
The information on the last two pages is all epitomized from the Prince
d'Essling's great work _Les livres à figures Vénitiens_ (1907, etc.),
and is quoted here in some detail as showing that from the time of
Erhard Ratdolt onwards book-illustrations are found with some frequency
at Venice, a fact for which, until the Prince published the results of
his unwearying researches, there was very little evidence available.
The event of 1490 was the publication by Lucantonio Giunta of an edition
of Niccolo Malermi's Italian version of the Bible, illustrated with 384
cuts, many of them charming, measuring about three inches by two. The
success of this set a fashion, and several important folio books in
double columns similarly illustrated appeared during the next few years,
a _Vite di Sancti Padre_ in 1491, Boccaccio's _Decamerone_, Masuccio's
_Novellino_, and a _Legendario_ translated from the Latin of Jacobus de
Voragine in 1492, a rival Italian Bible and an Italian Livy in 1493, a
_Morgante Maggiore_ in 1494, and an Italian _Terence_ in 1497, while in
quarto we have a _Miracoli de la Madonna_ (1491), _Vita de la Vergine_
and _Trabisonda Istoriata_ (1492), _Guerrino Meschino_ (1493), and
several others. In some of these books cuts are found signed with F, in
others with N, in others with i or ia; in the Malermi Bible and some
other books we sometimes find the signature b or .b. Such signatures,
which at one time aroused keen controversy, are now believed to have
belonged not to the designer, but to the workshop of the wood-cutters by
whom the blocks were cut. In the case of the Malermi Bible of 1490
workmen of very varying skill were employed, some of the illustrations
to the Gospels being emptied of all delight by the rudeness of their
cutting. Where the designer and the cutter are both at their best the
result is nearly perfect of its kind, and it is curious to think that
some of these dainty little blocks were imitated from the large, heavy
woodcuts in the Cologne Bibles printed by Quentell some ten years
earlier. In the rival Bible of 1493 the best cuts are not so good, nor
the worst so bad as in the original edition of 1490. In the other books
(I have not seen the Masuccio) the cutting is again more even, but the
designs, though often charming and sometimes amusing, are seldom as
good as the best in the Bible. Most of these books have one or more
larger cuts used at the beginning of the text or of sections of it, and
these are always good.
Two editions of Dante's _Divina Commedia_, both published in 1491, one
by Bernardinus Benalius and Matheo Codeca in March, the other by Pietro
Cremonese in November, must be grouped with the books just mentioned, as
they are also illustrated with small cuts (though those in the November
edition are a good deal larger than the usual column-cuts), and these
are signed in some cases with the letter .b. which appears in the
Malermi Bible of 1490. Neither designer has triumphed over the
monotonous effect produced by the continual reappearance of the figures
of Dante and his guide, and the little cuts in the March edition are far
from impressive. On the other hand it has a good frontispiece, in which,
after the medieval habit, the successive incidents of the first canto of
the _Inferno_ are all crowded into the same picture.
Popular as were the little vignettes, they were far from exhausting the
energies of the Venetian illustrators of this decade. At the opposite
pole from them are the four full-page pictures in the 1493 and later
editions of the _Fascicolo de Medicina_ of Joannes Ketham. These
represent a physician lecturing, a consultation, a dissection, and a
visit of a doctor to an infectious patient, whom he views by the light
of two flambeaux held by pages, while he smells his pouncet-box. This
picture (in the foreground of which sits a cat, afterwards cut out to
reduce the size of the block) is perhaps the finest of the four, but
that of the Dissection has the interest of being printed in several
colours. Erhard Ratdolt had made some experiments in colour-printing in
the astronomical books which he printed at Venice, and at Augsburg
completed the crucifixion cut in some of his missals partly by printed
colours, partly by hand. In 1490 a Venetian printer, Johann Herzog, had
illustrated the _De Heredibus_ of Johannes Crispus de Montibus with a
genealogical tree growing out of a recumbent human figure, and had
printed this in brown, green, and red. But the dissection in the
_Fascicolo di Medicina_ was the most elaborate of the Venetian
experiments in colour-printing and apparently also the last.
With the illustrations to the Ketham may be mentioned for its large
pictorial effect, though it comes in a quarto, the fine cut of the
author in the _Doctrina della vita monastica_ of San Lorenzo
Giustiniano, first patriarch of Venice. The figure of San Lorenzo as he
walks with a book under his arm and a hand held up in benediction is
imitated from that in a picture by Gentile Bellini, but he is here shown
(Plate XV) preceded by a charming little crucifer, whose childish face
enhances by contrast the austerer benignity of the saint.
[Illustration: XV. VENICE, ANONYMOUS PRESS, 1494
LORENZO GIUSTINIANO. DELLA VITA RELIGIOSA
PORTRAIT OF THE AUTHOR]
However good the large illustrations in Venetian books, the merits of
them are rather those of single prints than of really appropriate
bookwork. The little column-cuts, on the other hand, are almost playful
in their minuteness, and even when most successful produce the effect of
a delightful border or tailpiece without quite attaining to the full
possibilities of book-illustration. The feverish production of these
column-cuts began to slacken, though it did not cease, in 1493, and
about that date a few charming full-page pictures are found at the
beginning and end of various small quartos. From the treatment of the
man's hair and beard it is clear that the delightful frontispiece to the
_Fioretti della Biblia_ of 1493 (Prince d'Essling, I, 161) was the work
of the illustrator of the second Malermi Bible from which the small cuts
in the text are taken. The three cuts to the _Fioretti_ of S. Francis,
completed 11 June in the same year, that of the _Chome l'angelo amaestra
l'anima_ of Pietro Damiani, dated in the following November, of an
undated _Monte de la Oratione,_ and again of the _De la confessione_ of
S. Bernardino of Siena, all in the same style, form a group of singular
beauty (see Prince d'Essling, I, 284 _sqq._; II, 191, 194, 195).
Those of S. Catherine's _Dialogo de la divina providentia_, 17 May, 1494
(D'Essling, II, 199 _sqq._), were probably no less happily designed, but
have lost more in their cutting, and with these must be grouped the
picture of a Venetian school in the _Regulae Sypontinae_ of Nicolaus
Perottus, 29 March, 1492 (D'Essling, II, 86), used also in the _De
Structura Compositionis_ of Nicolaus Ferettus, printed three years later
at Forlì. The style is continued in the _Specchio della fede_ of
Robertus Caracciolus, 11 April, 1495 (D'Essling, II, 260), in the
headpiece of the _Commentaria in libros Aristotelis_ of S. Thomas
Aquinas, 28 Sept., 1496, and in the two admirable pictures of Terence
lecturing to his commentators, and of a theatre as seen from the back of
the stage, found in the _Terentius cum tribus commentariis_ of July,
1497 (D'Essling, II, 295, and 277 _sqq._). Still in the same style, but
carelessly designed and poorly cut, are the illustrations to the
well-known Ovid of April, 1497 (D'Essling, III, 220 _sqq._), and this
leads us on to the still more famous _Hypnerotomachia Poliphili_ of
Francesco Colonna, printed by Aldus for Leonardo Crassus, a
jurisconsult, in December, 1499, and finally to the cut of Christ
entering Jerusalem in the _Devote Meditatione_ of the following April
(D'Essling, I, 372), where the hand of the artist of the
_Hypnerotomachia_ is clearly visible, though he has surrounded his
picture with a frame in the Florentine manner, which was then beginning
to make its influence felt at Venice.
The primacy usually given to the _Hypnerotomachia_ among all these books
is probably in part due to considerations which have little to do with
its artistic merit. The story is a kind of archaeological romance which
appealed greatly to the dilettante, for whose benefit Leonardo Crassus
commissioned Aldus to print it, but which was far from exciting the
popular interest which shows its appreciation for a book by thumbing it
out of existence. The _Hypnerotomachia_ is probably almost as common a
book as the _Nuremberg Chronicle_ or the First Folio Shakespeare, and
thus its merits have become known to all lovers of old books. It is
impressive, moreover, from its size and the profusion of its 168
illustrations of various sizes, while the extraordinary variety of these
and the excellence of their cutting are further points in its favour.
The initial letters of the successive chapters form the sentence POLIAM
FRATER FRANCISCUS COLVMNA PERAMAVIT, and this with the colophon
assigning the completion of the book to May-Day, 1467, at Treviso,
reveals the author as Francesco Colonna, a Dominican, who had taught
rhetoric at Treviso and Padua, and in 1499, when his book was printed,
was still alive and an inmate of the convent of SS. Giovanni and Paolo
at Venice. The Polia whom he so greatly loved has been identified with
Lucretia Lelio, daughter of a jurisconsult at Treviso.
The story of the _Hypnerotomachia_, or "Strife of Love in a Dream," as
its English translator called it, is greatly influenced by the
Renaissance interest in antique architecture and art which is evident in
so many of its illustrations. Polifilo's dreams are full, as the
preface-writer says, of "molte cose antiquarie digne di memoria, & tutto
quello lui dice hauere visto di puncto in puncto & per proprii uocabuli
ello descriue cum elegante stilo, pyramidi, obelisce, ruine maxime di
edificii, la differentia di columne, la sua mensura, gli capitelli,
base, epistyli," etc. etc. But he is brought also to the palace of Queen
Eleuterylida, and while there witnesses the triumphs or festivals of
Europa, Leda, Danae, Bacchus, Vertumnus, and Pomona, which provide
several attractive subjects for the illustrator. The second part of the
book is somewhat less purely antiquarian. Lucrezia Lelio had entered a
convent after being attacked by the plague which visited Treviso from
1464 to 1466, and so here also Polia is made to take refuge in the
temple of Diana, whence, however, she is driven on account of the visits
of Polifilo, with whom, by the aid of Venus, she is ultimately united.
One other point to be mentioned is that many of the full-page Venetian
illustrations, both in quartos and folios, have quasi-architectural
borders to them, the footpiece being sometimes filled with children
riding griffins or other grotesques, while school-books were often made
more attractive to young readers by a border in which a master is
flogging a boy duly horsed for the purpose on the back of a
schoolfellow. In two of the most graceful of Venetian borders, those to
the _Herodotus_ of 1494 (and also in the 1497 edition of S. Jerome's
Epistles) and Johann Müller's epitome of Ptolemy's _Almagest_ (of 1496),
the design is picked out in white on a black ground.
A few Florentine woodcut illustrations have borders of the kind just
mentioned in which the design stands out in white on a black ground. In
one of these borders there are rather ugly candelabra at the sides, at
the top two lovers facing each other in a circle supported by Cupids, at
the foot a shield supported by boys standing on the backs of couchant
stags. Another has mermen at the top, a shield within a wreath supported
by eagles at the foot, and floral ornaments and armour at the sides. In
a third on either side of the shield in the footpiece boys are tilting
at each other mounted on boars. In a fourth are shown saints and some of
the emblems of the Passion, supported by angels. But as a rule, while
nearly all Florentine woodcuts have borders these are only from an
eighth to three-sixteenths of an inch in depth, and the pattern on them
is a leaf or flower or some conventional design of the simplest possible
kind. A very few cuts have only a rule round them, one of the largest a
triple rule. A rude cut of the Crucifixion is found in Francesco di
Dino's 1490 edition of Cavalca's _Specchio di Croce_ surrounded by a
rope-work border two-fifths of an inch deep, and this border, partly
broken away, also surrounds a really beautiful Pietà (Christ standing in
a tomb, His cross behind Him, His hands upheld by angels) in Miscomini's
1492 edition of Savonarola's _Trattato dell' Umiltà_. When the same
publisher used Dino's Crucifixion cut, also in 1492, for Savonarola's
_Tractato dell' Amore di Gesù_, he left it without either border or rule
round it, the only instance of a Florentine cut so treated in the
fifteenth century. Dr. Paul Kristeller, whose richly illustrated
monograph on _Early Florentine Woodcuts_ (Kegan Paul, 1897) is the
standard work on the subject, suggests with much plausibility that these
two cuts, of the Crucifixion and the Pietà, were originally made for
earlier books now lost, and belong to an older school of wood-cutting,
more akin to that which produced the few extant Florentine single
prints.
The earliest work of the new school of illustration is the magnificent
cut of the Virgin in a mandorla appearing to S. Jacopone da Todi as he
kneels in prayer. This, surrounded by the triple rule already mentioned,
is prefixed to an edition of Jacopone's _Laude_ printed by Francesco
Buonacorsi and dated 28 September, 1490. Apparently the earliest dated
cut with a typical Florentine border is that to the _Lunare_ of
Granollachs printed by Lor. Morgiani and Giovanni da Magonza in
September, 1491. It measures more than 6 inches by 4, and is copied, and
transfigured in the process, from the heavy cut in a Naples edition of
1485. Two months later the same firm issued the _Soliloqui_i of S.
Augustine with an extraordinarily fine title-cut of the saint (the same
picture did duty in 1493 for S. Antonino) writing at a desk in his cell.
This has a border, but with a white ground instead of a black. On 1
January, 1491-2, still from the same firm, we have surely the prettiest
Arithmetic ever printed, that of Filippo Calandri, with delightful
little pictures and border pieces, cut in simple outline, in the
Venetian rather than the Florentine manner. On 20 March, Morgiani and
his partner produced a new edition of Bettini's _Monte Santo di Dio_
with the three copperplates of 1481 (see Chapter XV) skilfully
translated into duly bordered woodcuts, the first two filling a folio
page, the third somewhat shorter. A _Mandeville_ with a single cut
followed in June, and in December the _Trattati_ of Ugo Pantiera, also
with a single cut, perhaps by the designer of the Calandri, since it
employs the same trick of representing a master on a much larger scale
than a disciple as is found in the picture of Pythagoras in the earlier
book.[32] One of the earliest (and also most delightful) of the
title-cuts of another prolific publisher, the picture of a lecturer and
his pupils in Antonio Miscomini's 1492 edition of Landini's
_Formulario_,[33] measures about 6 inches by 4. But after this the
period of experiment was at an end, and with very few exceptions the
woodcuts in Florentine books for the rest of the century all measure
either a little over or a little under 3 inches by 4, and are all
surrounded by a narrow border with some simple design in white upon a
black ground.
Some pains have been taken to make clear both the experiments as to
style, size, and borders in the Florentine book-illustrations of 1490-2,
and the external uniformity in size and borders in the great bulk of the
work of the next few years, because in the first number of the
_Burlington Magazine_ and subsequently in his fine book on Florentine
Drawings, Mr. Bernhard Berenson put forward with considerable confidence
the theory that nine-tenths of the Florentine book-illustrations of this
period were made from designs supplied by a single artist whom he
identifies with a certain Bartolommeo di Giovanni. This Bartolommeo
contracted in July, 1488, with the Prior of the Innocents to paint
before the end of October seven predelle (Innocenti Museum, Nos. 63-70)
for an altarpiece of the Adoration of the Magi, the commission for which
had been given to Domenico Ghirlandajo. Mr. Berenson believes that in
addition to these predelle (the only works with which Bartolommeo is
connected by any evidence other than that of style) he painted the
Massacre of the Innocents, as an episode in Ghirlandajo's altarpiece at
the Innocenti, that he must have been one of the more famous painter's
apprentices in the years 1481-5, and subsequently helped him with
altarpieces at Lucca and at the Accademia at Florence, and painted a
fresco for the church of S. Frediano at Lucca and numerous fronts to the
cassonì or ornamental chests, which were at this period the most
decorative articles of Florentine furniture. As a minor painter
Bartolommeo di Giovanni[34] is pronounced by Mr. Berenson to have been
"incapable of producing on the scale of life a figure that can support
inspection": in predelle and cassone-fronts he is "feeble, if vivacious,
and scarcely more than pleasant," yet with no authenticated work to
build on except the predelle in the Innocenti, Mr. Berenson does not
hesitate to assert that "in Florence between 1490 and 1500 few
apparently, if any, illustrated books were published without woodcuts
for which Alunno di Domenico[34] furnished the designs," and on the
strength of this assumption bestows on him the praise, amply deserved by
the Florentine school as a whole, that he was "a book-illustrator,
charming as few in vision and interpretation, with scarcely a rival for
daintiness and refinement of arrangement, spacing and distribution of
black and white." Mr. Berenson's theories oblige him to credit
Bartolommeo with having copied at least from Filippo Lippi, Botticelli,
and Piero di Cosimo, as well as from Ghirlandajo, and push the licence
accorded to "connoisseurship" to its extreme limit. As I have already
acknowledged elsewhere,[35] if any one man is to be credited with the
whole, or nearly the whole of the Florentine book-illustrations of this
decade, a minor artist used to painting predelle and cassone-fronts
would be the right kind of man for the task, but on the very scanty
evidence at present available I am personally more inclined to attribute
such unity as can be traced in these Florentine cuts to their having all
come from one large wood-cutter's shop, without attempting to trace them
back to a single designer.
In the year 1492, when the form of the Florentine woodcuts had become
fairly fixed, Savonarola was called to the death-bed of Lorenzo the
Magnificent, only to refuse him absolution. His _Amore di Gesù_ and
_Trattato dell' Umiltà_ were printed in June of that year by Miscomini,
each decorated with a single cut. During the six years ending with his
execution in May, 1498, some twenty-three different tracts from his pen,
illustrated with one or more woodcuts, were printed at Florence, most of
them in several different editions. In the _De Simplicitate Christianae
vitae_ (1496) a friar is shown writing in his cell; in other cuts we see
a friar preaching, or visiting the convent of the "Murate" or Recluses
of Florence, or talking with seven Florentines under a tree, but in no
case has any attempt been made at portraiture. This is true also of the
_Compendio di Revelatione_ (1495), in which there are some charming cuts
showing Savonarola escorted by four holy women representing Simplicity,
Prayer, Patience, and Faith, on an embassy to the Blessed Virgin. In the
first of these they meet the devil attired as a hermit; in the second
they arrive at the gate of the celestial city of which the wall is
crowded with saints and angels; in the third they are ushered forth by
S. Peter. A tract by Domenico Benivieni in defence of Savonarola,
besides a cut of the usual size representing Benivieni arguing with his
opponents, has a full-page one of the river of blood flowing from
Christ's wounds and sinners cleansing themselves in it and marking their
foreheads with the sign of the cross. One of the finest cuts in the
Savonarola series represents a citizen of Florence in prayer before a
crucifix. But almost all of them are good.
Besides the Savonarola tracts the miscellaneous religious treatises
illustrated with one or more woodcuts are very numerous. In some cases
outside models were still sought. One of the most important of these
books is the _Meditatione sopra la Passione_ attributed to S.
Bonaventura, of which two undated editions were issued, one with eight
cuts, the other with twelve, three of the additional cuts in the second
edition--the Entry into Jerusalem, Christ before Pilate, and Procession
to Calvary (see Plate XVI)--being exceptionally fine. The earlier
designer probably had the Venetian edition of 1489 before him, but used
it quite freely. Two of the three cuts in the 1494 Florentine edition of
the _Libro delli commandamenti di Dio_ of Marco del Monte S. Maria are
improved copies of those in the Venetian edition of 1486. The third cut,
which appears also in the same author's _Tabula della Salute_ (also of
1494), representing the Monte della Pietà, is copied on a reduced scale
from a large copper engraving attributed to Baccio Baldini, of which an
example is in the Print Room of the British Museum. Of the thirty-four
cuts in Cardinal Capranica's _Arte del benmorire_, eleven are imitated
from the well-known series in the German block-books.
[Illustration: XVI. FLORENCE, MISCOMINI, C. 1495
BONAVENTURA. MEDITATIONE. THE PROCESSION TO CALVARY]
For the _Rappresentazioni_ or miracle-plays in honour of various saints
originality was more imperative, and numerous cuts were designed, only a
few of which have come down to us in editions of the fifteenth century,
most being known as they survive in reprints of the second half of the
sixteenth. Our example (Plate XVII) is from an undated edition of _La
Festa di San Giovanni_, in which, as on many other titlepages, an angel
is shown above the title-cut as the speaker of the Prologue. Purely
secular literature in the shape of _Novelle_ was no doubt plentiful,
despite the influence of Savonarola, but most of it has perished,
thumbed to pieces by too eager readers. A volume of _Novelle_ at the
University Library, Erlangen, is illustrated with delightful cuts, and
others survive here and there in different libraries. Of more
pretentious quartos Angelo Politiano's _La Giostra di Giuliano di
Medici_ (first edition undated, second 1513) is very finely illustrated,
and Petrarch's _Trionfi_ (1499) has good versions of the usual six
subjects.
Many of the best of the quartos and all the illustrated folios were
financed by a publisher, Ser Piero Pacini of Pescia, who was succeeded
early in the sixteenth century by his son Bernardo. Pacini in 1495 began
his career with a very ambitious venture, a folio edition of the
_Epistole et Evangelii et Lectioni_ as they were read in the Mass
throughout the year. This has a decorative frontispiece, in the centre
of which stand SS. Peter and Paul, while small cuts of the four
evangelists are placed in the corners. The text is illustrated with 144
different woodcuts, besides numerous fancy portraits of evangelists,
prophets, etc. A few of the cuts are taken from the _Meditationes_ of S.
Bonaventura, and one or two, perhaps, from other books already
published; but the enormous majority are new, and from the consistency
of the portrait-types of Christ, S. Peter, S. John, etc., appear all to
have been designed by the same man. Some are less successful than
others, but the average is exceptionally high, and the best cuts are
full of movement and life. An _Aesop_ followed in 1496, Pulci's
_Morgante Maggiore_ in 1500, and the _Quatriregio_, a dull poem in
imitation of Dante by Bishop Frezzi, in 1508. It has been conjectured,
however, that an earlier edition of the _Quatriregio_ may have been
printed in the fifteenth century with the same illustrations, and there
is considerable reason to doubt whether any fresh cuts in the old style
were made at Florence after the temporary cessation of publishing
brought about by the political troubles of 1501. On the other hand, the
old cuts went on being used, sometimes in the originals, sometimes in
copies, throughout the greater part of the sixteenth century, and it is
only in these reprints that many of them are known to survive.
At no other Italian town was there any outburst of book-illustration at
all comparable to those at Venice and Florence in the last decade of
the fifteenth century. At Ferrara, after a fine cut of S. George and a
much ruder one of S. Maurelius in a _Legenda_ of the latter saint
printed in 1489,[36] no illustration appeared until 1493, when the
_Compilatio_ of Alfraganus was adorned with a picture of the astronomer
instructing a diminutive hermit. After this, in 1496 we have a fine cut
of the Virgin and Child in the _De ingenuis adolescentium moribus_, and
in 1497 two important folio books, both from the press of Lorenzo Rossi,
the _De claris mulieribus_ of Jacobus Philippus Bergomensis (29 April)
and the Epistles of S. Jerome (12 October). The former of these is
distinctly native work, with the exception of an architectural border,
decorated chiefly with _putti_ and griffins, etc., which is thoroughly
Venetian in style, and was used again in the S. Jerome. There are two
large illustrations, one showing the author presenting his book to the
Queen of Hungary and Bohemia, the other containing eight scenes from the
life of the Blessed Virgin. Fifty-six cuts in the text are made to serve
as portraits of 172 different women, and under the strain of such
repetition individuality perforce disappears. But at the end of the book
are seven cuts of Italian ladies of the fifteenth century: Bona of
Lombardy, Bianca Maria of Milan, Catherine Countess of Fréjus and Imola,
Leonora Duchess of Ferrara, Bianca Mirandula, Genebria Sforza, and
Damisella Trivulzia, and these, some of them fair, some rather
forbidding, appear all to be genuine portraits. The cutting is mostly
rather stiff and heavy (Damisella Trivulzia is exceptionally tenderly
treated), and much use is made of black grounds.
[Illustration: XVII. FLORENCE, BART. DI LIBRI, C. 1495
LA FESTA DI SAN GIOVANNI. (TITLE)]
In contrast to those in the _De claris mulieribus_, the cuts in the
_Epistulae_ of S. Jerome are distinctly Venetian in style. As one of the
two architectural borders is dated 1493, it is possible that the book
was at first intended to be issued at Venice, but was transferred to
Ferrara when Venetian interest in small column-cuts was found to be
on the wane. It possesses in all over 160 of these, those illustrating
conventual life in the second part of the book being much the most
interesting.
At Milan the _Theorica Musicae_ of Franchino Gafori, printed in 1492 by
Philippus Mantegatius, has a title-cut of a man playing the organ, and
four coarsely cut pictures, together occupying a page, showing primitive
musical experiments. Four years later the same author's _Practica
Musicae_ was issued by another printer, Guillaume Le Signerre, with a
title-cut illustrating the different measures and the Muses and signs of
the Zodiac to which they belong, and with two fine woodcut borders
surrounding the opening pages of Books I and III, and II and IV. In 1498
Le Signerre produced two much more profusely illustrated books, the
_Specchio dell' Anima_ of Ludovicus Besalii and an _Aesop_, some of the
cuts of the former being used again in 1499 in the _Tesoro Spirituale_
of Johannes Petrus de Ferrariis. After this he migrated to Saluzzo, and
in 1503 produced there a fine edition of the _De Veritate Contritionis_
of Vivaldus, with a frontispiece of S. Jerome in the desert. At Modena
in 1490 Dominicus Rocociola printed a _Legenda Sanctorum Trium Regum_,
with a rather pleasing cut of their Adoration of the Holy Child; and two
years later, at the same place, the _Prognosticatio_ of Johann
Lichtenberger, printed by Pierre Maufer, was illustrated with three
full-page quarto cuts and forty-two half-page ones, careful directions
for each picture being supplied in the text, but the cuts being modelled
on those in the German editions at Ulm and Mainz. At Aquila in 1493 an
_Aesop_ was produced, copied from the Naples edition of 1485. At Pavia
in 1505 the _Sanctuarium_ of Jacobus Gualla was illustrated with seventy
woodcuts and some excellent initials. At Saluzzo in 1508 another work by
Vivaldus, printed by Jacobus de Circis and Sixtus de Somachis, was
decorated with three large woodcuts of very exceptional merit: a
portrait of the Marquis Ludovico II (almost too striking for a
book-illustration), a picture of S. Thomas Aquinas in his cell, and
another of S. Louis of France. The treatise of Paulus de Middelburgo on
the date of Easter, printed by Petruzzi at Fossombrone in 1513, contains
some very fine borders, and the _Decachordum Christianum_ of Marcus
Vigerius, printed at Fano in 1507 by Hieronymus Soncinus, has ten cuts
by Florio Vavassore, surrounded with good arabesque borders. To multiply
isolated examples such as these would turn our text into a catalogue.
Here and there special care was taken over the decoration of a book, and
worthy results produced. But throughout Italy the best period of
illustration had come to an end when the sixteenth century was only a
few years old.
FOOTNOTES:
[31] In the masterly work of the Prince d'Essling on _Les livres à
figures Vénitiens_, the discovery of this interesting fact is
inadvertently ascribed to Mr. Guppy, the present librarian of the
John Rylands Library. It was made by his predecessor, Mr. Gordon
Duff, a note by whom on the subject was quoted in my _Italian
Book-Illustrations_ (p. 18), published in 1894.
[32] The same trick is used in the _Rudimenta astronomica_ of
Alfraganus, printed at Ferrara by Andreas Bellfortis in 1493.
[33] Also used in an undated edition of the _Flores Poetarum_.
[34] Mr. Berenson prefers to call him "Alunno di Domenico,"
Ghirlandajo's pupil.
[35] Introduction to the Roxburghe Club edition (presented by Mr.
Dyson Perrins) of the _Epistole et Evangelii_ of 1495.
[36] There were two issues or editions of this book in 1489, one of
which is said to have only the cut of S. Maurelius.
CHAPTER IX
EARLY FRENCH AND SPANISH ILLUSTRATED BOOKS
Although interrupted by the death of its veteran author, Claudin's
magnificent _Histoire de l'imprimerie en France_, in the three volumes
which he lived to complete, made it for the first time possible for
students to trace the early history of book-illustration at Paris and
Lyon, the two great centres of printing in France. No illustrated books
were printed at the Sorbonne, nor by its German printers when they set
up in the rue S. Jacques, nor by their rivals there, Keysere and Stoll,
and the French printers at the sign of the Soufflet vert. In January,
1476-7, in the first French book printed at Paris, the _Chroniques de
France_ or de _S. Denis_, Pasquier Bonhomme so far recognized the
possibility of illustration as to leave a space for a miniature on the
first page of text,[37] but he used no woodcuts himself, and his son
Jean suffered himself to be anticipated in introducing them by Jean Du
Pré. Although he worked on rather narrow lines, Du Pré was the finest of
the early Parisian printers, and possessed far better taste than the
prolific publisher, Antoine Vérard, of whom so much more has been
written. His first book, a Paris Missal issued in partnership with
Didier Huym, 22 September, 1481, has a large picture of the Père Éternel
and the Crucifixion. Although this is fairly well cut, it is baldly
handled, and was far surpassed two months later (28 November) in a
similar missal for the diocese of Verdun, by a really fine metal-cut of
a priest and other worshippers at prayer at an altar. From the priest's
uplifted hands a little figure of a man is rising up to a vision of the
Père Éternel, seen with His angels against the background of a sky full
of stars. The little figure is the priest's soul, and the cut (often
confused with pictures of the Mass of S. Gregory, in which the Host is
seen as a figure of Christ) illustrates the opening words of the
introit: "Ad te levavi animam meam." In the same Missal are a number of
smaller cuts which look as if they had been prepared for a Horae, and
may indeed have been used for one now entirely lost. The "Ad te levavi"
cut reappears in many of the later Missals of Du Pré, and subsequently
of Wolfgang Hopyl. Du Pré's first secular book to be illustrated was an
edition of Boccaccio's _De la ruine des nobles hommes_, completed 26
February, 1483-4, and of peculiar interest to English bookmen because
the woodcuts were acquired by Richard Pynson, and used in his edition of
Lydgate's _Falles of Princes_, an English verse-rendering of the same
work. They are well designed and clearly cut, if rather hard, and till
their French origin was discovered were justly praised as "some of the
very best" English woodcuts of the fifteenth century. Only a few weeks
later Jean Bonhomme (12 May, 1484) issued Maistre Jacques Millet's
_L'Histoire de la destruction de Troye la Grant_, illustrated with a
number of cuts rather neater and firmer, but of much the same kind, and
possibly from the same workshop. They passed almost at once into the
possession of Vérard, and cuts from the series illustrating battles,
landings, councils, audiences, and other romantic commonplaces are found
in his _Végèce_ of 1488 and _Les Commentaires Iules César_ of about the
same date (see Macfarlane's _Antoine Vérard_, cuts vi-ix). A new edition
of Millet's book was printed by Jean Driard for Vérard 8 May, 1498. Two
of the best of the cuts are those of the lamentation over the dead body
of Hector and the sacrifice of Polyxena on the tomb of Achilles. The
only other illustrated book published by Jean Bonhomme was his edition
of the _Livre des ruraulx prouffitz du labeur des champs_, a French
version of Crescentius, with a frontispiece of the translator presenting
his book to Charles VII (15 October, 1486). Meanwhile, a new publisher
of illustrated books had arisen, Guyot Marchant, who in September, 1485,
issued a _Danse macabre_ which went through several editions. Its grim
fantastic pictures (executed with unusual skill and delicacy, see Plate
XVIII) of Death as a grinning skeleton claiming his prey from every
class of society seem to have become quickly popular, and additional
cuts were made for later editions, including one in Latin (15 October,
1490), in which the Dance is called _Chorea ab eximio macabro versibus
alemanicis edita_. A _Danse macabre des femmes_ followed (2 May, 1491),
but the figures in this are mostly less good, as are those of a third
part (the Debate between Soul and Body, and other pieces), despite the
vivacity with which they represent the tortures of the damned. Akin to
the _Danse Macabre_ is the _Compost et Kalendrier des Bergers_ (also of
1491), a medley of weather-lore, rules for health, and moral and
religious instruction, liberally illustrated with cuts of shepherds, of
Moses, Christ and the Apostles, and of the tortures of the damned. This
in its turn was followed, in 1496, by a similar book for the
Shepherdesses, of which a new edition appeared in 1499, with added
pastoral cuts, some of which have unusual charm. Besides Guyot Marchant,
Pierre Levet began book-illustration in 1485, but most of his work was
done for Vérard. His earliest venture, an _Exposition de la salutation
angélique_, has a cut of the Annunciation, the shading in which suggests
that he may have imported a cutter from Lyon.
[Illustration: XVIII. PARIS, MARCHAND, 1491
DANSE MACABRE (5^a). DEATH AND THE ARCHBISHOP. (REDUCED)]
In 1486 Jean Du Pré was very busy. At Paris he completed in June a _Vie
des anciens Saintz Pères_, with a large cut of S. Jerome writing in a
stall and the holy fathers passing before him, also numerous very neat
column-cuts and capital letters. Meanwhile, at Abbeville Du Pré was
helping Pierre Gérard to produce one of the finest French books of the
fifteenth century, the magnificent edition of S. Augustine's _Cité de
Dieu_. Early in 1486 Gérard had already printed there an edition of _La
somme rurale_, but this had only a single woodcut, and it was probably
mainly in connection with the illustrations that he now enlisted the
help of Du Pré. In the first volume of the _Cité de Dieu_ (finished 24
November, 1486) there are eleven woodcuts, in the second (finished 12
April, 1486-7) twelve, i.e. a woodcut at the beginning of each of the
twenty-two books and a frontispiece of S. Augustine writing, and the
translator, Raoul de Preules, presenting his book to the King of France.
The subjects and general design of the cuts correspond with greater or
less closeness to those in Royal MS. 14 D. 1 at the British Museum
(Books I-XI only), so that the same original was probably followed by
both. One of the most effective pictures is that to Book XIV, which
shows a man seated in a tree, offered a crown by an angel and a
money-chest by a devil, while Death is sawing the tree asunder, and two
dragons wait at its foot. Another shows S. Augustine writing, while five
devils play with his books, and an angel protects his mitre. The cutting
throughout is excellent, and the pictures, though sometimes fantastic,
are very effectively drawn. There can be little doubt that they were the
work of Paris craftsmen. As for Pierre Gérard, in 1487 he printed by
himself, still at Abbeville, an edition of _Le Triomphe des Neuf Preux_,
with rather childishly conventional cuts of the legendary heroes, but
for Bertrand Du Guesclin a portrait which at least faithfully reproduces
his bullet head. We find Du Pré forming a similar alliance two years
later with Jean Le Bourgeois of Rouen, for whom he completed at Paris
the second volume of a _Roman des Chevaliers de la Table ronde_, 16
September, 1488, while Le Bourgeois was still struggling at Rouen with
Vol. I, which ultimately got finished 24 November. This has some large
cuts of the Feast at the Round Table, etc. In 1489 Du Pré produced a
_Legende dorée_, a companion volume to his _Vie des Saintz Pères_ of
1486. But by this time he was already producing Horae, which will be
spoken of later on, and Horae and Missals were his main occupations for
the rest of his career, though he produced a fine edition of the
allegorical romance _Le Chevalier Délibéré_ by Olivier de la Marche,
Bonnor's _Arbre des Batailles_ (in which he used some of the same cuts),
1493, _Les vigilles du roi Charles VII_ and some other secular books.
The great Paris publisher Antoine Vérard started on his busy career in
1485, and the history of book-illustration at Paris is soon immensely
complicated by his doings. Many of the printers at Paris printed for
him; illustrations originally made for other men gravitated into his
possession and were used occasionally for new editions of the book for
which they had been made, much more often as stock cuts in books with
which they had nothing to do; while if another firm brought out a
successful picture-book, Vérard imitated the cuts in it with
unscrupulous and unblushing closeness. The monograph of my late friend
and colleague John Macfarlane[38] describes some 280 books published by
Vérard between 1485 and 1512, and like most bibliographical work done at
first hand by personal examination of the books themselves gets at the
root of the matter, although the absence of information as to Vérard's
predecessors and contemporaries, such as has since been supplied by M.
Claudin, prevented the author from pressing home some of his points.
Thus in his estimate that sets of blocks had been "expressly cut to
adorn some thirty editions," Macfarlane did not make sufficient
allowance for the cases in which these apparent sets were themselves not
original, having been acquired by Vérard from earlier owners.
Nevertheless, he had no difficulty in finding support for his contention
that "the illustrations in Vérard's books, when closely examined, hardly
bear out their reputation." Thus he showed that "besides being
repeatedly used in book after book, it not uncommonly happens that the
same cut is used again and again in the same book," and gave as an
extreme instance of this the repetition no fewer than twenty times of
the same cut in the _Merlin_ of 1498.[39] He pointed out, moreover, that
some far-fetched plea is nearly always needed to justify the presence of
a cut in any but the work it was designed for. "For instance, in the
_Josephus_ of 1492 the spoliation of a country is represented by the
burial of a woman, the death of Samson by a picture of the Temple, and
the Sacrifice of Isaac helps the reader to conceive the execution of a
malefactor, while a mention of the sea brings out a cut of Noah's Ark."
However crowded a book may be with cuts, if the cuts are mostly
irrelevant it cannot truly be said to be illustrated, and the number of
Vérard's books which a rigorous application of this principle would
condemn is very large. An explanation of at least some of these
incongruities may be found in Vérard's early training as an illuminator,
and his habit of preparing special copies on vellum for Charles VIII of
France, Henry VII of England, the Comte d'Angoulême, and other royal and
noble patrons. A woodcut in itself quite inappropriate to the text might
save an illuminator some trouble by suggesting the grouping of the
figures in a picture, and a cut of Saturn devouring his children was
actually used in this way in one of the Henry VII books in the British
Museum as a ground plan for an illumination of a Holy Family. If King
Henry ever held that illumination up to the light he would have had no
difficulty in seeing the scythe of Chronos and the limbs of a child
protruding from Saturn's mouth, but I have never seen a paper copy of
this book, and can only wonder whether the same cut was allowed to
appear in it.
Vérard's earliest book was the translation of Boccaccio's _Decamerone_
by Laurent du Premierfait, completed 22 November, 1485, and illustrated
with a single cut of the author writing in an alcove looking out on a
garden where the storytellers are seen seated. An edition of _Les dits
moraux des philosophes_ of Guillaume de Tignonville (Caxton's _Dicts and
Sayings of the Philosophers_) followed in April, 1486, and the _Livre
des ruraulx prouffitz_, translated from Crescentius, with a few small
cuts, not so good as those in the edition just issued by Jean Bonhomme,
in the following July. His first important illustrated book was the
_Cent nouvelles nouvelles_, of Christmas Eve, 1486, with two large cuts,
very alike in style, of an author presenting his book to a king, and
forty column-cuts, most of them used several times, occasionally with
mutilations intended to erase features unsuitable to the later stories.
The next important book was a _Chevalier Délibéré_ of 8 August, 1488,
with some excellent cuts which reappear frequently in later books.
Passing over many inferior books, we come in 1492 to a really fine one,
containing four separate treatises: (1) _Art de bien mourir_,
illustrated with copies of the old German block-book; (2) _Traité des
peines d'enfer_ (otherwise known as _L'Aiguillon de crainte divine_),
with grotesque but striking cuts of the tortures of the damned; (3)
_Advenement de antichrist_ and fifteen Tokens of Judgment, very poorly
illustrated compared with the other parts of the book; and (4) _L'Art de
bien vivre_, copiously decorated with scenes from Bible history, an
oblong set, illustrating the Adoration of the Virgin and Child, the
Lord's Prayer, Commandments, Apostles, etc.; (5) a very fine set of cuts
illustrating the Sacraments.
In June, 1493, Vérard published in three large folio volumes, printed
for him by Jean Morand, _Les Croniques de France_, with pictures of a
coronation, royal entry into a town, a king sitting in judgment, etc.
etc., the cutting being only of average delicacy, but good enough to do
justice to the vigour of some of the designs. From this point onwards
his interest seems more and more to have centred in his illuminated
copies, and almost all the later Vérard illustrations in M. Claudin's
great work are taken from these. Along, however, with many old cuts in
his undated _Bible historiée_ there are two very fine ones specially
made for the work, one of Adam and Eve in Eden, a round cut placed,
below the roots of a tree, in a square of black, from which it stands
out with extraordinary vividness (see Plate XIX), and a picture of the
Trinity and the four evangelists. In an undated _Terence en francois_,
printed about 1500, Vérard availed himself of an idea already exploited
by Grüninger and some of the Low Country illustrators, the use of blocks
made up of five or six pieces used in different combinations, so as to
give an effect of great variety at very small expense. Many of the
individual blocks, though the figures are not at all Terentian, are very
charming, and a few of them were freely copied for the English market,
where they may be traced for over a century. About the same time as this
Vérard published a _Livre des Ordonnances de la Prevosté des Marchans et
Eschevinage de la Ville de Paris_, with numerous small illustrations of
different crafts and a most interesting picture of the court of the
Prevosté with its judges and officials. After the first few years of the
sixteenth century Vérard seems to have relied more than ever on his
stock of old cuts, and does not seem to have produced any notable new
books.
[Illustration: XIX. PARIS, VÉRARD, 1505
BIBLE EN FRANCOYS (2^a). ADAM AND EVE. (REDUCED)]
A few books printed or published by less prolific firms remain to be
noticed before we speak of the Horae which form so important a section
among Paris illustrated books as to require separate treatment. One of
Vérard's printers was Pierre Le Rouge, a member of a family which worked
also at Chablis and at Troyes. In July, 1488, and February, 1488-9, Le
Rouge printed "pour Vincent Commin Marchand libraire" _La mer des
histoires_ in two great folios with large cuts of the kind Vérard
subsequently used in his _Chroniques de France_, and on the titlepage a
particularly fine capital L. Philippe Pigouchet, mainly a printer of
Horae, produced in 1499 for his usual publisher, Simon Vostre, a
charmingly illustrated edition of a dull poem, _Le Chasteau de Labeur_,
attributed to the playwright of Victor Hugo's _Notre Dame de Paris_,
Pierre Gringore. Wolfgang Hopyl printed some fine Missals, mostly after
1500; Le Petit Laurens, besides working for Vérard, printed for G.
Marnef _La nef des folles_, with a few cuts by one of the most skilled
of Paris craftsmen, and these were rivalled by Jean Treperel in an
undated _Paris et Vienne_; Gillet Couteau and Jean Ménard printed a
_Danse Macabre_ in 1492 (not so good as Gui Marchant's) and a new
version of the _Biblia Pauperum_ entitled _Les figures du vieil
testament et du nouveau;_ Jean Lambert, in 1497, produced _La nef des
folz du monde_, with cuts imitating those in the Basel editions. It
would be easy to mention other books, but not without turning our pages
into a catalogue.
We must turn now to the Paris Horae. As already noted, among the
pictures in Jean Du Pré's Verdun Missal of November, 1481, there are a
set of cuts which seem to have been designed for a Horae, though if they
were even put to this use no copy of the edition in which they appeared
has been recorded. The earliest illustrated Horae of which copies exist
are three editions published by Vérard, in February 1485-6, August 1486,
and July 1487, all of them small and with insignificant cuts, and all
known only from single copies, of which that of the earliest edition (in
private hands) is imperfect, while the woodcuts in the other two, both
at the Bibliothèque Nationale, are heavily coloured.
Vérard's Horae of 1486 and 1487 are said to have been printed for him by
Jean Du Pré, and in the next group of editions Du Pré on his own account
seems to have played the chief part, with Levet and Caillaut as
subordinate actors. It is probable that the group may have been started
by a Psalter printed by Levet 23 September, 1486, and reprinted 19
February, 1488-9, the cuts of these appearing in an undated _Horae ad
usum Romanum_, printed by Du Pré, now in the British Museum. This
measures about 4(5/8) × 3¼ inches, and of the same size, but with
different woodcuts, are another undated Horae by Du Pré in the
Bodleian, and a third, with Caillaut's mark at the end, in the
Bibliothèque Nationale. The cuts in all three are delightfully simple
and naive, and those in the Bodleian Du Pré edition show really delicate
work. The group, which comprised other editions only known from
fragments, seems to be continued by two dated respectively 10 May, 1488,
and 4 February, 1488-9, each measuring about 5(5/8) × 3(5/8) inches, the
illustrations in which are distinctly stated to have been cut on copper
(_les vignettes de ces presentes heures imprimees en cuyvre_). The
illustrations especially referred to are the borderpieces, which are of
great importance as containing the earliest examples of a series of
small Horae cuts continued from page to page, in this case depicting
incidents in the life of Christ and their prefigurements, on the plan of
the old block-book _Biblia Pauperum_. Lastly, in 1490, we have a Du Pré
Horae, with very fine cuts and with some of the miscellaneous
borderpieces of the editions just mentioned, which is of exceptional
interest in the history of French book-illustration and printing, since
the cuts and borders in it are printed in different colours, faint red,
blue and green, two colours (laid on the same block and printed at the
same time) usually appearing together. The British Museum possesses one
of two known copies of this Horae, and the late Prince d'Essling bought
the other.
[Illustration: XX. PARIS, VÉRARD, 1490
GRANDES HEURES (SIG. C 6 VERSO). MASSACRE OF THE INNOCENTS]
In the Horae of the group we have been describing the subjects of the
larger cuts became fairly well settled, in accordance with the normal
contents of the prayer book. For the Kalendar there is the figure of a
man with an indication of the parts of his body presided over by the
different planets: for the sequence of the Gospels of the Passion,
sometimes a Crucifixion, sometimes a picture of S. John; for the Hours
of the Blessed Virgin, the Annunciation, Visitation, Nativity,
Shepherds, Magi, Circumcision, Massacre of the Innocents or Flight into
Egypt, and Assumption of the Blessed Virgin; for the Hours of the Cross,
a Crucifixion; for the Hours of the Holy Spirit, His Descent at
Pentecost; for the Penitential Psalms, David's fall (Bathsheba bathing
or the death of Uriah) or repentance; for the Office of the Dead, either
a Funeral, Dives and Lazarus, or the three Gallants and three Skeletons
(_les trois vifs et trois morts_); for the Suffrages, small pictures of
various saints. Any edition might have one or more additional cuts with
less usual subjects, but those named occur in almost all.
Passing on, we come now to Vérard's countermove to Du Pré's group, Horae
measuring 6 inches or a little under by about 3½. Editions of these were
issued in April, 1488-9, and in January, February, and April of the
following year. The last of these, completed 10 April, 1489-90, I
wrongly described, in an article in Vol. III of _Bibliographica_, as
having a titlepage bearing the words _Les figures de la Bible_. It has
such a titlepage in the copy in the British Museum, but I have now woke
up to the fact that it is a modern fabrication, added either by an
artful bookseller or an artless owner. In these Horae the borders are
made up of four pieces, one of which extends along most of the outer and
lower margins, and shows children wrestling with each other, or playing
with hobbies or go-carts. On 10 July, 1493, these are found in a Horae
issued by Laurens Philippe. Vérard could the better afford to part with
them, since in August, 1490, perhaps earlier, he had substituted much
larger borders, the subjects in which seem imitated from those of Du
Pré's metal-cuts, the printed page now measuring about 8 × 5 inches, and
thus winning for them the title Grandes Heures, by which they are
generally known (see Plate XX). The large cuts, of which, though not all
appear in every edition, there seems to have been seventeen, illustrate
the following subjects:--
1. Prayer to the Virgin; 2. Anatomical Man; 3. A chalice the
circumference of which represents the measurement of Christ's wound;
4. Fall of Angels; 5. Creation of Eve and Fall; 6. Controversy in
heaven between Mercy, Justice, Peace, and Reason, and Annunciation; 7.
Reconciliation of Joseph and Mary, and Visitation; 8. Nativity and
Adoration by the Shepherds; 9. Angels and Shepherds, Shepherds
dancing; 10. Magi; 11. Circumcision; 12. Massacre of Innocents; 13.
Coronation of the Virgin; 14. David's choice of punishments; 15.
Hearse in a Chancel; 16. Invention of the Cross; 17. Pentecost.
The cutting is good and the pictures are both quaint and decorative,
their larger size enabling them to avoid the overcrowding which had
damaged the effect of the earlier sets. These cuts continued in use till
1498, successive editions in May, July, and October of that year, from
the press of Jean Poitevin, showing their gradual replacement by copies
of Philippe Pigouchet's second set.
This famous printer-illustrator was certainly printing as early as 1488,
though Mr. Proctor in his "Index" makes the Horae for the use of Paris,
finished 1 December, 1491, his earliest book. Although not his earliest
book, I still believe that this was Pigouchet's earliest Book of Hours,
and regret that M. Claudin, while rejecting supposed editions of 1486
and 1487, should have accepted as authentic one of 16 September, 1488,
said to have very rude and archaic cuts, while owning that he could not
trace a copy. Until the book can be produced I shall continue to believe
that this edition of 16 September, 1488, is a ghost begotten of a double
crime, a bookseller's manipulation of the date of one of Pigouchet's
best-known editions, that of "le xvi iour de Septembre Lan Mil
cccc.iiii.xx et xviii," by omitting the x in xviii, and a
bibliographer's endeavour to make this imaginary edition of 16
September, 1488, more credible by assuming--and asserting--that its cuts
were rude and archaic because over three years earlier than any
authenticated Horae from Pigouchet's press. His edition of 1 December,
1491, was printed partly for sale by himself, partly for de Marnef, who
subsequently owned the blocks. Besides the usual illustrations for the
Hours, it has pictures of S. John writing and of the Betrayal for the
Gospels of the Passion, of David's choice of punishments for the
Penitential Psalms, and of Les trois vifs et trois morts, and Dives and
Lazarus for the Office for the Dead; also a small cut, with a criblé
background of the Vision of S. Gregory, and numerous small cuts of
saints. The sidepieces, which are marked with letters to indicate their
sequence, illustrate the Creation, the prophecies of the Sibyls, and the
subjects of the _Biblia Pauperum._ During the years 1491 and 1495 at
least eight or ten Horae for various uses were printed by Pigouchet,
mostly for Simon Vostre. Of most of these a good many copies have
survived printed on vellum and often illuminated for wealthy purchasers.
The paper copies, which presumably formed the bulk of each edition, are
now far rarer, and to students of book-illustration much preferable to
the coloured vellum copies. Good vellum copies with the pictures and
borders uncoloured, but with their pages brightened by illuminated
capitals and coloured paragraph marks, are the pleasantest to possess.
At the end of 1495 or early in 1496 Pigouchet began replacing the
woodcuts of this series of editions with a new set much more graceful
and less stiff, a few changes being made in the subjects. At the same
time he substituted new borderpieces for the old, among the new blocks
being a fine series of the Dance of Death, which were brought into use
as they were completed, so that we can trace the increase of them from
month to month, so frequent now were the editions. In 1497 and 1498
further additions were made to the large pictures by the addition of new
metal cuts with criblé backgrounds for the Anatomical Man, chalice, Stem
of Jesse, Adoration by the Shepherds, Descent from the Cross, Death of
Uriah, and the Church Militant and Triumphant. By the end of 1499 new
criblé borderpieces had been added, illustrating the life of Joseph,
history of the Prodigal Son, history of Susanna, Fifteen Tokens of
Judgment, Christ Seated in Judgment, the Cardinal Virtues, and woodland
and hunting scenes. From August, 1498, to the end of 1502 Pigouchet's
editions were at their finest. Meanwhile the cuts of his second set
were slavishly copied in editions printed for Vérard. From 1497,
moreover, he had to face serious competition from Thielman Kerver, who
issued closely similar editions with pictures and borders by cutters
little, if at all, inferior either in technical skill or charm. On 5
April, 1503, Jean Pychore and Remy de Laistre completed an edition, in
which Pigouchet probably had a hand, with three very large cuts of the
Annunciation, Nativity, and Adoration by the Magi, and eight smaller
ones surrounded by architectural framework, representing S. John before
the Latin Gate, the Crucifixion, the Emperor Octavian and the Sibyl, the
Massacre of the Innocents, Descent of the Holy Spirit, Death of the
Virgin, and Raising of Lazarus, some of them showing strong traces of
the influence of Dürer. From this point onwards the Renaissance spirit
became increasingly powerful in these prayer books, and while in almost
all their advances to meet it the work of Pigouchet himself, and of
Thielman Kerver, continues interesting (though the mixture of old and
new styles in their editions is often confusing), in the numerous
editions poured forth by Germain and Gillet Hardouyn, many of them
printed for them by Guillaume Anabat, and again in those printed by
Nicolas Higman for Guillaume Eustace, the cuts are very inferior, so
that they look best when most heavily illuminated. In a few editions
published by the Hardouyns spaces appear to have been left for the
illuminator to work unaided. In most of these late editions only the
pages with cuts have borders, and these of the nature of picture frames,
as contrasted with the old historiated borders.
In 1525 Geoffroi Tory, a native of Bourges (born about 1480), who at
this period of his life was at once a skilled designer, a scholar, and a
printer, completed a Horae which, though somewhat thin and unsatisfying
compared with the richer and more pictorial work of Pigouchet at his
best, far surpassed any edition produced at Paris for the previous
twenty years. Part of the edition was taken up by the great publisher of
the day, Simon Colines, and while the body of the book was only printed
once, differences in the titlepages and colophons and in the arrangement
of the almanac and privilege constitute altogether three different
issues. Whereas the best earlier editions had been printed in gothic
letter this is in roman, and both the borders and the twelve
illustrations aim at the lightness and grace necessary to match the
lighter type. The vase-like designs of the borders are meaningless, but
the pictures, despite the long faces and somewhat angular figures, have
a peculiar charm. They were used again, with some additions, in a Horae
completed 20 October, 1531. An edition of 1 October, 1527, described by
Tory's chief biographer, Auguste Bernard, as printed, "chez Simon de
Colines en caractères romains avec des vignettes de même genre, mais
beaucoup plus petites," I have never seen. Three weeks later Tory
printed in gothic letter a Paris Horae with borders of birds and fruits
and flowers rather in the style of some of the Flemish manuscripts. In
February, 1529, he produced a much smaller Horae in roman type without
borders, but with some very delicate little cuts, used again by Olivier
Mallard, who married his widow, in 1542. Tory appears to have died in
1533, and attributions of later work to him on the ground of its being
marked with a "cross of Lorraine" (i.e. a cross with two transverse
strokes) should be received with caution, unless the cuts are found in
books by Tory's widow or her second husband. It is not quite clear that
the cross is not the mark of a wood-cutter rather than a designer, and
if it really marks the designer we must believe that it was used by
others beside Tory, so various is the work on which it is found.
Illustrated books were published at Lyon somewhat earlier than at Paris,
and in point of numbers, if the comparison be confined to secular books
with sets of cuts especially appropriated to them, the provincial city
probably equalled, if it did not surpass, the metropolis. But if it must
be reckoned to the credit of Lyon that it had no Antoine Vérard,
reckless in his use of unsuitable stock cuts, it must be noted, on the
other hand, that strikingly good illustrations are rare and bad ones
numerous. Inasmuch as Lyon, before it welcomed the art of printing, had
established some reputation for the manufacture of playing-cards, the
number of rude and badly cut illustrations is indeed surprisingly large.
The first Lyonnese printer to use pictorial woodcuts in a dated book was
Martin Huss, who issued a _Miroir de la Rédemption_, 27 August, 1478,
with the aid of blocks previously used (1476) by Bernard Richel at
Basel; cuts of surgical instruments appeared in the following March,
1478-9, in the _Chirurgia_ of Guido de Cauliaco printed for Barth. Buyer
by Nicolaus Philippi and Marcus Reinhart, and the same printers' undated
_Legende dorée_ with very rude pictures is probably contemporaneous with
this. The earliest woodcut of any artistic interest and of Lyonnese
origin is a picture, occupying a folio-page, of the Blessed Virgin, with
the Holy Child in her arms, standing in front of a curtain. This is
found in the _Histoire du Chevalier Oben qui vouloist acuplir le voiage
de S. Patrix_, printed by Leroy about 1480, of which the only known copy
is at the British Museum.
After 1480 all the firms we have named continued to issue illustrated
books of varying merit. On 30 September, 1483, Leroy completed a _Livre
des Eneydes_ with cuts which are often grotesque, though sometimes neat
and sometimes giving evidence of a vigour of design too great for the
wood-cutter's skill. In 1485 he found a Lyonnese cutter able to copy for
him the Paris cuts of Jean Bonhomme's edition of the _Destruction de
Troye la Grant_ quite competently, though in a much heavier style. In
May, 1486, he printed a _Livre des Sainctz Anges_ with a figure of
Christ in a mandorla (perhaps suggested by the engraving of the same
subject in Bettini's _Monte Santo di Dio_), and this, despite a certain
clumsiness in the face, is quite good. In the same year, in an edition
of _Fierabras_, Leroy went back to cuts of incredible rudeness, while
about 1490 in _Les Mysteres de la Saincte Messe_, we find him employing
for a cut of the Annunciation a skilled craftsman, signing himself I. D.
(Jean Dalles?), whose work, though lacking in charm, is neatness itself.
Some shaded cuts in his romance of Bertrand Du Guesclin (undated, but
_c._ 1487) are among the best work in any book by Leroy. Among his other
undated illustrated books are editions of _Pierre de Provence_,
_Melusine_, and the _Roman de la Rose_.
Nicolaus Philippi and Marcus Reinhart in 1482 illustrated a _Mirouer de
la vie humaine_ (from the Latin of Rodericus Zamorensis) with Augsburg
cuts purchased from the stock of Günther Zainer[40], and copied a Paris
edition in their _Vie des Saintz pères hermites_ and German originals in
their _Mandeville_ and _Aesop_. Their edition of the _Postilla
Guillermi_ (_c._ 1482) has rather a fine Crucifixion and some primitive
but vigorous illustrations of the gospels.
Martin Huss issued an undated _Exposition de la Bible_ with rude cuts
and a French _Belial_ (version of Pierre Ferget), first printed in
November, 1481, and at least five times subsequently. After his death in
1482 his business was carried on by a kinsman, Mathieu Huss, who became
a prolific publisher of illustrated books, with cuts of very varying
merit. Two of his earliest ventures were the _Proprietaire des Choses_
(2 November, 1482), a French version of the _De proprietatibus rerum_ of
Bartholomaeus Anglicus, and a _Fasciculus temporum_ (1483), both with
very rude cuts. During a partnership with Johann Schabeler he issued
(about 1484) a French version of Boccaccio's _De casibus illustrium
virorum_, the pictures in which are hard, stiff, and a little grotesque,
but not without character. Of his later books several are illustrated
with cuts borrowed or copied from other editions; but beyond a _Legende
dorée_ with shaded column-cuts, frequently reprinted, he does not seem
to have commissioned any important illustrated book.
While the pictorial work of the Lyonnese presses was thus largely
imitative, at least two very important books were first illustrated
there. The earlier of these was the _Roman de la Rose_, of which the
first printed edition, decorated with eighty-six cuts mostly small and
rudely executed, but which at least have the merit of intelligently
following the text, is now attributed to the press of Ortuin and Schenck
at Lyon about 1481.[41] These primitive pictures were quickly copied by
a cutter of somewhat greater skill but much less intelligence, who
"improved" the original designs without troubling to understand them.
This new set of cuts was used twice at Lyon, by Jean Syber (about 1485)
and by Leroy (about 1487), and was then acquired (less one of the two
larger cuts) by Jean Du Pré of Paris, who issued an edition about 1494.
About 1497, and again a few years later, new editions were issued in
which most of the same cuts reappear, Jean Petit having a share in both
editions and Vérard in the first, despite the fact that he had issued a
rival edition about 1495.[42]
[Illustration: XXI. LYON, TRECHSEL, 1493
TERENCE (SIG. A 7 VERSO)]
The other famous Lyonnese illustrated book was an annotated edition of
_Terence_ "with pictures prefixed to every scene" printed in 1493 by
Johann Trechsel. This has a curious full-page picture at the beginning,
giving the artist's idea of a Roman theatre, with a box for the aediles
at the side and a ground floor labelled "Fornices." The text is
illustrated by 150 half-page cuts, a little hard, but with abundance of
life (see Plate XXI). These certainly influenced the Strassburg edition
of Grüninger (1496), and through Grüninger's that published at Paris
by Vérard about 1500, and to an even greater extent the illustrated
editions issued at Venice.
How eagerly Lyonnese publishers looked out for books to imitate may be
seen from the rival Lyonnese renderings of Breidenbach's
_Peregrinationes_ and Brant's _Narrenschiff_. Of the Breidenbach, Michel
Topie and Jac. de Herrnberg issued in November, 1480, an adaptation by
Nicolas Le Huen with copies on copperplate of the maps and on wood of
the smaller pictures, both very well executed. Rather over a year later,
in February, 1490, a translation by "frere iehan de Hersin" was
published by Jacques Maillet with the original Mainz blocks. As for the
Ship of Fools, Jacques Sacon, the leading publisher at the end of the
century, issued an edition of Locher's Latin version with close copies
of the Basel cuts in June, 1498, and in the following August a French
edition was published by Guillaume Balsarin with cuts so hastily
executed that in many cases all the background has been omitted.
A few illustrated incunabula were issued at Chambéry, and isolated books
elsewhere, but with the exception of Lyon and Abbeville no French
provincial town produced any notable work. In Spain the fine gothic
types and frequent use of woodcut capitals give a very decorative
appearance to most of the incunabula, but pictorial illustrations are
rare, and of the few sets of cuts known to us several are borrowed or
copied from French or German editions. The earliest Spanish illustrated
book known to me is a _Fasciculus Temporum_, printed by Bart. Segura and
Alfonsus de Portu at Seville in 1480, with a dozen metal-cuts of the
usual stock subjects; the earliest with original illustrations, the
Marquis of Villena's _Trabajos de Hercules_, printed by Antonio de
Centenera at Zamora, 15 January, 1483, with eleven extraordinarily rude
cuts of the hero's adventures. In 1484 and 1485 an unidentified printer
at Huete produced editions of the _Copilacion de Leyes_ of Diaz de
Montalvo, with some striking metal-cut pictorial capitals, illustrating
the subjects of the successive books. In one copy of the 1484 edition I
have seen a very fine full-page cut, but could not satisfy myself as to
whether this belonged to the book, or was an insertion. An edition of
Martorell's romance, entitled _Tirant lo blanch_, printed at Valentia in
1490 by Nic. Spindeler, has a decorative metal-cut border to the first
page of text, and during the following decade illustrated books become
fairly numerous. At Saragossa Paul Hurus issued in 1491 a Spanish
version of the _Speculum humanae vitae_ of Rodericus Zamorensis, with
cuts copied from the Augsburg edition, another in 1494 of Boccaccio's
_De claris Mulieribus_, with seventy-two cuts, copied from the editions
printed by Johann Zainer at Ulm, and four from some other source,
another in 1498 of Breidenbach's _Peregrinatio_, and other books, not
known to me personally, but which from their titles almost certainly
contain copies of foreign cuts. In 1500, when his press had been taken
over by three partners, Coci, Hutz, and Appentegger, there issued from
it an _Officia quotidiana_, ornamented with some fifty pictures and many
hundreds of fine capitals.
[Illustration: XXII. SEVILLE, STANISLAUS POLONUS, 1500
RICOLDUS. IMPROBATIO ALCORANI. (TITLE)]
At Barcelona several illustrated books were printed by Juan Rosenbach,
one of the earliest of them, the _Carcel d'Amor_ of Diego de San Pedro
(1493), having sixteen original cuts, characteristically Spanish in tone
and showing good craftsmanship. In or about the same year Friedrich Biel
of Basel (usually quoted as Fadrique de Basilea, or Fadrique Aleman)
headed an edition of the _Passion de Christo_ with a striking metal-cut
of Christ standing upright in the tomb, watched by the B. Virgin and S.
John. For his Spanish _Aesop_ of 1496 he presumably copied the German
cuts, and he certainly did so for his _Exemplario contra engaños_ of
1498, the 116 cuts of which are all careless copies of those in Prüss's
edition of the _Directorium humanae vitae._ Even when in (or about) the
next year he was issuing the first edition of the _Celestina_ or
_Tragicomedia de Calisto y Melibea_, he could not do so without German
models, and based his sixteen little pictures on some of those in
Grüninger's _Terence_, while for his _Stultiferae naues_ of Badius
Ascensius he went, of course, to the charming French cuts of De Marnef.
As a rule, these Spanish versions of foreign cuts have the interest
which always attaches to a free rehandling by a craftsman with a
characteristic touch and style of his own. None the less it is
refreshing to turn to more original work, and at least a little of this
(though some one with wider knowledge than myself may further minimize
the statement) is to be found at Seville. Here in 1494 Ungut and
Stanislaus Polonus issued a _Regimiento de los principes_, translated
from the Latin of Aegidius Columna, with a fine title-cut of a young
prince (his hair is long) seated in a chair of state, holding a sword
and royal orb. The same partners were responsible for another striking
titlepage in 1495, that of the _Lilio de Medicina_, Bernardus de
Gordonio, where two angels are seen upholding seven lilies in a pot;
they also issued in the same year the _Contemplaciones sobre el Rosario
de Nuestra Señora_, a fine and typically Spanish book, printed in red
and black, with good capitals, two large cuts and fifteen smaller ones,
enclosed in borders of white tracery on a black ground. In the last year
of the century they issued an _Improbatio Alcorani_ with a swart picture
of a disputation on the titlepage, not easily forgotten (see Plate
XXII). It was at Seville also that in 1498 Pedro Brun printed in quarto
the romance of the Emperor Vespasian, illustrated with fourteen
excellent cuts, some of them full of life and movement; but for these a
foreign model is quite likely some day to be discovered. On the other
hand, at Valentia also there was at least a little work indisputably of
native origin, as in the case of the title-cut to the _De regimine
domus_ of S. Bernard, printed by Nic. Spindeler about 1498, and (less
certainly) another to the _Obra allaors de S. Christofol_, issued by
Peter Trincher in the same year. Pictorial title-cuts are not so common
in Spanish books as in those of other countries, because of the Spanish
fondness for filling the titlepage with an elaborate coat of arms. But
nearly all their early bookwork is strong and effective, and the printer
who placed a cut on a titlepage nearly always secured a good one. Is it
too much to hope that Dr. Conrad Haebler, who has already done such
admirable work in recording Spanish incunabula and printing facsimiles
of their types, will some day complete his task by publishing a similar
volume of facsimiles of Spanish cuts?
FOOTNOTES:
[37] Similar spaces were left in the typographically anonymous French
version of Valerius Maximus, printed about the same date.
[38] _Antoine Vérard._ By John Macfarlane. Illustrated monographs
published by the Bibliographical Society. No. VII. Printed at the
Chiswick Press, September, 1900.
[39] So in the _Lucain Suetonne et Saluste_ of 1490, five cuts of
battle-scenes, all borrowed from the _Mer des Histoires_, printed by
Lerouge in 1488, are made to do duty sixty-four times.
[40] In 1491 these are found at Saragossa in an edition printed by
Hurus.
[41] It has also been attributed to Jean Croquet at Geneva, but there
is only a typographical argument for this ascription, whereas on the
side of Lyon, in addition to (rather weaker) typographical arguments,
we have to reckon with Lyonnese paper, the similarity of the
illustrations to those of a cutter employed by Martin Huss, and the
fact that the book was copied in two editions undoubtedly Lyonnese.
See F. W. Bourdillon's _The Early Editions of the Roman de la Rose_
(1906).
[42] Only a few of the cuts in this were specially designed for it,
all the later ones being taken from stock in Vérard's most haphazard
fashion.
CHAPTER X
LATER FOREIGN BOOKS
One of the chief charms of the books of the fifteenth century is that
they are so unlike those of our own day. In the first year of its
successor a great step was taken towards their modernization by the
production of the first of the Aldine octavos, and the process went on
very rapidly. In the early days of printing all the standard works of
the previous three centuries that could by any possibility be considered
alive were put on the press. By 1500 men were thinking of new things.
New editions of many of the old religious and didactic treatises, the
old poems and romances, continued to be printed, though mostly in a form
which suggests that they were now intended for a lower class of readers,
but the new publishers would have little to do with them. Scholarship,
which till now had been almost confined to Italy, spread rapidly to all
the chief countries of Europe, and amid the devastation which constant
war soon brought upon Italy, was lucky in being able to find new homes.
With the new literary ideals came new forms for books, and new methods
of housing them. Before 1500 several publishers had found it worth their
while to print editions in five huge volumes of the _Speculum_ of
Vincent de Beauvais, each volume measuring eighteen inches by thirteen
and weighing perhaps a dozen pounds, though paper in those days was not
yet made of clay. These great volumes had been cased in thick wooden
boards, covered with stout leather and protected with bosses or
centre-pieces and corner-pieces of metal. They were not intended to
stand on shelves like modern books, but were laid on their sides,
singly, on shelves and desks, and from pictures which have come down to
us we can see that the library furniture of the day included a variety
of reading-stands with the most wonderful of screws. The men for whom
Aldus catered wanted books which they could put in their pockets and
their saddlebags, and it was not long before the publishers of Paris and
Lyon outdid Aldus in the smallness and neatness of their editions. Of
course large books continued to be issued. The _Complutensian Polyglott_
will not easily be got either into a pocket or a saddlebag, but it is a
good deal smaller than the _Speculum_ of Vincent de Beauvais, and,
speaking generally, small folios took the place of large folios, and
octavos the place of quartos, and in a little time the octavos
themselves were threatened by the still smaller sextodecimos. There is,
indeed, no stop till in the seventeenth century we come to the tiny
Elzevirs, which remained the last word in book-production until the
diamond editions of Didot and Pickering.
Aldus Manutius, who led the revolution, has often been wrongly praised.
He can hardly be called a great printer. He burdened Greek scholarship
for three centuries with a thoroughly bad style in Greek types, and the
cursive substitute which he provided for the fine roman founts for which
Italy had been famous almost drove them from the field. Both the Greek
type and the italics were the outcome of confused thinking. They were
based upon styles of handwriting which Aldus and his scholarly friends
doubtless found more expeditious than the formal book-hands which had
previously been in use. Quickness in writing is an excellent thing. But
a sloping type takes just as long to set up as an upright one, and
absolutely nothing is gained by the substitution of an imitation of a
quicker hand for the imitation of a slower one.
Aldus had begun publishing at Venice early in 1495[43] with an edition
of the Greek grammar of Lascaris, an earlier edition of which, issued at
Milan in 1476, had been the first book wholly in Greek to obtain the
honour of print. The Idylls of Theocritus and the poem of Hesiod called
_Works and Days_ had been printed at the same place in 1479 and a Greek
Psalter in 1487. At Florence the famous first edition of Homer was
printed (by Bartolommeo Libri) in 1488, and was followed in the years
1494-6 (i.e. about the time that Aldus began work) by five books printed
entirely in majuscules on the model of the letters used in inscriptions.
Among these books were the Greek Anthology, four plays of Euripides, and
an Apollonius Rhodius. The printing of the Greek classics had thus made
a start, although a slow one. Aldus now greatly quickened the pace,
producing his great Aristotle in four (or, as it is sometimes reckoned,
five) volumes, between the years 1495 and 1498, and following it up with
nine comedies of Aristophanes in 1498, Thucydides, Sophocles, and
Herodotus in 1502, Xenophon's _Hellenics_, and the plays of Euripides in
1503 and Demosthenes in 1504. The service which he thus rendered to
Greek scholarship was incalculable, but it was accompanied by a very
serious drawback, the evil effects of which lasted for nearly three
centuries. The Greek quotations in many books printed in Italy before
this time had been printed in types imitating the writing in fairly old
Greek manuscripts, handsome in appearance and fairly free from
contractions; Aldus is said to have taken as his model the handwriting
of his friend Marcus Musurus, with all its crabbed and often fantastic
ligatures, and the simplicity of the Greek alphabet was thus intolerably
complicated.
As we have seen, the introduction of the Aldine italics, though in
themselves a better fount than the Greek type, was almost as mischievous
in its effects. On the other hand, the service which Aldus rendered to
scholarship by his cheap and handy series of the Latin and Italian
classics was very great. The first book which he printed in his new type
was a Virgil, and this was quickly followed by works by Petrarch and
Dante and a whole series of similar editions. Aldus had powerful
supporters in these ventures, among them being Jean Grolier, the famous
bibliophile, who for many years was resident in Italy as Treasurer of
the Duchy of Milan. Despite this encouragement he did not find printing
very profitable, partly, no doubt, on account of the wars in which
Venice was at this time engaged.
On the death of Aldus in 1515 his business was for some time carried on
by his father-in-law, Andrea de Torresani, an excellent printer, but
with little of Aldus's scholarship. In 1533, at the age of twenty-one,
Paulus Manutius, the youngest son of Aldus, took over the management of
the firm, and proved himself an even finer scholar than his father.
Financially he was no more successful, and when he was made printer to
the Pope the anxiety of carrying on business at Rome as well as at
Venice only added to his difficulties. On his death in 1574 his son,
Aldus Manutius the younger, succeeded him and worked till 1597, but
without adding anything to the reputation of the firm, perhaps because
he had been pushed on prematurely in his boyhood, as is witnessed by his
compilation of a volume of elegant extracts at the age of nine.
The family of printers and publishers which came nearest to rivalling
the fame of the Aldi in Italy during the sixteenth century was that of
the Giunta. Springing originally from Florence, members of it worked for
some time simultaneously at Florence and Venice, and Lucantonio Giunta,
the earliest member of it to rise into note, was already one of the
foremost publishers at Venice in the closing years of the fifteenth
century, and subsequently printed for himself instead of always
employing other men to print for him. The speciality of this Venetian
firm was at first illustrated books of all kinds, afterwards the
production of large and magnificent missals and other service books of
the Roman Church, and these they continued to publish until nearly the
end of the sixteenth century.
At Florence, Filippo Giunta competed with Aldus of Venice in printing
pretty little editions of the classics, his competition sometimes taking
the form of unscrupulous imitation.
At Rome, Eucharius Silber and his successor Marcellus were the chief
printers from 1500 to 1516. A little later the Bladi took their place,
and under the auspices of the Council of the Propaganda of the Faith a
press was set up for printing in Syriac, Armenian, and other Oriental
languages. The output also of the presses in other Italian cities was
still considerable. Nevertheless, from the same causes which produced
her political decay Italy rapidly ceased to be the head-quarters of
European printing, yielding this honour to France about the end of the
first quarter of the century, and by some thirty or forty years later
becoming quite uninfluential.
To the German printing trade, also, the sixteenth century brought a
notable decline of reputation. In its first two decades Johann Schoeffer
(son of Peter) produced some fine books at Mainz; at Strassburg
Grüninger poured forth illustrated books, and Johann Knoblouch and
Matthias Schürer were both prolific. The importance of Cologne
diminished, though the sons of Heinrich Quentell had a good business.
Augsburg, on the other hand, came to the front, the elder and younger
Schoensperger, Johann and Silvanus Otmar, Erhard Oglin, Johann Miller,
and the firm of Sigismund Grim and Marcus Wirsung all doing important
work. At Nuremberg the chief printing houses were those of Hieronymus
Hölzel, Johann Weissenburger, and Friedrich Peypus. Leipzig and Hagenau
both greatly increased their output, and with the advent of Luther,
Wittenberg soon became an important publishing centre. Luther's activity
alone would have sufficed to make the fortunes of any publisher had it
not been for the fact that as each pamphlet from his pen was produced at
Wittenberg by Hans Lufft, or some other authorized printer, it was
promptly pirated in other cities, often with the retention of the
original imprint. Many of these Luther tracts had ornamental borders,
and, as will be narrated in another chapter, the German
book-illustrations of this period were often very finely designed, but
the paper used, even in important books, was poor compared to that found
in German incunabula, and the presswork too often careless. These
defects are found intensified in almost all the German books published
after this date, and German printing soon lost all its technical
excellence, though the output of its presses continued to be large, and
the great annual fair at Frankfort during the course of the sixteenth
century became the most important event in the book-trade of Northern
Europe.
A little before Germany gave herself up to theological strife, the
conjunction at Basel of the great printer Johann Froben and the great
scholar Erasmus temporarily raised that city to importance as an
intellectual centre. Froben had begun printing at Basel in 1491, but
until he formed his friendship with Erasmus in 1513 published only a few
editions of the Bible, some of the papal Decretals, the works of S.
Ambrose, and a few other books of no special interest. From 1513 onwards
his output increased rapidly both in quantity and importance, so that by
the time of his death in 1527 he had printed over three hundred books,
including almost all the works of Erasmus and many books in Greek.
During this period, also, border-pieces and initials were designed for
him by the two Holbeins (Hans and Ambrosius) and other skilful artists,
and he was entitled to rank as the greatest printer-publisher in Europe
in succession to Aldus. After his death in 1527 the supremacy of
European printing rested for the next generation indisputably with
France.
During the fifteenth century printing in France had developed almost
entirely on its own lines. Vernacular books of every description had
poured from the presses of Paris and Lyon, and many of them had been
charmingly illustrated in a style worthy of the great French school of
illustrators of manuscripts. In the first half of the sixteenth century
the publication of these popular books--romances, poetry, and works of
devotion--still continued, though with some loss of quality, the print
and paper being less good and the illustrations often consisting of a
medley of old blocks, or where new ones were made being executed in a
coarser and heavier style. But to the vernacular literature there was
now added a learned and scholarly literature which soon rose to great
importance. As early as 1492 Johann Trechsel, a printer of Lyon, had
possessed himself of sufficient Greek type to print quotations in that
language, and in the following year he issued the profusely illustrated
edition of _Terence_, the cuts in which were imitated by Grüninger at
Strassburg. Trechsel's press corrector and general editor was a young
scholar named Josse Bade, of Asch, near Ghent, better known by the Latin
form of his name as Jodocus Badius Ascensius, or Ascensianus. In 1503,
after Trechsel's death, Ascensius started business for himself in Paris,
and his editions of the classics, well known from the device of a
printing-press found on many of their titlepages, obtained a
considerable reputation. Almost simultaneously, in 1502, Henri Estienne,
the first of a famous family of scholar-printers, had started in
business by an expedient of which we hear a great deal in the annals of
English printing, that of marrying a printer's widow. Of Henri
Estienne's three sons the eldest, François, became a bookseller, Robert
a scholar-printer, and Charles, in the first instance, a physician. In
the technical side of his business Henri had been helped by Simon de
Colines, who, on his employer's death, in 1520, became his widow's third
husband, and carried on the business until 1526, when he handed it over
to Robert Estienne, and started on his own account in another house in
the same street. Thus, just as the co-operation of Erasmus with Froben,
which began shortly before the death of Aldus, brought the Basel press
into prominence, so this duplication, just before the death of Froben,
of the business of Henri Estienne with the two firms of Robert Estienne
and Simon de Colines materially aided the rivalry of Paris. Greek
printing, which by this time had become essential to a printer's
reputation for scholarship, had at last begun there with the publication
of a Greek Grammar in 1507, and had increased somewhat, though not very
rapidly. In 1539 François I appointed Robert Estienne royal printer for
Latin and Hebrew, and Conrad Neobar, a German from the diocese of
Cologne, his printer for Greek. It was soon after this that plans were
formed for the printing of Greek texts from manuscripts in the royal
library, and the preparation for this purpose of a special fount of
Greek type. Neobar died from overwork the following year, and the office
of royal printer in Greek was added to Robert Estienne's other honours,
and with it the supervision of the new Greek type. For this Angelus
Vergetius, a celebrated Greek calligrapher, had probably already made
the drawings, and the cutting of the punches was entrusted to Claude
Garamond. By 1544 a fount of great primer had been completed and a book
printed in it, the _Praeparatio Euangelica_ of Eusebius. A smaller type,
of the size known as pica, was next put in hand, and a pocket Greek
Testament in sextodecimo printed with it in 1546. Lastly, a third fount,
larger than either of the others, was produced and used for the text of
a folio Greek Testament in 1550, the other two founts appearing in the
prefatory matter and notes. These royal Greek types became very famous
and served as a model to all designers of Greek characters for nearly
two centuries. Technically, indeed, they are as good as they could be,
showing a great advance in clearness and dignity upon those of Aldus,
from which nevertheless they inherited the fatal defect of being based
on the handwriting of contemporary Greek scholars, instead of on the
book-hand of a nobler period of Greek writing.
While the name of Robert Estienne is thus connected with these royal
Greek types he was himself distinctly a Latinist, and his own personal
contribution to scholarship was a Latin Dictionary (_Thesaurus Linguae
Latinae_) published in 1532, which remained a standard work for two
centuries. He published, too, as did also Simon de Colines, many very
pretty little editions of Latin classics in sextodecimo, some in
italics, others in roman type, thus carrying a step further the
triumphant march of the small book, which Aldus had only taken as far as
octavos. Simon de Colines, while sharing in work of this kind, did not
neglect other classes of literature, and, as has already been noted,
joined with Geoffroi Tory, another scholar-printer, who was also a
scholar-artist, in producing some remarkable editions of the Hours of
the Blessed Virgin.
This scholar-artist, Geoffroi Tory, was a native of Bourges, who had
been a professor at several of the Paris colleges and was at one time
proof-reader to Henri Estienne. His career as a printer began in 1522
and ended with his death in 1533, after which his business was carried
on by Olivier Mallard, who married his widow. Tory printed a few
scholarly books and wrote and published a curious work, to which he gave
the name _Champfleury_, on the right forms and proportions of the
letters of the alphabet. It is, however, by his Books of Hours that he
is now chiefly remembered.
While all this good work was going on in Paris the printers at Lyon were
no less busy. At the beginning of the century Aldus had been justly
annoyed at the clever counterfeits of his italic octavos which were put
on the market at Lyon. But in Sebastian Gryphius (a German, born in 1491
at Reutlingen) Lyon became possessed of a printer who had no need to
imitate even Aldus. After printing one or two works in the four
preceding years his press got into full swing in 1528 and, by the time
of his death in 1556 he had issued very nearly a thousand different
editions, mostly in Latin, and many of them in the dainty format in
sextodecimo which Estienne and de Colines were using in Paris. In 1534
the luckless Etienne Dolet, soon to be burnt as a heretic, arrived at
Lyon, and with some friendly help from Gryphius printed between 1538 and
1544 some seventy editions. In 1546 Jean de Tournes, who had been a
journeyman in the office of Gryphius, started business for himself, and
soon proved a worthy rival to his master. Meanwhile excellent popular
work was being done by other printers, such as François Juste, Claude
Nourry, Macé Bonhomme, and Guillaume Roville. From the old Lyonnese firm
of Trechsel proceeded in 1538 two books illustrated by Holbein (the
_Dance of Death_ and _Historiarum Veteris Testamenti Icones_, see p.
192), and numerous other Lyonnese books were charmingly illustrated and
also, it may be added, charmingly bound, a very pretty style of trade
bindings being just then in vogue.
Against the pretty bindings and vignettes and the popular books to which
they were applied little or no opposition was raised, and they continued
to be issued till the taste for them died out about 1580. But against
all the scholarly work of the French presses the leaders of the Church
took up an attitude of unrelenting hostility. Foremost in this
opposition, regretful that their predecessors had introduced printing
into France, were the theologians of the Sorbonne, who forbade the study
of Hebrew as dangerous and likely to lead to heresy, and looked with
eyes almost as unfriendly on that of Greek. In 1546 (just after the
iniquitous campaign against the Vaudois) Etienne Dolet was hanged on a
charge of atheism, and his body cut down and burnt amid a pile of his
books. In 1550, despite his position as a royal printer, Robert
Estienne, who had just completed his fine folio edition of the Greek
Testament, was obliged to seek safety by flying to Geneva, and a
generation later Jean de Tournes the younger, of Lyon, was obliged to
follow his example. The kings of France and their advisers at this
period were determined to be rid of both Huguenots and Freethinkers at
all costs, and French scholarship and French printing were both the
recipients of blows from which it took them some generations to recover.
When Robert Estienne fled to Geneva, his brother, the physician,
Charles, was allowed to succeed to his office at Paris, and he in turn
was followed by a younger Robert, who died in 1571. Meanwhile Robert I
had taken with him a set of matrices of the royal Greek types, and with
these and other founts printed at Geneva until his death in 1559. His
son, Henri Estienne II, then took over the business, but was of too
restless and roving a disposition to conduct it with success. As a
scholar he was even greater than his father, excelling in Greek as
Robert had in Latin, and producing in 1572 a Greek dictionary
(_Thesaurus Graecae Linguae_) which became as famous as the Latin one
which Robert had published forty years earlier. Henri Estienne the
younger died in 1598, but the Estienne tradition was kept up by his son
Paul (1566-1627) and grandson Antoine (1592-1674), the latter bringing
back into the family the office of royal printer at Paris, and printing
an edition of the Septuagint.
Under the discouraging conditions of the middle of the sixteenth century
French printers gradually ceased to be scholars and enthusiasts, but
Christopher Plantin, a Frenchman, born in the neighbourhood of Tours in
1514, built up by his energy and industry a great business at Antwerp,
the memory of which is preserved in the famous Plantin Museum. He had
started at Antwerp in 1549 as a binder, but about six years later turned
his attention to printing, in consequence (it is said) of an accident
which disabled him for binding-work. The most famous of his books is the
great Antwerp Polyglott edition of the Bible in eight volumes, published
between the years 1569 and 1573. Over this he came so near to ruining
himself that the Spanish Government granted him special privileges for
the production of service-books by way of compensation. The sack of
Antwerp by the Spaniards in 1576 was another heavy financial blow, and
for a time Plantin removed to Leyden, and also for a time kept a branch
business at Paris. But he ultimately returned to Antwerp, and his
premises remained in the possession of the descendants of one of his
sons-in-law, Joannes Moretus, until they were purchased in 1877 for
£48,000 as the Musée Plantin.
After Plantin's death the branch business which he had left at Leyden
was carried on by another of his sons-in-law, Franciscus Raphelengius,
who printed some pretty little editions of the classics and other good
books. Plantin's own work as a printer was costly and pretentious rather
than beautiful, and the bad style of his ornaments and initials
exercised a powerful influence for evil on the printers of the ensuing
century.
The mention of Plantin's Antwerp Polyglott may remind us that the first
Polyglott edition of the Bible had been printed between 1514 and 1518 at
Alcalà, in Spain, under the auspices of Cardinal Ximenes. The Latin name
of Alcalà being Complutum, this edition is generally quoted as the
Complutensian Polyglott. Among the notable features in it is the use of
a singularly fine Greek type in the New Testament. Absolutely different
from the Aldine and all the other Greek types imitating the rapid
handwriting of the Greek scholars of the sixteenth century, this was
based on the book-hand used in some early manuscript, possibly the one
which the Pope had lent from the Vatican to aid Cardinal Ximenes in
forming his text. It was on this Greek type that Mr. Robert Proctor,
shortly before his death, based his own fount of Greek, supplying the
majuscules which (with a single exception) are wanting in the original
and making other improvements, but keeping closely to his model and thus
producing by far the finest Greek type ever cast. This has been used to
print notable editions of the _Oresteia_ and _Odyssey_, the former at
the Chiswick, the latter at the Clarendon Press.
Save for the Complutensian Polyglott there is nothing striking to record
of the Spanish printing of the sixteenth century, which retained its
massive and archaic character for some decades, and then became as dull
and undistinguished as the printing of all the rest of Europe tended to
be towards the end of the century. The enthusiasm with which the new art
had at first been received had died out. Printers were no longer lodged
in palaces, monasteries, and colleges; Church and State, which had at
first fostered and protected them, were now jealous and suspicious, even
actively hostile. Thriving members of other occupations and professions
had at one time taken to the craft. A little later great scholars had
been willing to give their help and advice, and at least a few printers
had themselves been men of learning. All this had passed or was passing.
Printing had sunk to the level of a mere craft, and a craft in which the
hours appear to have been cruelly long and work uncertain and badly
paid. In the eighteenth century the Dutch journeymen were certainly
better paid than our own, and it may be that it was through better pay
that they did better work in the seventeenth century also. It seems
certain, moreover, that the improvements in the construction of printing
presses which were introduced in that century originated in Holland. The
primacy of the Dutch is proved by the large amount of Dutch type
imported into England, and indeed the Dutch books of the seventeenth
century are neater and in better taste than those of other countries. It
was in Holland also that there worked the only firm of printers of this
period who made themselves any abiding reputation. The founder of this
firm, Louis Elzevir, was a bookseller and bookbinder at Leyden, where,
in 1583, he began printing on his own account, and issued between that
year and his death in 1617 over a hundred different books of no very
special note. No fewer than five of his seven sons carried on his
business, and the different combinations of these and of their
successors in different towns are not a little bewildering. Bonaventura
Elzevir with his nephew Abraham issued pretty little editions of the
classics in very small type in 12mo and 16mo, of which the most famous
are the Greek Testament of 1624 and 1633, the Virgil, Terence, Livy,
Tacitus, Pliny, and Caesar of 1634-6, and a similar series of French
historical and political works and French and Italian classics. After
the deaths of Abraham and Bonaventura in 1652 the business was carried
on by their respective sons Jean and Daniel, who issued famous editions
of the _Imitatio Christi_ and the Psalter. Meanwhile Louis Elzevir
(another grandson of the founder) had been working at Amsterdam, and in
1654 was joined there by Daniel, the new partnership producing some fine
folio editions. Other members of the family went on working at Utrecht
and Leyden until as late as 1712, so that its whole typographical career
extended over a hundred and thirty years. But it is only the little
classical editions, and a French cookery book called _Le Pastissier
François_, that are at all famous, and the fame of these (the little
classics being troublesome to read and having more than a fair share of
misprints, though edited by David Heinsius) probably rests on a
misconception. These small classical editions were the last word for two
centuries in that development of the Small Book which we have already
traced in the Aldine editions at Venice, those of De Colines and Robert
Estienne of Paris, of Sebastian Gryphius at Lyons, and of the successors
of Plantin at Antwerp. Now the small books of the Elzevirs were produced
at a very important period in the history of bookbinding, and when we
hear of large sums having been paid for an Elzevir it will mostly turn
out that the excellence of its binding has had a good deal to do with
the price. The cookery book is an exception, the value of this, though
often enhanced by a fine binding, being yet considerable, even in a
shabby jacket. But the interest in this case is due to the antiquarian
instincts of book-loving gourmets, and not in any way to the printing.
The little classics, even when of the right date and with all the right
little headpieces and all the right misprints, have never been worth on
their own merits more than a few pounds, while shabby, cropped copies
have no selling value whatever.
FOOTNOTE:
[43] He was born at Bassiano in the Papal States in 1450.
CHAPTER XI
FOREIGN ILLUSTRATED BOOKS OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY
[Illustration: XXIII. NUREMBERG, SODALITAS CELTICA. 1501
HROSWITHA. OPERA (4^b). HROSWITHA AND THE EMPEROR OTHO
(ATTRIBUTED TO DÜRER)]
As we have already said, the charm of the woodcut pictures in incunabula
lies in their simplicity, in their rude story-telling power, often very
forcible and direct, in the valiant effort, sometimes curiously
successful in cuts otherwise contemptibly poor, to give character and
expression to the human face, and as regards form in the harmony between
the woodcuts and the paper and type of the books in which they appear.
In the book-illustrations of the sixteenth century the artist is more
learned, more self-conscious, and his design is interpreted with far
greater skill by the better trained wood-cutters of his day. More pains
are taken with accessories, and often perhaps for this reason the cut
does not tell its story so quickly as of old. It is now a work of art
which demands study, no longer a signpost explaining itself however
rapidly the leaf is turned. Lastly, the artist seems seldom to have
thought of the form of the book in which his work was to appear, of the
type with which the text was to be printed, or even of how the
wood-cutter was to interpret his design. Book-illustration, which had
offered to the humble makers of playing-cards and pictures of saints new
scope for their skill, became to the artists of the sixteenth century a
lightly valued method of earning a little money from the booksellers,
their better work being reserved for single designs, or in some cases
for the copperplates which at first they executed, as well as drew,
themselves. Thus the book-collector is conscious, on the one hand, that
less pains have been taken to please him, and on the other that he is
separating by his hobby one section of an artist's work from the
rest, in connection with which it ought to be studied. He may even be in
some doubt as to where his province ends, since many of the illustrated
books of the sixteenth century, although they possess a titlepage and
are made up in quires, are essentially not books at all, the letterpress
being confined to explanations of the woodcuts printed either below them
or facing them on the opposite pages. The bibliographer himself, it may
be added, feels somewhat of an intruder in this field, which properly
belongs to the student of art, although in so far as art is enshrined in
books and thus brought within the province of the book-collector,
bibliography cannot refuse to deal with it.
Although we have taken off our caps in passing to Erhard Reuwich and
Michael Wolgemut for their admirable work, the one in the Mainz
_Breidenbach_, the other in the _Schatzbehalter_ and _Nuremberg
Chronicle_, it is Albrecht Dürer who must be regarded as the inaugurator
of the second period of German book-illustrations. During his
Wanderjahre Dürer had produced at Basel for an edition of S. Jerome's
Epistles, printed by Nicolaus Kesler in 1492 (reprinted 1497), a rude
woodcut of the saint extracting a thorn from his lion's foot. Dürer's
important bookwork begins in 1498, when his fifteen magnificent woodcuts
illustrating the Apocalypse (which influenced all later treatments of
this theme) were issued twice over at Nuremberg, in one edition with
German title and text, in the other with Latin. Stated in their
colophons to have been "printed by Albrecht Dürer, painter," neither
edition bears the name of a professional printer. The types used in each
case were those of Anton Koberger, Dürer's godfather, and the effect of
the artist's personal superintendence, which the colophons attest, is
seen in the excellence of the presswork. The following year Koberger
published an illustrated edition of the _Reuelationes Sanctae Birgittae_
(German reprint in 1502), and Dürer has been supposed to have helped in
this, but the theory is now discredited. In 1501 he probably
contributed two woodcuts to an edition of the comedies of Hroswitha, a
tenth century nun of the Benedictine Abbey at Gandersheim. Conrad Celtes
had unearthed these comedies some years previously in a Ratisbon
library, and they were now printed under his editorship for the
_Sodalitas Celtica_ at Nuremberg. The illustrations to the comedies
themselves, which vie in heaviness with their subjects, are attributed
by Mr. Campbell Dodgson to Wolfgang Traut.[44] One of the cuts assigned
to Dürer represents Celtes offering the book to Frederick III, Elector
of Saxony; the other shows Hroswitha herself presenting her plays to the
Emperor Otto I (see Plate XXIII). In 1502 Dürer designed another cut of
a presentation and an illustration of Philosophy (both very feebly
rendered by the cutter) for the _Quatuor libri Amorum_ of Celtes. In
1511 the Latin Apocalypse was reprinted, and three other sets of
woodcuts by Dürer appeared in book form, in each case with Latin text by
Benedictus Chelidonius. One of these commemorated in twenty designs the
life of the Blessed Virgin (_Epitome in Diuae Parthenices Marie
Historiam ab Alberto Durero Norico per Figuras digestam cum versibus
annexis Chelidonii_), the other two the Passion of Christ, the Great
Passion (_Passio domini nostri Jesu ex hieronymo Paduano, Dominico
Mancino, Sedulio et Baptista Mantuano per fratrem Chelidonium collecta
cum figuris Alberti Dureri Norici Pictoris_, in folio) in twelve large
woodcuts, the Little Passion (_Passio Christi ab Alberto Durer
Norembergensi effigiata c[=u] varij generis carminibus Fratris Benedicti
Chelidonij Musophili_, in quarto) in thirty-seven smaller ones. After
this Dürer was caught up by the Emperor Maximilian and set to work on
some of the various ambitious projects for illustrating his reign, as to
which more will be said later. His later bookwork includes a Crucifixion
and S. Willibald for an Eichstätt Missal (Nuremberg, H. Hölzel, 1517),
some large designs for the _Etliche vnderricht zu befestigung der Stett
Schloss vnd flecken_ (Nuremberg, 1527), and his own book on the
Proportion of the Human Body, which was issued both in German and in a
Latin translation by Camerarius.
Several borders and illustrations formerly ascribed to Dürer are now
attributed to one of his pupils, Hans Springinklee, who lived in Dürer's
house at Nuremberg, where he worked from about 1513 to 1522. Most of
Springinklee's bookwork was done for Anton Koberger, who published some
of it at Nuremberg, while some was sent to the Lyon printers, Clein,
Sacon, and Marion, who were in Koberger's employment. A border of his
design bearing the arms of Bilibaldus Pirckheimer is found in several
works which Pirckheimer edited (1513-17). In a _Hortulus Animae_,
printed by J. Clein for Koberger at Lyon, 1516, fifty cuts are by
Springinklee. The _Hortulus Animae_ was as popular in Germany as the
illustrated _Horae_ in France and England. In 1517 another edition
appeared with Erhard Schön as its chief illustrator, and only a few of
Springinklee's cuts. The next year Springinklee produced a new set of
cuts, and Schön's work was less used. Springinklee and Schön were also
associated in Bible illustrations printed for Koberger by Sacon at Lyon,
and to Springinklee are now assigned two full-page woodcuts in an
Eichstätt Missal (H. Hölzel, Nuremberg, 1517), and a border to the
_Reuelationes Birgittae_ (F. Peypus, Nuremberg, 1517), formerly ascribed
to Dürer. A woodcut of Johann Tritheim presenting his _Polygraphia_ to
Maximilian, formerly attributed to Holbein as having been printed at
Basel (Adam Petri, 1518), is now also placed to the credit of
Springinklee, who, moreover, worked for the _Weisskunig_ and probably
for other of the artistic commemorations of himself which Maximilian
commissioned.
Hans Sebald Beham is best known as a book-illustrator from his work for
Christian Egenolph at Frankfurt am Main, which began in 1533. But he
belonged to the Nuremberg school, had worked for ten or twelve years for
Merckel, Peypus, Petreius and other Nuremberg firms, and has had the
honour of having some of his single cuts attributed to Dürer. His most
important books for Egenolph were the _Biblische Historien_, a series of
small illustrations to the Bible, first printed in 1533, which went
through many editions in German and Latin, and another series
illustrating the Apocalypse, of which the first edition appeared in
1539, the texts of the Latin _Historiae_ and also to the Apocalypse cuts
being supplied by Georgius Aemilius. A set of medallion portraits of
Roman emperors by him also appeared in several German and Latin
chronicles published by Egenolph.
Between the Nuremberg book-illustrators and those of Augsburg, to whom
we must now turn, a connecting link may be found in the person of Hans
Leonhard Schäufelein, born about 1480, soon after his father, a
Nördlingen wool merchant, had settled at Nuremberg. He worked under
Dürer, and his earliest book-illustrations were made for Dr. Ulrich
Pinder, the owner of a private press at Nuremberg. Several unsigned cuts
in _Der beschlossen gart des rosenkrantz Marie_ (Pinder, 1505), and
thirty out of thirty-four large cuts in a _Speculum Passionis_ (Pinder,
1507), are ascribed to Schäufelein, his associate in each book being
Hans Baldung. About 1510 Schäufelein removed to Augsburg, and, despite
his return to his paternal home at Nördlingen where he took up his
citizenship in 1515, he worked for the chief Augsburg publishers for the
rest of his life, though between 1523 and 1531 nothing is known as to
what he was doing.
Among the earlier Augsburg books with illustrations attributed to
Schäufelein are Tengler's _Der neu Layenspiegel_ (1511), Henricus Suso's
_Der Seusse (1512), Heiligenleben_ (1513), Geiler's _Schiff der
Penitentz_ (1514), and the _Hystori und wunderbarlich legend Katharine
von Senis_ (1515), all published by J. Otmar. In 1514 he had
illustrated for Adam Petri of Basel a _Plenarium_ or _Evangelienbuch_,
which went through several editions. Another _Evangelienbuch_, printed
by Thomas Anshelm at Hagenau in 1516, contains several cuts with
Schäufelein's signature, but in a different style, probably partly due
to a different wood-cutter; these were used again in other books.
In the _Theuerdank_ of 1517 about twenty cuts are assigned to
Schäufelein, some of them bearing his signature. The following year he
illustrated Leonrodt's _Himmelwagen_ for Otmar with twenty cuts, mostly
signed, some of which were used afterwards on the titlepages of early
Luther tracts. After an interval Schäufelein is found in 1533 working
for Heinrich Steyner of Augsburg, who employed him to illustrate his
German editions of the classics, Thucydides (1533), Plutarch (1534),
Cicero (1534), Apuleius (1538), etc. The blocks for some of his cuts
subsequently passed into the possession of Christian Egenolph of
Frankfort.
The first native Augsburg artist whom we have to notice is Hans
Burgkmair, who was born in 1473, and began bookwork in 1499 by
illustrating missals for Erhard Ratdolt with pictures of patron saints
and of the Crucifixion. The chief Augsburg publisher for whom he worked
in his early days was Johann Otmar, for whom he illustrated several
books by the popular preacher, Johann Geiler von Kaisersberg (_Predigen
teutsch_, 1508 and 1510, _Das Buch Granatapfel_, 1510, _Nauicula
Poenitentiae_, 1511), and other devotional and moral works. In 1515 Hans
Schoensperger the younger employed him to supply a dedication cut and
seven designs of the Passion for a _Leiden Christi_, and to the
_Theuerdank_ published by Schoensperger the elder at Nuremberg in 1517
he contributed thirteen illustrations (only one signed). He had already
been employed (1510) on a few of the cuts in the Genealogy of the
Emperor Maximilian, which a wholesome fear lest its accuracy should be
doubted caused that self-celebrating monarch to withhold from
publication, and much more largely (1514-16) on the _Weisskunig_, which
was first printed, from the original blocks, at Vienna in 1775; and he
was the chief worker (1516-18) on the woodcuts for the Triumphal
Procession of Maximilian printed by order of the Archduke Ferdinand in
1526. While these imperial commissions were in progress Burgkmair
designed a few title-cuts for Johann Miller, notably the very fine one
(see Plate XXIV) to the _De rebus Gothorum_ of Jornandes (1515), showing
kings Alewinus and Athanaricus in conversation, and subsequently worked
for Grimm and Wirsung and for H. Steiner, although not nearly to the
extent which was at one time supposed, as most of the illustrations
supplied to these firms with which he used to be credited are now
assigned to Hans Weiditz.
Jörg Breu, who was born and died (1537) some half-dozen years later than
Burgkmair, like him illustrated Missals for Ratdolt and contributed
Passion-cuts to Mann's _Leiden Christi_. His most important piece of
bookwork was the redrawing of the cuts in Anton Sorg's edition of
Reichenthal's _Conciliumbuch_ for a reprint by Steiner in 1536.
Illustrations by him also occur in a _Melusina_ (1538), and German
versions of Boccaccio's _De claris mulieribus_ and _De Casibus
Illustrium virorum_ issued after his death by the same firm. Leonhard
Beck contributed largely to the illustration of Maximilian's literary
ventures, especially the _Theuerdank_, _Weisskunig_, and Saints of the
House of Austria (published at some date between 1522 and 1551).
[Illustration: XXIV. AUGSBURG, J. MILLER, 1515
JORNANDES. DE REBUS GOTHORUM. (TITLE). ATTRIBUTED TO BURGKMAIR]
We come now to Hans Weiditz, the immense extension of whose work by the
attributions of recent years can only be compared to Mr. Proctor's
raising of Bartolommeo de' Libri from one of the smallest to one of the
most prolific of Florentine printers. Only two or three Augsburg
woodcuts bearing his initials are known, while scores and even hundreds
are now assigned to him, most of which had previously been credited to
Burgkmair.
Weiditz began bookwork in or before 1518, in which year he contributed a
title-cut to the _Nemo_ of Ulrich von Hutten, while in 1519 he made
twelve illustrations to the same author's account of Maximilian's
quarrel with the Venetians. In 1518 he had begun working for the firm of
Grimm and Wirsung, and this, with a few commissions from other Augsburg
publishers, kept him busy till about 1523, when he himself moved to
Strassburg, whence his family had come, while in the same year Grimm and
Wirsung gave up business and sold their blocks to Steiner. These
included not only many title-borders by Weiditz, twenty illustrations to
two comedies of Plautus and a set of cuts to the _Deuotissime
meditationes de vita et passione Christi_, and another to a German
_Celestina_, all published in 1520, but a series of some 260 masterly
illustrations to a German version of Petrarch's _De remediis utriusque
fortunae_. Steiner used some of these cuts in a Cicero _De Officiis_ of
1531, which has in addition sixty-seven important cuts by Weiditz,
presumably of the same period, and also in a _Justinus_ of the same
year, but the work for which they were specially designed did not appear
until a year later. Needless to say, selections from both the Petrarch
and the Cicero sets appear in later work.
After removing to Strassburg, Weiditz copied some Wittenberg Bible cuts
and also Holbein's Apocalypse set for Knoblauch in 1524. In 1530 he
illustrated for J. Schott the _Herbarium_ of Brunfels, which went
through several editions both in Latin and German, and for this
comparatively humble work was praised by name in both editions, so that
until 1904 it was only as the illustrator of the Herbal that he was
known. Many of his Augsburg woodcuts subsequently passed to that
persistent purchaser of old blocks, Christian Egenolph of Frankfort.
Before passing away from the Nuremberg and Augsburg book-illustrators,
it seems necessary to describe briefly, but in a more connected form,
the literary and artistic enterprises of the Emperor Maximilian, to
which so many incidental allusions have been made. The Emperor's first
attempt to glorify himself and his lineage took the form of a Genealogy
for which several antiquaries--Mennel, Sunthaim, Tritheim, and
Stabius--made researches. Burgkmair made designs of some ninety
ancestors and their heraldic coats in 1509-11, and the wood-blocks were
cut. It was apparently intended to print them in 1512, but the whole
project was abandoned, and the work is now only known from a few sets of
proofs, no one of which is quite complete.
After this failure Maximilian planned a Triumphal Arch and Procession,
the programme for the Arch being drawn up by Stabius, that of the
Procession by Treitzsaurwein. The plan of the Arch was largely worked
out by Dürer, with help from Springinklee, Traut, and Altdorfer, whose
designs were carried out in 192 woodblocks cut by Hieronymus Andrea and
his assistants. When the impressions from these are put together they
make a design measuring nearly twelve feet by ten. In the centre is the
Gate of Honour, to the left and right the gates of Praise and Nobility.
Above the main gate rises a tower on which are displayed the Emperor's
ancestors and their arms, above the other gates a series of incidents of
Maximilian's life, surmounted by busts of his imperial predecessors and
of contemporary princes. This was printed in 1517-18 at Nuremberg, and
in 1526-8 and 1559 at Vienna. On the Procession or Triumph, Dürer,
Springinklee, Schäufelein, Burgkmair, and Beck were all engaged. The 138
blocks composing it were cut by Andrea and Jost de Negker in 1516-18,
and it was printed by order of the Archduke Ferdinand in 1526. A
Triumphal Car designed by Dürer in 1518, in connection with the same
project, was published in eight sheets in 1522.
A series of representations of Saints of the House of Hapsburg had been
planned soon after the abandonment of the Genealogy, and assumed shape
in 1514. From drawings now attributed to Leonhard Beck, 123 woodblocks
were made, and an edition in book form was printed some time after
1522.
The romance of _Theuerdank_ was written by Melchior Pfintzing, under
Maximilian's direction, to celebrate his wooing of Mary of Burgundy and
other exploits. The bulk (seventy-seven) of the illustrations in it are
now ascribed to Beck, seventeen to Schäufelein, thirteen to Burgkmair,
and three, two, and one respectively to Schön, Traut, and Breu. It was
published as a sumptuous folio, several copies being struck on vellum by
the elder Schoensperger at Nuremberg in 1517, and reprinted two years
later.
The _Weisskunig_, or White King, an account of Maximilian's parentage,
education, and exploits, was dictated by him in fragments to
Treitzsaurwein, but never fully edited. Of the 249 illustrations about
half are by Burgkmair, most of the others by Beck. With the exception of
thirteen the blocks were preserved at Vienna, and the book was printed
there for the first time in 1775.
Lastly, the _Freydal_, which was to have given an account of
Maximilian's tourneys and "Mummereien," is known to us by the
preservation of the original miniatures from which the illustrations
were to have been made, but only five blocks out of 256 were actually
cut.
The patronage of the Emperor Maximilian gives special importance to the
work done during his lifetime at Nuremberg and Augsburg, but there was
no lack of book-illustrations elsewhere. At Tübingen some of the
mathematical works of Johann Stöffler were curiously decorated, and the
second edition of his _Ephemerides_ (1533) has a fine portrait of the
author in his seventy-ninth year. At Ratisbon, Albrecht Altdorfer was
the most important worker for the wood-cutters, and to him are now
attributed thirty-eight cuts illustrating the Fall and Redemption of
Man, published at Hamburg in 1604, under the name of Dürer, as "nunc
primùm è tenebris in lucem editæ." Their minute and rather niggling
style renders the bad printing which they have mostly received
peculiarly destructive to them. Another Ratisbon artist, Michael
Ostendorfer, illustrated a few books published at Ratisbon itself, and
others printed at Ingolstadt.
At Wittenberg, from a little before 1520, the influence of Martin Luther
made itself as much felt as that of Maximilian at Augsburg and
Nuremberg. Hither, in 1505, had come a Franconian artist, Lucas Cranach,
who had already illustrated some missals for Winterburger of Vienna.
Numerous pictures of saints, which he drew for the Wittenberg
_Heiligthumsbuch_ of 1509, are subsequently found dispersed in other
works, such as the _Hortulus Animae_. A few title-cuts on tracts by
Luther and others are assigned to him, but a great mass of bookwork,
including numerous fine borders, found in Wittenberg books of the Luther
period, while showing abundant traces of the elder Cranach's influence,
is yet clearly not by him. It has recently been assigned, with some
probability, to his eldest son, Hans. His younger son, Lucas Cranach II,
also supplied a few borders and illustrations to the Wittenberg
booksellers. Georg Lemberger also produced borders for titlepages and
some Bible cuts, and two other Wittenberg Bible-illustrators of this
school were Erhard Altdorfer, brother of Albrecht, whose best bookwork
is found in a fine Danish Bible printed at Copenhagen in 1550, and Hans
Brosamer, Bibles, or parts of the Bible, with whose cuts appeared both
at Wittenberg and at Frankfort.
At Strassburg, Hans Baldung Grien, whose work shows the influence of
Dürer, illustrated the _Granatapfel_ (1510) and other works by Geiler of
Kaisersberg, the _Hortulus Animae_ printed by Flach (1510), etc. Johann
Wächtlin, who had contributed a Resurrection to a set of Passion cuts
published by Knoblauch in 1506, illustrated a _Leben Christi_ for the
same printer in 1508. We find his work again in the _Feldbuch der
Wundarznei_ of Hans von Gersdorff, printed by Schott in 1517. The work
of Hans Weiditz for Strassburg publishers has already been mentioned.
It was here also that Urs Graf worked for some little time for
Knoblauch, to whose Passion set of 1507 he contributed, and other
publishers. In 1509 he is found at Basel, where two years later he
became a citizen, supplying ninety-five little woodcuts to an edition of
the _Postilla_ of Guillermus, and also designing title borders. As a
centre of printing Basel was now rapidly increasing in importance, and
when Erasmus allied himself with the foremost Basel printer, Johann
Froben, for a time the city succeeded, in point of quality though not of
quantity, to the typographical supremacy which Venice was fast losing.
Scholarly works such as approved themselves to Erasmus and Froben
offered, of course, very little scope for book-illustration properly so
called, but the desire for beauty found vent, not only with them, but
with the other Basel printers of the day, Valentin Curio, Johann Bebel,
Adam Petri, Andreas Cratander, etc., in elaborate borders to titlepages,
headpieces and tailpieces, ornamental capitals and trade devices. The
arrival of Hans Holbein (born at Augsburg in 1497) at Basel in 1516 on
his Wanderjahre supplied a decorator of a skill altogether outshining
that shown in the rather tasteless architectural work, varied with
groups of children, produced by Urs Graf, though Holbein himself was
content to begin in this style. In his most characteristic work the
footpiece of the border illustrates some classical scene, Mutius
Scaevola and Porsenna, the death of Cleopatra, or Quintus Curtius
leaping into the abyss; less commonly a scriptural one, such as the
death of John the Baptist. The most elaborate of his titlepages was that
to the _Tabula_ of Cebes (1521), in which little children crowd through
the gate of life to meet all the varied fortunes which life brings.
Delightful humour is shown in an often used headpiece and tailpiece,
showing villagers chasing a fox and returning home dancing. During 1517
and the following year, when Hans Holbein was absent from Basel, his
brother Ambrosius worked there on the same lines, and decorated, among
other books, More's _Utopia_.
After his return to Basel in 1519, Hans Holbein remained at work there
until 1526, and it was during this period that his book-illustrations,
properly so called, were executed, including those to the Apocalypse and
his two most famous pieces of bookwork, his _Dance of Death_ and
_Historiarum Veteris Testamenti Icones_, both of which were first
published in 1538 at Lyon by Melchior and Gaspar Trechsel. These (with
perhaps some exceptions) and many of his other designs[45] were cut in
wood by Hans Lutzelburger who signed a Holbein titlepage to a German New
Testament printed by Thomas Wolff in 1523, and who, if rightly
identified with the Hans Formschneider with whose widow the Trechsels
were in correspondence in 1526 and 1527, must have died about the time
that Holbein left Basel. Pen copies, moreover, of some of the cuts of
the _Dance of Death_ are preserved at the Berlin Museum, and one of
these is dated 1527, so that there can be no question that the originals
belong to this period of Holbein's life, and the British Museum
possesses a set of proofs of forty out of the original series of
forty-one, printed on four sheets, ten on a sheet. It has been
conjectured that the occupations of some of the great personages whom
Death is depicted as seizing may have been considered as coming under
the offence of _scandalum magnatum_ and so have caused the long delay
before the blocks were used, but as this explanation does not apply to
the illustrations to the Old Testament it seems inadequate. As published
in 1538 by the Trechsels the cuts are accompanied by French quatrains
from the pen of Gilles Corrozet and other appropriate matter, and have
prefixed to them a titlepage reading: _Les Simulachres & Historiees
Faces de la Mort, autant elegamm[=e]t pourtraictes que artificiellement
imaginees. A Lyon, soubz lescu de Coloigne, M.D.XXXVIII._ A second
edition with Latin instead of French verses was published by Jean and
François Frellon, and others followed, in one of which, that of 1545,
one, and in another, that of 1547, eleven additional cuts were printed,
while in 1562, when the book was still in Frellon's hands, five woodcuts
of children make their appearance, though they have no connection with
the original series.
That Holbein's Old Testament designs also belong to his Basel period is
shown by copies of them appearing in a Bible printed by Froschouer in
1531, though the original cuts were not published till seven years
later. As printed by the Trechsels they are eighty-six in number, and
while the cutting of the best is worthy of Lutzelburger, their execution
is too unequal for it to be certain that the whole series was executed
by him. The cuts were also used by the Trechsels in a Bible of the same
year, and both the Bible and the cuts under their own title _Historiarum
Veteris Testamenti Icones_ were republished by the Frellons.
Considerations of space forbid more than a bare mention of the
_Bambergische Halssgericht_ (1508), with its all too vivid
representations of the cruel punishments then in use, and the
illustrated classics published at later dates by Johann Schoeffer at
Mainz, or of the work of Jakob Köbel at Oppenheim with its rather clumsy
imitations of Ratdolt's Italian ornaments, or of the illustrated books
printed by Johann Weissenburger at Landshut, or of those from the press
of Hieronymus Rodlich at Siemen, the _Thurnierbuch_ of 1530, _Kunst des
Messens_ of the following year, and _Fierabras_ of 1533. After about
1535 little original book-illustration of any importance was produced in
other German cities, but in Nuremberg and Frankfurt it continued
plentiful, Virgil Solis and Jobst Amman working assiduously for the
booksellers in both places.
In no other country did the first thirty years of the sixteenth century
produce so much interesting work as in Germany. Interesting, moreover,
as this German work is in itself, it is made yet more so by the fact
that a sufficient proportion of it is signed to enable connoisseurs to
pursue their pleasant task of distributing the unsigned cuts among the
available artists. Less intrinsically good, and with very few facilities
for playing this fascinating game, the book-illustrations of other
countries have been comparatively little studied. In Italy the new
century brought some evil days to the book trade. Printing itself ceased
for a time at Brescia; at Florence publishers for many years relied
chiefly on their old stock of cuts; at Milan, at Ferrara and Pavia a
little new work was done. At Venice the thin delicate outline cuts of
the last decade of the fifteenth century ceased to be produced any
longer, though the old blocks sometimes reappear. More often the old
designs were either simply copied or imitated in the more heavily shaded
style which was now coming into vogue. The interest of some of this
shaded work is increased by the occasional appearance on it of a
signature. Thus in the _Missale Romanum_ of 30 July, 1506, published by
Stagninus, some of the cuts in this shaded style bear the same
signature, "ia," as appears on the outline work in the Ovid of 1497.
Work done by "ia" is also sometimes found copied by another cutter
calling himself VGO, whose name is also found on some copies of French
Horae cuts in a Venice Horae of 1513.
[Illustration: XXV. VENICE. GREG. DE GREGORIIS, 1518
MISSALE ROMANUM (246^b). THE ASCENSION]
Signatures which occur with some frequency between 1515 and 1529 are the
z.a., z.A., and I.A. used by Zoan Andrea, i.e. Johannes Andreas
Vavassore. This Zoan Andrea was an assiduous copyist. Early in his
career (1515-16) we find him imitating Dürers large illustrations to the
Apocalypse; in 1517 his title-cut for the _De modo regendi_ of Antonio
Cornazano imitates that of Burgkmair on the 1515 _De rebus Gothorum_ of
Jornandes. In 1520 he prefixed to a Livy printed by Giunta an excellent
portrait modelled, as the Prince d'Essling has shown, on a sculpture set
up at Padua to the memory either of the historian himself or of one of
his descendants; in 1521 he copied Marcantonio Raimondi's engraving
of Horatius Cocles, and in the same year another by Raimondi of Quintus
Curtius. This was for an edition of Boiardo, and for a later edition of
1524 Zoan Andrea copied yet another engraving, that of Scipio Africanus.
In 1525 he imitated Holbein's elaborate border to the _Tabula Cebetis_,
applying it to a _Dictionarium Graecum_. About this time also he
produced the well-known block-book (at least three editions known)
_Opera noua contemplatiua_, imitating Dürer's Little Passion in some of
the cuts. Because of the rarity of signed woodcuts in Italian books Zoan
Andrea has attracted more attention than the quality of his work
deserves. It seems probable that he was the head of a workshop, and the
craftsmanship of the cuts bearing his signature is very unequal.
Turning to the general course of book-illustration in Venice as it may
be studied in the great work of the Prince d'Essling, unhappily left
without the promised introduction at the time of his lamented death, we
find several different influences at work. As has been already noted,
the shaded work which had begun to make its appearance before 1500, as
in the frontispiece to the _Epitome Almagesti_ of Regiomontanus (1496),
rapidly became the predominant style. We find it combined with some of
the charm of the earlier outline vignettes in the small pictures of a
Virgil of 1507, and in some of those of another edition in 1508, though
the larger ones in this are heavy and coarse. The extreme of coarseness
is found in an edition of the _Legendario di Sancti_ of 1518, the
woodcuts being more suited to a broadside for a cottage wall than to
Venetian bookwork. The style is seen at its best in the illustrations of
a well-known Horae printed by Bernardinus Stagninus in 1507, and,
generally speaking, it is in the Missals, Breviaries, and Horae
published by L. A. Giunta, Stagninus and the De Gregoriis (see Plate
XXV) that the most satisfactory bookwork of this period is found.
Another style which may be traced in many books of the early years of
the century is a rather coarse development of the characteristic
Florentine manner of the fifteenth century. The cuts are as a rule
considerably larger than the Florentine ones, and the ornamental borders
which surround them are much deeper. As in many of the Florentine cuts,
more use is made of black spaces than was usual at Venice, but the
cutting as a rule is coarse, and there is none of the charm of the best
Florentine work. Woodcuts in this style are found most frequently on the
titlepages of popular books in small quarto, published by the Sessas,
who apparently did not see their way to commissioning more than a single
illustration to each book. But the influence of the style affected the
pictures in a few works of larger size--for instance, the 1503 edition
of the _Chronica Chronicarum_ of Bergomensis, and the well-known picture
of a choir in the _Practica Musices_ of Gafori (1512).
Despite his connection with the _Hypnerotomachia_, which, however, was
printed on commission, Aldus concerned himself little with
book-illustrations, and if the miserable cuts which he put into his
edition of _Hero and Leander_ of Musaeus are fair specimens of what he
thought sufficiently good when left to himself, he was well advised in
holding aloof from them. Nevertheless, the popularity which he gained
for the small octavos which he introduced in 1501 was an important
factor in the development of book-illustration in the sixteenth century.
Although Aldus did not illustrate them himself, it was impossible that
the lightly printed handy books which he introduced should remain
permanently unillustrated, and when italic type was ousting roman and
small books taking the place of large, the introduction of smaller
illustrations, depending for their effect on the delicacy of their
cutting, became inevitable. If we take any popular book of the century,
such as the _Sonetti_ of Petrarch, and note the illustrations in
successive editions, we shall find them getting smaller and smaller and
more and more lightly cut and lightly printed, in order to match better
with the thin italic types. The new style is seen at its best in the
books of 1540-60, the Petrarch of 1544 printed by Gabriel Giolito,
Boccaccio's _Decamerone_ printed by Valgrisi in 1552, Ovid's
_Metamorphoses_ by Giolito in 1553. Finally, book-illustration peters
out at Venice in pictorial capitals, which take as their subjects any
heroes of Greek and Roman history and mythology whose names begin with
the required letter, on the principle of the nursery alphabet in which
"A was an Archer who shot at a frog, B was a Butcher who had a great
dog." To an age which, not otherwise to its loss, neglects the study of
Lemprière's Classical Dictionary, many of these puzzle initials are
bafflingly obscure, relieved only by a recurring Q, which in almost all
alphabets depicts Quintus Curtius leaping into the chasm at Rome. Some
similar sets of Old Testament subjects are much easier. Books decorated
with capitals of this kind are found as late as the end of the
seventeenth century. Isolated initials designed on this plan are found
also in other countries, but outside Italy it is only seldom that we
come across anything approaching a set.
As to French book-illustrations of the sixteenth century, a competent
historian should have much to say, but the present writer has made no
detailed study of them, and in the absence of any monograph to steal
from must be content with recording general impressions, only here and
there made precise by references to books which he has examined. Far
more than those of Germany or Venice, French publishers of the sixteenth
century relied on the great stock of woodcuts which had come into
existence during the decades 1481-1500. That they did so may be regarded
as some compensation for the exceptional rarity of most of the more
interesting French incunabula. We have spoken disrespectfully of the
little devotional books printed about 1500 with an old Horae cut on the
back of the titlepage or at the end, but in the popular books printed by
the Lenoirs and other publishers as late as 1530, and even later, cuts
will be found from Millet's _Destruction de Troie_ and other incunabula
now quite unobtainable, and it is even possible at times from salvage of
this kind to deduce the former existence of fifteenth century editions
of which no copy can now be found.
After about 1503 the French Horae decline rapidly in beauty and
interest, but many fine missals were issued by Wolfgang Hopyl and other
firms, some with one or more striking pictures, almost all with
admirable capitals.
Among non-liturgical books it is difficult to find any class for which
new illustrations were made at all freely. Several books of Chronicles
by Monstrelet, Robert Gaguin, and others have one or more cuts at the
beginning which may have been made for them, e.g. a folio cut of S.
Denis and S. Rémy, with shields of arms found in the _Compendium super
Francorum gestis_ by Robert Gaguin (this, however, dates back to 1500),
a double cut of S. Louis blessed by the Pope and confronting the Turks
(found in Gaguin's _Sommaire Historial de France, c._ 1523, and
elsewhere), another double cut of Clovis baptized and in battle
(Gaguin's _Mer des Chronicques_, 1536, but much earlier), a spirited
battle scene (_Victoire du Roy contre les Vénitiens_, 1510), etc. But
wherever we find illustrations in the text, there we are sure to light
on a medley of old cuts (e.g. in _Les grands chronicques de France_,
1514, Gaguin's _Chronicques_, 1516, and the _Rozier historial_, 1523),
and it will be odds that Millet's _Destruction de Troie_ will be found
contributing its woodcuts of the Trojan War as illustrations of French
history. When an original cut of this period can be found, it seldom has
the charm of the best work of the last five years of the fifteenth
century, but is usually quite good; there is, for instance, a quite
successful metal-cut with criblé background of Justinian in Council in
an edition of his laws printed by Bocard for Petit in 1516, and some of
the liturgical cuts are admirable. There is thus no reason to impute the
falling off in new cuts to lack of artists. It seems clear that the
demand for illustrations had for the moment shifted to an uncritical
audience who liked (small blame to them) the fifteenth century cuts
which had delighted more educated people a generation earlier, and were
not at all particular as to their appropriateness. Meanwhile the
educated book-buyers were learning Greek and preparing themselves to
appreciate the severe, unillustrated elegance of the books of the
Estiennes, and new cuts were not needed.
The inception of a new style must certainly be connected with the name
of Geoffroi Tory, whose best work is to be found in his Books of Hours,
which have already been described in an earlier chapter. Its predominant
note is a rather thin elegance of outline, in which the height of the
figures is usually somewhat exaggerated. Tory is supposed to have
brought home this style after his visit to Italy, but its application to
bookwork appears to have been his own idea. There is, indeed, a striking
resemblance between the little cuts of Tory's third Horae set, dated 8
February, 1529, and those in an Aldine Horae of October of the same
year, but to the best of my belief Tory reckoned his year from 1
January, not in the old French style from Easter, and if so it was Tory
who supplied the Aldine artist with a model, which indeed is a logical
continuation of his editions of 1525 and 1527. It is greatly to be
regretted that his own _Champfleury_ of 1527 is so slightly illustrated.
The little picture of Hercules Gallicus which comes in it is quite
delightful.
If any guide were in existence to the illustrated French books of the
thirties in the sixteenth century it would probably be possible to trace
the spread of Tory's influence. In 1530 Simon Colines illustrated Jean
Ruel's _Veterinaria Medicina_ with a good enough cut in the old French
style slightly modified. For the same author's _De Natura Stirpium_ of
1536 he provided a woodcut, of an alcove scene in a garden, the tone of
which is quite new. It is evident that French publishers were waking up
to new possibilities and sending their artists to foreign models, as a
_Perceforest_ printed for Gilles Gourmont in 1531 and a _Meliadus de
Leonnoys_ for Denis Janot in 1532, have both of them elaborate title
borders in the style which the Holbeins had made popular at Basel. The
latter is signed .F., a signature found in several later books in the
new style. In 1534 we find Wechel issuing a _Valturius_ with neat
adaptations of the old Verona illustrations. Doubtless there were many
other interesting books, with cuts original or copied of this decade,
but the only one of which I have a note is the _L'amant mal traicte de
sa mye_ (translated from the Spanish of Diego de San Pedro), printed by
Denis Janot for V. Sertenas in 1539, in which the title is enclosed in a
delicately cut border, the footpiece of which shows the lovers in a
garden. Not long after this Janot printed (without putting his name or a
date) _La touche Naifue pour esprouver Lamy and le Flateur_ of Antoine
Du Saix, in which the rules enclosing the title cut into a pretty oval
design of flowers and ribbons. In 1540 we find the new style fully
established in the _Hecatongraphie Cest à dire les descriptions de cent
figures & hystoires_, a book of emblems, by Gilles Corrozet, printed by
Denis Janot, which I only know in the third edition, that of 1543. Here
we find little vignettes, much smaller than those in the Malermi Bible,
with a headline over them and a quatrain in italics beneath, the whole
enclosed in an ornamental frame. The little cuts have the faults
inevitable in emblems, and some of them are poorly cut, but the best of
them are not only wonderfully delicate, but show a sense of movement and
a skill in the manipulation of drapery never reached in the fifteenth
century.
[Illustration: XXVI. PARIS, J. LOYS FOR V. SERTENAS, 1545
HOMER. L'ILIADE EN VERS FRANCOIS. (TITLE-CUT)]
In 1543 appeared, again from the press of Denis Janot, "imprimeur du Roy
en langue françoise," another emblem book, _Le Tableau de Cebes de
Thebes, ancien philosophe & disciple de Socrate: auquel est paincte de
ses couleurs, la uraye image de la vie humaine, & quelle uoye l'homme
doit élire, pour peruenir à vertu & perfaicte science. Premierem[=e]t
escript en Grec & maintenant expose en Ryme Francoyse_. The French
rhymester was again the author of the _Hecatongraphie_, and the imprint,
"A Paris On les uend en la grand [_sic_] salle du Palais en la boutique
de Gilles Corrozet," shows that he not only wrote the verses and perhaps
inspired the illustrations, but sold the books as well.
In 1545 we find this same style of design and cutting on a larger scale
in _Les dix premiers livres de l'Iliade d'Homère, Prince des Poetes,
traduictz en vers François, par M. Hugues Salel_, and printed by Iehan
Loys for Vincent Sertenas. The cuts are in two sizes, the smaller being
surrounded with Toryesque borders. It is difficult to pass any judgment
other than one of praise on such delicate work. Nevertheless, just as
the _fanfare_ style of binding used by Nicolas Eve, with its profuse
repetition of small tools, is much more effective on a small book cover
than on a large, so here we may well feel that some bolder and clearer
design would be better suited to the illustration of a folio. In the
title-cut here shown (Plate XXVI) a rather larger style is attempted
with good results.
The year after the Homer there appeared at Paris from the press of
Jacques Kerver a French translation of the _Hypnerotomachia_ by Jean
Martin. This is one of the most interesting cases of the rehandling of
woodcuts, the arrangement of the original designs being closely
followed, while the tone is completely changed by the substitution of
the tall rather thin figures which had become fashionable in French
woodcuts for the short and rather plump ones of the Venetian edition,
and by similar changes in the treatment of landscape.
In the second half of the century at Paris excellent woodcut portraits,
mostly in an oval frame, are sometimes found on titlepages, and in other
cases decoration is supplied by a neatly cut device. Where illustrations
are needed for the explanation of works on hunting or any other subjects
they are mostly well drawn and cut. But the use of woodcuts in books of
imaginative literature became more and more rare.
At Lyon, as at Paris, at the beginning of the century the store of
fifteenth century cuts was freely drawn on for popular editions.
Considerable influence, however, was exercised at first by Italian
models, afterwards by Germany, so that while in the early sixteenth
century Latin Bibles the cuts are mostly copied from Giunta's Malermi
Bible, these were gradually superseded by German cuts, which Anton
Koberger supplied to the Lyonnese printers who worked for him. While in
Italy the small octavos popularized by Aldus continued to hold their
own, in France, from about 1530, editions in 32° came rapidly into
fashion, and about the middle of the century these were especially the
vogue at Lyon, the publishers often casing them in very gay little trade
bindings sometimes stamped in gold, but often with painted
interlacements. The publication by the Trechsels in 1538 of the two
Holbein books, the _Dance of Death_ and illustrations to the Old
Testament, must have given an impetus to picture-making at Lyon, but
this was at first chiefly visible in illustrated Bibles and New
Testaments. Gilles Corrozet, who had written the verses for both the
Holbein books, continued his career, as we have seen, at Paris. The most
typical Lyonnese illustrated books were the rival editions of Ovid's
_Metamorphoses_ in French, one printed by Macé Bonhomme in 1556, with
borders to every page and little cuts measuring about 1½ in. by 2, and a
similar edition (reissued in Dutch and Italian) of the next year from
the press of Jean de Tournes, the borders and little pictures in which
are attributed to Bernard Salomon. In 1557 De Tournes issued also the
_Devises Héroiques_ of Claude Paradin, and he was also the publisher of
a _Calendrier Historial_, a memorandum book charmingly decorated with
cuts of the seasons.
Partly owing to religious troubles the book trade at Lyon soon after
this rapidly declined, but the French style was carried on for a while
at Antwerp by Christopher Plantin, who printed Paradin's _Devises
Héroiques_ in 1562 and in 1564, and the two following years three books
of Emblems, those of Sambucus, Hadrianus Junius, and Alciatus himself.
His earlier Horae are also illustrated with woodcuts, and in at least
one edition we find the unusual combination of woodcut borders and
copperplate pictures. But although Plantin never wholly gave up the use
of woodcuts, for his more sumptuous editions he developed a marked
preference for copperplates, and by his example helped to complete the
downfall of the woodcut, which by the end of the sixteenth century had
gone almost completely out of fashion.
FOOTNOTES:
[44] Mr. Dodgson also ascribes to Traut the illustrations in the
_Legend des heyligen vatters Francisci_ (Nuremberg, 1512), and some
of the cuts in the _Theuerdank_ (1517).
[45] Including perhaps the four sets of decorative capitals
attributed to Holbein, one ornamental, the others representing a
Dance of Peasants, Children, and a Dance of Death.
CHAPTER XII
PRINTING IN ENGLAND (1476-1580)[46]
Something has already been written about the earliest English books on
the scale to which they are entitled in a rapid survey of European
incunabula. We may now consider them more in detail as befits a book
written in English.
[Illustration: XXVII. WESTMINSTER, CAXTON, C. 1490
THE FIFTEEN OES.]
William Caxton, a Kentishman, born about 1420, had been brought up as a
mercer in the city of London, and the relations between the English
wooltraders and the clothmakers of Flanders being very intimate, he had,
as he tells us himself, passed thirty years of his life (in round
numbers the years from twenty years of age to fifty) "for the most part
in Brabant, Flanders, Holland, and Zealand." During the last few years
of this time he had held the important position of Governor of the
English merchants at Bruges, but about 1469 he surrendered this in order
to become secretary to Edward IV's sister, Margaret, wife of Charles the
Bold, Duke of Burgundy. Some years before this, Raoul Lefèvre, chaplain
to the Duke's predecessor, had compiled an epitome of the histories of
Troy, _Le Recueil des histoires de Troye_, and in March, 1469, Caxton
amused himself by beginning to translate this into English. Dissatisfied
with the result he laid it on one side, but was bidden by his patroness,
the Duchess, to continue his work. This he finished on 19 September,
1471, while staying at Cologne. According to a distinct statement by
Wynkyn de Worde, whom (at least as early as 1480) he employed as his
foreman, Caxton printed at Cologne "himself to avaunce" the first Latin
edition of the _De Proprietatibus Rerum_, a kind of encyclopaedia "on
the properties of things," by an English friar of the thirteenth century
named Bartholomew. Now the first edition of this work is undoubtedly one
printed at Cologne about 1471 or 1472 at an anonymous press which
Bradshaw called that of the printer of the 1473 edition of the _Dialogi
decem Auctorum_, and Mr. Proctor, less happily, that of the printer of
the _Flores Sancti Augustini_, an undated book in the same type. The _De
Proprietatibus Rerum_ is certainly slightly earlier than either of
these, and there are some typographical differences which suggest that
between the completion of the one book and the beginning of the other
two the press may have changed masters. The _De Proprietatibus_ is by
far the largest book of the whole group, and being by, or credited to,
an English author, it is highly probable that the well-to-do ex-Governor
of the English merchants became temporarily a member of the firm for its
production and shared in the venture. This is the natural meaning of
Wynkyn de Worde's statement that Caxton was the "first prynter of this
boke," and is quite as likely to be true as the supposition that he took
part in printing it as a kind of amateur journeyman to advance himself
in the art. It may be noted, moreover, that the books of this anonymous
press belong to the less advanced school of printing at Cologne, a
school technically several years behind that of Ulrich Zell, and this
takes the force out of the objection raised by William Blades, that if
Caxton had learnt printing at Cologne, he must have printed better when
he made his start.
Caxton does not seem to have followed up this beginning at all quickly,
and it was not till printing had been brought much nearer to Bruges by
the starting of presses at Alost in 1473 and at Louvain in 1474 that he
was stirred to action. The first printer at Louvain was Jan Veldener,
who worked there from 1474 to 1477, and Mr. Gordon Duff conjectures that
Caxton may have received some help from him. There is no doubt, however,
that his partner at Bruges was Colard Mansion, a skilled calligrapher,
who continued printing there till 1484, when he fled from the town,
leaving his rent unpaid. Caxton's own account in the _Recuyell of the
Histories of Troye_ of how he came to start is that
for as moche as in the wrytyng of the same my penne is worn, myn hande
wery and not stedfast, myn eyen dimmed with ouer-moche lokyng on the
whit paper ... and also because I haue promysid to dyuerce gentilmen
and to my frendes to adresse to hem as hastily as I myght this sayd
book. Therfore I haue practysed & lerned at my grete charge and
dispence to ordeyne this saide book in prynte after the maner & forme
as ye may here see.
There is nothing here to encourage the idea which Mr. Proctor seems to
have entertained that Colard Mansion had already begun work on his own
account, and that Caxton obtained his help for his English books. It
seems more likely that it was Caxton who made the start, and that the
first two books printed at Bruges were both in English, the first being
the _Recuyell_, and the second _The Game and Pleye of the Chesse_, a
translation of a moral treatise in which the functions of the chessmen
were used as texts for sermonizing, written in Latin by Jacobus de
Cessolis. After this a new type was cut and another didactic book, _Les
Quatre Derennières Choses_, a treatise of the Four Last Things (Death,
Judgment, Hell, and Heaven) printed in it in French. These three books
probably appeared in 1475 and the early months of 1476. By this time
Charles the Bold was picking a quarrel with the Swiss, and his
disastrous defeat at Morat on 21 June, 1476, must have powerfully
quickened the desire with which we may reasonably credit Caxton, of
being the first printer in his native land. He made arrangements to rent
a shop in the Sanctuary at Westminster from the following Michaelmas and
departed for England, taking with him the newer of the two types and
leaving the older one to Colard Mansion, who printed with it the
original French of Lefèvre's _Recueil des histoires de Troye_, and the
same author's _Les Fais et prouesses du noble et vaillant cheualier
Jason_, and then abandoned it, having already cut a larger type for his
own use.
The first dated book produced by Caxton in England was _The Dictes or
Sayengis of the Philosophers_, a translation by Earl Rivers (the brother
of Edward IV's queen) from a French version of an anonymous Latin book
of the fourteenth century. Caxton was entrusted by the Earl with the
oversight of the translation, and contributed to it an amusing Epilogue,
in which he gives some unfavourable remarks about women attributed to
Socrates, with his own comments. The Epilogue is dated 1477, and in one
copy more minutely, 18 November. Though this is the first dated English
book, it cannot be said that it was the first book printed in England,
as it was probably preceded both by Caxton's English version of
Lefèvre's _Jason_, and also by some of the thin quartos in the same
type.
Among the earlier books printed by Caxton after he set up his press at
Westminster was Chaucer's _Canterbury Tales_, of which later on he
printed a second edition which he imagined to be from a better text, and
ornamented with clumsy pictures of the pilgrims. He printed also in
separate volumes most of Chaucer's other works, including his
translation of Boethius, _De Consolatione Philosophiae;_ also Gower's
_Confessio Amantis_, some of the shorter poems of Lydgate, Malory's
_Morte d'Arthur_, and several translations of French romances (_Charles
the Great_, _Paris and Vienne_, the _Four Sons of Aymon_, etc.),
translations of _Aesop_ and of _Reynard the Fox_, Higden's
_Polychronicon_, and the _Chronicles of England_, the _Golden Legend_
(the name given to the great collection of Lives of the Saints by
Jacobus de Voragine), several editions of the Hours of the Blessed
Virgin, a Latin Psalter, a decorative edition of the Prayers called the
_Fifteen Oes_ with a border to every page (see Plate XXVII), numerous
moral treatises and books of devotion, and several Indulgences. In all
just one hundred books and documents issued from his press, printed in
eight different types (including that left behind at Bruges). More than
twenty of these books he had translated himself, and to others he
contributed interesting prologues or epilogues. While many printers on
the Continent easily surpassed him in typographical skill, few published
more books which can still be read with pleasure, and his prefaces and
epilogues show a real love of good literature (especially of Chaucer)
and abundant good sense, kindliness, and humour. Caxton died in 1491
while engaged on translating into English the Latin Lives of the
Fathers, and the account-books of the churchwardens of S. Margaret's,
Westminster, show that he was buried in its churchyard, four torches
being supplied at a cost of two shillings and sixpence, and another
sixpence being charged for the bell.
During Caxton's lifetime only one other Englishman set up a press, an
anonymous schoolmaster at St. Albans, who began work in 1480 (possibly
in 1479) and printed till 1486, producing first six scholastic books and
then two English ones. He appears to have borrowed some type from
Caxton, so that it was presumably with the latter's goodwill that he
reprinted his version of the _Chronicles of England_, adding thereto an
appendix entitled _Fructus Temporum_, or Fruits of Time. It is from
Wynkyn de Worde's reprint of this edition in 1497 that we obtain our
only knowledge of the printer, for we are there told that it was
"compiled in a booke and also enprynted by one sometyme scolemayster of
saynt Albons, on whose soule God haue mercy." His other popular book was
that famous trio of treatises _Of Haukyng and Huntyng and also of
Cootarmuris_, commonly known as the _Book of St. Albans_. The second
treatise, which is in metre, ends with the words "Explicit Dam Julyan
Barnes in her boke of huntyng," and this is the only basis for the
popular attribution of all three treatises to a hypothetical Juliana
Bernes or Berners, who is supposed to have been the daughter of Sir
James Berners (executed in 1388), and Prioress of the Nunnery of
Sopwell, a dependency of St. Albans, of which the list of prioresses
has conveniently perished.[47]
Between 1478 and 1486 or '87, some seventeen books were printed at
Oxford by Theodoric Rood of Cologne, who towards the end of his career
was in partnership with an English bookseller named Thomas Hunte. The
earliest of his books,[48] all of which are in Latin, was an Exposition
on the Apostles' Creed wrongly attributed to S. Jerome. By the
accidental omission of an X this is dated MCCCCLXVIII, i.e. 1468, but
such misprints are common in early books, and no one now maintains that
it was printed until ten years later. Among the other books printed at
Oxford we may note an edition of Cicero's _Pro Milone_, the spurious
Letters of Phalaris, and a very large folio, Lyndewode's _Provincial
Constitutions_ of the English Church. That the Oxford press came to an
end so soon and that none was started at Cambridge during the fifteenth
century may be attributed to a statute of Richard III's permitting the
free importation of books into England. Although this measure was amply
justified by the interests of learning, it made it practically
impossible for any scholastic press to maintain itself in the limited
English market against the competition of the fine editions which could
be imported from Italy.
Caxton's press was at Westminster, which in the fifteenth century was
much more sharply distinguished for business purposes from the city of
London than it is now. The first press set up within the city itself
was that of John Lettou, whose surname shows him to have been a native
of Lithuania, which in Caxton's time, as in Chaucer's, was known in
England as Lettowe. Mr. Gordon Duff thinks that John Lettou must have
learnt to print at Rome and brought his punches with him to England, as
the type with which he started to print here is indistinguishable from
one used by a small printer at Rome, who bore the curiously English name
John Bulle, though he came from Bremen. Lettou printed an Indulgence in
1480, and also a commentary on the Metaphysics of Aristotle, a curiously
learned work for a city press, but which he was commissioned to print by
a certain William Wilcocks, for whom the next year he printed also a
commentary on the Psalms.
After 1482 Lettou was joined by William of Mechlin, or Malines, in
Belgium, usually known by the Latin name of his birthplace, Machlinia.
Lettou and Machlinia printed five law books together, and then Lettou
disappears and Machlinia in 1483 started working by himself, at first at
a house near the bridge over the Fleet, where he printed eight books,
and then in Holborn, where he printed fourteen. When working by himself
he printed in addition to law books some works of a more popular
character, a Book of Hours, the _Revelation to a Monk of Evesham_,[49]
_Speculum Christiani_ (a devotional work interspersed with English
verse), the _Chronicles of England_, and several editions of "A little
treatise against the Pestilence" by a certain Bishop Canutus of Aarhus.
One of these editions was the first English book which has a titlepage.
It is printed in two lines, and reads:--
"A passing gode lityll boke necessarye &
behouefull agenst the Pestilens."
The exact date at which Machlinia died, or gave up work, is not known.
He was printing in 1486, but his books after that are undated. We may
take 1490 or a little earlier as the year of his disappearance, and it
is practically certain that his stock of books was taken over by Richard
Pynson from Normandy, who probably began printing in 1491 or 1492 (his
first dated book was finished in November of the latter year), and while
he was getting his workshop ready commissioned Guillaume Le Talleur of
Rouen to print two law books for him for sale in England.
Up to the death of Caxton the only native English printer besides
himself was the unidentified schoolmaster-printer at St. Albans, Thomas
Hunte, who joined Theodoricus Rood at Oxford, being only a stationer.
After his death, for over twenty years there was no native Englishman at
work as a master printer[50] at all. Two of the three presses at work
were in the hands of Wynkyn de Worde of Lorraine and Richard Pynson of
Normandy, and the third was worked for some time with two French
partners by Julyan Notary, who was probably a Frenchman himself, since
in 1498 he spells his name as Notaire.
By far the most prolific of these three firms was that of Wynkyn de
Worde, who was born, as his name implies, at Worth, now in Alsace, but
formerly part of the Duchy of Lorraine. He probably came to England with
Caxton in 1476, since we hear of him as early as 1480 in a legal
document about a house. After Caxton's death De Worde made a cautious
start, only issuing five books in the first two years and not putting
his own name in an imprint until 1494. By the end of the century,
however, he had printed 110 books of which copies or fragments survive,
and by the time of his death in 1534 the number had risen to 800, an
extraordinarily high total, more especially when it is remembered that
the small quarto editions of romances and popular works of devotion, of
which he printed a great many, were peculiarly likely to be thumbed to
pieces, so that his actual output was probably much greater. As far as
his choice of books was concerned he showed himself a mere tradesman,
seldom printing an expensive book unless Caxton's experience had shown
it to be saleable. For two apparent exceptions to this lack of
enterprise there were special reasons. The first, a translation of the
_Lives of the Fathers_, he was almost bound in honour to take up, since
Caxton had completed it on his death-bed. The second book, a really fine
edition (issued about 1495) of Trevisa's version of the _De
Proprietatibus Rerum_, was also, as we have seen, connected with Caxton,
who, De Worde tells us, had acted as "the fyrst prynter of this boke In
latin tongue at Coleyn himself to avaunce." De Worde's edition is itself
notable as being the first book printed on English paper, the
manufacturer being John Tate of Hertford.
In 1500 De Worde moved from Caxton's house at Westminster to the sign of
the Sun in Fleet Street, perhaps for the greater protection offered by
the city against attacks by anti-alien mobs. In 1508 he was appointed
printer to the Countess of Richmond and Derby, mother of Henry VII, a
very old lady, who died the following year. De Worde himself must have
been a very old man at his death towards the end of 1534 or early in
January, 1535, as he had by that time been at work in England for
between fifty and sixty years. Towards the end of his life he seems to
have had some of his books printed for him by John Skot, and Robert
Copland was also employed in his business.
The output of Richard Pynson was only about half that of Wynkyn de
Worde, and his taxable property amounted to only £60 against over _£_200
at which De Worde was assessed. Nevertheless the fact that for the last
twenty-two years of his life (1508-30) he was the King's Printer helped
to procure him a few important books, and also kept his workmanship at a
considerably higher standard. As already mentioned, he probably came to
England about 1490 and took over Machlinia's stock, employing Guillaume
Le Talleur of Rouen to print two law books for him while his own type
was being made. He probably began work with a fine edition of Chaucer's
_Canterbury Tales_, but his first dated book is an ugly little edition
of the _Doctrinale_ of Alexander Gallus, issued in November, 1492. A
copy of this was unearthed a few years ago in the library of Appleby
Grammar School, and to secure the first dated book printed by Pynson the
British Museum had to pay over £300 for it. In 1494 Pynson brought out
Lydgate's poem on the _Falles of Princes_, translated from the Latin of
Boccaccio, illustrating it with woodcuts borrowed from Jean Du Pré's
French edition of the same book.[51] In 1495 he printed a _Terence_. Up
to the close of the fifteenth century he had printed about eighty-eight
books known to Mr. Gordon Duff, against the 110 printed by Wynkyn de
Worde. In 1500 he moved from the parish of S. Clement Dane's, outside
Temple Bar, to the sign of S. George, at the corner of Chancery Lane and
Fleet Street, the change bringing him inside the city walls. Among the
best of the books printed by him after this are Alexander Barclay's
_Ship of Fools_ (1509), a translation of Sebastian Brant's
_Narrenschiff_; Fabyan's _Chronicle_ (1516), Barclay's translation of
Sallust (about 1520), Henry VIII's _Assertio Septem Sacramentorum_
(1521), and Lord Berners' translation of Froissart's _Chronicles_
(1522-5). He also printed some fine service-books, notably a Sarum
Missal, called after Cardinal Morton who favoured it the Morton Missal
(1500). Mr. Duff conjectures that in the Latin books he printed from
1518 onwards Pynson was aided by Thomas Berthelet.[52]
Julian Notary's business was on a far smaller scale than those of Wynkyn
de Worde and Pynson, for less than fifty books are known to have been
printed by him. He began work in London about 1496 in partnership with
Jean Barbier and another printer or bookseller whose initials were I.
H., probably Jean Huvin of Rouen. In 1498 I. H. had left the firm and
Notary and Barbier were at Westminster. In 1500, like De Worde and
Pynson, he changed houses, moving to just outside Temple Bar, possibly
to Pynson's old house, giving his new premises the sign of the Three
Kings. At a later date he had also a bookstall in S. Paul's Churchyard,
and ultimately moved his printing office into the city. Notary's books
were of much the same kind as De Worde's--the Golden Legend, the
Chronicles of England, the Shepherds' Calendar, Sermons, Lives of the
Saints, etc. He has the distinction of having printed the smallest
English incunable of which any trace has come down to us, an edition of
the Hours of the Blessed Virgin, finished in April, 1500, measuring only
an inch by an inch and a half. He seems to have ceased printing about
1520, but was alive in 1523.
Summing up the work of these printers who were active before 1500, we
may note that Caxton printed 100 books and editions that have come down
to us; De Worde 110 before 1500, about 800 altogether; Pynson 88 before
1500, nearly 400 altogether; Notary about 8 before 1500, and 48
altogether; Lettou and Machlinia about 30, Oxford 17, St. Albans 8. Thus
the total number of English incunabula at present known is about 360,
but Pynson and Wynkyn de Worde were both large printers in the sixteenth
century.
As we have seen, Pynson became King's Printer in 1508. He had been
preceded in that office by William Faques, who like himself was a
Norman, and was the first to hold the title. He was worthy of the
distinction, for though he only printed eight books and documents that
have come down to us, his work was very good. His dated books belong to
the year 1504, when he printed a proclamation against clipped money,
with a fine initial H and some neat woodcuts of coins; also a beautiful
little Latin Psalter. His business was in the heart of the city, in
Abchurch Lane. After his death it passed to Richard Faques, who made his
name more English by spelling it first Fakes, then Fawkes. Richard
worked in S. Paul's Churchyard, and among his publications were the
_Salus corporis salus anime_ of Gulielmus de Saliceto, a Sarum Horæ,
Skelton's _Goodly Ballad of the Scottish King_ (1509), and _Garland of
Laurell_ (1523), and lastly, _The Myrroure of Our Lady_ (1530).
With Robert Copland we come to the first native English printer after
Caxton and the schoolmaster of St. Albans. Copland is rather an
interesting person, who made translations and wrote prefaces and
addresses to the reader in verse, besides printing books. His name
occurs in the imprints of only twelve books, spread over twenty-two
years, 1514-35, the explanation being that he was probably working for
De Worde during this time, and only occasionally indulged in a private
venture. After a long interval he printed two books for Andrew Borde in
1547-8, and appears to have died while the second was in progress. He
was succeeded by William Copland, probably his son, who printed numerous
romances and other entertaining books, and died in 1568 or 1569.
At intervals during the years 1516-28, John Rastell, an Oxford graduate,
barrister of Lincoln's Inn and brother-in-law of Sir Thomas More, issued
nine dated law books. In 1526 he printed two jest books, in 1529 he
became involved in religious controversy on the Protestant side, and
died in poverty and prison in 1536. Altogether some forty books are
attributed to him, including some plays, which may perhaps rather have
been printed by his son William. William Rastell was also a lawyer, and
not sharing his father's Protestantism, became a Judge of the Queen's
Bench under Mary, on whose death he fled to Louvain. As a printer he
worked only from 1530 to 1534, printing over thirty books, including
several works by his uncle, Sir Thomas More, and five plays by John
Heywood.
Between 1518 and 1524 Henry Pepwell printed a few popular books at the
sign of the Trinity in S. Paul's Churchyard; for the rest of his life he
appears to have been only a stationer. John Skot, who printed at four
different addresses in the city of London between 1521 and 1537, worked
partly for De Worde, partly on his own account, printing upwards of
thirty books for himself, a few of them legal, the rest popular English
books.
Two printers began to issue books in 1523. Robert Bankes, who turned out
a few popular books in his first six years, was then silent for a time,
and reappears in the religious controversies of 1539-42, and Robert
Redman, who seems to have followed in Pynson's footsteps both in S.
Clement's Without Temple Bar and at the sign of the George. In his
office of Royal Printer Pynson was succeeded by Thomas Berthelet, or
Bartlet, who had probably worked with him for upwards of ten years
before starting on his own account in Fleet Street at the sign of
Lucrece in 1528. We know of altogether about 400 pieces of printing from
his press, but a large proportion of these consists of editions of the
Statutes and Proclamations. For the Proclamations some of Berthelet's
bills survive, and we learn that he charged a penny a piece for them,
and imported his paper from Genoa. With his official printing must be
reckoned his editions of the _Necessary Doctrine of a Christian Man_,
issued with the royal sanction on 29 May, 1543. In order to produce
sufficient copies of this he printed it simultaneously eight times over,
all eight editions bearing the same date. Of the books which he printed
on his own account the place of honour must be given to his handsome
edition of Gower's _Confessio Amantis_ in an excellent black-letter type
in 1532, and the various works of Sir John Eliot, all of which came from
his press.
On the accession of Edward VI Berthelet ceased to be Royal Printer, the
post being given to Grafton. Berthelet died in September, 1555, leaving
considerable property. He was buried as an Esquire with pennon and coat
armour and four dozen scutcheons, and all the craft of printers,
stationers, and booksellers followed him to his grave.
Richard Grafton, who succeeded Berthelet as Royal Printer, had a very
chequered career. He was originally a member of the Grocers' Company,
and, in conjunction with Edward Whitchurch and Anthony Marler of the
Haberdashers' Company, superintended the printing of the English Bible
of 1537, probably at Antwerp, and that of 1539 by François Regnault at
Paris. When Bible-printing was permitted in England Grafton and
Whitchurch shared between them the printing of the six editions of the
Great Bible during 1540 and 1541. But when Cromwell, Earl of Essex, the
chief promoter of Bible-printing, was beheaded, Grafton was himself
imprisoned. In 1544, on the other hand, he and Whitchurch obtained an
exclusive patent for printing Primers, and before Henry VIII's death
Grafton was appointed printer to the Prince of Wales. Thus when Edward
became king Grafton displaced Berthelet as Royal Printer, and henceforth
had time for little save official work. Five editions of the Homilies
and seven of Injunctions, all dated 31 July, 1547, were issued from his
presses; in 1548 he published Halle's _Union of Lancaster and York_ and
several editions of the Order of Communion and Statutes; in 1549 came
two Bibles and five editions of the first Prayer Book of Edward VI; in
1550 a reprint of Halle and an edition of Marbeck's Book of Common
Prayer noted; in 1551 Wilson's _Rule of Reason_; in 1552 six editions of
the second Prayer Book of Edward VI, and more Statutes.
Proclamation-work, of course, went on steadily throughout the reign, and
on Edward's death Grafton printed the enormously long document by which
the adherents of Lady Jane Grey tried to justify her claim to the Crown.
He did his work very handsomely, but on the triumph of Mary, though he
impartially printed a proclamation for her nine days after "Queen
Jane's," he naturally lost his post and might easily have lost his head
also. For the rest of his life he was mainly occupied in writing his
chronicle. But he printed a Book of Common Prayer in 1559, and
(according to Herbert) a Bible in 1566. He died in 1573.
While Grafton was the King's printer for English books, the post of
Royal Printer in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew had been conferred in 1547 on
Reginald or Reyner Wolfe. Wolfe, who had come to England from
Gelderland, was at first a bookseller, and was employed by various
distinguished persons as a letter-carrier between England and Germany.
When he set up as a printer in 1542, with type which he seems to have
obtained from a relative at Frankfort, he was employed by the great
antiquary, John Leland, and by John Cheke, Professor of Greek at
Cambridge, for whom he printed in 1543 two Homilies of S. Chrysostom in
Greek and Latin, this being the first Greek work printed in England.
During Edward VI's reign he does not seem to have been given much to do
in Latin, Greek, or Hebrew, but printed Cranmer's _Defence of the
Sacrament_ and _Answer unto a Crafty Cavillation_. After keeping quiet
during Mary's reign he enjoyed the patronage of Elizabeth and Archbishop
Parker, and lived, like Grafton, till 1573.
Though he never worked on a large scale, Wolfe certainly raised the
standard of printing in England. In John Day it is pleasant to come to a
native Englishman who did equally good work, and that in a larger way of
business. Day was a Suffolk man, born in 1522 at Dunwich, a town over
which the sea now rolls. He began printing in partnership with William
Seres as early as 1546, but, save some fairly good editions of the
Bible, produced nothing of importance during this period. His first fine
book, published in 1559, is _The Cosmographicall Glasse_, a work on
surveying, by William Cunningham. This has a woodcut allegorical border
to the titlepage, a fine portrait of Cunningham, a map of Norwich, and
some good heraldic and pictorial capitals. Its text is printed
throughout in large italics. The book thus broke away entirely from the
old black-letter traditions of English printing, and could compare
favourably with the best foreign work. Day printed other folios in this
style, and in some of them instead of a device placed a large and
striking portrait of himself. In 1563 he printed the first edition of
_Acts and Monumentes of these latter and perillous days touching matters
of the Church_, better known as _Foxe's Book of Martyrs_. This is a book
of over two thousand pages, and is plentifully illustrated with woodcuts
of varying degrees of merit. Day by this time had attracted the
patronage of Archbishop Parker, and in 1566 printed for him a book
called _A Testimony of Antiquitie, showing the auncient fayth of the
Church of England touching the sacrament of the body and bloude of the
Lord here publikely preached and also receaved in the Saxons tyme, above
600 yeares agoe_. For this sermon, attributed to Archbishop Aelfric,
some Anglo-Saxon type, the first used in England, was specially cut.
Later on Day printed at Lambeth Palace Parker's _De Antiquitate
Britannicae Ecclesiae_. He also printed Ascham's _Scholemaster_ and
other important works. He appears, moreover, to have possessed a
bookbinding business, or at least to have had binders in his employment
who invented a very striking and dignified style of binding. Altogether,
Day is a man of whom English bookmen may well be proud. He died in 1584.
Richard Tottell was another printer of some importance. The son of an
Exeter man, he began printing about 1553, and early in his career
received a patent which gave him a monopoly of the publication of law
books. These, to do him justice, he printed very well, and he also
published a number of works of literary interest. Chief among these, and
always associated with his name, is the famous _Songs and Sonnets_ of
Wyatt and Surrey and other Tudor poets, edited by Nicholas Grimald, but
often quoted, for no very good reason, as _Tottell's Miscellany_. To his
credit must also be placed editions of Lydgate's _Falles of Princes_,
Hawes's _Pastime of Pleasure_, Tusser's _Five Hundreth Points of Good
Husbandry_, the works of Sir Thomas More in 1458 folio pages, Gerard
Legh's _Accedens of Armoury_, numerous editions of Guevara's _Diall of
Princes_, as translated by Sir Thomas North, and a version of Cicero's
_De Officiis_, by Nicholas Grimald. In 1573 Tottell petitioned
unsuccessfully for a monopoly of paper-making in England for thirty
years, in order to encourage him to start a paper-mill. He lived till
1593.
Henry Denham (1564-89), Henry Bynneman (1566-83), and Thomas Vautrollier
(1566-88), and the latter's successor, Richard Field, were the best
printers of the rest of the century. Denham was an old apprentice of
Tottell's, who gave him some important books to print for him. Herbert
remarks of him: "He was an exceeding neat printer, and the first who
used the semicolon with propriety." Among his more notable books were
Grafton's _Chronicle_ (for Tottell and Toy, 1569), editions of the
Olynthiac orations of Demosthenes in English (1570) and Latin (1571),
_An Alvearie or quadruple dictionarie containing foure sundrie tongues,
namelie, English, Latine, Greeke, and French_, with a pleasing titlepage
showing the royal arms and a beehive (1580), Thomas Bentley's _The
Monument of Matrons: containing seuen seuerall Lamps of Virginitie_, a
work in praise of piety and Queen Elizabeth (1582), Hunnis's _Seuen Sobs
of a Sorrowfull Soule for Sinne_, a metrical version of the penitential
psalms (1585), and the second edition of Holinshed's _Chronicles_
(1587).
Henry Bynneman, though not so high in Archbishop Parker's favour as John
Day, was yet recommended by him to Burghley in 1569, and deserved his
patronage by much good work. He printed an English version of Epictetus,
Dr. Caius's _De Antiquitate Cantabrigiensis Academiæ_ (1568), a handsome
book with the text in italics, according to the fashion of the day, Van
der Noodt's _Theatre of Voluptuous Worldlings_ (1569), a Latin text of
Virgil believed to be the first printed in England (1570), the
_Historia Brevis_ of Thomas Walsingham (1574), a handsome folio, several
books by Gascoigne and Turberville, the first edition of Holinshed's
_Chronicles_ (1577, published by John Harrison), and a few books in
Greek.
Thomas Vautrollier, a French refugee, set up a press at Blackfriars, at
which he printed several editions of the Prayer Book in Latin (_Liber
Precum Publicarum in Ecclesia Anglicana_), and of the New Testament in
Beza's Latin version, for which latter he was granted a ten years'
privilege in 1574. In 1579 he printed two very notable works, Fenton's
translation of the History of Guicciardini and Sir Thomas North's
_Plutarch_, the latter being one of the handsomest of Elizabethan books.
In 1580 and again in 1584 he went to Edinburgh, printing several books
there in 1584 and 1585. His second visit is said to have been due to
trouble which came upon him for printing the _Spaccio della Bestia
Triomphante_ of Giordano Bruno. His press at Blackfriars continued to
work during his absence. His daughter Jakin married Richard Field, who
succeeded to his house and business in 1588, and continued his excellent
traditions.
A company of stationers had existed in London since 1403, and in 1557
this was reconstituted and granted a Royal Charter. The object of the
Crown was to secure greater control over printing, so that no
inconvenient criticisms on matters of Church or State might be allowed
to appear. The object of the leading printers and booksellers, who
formed the court of the company, was to diminish competition, both
illegitimate and legitimate. Both objects were to a very considerable
degree attained. The quarter of a century which followed the grant of a
charter witnessed a great improvement in the English standard of book
production. Up to this time it seems probable that few English printers,
who had not the royal patronage, had found their craft profitable.
Caxton no doubt did very well for himself--as he richly deserved. He
enjoyed the favour of successive kings, and received good support from
other quarters. We may guess, moreover, that both as translator and
publisher he kept his finger on the pulse of well-to-do book-buyers to
an extent to which there is no parallel for the next two centuries. No
one else in England possessed this skill, and certainly no one else
enjoyed Caxton's success. The Act of Richard III permitting unrestricted
importation of books quickly killed the presses at Oxford and St.
Albans, which could not compete with the publications of the learned
printers of Italy, France, and Switzerland. Until more than half-way
through the reign of Elizabeth the united output of books from Oxford
and Cambridge amounted to less than a couple of score. For more than
twenty years after Caxton's death there was no undoubted Englishman as a
master printer. Mr. Gordon Duff has lately published[53] the assessments
of some of the chief stationers and printers from the Lay Subsidy Rolls
of 1523-4. By far the highest of them is the £307 at which was assessed
John Taverner, a stationer who is only otherwise known as having bound
some books for the Royal Chapel, and who was wise enough not to meddle
with printing. Wynkyn de Worde, most commercial of printers, was
assessed at £201 11s. 1d.; a practically unknown stationer named Neale
at £100; Pynson, who was Royal Printer and did really good work, at £60;
three other stationers, one of whom printed (Henry Pepwell), at £40
apiece; Julyan Notary at £36 6s. 8d.; other printers at £10 (Robert
Redman), £6 13s. 4d. (John Rastell), and £4 (Robert Wyer). It is
tolerably clear that there was absolutely no inducement to an English
stationer to take up printing. In 1534 Henry VIII repealed the Act of
1484, on the plea that native printing was now so good that there was
less need to import books from abroad, the King's real reason, no doubt,
being to make it easier to check the importation of heretical works. Mr.
Duff has written of the King's action:
"The fifty years of freedom from 1484 to 1534 not only brought us the
finest specimens of printing we possess, but compelled the native
workman in self-protection to learn, and when competition was done
away with his ambition rapidly died also. Once our English printing
was protected, it sank to a level of badness which has lasted, with
the exception of a few brilliant experiments, almost down to our own
day."[54]
As a rule, whatever Mr. Duff writes about English printing is
incontrovertible, but this particular pronouncement seems curiously
unfounded. Whether we consider what they printed or how they printed it,
the work of the English presses from 1535-57 is better, not worse, than
the work of the corresponding period, 1512-34. There is nothing in the
earlier period to compare with the Great Bibles, and the books of
Berthelet and Reyner Wolfe are fairly equal to those of Pynson. If we
take 1557 as a fresh point of departure, the books issued from then to
about 1580 present a still more remarkable advance. While the work of
the rest of Europe deteriorated, that of England, in the hands of such
men as Day, Denham, and Bynneman, improved, and alike for their
typography, their illustrations and decorations and their scholarship,
they surpass those of any previous period since the days of Caxton, and
deserve far more attention from collectors than they have yet received.
FOOTNOTES:
[46] For English provincial printing after 1500 see Chapter XIII.
[47] A fourth treatise, that on Fishing with an Angle, is often
included in the attribution with even less reason. This was first
printed by Wynkyn de Worde in 1496, with the following curious
explanation of its being tacked on to the _Book of St. Albans_: "And
for by cause this present treatyse sholde not come to the hondys of
eche ydle persone whyche wolde desire it yf it were enprynted allone
by it self & put in a lytyll paunflet, therfore I haue compyled it in
a greter volume of dyuerse bokys concernynge to gentyll & noble men,
to the entent that the forsayd ydle persones whyche sholde haue but
lytyll mesure in the sayd dysporte of fyshynge sholde not by this
meane utterly destroye it."
[48] Two points may be noted about Rood: (i) he does not put his name
in his earliest books, and as there is a change of type in his signed
work, it is possible, though unlikely, that the books in type 1 are
from another press; (ii) he is not to be identified, as was once
proposed, with a certain Theodoricus of Cologne, lately proved by Dr.
Voullième to be Theodoricus Molner, a stepson of ther Hoernen.
[49] The place-name here is an early misreading for "Eynsham."
[50] This statement should perhaps be modified to admit of the
possibility that Julian Notary was English rather than French, as is
generally assumed.
[51] This and the _Dives and Pauper_ of 1493 (which, until the
discovery of the _Doctrinale_, was reckoned Pynson's first dated
book) and several other of his earliest editions were published
partly at the expense of a merchant named John Rushe, who took six
hundred copies of the _Dives_ and the _Boccaccio_ at 4s. apiece. See
_Two Lawsuits of Richard Pynson_, by H. R. Plomer, in _The Library_,
second series, Vol. X.
[52] See _The Library_, second series, Vol. VIII, pp. 298 _sqq._
[53] In _The Library_, second series, Vol. IX, pp. 257-81.
[54] "The Printers, Stationers, and Bookbinders of Westminster and
London, 1476-1535" (last paragraph).
CHAPTER XIII
ENGLISH BOOKS PRINTED ELSEWHERE THAN AT LONDON
[Illustration: XXVIII. COLOGNE, PRINTER UNCERTAIN, 1525
TYNDALE'S NEW TESTAMENT, FIRST PAGE OF TEXT]
During the fifteenth century presses were set up in more than fifty
places in Germany, in more than seventy in Italy, in nearly forty in
France, in more than twenty in the Netherlands, in twenty-four in Spain,
in only three (counting London and Westminster as one) in England. In
London and Westminster over 330 books are known to have been printed; in
Oxford and St. Albans only twenty-five. The reason for this paucity of
provincial printing in England must be found by the social historian.
The beginning of the sixteenth century brought no change in the facts.
For thirty years from March, 1487, there was no printing-press at
Oxford. In December, 1517, a Latin commentary on the Posterior Analytics
of Aristotle appeared with the imprint "Academia Oxonie," and in four
subsequent books, printed in 1518, the printer of this gave his name as
Johannes Scolar. A fragment of a sixth book has lately been found at the
British Museum. In 1519 Scolar's place was taken by Carolus Kyrforth,
who printed a _Compotus_, or small arithmetic book. A prognostication by
Jaspar Laet may have been printed apparently either by Scolar or
Kyrforth. After the appearance of these eight books there was no more
printing at Oxford until a press was started there in 1585 by Joseph
Barnes, under the auspices of the University. The last book of the
Schoolmaster-printer appeared at St. Albans in 1486, and after this
there was no more printing there until 1534. In that year, at the
request of Abbot Catton, a printer named John Hertfort, or Herford,
printed there _The glorious lyfe and passion of seint Albon_. Robert
Catton was succeeded as abbot by Richard Stevenage, and in the years
1536-8 three religious books were printed for him by Hertfort, who also
printed an Arithmetic and two other books on his own account, making
seven books in all. Then, in October, 1539, John Hertfort fell under
suspicion of having printed a "little book of detestable heresies,"[55]
and the Abbot had to send him to London. The abbey itself was suppressed
by the King the same year, and Hertfort, deprived of his patron, had no
inducement to return. He is next heard of as printing in London in 1544.
At York a _Directorium_ was printed by Hugo Goes, and there is a
seventeenth century reference to a _Donatus minor_ and _Accidence_ from
his press. Three small books are also known to have been printed by
Ursyn Mylner in 1514 and 1516. Previous to this, in or about 1507, an
_Expositio hymnorum et sequentiarum_ for use at York had been printed at
Rouen by Pierre Violette for a stationer named Gerard Freez (also known
as Gerard Wandsforth), who died in 1510. This Gerard Freez had a brother
Frederick, who is described not only as a bookbinder and stationer, but
as a printer, and may therefore have printed books which have perished
without leaving any trace behind them. But the only extant York books of
the sixteenth century are the _Directorium_ of 1507, two small
service-books of 1513, and a little grammatical work in 1516. After this
there was no more printing in York until 1642.
At Cambridge a stationer named John Laer, of Siberch, i.e. Siegburg,
near Cologne, settled, in or about 1520, and acted as publisher to an
edition of Croke's _Introductiones in Rudimenta Græca_, printed at
Cologne by Eucharius Cervicornus. After this, in 1521 and 1522, Siberch
himself printed nine small books at Cambridge, the first of them being a
Latin speech by Henry Bullock addressed to Cardinal Wolsey. Among the
other books was a Dialogue of Lucian's ([Greek: peri dipsadôn]), for
which Siberch had to use some Greek type, and a work on letter-writing
(_De conscribendis epistolis_) by Erasmus, with whom he seems to have
been on friendly terms. After 1522 no more books were printed at
Cambridge until 1583.
At Tavistock in 1525 a monk named Thomas Richard printed a translation
of Boethius's _De Consolatione Philosophiae_ for "the ryght worschypful
esquyer Mayster Robert Langdon." Nine years later, in 1534, the same
press printed the _Statutes_ concerning the Devonshire Stannaries or Tin
Mines. These are the only two early books known to have been printed at
Tavistock.
At Abingdon in 1528, John Scolar, presumably the same man who had
previously worked a few miles off at Oxford, printed a Portiforium or
Breviary for the use of the monastery. No other early book is known to
have been printed there.
From 1539, when John Hertfort was summoned from St. Albans, to the end
of the reign of Henry VIII, we know of no provincial printing in
England. But on the accession of Edward VI the extreme Protestants who
had fled from England to the Netherlands, Germany, and Switzerland, came
flocking back, and some of them seem to have stopped at Ipswich. Two, or
perhaps three printers, all in the Protestant interest, worked there in
the first few months of the new reign. The first of these, Anthony
Scoloker, printed seven books at Ipswich in 1547 and 1548, and then went
on to London. The second, John Overton, brought over with him from Wesel
the text of Bishop Bale's Latin bibliography of the Illustrious Writers
of Britain, printed there by Theodoricus Plateanus, otherwise Dirick van
der Straten, and may or may not have printed at Ipswich two additional
sheets, which he dated there 31 July, 1548.[56] The third printer, John
Oswen, printed at Ipswich eleven tracts, mostly controversial, in or
about 1548, and then removed to Worcester.
On his arrival at Worcester late in 1548, or early in 1549, John Oswen
obtained a special privilege from Edward VI for printing service-books
for use in the Principality of Wales, and produced there three editions
of the first Prayer Book of Edward VI and a New Testament. Besides
these, from 1549 to 1553 he printed eighteen other books, mostly of
controversial theology, calling himself in his imprints "Printer
appoynted by the Kinges Maiestie for the Principalitie of Wales and the
Marches of the same." On the accession of Mary, it being no longer safe
to print Protestant theology, Oswen's press ceased working.
At Canterbury in 1549 John Mychell, or Mitchell, who had moved there
after producing a few books in London, printed an English psalter,
"poynted as it shall be songe in churches." During Edward's reign
Mychell printed at Canterbury altogether some twenty books and tracts,
mostly more or less controversial treatises on the Protestant side. On
the accession of Mary he ceased publishing till 1556, when his press was
employed by Cardinal Pole to print his Articles of Visitation.
The next year, by the charter granted to the Stationers' Company,
printing outside London was forbidden, the prohibition being
subsequently relaxed in favour of the two Universities, although it was
nearly thirty years before they availed themselves of their right. In
the previous eighty years only about a hundred books[57] had been
produced at the provincial presses, and in the year in which the charter
was granted it can hardly be said that any press outside London was in
existence. The new regulation stood in the way of development, but it
was a development for which there seems to have been little demand. We
may see some slight confirmation of this view in the fact that during
Elizabeth's reign there was very little secret printing, though there
had probably been a good deal under Mary. The three Elizabethan secret
presses which have been chronicled were:
(1) A Puritan press which printed various tracts on Church government,
written by Thomas Cartwright. These were printed secretly in 1572 and
1573, first at Wandsworth, afterwards at Hempstead, near Saffron Walden,
in Essex. The press was seized in August, 1573, and the type handed to
Henry Bynneman, who, the next year, used it to reprint Cartwright's
attack, interpolating Whitgift's replies in larger type.
(2) A Jesuit press which printed for Edmund Campion and Robert Parsons
in 1580 and 1581, first at Greenstreet House in East Ham, afterwards at
Stonor Park, near Henley. The press was managed by Stephen Brinckley,
who was ultimately captured and imprisoned for nearly two years.
(3) The Puritan travelling press, from which issued the famous Martin
Marprelate tracts in 1588 and 1589. Some of these were printed in East
Molesey, in Surrey; others in the house of Sir Richard Knightley at
Fawsley, near Daventry, others in that of Roger Wigston of Wolston
Priory, between Coventry and Rugby. The chief printer of them was Robert
Waldegrave, who eventually fled first to La Rochelle, where he may have
printed one of the tracts, and then to Edinburgh, where he became a
printer of some importance.
While there was thus very little secret printing in England, exiled
Protestants, Catholics, and Nonconformists all in turn made frequent
recourse to foreign presses, and apparently succeeded in circulating
their books in England. Religious repression, however, though the chief,
was not the only cause of English books being printed abroad. From a
very early time the superior skill of foreign printers had procured them
many commissions to print service-books for the English market, alike on
account of their greater accuracy, their experience in printing in red
and black, and the more attractive illustrations which they had at their
disposal. Not long after 1470 a Sarum Breviary was printed abroad,
possibly at Cologne. Caxton employed George Maynyal, of Paris, to print
a Missal (and probably a _Legenda_) for him in 1487, and Johann Hamman
or Herzog printed a Sarum Missal in 1494 as far away as Venice. When the
Paris printers and publishers had won the admiration of all Europe by
their pretty editions of the Hours of the Blessed Virgin, they competed
with each other for the English market. Early in the sixteenth century
Wolfgang Hopyl printed some magnificent Sarum Missals and also an
Antiphoner and _Legenda_, besides some very fine editions of Lyndewood's
Constitutions. Breviaries, Missals, and Primers were also poured out for
English use by François Regnault, and in lesser numbers by nearly a
dozen other Paris firms, and Martin Morin and other printers plied the
same trade at Rouen, while Christoffel van Remunde, of Endhoven, was
busy at Antwerp. The predominance of the foreign editions of these books
over those printed in England may be estimated from the fact that of 105
Sarum service-books printed before 1540 in the possession of the British
Museum, one was printed at Basel, one at Venice, eleven at Rouen, twelve
at Antwerp, as many as fifty-six at Paris, and only twenty-four in
England.[58]
In addition to service-books, a good many of the smaller Latin
grammatical works were printed for the English market in France and the
Low Countries, their destination being occasionally stated, but more
often inferred from the appearance in them of English explanations of
Latin words or phrases. A few attempts were also made to issue popular
English works in competition with those produced at home. The most
formidable of these rivalries was that of Gerard Leeu at Antwerp, who,
after printing three entertaining books (_The History of Jason_,
_Knight Paris and the Fair Vienne_, and the _Dialogue of Salomon and
Marcolphus_), embarked on a more important work, _The Chronicles of
England_, and might have seriously injured the home trade had he not met
his death in a quarrel with a workman while the _Chronicles_ were still
on the press.[59]
Soon after 1500 another Antwerp printer, Adriaen von Berghen, in
addition to Holt's _Lac Puerorum_, published the commonplace book of a
London merchant which passes under the name of _Arnold's Chronicle_, and
is famous as containing the earliest text of the _Nutbrown Maid_. A
little later still, Jan van Doesborch was at work at the same place, and
between 1505 and 1530 produced at least eighteen popular English books,
including _Tyll Howleglas_, _Virgilius the Magician_, _Robin Hood_, and
an account of recent discoveries entitled, "Of the new landes and of the
people found by the messengers of the kynge of portyngale named
Emanuel."
Doesborch's books are poorly printed and illustrated, but his texts are
not noticeably worse than those in contemporary editions published in
England. The reverse is the case with two English books produced (1503)
by the famous Paris publisher, Antoine Vérard, _The traitte of god
lyuyng and good deying_ and _The Kalendayr of Shyppars_. These have the
illustrations which book-lovers prize so highly in the _Kalendrier des
Bergers_ and _Art de bien viure et de bien mourir_, but the translations
seem to have been made by a Scot, only less ill equipped in Scottish
than in French. In a third translation, from Pierre Gringore's _Chasteau
de Labeur_, Vérard was more fortunate, for the _Castell of Labour_ was
rendered into (for that unpoetical period) very passable verse by
Alexander Barclay. Vérard, however, had no cause to congratulate
himself, for both Pynson and De Worde reprinted Barclay's translation
with copies of the woodcuts, and the other two books in new
translations, so that in future he left the secular English market
alone.
It may be supposed that the Act of 1534, restricting the importation of
foreign books into England, finally put an end to competition of the
kind which Leeu, Vérard, and Doesborch had attempted. But isolated
English books have continued to appear abroad down to our own day, and
form a miscellaneous, but curious and interesting appendix in the great
volume of the English book trade. From 1525 onwards, however, until
nearly the end of the seventeenth century, compared with the masses of
theological books alternately by Protestant and Roman Catholic English
exiles, printed in the Low Countries, Germany, Switzerland, and France,
the output of secular work sinks into insignificance. The stream begins
with Tyndale's New Testament, of which a few sheets were printed at
Cologne (see Plate XXVIII), two editions at Worms, and half a dozen or
more at Antwerp before it was suffered to appear in England.
The first English Bible is believed to have been printed (1535) by
Christopher Froschauer at Zurich, the second (1537) at Antwerp, the
third (1539) was begun at Paris and completed in England. Besides their
New Testaments, Tyndale and George Joy published a good many
controversial works at Antwerp. In the next generation the city became
one of the strongholds of the Romanist exiles after the accession of
Elizabeth, and Hans de Laet, John Fouler, Willem Sylvius, and Gillis van
Diest the younger were frequently called on in 1564-6 to provide paper
and print for Stapleton, Harding, William Rastell, and the other
antagonists of Bishop Jewel.
In 1528 and the following year books by Tyndale, Roy, and Frith appeared
purporting to be printed by "Hans Luft at Malborowe in the land of
Hesse." A later book with this imprint has been shown by Mr. Sayle to
have been printed at Antwerp; whether these earlier works were really
produced at Marburg, or, as has been conjectured, at Cologne, or again
at Hamburg, is still uncertain. In the 'forties and 'fifties
Christopher Froschauer printed several English Protestant books at
Zurich, including _A faythfull admonycion of a certen trewe pastor and
prophete sent unto the germanes_, translated from Luther's _Warnunge_,
with the pleasing imprint "at Grenewych by Conrade Freeman in the month
of may 1554." In the 'fifties, again, Jean Crespin and other Geneva
printers worked for John Knox, and the Geneva New Testament was produced
there in 1558 and the Bible in 1560. In the 'sixties, as we have seen,
many treatises attacking Bishop Jewel were issued at Antwerp, others
appeared at Louvain, and about the same time (1566), at Emden, G. van
der Erven was printing for exiled Puritans some of their diatribes
against the "Popish aparrell" (i.e. the surplice) which Elizabeth
prescribed for the English Church.
In 1574 we encounter at Amsterdam a curious group of nine little books
"translated out of Base-Almayne into English," in which Hendrik Niclas
preached the doctrines of the "Family of Love." From that time onwards a
good deal of theological literature on the Protestant side was published
by Amsterdam presses. Richard Schilders at Middelburg was also an
extensive publisher of this class of book. Presses at Leyden and Dort
made similar contributions, but on a smaller scale. On the Roman
Catholic side the head-quarters of propagandist literature, as we have
seen, were at first at Antwerp and Louvain, at both of which places John
Fouler had presses. In the 'eighties the existence of the English
college at Rheims caused several Catholic books to be printed there,
notably the translation of the New Testament which was made in the
college itself. For like reasons much Catholic literature was published
from 1602 onwards at St. Omer, and from 1604 onwards at Douai. Books of
the same class, though in smaller numbers, appeared also at Paris and
Rouen.
Individually the books from the presses we have been naming, both on the
Romanist and the Puritan side, are unattractive to look at and dull to
read. Collectively they form a very curious and interesting episode in
English bibliography, which deserves more study than it has yet
received, though Mr. Sayle has made an excellent beginning in his lists
of English books printed on the Continent in the third volume of his
_Early English Printed Books in the University Library, Cambridge_.
Since then Mr. Steele and Mr. Dover Wilson have made important
contributions to the subject, but much still remains to be done.
It was doubtless the existence of these foreign safety-valves which
rendered the course of English printing after the grant of a charter to
the Stationers' Company so smooth and uneventful.[60] Two violations of
the terms of the charter were winked at or authorized, in some way not
known to us, by the Crown. The first of these was the printing of a few
books for the use of foreign refugees by Antony de Solempne at Norwich.
Most of these books were in Dutch, but in 1569 Antony Corranus,
previously pastor of the Spanish Protestant congregation at Antwerp,
published through de Solempne certain broadside tables _De Operibus Dei_
in Latin, French, Dutch, and English, of which copies only of the first
and second have been traced. In 1570 another English broadside
commemorated the execution at Norwich of Thomas Brooke. Archbishop
Parker seems to have resented the publication, unexamined, of the _De
Operibus Dei_, but de Solempne placed the royal arms and a loyal motto
(Godt bewaer de Coninginne Elizabeth) on some of his books, and seems in
some way or another to have secured the Queen's protection.
Mr. Allnutt, to whose exhaustive articles on "English Provincial
Printing" in the second volume of _Bibliographica_ all subsequent
writers on the subject must needs be indebted, conscientiously includes
among his notes one on the edition of Archbishop Parker's _De
Antiquitate Ecclesiae Britannicae_ printed for him by John Day, in all
probability at Lambeth Palace, where a small staff of book-fashioners
worked under the archiepiscopal eye. Eton is a good deal farther "out of
bounds" than Lambeth, but the employment of the King's Printer, John
Norton, and a dedication to the King saved Sir Henry Savile from any
interference when he started printing his fine edition of the works of
S. John Chrysostom in the original Greek. The eight folio volumes of
which this consists are dated from 1610 to 1613, and in these and the
two following years five other Greek books were printed under Savile's
supervision. After this his type was presented to the University of
Oxford, where a fairly flourishing press had been at work since 1585.
That printing at Oxford made a new start in 1585 was due no doubt to the
example of Cambridge, which two years earlier had at last acted on a
patent for printing granted by Henry VIII in 1534, the year, it will be
remembered, in which restrictions were placed on the importation of
foreign books on account of the proficiency in the art to which
Englishmen were supposed to have attained. In the interim Printers to
the University seem to have been appointed, but it was not till 1583
that a press was set up, whereupon, as soon as a single book had been
printed, it was promptly seized by the Stationers' Company of London as
an infringement of the monopoly granted by their charter. Although the
Bishop of London seems to have backed up the Stationers, Lord Burghley
(the Chancellor of the University) and the Master of the Rolls secured
the recognition of the rights of the University. Forty years later they
were again attacked by the Stationers, and the Privy Council forbade the
Cambridge printer to print Bibles, Prayer Books, Psalters, Grammars, or
Books of Common Law, but in 1628 the judges pronounced strongly in
favour of the full rights of the University, and the next year these
were recognized with some modifications by the Privy Council. Up to
this time there had been three printers, Thomas Thomas (1583-8), John
Legate (1588-1610), and Cantrell Legge (1606-29), the University Library
possessing (in 1902) 34 books and documents printed by the first, 108 by
the second, and 55 by the third, or a total of 197 for a period of
forty-six years. From 1628 to 1639 the majority of Cambridge books bear
no individual names on them, but have usually the imprint "Cantabrigiæ,
ex Academiæ celeberrimæ typographeo." But Thomas and John Buck and Roger
Daniel, in various combinations, were responsible for a good many
publications.
While Burghley was Chancellor of Cambridge, Dudley, Earl of Leicester,
held the Oxford Chancellorship, and doubtless felt that, charter or no
charter, it concerned his honour to see that his University should be
allowed all the privileges possessed by the other. Under his auspices a
press was started late in 1584 or early in 1585 by Joseph Barnes, an
Oxford bookseller, to whom the University lent £100 to enable him to
procure the necessary equipment, and on Leicester's visiting the
University on 11 January, 1585, a _Carmen gratulatorium_ in four elegiac
couplets was presented to him, printed on an octavo leaf at the new
press. The first book to appear was a _Speculum Moralium Quaestionum in
uniuersam Ethicen Aristotelis_, by John Case, a former fellow of S.
John's, with a dedication to Leicester by the author and another by the
printer. In the latter the promise was made "ea solum ex his prælis in
lucem venient que sapientum calculis approbentur & Sybille foliis sint
veriora," but the remaining publications of the year were a polemical
treatise by Thomas Billson, two issues of a Protestant adaptation of the
_Booke of Christian exercise appertaining to Resolution_, by Robert
Persons, the Jesuit, and two sermons. In 1586 no fewer than seventeen
books were printed (a number not again attained for several years), and
among them was an edition of six homilies of S. Chrysostom, "primitiæ
typographi nostri in græcis literis preli." After this the press
settled down to an average production of from eight to a dozen books a
year, including a fair number of classical texts and translations, with
now and then a volume of verse which brings it into connection with the
stream of Elizabethan literature. Among the more interesting books which
it produced, mention may be made of the _Sixe Idillia_ of Theocritus
(1588), poems by Nicholas Breton and Thomas Churchyard (1592), Richard
de Bury's _Philobiblon_ (1599), the _Microcosmus_ of John Davies of
Hereford (1603), Captain John Smith's _Map of Virginia, with a
description of the Countrey_ (1612), and Burton's _Anatomy of
Melancholy_ (1621). In the 'twenties of the seventeenth century the
average annual output was still only 14; in the 'thirties, under the
fostering care of Laud, it had risen as high as 25. In 1641 it was but
19. Then, on the outbreak of the Civil War, the King came to Oxford, and
under the stress of official publications and royalist controversy the
numbers shot up to about 147 in 1642, followed by 119 in 1643, about 100
in 1644, and 60 in 1645. Then they become normal again, and in 1649
under the Parliamentary _régime_ sink as low as seven. These statistics
are taken from the various works of Mr. Falconer Madan, mentioned in our
bibliography, and from the same source we learn that until the
nineteenth century the annual average of production, calculated by
periods of ten years, never exceeded thirty-two.
Similar causes to those which brought about the sudden increase in the
Oxford output in 1642 led to the establishment of presses at Newcastle
and York. In 1639, when Charles I marched against the Scots, his
head-quarters were at Newcastle, and the Royal Printer, Robert
Barker,[61] printed there a sermon by the Bishop of Durham, the _Lawes
and Ordinances of Warre_, and some proclamations. In March, 1642, again
Barker was in attendance on the King at York, and printed there _His
Majesties Declaration to both Houses of Parliament_, in answer to that
presented to him at Newmarket, and some thirty-eight other pieces.
Another London printer, Stephen Bulkley, was also given employment, and
in the years 1642-4 printed at York some twenty-eight different pieces.
Bulkley also attended the King at Newcastle in 1646, when he was in the
hands of the Scots, and remained printing there and at Gateshead until
the Restoration, when he returned to York, where a Puritan press had in
the meantime been set up by Thomas Broad.
Charles I left York on 16 August, 1642, and six days later the Royal
Standard was raised at Nottingham. _His Majesties Instructions to his
Commissioners of Array_, dated "at our Court at Nottingham, 29th August,
1642," were printed by Barker at York. Two days later the King ordered
that the press should be brought to Nottingham, but we next hear of
Barker at Shrewsbury, where he served the King's immediate needs, and
then remained at work for the rest of the year and the greater part of
1643 reprinting Oxford editions and publishing other royalist
literature. After the capture of Bristol for the King on 2 August he
removed once more and printed there during 1644 and 1645.
During the confusion of the Civil War an Exeter stationer, Thomas Hunt
(the local publisher of Herrick's _Hesperides_), had a book printed for
him--Thomas Fuller's _Good Thoughts in Bad Times_--which is described in
the dedication as the "First Fruits of the Exeter Presse," and another
is said to have been printed there in 1648. But we hear of no other
presses being set up. After the Restoration printing was allowed to
continue at York. Otherwise provincial printing outside the Universities
was once more non-existent. The arrival of William of Orange caused some
broadsides to be printed at Exeter in 1688, and in the same year Thomas
Tillier printed at Chester, not only _An account of a late Horrid and
Bloody Massacre in Ireland_ on a single leaf, but also a handsome folio,
_The Academy of Armory_, for Randall Holme, who rewarded him for any
risk he may have run by devising for him a fancy coat. Nevertheless,
despite the change of Government, the Act of Parliament restricting
printing to London, Oxford, Cambridge, and York was not allowed to
expire till 1695. A press was set up at Bristol the same year. Plymouth
and Shrewsbury followed in 1696, Exeter in 1698, and Norwich in 1701,
the first provincial newspaper, _The Norwich Post_, dating from
September in that year. By 1750 about seventy-five provincial towns
possessed presses, cities and small country places starting them at
haphazard, not at all in the order of their importance. The dates for
some of the chief are as follows (all on the authority of Mr. Allnutt):
1708, Newcastle-upon-Tyne; 1709, Worcester; 1710, Nottingham; 1711,
Chester; 1712, Liverpool; 1715, Salisbury; 1716, Birmingham; 1717,
Canterbury; 1718, Ipswich, Leeds, and Taunton; 1719, Manchester and
Derby; 1720, Northampton; 1721, Coventry and Hereford; 1723, Reading;
1731, Bath; 1737, Sheffield; 1745, Stratford-on-Avon; 1748, Portsmouth.
As a side-consequence of the lapsing of the Licensing Act in 1695, it
became possible for any private person to buy a printing press, hire a
journeyman printer, and start printing any books he pleased. Several
private presses were thus set up during the second half of the
eighteenth century, the most famous of them being that of Horace Walpole
at Strawberry Hill, near Twickenham. Walpole started in 1757 by printing
two of the Odes of his friend Gray, and at intervals during the next
twenty-seven years printed several of his own works, and a few other
books, of which an edition of Grammont's _Mémoires_ was the most
important. Walpole's example was followed by George Allan, M.P. for
Durham, and Francis Blomefield, the historian of Norfolk; also in the
nineteenth century by Thomas Johnes, who printed his translation of
Froissart in four large quarto volumes at his own house at Hafod in
Cardiganshire in 1803-5, and followed them up with a Joinville in 1807
and a Monstrelet in 1810. Between 1813 and 1823 Sir Egerton Brydges
caused a number of interesting literary reprints to be issued for him in
limited editions from a press in or near his house at Lee Priory in
Kent. The work of both these presses, like that of Walpole's, was
perhaps equal to the best commercial printing of its day, but was not
superior to it, and perhaps the same may be said of the few reprints
manufactured, in still more jealously limited editions, by E. V.
Utterson between 1840 and 1843 at Beldornie House, Ryde. Sir Thomas
Phillipps, who printed numerous antiquarian documents between 1822 and
1862 at Middle Hill in Worcestershire, and between 1862 and 1872 at
Cheltenham, set even less store by typographical beauty and accuracy.
The other private presses of the first half of the nineteenth century
are not more interesting, though that of Gaetano Polidori at Park
Village East, near Regent's Park, 1840-50, has become famous as having
printed Gabriel Rossetti's _Sir Hugh the Heron_ in 1843, and Christina
Rossetti's first volume of verse four years later, Polidori being the
grandfather of the young authors on their mother's side.
Passing north of the Tweed, where the most formidable competitors of the
London printers now abide, we find the first Scottish press at work at
Edinburgh in 1508. In September of the previous year Andrew Myllar, a
bookseller who had gained some experience of printing at Rouen, and
Walter Chapman, a merchant, had been granted leave to import a press,
chiefly that they might print an Aberdeen Breviary, which duly appeared
in 1509-10. The books which anticipated it in 1508 were a number of thin
quartos, _The Maying or Disport of Chaucer_, dated 4 April, the
_Knightly Tale of Golagros and Gawane_, dated 8 April, the _Porteous of
Noblenes_, "translated out of franche in scottis be Maistir Andrew
Cadiou," dated 20 April, and eight undated pieces, three of them by
Dunbar (_The Goldyn Targe_, _The Flyting of Dunbar and Kennedy_, and
the _Twa Marrit Wemen and the Wedo_, with other poems), the others being
the _Ballad of Lord Barnard Stewart_, _Orpheus and Eurydice_, the _Buke
of Gude Counsale_, _Sir Eglamoure of Artoys_, and _A Gest of Robyn
Hode_. All these have survived (some of them much mutilated) in a single
volume, and it is at the reader's pleasure to decide whether they
represent the harvest of some careful person who bought up all Chapman
and Myllar's fugitive pieces, or are merely the remnants of a much
larger output. The Aberdeen Breviary, which the printers were encouraged
to produce by protection against the importation of Sarum books from
England or abroad, is really handsomely printed in black and red. At the
end of one of the four or five copies of it now known is an addendum,
the _Officium Compassionis Beatae Virginis_ (commemorated on the
Wednesday in Holy Week), which bears the colophon "Impressum Edinburgi
per Johannem Story nomine & mandato Karoli Stule," which Scottish
bibliographers assign to about 1520. A fragment of a _Book of the
Howlat_ may belong to the same period. Thus although Scottish writers,
such as John Vaus and Hector Boece of Aberdeen, had to send their books
to France to be printed, it is possible that presses were at work in
Edinburgh or elsewhere in Scotland, of which nothing is now known.
The next printer of whom we have certain information is Thomas Davidson,
who in February, 1541 (1542), produced a handsome edition of _The New
Actis and Constitutionis of Parliament maid be the Rycht Excellent
Prince Iames the Fift_. This was his only dated book, but he issued also
a fine edition of _The hystory and croniklis of Scotland_, translated by
"Johne Bellenden, Archdene of Murray, chanon of Ros," from the Latin of
Hector Boece, and some smaller works.
The next Scottish printer is John Scot, whom the best authorities,
despite the fact that he is first heard of in Edinburgh in 1539, refuse
to identify with the John Skot who printed in London from 1521 to 1537.
Whoever he was, he had no very happy existence, as notwithstanding some
efforts to please the Protestant party, the work he did for the
Catholics twice brought him into serious trouble. His first dated book,
Archbishop Hamilton's _Catechism_, did not appear till 29 August, 1552,
and was printed not at Edinburgh, but at St. Andrews. How he had been
employed between 1539 and this date we have no means of knowing. At St.
Andrews Scot printed Patrick Cockburn's _Pia Meditatio in Dominicam
Orationem_ (1555), and probably also Lauder's _Dewtis of Kingis_ (1556).
Scot also printed controversial works on the Catholic side by the Abbot
of Crosraguell (Quentin Kennedy) and Ninian Winzet, and for the opposite
party _The Confessione of faith Professit and Belevit be the
Protestantes within the Realme of Scotland_ (1561). He issued also two
editions (1568 and 1571) of the works of Sir David Lindesay, while his
undated books include some of Lindesay's single poems.
Since John Scot printed mainly on the Catholic side, the Protestant
General Assembly in December, 1562, started a printer in opposition to
him, Robert Lekpreuik, lending him "twa hundreth pounds to help to buy
irons, ink and papper and to fie craftesmen for printing." He had
previously, in 1561, like Scot, printed the _Confession of the Faith_,
also Robert Noruell's _Meroure of an Chr[i]stiane_ and an _Oration_ by
Beza. The grant allowed him was in connection with an edition of the
Psalms, which eventually appeared in 1565, together with the _Form of
Prayer and Ministration of the Sacraments used in the English Church at
Geneva_ and the Catechism (dated 1564). Lekpreuik continued active till
1574, and after an interval issued three books in 1581 and perhaps one
in 1582. In Mr. Aldis's List he is credited with ninety-one publications
(mostly controversial) as against four assigned to Davidson and fifteen
to Scot. During 1571 he printed at Stirling, and the next two years at
St. Andrews. Like Scot, he found printing perilous work, his
intermission after the beginning of 1574 being due to imprisonment.
Thomas Bassandyne, who had previously published books at Edinburgh,
began printing there in 1572. He produced but ten (extant) books and
documents in all, but his name is famous from its connection with the
first Scottish Bible, of which he produced the New Testament in 1576,
the Old Testament being added, and the whole issued by his successor,
Alexander Arbuthnot, in 1579. Besides the Bible, only five books were
printed by Arbuthnot. Between 1574 and 1580 twenty-six were produced by
John Ross, and on his death Henry Charteris, a bookseller, took over his
material, and by the time of his death in 1599 had printed forty more.
But the best Edinburgh work towards the end of the century was produced
by two craftsmen from England, Thomas Vautrollier, who produced ten
books in 1584-6, and Robert Waldegrave (1590-1603), who had to flee from
England for his share in the Marprelate tracts, and during his thirteen
years in Edinburgh issued 119 books.
When Joseph Ames was desirous of obtaining information about early
printing in Ireland he applied to a Dr. Rutty, of Dublin (apparently a
Quaker), who could only furnish the name of a single book printed there
before 1600, this being an edition of the Book of Common Prayer, which
states that it is "Imprinted by Humphrey Powell, printer to the Kynges
Maiesti, in his Highnesse realme of Ireland dwellyng in the citie of
Dublin in the greate toure by the Crane. Cum Privilegio ad imprimendum
solum. Anno Domini MDLI." We know from the records of the English Privy
Council that Humphrey Powell, an inconspicuous English printer, was
granted £20 in July, 1550, "towards his setting up in Ireland," and this
Prayer Book was doubtless the first fruits of his press. Powell remained
in Dublin for fifteen years, but the only other products of his press
still in existence are two proclamations, one issued in 1561 against
Shane O'Neill, the other in 1564 against the O'Connors, and _A Brefe
Declaration of certein Principall Articles of Religion_, a quarto of
eight leaves set out by order of Sir Henry Sidney in 1566.
In 1571 John O'Kearney, Treasurer of St. Patrick's, was presented with a
fount of Irish type by Queen Elizabeth, and a Catechism by him and a
broadside poem on the Last Judgment, by Philip, son of Conn Crosach,
both in Irish type, are still extant. But there seems to be no
trustworthy information as to where they were printed, though it was
probably at Dublin.
An Almanac, giving the longitude and latitude for Dublin, for the year
1587, appears to have been printed at London. But in 1595 William
Kearney printed a Proclamation against the Earl of Tyrone and his
adherents in Ireland "in the Cathedrall Church of the Blessed Trinitie,
Dublin."
We reach continuous firm ground in 1600 when John Francke, or Franckton
(as he called himself in 1602 and thenceforward), printed one or more
proclamations at Dublin. In 1604 Franckton was appointed King's Printer
for Ireland, and he continued at work till 1618, when he assigned his
patent to Felix Kyngston, Matthew Lownes, and Thomas Downes. Some
four-and-twenty proclamations and upwards of a dozen books and pamphlets
from his press are extant, some of them in Irish type. In 1620 the
office of Printer-General for Ireland was granted for a period of
twenty-one years to Kingston, Lownes, and Downes, all of them members of
the London Stationers' Company, and the usual imprint on the books they
issued is that of the Company (1620-33) or Society (1633-42) of
Stationers. They seem to have appointed an agent or factor to look after
their interests, and the last of these factors, William Bladen, about
1642 took over the business.
The earliest allusion to books printed in what afterwards became the
United States of America occurs in the diary of John Winthrop, Governor
of Massachusetts Bay, for March, 1639: "A printing house was begun at
Cambridge by one Stephen Daye, at the charge of Mr. Glover, who died on
sea hitherward. The first thing which was printed was the freemen's
Oath; the next was an almanac made for New England by Mr. William
Pierce, mariner; the next was the Psalms newly turned into metre." The
Mr. Glover here mentioned was the Rev. Joseph Glover, rector of Sutton
in Surrey from 1628 to 1636, who, after collecting funds for the benefit
of Harvard College at Cambridge, Mass., sailed with his family from
England in the summer of 1638, but died on the way. His widow (Elizabeth
Glover), shortly after her arrival, married the Rev. Henry Dunster, the
first President of Harvard, and thus, as had happened in Paris, the
first press in America was set up in a college under clerical auspices.
Stephen Day, the printer whom Glover had brought from England, is
naturally supposed to have been a descendant of John Day, the great
Elizabethan printer, but of this there is no evidence. He obtained some
grants of land in consideration of his services to the colony, but did
not greatly thrive, and in 1648, or early in 1649, was superseded by
Samuel Green. Of the specimens of his press mentioned by Governor
Winthrop the _Oath of a Freeman_ and the _Almanac_ have perished
utterly. Of the "Bay Psalter," or the "New England Version of the
Psalms," as it was subsequently called, at least eleven copies are known
to be extant, of which five are stated to be perfect.[62] It is a small
octavo of 148 leaves, disfigured by numerous misprints, but with
passable presswork. The translation was made by the Massachusetts
clergy, who prefixed to it "A discourse declaring not only the
lawfullnes but also the necessity of the heavenly ordinance of singing
Scripture Psalmes in the Churches of God." Its titlepage bears the name
neither of printer nor of place, but merely "Imprinted 1640." There is
no doubt, however, that it was produced by Day at Cambridge, whereas the
edition of 1647 appears to have been printed in London.
The Massachusetts records make it probable that Day printed several
books and documents now lost. An imperfect copy of Harvard Theses with
the imprint "Cantabrigiæ Nov. Ang., Mens. 8 1643" is the next production
of his press still extant. After this comes an historical document of
some interest: "_A Declaration of former passages and proceedings
betwixt the English and the Narrowgansets, with their confederates,
wherein the grounds and iustice of the ensuing warre are opened and
cleared_. Published by order of the Commissioners for the United
Colonies. At Boston the 11 of the sixth month 1645." Another broadside
of Harvard Theses (for 1647) and a couple of almanacs for 1647 and 1648,
the first of which has the imprint "Cambridge Printed by Matthew Daye
and to be solde by Hez. Usher at Boston. 1647", are the only other
remnants of this stage of the press. Of Matthew Day nothing more is
known.
Samuel Green appears to have taken over Day's business without any
previous technical training, so that it is thought that Day may have
helped him as a journeyman. The first book ascribed to Green is:
A Platform of Church Discipline gathered out of the word of God: and
agreed upon by the Elders: and Messengers of the Churches assembled in
the Synod at Cambridge in New-England. To be presented to the Churches
and Generals Court for their consideration and acceptance in the Lord.
The Eighth Moneth, Anno 1649. Printed by S.G. at Cambridge in
New-England and are to be sold at Cambridge and Boston Anno Dom. 1649.
His next extant piece of work is an almanac for 1650, his next the third
edition (the second, as noted above, had been printed at London in 1647)
of the Bay Psalter, "printed by Samuel Green at Cambridge in
New-England, 1651." This was followed in 1652 by Richard Mather's _The
Summe of Certain Sermons upon Genes_. 15. 6, a treatise on
Justification by Faith, and then Green seems to have begun to busy
himself with work for the Corporation in England for the Propagation of
the Gospel amongst the Indians in New England, or Corporation for the
Indians, as it is easier to call it. A second press was sent over to
enable this work to be undertaken, and a Primer by John Eliot ("the
Apostle to the Indians") was printed in 1654, and the Books of Genesis
and Matthew the next year, all three in the Indian language, all three
now known only from records. The same destruction has befallen an Indian
version of some of the Psalms mentioned as having been printed in 1658,
but of another Indian book of the same year, Abraham Peirson's _Some
helps for the Indians, shewing them how to improve their natural reason
to know the true God, and the true Christian Religion_, two issues have
been preserved, one in the New York Public Library, the other at the
British Museum. Another edition, dated the next year, is also at the
Museum, though it has escaped the notice of Mr. Evans, the author of the
latest "American Bibliography." By this time the Corporation for the
Indians had sent over a skilled printer, Marmaduke Johnson, to aid Green
in his work. Unfortunately, despite the fact that he had left a wife in
England, Johnson flirted with Green's daughter, and this conduct,
reprehensible anywhere, in New England brought down on him fines of £20
and a sentence of deportation, which, however, was not carried out.
Johnson's initials appears in conjunction with Green's in _A Brief
Catechism containing the doctrine of Godlines_, by John Norton, teacher
of the Church at Boston, published in 1660, and the two men's names in
full are in the Indian New Testament of 1661 and the complete Bible of
1663. Of the New Testament it is conjectured that a thousand, or perhaps
fifteen hundred copies, were printed, of which five hundred were bound
separately, and forty of these sent to England. How many copies were
printed of the Old Testament is not known, but of the complete Bible
some forty copies are still extant in no fewer than eight variant states
produced by the presence or absence of the Indian and English
titlepages, the dedication, etc., while of the New Testament about half
as many copies may be known.
During the progress of the Indian Bible Green had continued his English
printing on his other press, and had produced among other things
_Propositions concerning the subject of Baptism_ collected by the Boston
Synod, and bearing the imprint "Printed by S.G. for Hezekiah Vsher at
Boston in New England 1662." Printing at Boston itself does not appear
to have begun until 1675, when John Foster, a Harvard graduate, was
entrusted with the management of a press, and during that and the six
following years printed there a number of books by Increase Mather and
other ministers, as well as some almanacs. On his death in 1681 the
press was entrusted to Samuel Sewall, who, however, abandoned it in
1684. Meanwhile, Samuel Green had continued to print at Cambridge, and
his son, Samuel Green junior, is found working by assignment of Sewall
and for other Boston booksellers. In 1690 his brother Bartholomew Green
succeeded him, and remained the chief printer at Boston till his death
in 1732.
At Philadelphia, within three years of its foundation in 1683, a
_Kalendarium Pennsilvaniense, or America's Messinger: being and [sic]
almanack for the year of grace 1686_, by Samuel Atkins, was issued with
the imprint, "Printed and sold by William Bradford, sold also by the
Author and H. Murrey in Philadelphia and Philip Richards in New York,
1685," and in the same year there was published anonymously Thomas
Budd's _Good Order established in Pennsilvania & New Jersey in America,
being a true account of the country; with its produce and commodities
there made_. In 1686 Bradford printed _An Epistle from John Burnyeat to
Friends in Pensilvania_ and _A General Epistle given forth by the people
of the Lord called Quakers_; in 1687 William Penn's _The excellent
privilege of liberty and property being the birthright of the free-born
subjects of England_; in 1688 a collection including Böhme's _The Temple
of Wisdom_, Wither's _Abuses Stript and Whipt_, and Bacon's _Essays_,
edited by Daniel Leeds. In 1689 Bradford began working for George Keith,
and three years later he was imprisoned for printing Keith's _Appeal
from the Twenty Eight Judges to the Spirit of Truth and true Judgement
in all faithful Friends called Quakers_. In consequence of this
persecution Bradford left Philadelphia the next year and set up his
press at New York. Reinier Jansen and Jacob Taylor are subsequently
mentioned as printers at Philadelphia, and in 1712 Andrew Bradford, son
of William, came from New York and worked there until his death in 1742.
From 1723 he had as a competitor Samuel Keimer, and it was in Keimer's
office that Benjamin Franklin began printing in Philadelphia. His
edition of a translation of Cicero's _Cato Major on Old Age_, by J.
Logan of Philadelphia, is said to have been the first rendering of a
classic published in America.
Meanwhile, William Bradford had set up his press in New York in 1693,
and obtained the appointment of Government Printer. His earliest
productions there were a number of official Acts and Proclamations, on
which he placed the imprint, "Printed and Sold by William Bradford,
Printer to King William and Queen Mary, at the City of New York." In
1700 he was apparently employed to print an anonymous answer to Increase
Mather's _Order of the Gospel_, and a heated controversy arose as to
whether the refusal of Bartholomew Green to print it at Boston was due
to excessive "awe" of the President of Harvard or to a more praiseworthy
objection to anonymous attacks. Bradford remained New York's only
printer until 1726, when Johann Peter Zenger set up a press which became
notable for the boldness with which it attacked the provincial
government. Such attacks were not regarded with much toleration, nor
indeed was the press even under official regulation greatly beloved by
authority. In 1671 Sir William Berkeley, Governor of Virginia, in an
official document remarked: "I thank God we have not free schools nor
printing; and I hope we shall not have these hundred years. For learning
has brought disobedience and heresy and sects into the world; and
printing has divulged them and libels against the government. God keep
us from both." Eleven years later (21 February, 1682) there is an entry
in the Virginian records: "John Buckner called before the L^d Culpeper
and his council for printing the laws of 1680, without his excellency's
license, and he and the printer ordered to enter into bond in £100 not
to print anything hereafter, until his majesty's pleasure shall be
known." As a result there was no more printing in Virginia till about
1729, nor are any other towns than those here mentioned known to have
possessed presses during the seventeenth century, the period within
which American books may claim the dignity of incunabula.
FOOTNOTES:
[55] Mr. Duff is no doubt right in his suggestion that this is _A
very declaration of the bond and free wyll of man: the obedyence of
the gospell and what the gospell meaneth_, of which a copy, with
colophon, "Printed at Saint Albans," is in the Spencer Collection at
the John Rylands Library. This increases Hertfort's total to eight.
[56] Mr. Duff plausibly suggests that Overton's name in the colophon
was merely a device for surmounting the restrictions on the
circulation in England of books printed abroad.
[57] Those recorded by Mr. E. G. Duff in his Sandars Lectures on "The
English Provincial Printers, Stationers, and Bookbinders to 1557," by
my reckoning number 114.
[58] This reckoning was made in 1896, but the proportion has not been
substantially altered.
[59] The colophon to the _Chronicles_ which commemorates Leeu has
already been quoted (p. 81).
[60] Before the incorporation of the Company brought English printing
more easily under supervision, at least a few books had been issued
by English printers with spurious foreign imprints, of which the most
impudent was "At Rome under the Castle of St. Angelo."
[61] Robert Barker himself was imprisoned for debt in the King's
Bench at London in 1635, and died there in 1646. What is here written
applies to his deputy, who may have been his son of the same name.
[62] The assertion by Mr. Charles Evans (_American Bibliography_, p.
3) that one of these, "the Crowninshield copy, was privately sold by
Henry Stevens to the British Museum for £157 10s.," despite its
apparent precision, is an exasperating error.
CHAPTER XIV
ENGLISH WOODCUT ILLUSTRATIONS
[Illustration: XXIX. WESTMINSTER, CAXTON, C. 1488
BONAVENTURA. MEDITATIONES. (PART OF SIG. K 5 RECTO)
CHRIST RAISING THE DAUGHTER OF JAIRUS]
A few illuminated manuscripts of English workmanship and a few with
illustrations in outline have come down to us from the fifteenth
century, but amid the weary wars with France and the still wearier
struggles of Yorkists and Lancastrians, the artistic spirit which had
been so prominent in England in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries
seems to have died out altogether. Until the reign of Queen Elizabeth,
or perhaps we should rather say until the advent of John Day, few
English books were illustrated, and of these few quite a large
proportion borrowed or copied their pictures from foreign originals.
Nevertheless, English illustrated books are rightly sought after by
English collectors, and though we may wish that they were better, we
must give the best account of them we can.
As we shall see in a later chapter, there is some probability that an
engraving on copper was specially prepared for the first book printed by
Caxton, _The Recuyell of the Histories of Troye._ For the present,
however, we must concern ourselves only with illustrations on wood, or
on soft metal cut in relief after the manner of wood, a difference of
more interest to the technical student than to book-lovers. The first
English books thus illustrated appear in or about 1481, the year in
which Jean Du Pré began the use of cuts in Paris. England was thus
fairly well to the front in point of time; it is the quality which is to
seek. The first of these illustrated books was probably an undated
edition of the _Mirrour of the World_, a translation of a French version
of a Latin _Speculum_ or _Imago mundi_. Besides some woodcut diagrams
copied from drawings found in the French manuscripts, this has ten
little cuts, seven of the masters of the seven liberal arts, one of the
author, and two of the Creation. Two of the cuts illustrating the arts
were used again almost at once in Caxton's third edition of the _Parvus
et Magnus Cato_, a book of moral instruction for children in a series of
Latin distichs. In 1481 also Caxton ornamented the second edition of the
didactic treatise, _The Game and Play of the Chess_ (from the Latin of
Jacobus de Cessolis), with sixteen woodcuts, representing the characters
after which the different pieces and pawns were called. The pictures are
clumsy and coarsely cut, comparing miserably with the charming little
woodcuts in the Italian edition printed at Florence, but they illustrate
the book, and may conceivably have increased its sales. In any case,
Caxton seems, in a leisurely way, to have set about producing some more,
since by or about 1484 appeared three of his most important illustrated
books, the _Golden Legend_, the second edition of Chaucer's _Canterbury
Tales_, and an _Aesop_. The _Golden Legend_ is ornamented with eighteen
large and thirty-two smaller woodcuts; the _Aesop_ with a full-page
frontispiece and one hundred and five smaller cuts; the _Canterbury
Tales_ with a large cut of the Pilgrims seated at a round table, and
with some twenty smaller pictures of the different story-tellers on
their horses, some of these being used more than once. For the _Aesop_,
like many other foreign publishers, Caxton sent his illustrators to the
designs made for the Zainers at Augsburg and Ulm, and quickly imitated
all over Germany, and the copies he obtained are merely servile and so
clumsy as occasionally to attain to unintended humour. Foreign influence
is also evident in some at least of the cuts in the _Golden Legend_; on
the other hand, we may be sure that the device of the Earl of Arundel on
leaf 3 verso, a horse galloping past a tree, must have been made in
England. Original, too, of necessity, were the illustrations to the
_Canterbury Tales_, for which no foreign models could have been found.
But the succession of pilgrims, each decked with a huge string of
praying-beads and mounted on a most ungainly horse, is grotesque in its
cumulation of clumsiness, though when we find that the miller really has
got a kind of bagpipe, we recognize that the illustrator had at least
read his text.
Apparently Caxton himself realized that these English-made woodcuts were
a failure, for the only two important illustrated books which he issued
after this, the _Speculum Vitae Christi_, printed about 1488 (see Plate
XXIX), and the _Fifteen Oes_ of a year or two later, both seem to be
decorated with cuts of Flemish origin. The _Fifteen Oes_ (a collection
of fifteen prayers, each beginning with O), though I have called it
important, is so mainly as proving that Caxton must have printed a Horae
of the same measurements (of which it may, indeed, have formed a part),
illustrated with a set of very spirited woodcuts, undoubtedly imported
from Flanders and subsequently found in the possession of Wynkyn de
Worde. That the cuts in the _Speculum Vitae Christi_ are also Flemish is
a degree less certain, but only a degree. Some of these were used again
in the _Royal Book_, the _Doctrinal of Sapience_, and the _Book of
Divers Ghostly Matters_. But the seven books which we have named are the
only ones for which Caxton troubled to procure sets of cuts, and of
these seven sets, as we have seen, one was certainly and another
probably imported, one certainly and another probably copied, and only
three are of English origin, and these the rudest and clumsiest.
While our chief native printer made this poor record his contemporaries
did no better. Lettou and Machlinia used no woodcuts which have come
down to us save a small border, which passed into the possession of
Pynson; for use at Oxford two sets of cuts were imported from the Low
Countries, one which Mr. Gordon Duff thinks was originally designed for
a _Legenda Aurea_, the other clearly meant for a Horae. These were used
together in the Oxford edition of Mirk's _Liber Festivalis_, and the cut
of the author of the _Legenda Aurea_ (Jacobus de Voragine) is used for
Lyndewood in an edition of his _Constitutions_. At St. Albans some poor
little cuts were used in the _Chronicles of England_, but from the point
of view of illustration the anonymous schoolmaster-printer is chiefly
memorable for having printed some cuts of coat-armour in the "Book of
St. Albans" (_The Boke of Haukyng, Huntyng and also of Cote-armuris_) in
colours.
Wynkyn de Worde inherited Caxton's stock of woodcuts, and early in his
career used some of them again in reprints of the _Golden Legend_ and
_Speculum Vitae Christi_, and in his larger Horae used the full set of
cuts which, while in Caxton's hands, is only known from those which
appear in the _Fifteen Oes_. About 1492 he purchased some ornamental
capitals (Caxton had only used a single rather graceful rustic A) and
one or more cuts from Govaert van Os of Gouda. In his 1494 edition of
Walter Hylton's _Scala Perfectionis_ (the first book in which he put his
name) he used a woodblock consisting of a picture of Christ suckled by
His mother with a long woodcut inscription, part of which reads "Sit
dulce nomen domini nostri ihesu christi et nomen genitricis virginis
marie benedictum," the whole surrounded by a graceful floral border. In
1495 came Higden's _Polychronicon_ with a few woodcut musical notes, the
"hystorye of the deuoute and right renommed lyues of holy faders lyuynge
in deserte" (usually quoted as the _Vitas Patrum_), with one large cut
used six times and forty small ones used as 155, and about the same time
a handsome edition of Bartholomaeus Anglicus's _De proprietatibus
rerum_, with large cuts (two-thirds of the folio page) prefixed to each
of the twenty-two books, apparently copied partly from those in a Dutch
edition printed at Haarlem in 1485, partly from the illustrations
(themselves not original) in a French edition printed at Lyon, of which
Caxton, who finished the translation on his death-bed, had made use. In
1496, in reprinting the _Book of St. Albans_ De Worde added a treatise
on _Fishing with an angle_, to which he prefixed a cut of a happy angler
hauling up a fish which will soon be placed in a well-filled tub which
stands beside him on the bank. This is quite good primitive work and was
sufficiently appreciated to be used for numerous later editions, but
soon after this De Worde employed a cutter who served him very badly,
mangling cruelly a set of rather ambitious designs for the _Morte
d'Arthur_ of 1498 (several of them used again in the _Recuyell_ of
1503), and also some single cuts used in different books. For the next
half-dozen years De Worde relied almost exclusively on old cuts, but at
last found a competent craftsman who enabled him to bring out in
January, 1505-6, an English version of the _Art de bien vivre et de bien
mourir_ with quite neat reductions of the pictures in Vérard's edition
of 1492. It was, no doubt, the same workman who copied in 1506 the
Vérard-Pigouchet cuts in Pierre Gringore's _Chasteau de Labeur_ as
translated by Alexander Barclay, but from the frequent omission of
backgrounds it is obvious that in these he was hurried, and they are by
no means so good as those in the 1505 edition by Pynson with which De
Worde was enviously hastening to compete. The _Calendar of Shepherds_
was another translation from the French, illustrated with copies of
French cuts, while in the prose _Ship of Fools_, translated by Henry
Watson from a French version of the German _Narrenschiff_ of Sebastian
Brant, Basel originals were reproduced probably from intermediate
copies. But when in 1509 Henry VII died, De Worde for once seems to have
let his craftsman do a bit of original work for a title-cut to a funeral
sermon by Bishop Fisher. In this (see Plate XXX) the bishop is shown
preaching in a wooden pulpit, immediately below which is the hearse
covered by a gorgeous pall on which lies an effigy of the dead king,
while beyond the hearse stands a crowd of courtiers. It is evident that
perspective was not the artist's strong point, as the pavement seems
climbing up the wall and the shape of the hearse is quite indeterminate,
but the general effect of the cut is neat and pleasing. That it is an
English cut is certain. A few months later Bishop Fisher preached
another funeral sermon, over Henry VII's aged mother, Margaret Duchess
of Richmond, and when De Worde economically wished to use the same
woodcut on the titlepage of his edition of this, there was a craftsman
on the spot able to cut out the royal hearse from the block and plug in
a representation of an ordinary one, and the similarity of touch shows
that this was done by the original cutter.
[Illustration: XXX. LONDON, WYNKYN de WORDE, 1509
BISHOP FISHER. FUNERAL SERMON ON HENRY VII. (TITLE)]
As we have already noted in Chapter XII, Wynkyn de Worde was singularly
unenterprising as a publisher, and although he lived for nearly a
quarter of a century after the accession of Henry VIII, during all this
time he printed no new book which required copious illustration. On the
other hand, he was a man of fixed habits, and one of these habits came
to be the decoration of the titlepage of nearly every small quarto he
issued with a woodcut of some kind or other, the title itself being
sometimes printed on a riband above it. When a new picture was
absolutely necessary for this purpose it was forthcoming and generally
fairly well cut, but a few stock woodcuts, a schoolmaster holding a
birch for grammatical books, a knight on horseback for a romance, etc.,
were used again and again, and often the block was picked out (we are
tempted to say "at random," but that would be an exaggeration) from one
of the sets already described, which De Worde had commissioned in more
lavish days.
One of Richard Pynson's earliest books was an edition of Chaucer's
_Canterbury Tales_ with about a score of woodcuts of the pilgrims
obviously influenced by those in Caxton's second edition, but in no way
an improvement on them. It is true that not only is the miller again
allowed his bagpipe, but a little mill is placed in the corner of the
cut to identify him beyond doubt. On the other hand, the knight's horse
is bedecked with the cumbrous skirts used in the tilt-yard, but which
would have become sadly draggled ere much progress had been made along
the miry road to Canterbury. The clerk, moreover, is made to carry a
bow as if, instead of having his mind set on Aristotle, he were of the
lusty sort that loved to get venison where they should not. Round most
of the cuts there is a heavy edge of black, as if from an untrimmed
block, which does not improve their appearance. Altogether they are poor
work, and it was doubtless his recognition of this that caused Pynson in
future to rely so largely on the purchase or imitation of foreign
blocks. For his edition of Lydgate's _Falles of Princes_, a verse
rendering of Boccaccio's _De casibus illustrium virorum_, issued in
1494, he procured the woodcuts made for the fine French edition (_De la
ruine des nobles hommes_), printed at Paris by Jean Du Pré in 1483.
Before 1500 he brought out an _Aesop_, copying as usual the German cuts.
In 1505 he printed Alexander Barclay's version of Pierre Gringore's
_Chasteau du Labeur_ with cuts closely and fairly skilfully copied from
those in the Pigouchet-Vérard editions. In 1506 he went further and
procured from Vérard the blocks for a new edition of the _Kalendar of
Shepherds_, which, however, he caused to be retranslated, with sundry
remarks on the extraordinary English of the version published by Vérard.
In 1509 he produced in a fine folio Barclay's free rendering of Brant's
_Narrenschiff_, illustrating this English _Ship of Fools_ with 117 cuts
copied from the originals. In 1518 he procured from Froben some
border-pieces for small quartos, one showing in the footpiece a boy
carried on the shoulders of his fellows, another an elephant, a third
Mutius Scaevola and Porsenna.
[Illustration: XXXI. LONDON, PYNSON, C. 1520
BARCLAY'S VERSION OF SALLUST'S JUGURTHA. THE TRANSLATOR AND THE DUKE OF
NORFOLK. (REDUCED)]
If Pynson had dealt largely in illustrated books the borrowings and
copyings here recited might seem insignificant. He published, however,
very little English work which can be set against them, and even of the
cuts which pass for English the native origin is not always sure. I
should be sorry to pledge myself, for instance, as to the provenance of
some neat but rather characterless column-cuts in his edition of the
_Speculum Vitae Christi_ (fifteenth century). The title-cut to the
_Traduction and Mariage of the Princesse_ (Katherine), printed in 1501,
is almost certainly English in its heaviness and lack of charm, but
despite the fact that they must have been produced in London we can
hardly say as much of the two far prettier pictures which adorn the
_Carmen_ of Petrus Carmelianus on the treaty of marriage between the
future Charles V and the Princess Mary (1508). In the first of these the
ambassadors are being received by Henry VII, in the second by the
Princess who is attended by her maids, and the latter is perhaps the
first English book-illustration with any touch of grace. Unluckily there
is a half Spanish, half Low-Country look about it, which suggests that
some member of the ambassadors' suite with an artistic turn may at least
have supplied the design, so that one hesitates to claim it too
vigorously as English work. We may be more confident about the one good
cut (the rest are a scratch lot) in the 1513 edition of Lydgate's _The
hystory sege and dystruccion of Troy_. In this Henry V is shown seated
in a large room, with his suite, while Lydgate in his black habit as a
Benedictine presents him with his book. There is a general resemblance
between this and another good piece of work, the picture in Alexander
Barclay's translation of Sallust's _Jugurtha_ (undated) of this other
black monk offering his book to the Duke of Norfolk (see Plate XXXI).
Probably both were from the same hand. It may be noted that the cut of
Barclay was used again in the _Myrrour of good maners conteyning the
iiii. vertues called cardynall compyled in latin by Domynicke Mancyn_,
of which he was the industrious translator. In Pynson's 1516 edition of
Fabyan's _Chronicle_, besides some insignificant column-cuts of kings
and some decorative heraldic work, there is an excellent picture of a
disembarkation. In other books we find cuts of a schoolmaster with his
pupils, of an author, of a woman saint (S. Bridget, though used also for
S. Werburga), etc.
Towards the end of his career in the collection of Chaucer's works
(1526) and reprint of Lydgate's _Falles of Princes_ (1527), Pynson drew
on his stock of miscellaneous blocks rather than allow works with which
illustrations had become associated to go forth undecorated.[63] But
with his purchase of the border-pieces from Froben in 1518, it would
seem that he more or less definitely turned his back on pictorial
illustration. Mr. Gordon Duff has shown that a change comes over the
character of his books about this time, and has suggested that during
the latter years of his life his business was to some extent in the
hands of Thomas Berthelet, who succeeded him as King's Printer.
Berthelet himself in the course of his long and prosperous career
eschewed illustrations altogether, while he took some trouble to get
good capitals and had a few ornamental borders. It is thus hardly too
much to say that from 1518 for some forty years, until in 1559 John Day
published Cunningham's _Cosmographicall Glasse_, book-illustration in
England can only be found lurking here and there in holes and corners.
In 1526 Peter Treveris issued the _Grete Herbal_ with numerous botanical
figures; in 1529 John Rastell printed his own _Pastime of People_ with
huge, semi-grotesque cuts of English kings; a few of Robert Copland's
books and a few of Robert Wyer's have rough cuts of no importance. But
when we think of Pynson's edition of Lord Berners' _Froissart_, of
Berthelet's of Gower's _Confessio Amantis_, of Godfray's _Chaucer_, and
of Grafton's edition of Halle's _Chronicle_, all illustratable books and
all unillustrated, it is evident that educated book-buyers, wearied of
rudely hacked blocks, often with no relevance to the book in which they
were found, had told the printers that they might save the space
occupied by these decorations, and that the reign of the primitive
woodcut in English books, if it can be said ever to have reigned, was at
an end.
This emphatic discouragement of book-illustrations during so many years
in the sixteenth century was perhaps the best thing that could have
happened--next to an equally emphatic encouragement of them. There can
have been no reason in the nature of things why English
book-illustrations should continue over a long period of time to be
third-rate. A little help and a little guidance would probably have
sufficed to reform them altogether. Nevertheless it can hardly be
disputed that as a matter of fact they were, with very few exceptions,
third-rate, the superiority of Pynson's to Wynkyn de Worde's being
somewhat less striking than is usually asserted. In the absence of the
needed help and guidance it was better to make a sober dignity the ideal
of book-production than to continue to deface decently printed books by
the use of job lots of column cuts. The borders and other ornaments used
by Berthelet, Reyner Wolfe, and Grafton, the three principal firms of
this period, are at least moderately good. All three printers indulged
in the pleasing heresy of pictorial or heraldic capitals, Wolfe in the
_Homiliae duae_ of S. Chrysostom (1543), Grafton in Halle's Chronicle
entitled _The Union of the Families of Lancaster and York_ (1548), and
Berthelet in some of his later proclamations. As regards their devices,
Grafton's punning emblem (a tree grafted on a tun), though in its
smallest size it may pass well enough, was not worthy of the prominence
which he sometimes gave it; but Wolfe's "Charitas" mark, of children
throwing sticks at an apple tree, is perhaps the most pleasing of
English devices, while Berthelet's "Lucrece," despite the fact that her
draperies have yielded to the Renaissance temptation of fluttering in
the wind rather more than a Roman lady would have thought becoming at
the moment of death, is of its kind a fine piece of work. As for
pictures, from which Berthelet, as far as I remember, was consistent in
his abstinence--Wolfe and Grafton were wisely content to make an
exception in favour of Holbein, a little medallion cut after his
portrait of Sir Thomas Wyatt adorning Wolfe's edition of Leland's
_Naeniae_ (1542), and Grafton owing to him the magnificent titlepage to
the Great Bibles in which Cranmer and Cromwell, with a host of other
worthies, are seen distributing Bibles under the superintendence of
Henry VIII. After the fall of Cromwell his armorial bearings were cut
out of the block, a piece of petty brutality on a level with that which
compelled owners of Prayer Books and Golden Legends to deface them by
scratching out the word "pope" and as much as they could of the service
for the day of that certainly rather questionable saint, Thomas à
Becket.
[Illustration: XXXII. LONDON, T. POWELL, 1556
HEYWOOD. THE SPIDER AND THE FLY. PORTRAIT OF HEYWOOD]
In 1548 we come across a definitely illustrated book, Cranmer's
_Catechism_, published by Walter Lynne, with a delicately cut
titlepage[64] showing figures of Justice, Prudence, and Victory, and
also the royal arms, and in the text numerous small Biblical pictures,
two of which are signed "Hans Holbein," while others have been rashly
attributed to Bernard Salomon. In 1556 we find Heywood's _Spider and the
Fly_ illustrated not only with various woodcuts of spiders' webs, but
with a portrait of the author stiff and ungainly enough in all
conscience, but carrying with it an impression of lank veracity (see
Plate XXXII). About this time, moreover, William Copland was issuing
folio and quarto editions of some of the poems and romances which had
pleased the readers of the first quarter of the century, and some of
these had the old cuts in them. It is evident that illustrations would
have come back in any case--book-buyers can never abstain from them for
long together. But it is only fair to connect this return with the name
of John Day, who made a strenuous effort, which only just failed of
success, to bring up book-illustration to the high level at which he was
aiming in printing. Day had issued a few books during the reign of
Edward VI, notably a Bible with an excellent pictorial capital showing
the promoter of the edition, Edmund Becke, presenting a copy of it to
the King. As a staunch Protestant he had been in some danger under Queen
Mary, but with the accession of Elizabeth he came quickly to the
front, thanks to the help of Archbishop Parker, and the edition of _The
Cosmographicall Glasse_ of William Cunningham, which he issued in 1559,
is thus, as we have already suggested, a real landmark in English
book-production. In addition to its fine types, this book is notable for
its woodcut diagrams and pictorial capitals, ornamental titlepage, large
map of Norwich and, most important of all, a strong and vigorous
portrait of the author, his right hand on a globe, a _Dioscorides_ with
a diagram of a rose lying open before him, and a wooded landscape being
seen in the distance. The whole is enclosed in an oval frame, round
which runs a Greek motto cut in majuscules, [Greek: Ê MEGALÊ EUDAIMONIÊ
OUDENI PHTHONEIN] ("the great happiness is to envy no man"), with the
author's age, "ÆTATIS 28" at the foot. The portrait measures about 6
inches by 4½, and occupies the whole folio page. It is only too probable
that it was the work not of a native Englishman, but of some Dutch
refugee, but here at last in an English book was a piece of living
portraiture adequately cut on wood, and with better luck it should have
been the first of a long series. John Day himself did his best to
promote a fashion by prefixing a small portrait of Becon to that
author's _Pomander of Prayer_, 1561, and having a much larger one of
himself cut the next year, "ÆTATIS SVÆ XXXX," as the inscription tells
us, adding also his motto, "LIEFE IS DEATHE AND DEATH IS LIEFE", the
spelling in which suggests a Dutch artist, though Dutch spelling about
this time was so rampant in England that we may hope against hope that
this was English work. The oval portrait is surrounded with strap-work
ornament, another fashion of the day, and at the foot of this are the
initials I. D. On one interpretation these would lead us to believe not
only that the work is English, but that Day himself was the cutter. But
bindings from his shop are sometimes signed I. D. P. (Ioannes Day
pegit), and we must hesitate before attributing to him personal skill
not only in printing, but in binding and wood-cutting as well. The
portrait itself is taken side-face and shows a cropped head, keen eye,
and long beard, the neck being entirely concealed by a high coat-collar
within which is a ruff. The ground to the front of the face is all in
deep shadow, that at the back of the head is left white, a simple
contrast which perhaps makes the general effect more brilliant. Day used
this portrait as a device in some of his largest folio books--for
instance, his three-volume edition of Becon's works (1560-4) and Foxe's
_Book of Martyrs_ (1563).
The full title of the _Book of Martyrs_, which we have now reached, is
_Actes and Monuments of these latter and perillous dayes, touching
matters of the Church, wherein ar comprehended and described the great
persecutions and horrible troubles, that have bene wrought and practised
by the Romishe Prelates, especially in this Realm of England and
Scotlande, from the yeare of our Lorde a thousande unto the tyme nowe
present_. It bears an elaborate titlepage showing Protestants and
Catholics preaching, Protestants being burnt at the stake contrasted
with Catholics offering the sacrifice of the Mass, and finally the
Protestant martyrs uplifted in heaven, while the Catholic persecutors
are packed off to hell. The text is very unevenly illustrated, but the
total number of woodcuts even in the first edition (1563) is very
considerable, and as many new pictures were added in the second (1570),
the book was certainly the most liberally illustrated with cuts
specially made for it which had yet been produced in England. One or two
of the smaller cuts, mostly the head of a martyr praying amid the
flames, are used several times; of the larger cuts only a very few are
repeated, and, considering the monotonous subject of the book, it is
obvious that some trouble must have been taken to secure variety in the
illustrations. A few of these occupy a whole page, that illustrating the
Protestant legend of the poisoning of King John by a fanatic monk being
divided into compartments, while others showing some of the more
important martyrdoms are ambitiously designed. The drawing of some of
the later pictures is coarse, but on the whole the designs are good and
with a good deal of character in them. The cutting is careful and
painstaking, but hardly ever succeeds in making the picture stand out
boldly on the page, so that the general effect is grey and colourless.
As to the personality of the designers and cutters we know nothing. Day
at one time was anxious to get leave to keep more than the permitted
maximum of four foreigners in his employment, but we have really no
sufficient ground for arguing either for an English or a foreign origin
for these illustrations.
A few years after this, in 1569, when the new edition of the _Book of
Martyrs_ was in preparation, Day issued another illustrated book: _A
christall glasse of christian reformation, wherein the godly maye
beholde the coloured abuses used in this our present tyme. Collected by
Stephen Bateman_, better known as the "Batman uppon Bartholomew," i.e.
the editor by whom the _De Proprietatibus Rerum_ of Bartholomaeus
Anglicus was "newly corrected, enlarged, and amended" in 1582. The
_Christall glasse of christian reformation_ is a dull book with dull
illustrations, which are of the nature of emblems, made ugly by party
spirit. A more interesting book by the same author and issued in the
same year was _The travayled Pylgrime, bringing newes from all partes of
the worlde_, to which Bateman only put his initials and which was
printed not by Day, but by Denham. This, although I cannot find that the
fact has been noted, is largely indebted both for its scheme and its
illustrations to the _Chevalier Délibéré_ of Olivier de la Marche,
though the woodcuts go back not to those of the Gouda and Schiedam
incunabula, but to the Antwerp edition of 1555, in which these were
translated into some of the most graceful of sixteenth century cuts.
Needless to say, much of the grace disappears in this new translation,
although the cutting is more effective than in the _Book of Martyrs_.
Besides these two books by Stephen Bateman, 1569 saw the issue of the
first edition of one of John Day's most famous ventures, _A Booke of
Christian Prayers, collected out of the ancient writers and best learned
in our time, worthy to be read with an earnest mind of all Christians,
in these dangerous and troublesome daies, that God for Christes sake
will yet still be mercifull vnto us_. From the presence on the back of
the titlepage of a very stiff portrait of the Queen kneeling in prayer
(rather like a design for a monumental brass), this is usually quoted as
_Queen Elizabeth's Prayer Book_. It was reprinted in 1578 (perhaps also
earlier), 1581, and 1590, and the later editions, the only ones I have
seen, ascribe the compilation to R. D., i.e. Richard Day, John Day's
clergyman son. The book is in appearance a kind of Protestant Horae,
having borders to every page divided into compartments as in the Paris
editions, showing scenes from the life of Christ, the cardinal virtues
and their opposites, the works of charity, and a Dance of Death.
Compared with the best, or even the second best, of the Horae of
Pigouchet or Kerver, the book looks cold and colourless, but the rarity
of the early editions shows that it must have been very popular.
The only other book issued by Day with borders to every page was the
(supposititious) _Certaine select prayers gathered out of S. Augustines
Meditations, which he calleth his selfe-talks with God_, which went
through several editions, of which the first is dated 1574. This is a
much less pretentious book, the borders being decorative instead of
pictorial, but it makes rather a pretty little octavo. Another 1569 book
which has cuts is the edition of Grafton's _Chronicle_ of that year,
printed by Henry Denham, but as the cuts look like a "job" lot, possibly
of German origin, and are only placed at the beginnings of sections in
the short first book, while all the history from 1066 onwards is left
unillustrated, this speaks rather of decadence than progress.
[Illustration: XXXIII. LONDON, C. BARKER, 1575
TURBERVILLE. BOOKE OF FAULCONRIE. QUEEN ELIZABETH HAWKING]
In 1581, towards the close of his career, Day was employed to print John
Derrick's _Image of Ireland_, giving an account of Sir Henry Sidney's
campaign against the Irish "wood-karnes." In some few copies this work
is illustrated with eight very large woodcuts, the most ambitious in
some respects that had ever been attempted in England. The first four
are wretchedly cut; the last four, showing Sir Henry's battle with the
rebels and his triumphal return, are both well designed and well
executed.
Meanwhile, other printers and publishers had produced a few more
illustrated books in the 'seventies. Thus in 1575 Henry Bynneman had
printed Turberville's _Booke of Faulconrie_ for Christopher Barker. The
numerous excellent illustrations of hawks (and probably those of dogs
also) are taken from French books, but there is a fairly vigorous
picture of Queen Elizabeth hawking attended by her suite, badged, back
and front, with large Tudor roses, and this (see Plate XXXIII) looks
like English work. In a much later edition--that of 1611--it is curious
to note that the portrait of the Queen was cut out and one of James I
substituted.
In 1576 a rather forbidding woodcut portrait of George Gascoigne was
printed (by R. Smith) in that worthy's _Steele Glas_. In 1577 came a
very important work, the famous _Chronicle_, begun on a vast scale by
Reyner Wolfe and completed for England, Scotland, and Ireland by Raphael
Holinshed, now published by John Harrison the elder. This has the
appearance of being much more profusely illustrated than the _Book of
Martyrs_ or any other English folio, but as the cuts of battles, riots,
executions, etc., which form the staple illustrations, are freely
repeated, the profusion is far less than it seems. The cuts, moreover,
are much smaller than those in Foxe's _Martyrs_. As a rule they are
vigorously designed and fairly well cut, and if it had come fifty years
earlier the book would have been full of promise. But, as far as
pictorial cuts in important books are concerned, we are nearing the end.
In 1579 H. Singleton published Spenser's _Shepheardes Calender_ with a
small cut of no great merit at the head of each "æglogue," and in the
same year Vautrollier illustrated North's _Plutarch_ with insignificant
little busts which derive importance only from the large ornamental
frames, stretching across the folio page, in which they are set.
Woodcuts did not cease to be used after this date. They will be found in
herbals (but these were mainly foreign blocks), military works, and all
books for which diagrams were needed. They continued fashionable for
some time for the architectural or other forms of borders to titlepages,
some of them very graceful, as, for instance, that to the early folio
editions of Sidney's _Arcadia_; also for the coats of arms of the great
men to whom books were dedicated. They are found also at haphazard in
the sixpenny and fourpenny quartos of plays and romances, and many of
the old blocks gradually drifted into the hands of the printers of
ballads and chapbooks, and appear in incongruous surroundings after a
century of service. But I cannot myself call to mind any important
English book after 1580 for which a publisher thought it worth his while
to commission a new set of imaginative pictures cut on wood, and that
means that woodcut illustration as a vital force in the making of books
had ceased to exist. They needed good paper and careful presswork, and
all over Europe paper and presswork were rapidly deteriorating. They
cost money, and book-buyers apparently did not care enough for them to
make them a good investment. The rising popularity of copper engravings
for book-illustration on the Continent probably influenced the judgment
of English book-lovers, and although, as we shall see, copper engraving
was for many years very sparingly used in England save for portraits,
frontispieces, and titlepages, woodcuts went clean out of fashion for
some two centuries.
FOOTNOTES:
[63] He had apparently returned the blocks borrowed from Du Pré for
the _Falles of Princes_, as none of them is used in 1527, although
one or two are copied. I have not met with all the Chaucer
illustrations, and it is possible that a few of these are new.
[64] Used again the same year in a treatise by Richard Bonner.
CHAPTER XV
ENGRAVED ILLUSTRATIONS
The good bookman should have no love for "plates," and to do them
justice bookmen have shown commendable fortitude in resisting their
attractions, great as these often are. As a form of book-decoration the
plate reached its highest development in the French _livres-à-vignettes_
of the eighteenth century, the charm of the best bookwork of Moreau,
Eisen, and their fellows being incontestable. It would, indeed, have
argued some lack of patriotism if French book-lovers had not yielded
themselves to the fascination of a method of book-illustration which had
thus reached its perfection in their own country, and they have done so.
But as he reads the enthusiastic descriptions of these eighteenth
century books by M. Henri Béraldi, a foreign book-lover may well feel
(to borrow the phrase which Jonson and Herrick used of the over-dressed
ladies of their day) that the book itself has become its "own least
part." A book which requires as an appendix an album of original
designs, or of proofs of the illustrations, or (worse still) which has
been mounted on larger paper and guarded so that these proofs or designs
can be brought into connection with the text, is on its way to that
worst of all fates, the Avernus of extra illustration or Graingerism.
When it has reached this, it ceases to be a book at all and becomes a
scrap-album of unharmonized pictures.
Lack of means may make it easy for a bookman to resist the temptation to
supplement the illustrations in a book with duplicates in proof or any
like extravagances, but even then few books which have plates in them
fail to bring trouble. If the plates are protected with "flimsies," the
owner's conscience may be perturbed with doubts as to whether these may
lawfully be torn out. If there are no flimsies, the leaf opposite a
plate often shows a set-off from it and is sometimes specially badly
foxed. Moreover, not being an integral part of the book, the plate
presents problems to publishers and binders which are too often left
unsolved. It ought to be printed on paper sufficiently wide to allow of
a flap or turn-over, so that the leaf can be placed in the quire and
properly sewn. But the flap thus left is not pretty, and unless very
thin may cause the book to gape. Thus too often the plate is only glued
or pasted into its place, with the result that it easily comes loose.
Hence misplacements, imperfections, and consequent woe.
It is the charm of the earlier books illustrated with incised engravings
that the impressions are pulled on the same paper as the rest of the
book, very often on pages bearing letterpress, and almost always, even
when they chance to occupy a whole page, the back of which is left
blank, as part of the quire or gathering. The price, however, which had
to be paid for these advantages was a heavy one, the trouble not merely
of double printing, as in the case of a sheet printed in red and black,
but of double printing in two different kinds, one being from a raised
surface, the other from an incised. It is clear that this trouble was
found very serious, as both at Rome and Florence in Italy, at Bruges in
the Low Countries, at Würzburg and Eichstätt in Germany, and at Lyon in
France, the experiment was tried independently and in every case
abandoned after one or two books had been thus ornamented.
[Illustration: XXXIV. FLORENCE, NICOLUS LAURENTII, 1477
BETTINI. MONTE SANTO DI DIO. CHRIST IN GLORY. (REDUCED)]
At Rome, after the failure of his printing partnership with Pannartz,
Conrad Sweynheym betook himself to engraving maps to illustrate an
edition of Ptolemy's _Cosmographia_, and this was brought out after his
death by Arnold Buckinck, 10 October, 1478. Thirteen months earlier
Nicolaus Laurentii, of Breslau, had published at Florence the _Monte
Santo di Dio_ of Antonio Bettini, with two full-page engravings and
one smaller one. The first of these shows the ladder of Prayer and the
Sacraments up which, by the virtues which form its successive rungs, a
cassocked youth is preparing to climb to heaven, where Christ stands in
a mandorla supported by angels. The second plate is given up entirely to
a representation of Christ in a mandorla, both drawing and engraving
being excellent, and the little angels who are lovingly upholding the
frame being really delightful (see Plate XXXIV). The third picture,
printed on a page with text, is smaller than these and represents the
pains of hell.
When a second edition of the _Monte Santo di Dio_ was needed in 1491 the
copperplates were replaced by woodcuts, a fact which may remind us that
not only the trouble of printing, but the small number of impressions
which could be taken from copperplates, must have been a formidable
objection to their use in bookwork. But at the time the first edition
may well have been regarded as a success. If so, it was an unlucky one,
as Nicolaus Laurentii was thereby encouraged to undertake a much more
ambitious venture, an annotated _Divina Commedia_ with similar
illustrations, and this, which appeared in 1481, can only be looked on
as a failure. No space was left at the head of the first canto, and the
engraving was printed on the lower margin, where it is often found
cruelly cropped. In subsequent cantos spaces were sometimes left,
sometimes not, but after the second the engravings are generally founded
printed on separate slips and pasted into their places, and in no copy
do they extend beyond canto xix. They used to be assigned to Botticelli,
but the discovery of his real designs to the _Divina Commedia_ has shown
that these of 1481 were only slightly influenced by them.
In Germany the only copper engravings found in fifteenth century books
are the coats of arms of the Bishops and Chapters of Würzburg and
Eichstätt in the books printed for them at these places by Georg and
Michel Reyser respectively. In order more easily to persuade the clergy
of these dioceses to buy properly revised service-books to replace their
tattered and incorrect manuscript copies, the Bishops attached certain
"indulgences" to their purchase, and as a proof that the recital of
these was not a mere advertising trick of the printer permitted him to
print their arms at the foot of the notice. These arms, most charmingly
and delicately engraved, are found in the Würzburg Missals of 1481 (this
I have not seen) and 1484, and the "Agenda" of 1482 (see Plate XXXV),
and no doubt also in other early service-books printed by Georg Reyser.
The Eichstätt books of his kinsmen Michel are similarly adorned--for
instance, the _Statuta Synodalia Eystettensia_ of 1484, though neither
the design nor the engraving is so good. In how many editions by the
Reysers these engraved arms appeared I cannot say, as the books are all
of great rarity; but by 1495, if not earlier, they had been abandoned,
for in the Würzburg _Missale Speciale_ of that year we find the delicate
engraving replaced by a woodcut copy of nearly four times the size and
less than a fourth of the charm.
The only French book of the fifteenth century known to me as possessing
copper engravings is a very beautiful one, the version of Breidenbach's
_Peregrinatio ad Terram Sanctam_, by Frère Nicole le Huen, printed at
Lyon by Michel Topie and Jacob Heremberck in 1488, and adorned with
numerous excellent capitals. In this all the cuts in the text of the
Mainz editions are fairly well copied on wood, but the large folding
plans of Venice and other cities on the pilgrims' route are admirably
reproduced on copper with a great increase in the delicacy of their
lines.
[Illustration: XXXV. WÜRZBURG, G. REYSER, 1482
WÜRZBURG AGENDA. (END OF PREFACE)]
We come now to a book bearing an earlier date than any of those already
mentioned, but not entitled to its full pride of place because it is
doubtful to what extent the engravings connected with it can be reckoned
an integral part of it. This is the French version of Boccaccio's _De
casibus illustrium virorum_ ("Des cas des nobles hommes"), printed at
Bruges by Colard Mansion and dated 1476. As originally printed there was
no space left for any pictorial embellishments; but in at least two
copies the first leaf of the prologue has been reprinted so as to leave
room for a picture; in another copy, which in 1878 belonged to Lord
Lothian, spaces are left also at the beginning of each of the nine books
into which the work is divided, except the first and sixth, and all the
spaces have been filled with copper engravings coloured by hand; in yet
another copy there is a space left also at the beginning of Book VI.
According to the monograph on the subject by David Laing (privately
printed in 1878), the subjects of the engravings are:--
(1) Prologue, the Author presenting his work to his patron, Mainardo
Cavalcanti.
(2) Book I. Adam and Eve standing before the Author as he writes.
(3) Book II. King Saul on horseback, and lying dead.
(4) Book III. Fortune and Poverty.
(5) Book IV. Marcus Manlius thrown into the Tiber.
(6) Book V. The Death of Regulus.
(7) Book VI. Not known.
(8) Book VII. A combat of six men.
(9) Book VIII. The humiliation of the Emperor Valerian by King Sapor
of Persia.
(10) Book IX. Brunhilde, Queen of the Franks, torn asunder by four
horses.
From the reproductions which Laing gives in his monograph it is evident
that the engraver set himself to imitate the style of the contemporary
illuminated manuscripts of the Bruges school, and that he used his
graver rather to get the designs on to the paper than with any real
feeling for the characteristic charm of his own art. My own inclination
is to believe that we must look on these plates as a venture of Colard
Mansion's rather in his old capacity as an illuminator, anxious to
decorate a few special copies, than as a printer intent on embellishing
a whole edition. The engravings may have been made at any time between
1476 and 1483, when they were clearly used as models by Jean Du Pré for
his Paris edition, the wood-blocks for which, as we have seen, were
subsequently sold or lent to Pynson. The variations in the number of
spaces in different copies may quite as well be due to a mixing of
quires as to successive enlargements of the plan, and the fact that more
copies of the engravings have survived apart from than with the book
draws attention once more to the difficulty found in printing these
incised plates to accompany letterpress printed from type standing in
relief.
There is still one more engraving connected with an early printed book
to be considered, and though the connection is not fully established,
the facts that the book in question was the first from Caxton's press,
and that the engraving may possibly contain his portrait, invite a full
discussion of its claims. The plate (see Frontispiece to Chapter I,
Plate II) represents an author on one knee presenting a book to a lady
who is attended by five maids-of-honour, while as many pages may be seen
standing in various page-like attitudes about the room. A canopy above a
chair of state bears the initials CM and the motto _Bien en aveingne_,
and it is thus clear that the lady represents Margaret Duchess of
Burgundy, and that the offering of a book which it depicts must have
taken place after her marriage with Charles the Bold, 3 July, 1468, and
before the latter's death at Nancy, 5 January, 1477. During the greater
part of this time Caxton was in the service of the Duchess; the donor of
the book is represented as a layman, and a layman not of noble birth,
since there is no feather in his cap; he appears also to be approaching
middle-age. All these points would be correct if the donor were intended
for Caxton, and as we know from his own statement that before his
_Recuyell of the histories of Troy_ was printed he had presented a copy
of it (in manuscript) to the Duchess, probably in or soon after 1471,
until some more plausible original is proposed the identification of the
donor with our first printer must remain at least probable.
Unfortunately, although the unique copy of the engraving is at present
in the Duke of Devonshire's copy of the _Recuyell_, it is certain that
it is an insertion, not an original part of the book, and beyond a high
probability that it has occupied its present position since the book was
bound for the Duke of Roxburghe some time before his sale in 1812,
nothing is known as to how it came there. A really amazing point is that
although the connection of this particular copy with Elizabeth, queen of
Edward IV, caused it to be shown at the Caxton Exhibition, until the
appearance of Mr. Montagu Peartree's article in the _Burlington
Magazine_ for August, 1905, no notice had ever been paid to the
engraving. Analogy with the _Boccaccio_ suggests that Caxton had the
plate made before he realized the difficulties of impression, and that
some prints were separately struck from it and one of these pasted
inside the binding of the Devonshire copy, whence it was removed to its
present position when the book was rebound. It should be noted that the
style of the engraving is quite unlike that of the _Boccaccio_ prints,
and suggests that Caxton procured it from a Dutch rather than a Bruges
engraver, possibly with the aid of Veldener, from whom, or with whose
help, according to Mr. Duff's suggestion, he procured his first type.
For over a quarter of a century after the engraving of the plans in the
Lyon _Breidenbach_ printers seem to have held aloof altogether from
copperplates. In 1514 we find four engraved plans, of only slight
artistic interest, printed as plates in a topographical work on _Nola_
by Ambrogius Leo, the printer being Joannes Rubeus (Giovanni Rossi) of
Venice. Three years later, in 1517, a really charming print is found
(set rather askew in the Museum copy) on the titlepage of a thin quarto
printed at Rome, for my knowledge of which I am indebted to my friend,
Mr. A. M. Hind. The book is a _Dialogus_, composed by the Right Reverend
Amadeus Berrutus, Governor of the City of Rome, on the weighty and still
disputable question as to whether one should go on writing to a friend
who makes no reply,[65] and the plate shows the four speakers, Amadeus
himself, Austeritas, Amicitia, and Amor, standing in a field or garden
outside a building. The figures, especially that of Austeritas, are
charmingly drawn (see Plate XXXVI); the tone of the little picture is
delightful, and it is enclosed in a leafy border, which reproduces in
the subtler grace of engraved work the effect of the little black and
white frames which surround the Florentine woodcuts of the fifteenth
century.
With the _Dialogus_ of Bishop Berrutus copper engravings as
book-illustrations came to an end, as far as I know, for a period of
some forty years. I make this statement thus blankly in the hope that it
may provoke contradiction, and at least some sporadic instances be
adduced. But I have hunted through descriptions of all the books most
likely to be illustrated--Bibles, Horae, editions of Petrarch's
_Trionfi_ and Ariosto's _Orlando Furioso_ and books of emblems, and
outside England (the necessity of the exception is almost humorous) I
have lighted on nothing.
[Illustration: XXXVI. ROME, GABRIEL OF BOLOGNA, 1517
BERRUTUS. DIALOGUS. (TITLE)]
We may, perhaps, trace the revival of engraved illustrations to the
influence of Hieronymus or Jerome Cock, an Antwerp engraver, who in May,
1551, issued a series of plates from the designs of F. Faber, entitled
_Praecipua aliquot Romanae antiquitatis ruinarum monimenta_, without any
letterpress save the name of the subject engraved on each plate. Cock
followed this up in 1556 with twelve engravings from the designs of
Martin van Veen illustrating the victories of Charles V, which are also
celebrated in verses in French and Spanish. He issued also various other
series of Biblical and antiquarian plates, which do not concern us, and
in 1559 a set of thirty-two illustrating the funeral of Charles V. For
this, aided by a subsidy, Christopher Plantin acted as publisher, and we
thus get a connection established between engraving and printing.
This did not, however, bear fruit at all quickly. Plantin's four
emblem-books of 1562, 1564, 1565, and 1566 were illustrated not with
copper engravings, but with woodcuts; so was his Bible of 1566, so were
his earlier Horae. That of 1565 has unattractive woodcut borders to
every page and small woodcut illustrations of no merit. In 1570 he began
the use of engravings for his Horae, but in a copy in the British
Museum, printed on vellum almost as thick as cardboard, he was reduced
to pulling the pictures on paper and pasting them in their places. In
1571 he illustrated the _Humanae salutis monumenta_ of his friend Arias
Montanus with some rather pretty copperplates, each surrounded with an
effective engraved border of flowers and birds, but for a new Horae (on
paper) in 1573, for which he had commissioned a set of full-page plates
of some merit (printed with the text on their back), he had not troubled
to procure borders. Two years later he produced a really curious edition
in which the engraved illustrations (some of them from the _Humanae
salutis monumenta_) are surrounded with woodcut borders, and in many
cases have red underlines, so that each page must have undergone three
printings.[66]
Although woodcuts were considered sufficiently good for Plantin's Bible
of 1566, for his great Polyglot it was indispensable to have titlepages
engraved on copper, and to the first volume he prefixed no fewer than
three, engraved by P. van der Heyden after designs by P. van der Borcht.
All of them are emblematical, the first symbolizing the unification of
the world by the Christian faith and the four languages in which the Old
Testament was printed in the Polyglott, the second the zeal of Philip II
for the Catholic faith, the third the authority of the Pentateuch. While
some volumes had no frontispiece others contained a few illustrations,
and the total number of plates was twenty-eight. Some of these were
used again in Plantin's Bible of 1583, and Raphelengius, into whose
possession the whole set passed in 1590, used sixteen of them three
years later to illustrate the _Antiquitates Judaicae_ of Arias Montanus.
For his Missals and Breviaries as for his Horae Plantin sometimes used
woodcuts, sometimes copperplates. For his editions of the works of S.
Augustine and S. Jerome (1577) he caused really fine portrait
frontispieces to be engraved by J. Sadeler from the designs of Crispin
van den Broeck. As regards his miscellaneous secular books he was by no
means given to superfluous illustrations, and, as we have seen,
continued to use woodcuts contemporaneously with plates. Probably his
earliest secular engravings (published in 1566, but prepared some years
earlier) are the anatomical diagrams in imitation of those in the Roman
edition of _Valverde_ mentioned below, to which he prefixed a better
frontispiece than that of his model. In 1574 he produced a fine book of
portraits of physicians and philosophers, _Icones veterum aliquot ac
recentium medicorum philosophorumque_, in sixty-eight plates, with
letterpress by J. Sambucus. The next year he issued another illustrated
book, the _De rerum usu et abusu_ of Bernardus Furmerius, sharing the
expense of it with Ph. Gallus, a print-seller, for whom later on he
published several books on commission. From 1578 onwards he printed for
Ortelius, the great cosmographer. In 1582 he published the _Pegasides_
of Y. B. Houwaert, in 1584 Waghenaer's _Spieghel der Zeevaerdt_, and
other illustrated books followed. But none of them, little indeed that
Plantin ever produced, now excite much desire on the part of collectors.
Of what took place in other countries and cities in the absence of even
tentative lists of the books printed after 1535 anywhere except in
England it is difficult to say. In 1560 an anatomical book translated
from the Spanish of Juan de Valverde was published at Rome with engraved
diagrams of some artistic merit and a rather poorly executed
frontispiece. In 1566 "in Venetia appresso Rampazetto," a very fine book
of impresas, or emblematical personal badges, made its appearance under
the title _Le Imprese Illustre con espositioni et discorsi del S^or
Ieronimo Ruscelli_, dedicated "al serenissimo et sempre felicissimo re
catolico Filippo d'Austria." This has over a hundred engraved _Imprese_
of three sizes, double-page for the Emperor (signed G. P. F.),
full-pagers for kings and other princely personages, half-pagers for
ordinary folk (if any owner of an _impresa_ may be thus designated), and
all these are printed with letterpress beneath, or on the back of them,
and very well printed too. In another book of _Imprese_, published in
this same year 1566, the text, consisting of sonnets by Lodovico Dolce,
as well as the pictures, is engraved, or rather etched. This is the
_Imprese di diuersi principi, duchi, signori, etc., di Batt^a Pittoni
Pittore Vicentino_. It exists in a bewildering variety of states, partly
due to reprinting, partly apparently to the desire to dedicate it to
several different people, one of the British Museum copies being
dedicated by Pittoni to the Earl of Arundel and having a printed
dedicatory letter and plate of his device preceding that of the Emperor
himself.
Another noteworthy Venetian book, with engraved illustrations, which I
have come across is an _Orlando Furioso_ of 1584, "appresso Francesco de
Franceschi Senese e compagni," its engraved titlepage bearing the
information that it has been "nuouamente adornato di figure di rame da
Girolamo Porro," a little-known Milanese engraver, who had reissued
Pittoni's _Imprese_ in 1578. The illustrations are far too crowded with
incident to be successful, and their unity is often sacrificed to the
old medieval practice of making a single design illustrate several
different moments of the narrative. Their execution is also very
unequal. Nevertheless, they are of interest to English collectors since,
as we shall see, they served as models for the plates in Sir John
Harington's version of the _Orlando_ in 1591. All of them are
full-pagers, with text on the back, and the printer was also compliant
enough to print at the head of each canto an engraved cartouche within
which is inserted a type-printed "Argomento."
Of sixteenth century engraved book-illustrations in France I have no
personal knowledge. In Germany, as might be expected, they flourished
chiefly at Frankfort, which in the last third of the century had, as we
have seen, become a great centre for book-illustration. Jost Amman, who
was largely responsible for its development in this respect, illustrated
a few books with copper engravings, although he mainly favoured wood.
But it is the work of the De Brys, Theodor de Bry and his two sons
Johann Israel and Johann Theodor, which is of conspicuous importance for
our present purpose, for it was they who originated and mainly carried
out the greatest illustrated work of the sixteenth century, that known
to collectors as the _Grands et petits voyages_. This not very happy
name has nothing to do with the length of the voyages described, but is
derived from the fact that the original series which is concerned with
America and the West Indies is some two inches taller (fourteen as
compared with twelve) than a subsequent series dealing with the East
Indies. For the idea of such a collection of voyages Theodor de Bry was
indebted to Richard Hakluyt, whose famous book _The Principall
Navigations, Voiages, and Discoveries of the English Nation_, published
in 1589, was in preparation when De Bry was in England, where he worked
in 1587-8. The first volume, moreover, was illustrated with engravings
by De Bry after some of the extraordinarily interesting water-colour
drawings made by an Englishman, John White, in Virginia, and now
preserved in the British Museum.[67] This first part was published in
Latin at Frankfort by J. Wechel in 1590 and a second edition followed
the same year. A second part describing Florida followed in 1591, a
third describing Brazil in 1592. By 1602 nine parts had been issued, all
at Frankfort, though by different publishers, the name of J. Feyrabend
being placed on the fourth, and that of M. Becker on the ninth. After an
interval of seventeen years two more parts of the Latin edition (x. and
xi.) were printed at Oppenheim "typis H. Galleri," and then an appendix
to part xi. at Frankfort in 1620, where also were issued part xii. in
1624 and part xiii., edited by M. Merian, in 1634, this last being
accompanied by an "Elenchus," or index-volume, to the whole series.
Parallel with this Latin series ran a German one with about the same
dates. One or two parts were also issued in French and at least one in
English. There is also an appendix of "other voyages" usually added,
mostly French, and issued at Amsterdam, and of nearly every volume of
the whole series there were several issues and editions, all of them
with differences in the plates. The "Petits voyages" followed a similar
course, beginning in 1598 and ending in 1628. Although the engravings,
many of which are placed unpretentiously amid the text, vary greatly
alike in the interest of their subjects, the value of the original
designs, and the skill of the engraving, taken as a whole they have
given to these _Grands et petits voyages_ a unique position among books
of travel, and a small literature has grown up round them to certify the
collector as to the best state of each plate and what constitutes a
complete set.
While the illustrations to the Voyages formed their chief occupation,
the De Brys found time to engrave many smaller plates for less important
books. Thus in 1593 Theodor de Bry issued an emblem book _Emblemata
nobilitati et vulgo scitu digna_ (text in Latin and German), in which
each emblem is enclosed in an engraved border, mostly quite meaningless
and bad as regards composition, but of a brilliancy in the "goldsmiths'
style" which to lovers of bookplates will suggest the best work of
Sherborn or French. The plates marked B and D, illustrating the lines
"Musica mortales divosque oblectat et ornat" and "Cum Cerere et Baccho
Veneri solemnia fiunt," are especially fine and the "emblems" themselves
more pleasing than usual.
In 1595 there was printed, again with Latin and German text, a _Noua
Alphabeti effictio, historiis ad singulas literas correspondentibus_.
The _motif_ is throughout scriptural. Thus for A Adam and Eve sit on the
crossbar on each side of the letter, the serpent rests on its peak amid
the foliage of the Tree of Knowledge. In B Abel, in C Cain is perched on
a convenient part of the letter, and so on, while from one letter after
another, fish, birds, fruit, flowers, and anything else which came into
the designer's head hang dangling on cords from every possible point.
Nothing could be more meaningless or lower in the scale of design, yet
the brilliancy of the execution carries it off.
The year after this had appeared Theodor de Bry engraved a series of
emblems conceived by Denis Le Bey de Batilly and drawn by J. J.
Boissard. The designs themselves are poor enough, but the book has a
pretty architectural titlepage, and this is followed by a portrait of Le
Bey set in an ornamental border of bees, flowers, horses, and other
incongruities, portrait and border alike engraved with the most
brilliant delicacy (see Plate XXXVII). In the following year, again,
1597, the two younger De Brys illustrated with line engravings the _Acta
Mechmeti Saracenorum principis_, and (at the end of these) the
_Vaticinia Severi et Leonis_ as to the fate of the Turks, also the
_David_ of Arias Montanus. The plates are fairly interesting, but in
technical execution fall far below those of their father.
[Illustration: XXXVII. FRANKFORT, DE BRY, 1596
LE BEY. EMBLEMATA. PORTRAIT OF AUTHOR BY T. DE BRY, AFTER J. J.
BOISSARD]
Turning now to England, we find engraving in use surprisingly early in
some figures of unborn babies in _The Birth of Mankind_, translated from
the Latin of Roesslin by Richard Jonas and printed in 1540 by Thomas
Raynold, a physician, who five years later issued a new edition revised
by himself, again with engravings. In 1545 there appeared a much more
important medical work, a _Compendiosa totius anatomie delineatio_
professedly by Thomas Geminus, a Flemish surgeon and engraver attached
to the English Court. In reality this was a rather shameless adaptation
of the _De Fabrica Humani Corporis_ of Vesalius (Basel, 1543), with
engravings copied by Geminus from the woodcuts of his original. For us
its chief interest lies in an elaborate engraved titlepage showing the
royal arms surrounded by a wealth of architectural and strapwork
ornament in the style, if not actually the work, of Peter Cock of Alost,
as has been shown by Sir Sidney Colvin in the invaluable introduction to
his _Early Engravings and Engravers in England_ (1905). In 1553 an
English translation of the anatomy was published by Nicholas Hyll, and
in a second edition of this, printed in 1559, a rather heavy and stiff
portrait of Elizabeth replaces the royal arms, which were burnished out
to make room for it. Geminus subsequently produced a much larger
portrait of the Queen, set in an architectural frame studded with
emblematical figures, and a royal proclamation forbidding unauthorized
"Paynters, Printers, and Gravers" to meddle with so great a subject
seems to have been provoked by his handiwork.
In 1563 John Shute for his work on _The First and Chief Groundes of
Architecture_ produced four amateurish engravings to illustrate four of
the five "orders," a woodcut being considered good enough for the fifth.
In 1568 we find the first edition of the "Bishops'" Bible adorned with
an engraved titlepage in the centre of which, in an oval, is a not
unpleasing portrait of the Queen, holding sceptre and orb, set in a mass
of strapwork, amid which are seated Charity and Faith with the royal
arms between them, while below the portrait a lion and dragon support a
cartouche enclosing a text. Besides this titlepage, attributed by Sir
Sidney Colvin to Franciscus Hogenberg, before the book of Joshua there
is an engraved portrait of Leicester, while the "Blessed is the man" of
the first Psalm is heralded by another engraved portrait which shows
Lord Burghley holding in front of him a great B. In 1573 Remigius
Hogenberg, brother of Franciscus, engraved after a picture by John Lyne
a stiff but rather impressive portrait of Archbishop Parker, prefixed to
some copies of his _De Antiquitate Ecclesiae Britanniae_. The year
before this the second edition of the "Bishops'" Bible had been enriched
with a decorative engraved map of the Holy Land, and in 1574 Archbishop
Parker employed John Lyne to engrave for the _De Antiquitate Academiae
Cantabrigiensis_ of Dr. Caius (printed by Day) a plate of the arms of
the colleges, a plan of the University schools, and a large map of the
town. In 1579 there appeared a work which had occupied the intermediate
five years, a series of maps of England from the drawings of Christopher
Saxton, engraved by Augustine Ryther (like Saxton a native of Leeds),
Remigius Hogenberg and others, and with a fine frontispiece showing the
Queen seated in state beneath an architectural canopy, which Sir Sidney
Colvin thinks may perhaps be the work of Ryther. Ryther was subsequently
concerned with other maps, including the series illustrating the defeat
of the Armada (_Expeditionis Hispanorum in Angliam vera descriptio_),
and other cartographers got to work who hardly concern us here. Two long
engraved rolls, the first by Marcus Gheraerts, representing a procession
of the Knights of the Garter (1576), the second by Theodor de Bry, from
the designs of Thomas Lant, the funeral of Sir Philip Sidney (1587),
although most safely preserved when bound in book form, can hardly be
reckoned as books. Yet over the latter I must stop to confess a dreadful
sin of my youth, when I jumped to the conclusion that the portrait on
the first page stood for Sidney himself, whereas it really represents
the too self-advertising Lant. That it appears in the sky, above the
Black Pinnace which bore home Sidney's body, and itself bears the
suggestive motto "God createth, Man imitateth, Virtue flourisheth, Death
finisheth," may palliate but cannot excuse the crime which enriched an
edition of _Astrophel and Stella_ with a portrait, not of Sidney, but of
the illustrator of his funeral.
Not until 1590, when Hugh Broughton's _Concent of Scripture_ was
accompanied by some apocalyptic plates engraved by Jodocus Hondius
(subsequently copied by W. Rogers), do we come across what can really be
called engraved illustrations in an English book, and these, which are
of little interest, were speedily eclipsed the next year by Sir John
Harington's _Orlando Furioso in English Heroical verse_ with its
engraved titlepage and forty-six plates. Of these the translator writes
in his introduction:
As for the pictures, they are all cut in brasse, and most of them by
the best workemen in that kinde, that haue bene in this land this
manie yeares: yet I will not praise them too much, because I gaue
direction for their making, and in regard thereof I may be thought
partiall, but this I may truely say, that (for mine owne part) I have
not seene anie made in England better, nor (in deede) anie of this
kinde in any booke, except it were in a treatise, set foorth by that
profound man, maister Broughton, the last yeare, upon the Reuelation,
in which there are some 3. or 4. pretie figures (in octauo) cut in
brasse verie workemanly. As for other books that I haue seene in this
realme, either in Latin or English, with pictures, as Liuy, Gesner,
Alciats emblemes, a booke _de spectris_ in Latin, & (in our tong) the
Chronicles, the booke of Martyrs, the book of hauking and hunting, and
M. Whitney's excellent Emblems, yet all their figures are cut on wood,
& none in metall, and in that respect inferior to these, at least (by
the old proverbe) the more cost, the more worship.
The passage is of considerable interest, but hardly suggests, what is
yet the fact, that, save for the addition on the titlepage of an oval
portrait of the translator and a representation of his dog, all the
plates in the book are closely copied from the engravings by Girolamo
Porro in the Venice edition of 1584. The English titlepage was signed by
Thomas Cockson. We are left to conjecture to whom Harington was indebted
for the rest of the plates.
Although, as we shall see, from this time forward a great number of
English books contain engraved work, those which can be said to be
illustrated during the next sixty years are few enough, a study of Mr.
A. M. Hind's very useful _List of the Works of Native and Foreign
Line-Engravers in England from Henry VIII to the Commonwealth_,[68]
tempting me to place the number at about a score. The year after the
_Orlando Furioso_ came another curious treatise by Hugh Broughton, not
printed with type, but "graven in brasse by J. H.," whom Sir Sidney
Colvin identifies with Jodocus Hondius, a Fleming who lived in England
from about 1580 to 1594, and may have done the plates in the _Concent of
Scripture_ and some at least of those in the _Orlando_. Six years later
(1598) we find Lomazzo's _Tracte containing the artes of curious
Paintinge_ with an emblematical titlepage and thirteen plates by Richard
Haydock, the translator, four of the plates being adapted from Dürer's
book on Proportion, and all of them showing very slight skill in
engraving. In 1602 came Sir William Segar's _Honour, Military and
Civil_, with eight plates showing various distinguished persons, English
and foreign, wearing the robes and insignia of the Garter, the Golden
Fleece, S. Michael, etc. Three of the plates are signed by William
Rogers, the most distinguished of the English Elizabethan engravers, and
the others are probably his also. Most of them are very dignified and
effective in the brilliantly printed "first states" in which they are
sometimes found, but ordinary copies with only the "second states" are
as a rule disappointing.
The beginning of the reign of James I was directly responsible for one
ambitious engraved publication, Stephen Harrison's _The Archs of Triumph
erected in honor of the High and mighty prince James, the first of that
name king of England and the sixt of Scotland, at his Maiesties Entrance
and passage through his Honorable City & Chamber of London vpon the
15th day of march 1603 [1604] Invented and published by Stephen Harrison
Joyner and Architect and graven by William Kip_. Here an engraved
titlepage, with dangling ornaments in the style of the De Bry alphabet,
is followed by seven plates of the seven arches, the most notable of
which (a pity it was not preserved) was crowned with a most interesting
model of Jacobean London, to which the engraver has done admirable
justice.
In 1608 came Robert Glover's _Nobilitas politica et civilis_, re-edited
two years later by T. Milles as the _Catalogue of Honour_, with engraved
illustrations (in the text) of the robes of the various degrees of
nobility, attributed by Sir Sidney Colvin to Renold Elstracke, the son
of a Flemish refugee, and also two plates representing the King in a
chair of state and in Parliament. After this we come to two works
illustrated by an English engraver of some note, William Hole, Tom
Coryat's _Crudities_ (1611), with a titlepage recalling various
incidents of his travels (including his being sick at sea) and five
plates (or in some copies, six), and Drayton's _Polyolbion_ (1612,
reissued in 1613 with the portrait-plate in a different state), with a
poor emblematic title, a portrait of Prince Henry wielding a lance, and
eighteen decorative maps of England. In 1615 we come to a really
well-illustrated book, the _Relation of a Journey_, by George Sandys,
whose narrative of travel in Turkey, Egypt, and the Holy Land, and parts
of Italy, is accompanied with little delicately engraved landscapes and
bits of architecture, etc., by Francis Delaram. The work of the decade
is brought to a close with two print-selling ventures, the
_Basili[omega]logia_ of 1618 and _Her[omega]ologia_ of 1620. The former
of these works describes itself as being "the true and lively effigies
of all our English Kings from the Conquest untill this present: with
their severall Coats of Armes, Impreses and Devises. And a briefe
Chronologie of their lives and deaths. Elegantly graven in copper.
Printed for H. Holland and are to be sold by Comp.[ton] Holland over
against the Exchange." The full set of plates numbers thirty-two,
including eight additions to the scheme of the book, representing the
Black Prince, John of Gaunt, Anne Boleyn, a second version of Elizabeth,
Mary Queen of Scots, Anne of Denmark, Prince Henry, and Prince Charles.
Fourteen of the plates, mostly the earlier ones, are signed by
Elstracke, and Simon Passe and Francis Delaram each contributed four. It
need hardly be said that they are of very varying degrees of
authenticity as well as merit. Several of the later plates are found in
more than one state.
With the second of the two ventures Henry Holland was also concerned,
but the expenses of the book were shared by Crispin Passe and an Arnhem
bookseller named Jansen. Its title reads: "Her[omega]ologia Anglica: hoc
est clarissimorum et doctissimorum aliquot Anglorum qui floruerunt ab
anno Cristi MD. usque ad presentem annum MDCXX." It is in two volumes,
the first containing thirty-seven plates, the second thirty. Two of
these represent respectively Queen Elizabeth's tomb and the hearse of
Henry Prince of Wales. All the rest are portraits of the notable
personages of the reigns of Henry VIII and his successors, some of them
based on drawings by Holbein, the majority on earlier prints, and all
engraved by William Passe (younger brother of Simon) and his sister
Magdalena.
[Illustration: XXXVIII. LONDON. J. MARRIOT, 1638
QUARLES. HIEROGLYPHIKES OF THE LIFE OF MAN. PAGE 22
ENGRAVED BY W. MARSHALL]
The next decade was far from productive of works illustrated with more
than an engraved titlepage and a portrait, but in 1630 appeared Captain
John Smith's _True Travels_ with several illustrations, one of them by
Martin Droeshout; in 1634-5 came Wither's _Emblems_, with plates by
William Marshall, and in 1635 Thomas Heywood's _Hierarchie of the
Blessed Angels_, with an engraved title by Thomas Cecill and plates
representing the several orders, Seraphim, Cherubim, and Thrones being
entrusted to John Payne, Dominations to Marshall, Powers and
Principalities to Glover, Virtues to Droeshout, etc. Some of the plates
record the name of the patron who paid for them, another suggestion
that it was money which stood most in the way of book-illustrating. In
1638 Marshall illustrated Quarles's _Hieroglyphikes of the Life of Man_,
with engravings, most of which seem chiefly made up of a candle, but in
one the candle is being extinguished by Death egged on by Time, and to
this not very promising subject (Plate XXXVIII) Marshall, the most
unequal engraver of his day, has brought some of his too rare touches of
delicacy and charm. In 1640 Wenceslaus Hollar, whom Thomas Earl of
Arundel had discovered at Cologne (he was born at Prague) and brought to
England, published his charming costume book _Ornatus Muliebris
Anglicanus_, and his larger work, _Theatrum Mulierum_, must have been
almost ready when Charles I hoisted his standard at Nottingham, since it
was published in 1643. After this the Civil War interfered for some time
with the book trade.
While fully illustrated books were thus far from numerous in the half
century which followed the _Orlando Furioso_ of 1591, the output of
engraved titlepages and portraits to be prefixed to books was sufficient
to find work for most of the minor engravers. The earlier titlepages
were mostly architectural and symbolical, their purport being sometimes
explained in verses printed opposite to them, headed "The Mind of the
Front." William Rogers engraved a titlepage to Gerard's _Herbal_ (1597),
which is never found properly printed, and others to Linschoten's
_Discourse of Voyages into y^e East and West Indies_ (1598), Camden's
_Britannia_ (1600--a poor piece of work), and Moffett's _Theatrum
Insectorum_, this last having only survived in a copy pasted at the head
of the author's manuscript at the British Museum. William Hole did an
enlarged title for Camden's _Britannia_ (1607), titles for the different
sections of Chapman's _Homer_, a portrait of John Florio for the
Italian-English dictionary which he was pleased to call _Queen Anna's
New World of Words_, a charming titlepage to a collection of virginal
music known as _Parthenia_ (1611-12), another to Browne's _Britannia's
Pastorals_, and much less happy ones to Drayton's _Polyolbion_ (1612),
and the _Works_ of Ben Jonson (1616).
The best-known titlepages engraved by Renold Elstracke are those to
Raleigh's _History of the World_ (1614) and the _Workes of the Most High
and Mightie Prince James_ (1616), the latter a good piece of work which
when faced, as it should be, by the portrait of the king by Simon van de
Passe, makes the most decorative opening to any English book of this
period. Passe himself was responsible for the very imaginative engraved
title to Bacon's _Novum Organum_ (1620), a sea on which ships are
sailing and rising out of it two pillars with the inscription: "Multi
pertransibunt et augebitur scientia" (Many shall run to and fro, and
knowledge shall be increased). His son William, besides his work on the
_Her[omega]ologia_, already mentioned, engraved a complicated title for
Chapman's version of _The Batrachomyomachia_ or Battle of the Frogs and
Mice, humorously called _The Crowne of all Homer's Worckes_.
After 1620 the old architectural and symbolical titlepages began to be
replaced by titles in compartments, in which a central cartouche is
surrounded by little squares, each representing some incident of the
book. Portraits of the author remained much in request, and nearly a
hundred of these were done by William Marshall, who was employed also on
about as many engraved titlepages. As has been noted, his work was
strangely uneven, and he fully deserved the scorn poured on him by
Milton for the wretched caricature of the poet prefixed to the _Poems_
of 1645. Yet Marshall could at times do a good plate, as, for instance,
that in Quarles's _Hieroglyphikes_ already mentioned, a portrait of
Bacon prefixed to the 1640 Oxford edition of his _Advancement of
Learning_ and the charming frontispiece to Brathwait's _Arcadian
Princess_. Marshall at his worst fell only a little below the work of
Thomas Cross; at his best he rivalled or excelled the good work of
Thomas Cecill and George Glover.
After Cromwell's strong hand had given England some kind of settled
government the book market revived, and some ambitiously illustrated
books were soon being published. The too versatile John Ogilby,
dancing-master, poet, and publisher, appeared early in the field, his
version of the Fables of Aesop, "adorned with sculpture," being printed
by T. Warren for A. Crook in 1651. The next year came Benlowe's
_Theophila, or Love's Sacrifice_, a mystical poem, some copies of which
have as many as thirty-six plates by various hands, with much more
etching than engraving in them. In 1654 Ogilby produced his translation
of Virgil, a great folio with plates dedicated to noble patrons by
Pierre Lambart. Ogilby's other important ventures were the large
_Odyssey_ of 1665, and the Aesop's _Fables_ of the same year, with
plates by Hollar, D. Stoop, and F. Barlow, and two portraits of the
translator engraved respectively by Pierre Lambert and W. Faithorne.
Faithorne embellished other books of this period, e.g. the Poems of the
"Matchless Orinda" (1667), with portraits, and publishers who could not
afford to pay Faithorne employed R. White. The presence of a portrait by
White in a copy of the first edition of Bunyan's _Pilgrim's Progress_,
to which it was very far indeed from certain that it really
belonged,[69] has once made the book sell for over £1400, but save for
the sake of completeness his handiwork is not greatly prized by
collectors, nor is there any English illustrated book of this period
after the Restoration which is much sought after for the sake of its
plates, although those of Ogilby's _Virgil_ were sufficiently well
thought of to be used again for Dryden's version in 1697.
Meanwhile, books with illustrations _en taille douce_ were being issued
in some numbers both at Paris and at Amsterdam. In the former city
François Chauveau (1613-76), in the latter Jan and Casper Luyken are
credited by Mr. Hind (_A Short History of Engraving and Etching_, 1908)
with having produced "hosts of small and undistinguished plates," and
these damning epithets explain how it is that even patriotic French
collectors like Eugène Paillet and Henri Béraldi thought it wise to
leave the illustrated books of the seventeenth century severely alone.
We meet the first advance guard of the brilliant French eighteenth
century school of book-illustration in 1718, when a pretty little
edition of _Les Amours de Daphnis et Chloé_ (as translated by Bishop
Amyot from the Greek of Longus) made its appearance with twenty-eight
plates by Benoît Audran, after the designs of no less a person than the
Regent of France, and duly labelled and dated "Philippus in. et pinx.
1714." The plates vary very much in charm, but that with the underline
_Chloé sauve Daphnis par le son de sa flûte_ certainly possesses it, and
one of the double-plates in the book, _Daphnis prend ses oyseaux pendant
l'Hyver pour voir Chloé_, is really pretty. We find no other book to vie
with this until we come to a much larger and more pretentious one, the
works of Molière in six volumes, royal quarto, published in 1734. This
was illustrated with thirty-three plates, in the mixture of etching and
engraving characteristic of the French school of the day, by Laurent
Cars, after pencil drawings by François Boucher, and by nearly two
hundred vignettes and tailpieces (not all different) after Boucher and
others by Cars and François Joullain. Another edition of this in four
volumes with Boucher's designs reproduced on a smaller scale was
published in 1741 and reprinted three times within the decade.
After the Molière, books and editions which collectors take count of
come much more quickly. There was an edition of Montesquieu's _Le Temple
de Gnide_ in 1742 (imprint: Londres), a _Virgil_ in 1743 with plates by
Cochin, engraved by Cochin père, the _Contes_ of La Fontaine (Amsterdam,
1743-5) also illustrated by Cochin, Guer's _Moeurs et usages des Turcs_,
with plates after Boucher (1746), an edition of the works of Boileau in
five volumes, with vignettes by Eisen and tailpieces by Cochin (1743-5),
and in 1753 a _Manon Lescaut_ (imprint: Amsterdam) with some plates by
J. J. Pasquier, which are stiff, and others by H. Gravelot, which are
feeble.
In the four-volume edition of the _Fables_ of La Fontaine (1755-9) with
illustrations after J. B. Oudry, we come to a very ambitious piece of
work, handsomely carried out, which a book-lover may yet find it hard to
admire. Oudry's designs are always adequate, and have more virility in
them than is often found in the work of this school, and they are
competently interpreted by a number of etchers and engravers, some of
whom, it may be noted, worked together in pairs on the same plate, so
that we find such signatures as "C. Cochin aqua forti, R. Gaillard cælo
sculpsit," and "Gravé à l'eau forte par C. Cochin, terminé au burin par
P. Chenu"--a very explicit statement of the method of work. But adequate
as the plates may seem, if they are judged not as book-illustrations but
as engravings, no one could rate them high, and as a book what is to be
said of an edition of La Fontaine's _Fables_, which fills four volumes,
each measuring nearly nineteen inches by thirteen? The bookman can only
regard such a work as a portfolio of plates with accompanying text, and
if the plates as plates are only second rate, enthusiasm has nothing to
build on.
We return to book-form in 1757, when Boccaccio's _Decamerone_ was
published in Italian (imprint: Londra) in five octavo volumes, with
charming vignettes and illustrations mostly by Gravelot, although a few
are by Boucher and Eisen. Gravelot, who was more industrious than
successful as an illustrator, is seen here to advantage, and deserves
some credit for having made his designs not less but more reticent than
the stories he had to illustrate. This praise can certainly not be given
to the famous 1762 edition of the _Contes_ of La Fontaine, the cost of
which was borne by the Fermiers-Généraux (imprint: Amsterdam). The
_fleurons_ by Choffard are throughout delightful and the plates are
brilliantly engraved, but the lubricity of Eisen's designs is wearisome
in the first volume and disgusting in the second, and possessors of the
book are not to be envied. It is to be regretted that the next book we
have to notice, the _Contes Moraux_ of Marmontel (3 vols., 1765), has
very little charm to support its morality, the plates after Gravelot
being poor, while the head- and tailpieces, or rather the substitutes
for them, are wretched. A much better book than either of these last is
the edition in French and Latin of Ovid's _Metamorphoses_ in four quarto
volumes (1767-71); with plates after Boucher, Eisen, Gravelot, and
Moreau, and headpieces by Choffard at the beginning of each book. The
imprint, "A Paris, chez Leclerc, Quai des Augustins, avec approbation et
privilège du Roi," prepares us to find that the designers have kept
their licence within bounds, and many of the plates have a combined
humour and charm which are very attractive. If I had to choose a single
plate to show Gravelot at his best, I doubt if prolonged search would
find any success more complete than that of the illustration to Book I,
xi., _Deucalion et Pyrrha repeuplant la Terre, suivant l'Oracle de
Themis_ (see the frontispiece to this volume, Plate I), and though Eisen
was a much better artist than Gravelot, his _Apollon gardant les
troupeaux d'Admet, dans les campagnes de Messene_ (II, x.) is certainly
one of his prettiest pieces.
[Illustration: XXXIX. PARIS, LAMBERT, 1770.
DORAT. LES BAISERS. PAGE WITH ENGRAVED HEADPIECE AFTER EISEN]
During the next few years illustrated books became the fashion, so that
in 1772 Cazotte wrote _Le diable amoureux, nouvelle d'Espagne_, with the
false imprint Naples (Paris, Lejay) and six unsigned plates, said to be
by Moreau after Marillier, on purpose to ridicule the craze for putting
illustrations into every book. In 1768 the indefatigable Gravelot had
illustrated an edition of the works of Voltaire, published at Geneva,
with forty-four designs. In 1769 _Les Saisons_, a poem by Saint Lambert,
was published at Amsterdam, with designs by Gravelot and Le Prince and
_fleurons_ by Choffard. In the same year there was published at Paris
Meunier de Queslon's _Les Graces_, with an engraved title by Moreau, a
frontispiece after Boucher, and five plates after Moreau. In 1770 came
Voltaire's _Henriade_ with ten plates and ten vignettes after Eisen, and
more highly esteemed even than this, Dorat's _Les Baisers_ (La Haye et
Paris), with a frontispiece and plate and forty-four head- and
tailpieces, all (save two) after Eisen, not easily surpassed in their
own luxurious style (see Plate XXXIX). In 1771 Gravelot, more
indefatigable than ever, supplied designs for twenty plates and numerous
head- and tailpieces for an edition of Tasso's _Gerusalemme Liberata_,
and was honoured, as Eisen had been in the Fermiers-Généraux edition of
La Fontaine's _Contes_, by his portrait being prefixed to the second
volume. In 1772 a new edition of Montesquieu's _Le Temple de Gnide_, in
which the text was engraved throughout, was illustrated with designs by
Eisen, brilliantly interpreted by Le Mire, and Imbert's _Le Jugement de
Paris_ was illustrated by Moreau, With, _fleurons_ by Choffard. In 1773
_Le Temple de Gnide_ was versified by Colardeau, and illustrated by
Monnet, and selections from Anacreon, Sappho, Bion, and Moschus by
Eisen, while Moreau and others illustrated the _Chansons_ of Laborde in
four volumes and the works of Molière in six. After this the pace
slackened, and we need no longer cling to the methods of the annalist.
Moreau illustrated Saint Lambert's _Les Saisons_ and Fromageot's
_Annales du règne de Marie Therèse_ (both in 1775), Marmontel's _Les
Incas_ (1777), the seventy-volume Voltaire (1784-9), _Paul et Virginie_
(1789), and many other works, living on to illustrate Goethe's _Werther_
in 1809; other books were adorned by Marillier, Cochin, Duplessis,
Bertaux, Desrais, Saint Quentin, Fragonard, Gérard, and Le Barbier, and
the fashion survived the Revolution and lingered on till about 1820.
We must go back now to England, where at the end of the seventeenth
century the requirements of book-illustration were neglected, partly
because of the growing taste for a neat simplicity in books, partly
because the chief English engravers all devoted themselves to mezzotint.
A few foreigners came over to supply their place, and Michael Burghers,
of Amsterdam, illustrated the fourth edition of _Paradise Lost_, a
stately folio, in 1688, with plates which enjoyed a long life and were
also imitated for smaller editions. Burghers also illustrated the Oxford
almanacs, and supplied frontispieces to the Bibles and other large books
issued by the University Press up to about 1720. Another Dutchman who
came to England not much later (in about 1690) was Michael Van der
Gucht, who worked for the booksellers, as his children did after him.
How low book-illustration had fallen in England at the beginning of the
eighteenth century may be seen by a glance at the wretched plates which
disfigure Rowe's Shakespeare in 1709, the first edition on which an
editor and an illustrator were allowed to work their wills. The year
after this Louis Du Guernier came to England, and was soon engaged in
the not too patriotic task of helping Claude Du Bosc to illustrate the
victories of Marlborough. In 1714 he and Du Bosc were less painfully,
though not very successfully, employed in making plates for Pope's _Rape
of the Lock_. Du Bosc subsequently worked on the _Religious Ceremonies
of all Nations_ (1733), an English edition of a book of Bernard
Picart's, and on plates for Rapin's _History of England_ (1743), but he
was far from being a great engraver. It is a satisfaction that the
plates to the first edition of _Robinson Crusoe_ (1719) were engraved by
two Englishmen, and not very badly. Their names are given as "Clark and
Pine," the Clark being presumably John Clark (1688-1736), who engraved
some writing-books, and the Pine, John Pine (1690-1756), who imitated
some designs by Bernard Picart to the book of Jonah in 1720, and may
have been a pupil of his at Amsterdam.
It should, perhaps, have been mentioned that two years before _Crusoe_
an English engraver, John Sturt (1658-1730), produced a Book of Common
Prayer, of which the text as well as the pictures was engraved. This is
rather a curiosity than a work of art, the frontispiece being a portrait
of George I made up of the Creed, Lord's Prayer, Ten Commandments,
Prayer for the Royal Family, and Psalm XXI. written in minute
characters, instead of lines. Sturt produced another engraved book, _The
Orthodox Communicant_, in 1721.
In 1723 William Hogarth began what might have proved a notable career as
a book-illustrator had not he soon found more profitable work. He
illustrated the Travels of Aubry de la Mottraye in 1723, Briscoe's
_Apuleius_ (1724), Cotterel's translation of _Cassandra_ (1725),
Blackwell's _Compendium of Military Discipline_ (1726), and (also in
1726) Butler's _Hudibras_, his plates to which, though grotesque enough,
show plenty of character. For some years after this he worked on
frontispieces, e.g. to Leveridge's _Songs_ (1727), Cooke's _Hesiod_
(1728), J. Miller's comedy, _The Humours of Oxford_ (1729), Theobald's
_Perseus and Andromeda_ (1730), and in 1731 to a Molière, Fielding's
_Tragedy of Tragedies_, and Mitchell's _Highland Fair_. But the success
of his set of prints on "The Harlot's Progress" diverted him from
bookwork, although many years after he contributed frontispieces to
Vols. II and IV of _Tristram Shandy_, and in 1761 a head-and tailpiece
(engraved by Grignion) to a Catalogue of the Society of Arts.
In 1733 Hubert Gravelot was invited from France by Du Bosc to help in
illustrating Picart's _Religious Ceremonies_. He illustrated Gay's
_Fables_ in 1738, Richardson's _Pamela_ in 1742, Theobald's
_Shakespeare_ in 1740, and, mainly after Hayman, Hanmer's in 1744-6.
Neither of the sets of Shakespeare plates deserves any higher praise
than that of being neat and pretty, but at least they were a whole plane
above those in Rowe's edition.
The year after Gravelot came to England, in 1733, Pine produced the
first volume of his _Horace_, engraved throughout, and with head- and
tailpieces in admirable taste. The second volume followed in 1737, and
in 1753 the first of an illustrated _Virgil_ which Pine did not live to
complete.
Besides his work on Hanmer's _Shakespeare_, Francis Hayman designed
illustrations to Moore's _Fables of the Female Sex_ (1744), which were
well engraved, some of them by Charles Grignion, a pupil of Gravelot's,
born in England (1717), but of foreign parentage. Hayman also
illustrated the _Spectator_ (1747), Newton's _Milton_ (1749-52), and
later on, with the aid of Grignion, Smollett's _Don Quixote_ (1755), and
Baskerville's edition of Congreve's _Poems_ (1761). The plates to the
earlier edition of _Don Quixote_, that of 1738, had been chiefly
engraved by Gerard van der Gucht after Vanderbank, but two are by
Hogarth.
[Illustration: XL. LONDON, T. HOPE, 1760
WALTON, COMPLEAT ANGLER W. W. RYLANDS AFTER S. WALE]
Samuel Wale (died 1786), a pupil of Hayman, was also an illustrator, and
in 1760 supplied Sir John Hawkins with fourteen drawings for his edition
of Walton's _Angler_. These were engraved by the luckless W. W. Rylands,
who was hanged for forgery in 1783, and the Walton thus produced is one
of the prettiest and least affected of the illustrated books of its day
(see Plate XL). Wale also drew designs for Wilkie's _Fables_ (1768) and
Goldsmith's _Traveller_ (1774). He also worked for the magazines which
about the middle of the century made rather a feature of engravings,
often as headpieces to music. A few of the isolated books may be named,
thus Paltock's _Peter Wilkins_ (1750) was illustrated very well by Louis
Peter Boitard, who had previously contributed numerous plates to
Spence's _Polymetis_, and in 1751 supplied a frontispiece to each of the
six books of the _Scribleriad_ by R. O. Cambridge. Another book which,
like _Peter Wilkins_, was concerned with flight, Lunardi's _Account of
the first aerial voyage in England_ (1784), has a portrait of the author
by Bartolozzi and two plates. For Baskerville's edition of the _Orlando
Furioso_ (Birmingham, 1773) recourse was had to plates by De Launay,
after Moreau and Eisen.
FOOTNOTES:
[65] "In quo precipue tractat: An amico sepe ad scribendum prouocato
ut scribat, non respondenti sit amplius scribendum."
[66] It was probably from his Horae plates that Plantin illustrated
the _rerum Sacrarum Liber_ of Laur. Gambara in 1577. They are printed
with the text and are of average merit.
[67] They were bought to accompany the fine set of De Bry collected
by Mr. Grenville, but have since been transferred to the Department
of Prints and Drawings.
[68] Contributed to the work by Sir Sidney Colvin, _Early Engravers
and Engraving in England_, already quoted.
[69] This was an early proof of the portrait which is found in a
slightly different state in copies of the third edition, and seemed
to be an insertion in the first edition rather than an integral part
of it.
CHAPTER XVI
MODERN FINE PRINTING
After the Restoration, printing and the book trade generally in England
became definitely modern in their character, and the printer practically
disappears from view, his work, with here and there an exception, as in
the case of Robert Foulis or John Baskerville, being altogether hidden
behind that of the publisher, so that it is of Herringman and Bernard
Lintott and Dodsley that we hear, not of Newcomb and Roycroft.
Notwithstanding this decline in the printer's importance, there was a
steady improvement in English printing. As an _art_ it had ceased at
this time to exist. If a publisher wished to make a book beautiful he
put in plates. If he wanted to make it more beautiful he put in more or
larger plates. If he wanted to make it a real triumph of beauty he
engraved the whole book, letterpress and all, as in the case of Sturt's
Prayer Books and Pine's _Horace_. That a printer by the selection and
arrangement of type, by good presswork and the use of pretty capitals
and tailpieces, could make a book charming to eye and hand, without any
help from an illustrator--such an idea as this had nearly perished.
There was little loss in this, since if any artistic work had been
attempted it would assuredly have been bad, whereas the craftsmen, when
set to do quite plain work, gradually learnt to do it in a more
workmanlike way. In this they were helped by certain improvements in
printing which rendered the task of the pressman less laborious. In the
middle of the seventeenth century William Blaew, of Amsterdam, invented
an improved press, "fabricated nine of these new fashioned presses, set
them all on a row in his Printing House and called each Press by the
name of one of the Muses." Clearly Blaew was an enthusiast. His
chronicler, Joseph Moxon, was a fairly good English printer, and his
description of the equipment of a printing house in the second part of
his _Mechanick Exercises_ (1683) contains much information still
interesting. We gather from Moxon that Blaew's improvements were slowly
copied in England, and we know that the English printers still continued
to buy their best founts from Holland. Thus when Bishop Fell, about
1670, was equipping the University Press at Oxford with better type, he
employed an agent in Holland to purchase founts for him. English founts
of which we have any reason to be proud date from the appearance about
1716 of William Caslon, who established a firm of type founders which
has enjoyed a long and deservedly prosperous career.
The next move came from the north. Robert Foulis (the name was
originally spelt Faulls), born in 1707, the son of a Glasgow maltster,
had been originally apprenticed to a barber. He was, however, a man of
bookish tastes, and, when already over thirty years of age, was advised
to set up in business as a printer and bookseller. With his brother
Andrew, five years younger than himself and educated for the ministry,
he went on a book-buying tour on the Continent, and on his return
started book-selling in 1741, and printed in that year Dr. William
Leechman's _Temper, Character, and Duty of a Minister of the Gospel_,
and four other books, including a Phaedrus and a volume of Cicero. In
March, 1743, he was appointed Printer to the University of Glasgow, and
his edition of _Demetrius Phalerus de Elocutione_ in Greek and Latin was
the first example of Greek printing produced at Glasgow. A _Horace_
which was hung up in proof in the University, with the offer of a reward
for every misprint detected (in spite of which six remained), followed
in 1744, an _Iliad_ in 1747, an edition of _Hardyknute_ in 1748, and a
_Cicero_ in 1749. In 1750 as many as thirty works were printed at the
Foulis press. The next two years were mainly spent in touring on the
Continent, and on his return Robert Foulis unhappily started an Academy
of Art at Glasgow, which he had neither the knowledge nor the taste to
direct successfully, and which sapped his energies without producing any
valuable results. An edition of the Greek text of Callimachus in 1755
was rewarded by an Edinburgh society with a gold medal, and other Greek
and Latin texts followed, including the _Iliad_ in 1756, _Anacreon_ in
1757, _Virgil_ and the _Odyssey_ in 1758, and _Herodotus_ in 1761. Among
the more notable later books of the firm were an edition of Gray's
_Poems_ in 1768, and a _Paradise Lost_ in 1770. The younger brother died
in 1775, and Robert, after a mortifying experience in London, where he
sold the "old masters" he had bought as models for his Academy for less
than a pound over the expenses incurred in the sale, followed him the
next year. The two brothers had raised printing at Glasgow from
insignificance to an excellence which equalled, and perhaps surpassed,
the standard attained at London, Oxford or Cambridge, or, indeed, for
the moment, anywhere in Europe. This was no small achievement, and their
compatriots and fellow citizens may well show them honour. But they were
content to work according to the best standards set by other men without
making any positive advance upon them or showing any originality. They
avoided the snare of bad ornaments by using none; their Greek types were
modelled on the French royal types associated with the name of the
Étiennes; their roman types exhibit no special excellence. Historically,
their chief importance is that they proved that care and enthusiasm for
fine printing was re-awakening, and that printers with high ideals would
not lack support.
Meanwhile, in the English Midlands an interesting and creditable, though
wrong-headed, attempt to improve on existing founts had been made by
John Baskerville, a Worcestershire man, born in 1706, who worked at
Birmingham, and in 1757 printed there in his own types a quarto edition
of _Virgil_ which attracted considerable notice. The merit of
Baskerville's type is its distinctness; its fault is the reappearance in
a slightly different form of the old heresy of Aldus, that what is good,
or is thought to be good, in penmanship must necessarily be good in
type. In imitation of the Writing-Masters Baskerville delighted in
making his upstrokes very thin and his downstrokes thick, and his
serifs--that is, all the little finishing strokes of the letters--sharp
and fine. It is probable that his ideals were influenced in this
direction by books like Pine's _Horace_ (1733-7), in which, as already
noted, the letterpress as well as the illustrations and ornament is
engraved throughout. These contrasts of light and heavy lines would
naturally please an engraver; but they have no advantage when
transferred to type, only making the page appear restless and spotty.
Contemporary opinion in England was no more than lukewarm in their
favour. The _Virgil_ procured Baskerville a commission from the
University of Oxford to cut a Greek fount, but this was generally
condemned, though it had the merit of being free from contractions.
Editions of Milton's _Paradise Lost_ and _Paradise Regained_ (1758), and
other classics, were more successful, and Baskerville was appointed
printer to the University of Cambridge for ten years; but his profits
were small, and when he died in 1775, in default of an adequate English
offer, his types were sold to a French society for £3700, and used in
printing a famous edition of the works of Voltaire (1785-9).
The most conspicuous exponent of Baskerville's methods was an Italian,
Giovanni Battista Bodoni, born in Piedmont in 1740. Bodoni settled at
Parma, and it was at Parma that he did most of his printing. Even more
notably than Baskerville, he tried to give to the pages which he printed
the brilliancy of a fine engraving. He used good black ink (which is to
his credit), exaggerated the differences between his thick strokes and
his thin, and left wide spaces between his lines so as to let the
elegance of his type stand out as brilliantly as possible against the
white paper. The judgment of the best modern printers is against these
vivid contrasts and in favour of a more closely set page, the two pages
which face each other being regarded as an artistic whole which should
not be cut into strips by a series of broad white spaces. Bodoni's
books, which used to be highly esteemed, are now perhaps unduly
neglected, for his work in its own way, whether he used roman type,
italics, or Greek, is very good, and his editions of _Virgil_, _Homer_,
and the _Imitatio Christi_ are very striking books, though built on
wrong lines. Bodoni died at Padua in 1813.
While the names of Caslon, the brothers Foulis, and Baskerville in Great
Britain, and of Bodoni in Italy, stand out from amid their
contemporaries, the premier place in French book-production was occupied
by members of the Didot family. The first of these was François Didot
(1689-1757); his eldest son, François Ambroise (1730-1804), was a fine
printer; his younger son, Pierre (1732-95), was also a typefounder and
papermaker. In the third generation Pierre's son Henri (1765-1852) was
famous for his microscopic type, while Pierre II (1760-1853), the eldest
son of François Ambroise and nephew of Pierre I, printed some fine
editions of Latin and French classics at the press at the Louvre; and
his brother Firmin Didot (1764-1836) won renown both as a typefounder
and engraver, and also as a printer and improver of the art of
stereotyping, besides being a deputy and writer of tragedies. In the
fourth generation, the two sons of Firmin Didot, Ambroise (1790-1876)
and Hyacinthe, carried on the family traditions. Incidentally, Ambroise
wrote some valuable treatises on wood-engraving and amassed an enormous
library, which, when sold at auction in 1882-4, realized nearly
£120,000.
With the names of Bodoni and the Didots we may link that of the German
publisher and printer Georg Joachim Goeschen, grandfather of the late
Viscount Goschen. He was born in 1752, died in 1828, and worked the
greater part of his life at Leipzig. He brought out pretty illustrated
editions, made experiments with Greek types, much on the same lines as
Bodoni, and devoted his life to the improvement of printing and
bookmaking and the spread of good literature, enjoying the friendship of
Schiller and other eminent German writers.
Coming back to England, we may note the beginning of the Chiswick Press
in 1789, the year of the French Revolution. Charles Whittingham was then
only twenty-two (he had been born at Coventry in 1767), and for his
first years as his own master he was content to print hand-bills and do
any other jobbing work that he could get. He began issuing illustrated
books in 1797, and after a time the care he took in making ready
wood-blocks (the use of which had been revived by Bewick) for printing
gained him a special reputation. From about 1811 to his death in 1840 he
left one branch of his business in the city under the charge of a
partner, while he himself lived and worked at Chiswick, whence the name
the Chiswick Press by which the firm is still best known.
His nephew, Charles Whittingham the younger, was born in 1795, was
apprenticed to his uncle in 1810 and worked with him until 1828. Then he
set up for himself at Tooks Court off Chancery Lane, and came rapidly to
the front, largely from the work which he did for William Pickering, a
well-known publisher of those days.
On his uncle's death in 1840 the younger Whittingham inherited the
Chiswick business also. Four years after this, in 1844, he led the way
in the revival of old-faced types. The examples of Baskerville at home
and of Bodoni and other printers abroad had not been without effect on
English printing. Brilliancy had been sought at all costs, and in the
attempt to combine economy with it the height of letters had been
increased and their breadth diminished so that, while they looked
larger, more of them could be crowded into a line. The younger
Whittingham had the good taste to see that the rounder, more evenly
tinted type, which Caslon had made before these influences had come into
play, was much pleasanter to look at and less trying to the eyes. He
was already thinking of reviving it when he was commissioned by Longmans
to print a work of fiction, _So much of the Diary of Lady Willoughby as
relates to her Domestic History and to the Eventful Period of the Reign
of Charles the First_, and it occurred to him that the use of old-faced
type would be especially in keeping with such a book. A handsome small
quarto was the result, and the revival of old-faced type proved a great
success.
Not content with reviving old type, the younger Whittingham revived also
the use of ornamental initials, causing numerous copies to be cut for
him from the initials used in French books of the sixteenth century.
Some of these are good, some almost bad, or while good in themselves,
suitable only for use with black-letter founts and too heavy for use
with roman letter. Still the attempt was in the right direction, and the
books of this period with the imprint of the Chiswick Press are worth
the attention of collectors interested in the modern developments of
printing. During the succeeding forty years there is little by which
they are likely to be attracted save the issues of the private press
kept and worked by the Rev. C. H. O. Daniel of Worcester College,
Oxford, of which he is now Provost. While he was yet a lad Mr. Daniel
had amused himself with printing, and a thin duodecimo is still extant
entitled _Sir Richard's Daughter, A Christmas Tale of Olden Times_,
bearing the imprint "Excudebat H. Daniel: Trinity Parsonage, Frome,
1852." In 1874 Mr. Daniel resumed his old hobby at Oxford, printing
_Notes from a catalogue of pamphlets in Worcester College Library_, and
in 1876 _A new Sermon of the newest Fashion by Ananias Snip_, of which
the original is preserved in the library of Worcester College. It was,
however, in 1881, by an edition of thirty-six copies of _The Garland of
Rachel_ "by divers kindly hands," that the Daniel Press won its renown.
Rachel was Mr. Daniel's little daughter, and the eighteen contributors
to her "Garland" included Frederick Locker, Robert Bridges, Austin
Dobson, Andrew Lang, Edmund Gosse, John Addington Symonds, Lewis Carrol,
W. Henley, and Margaret Woods. Each poet was rewarded by a copy in which
his name was printed on the titlepage, and the "Garland" soon came to be
regarded as a very desirable possession. Mr. Daniel subsequently printed
numerous little books by interesting writers (Robert Bridges, Walter
Pater, Canon Dixon, and others), and while neither his types nor his
presswork were exceptionally good, succeeded in investing them all with
a charming appropriateness which gives them a special place of their own
in the affections of book-lovers.
Another venture in which a high literary standard was combined with much
care for typography was _The Hobby-Horse_, a quarterly magazine edited
by Herbert P. Horne and Selwyn Image between 1886 and 1892, after which
it appeared fitfully and flickered out. The change in the type, the
setting it close instead of spaced, and the new initials and tailpieces
which may be noted at the beginning of Vol. III (1888), constituted a
landmark in the history of modern printing of an importance similar to
that of the return to old-faced type in _Lady Willoughby's Diary_. The
progress of the movement can be followed (i) in the catalogue of the
Exhibition of Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society, held at the New
Gallery in the autumn of 1888, with an article on printing by Mr. Emery
Walker; (ii) in three books by William Morris, viz. _The House of the
Wolfings_, _The Roots of the Mountains_, and the _Gunnlaug Saga_,
printed under the superintendence of the author and Mr. Walker at the
Chiswick Press in 1889 and 1890. In 1891 William Morris gave an immense
impetus to the revival of fine printing by setting up a press at No. 16
Upper Mall, Hammersmith, close to his own residence, Kelmscott House.
"It was the essence of my undertaking," he wrote subsequently, "to
produce books which it would be a pleasure to look upon as pieces of
printing and arrangement of type," and no one will be inclined to deny
that the Kelmscott Press books fulfil this aim. The gothic type, whether
in its larger or smaller size (the Troy type designed for the reprint of
Caxton's _Recuyell of the Histories of Troy_, and the Chaucer type
designed for the great _Chaucer_), will hold its own against any gothic
type of the fifteenth century. The Golden type (designed for the reprint
of Caxton's _Golden Legend_) cannot be praised as highly as this. "By
instinct rather than by conscious thinking it over," Morris confessed,
"I began by getting myself a fount of Roman type," and it is no unfair
criticism of it to say that it betrays the hand of a man whose natural
expression was in gothic letter forcing roman into yielding some of the
characteristic gothic charm. The _Golden Legend_ would have been a far
finer book if it had been printed in the Chaucer type, and the Shelley,
Keats, Herrick and other books which Morris printed in it to please F.
S. Ellis or other friends cannot stand the test of comparison with _The
Wood Beyond the World_ and the other romances which he printed entirely
to please himself. But whether he used his roman or his gothic type the
exquisite craftsmanship which he put into all his books enabled Morris
to attain his aim, and his wonderful borders and capitals crown them
with the delight which this king of designers took in his work. No other
printer since printing began has ever produced such a series of books as
the fifty-three which poured from the Kelmscott Press during those
wonderful seven years, and no book that has ever been printed can be
compared for richness of effect with the Chaucer which was the crowning
achievement of the Press.
Morris's example brought into the field a host of competitors and
plagiarists and a few workers in the same spirit. By his side throughout
his venture had stood Mr. Emery Walker, who had no small part in
starting the whole movement, whose help and advice for more than twenty
years have been freely at the service of any one who has shown any
inclination to do good work, and who, whenever good work has been
achieved, will almost always be found to have lent a hand in it. After
Morris's death Mr. Walker joined with Mr. Cobden Sanderson in producing
the Doves Press books, printed, all of them, in a single type, but that
type a fine adaptation of Jenson's and handled with a skill to which
Jenson not only never attained but never aspired. The first book printed
in it was the _Agricola_ of Tacitus, and this and Mr. Mackail's lecture
on Morris and other early books are entirely without decoration. Woodcut
capitals and borders, it was thought, had reached their highest possible
excellence under the hand of William Morris, and since not progress but
retrogression would be the certain result of any fresh experiments,
decoration of this sort must be abandoned. The reasoning was perhaps not
entirely cogent, since the decoration appropriate to the Doves type
would hardly enter into any direct competition with Morris's gothic
designs. Later on, however, it was more than justified by the use in the
_Paradise Lost_, the Bible, and most subsequent books (these later ones
issued by Mr. Sanderson alone) of very simple red capitals, which light
up the pages on which they occur with charming effect.
Similar capitals on a less bold scale, some in gold, others in red,
others in blue, are a conspicuous feature in the masterpieces of the
Ashendene Press belonging to Mr. St. John Hornby. This was started by
Mr. Hornby at his house in Ashendene, Herts, in 1894, and was for some
time worked by Mr. Hornby himself and his sisters, with, as at least one
colophon gratefully acknowledges, "some little help of Cicely Barclay,"
who subsequently, under a different surname, appears as a joint
proprietor. The early books--the _Journals_ of Joseph Hornby,
_Meditations_ of Marcus Aurelius, _Prologue_ to the _Canterbury Tales_,
etc.--are not conspicuously good, but in 1902, in a type founded on that
used by Sweynheym and Pannartz at Subiaco, Mr. and Mrs. Hornby produced
the first volume of an illustrated _Divina Commedia_ which cannot be
too highly praised. Its story is told in the red-printed colophon, the
wording of which is very prettily turned:
Fine della prima Cantica appellata Inferno della Commedia di Dante
poeta eccellentissimo. Impressa nella Stamperia Privata di Ashendene a
Shelley House, Chelsea, per opera e spesa di St. John & Cicely Hornby
coll' aiuto del loro cugino Meysey Turton. Le lettere iniziali sono
l'opera di Graily Hewitt, le incisioni in legno di C. Keates secondo
disegni fatti da R. Catterson Smith sopra gli originali dell' edizione
di 1491. Finita nel mese di Dicembre dell' anno del Signore MCMII, nel
quale dopo dieci secoli di bellezza cadde il gran Campanile di San
Marco dei Veneziani.
The third type happily inspired by the example of Morris was the Greek
type designed by Robert Proctor on the model of that used for the New
Testament of the Complutensian Polyglott in 1514, with the addition of
majuscules and accents, both of them lacking in the original. An edition
of the _Oresteia_ of Aeschylus in this type was being printed for Mr.
Proctor at the Chiswick Press at the time of his death, and appeared in
1904. In 1908 it was followed by an edition of the _Odyssey_ printed at
the Clarendon Press. Like Morris's gothic founts, this Greek type may or
may not be admired, but that it attains the effects at which it aims can
hardly be denied. No page of such richness had ever before been set up
by any printer of Greek.
To write of books printed in types which for one reason or another seem
less successful than those already named is a less grateful task, but
there are several designers and printers whose work approaches
excellence, and who worked independently of Morris, though with less
sure touch. Foremost among these must be placed Mr. Charles
Ricketts,[70] whose Vale type, despite a few blemishes, is not very far
behind the Golden type of the Kelmscott Press, and whose ornament at its
best is graceful, and that with a lighter and gayer grace than Morris's,
though it cannot compare with his for dignity or richness of effect. In
a later type, called the Kinge's Fount from its use in an edition of
_The Kinges Quair_ (1903), Mr. Ricketts's good genius deserted him, for
the mixture of majuscule and minuscule forms is most unpleasing.
The Eragny books printed by Esther and Lucien Pissarro on their press at
Epping, Bedford Park, and the Brook, Chiswick, were at first (1894-1903,
Nos. 1-16) printed by Mr. Ricketts's permission in the Vale type. In
June, 1903, a "Brook" fount designed by Mr. Pissarro was completed, and
_A Brief Account of the Origin of the Eragny Press_ printed in it. Mr.
Pissarro's books are chiefly notable for their woodcuts, which are of
very varying merit.
In the United States, in addition to some merely impudent plagiarisms,
several excellent efforts after improved printing were inspired by the
English movement of which Morris was the most prominent figure. Mr.
Clarke Conwell at the Elston Press, Pelham Road, New Rochelle, New York,
printed very well, both in roman and black letter, his edition of the
_Tale of Gamelyn_ (1901) in the latter type being a charming little
book. Mr. Berkeley Updike of the Merrymount Press, Boston, and Mr. Bruce
Rogers during his connection with the Riverside Press, Boston, have also
both done excellent work, which is too little known in this country. The
artistic printing which Mr. Rogers did while working for the Riverside
Press is especially notable because of the rich variety of types and
styles in which excellence was attained.
FOOTNOTE:
[70] Like Proctor, Mr. Ricketts had no press of his own. His books were
printed for him by Messrs. Ballantyne.
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
GENERAL WORKS
FERGUSON, J. _Some Aspects of Bibliography._ Edinburgh, 1900.
PEDDIE, R. A. _A List of Bibliographical Books published since the
foundation of the Bibliographical Society in 1893_ (_Bib. Soc.
Transactions_, vol. x., pp. 235-311). London, 1910.
* * * * *
BIGMORE and WYMAN. _A Bibliography of Printing._ With notes and
illustrations, 2 vols. London, 1880.
REED, T. B. _A List of Books and Papers on Printers and Printing under
the Countries and Towns to which they refer._ (Bibliographical
Society.) London, 1895.
* * * * *
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY. _Transactions._ London, 1893, etc.
EDINBURGH BIBLIOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY. _Transactions._ Edinburgh, 1896,
etc.
* * * * *
_Le Bibliographe Moderne._ Paris, 1897, etc.
_Bibliographica._ 3 vols. London, 1895-7.
_Centrallblatt für Bibliothekswesen._ Leipzig, 1888, etc.
_The Library._ London, 1889, etc.
* * * * *
_Zeitschrift für Bücherfreunde._ Bielefeld, 1897, etc.
BRUNET, J. C. _Dictionnaire de Géographie ancienne et moderne à
l'usage du libraire et de l'amateur de livre. Par un Bibliophile._
Paris, 1870.
With notes on the introduction of printing into the places named.
CRANE, W. _Of the Decorative Illustration of Books Old and New._
Second edition. London, 1901.
DUFF, E. G. _Early Printed Books._ (_Books about Books._) London,
1893. 8vo.
HUMPHREYS, H. N. _Masterpieces of the Early Printers and Engravers_:
Series of facsimiles from rare and curious books, remarkable for
illustrative devices, beautiful borders, decorative initials,
printers' marks, and elaborate titlepages. Fol. London, 1870.
KRISTELLER, P. _Kupferstich und Holzschnitt in vier Jahrhunderten._
4to. Berlin, 1905.
LANG, A. _The Library._ With a chapter on modern English illustrated
books by Austin Dobson, London, 1881.
---- Second edition. London, 1892.
LIPPMANN, F. _Druckschriften des xv. bis xviii. Jahrhunderts in
getreuen Nachbildungen herausgegeben von der Direction der
Reichsdruckerei unter Mitwirkung von Dr. F. Lippmann and Dr. R.
Dohme._ Fol. Berlin, 1884-7.
MORGAN, J. P. _Catalogue of Early Printed Books from the libraries of
William Morris, Richard Bennett, etc., now forming portion of the
library of J. P. Morgan._ [By S. Aldrich, E. G. Duff, A. W. Pollard,
R. Proctor.] 3 vols. Large 4to. London, 1907.
With many facsimiles.
ROUVEYRE, E. _Connaissances nécessaires à un bibliophile._ 10 vols.
Paris, 1899.
I.--COLLECTORS AND COLLECTING
ELTON, C. I. and M. A. _The Great Book Collectors._ London, 1893.
FLETCHER, W. Y. _English Book-Collectors._ London, 1902.
QUARITCH, B. _Contributions towards a Dictionary of English Book
Collectors._ London, 1892-9.
DAVENPORT, C. _English Heraldic Book-Stamps._ London, 1909.
With biographical notes.
GUIGARD, J. _Nouvel Armorial du Bibliophile. Guide de l'amateur des
livres armoriés._ 2 tom. Paris, 1890.
With biographical notices of many French collectors.
* * * * *
_Book Prices Current._ London, 1893, etc.
_American Book Prices Current._ New York, 1895, etc.
LIVINGSTON, L. S. _Auction Prices of Books._ 1886-1904. 4 vols. New
York, 1905.
LAWLER, J. _Book Auctions in England in the Seventeenth Century._
London, 1898.
ROBERTS, W. _Catalogues of English Book Sales._ London, 1900.
---- _Rare Books and their Prices._ London, 1896.
WHEATLEY, H. B. _Prices of Books_: An inquiry into the changes in the
price of books which have occurred in England at different periods.
London, 1898.
* * * * *
BRUNET, J. C. _Manuel du libraire et de l'amateur de livres, contenant
1^o un nouveau dictionnaire bibliographique_, etc. Cinquième Édition.
6 vols. Paris, 1860-5.
GRAESSE, J. G. T. _Trésor de livres rares et précieux: ou Nouveau
Dictionnaire bibliographique._ 7 vols. Dresde, 1859-69.
These two books mark the close of the fashion of General Collecting.
II.--BLOCK-BOOKS
SOTHEBY, S. L. _Principia typographica._ The block-books issued in
Holland, Flanders, and Germany during the fifteenth century, etc. 3
vols. Fol. London, 1858.
SCHREIBER, W. L. _Livres xylographiques et xylo-chirographiques.
Fac-similés des livres xylographiques._ (_Manuel de l'amateur de la
gravure sur bois et sur métal au xv^e siècle_, tomes 4, 7, 8.) 8vo and
fol. Leipzig, 1895, 1900, 1902.
PILINSKI, A. _Monuments de la xylographie ... reproduits en fac-similé
sur les exemplaires de la Bibliothèque Nationale, précédés des notices
par Gustave Pawlowski._ Fol. Paris, 1882-3.
1. Apocalypse. 4. Ars Moriendi.
2. Bible des Pauvres. 5. Oraison Dominicale.
3. Ars Memorandi. 6. Cantica Canticorum.
BIBLIA PAUPERUM. _Biblia pauperum. Nach dem Einzigen in 50
Darstellungen herausgegeben von P. Heitz, W. L. Schreiber._ 4to.
Strassburg, 1903.
CUST, L. H. _The Master E. S. and the Ars Moriendi._ 4to. Oxford,
1898.
III. AND IV.--THE INTRODUCTION OF PRINTING--HOLLAND AND MAINZ
GROLIER CLUB. _A description of the Early Printed Books owned by the
Grolier Club_, with a brief account of their printers and the history
of typography in the fifteenth century. Fol. New York, 1895.
Quotes numerous early references to the invention of printing, and
gives some facsimiles.
ENSCHEDÉ, C. _Laurens Jansz. Coster de uitvinder van de
boekdrukkunst._ Haarlem, 1904.
---- _Technisch onderzoek naar de uitvinding van de boekdrukkunst._
Haarlem, 1901.
HESSELS, J. H. _Gutenberg: Was He the Inventor of Printing?_ London,
1882.
---- _Haarlem the Birthplace of Printing, not Mentz._ London, 1887.
---- Article "Typography" in the _Encyclopædia Britannica._
GUTENBERG GESELLSCHAFT. _Veröffentlichungen._ Mainz, 1902, etc. 4to.
I. ZEDLER, G. _Die älteste Gutenbergtype._ 1902.
II. SCHWENKE, P. _Die Donat- und Kalendertype._ 1903.
III. _Das Mainzer Fragment vom Weltgericht. Der Canon Missae vom
Jahre._ 1458.
IV. ZEDLER. _Das Mainzer Catholicon._
V-VI. _Das Mainzer Fragment vom Weltgericht. Die Type B^42 im
Missale von 1493. Die Missaldrucke P. und Joh. Schöffers. Die
Bucheranzeigen P. Schöffers._
VIII-IX. SEYMOUR DE RICCI. _Catalogue raisonné des premières
impressions de Mayence_ (1445-67).
DZIATZKO, C. _Was wissen wir von dem Leben und der Person Joh.
Gutenbergs?_ [1895.]
---- _Gutenberg's früheste Druckerpraxis auf Grund einer ...
Vergleichung des 42-zeiligen und 36-zeilgen Bibel._ (Sammlung, No. 4.)
1890.
HESSELS, J. H. _Gutenberg: Was He the Inventor of Printing?_ London,
1882.
---- _The So-called Gutenberg Documents._ (Reprinted from _The
Library._) London, 1912.
V.--OTHER INCUNABULA
PANZER, G. W. _Annales Typographici ab artis inventæ origine ad annum
MD._ (_ad annum MDXXXVI_). 11 vols. 4to. Norimbergæ, 1793-1803.
HAIN, L. _Repertorium Bibliographicum, in quo libri omnes ab arte
typographica inventa usque ad annum MD. typis expressi ordine
alphabetico vel simpliciter enumerantur vel adcuratius recensentur._
Stuttgartiæ et Tubingæ, 1826.
---- _Indices uberrimi operâ C. Burger._ Lipsiæ, 1891.
COPINGER, W. A. _Supplement to Hain's Repertorium Bibliographicum._
(Index by Konrad Burger.) 3 vols. London, 1895-1902.
REICHLING, D. _Appendices ad Hainii Copingeri Repertorium
Bibliographicum. Additiones et emendationes._ 7 pt. Monachii, 1905-11.
PELLECHET, M. L. C. _Catalogue général des Incunables des
bibliothèques publiques de France._ [Continued by M. L. Polain.] Vols.
i.-iii. Paris, 1897, etc.
PROCTOR, R. _An Index to the Early Printed Books in the British
Museum, with notes of those in the Bodleian Library, Oxford._ 2 vols.
London, 1898.
BRITISH MUSEUM. _Catalogue of Books Printed in the Fifteenth Century,
now in the British Museum._ Vols. i-ii. [Block-books and Germany,
Mainz-Trier.] 4to. London, 1908, etc.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. ANNMARY BROWN MEMORIAL. _Catalogue of Books mostly
from the Presses of the First Printers, showing the progress of
printing with movable metal types through the second half of the
Fifteenth Century._ Collected by Rush C. Hawkins. Catalogued by A. W.
Pollard. 4to. Oxford, 1910.
BURGER, K. _Monumenta Germaniae et Italiae typographica. Deutsche und
italienische Inkunabeln in getreuen Nachbildungen._ Parts 1-8. Fol.
Berlin, 1892, etc.
GESELLSCHAFT FÜR TYPENKUNDE DES 15. JAHRHUNDERTS.
_Veröffentlichungen._ Fol. Uppsala, 1907, etc.
TYPE FACSIMILE SOCIETY. _Publications._ (1900-4 edited by R. Proctor;
1904-8 by G. Dunn.) 4to. Oxford, 1900, etc.
WOOLLEY PHOTOGRAPHS. _Woolley Photographs. Photographs of fifteenth
century types of the exact size of the originals, designed to
supplement published examples, with references to Robert Proctor's
Index of Books in the British Museum and Bodleian Library._ [Edited by
George Dunn, with a list of the 500 photographs.] Fol. Woolley,
1899-1905.
HAEBLER, K. _Typenrepertorium der Wiegendrucke._ 3 vols. Leipzig,
1905, etc. 8vo.
This supplies the measurement and some guide to the characteristics
of every recorded fifteenth century type, with helps to the
identification of the printers of unsigned books by means of the
different forms of M, Qu, etc.
BERNARD, A. J. _De l'Origine et des Débuts de l'Imprimerie en Europe._
2 vols. Paris, 1853.
Valuable for its numerous references to notes and dates in individual
copies.
HAWKINS, RUSH C. _Titles of the First Books from the Earliest Presses
established in different Cities, Towns, and Monasteries in Europe,
before the end of the Fifteenth Century. With brief notes upon their
printers._ 4to. New York, 1884.
CLAUDIN, A. _Histoire de l'imprimerie en France._ Vols. i.-iii. 4to.
Paris, 1900, etc.
THIERRY-POUX, O. _Premiers monuments de l'imprimerie en France au xv^e
siècle._ [40 sheets of facsimiles.] Fol. Paris, 1890.
HOLTROP, J. W. _Monuments typographiques des Pays-Bas au quinzième
siècle._ [130 plates of facsimiles.] Fol. La Haye, 1868.
CAMPBELL, M. F. A. G. _Annales de la Typographie Néerlandaise au xv^e
siècle._ (With four supplements.) La Haye, 1874 (1878-90).
FUMAGALLI, G. _Lexicon typographicum Italiae. Dictionnaire
géographique d'Italie pour servir à l'histoire de l'imprimerie dans ce
pays._ Florence, 1905.
HAEBLER, K. _Bibliografia iberica del siglo 15._ La Haya, 1904.
---- _The Early Printers of Spain and Portugal._ [Bibliog. Soc.
Illust. Monographs, 4.] 4to. London, 1897.
---- _Typographie ibérique du xv^e siècle. Reproduction en fac-similé
de tous les caractères typographiques employés en Espagne et en
Portugal jusqu'à 1500._ Fol. La Haye, 1902.
VI.--THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE PRINTED BOOK
POLLARD, A. W. _An Essay on Colophons._ With specimens and
translations, by A. W. Pollard, and an introduction by R. Garnett
(Caxton Club). Chicago, 1905.
---- _Last Words on the History of the Titlepage._ 4to. London, 1890.
ROBERTS, W. _Printers' Marks: A Chapter in the History of Typography._
London, 1893.
BÜCHERMARKEN. _Die Büchermarken oder Buchdrucker und Verlegerzeichen._
4to. Strassburg, 1892, etc.
1. _Elsässische Büchermarken bis Anfang des 18. Jahrhunderts._
Herausgeg. von P. Heitz, 1892.
2. _Die Italienischen Buchdrucker- und Verlegerzeichen bis 1525._
Herausgeg. von P. Kristeller, 1893.
3. _Die Basler Büchermarken bis Anfang des 17. Jahrhunderts._
Herausgeg. von P. Heitz, 1895.
4. _Die Frankfurter Drucker und Verlegerzeichen bis Anfang des 17.
Jahrhunderts._ Herausgeg. von P. Heitz, 1896.
5. _Spanische und Portugiesische Bücherzeichen des xv. und xvi.
Jahrhunderts._ Herausgeg. von. K. K. Haebler, 1898.
6. _Kölner Büchermarken bis zum Anfang des xvii. Jahrhunderts._
Herausgeg. von Dr. Zaretzky, 1898.
7. _Genfer Buchdrucker, und Verlegerzeichen von xv. xvi. und xvii.
Jahrhundert._ Von P. Heitz, 1908.
SILVESTRE, L. C. _Marques typographiques, ou recueil des monogrammes
... des libraires et imprimeurs en France, depuis l'introduction de
l'imprimerie jusqu'à la fin du xv^e siècle._ Paris, 1853-67.
JENNINGS, O. _Early Woodcut Initials._ London, 1908.
VII.--EARLY GERMAN AND DUTCH ILLUSTRATED BOOKS
DODGSON, C. _Catalogue of early German and Flemish woodcuts preserved
in the Department of Prints and Drawings in the British Museum._ Vols.
i.-ii. London, 1903, 1911.
MUTHER, R. _Die deutsche Bücherillustration der Gothik und
Frührenaissance (1460-1530)._ 2 Bde. 4to. München, 1884.
SCHREIBER, W. L. _Catalogue des incunables à figures imprimés en
Allemagne, en Suisse en Autriche-Hongrie et en Scandinavie, avec des
notes critiques et bibliographiques._ (_Manuel de l'amateur de la
gravure sur bois et sur métal au xv^e siècle_, tom. 5 & 6.) Leipzig,
1910.
COCKERELL, S. C. _Some German Woodcuts of the Fifteenth Century._ 4to.
Hammersmith, 1897.
CONWAY, Sir W. M. _The Woodcutters of the Netherlands in the Fifteenth
Century._ Cambridge, 1884.
VIII.--EARLY ITALIAN ILLUSTRATED BOOKS
LIPPMANN, F. _The Art of Wood-Engraving in Italy in the Fifteenth
Century._ London, 1888.
POLLARD, A. W. _Italian Book-Illustrations, chiefly of the Fifteenth
Century._ (Portfolio monographs, 12.) London, 1894.
KRISTELLER, P. _Early Florentine Woodcuts._ With an annotated list of
Florentine illustrated books. London, 1897.
ESSLING, PRINCE D'. _Les Missels imprimés à Venise de 1481 à 1600.
Description, illustration, bibliographie. Ouvrage orné de planches sur
cuivre et de 250 gravures._ Fol. Paris, 1894.
---- _Études sur l'art de la gravure sur bois à Venise. Les livres à
figures vénitiens de la fin du 15^e siècle et du commencement du
16^e._ Fol. Paris, 1907, etc.
IX.--EARLY FRENCH AND SPANISH ILLUSTRATED BOOKS
MURRAY, C. F. _Catalogue of a collection of early French Books in the
library of C. Fairfax Murray._ Compiled by H. W. Davies. 4to. London,
1910.
VINDEL, P. _Bibliografia grafica_: Reproduccion en facsimil de
portadas, retratos, colofones y otras curiosidades útiles á los
bibliófilos, que se hallan en obras únicas y libros preciosos ó raros.
2 tom. Madrid, 1910.
1224 facsimiles of titlepages, illustrations, etc., of Spanish books,
unfortunately neither well selected, nor well arranged, but still
useful.
X.--LATER FOREIGN BOOKS
PROCTOR, R. _An index to the Early Printed Books in the British
Museum. Part II._ 1501-20. Germany. London, 1903.
NIJHOFF, W. _Bibliographie de la typographie néerlandaise des années
1500 à 1540._ La Haye, 1901, etc.
---- _L'art typographique dans les Pays-Bas, 1500-1540_: Reproduction
en fac-similé des caractères, typographiques, des marques
d'imprimeurs, etc. Fol. La Haye, 1902, etc.
RENOUARD, A. A. _Annales de l'imprimerie des Aldes, ou histoire des
trois Manuces, et de leurs éditions. Troisième édition, avec notes de
la famille des Juntes, etc._ 3 vols. Paris, 1834.
---- _Annales de l'imprimerie des Estiennes ou histoire de la famille
des Estiennes et de ses éditions._ 2^e édition. Paris, 1843.
ROOSES, MAX. _Christopher Plantin, imprimeur anversois. Biographie et
documents._ 2^e édition. Fol. Anvers, 1896.
WILLEMS, A. _Les Elzevier. Histoire et annales typographiques._
Bruxelles, etc., 1880.
GOLDSMID, E. M. _Bibliotheca curiosa._ A complete catalogue of all the
publications of the Elzevir presses. Edinburgh, 1888.
XI.--SIXTEENTH CENTURY ILLUSTRATIONS
*** Many of the books entered under VII, VIII, and IX relate also to
this period.
BUTSCH, A. F. _Die Bücherornamentik der Renaissance, eine Auswahl
stylvoller Titeleinfassungen, Initialen, Leisten, Vignetten und
Druckerzeichen hervoragender italienischer, deutscher, und
französischer Officinen aus der Zeit der Frührenaissance._ 4to.
Leipzig, 1878.
XII.--ENGLISH PRINTING, 1476-1580
HAZLITT, W. C. _Handbook to the Popular, Poetical and Dramatic
Literature of Great Britain, from the Invention of Printing to the
Restoration._ London, 1867.
HAZLITT, W. C. _Collections and Notes._ Three series with supplements.
London, 1876-89.
---- _A General Index to Hazlitt's Handbook and his Bibliographical
Collections, 1867-1889._ By G. T. Gray. London, 1893.
BRITISH MUSEUM. _Catalogue of Books in the Library of the British
Museum printed in England, Scotland, and Ireland, and of Books in
English printed abroad, to the year 1640._ [Mainly by G. W. Eccles.] 3
vols. London, 1884.
DUFF, E. G. _Catalogue of Books in the John Rylands Library,
Manchester, printed in England, Scotland, and Ireland, and of Books in
English printed abroad to the end of the year 1640._ 4to. Manchester,
1895.
SAYLE, C. E. _Early English Printed Books in the University Library,
Cambridge, 1475-1640._ Cambridge, 1900-7.
The books are arranged under the printers.
AMES, J. _Typographical Antiquities_: Being an historical account of
printing in England; with some memoirs of our antient printers, and a
register of the books printed by them, 1471-1600. With an appendix
concerning printing in Scotland and Ireland to the same time. 4to.
London, 1749.
---- Considerably augmented.... By W. Herbert. 3 vols. 4to. London,
1785-90.
---- Greatly enlarged, with copious Notes and Engravings by T. F.
Dibdin. Vols. i.-iv. 4to. London, 1810-19.
DUFF, E. G. _English Printing on Vellum to the end of 1600._
(Bibliographical Society of Lancashire.) 4to. Aberdeen, 1902.
---- _A Century of the English Book Trade_: Short notices of all
Printers, Stationers, Bookbinders, and others connected with it,
1457-1557. 4to. Bibliographical Society, London, 1905.
---- _The Printers, Stationers, and Bookbinders of Westminster and
London, 1476-1535._ (Sandars Lectures.) Cambridge, 1896.
---- _Early English Printing_: A series of facsimiles of all the types
used in England during the fifteenth century. Fol. London, 1896.
---- (and others.) _Handlists of English Printers, 1501-1557._ Parts
1-3. 4to. Bibliographical Society, London, 1896, etc.
ARBER, E. _A Transcript of the Registers of the Company of Stationers
of London, 1554-1640._ 5 vols. 4to. London, 1875-94.
BLADES, W. _The Life and Typography of William Caxton._ 2 vols. 4to.
London, 1861-3.
---- _Biography and Typography of Caxton._ London, 1882.
DUFF, E. G. _William Caxton._ (Caxton Club of Chicago.) 4to. Chicago,
1905.
RICCI, SEYMOUR DE. _A Census of Caxtons._ (Bibliographical Society,
Illust. Monographs, 15.) London, 1909.
* * * * *
PLOMER, H. R. _A Short History of English Printing, 1476-1898._
(English Bookman's Library.) London, 1900.
REED, T. B. _History of the Old English Letter Foundries._ 4to.
London, 1887.
XIII.--EARLY PRINTING IN ENGLISH OUTSIDE LONDON
ALLNUTT, W. H. _English Provincial Presses._ (Bibliographica, Parts
5-7.) London, 1895.
DUFF, E. G. _The English Provincial Printers, Stationers, and
Bookbinders to 1557._ (Sandars Lectures.) Cambridge, 1912.
BOWES, R. _A Catalogue of Books Printed at or relating to the
University, Town and County of Cambridge, 1521-1893._ Cambridge, 1894.
MADAN, F. L. Oxford Books. Vol. 1. _The Early Oxford Press_: A
Bibliography of Printing and Publishing at Oxford "1468-1640."
---- ---- Vol. 2. _Oxford Literature, 1450-1640, and 1641-1650._
Oxford, 1895, 1912.
---- _A Chart of Oxford Printing, "1468"-1900._ With notes and
illustrations. 4to. Oxford, 1903.
---- _A Brief Account of the University Press at Oxford._ With
illustrations, together with a chart of Oxford printing. 4to. Oxford,
1908.
DAVIES, R. _A Memoir of the York Press._ With notices of Authors,
Printers, and Stationers in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries.
Westminster, 1868.
DOBSON, A. _Horace Walpole: A Memoir._ With an Appendix of Books
Printed at the Strawberry Hill Press. New York, 1893.
ALDIS, H. G. _A List of Books Printed in Scotland before 1700,
including those Printed furth of the realm for Scottish Booksellers._
With brief notes on the Printers and Stationers. 4to. Edinburgh
Bibliographical Society, Edinburgh, 1904.
DICKSON, R., and EDMOND, T. P. _Annals of Scottish Printing: from the
Introduction of the Art in 1507 to the beginning of the 17th Century._
4to. Cambridge, 1890.
DIX, E. R. MCC. _A List of Irish Towns and Dates of Earliest Printing
in each._ Second edition. Dublin, 1909.
---- _The Earliest Dublin Printing._ With list of books, etc., printed
in Dublin prior to 1601. Dublin, 1901.
GILBERT, SIR J. T. _Irish Bibliography._ Two papers. With an
introduction, notes, and appendices by E. R. McC. Dix. Dublin, 1904.
WATKINS, G. T. _Bibliography of Printing in America_: Books, etc.,
relating to the history of printing in the New World. Boston, 1906.
EVANS, C. _American Bibliography...._ A Chronological Dictionary of
all books, pamphlets, and periodical publications printed in the
United States from 1639 to 1820. 4to. Chicago, 1903, etc.
THOMAS, J. _The History of Printing in America._ With a Biography of
Printers, etc. Second edition. 2 vols. Albany, 1874.
RODEN, R. F. _The Cambridge Press, 1638-1692_: A history of the first
printing press in English America, together with a bibliographical
list of the issues. New York, 1905.
XIV.--ENGLISH WOODCUT ILLUSTRATIONS
CHATTO and JACKSON. _A Treatise on Wood Engravings_: Historical and
Practical. Second edition. London 1861.
LINTON, W. J. _The Masters of Wood-Engraving._ Folio. London, 1889.
XV.--ENGRAVED BOOKS--ILLUSTRATIONS
HIND, A. M. _A Short History of Engraving and Etching for the use of
Collectors and Students._ With full bibliography, classified list, and
index of engravers. Second edition, revised. London, 1911.
COLVIN, SIR S. _Early Engraving and Engravers in England, 1545-1695._
Fol. British Museum. London, 1905.
HIND, A. M. _List of the Works of Native and Foreign Line-Engravers in
England from Henry VIII to the Commonwealth._ British Museum. London,
1905.
Reprinted from Sir S. Colvin's work.
COHEN, H. _Guide de l'amateur de livres à gravure du 18^e siècle, 6^e
édition, augmentée par Seymour de Ricci._ Paris, 1912.
LEVINE, J. _Bibliography of the 18th Century Art and Illustrated
Books._ London, 1898.
BÉRALDI, J. H. _Estampes et livres, 1872-1892._ 4to. Paris, 1892.
A catalogue of the compiler's own collection of French illustrated
books.
XVI.--MODERN FINE PRINTING
STRAUS, R., and DENT, R. K. _John Baskerville: A Memoir._ 4to.
Cambridge, 1907.
GOSCHEN, VISCOUNT. _The Life and Times of Georg Joachim Goeschen,
Publisher and Printer of Leipzig, 1752-1828._ 2 vols. London, 1903.
WERELET, E. _Études bibliographiques sur la famille des Didot,
imprimeurs, etc., 1713-1864._ (Extrait de l'Histoire du Livre en
France.) Paris, 1864.
WARREN, A. _The Charles Whittinghams, Printers._ (Grolier Club.) New
York, 1896.
MORRIS, W. _A Note by William Morris on his Aims in Founding the
Kelmscott Press._ With a short description of the Press by S. C.
Cockerell, and an annotated list of the books printed thereat.
Hammersmith, 1898.
RICKETTS. _A Bibliography of the Books issued by Hacon and Ricketts._
(The Vale Press.) London, 1904.
STEELE, R. _The Revival of Printing._ London, 1912.
INDEX
Abbeville, illustrated books, 145 _sq._
Aberdeen Breviary, printed at Edinburgh, 239 _sq._
Abingdon, printing at, 226
Acqui, colophon, 80
_Ad te levavi_ woodcut, 144
Aesop, illustrated editions, 106, 111, 120, 124, 125, 139, 141, 162,
251, 256, 289
Alcalà, Cardinal Ximenes' Polyglott printed at, 176; Greek Testament
type imitated by Proctor, 307
Aldus Manutius. _See_ Manutius.
Alexander Gallus, early edition of his _Doctrinale_ "jeté en moule,"
42; colophon of Acqui ed. quoted, 80 _sq._; Venice ed. of, 126;
Pynson's, 213
Alexander of Villedieu. _See_ Alexander Gallus
Allan, George, private press, 238
Allnutt, W., on English provincial printing, 233, 238
_Alphabeti noua effictio._ De Bry's, 280, 285
Altdorfer, Albrecht, illustrator, 188 _sq._
-- Erhard, Bible illustrated by, 190
Alunno di Domenico. _See_ Bartolommeo di Giovanni
American colonies, early printing in, 243-9
Ammann, Jost, book-illustrations, 193, 278
Amsterdam, English books printed at, 232; engravings, 289, 292;
presses improved at, 297
Anabat, Guil., his _Horae_, 156
Andrea, Hieronymus, wood-cutter, 188
_Antichristus_, block-book, 27
Antwerp, printing, 72, 175 _sq._; woodcuts, 202 _sq._; English books
printed, 229 _sqq._; engraved illustration, 274 _sqq._
_Apocalypsis S. Johannis_, block-book, 26
Aquila, good roman type, 89; illustrated _Aesop_, 141
Arbuthnot, Alexander, Edinburgh printer, 242
Ariosto, Lodovico, _Orlando Furioso_, illustrated editions, 277, 283,
296
_Ars Moriendi_, block-book, 25
_Art de bien vivre et de bien mourir_, Vérard's edition, 149, De
Worde's, 254
Arundel, Earl of, Caxton's cut of his device, 251
Ascensius. _See_ Badius Ascensius
Ashendene Press, 306
Audran, Benoît, engraver, 290
Augsburg printing, 62, 169; book-illustration, 102 _sqq._, 184 _sqq._
Augustine, S., Abbeville edition of his _De Ciuitate Dei_, 146
.b., woodcuts signed, 128 _sq._
Bacon, Francis, engraved title to _Novum Organum_, 288
Badius Ascensius, Jodocus, printer at Lyon and Paris, 170
Bagford, John, his copies from block-books, 19
Bämler, Johann, illustrated books, 104
Bankes, Robert, London printer, 216
Banks, Sir Joseph, his natural history books, 5
Barbier, Jean, partner of Julyan Notary, 214
Barcelona, early printing, 75; illustration, 162
Barclay, Alexander, translator of Sallust, 217; of Gringore's
_Chasteau de Labeur_, 230, 254, 256
Barker, Robert, Royal Printer, 216 _sq._
Barnes, Dam Julyan, "her boke of huntyng," 208
-- Joseph, Oxford printer, 235
Bartholomaeus Anglicus, editions of his _De Proprietatibus Rerum_,
121, 159; printed by Caxton, 204; by De Worde, 212, 253; edited by S.
Bateman, 263
Bartolommeo di Giovanni, Mr. Berenson's attribution of Florentine
woodcuts to, 136
Bartolozzi, F., portrait of Lunardi, 296
Basel printing, 60, 170, book-illustration, 109, 191 _sq._
Basiliologia engravings, 285
Baskerville, John, Birmingham printer, 299 _sq._
Bassandyne, Thomas, Edinburgh printer, 242
Bateman, Stephen, illustrated books by, 263
_Bay Psalter_, first book printed in North America, 244 _sq._
Beck, Leonhard, illustrator, 186, 188 _sq._
Beham, Hans Sebald, illustrator, 183
Belgium, early printing, 73
_Belial siue Consolatio peccatorum. See_ Theramo, Jac. de
Bellaert, Jacob, illustrated books, 120 _sq._
Bellini, Gentile, woodcut after, 130
Benlowes, E., _Theophila_, 289
Berenson, Bernhard, attributes all early Florentine cuts to "Alunno
di Domenico," 135
Berghen, Adriaen von, English books printed by, 230
Bergomensis, Jac. Phil., his _Supplementum Cronicarum_, 126; _De
claris mulieribus_, 140
Berkeley, Sir William, on free schools and printing, 249
Berrutus, Amadeus, engraving in his _Dialogus_, 273
Berthelet, Thomas, connection with Pynson, 213, 258; Royal Printer,
216, 259
Bettini, Ant., illustrated editions of his _Monte Santo di Dio_, 124,
268 _sq._
Bible, English, early editions, 217, 231 _sq._, 260, 281; French
_Bible historiée_, 150; German, illustrated editions of, 108, 112,
113, 114; Indian (Narraganset), 246 _sq._; Italian, illustrated
editions of, 125, 128; Latin, the 42-line, 47 _sqq._, 96; the
36-line, 51 _sq._, 83; of 1462, 57; of 1472, 57; Polyglott, 175, 176,
275; Scottish, 242
_Biblia Pauperum_, block-book, 25, 118; its plan imitated in _Horae_
borders, 152, 155
Biel, Fried., illustrated books, 162
Binneman. _See_ Bynneman
Birmingham, Baskerville's press at, 299
_Birth of Mankind_, first English book with engravings, 280
Bladen, William, Dublin printer, 243
Bladi, printers at Rome, 169
Blaew, William, improves printing-press, 297
Block-books, 19-31, 118
Blomefield, Francis, private press, 238
Boccaccio, Giov., _De Casibus Illustrium virorum_, 144, 159, 186,
213, 256, 258 note, 270; _De claris mulieribus_, 106, 122, 162, 186;
_Decamerone_, 291
Bodleian Library, effect of its foundation on private
book-collecting, 3
Bodoni, Giovanni Battista, printer at Parma, 300
_Boec von der Houte. See_ Cross, the Holy
Boitard, Peter, illustrator, 296
Bonaventura, S., illustrations to his _Devote Meditatione_, 123, 125,
138
Bonhomme, Jean, his illustrated books, 144, 158
Book-illustration, natural method of, 100; in Germany and Holland,
102-22, 181-94; in Italy, 123-42, 194-6; in France and Spain, 143-64,
197-202; in England, 250-66; engraved, 267-96
Borderpieces, stamped by illuminators, 125; Venetian, 125, 133;
Florentine, 133; other Italian, 140, 142; Spanish, 162; Basel, 191;
London, 252, 256, 258 _sq._, 266
Boston, Mass., early printing, 247; modern, 308
Boucher, François, illustrator, 290
Bradford, Andrew, printer at Philadelphia, 248
-- William, first printer at Philadelphia, 247; and at New York, 248
Bradshaw, Henry, his claim for bibliography, 12; on the printer of
the _Speculum_, 40
Brandis, Lucas, first Lübeck printer, 64, 114
Brant, Sebastian, connected with book-illustration, 110, 112, 161,
213, 254, 256
Brass, types made of, 212 note
Breidenbach, Bernhard von, his arms on a Mainz _Agenda_, 114; his
_Peregrinatio in Montem Syon_, 115, 161, 162, 270
Brinckley, Stephen, Jesuit printer, 228
Bristol printing, 237 _sq._
British Museum, bequests to, 4-6; block-books in, 31
Brosamer, Hans, Bibles illustrated by, 190
Broughton, Hugh, plates in his _Concent of Scripture_, 283
Bruges early printing, 73, 122, 205 _sq._; engravings in books
printed at, 270-3
Brussels early printing, 73
Brydges, Sir Egerton, private press, 239
Buckner, John, Virginia printer, 249
Bulkley, Stephen, printer at York, 237
Bulle, John, printer at Rome, Lettou's relation with, 210
Bunyan, John, portrait in _Pilgrim's Progress_, 289
Burghers, Michael, engraver, 294
Burgkmair, Hans, illustrator, 185 _sq._, 188 _sq._
Burgundy, Margaret Duchess of. _See_ Margaret
Bynneman, Henry, London printer, 220, 228
Cagli, good roman type, 89
_Calendar of Shepherds_, French editions, 145; English, 254, 256
Cambridge, printing at, 225, 234 _sq._, 300
Cambridge, Mass., printing at, 244 _sq._, 308
_Canon Missae_, Mainz edition of, 55; Crucifixion woodcut to, 109,
129
Canterbury, printing at, 227
_Canterbury Tales. See_ Chaucer
_Canticum Canticorum_, block-book, 26, 118
Caoursin, Gulielmus, woodcuts in books by, 107
Capell, Edward, bequeaths his Shakespeare books to Trin. Coll.,
Camb., 5
Capitals, pictorial and heraldic, 69, 104, 197, 259 _sqq._
Carmelianus, Petrus, pictures in his _Carmen_, 257
Cartwright, Thomas, his tracts printed at a secret press, 228
Caslon, William, typefounder, 298
_Catholicon_, possibly printed by Gutenberg, 52
Caxton, William, 204, 208; press at Bruges, 73, 205 _sq._; at
Westminster, 76, 207 _sq._; method of printing in red, 86;
illustrated books, 250-2; possible engraved portrait of, 272 _sq._
Cazotte, J., his _Le diable amoureux_, 292
Cecill, Thomas, engraver, 286
Cennini, Bernardo, first printer at Florence, 67; colophon of his
_Virgil_, 80
Cervicornus, Eucharius, printer at Cologne, 225
Chapman, Walter, printer at Edinburgh, 239
Charteris, Henry, printer at Edinburgh, 242
Chaucer, Geoffrey, early editions, 207, 251, 255, 258
Chauveau, François, engraver, 289
_Chess, Game and Play of the_, 205, 251
Chester, printing at, 237, etc.
Chiromantia, block-book, 28
Choffard, P. P., _fleurons_ by, 291 _sq._
_Christian Prayers, Book of_ (Queen Elizabeth's Prayer Book), 264
Christopher, S., early woodcut of, 119
Ciripagus, meaning of the word, 43
Civil War, its effects on Oxford printing, 236
Clark, John, engraver, 294
Classics, first editions of the, 6
Claudin, Anatole, his _Histoire de l'Imprimerie en France_, 143
Clement V, 1460 edition of his _Constitutiones_, 56
Clemente of Padua, self-taught printer at Venice, 67, 89
Cochin, C., Paris engraver, 290 _sq._
Cock, Hieron, Antwerp engraver, 274
-- Peter, Alost engraver, 281
Cockson, Thomas, London engraver, 283
Colines, Simon, his _Horae_, 157; relations with the Estiennes, 171;
illustrated books, 199
Collectors and Collecting, 1-18, 83
Cologne, printing at, 61, 169, 205, 225, 231; book-illustration at,
113
_Cologne Chronicle_, its story of the invention of printing, 34
Colonna, Francesco. _See Hypnerotomachia Poliphili_
Colophons, 14; specimens quoted, 80 _sq._; in manuscript, 91
Colour-printing in incunabula, 129 _sq._, 253
Columna, Aegidius, his _Regimiento de los principes_, 163
Colvin, Sir Sidney, his _Early engravings_ quoted, 281, 300
Complutensian Polyglott. _See_ Alcalà
Constance, _Das Conciliumbuch_, illustrated editions of, 106, 186
Conway, Sir M., his _Woodcutters of the Netherlands_
Conwell, Clarke, American printer, 308
Copland, Robert, London printer, 215, 258
-- William, London printer, 215, 260
Cornelis, the bookbinder, of Haarlem, 37 _sq._, 41
Corrozet, Gilles, his verses to Holbein's cuts, 192; other
illustrated books by, 200 _sq._
Coryat, Thomas, _Crudities_, 285
Coster, Lourens, legend of his inventing printing, 37 _sqq._
"_Costeriana_," group of books so called, 39-41, 72
Cotton, Sir Robert, his collections, 2
Cranach, Lucas, his bookwork at Wittenberg, 190
Cremer, Heinrich, copy of 42-line Bible rubricated by, 47 _sq._
Creussner, F., Nuremberg printer, 63, 108
Cromwell, Thomas, Earl of, arms on title of Great Bible, 260
Croquet, Jean, of Geneva, first edition of _Roman de la Rose_
attributed to, 160 note
Cross, the Holy, block-book history of, 118
Cunningham, William, his _Cosmographicall Glasse_, 218, 261
Dalles, Jean, Lyonnese wood-cutter, 159
Daniel, Rev. C. H. O., private press, 303
_Danse Macabre_, illustrations to, 145, 151
Dante Alighieri, illustrated editions of _Divina Commedia_, 129, 269,
306 _sq._
Darmstadt Prognostication, printer of the, forged dates in his books,
58
Davidson, Thomas, Edinburgh printer, 240 _sq._
Day, John, London printer, 218 _sq._, 234; illustrated books, 260
_sq._
-- Matthew, printer at Cambridge, Mass., 245
-- Stephen, first printer in North America, 244
De Bry, family of engravers, 278-80, 282
_Defensorium inviolatae castitatis Virginis Mariae_, block-book, 127
Defoe, Daniel, plates to _Robinson Crusoe_, 294
Delaram, Francis, engraver, 285 _sq._
Delft, early printing at, 72
Denham, Henry, London printer, 220
Derrick, John, _Image of Ireland_, 264
Deventer, early printing at, 72, 74
d'Ewes, Sir Simeon, fate of his manuscripts, 4
_Dialogus Creaturum_, woodcuts in, 119
_Dictes or Sayengis of the Philosophers_, Caxton's, 207
Didot, family of printers at Paris, 301
Digby, Sir Kenelm Digby, benefactions to libraries, 5
Dinckmut, Conrad, illustrated books, 106 _sq._
Doesborg, Jan van, English books printed by, 230
Dolet, Etienne, printer at Lyon, 174
Donatus, Aelius, early editions of his _De octo partibus orationis_,
35, 36, 46, 51, 65
Douay, English Catholic books printed at, 232
Dorat, C. J., _Les Baisers_, 293
Doves Press, 306
Downes, Thomas, English bookseller, patentee for Irish printing, 243
Drach, Peter, Speier printer, 63
Drayton, Michael, _Polyolbion_, 285
Dublin, early printing at, 242 _sq._
Du Bosc, Claude, engraver, 294
Dudley, Earl of Leicester, encourages Oxford printing, 235
Duff, E. G., on woodcuts in 1471 Bible, 125 note; on Berthelet and
Pynson, 213; on free trade in books, 223; on a book printed at St.
Albans, 225
Du Guernier, Louis, engraver, 294
Du Guesclin, Bertrand, woodcut of, 146
Du Moulin, Conrad, buys a _De Salute Corporis_, 39
Dupré, Jean, fine printer at Paris, 71; his illustrated books, 143
_sqq._, 160; his _Horae_, 151 _sq._
Dürer, Albrecht, book-illustrations by, 181 _sq._, 188
Dutch printing and book-illustration. _See_ Holland
Duranti, Gulielmus, _Rationale diuinorum officiorum_, 1459 edition,
56
Dyson, Humphrey, book-collector, 3
Edinburgh printing, 239-42
Editions, number of copies in early, 21
Edward VI, woodcut of, 260
Egenolph, Christian, illustrated books, 183, 187
Eichstätt service-books, engravings in, 270
Eisen, C., illustrator, 291 _sqq._
Eliot, John, books by, printed at Cambridge, Mass., 246
Elizabeth, Queen, portraits of, 264, 265, 281 _sq._; her "Prayer
Book," 264
Elston Press, 308
Elstracke, Renold, engraver, 285 _sq._, 288
Elzevir, family of printers, 177 _sqq._
Emblem books, 275, 280
Emden, Puritan books printed at, 232
England, printing in, 76 _sq._, 204-28, 233-9, 302-8
English books printed abroad, 228-32
English engraved illustrations, 280-9, 293-6
English woodcut illustrations, 250-66
Engraved illustrations, 267-96
_Epistole ed Evangelii_, illustrated Florentine ed., 136, 139
Eragny Press, 308
Erasmus, Desiderius, his relations with Froben, 170, 191
Erven, G. van der, printer at Emden, 232
E. S., the Master, _Ars moriendi_ engravings by, 25
Essling, Prince d', his _Livres à figures venitiens_ quoted, 125
note, 127, 130 _sq._
Estienne, family of scholar-printers, 171 _sqq._
Eton, printing at, 234
Eustace, Guil., his _Horae_, 156
Exeter, early printing at, 237
F, woodcuts signed, at Venice, 128; at Paris, 200
Fabyan's _Chronicle_, Pynson's ed., 257
Faithorne, W., engraver, 289
Faques or Fawkes, Richard, London printer, 215
Faques, William, Royal Printer, 214
Fell, Bishop, buys Dutch types for Oxford, 298
Ferrara, early printing at, 68, 70; book-illustrations, 140
Fichet, Guillaume, letter on invention of printing, 33, 44; invites
printers to the Sorbonne, 70
Field, Richard, London printer, 221
_Fifteen Oes_, Caxton's edition, 252
First books printed in different countries and towns, their interest,
78 _sq._
Fisher, Bishop, woodcuts to his funeral sermons, 254
Florence, early printing, 67, 70, book-illustration at, 133-9, 267;
Venetian imitation of Florentine style, 196
Florio, John, engraved portrait, 287
Foliation, or leaf-numbers, first used by ther Hoernen, 62
Foster, John, first printer at Boston, Mass., 247
Fouler, John, English printer at Antwerp and Louvain, 232
Foulis, Robert and Andrew, Glasgow printers, 298
Foxe, John, his _Actes and Monuments_, or _Book of Martyrs_, 219, 262
France, printing in, 70-2, 170-5, 224; book-illustration, 143-61,
197-202, 289-93
Franciscus, Magister, Schoeffer's corrector, 51
Francke (or Franckton), John, Dublin printer, 243
Frankfort am Main, book-illustration at, 184, 193, 278 _sqq._
Franklin, Benjamin, printer at Philadelphia, 248
Freez (or Wandsforth), Gerard, York printer, 225
Freiburger, Gering and Crantz, first Paris printers, 70 _sq._
Frezzi, Bishop, _Quatriregio_, illustrated editions, 139
Froben, Johann, scholarly printer at Basel, 170; his
book-decorations, 191
Front, the Mind of the, 287
Froschauer, Christopher, Zurich printer, his English books, 231 _sq._
Fust, Johann, dealings with Gutenberg, 46 _sqq._; books printed by,
53 _sq._, 86
Gafori, Francesco, illustrations to his music-books, 141, 196
Gaguin, Robert, illustrations to his chronicles, 198
_Game and Pley of the Chesse_, 206
Garamond, Claude, French Royal Greek types cut by, 172
_Garland of Rachel_, 303
Garrick, David, his collection of plays, 5
Geiler, Johann, of Kaisersberg, illustrations to his books, 185, 190
Geminus, Thomas, engraved work, 281
Geneva, English books printed at, 232
Gérard, Pierre, first printer at Abbeville, 145
Germany, printing in, 44-64, 169 _sq._, 224; book-illustration,
102-17, 181-94
Giunta, family of printers at Florence and Venice, 128, 168 _sq._,
195
Giustiniano, Lorenzo, portrait of, 130
Glasgow, fine printing at, 298
Glover, Rev. Joseph, benefactor of Harvard College, 244
Goes, Hugo, York printer, 225
Goeschen, Georg Joachim, printer at Leipzig, 301
_Golden Legend_, Caxton's editions, 207, 251
Gothic type, 88, 90 _sq._
Gouda, printing and illustration, 72, 119, 122
Graf, Urs, book-decorations by, 191
Grafton, Richard, Royal Printer, 217, 259; his _Chronicle_, 264
Gravelot, H., engraver at Paris, 291 _sqq._, and London, 295
Greek printing in Italy, 167, 301; in France, 171 _sqq._; in Spain,
176; in England, 176, 218, 226, 234, 300, 307
Green, Bartholomew, printer at Boston, Mass., 247 _sq._
-- Samuel, printer at Cambridge, Mass., 245 _sqq._
Gregorii, Giov. and Greg. dei, printers at Venice, 69, 195
Grenewych by Conrade Freeman, spurious imprint, 232
Grenville, Thomas, character of his collection, 6
Grien, Hans Baldung, illustrator, 190
Grignion, Charles, engraver, 296
Gringore, Pierre, _Chasteau de Labeur_, 150 _sq._; English editions,
230 _sq._, 254
Grolier, Jean, example as a book-buyer, 2; supports Aldus, 168
Grüninger, Johann, of Strassburg, illustrated books, 111 _sq._
Gryphius, Sebastian, Lyon printer, 173
Gutenberg, Johann, claims to the invention of printing, 33-6, 44
_sqq._; books he may have printed, 51 _sq._
Haarlem, its claims to be the birthplace of printing, 37 _sqq._, 72
Hakluyt, Richard, _Voyages_, 278
Hamman, Johann. _See_ Herzog
Han, Ulrich, early printer at Rome, 65, 67 _sq._, types, 90; printed
the first Italian illustrated book, 123
Hardouyn, Germain and Gilles, their _Horae_, 156
Harington, Sir John, on the plates in his _Orlando Furioso_, 283
Harrison, Stephen, _Archs of Triumph_, 284
Hartlieb, Johann, block-book of _Die Kunst Chiromantia_, 28
Harvard College, printing at, 244 _sq._
Haydock, Richard, engraver, 284
Hayman, Francis, illustrator, 296
Heber, Richard, character of his collection, 6
Hempstead (Essex), secret printing at, 228
Henry V, woodcut of Lydgate offering book to, 257
Henry VII, books decorated by Vérard for, 148; woodcut of his
funeral, 254
Henry VIII "protects" English book-trade, 222, 234
_Heroologia_ engravings, 285
Hertfort or Herford, John, printer at St. Albans and London, 224
_sq._
Herzog, Johann, prints Sarum Missal at Venice, 229
Hessels, Dr., his theories on the invention of printing, 38 _sqq._
Heynlyn, Jean, superintends first Paris press, 70
Heywood, Thomas, woodcut of, 260; engravings to his _Hierarchie of
the Blessed Angels_, 286
Higman, Nicolas, _Horae_, 156
Hind, A. M., quoted, 284, 290
_Hobby-Horse_, experiments in printing in, 304
Hogarth, William, book-illustrations, 295 _sq._
Hogenberg, Franciscus and Remigius, engravers, 281 _sq._
Holbein, Ambrosius, book-decorations, 191
-- Hans, book-decorations and illustrations, 191 _sq._, 259 _sq._
Hole, William, engraver, 285, 287
Holinshed, Raphael, _Chronicle_, 265
Holland, claims to the invention of printing, 32-43; printing in, 72;
book-illustrations, 119-22
Holland, H., print-seller, 285
Hollar, Wenceslaus, engraver, 287
Homer, the Florentine, 167; in French, 201; Chapman's, 287; Ogilby's
Odyssey, 287; Proctor's, 307
Hondius, Jodocus, engraver, 283 _sq._
Hopyl, Wolfgang, Missals by, 198, 229
_Horace_, Pine's ed., 295 _sq._, 300; Foulis, 298
_Horae_, Paris editions, 151-7, 264; Plantin's, 275
Hornby, C. St. John, private press, 88, 306
Hroswitha, illustrations to her Comedies, 182
Hunte, Thomas, Oxford stationer, partner in Rood's press, 76, 209
Hurning, Hans. _See_ Walther, F., and Hans Hurning
Hurus, Paul, illustrated books, 162
Huss, Martin, illustrated books, 158
Huvin, Jean, probable partner (I. H.) of Jul. Notary, 214
Hylton, Walter, _Scala perfectionis_, De Worde's ed., 253
_Hypnerotomachia Poliphili_, 90, 131 _sq._; French version of, 201
i, ia., woodcuts signed, 128
I.D., woodcut signed, 159
_Imprese_, engravings of, 277
Incipits of books, quoted, 93
Incunabula, study of, 12 _sq._; the word misleading, 77; points of,
78 _sq._
Indulgences, printed at Mainz, 47
Ipswich, printing at, 226
Ireland, printing in, 242 _sq._
Italic type, 91, 218
Italy, printing in, 65-70, 165-9, 224; book-illustration in, 123-42
James I, works and portrait, 288
Janot, Denis, printer of French illustrated books, 200
Jenson, Nicolas, printer at Venice, 67, 85
Jesuit press (1580), 228
Jewel, Bishop, books against, printed at Antwerp and Louvain, 232
Johnes, Thomas, private press, 238
Johnson, Marmaduke, printer at Cambridge, Mass., 246
Junius, Hadrianus, his story of Coster, 37 _sq._
Justinian, in Council, metal-cut of, 198
Kearney, William, Dublin printer, 243
Kefer, or Keffer, Heinrich, servant of Gutenberg, 47, 63
Keimer, Samuel, printer at Philadelphia, 248
Keith, George, his _Appeal from the Twenty-eight Judges_, 248
Kerver, Thielmann, _Horae_, 156
Ketham, Johannes, _Fascicolo di Medicina_, illustrated, 129
Kipling, R., contribution to a school magazine, 8
Knoblochtzer, H., Strassburg printer, 60; illustrated books, 111
Köbel, Jakob, printer at Oppenheim, 193
Koberger, Anton, largest Nuremberg printer, 63; illustrated books,
108, 183
Koelhoff, Johann, father and son, printers at Cologne, 113
Kyngston, Felix, English bookseller, patentee for Irish printing, 243
Kyrforth, Samuel, Oxford printer, 224
Laer, John, of Siberch. _See_ Siberch
La Fontaine, Jean, illustrated editions of his _Fables_ and _Contes_,
290 _sq._
Laing, David, on the Bruges _Des cas des nobles hommes_, 271
La Marche, Olivier de, illustrations to his _Chevalier Délibéré_,
122, 147, 149, 263
Lambeth Palace, printing at, 234
Lant, Thomas, engraver, 282
La Rochelle, Marprelate tract printed at, 228
Laud, Archbishop, benefactions to libraries, 5
Lauer, Georg, early printer at Rome, 68
Le Bey, Denis, his Emblems, 280
Leeu, Gerard, printer at Gouda and Antwerp, 72; colophon recording
his death quoted, 81; sells cuts to Koelhoff, 113, 120; his
illustrated books, 119 _sq._; English books printed by, 229 _sq._
Legate, John, Cambridge printer, 235
Legge, Cantrell, Cambridge printer, 235
Le Huen, Nicole, his adaptation of _Breidenbach_, 161, 270
Leipzig printing, 64, 169; book-illustrations, 116
Lekpreuit, Robert, Scottish printer, 241
Lemberger, Georg, bookwork at Wittenberg, 190
Le Rouge, Pierre, prints for Vérard, 150
Leroy, Guil., first printer at Lyon, 71; illustrated books, 158 _sq._
Le Signerre, Guil., illustrated books, 141
Le Talleur, Guil., printer at Rouen, prints for Pynson, 211 _sq._
Lettou, John, first printer in the City of London, 77, 210, 252
Leyden, printing at, 176, 177
Lignamine, Joh. Phil. de, on the invention of printing, 34; his own
press, 68
Lirer, Thomas, _Chronik_, illustrated ed., 107
Lisa, Gerard, first printer at Treviso, 67 _sq._, 70
Locatellus, Bonetus, Venice printer, 69
Locker-Lampson, F., his copy of Blake's _Songs of Innocence and
Experience_, 11
London, printing in the City of, 77
Longus, _Daphnis et Chloé_, 290
Louvain, early printing at, 73; book-illustration, 122; English
books, 232
Lownes, Matthew, English bookseller, patentee for Irish printing, 243
Lübeck early printing, 64; book-illustration at, 113 _sq._
Lucrece, Berthelet's device of, 259
Lutzelburger, Hans, Holbein's wood-cutter, 192
Luyken, Jan and Casper, engravers, 289
Lydgate, John, woodcut of, 257. For his _Falles of Pryncis_, see
Boccaccio, _De Casibus_
Lyne, John, engraver, 282
Lyon, printing at, 71, 171, 173 _sq._; illustration, 157-61, 202
Macfarlane, John, monograph on Antoine Vérard, 147
Machlinia, William, printer at London, 77, 210, 252
Madan, Falconer, on Oxford printing, 236
Magdeburg early printing, 64
Mainz, printing as a practical art invented at, 44-58;
book-illustration, 114 _sq._
Malborow in the land of Hesse, doubtful imprint, 231
Malermi Bible. _See_ Bible, Italian
Malone, E., bequeaths books to the Bodleian, 5
Mansion, Colard, Bruges printer, 72, 122, 205 _sq._, 271 _sq._
Manutius, Aldus, his work, 166-8; large roman type, 90; italic
octavos, 91, 167, 196; _Hypnerotomachia_, 131 _sq._; Lyonnese
counterfeits of his octavos, 173
-- -- the younger, 168
-- Paulus, 168
Marchant, Gui., illustrated books, 145
Margaret Duchess of Burgundy, Caxton's patron, 204, 272
-- Duchess of Richmond, woodcut of her funeral, 255
Margins, right proportions, 97
Marprelate press, 228
Marsh, Archbishop, library founded by, 4-5
Marshall, William, engraver, 286 _sqq._
Mary, Princess, daughter of Henry VII, woodcut of her reception of
Spanish Embassy, 257
Master and Pupil, method of depicting, 135 and note
Maximilian, the Emperor, illustrated books in his honour, 182 _sq._,
185 _sq._, 188 _sq._
Maynyal, George, prints service-books for Caxton, 229
Mentelin, Johann, first printer at Strassburg, 60; manuscript
colophon of, 91 _sq._
Merrymount Press, Boston (Mass.), 308
Middelburg, English books printed at, 232
Milan early printing, 68 _sq._; book-illustration, 125, 141
Miller, W. H., character of his collection, 6
Millet, Jacques, illustrations to his _Destruction de Troye la
Grant_, 144, 158, 198
Milton, John, portrait by Marshall, 288
_Mirabilia Romæ_, block-book, 28
Misprinted dates at Barcelona, 75; at Oxford, 209
Mitchell, John. _See_ Mychell
Molière, François, illustrations to, 290, 293
Molner, Theodoricus, confused with Theod. Rood, 209
Mondovi, good roman type, 89
Montanus, Arias, relations with Plantin, 275 _sq._
Monte Regio, Johannes de. _See_ Müller
Montesquieu, _Le Temple de Gnide_, 290, 293
Moore, Bishop, fate of his books, 4
Moreau, French illustrator, 292
Morris, William, admired Subiaco type, 88; on the double page as the
unit in a book, 98; on the illustrator of Caoursin, 108; his set of
proofs of Richel's _Spiegel_, 109 note; his decorative bookwork, 126;
the Kelmscott press, 304 _sq._
Moxon, Joseph, his _Mechanick Exercises_, 298
Müller, Johann, his Calendars, 27, 125; his work as a printer, 108
Musurus, Marcus, Aldus copies his Greek script, 167
Mutius Scaevola, border representing, 256
Mychell (or Mitchell), John, printer at Canterbury and London, 227
Myllar, Andrew, first Scottish printer, 239
Mylner, Ursyn, York printer, 225
N, woodcuts signed, 128
Naples early printing, 70; book-illustration, 124
Negker, Andrea and Jost de, wood-cutters, 188
Neobar, Conrad, printer of Greek, 172
Netherlands. _See_ Holland; Belgium
_Neuf Preux_, Les, French block-book, 29
Neumeister, Johann, printer at Foligno, Mainz, Albi, etc., 114
Newcastle, printing at, 236 _sq._; New Testament, Tyndale's, 231;
Eliot's, 246
Niclas, Hendrik, his books printed at Amsterdam, 232
Nitschewitz, Hermann, _Psalterium B.M.V._, 117
Norwich, Dutch books printed at, 233; other printing at, 238
Notary, Julyan, early printer at London, 77, 213 _sq._, 222
Nuremberg, printing at, 63, 169; book-illustration at, 108, 116
_sq._, 181-4, 193
_Nuremberg Chronicle. See_ Schedel
_Nut-Brown Maid_, the earliest text in Arnold's _Chronicle_, 230
Ogilby, John, illustrated books, 289
O'Kearney, John, Irish printing by, 243
_Opera nova contemplativa_, Venetian block-book, 20 _sq._, 29
Oppenheim, book-decoration at, 193
Ortuin and Schenck, printers of _Roman de la Rose_, 160
Os, Pieter van, early printer at Zwolle, 72
Ostendorfer, Michael, illustrations by, 190
Oswen, John, printer at Ipswich and Worcester, 229 _sq._
Overton, John, printer (?) at Ipswich, 226
Ovid, illustrations to his _Metamorphoses_, 292
Oxford, printing at, 76, 209, 224, 234 _sqq._, 252, 302 _sq._
Pacini, Piero and Bernardo, publishers of illustrated books at
Florence, 139
Paderborn, Johann. _See_ Westphalia, John of
Palmart, Lambert, first printer in Spain, 75, 78, 89
Paper, made at Hertford, 212; Tottell seeks a monopoly for making,
220
Paris, printing in, 70 _sqq._, 171 _sqq._; book-illustration, 143-56,
197-201, 289-93
Parker, Archbishop, his efforts to rescue old books, 2; patron of
John Day, 219; and of Bynneman, 220; his _De Antiquitate Brit. Eccl._
perhaps printed at Lambeth, 219, 234; engraved portrait, 282
Parma, Baskerville's press at, 300
Passe family, engravers, 286, 288
_Passio domini nostri Jesu Christi_, Venetian block-book, 28, 123
Paulirinus, Paulinus, on the word _ciripagus_, 43
Pavia, book-illustration at, 141
Peartree, Montagu, article on possible portrait of Caxton, 273
Pepwell, Henry, London printer, 216
Pepys, S., bequest of his books, 5
Petrarca, F., illustrated editions of his _Trionfi_, 127, 139
Petri, Johann, early printer at Florence, 67
Pfister, Albrecht, printer of illustrated books at Bamberg, 19, 32,
51, 59
Philadelphia, first printing at, 247
Philippe, Regent of France, engraved illustrations to Longus, 290
Phillipps, Sir Thomas, private printing by, 239
Pigouchet, Philippe, prints _Le Chasteau de Labeur_, 150; his
_Horae_, 154
Pinder, Ulrich, private press at Nuremberg, 184
Pine, John, engraver, 294 _sqq._
Plantin, Christopher, printer at Antwerp, 175 _sq._; woodcut
illustration, 202 _sq._; engraved, 274 _sqq._
Plateanus, Theodoricus (Dirick van der Straten), printer at Wesel,
226
Plates, troubles arising from in books, 267
Pleydenwurff, Wilhelm, book-illustrations by, 116
Poitiers, early printing at, 72
Polidori, Gaetano, his private press, 239
Pope, erasure of the word, 260
Popish apparel, Puritan tracts against, 232
"Poppy-printer" of Lübeck, 114
Porro, Girolamo, engraves plates for _Orlando Furioso_, 277, 283
Powell, Humphrey, English printer in Dublin, 242
Printing, changes in the primacy of, 16, 169, 170, 177; invention of,
32-58; early progress of, in various countries, 59-82; its technical
development, 83-99; in the sixteenth century, 165-79; in England,
204-23; in the provinces of England, 224-8, 233-8; on the Continent
for the English market, 229-33; private, 238 _sq._; in Scotland, 239
_sqq._; in Ireland, 242 _sq._; in the English colonies in America,
243 _sqq._
Private presses in England, 238 _sq._, 303 _sqq._
Proctor, Robert, found beauty in all incunabula, 10, 39; classification
of them, 12; Greek type, 176, 307
Provincial printing in England, 9, 76, 208 _sq._, 224-7, 234-8
Prüss, Johann, of Strassburg, illustrated books, 111, 162
Psalms, the New England version of the, 244 _sq._
Psalter, Latin, of 1457, 54, 83; of 1459, 55; cost of writing and
illuminating a manuscript, 84
Ptolemy, _Cosmographia_ (or _Geographia_), illustrated editions of,
66, 107
Pynson, R., number of copies in his editions, 21; work as a printer,
211, 212 _sq._, 222; book-illustrations, 255-9
Quarles, Francis, _Hieroglyphikes of the Life of Man_, 287
Quentell, Heinrich, of Cologne, his illustrated books, 113; his Bible
cuts copied, 112, 114, 126, 128
Quinterniones, a name for manuscripts, 94
Quire, origin of the word, 94
Quiring in old books, 94 _sqq._; collection by, 96 _sq._
R-printer, the, of Strassburg, 60
_Rappresentazioni_, illustrated Florentine editions, 138
Rarity, effect on value of books, 7 _sq._
Rastell, John, lawyer-printer, 215, 222, 258
-- William, printed English plays, 215
Ratdolt, Erhard, early printer at Venice, 69; titlepage to his
Calendar, 93; his decorative work at Venice, 125 _sq._; at Augsburg,
106; colour-printing by, 129
Rawlinson, Richard, gives manuscripts to the Bodleian, 5
Raynold, Thomas, his ed. of the _Birth of Mankind_, 280
_Recuyell of the Histories of Troye_, 206, 254; engraving in
Chatsworth copy of Caxton's, 272
Redman, Robert, Pynson's successor, 216, 222
Red printing, difficulty of, 86, 228 _sq._; colophons in, 92
Regiomontanus. _See_ Müller
Reinhard, Johann. _See_ Grüninger
Retza, Fran. de, block-book of his _Defensorium_, 27
Reuwich, Erhard, illustrator of Breidenbach's _Peregrinatio_, 108,
115 _sq._
Reyser, Georg, first Würzburg printer, 64, 269 _sq._
-- Michel, first Eichstätt printer, 64, 269 _sq._
Rheims, English Catholic books printed at, 232
Richard III, Statute permitting free importation of books into
England, 209, 222
Richard, Thomas, printer at Tavistock, 226
Richel, Bernhard, early printer at Basel, his illustrated books, 109,
158
Ricketts, Charles, the Vale Press books, 307
Rodericus Zamorensis, illustrated editions of his _Speculum Humanae
Vitae_, 104, 159, 162
Rodlich, Hieronymus, his illustrated books, 193
Rogers, Bruce, fine printer, 308
-- William, engraver, 284, 287
Rolewinck, Werner, all his books printed by ther Hoernen, 62; Venice
editions of his _Fasciculus Temporum_, 126; Seville ed., 161
Roman de la Rose, early editions of, 160
Roman type, 88-90
Rome, printing at, 65, 167; book-illustration at, 123, 268, 273, 276
Rome under the Castle of St. Angelo, spurious imprint, 233
Rood, Theodoricus, printer at Oxford, 76
Ross, John, Edinburgh printer, 242
Rouen early printing, 72, 146; English books, 225, 229
Ruppel, Berthold, of Hanau, Basel printer, 47, 60
Ruscelli, Jerononimo, his _Imprese_, 277
Rusch, Adolf, the R-printer, 60; roman type used by, 88
Rylands, W. H., engraver, 296
Ryther, Augustine, engraver, 282
Saint Albans, printing at, 76, 208, 224 _sq._, 253
Saint Andrews, printing at, 241
Saint Omer, English Catholic books printed at, 232
Saluzzo, book-illustration at, 141
Sanctis, Hieronymus de, wood-cutter and printer at Venice, 127
Sanderson, Cobden, fine printing by, 306
Sandys, George, _Relation of a Journey_, 285
Santritter, Johann, illustrator and printer at Venice, 127
Saragossa, early printing at, 75; illustration, 162
Sarum service-books mostly printed abroad, 229; their importation
into Scotland forbidden, 240
Savonarola, Girolamo, illustrated editions of his tracts, 133 _sq._,
137
Savile, Sir Henry, his press at Eton, 234
Saxton, Christopher, maps by, 282
Sayle, C., his catalogue of English books in Cambridge University
Library, 233
Schatzbehalter. _See_ Stephan
Schaüfelein, Hans Leonhard, book-illustrations by, 184, 188 _sq._
Schedel, Hartmann, his _Liber Chronicarum_, 117
Schilders, Richard, English books printed by, 232 _sq._
Schoeffer, Johann, printer at Mainz, 58, 169
-- Peter, a witness on the side of Fust, 47; his share in the
invention of printing, 50 _sq._; books printed by him, 53-8; his
method of printing, 81-6, 95; his type, 90
Schön, Erhard, illustrations by, 183
Schreiber, W., his _Manuel de l'Amateur_, quoted, 24, 100 note, 114;
his block-books, 31
Schwabacher type, 90
Scolar, Johannes, printer at Oxford, 224; and at Abingdon, 226
Scoloker, Anthony, printer at Ipswich and London, 226
Scot, John, Scottish printer, 240 _sq._
Scotland, printing in, 239-42
Secret printing in Elizabeth's reign, 228
Segar, Sir W., _Honour, Military and Civil_, 284
Selden, W., his books go to the Bodleian, 5
Sensenschmidt, Johann, first printer at Nuremberg, 63; his
illustrated books, 108
Sessa, family of printers, illustrated books, 196
Seville, early printing at, 75; illustration, 161, 163
Shakespeare, First Folio, 8; illustrations to, 294 _sqq._
Shrewsbury, printing at, 237 _sq._
Siberch, John Laer of, first Cambridge printer, 225
_Sibyllenbuch_, early Mainz fragment of, 46
Sidney, Sir Philip, title-border to 1598 ed. of his _Arcadia_, 266;
engraving of his funeral, 282
Siemen, illustrated books published at, 193
Signatures of artists or wood-cutters in Italian books, 128, 194; in
German books, 194; in French books, 157, 159
Signatures (typographic), first used by Joh. Koelhoff, 62; their
origin, 94; example of collation by, 96
Silber, Eucharius, printer at Rome, 169
Simon, "das süsses kind," woodcuts of his history, 103, 108
Small books, 214; stages in their popularity, 166, 173, 178
Smith, Richard, book-collector, 3
Solempne, Antony de, Dutch printer at Norwich, 233
Sorbonne, first Paris press at the, 70; roman type used at, 89;
persecution of printers by its theologians, 174
Sorg, Anton, of Augsburg, illustrated books, 105
Spaces left blank for headings and capitals, 85; for illustrations,
143
Spain, early printing in, 74-6, 176 _sq._, 224; book-illustration,
161-4
Spanish Armada, engravings of, 282
_Speculum Humanae Saluationis_ partly block-printed, 26, 39; fate of
the blocks, 40, 118; Augsburg ed. of, 103; Basel ed. of (in German),
109, 150; French ed. at Lyons, 158
_Speculum Humanae Vitae. See_ Rodericus Zamorensis
_Speculum Vitae Christi_, Caxton's edition, 252 _sq._
Speier, early printing at, 63
-- Johann of, first printer at Venice, 66 sq., 89
-- Wendelin of, successor of Johann, 67, 89
Spenser, Edmund, woodcuts to his _Shepheardes Calender_, 265
Spindeler, Nic., illustrated books, 162 _sq._
Spoerer, Hans, block-books printed by, 25
Springinklee, Hans, illustrator, 183, 188
Stagninus, Bernardinus, his illustrated service-books, 195
Stanheim, Melchior, arbitrator on book-illustrating, 63, 103
Stationers' Company, 221 _sq._, 227, 233 _sq._
Steele, Robert, on English books printed abroad, 233
Stephan, P., _Schatzbehalter_, 116
Steyner, Hans, illustrated books by, 185, 187
Stillingfleet, Archbishop, fate of his library, 4
Stöffler, Hans, mathematical works by, curiously decorated, 189
Story, John, Edinburgh printer, 240
Strassburg, printing at, 59 _sq._, 169; book-illustration at, 112
_sqq._, 187, 190 _sq._
Straten, Dirick van der. _See_ Plateanus
Strawberry Hill, Horace Walpole's press at, 238
Stuchs, G., Nuremberg printer, 63
Stule, Karolus, Edinburgh publisher, 240
Sturt, John, engraver, 294 _sq._
Subiaco, books printed at, 65
Sweynheym and Pannartz, number of copies in their editions, 21 note,
66; early reference to, 34; books printed by, 65 _sq._; their types,
88
-- Conrad, engraves maps for 1478 Ptolemy, 66, 268
Tacuinus, Joannes, Venice printer, 69
Tate, John, papermaker, 212
Taverner, John, London stationer, 222
Tavistock, printing at, 226
Terence, illustrated editions of, 107, 112, 131, 150, 160, 163, 213
Theramo, Jacobus de, illustrated editions of his _Belial_, 121
Ther Hoernen, Arnold, second Cologne printer, 62
Thomas, Thomas, Cambridge printer, 235
Thomas à Becket, erasure of the service for, 260
Tillier, Thomas, Chester printer, 237
Tin, types made of, 21 note
Titlepage, early examples of, 62, 93, 210
Tortosa early printing, 75
Tory, Geoffroi, printer at Paris, 173; his _Horae_, 156 _sq._, 199
Tottell, Richard, London printer, 219
Tournes, Jean de, father and son, printers at Lyon, 174
Traut, Wolfgang, illustrator, 182, 188
Trechsel family of printers at Lyon, 160, 171, 174, 192 _sq._
Treviso, early printing at, 67 _sq._, 70
Tuberinus, his account of the death of "das susses kind Simon," 103,
108
Tübingen, book-decoration at, 189
Turberville, George, _Booke of Faulconrie_, 265
Turrecremata, Cardinal, illustrated editions of his _Meditationes_,
114, 123
Tyndale, W., editions of his New Testament, 231
Types, characteristics of, in early books, 86 _sq._
Ugo (VGO), woodcuts signed, 194
Ulm early printing, 63 _sq._; illustrated books, 106 _sqq._
Ungut and Polonus, illustrated books of, 163
United States of America, colonial printing in, 243-9; modern fine
printing, 308
Updike, Berkeley, fine printer, 308
Usher, Archbishop, fate of his library, 4
Utrecht, "Costeriana" attributed to, 40, 72
Utterson, E. V., private printing by, 239
Valdarfer, Christopher, printer at Venice and Milan, 67
Valentia, early printing at, 74 _sq._; illustration, 162
Valturius, R., _De re militari_, Verona editions of, 123 _sq._;
French version of, 200
Van der Gucht, Michael, engraver, 294
Vautrollier, Thomas, printer at London and Edinburgh, 221, 242
Vavassore, Giovanni Andrea, block-printed _Opera nova Contemplativa_
by, 21; woodcuts signed z.a., etc., by, 194 _sq._
Veldener, Jan, early printer at Louvain, Kuilenburg and Utrecht, 40,
73, 118, 119, 205
Venice early printing, 66 _sq._; book-illustration, 125-32, 194-7,
277
Vérard, Antoine, publisher at Paris, 147-50; his _Horae_, 151 _sq._;
his English books, 230; his use of old cuts, 101, 148, 160
Vergetius, Angelus, French Royal Greek types designed by, 172
Verona early book-illustration, 123 _sq._
Villena, Marquis of, _Trabajos de Hercules_, 161
Vincent de Beauvais, his _Speculum_, 165
Violette, Pierre, Rouen printer, 225
Virgil, printed by B. Cennini, colophon quoted, 80; Grüninger's, 112;
Leroy's, 158; Aldine, 167; first English, 226 _sq._; Ogilby's, 289;
Baskerville's, 300
Virginia, early printing in, 249
Viterbo, good roman type, 89
Voltaire, edition of his works printed with Baskerville's type, 300
Vostre, Simon, books printed by Pigouchet for, 150, 154 _sqq._
Wächtlin, Johann, illustrator, 190
Waldegrave, Robert, prints Marprelate tracts, 228. _See_ prints at
Edinburgh, 242
Wale, Samuel, illustrator, 296
Walker, Emery, expert in printing, 304 _sqq._
Walpole, Horace, private press, 238
Walther, F., and Hans Hurning, printers of a _Biblia Pauperum_, 25
Walton, Izaak, illustrations to his _Angler_, 296
Wandsforth, Gerard. _See_ Freez
Wandsworth, secret press at, 228
Weiditz, Hans, illustrator, 186 _sq._
Wenssler, Michael, Basel printer, 60 _sq._
Wesel, Bale's _Catalogus_ printed there, 226
Westphalia, John of, early printer at Alost and Louvain, 73; used
roman type, 89; his woodcut portrait, 119
White, John, his drawings of Virginia, 278
-- Robert., engraver, 289
Whittingham, Charles (uncle and nephew), printers, 302 _sq._
Wilcocks, William, gave commissions to Wynkyn de Worde, 210
Williams, Archbishop, gifts of books by, 5
Wilson, J. D., on English books printed abroad, 233
Winthrop, John, allusion to printing at Cambridge, Mass., 243
Wittenberg, printing at, 169; illustrations, 190
Wolfe, Reyner, Royal painter, 218, 259
Wolgemut, Michael, book-illustrator, 116
Woodcuts, early, their charm and distinctiveness, 15
Worde, Wynkyn de, on Caxton's printing the _De proprietatibus_, 214
_sq._; on the St. Alban's printer, 208; on _Fishing with an Angle_,
209 note; his work as a printer, 211 _sq._; his assessment, 222;
book-illustrations, 253 _sq._
Würzburg, early printing at, 64
-- Missals, engravings in, 270
Wyer, Robert, London printer, 222
Ximenes, Cardinal, Polyglott Bible, 176
York, printing at, 225, 236 _sqq._
z.a., z.A., woodcuts signed, 194
Zainer, Günther, first Augsburg printer, 62 _sq._; used roman type,
88; his illustrated books, 103
-- Johann, first Ulm printer, 63; used roman type, 88; his
illustrated books, 106
Zarotus, Antonius, first printer at Milan, 68, 70
Zell, Ulrich, his story of the invention of printing, 35; the first
printer at Cologne, 61
Zenger, Joh. Peter, New York printer, 248
Zinna, the _Psalterium B.V.M._ printed at, 117
Zoan Andrea. _See_ Vavassore, 194
Zurich, English books printed at, 231 _sq._
Zwolle early printing, 72; book-illustrations at, 122
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