SPAIN
Since the first edition of this book appeared knowledge both of
Spanish incunabula and the types in which they are printed has been
greatly increased, thanks to the researches of Professor Haebler.
These have dealt incidentally, but only incidentally, with the
illustration and decoration of early Spanish books, and the present
writer must still confine himself mainly to the little handful of
illustrated books which have come under his own notice.
The book-hand in use in Spain's manuscripts during the fifteenth
century was unusually massive and handsome, and the same
characteristics naturally reappear in the majority of the types used
by the early printers in Spain. A considerable proportion of these
were Germans, whose tradition of good press-work was very fairly
maintained by their immediate successors, so that throughout a great
part of the sixteenth century Spanish books retain much of the
primitive dignity which we are wont to associate only with
'incunabula.' From a very early period, also, they are distinguished
by the excellence of their initial letters, which are almost as
plentiful as they are good; the great majority of books printed after
1485, which I have seen, being fully provided with them. The
prevailing form of initial exhibits very delicate white tracery on a
black ground. In a few instances, as in a _Seneca_ printed by Meinardo
Ungut and Stanislao Polono, at Seville, in 1491, some of the initials
are in red, and have a very decorative effect. A fine capital L and A
appear in a work of Jean de Mena, issued by these printers in 1499,
and a good M in their _Claros Varones_ of Pulgar in the following
year. A _Consolat_, printed, it is said, by Pedro Posa at Barcelona in
1494, is very remarkable for its profusion of fine initials. Engraved
borders are not of common occurrence in Spanish books, though I shall
have to notice two striking instances of their use in books printed at
Zamora and Valencia. Borders are found, also, on the title-pages of
various laws printed at Barcelona during the reign of Ferdinand and
Isabella, but these are of no great beauty, and some of the pieces of
which they are composed are poor copies from the French _Horae_.
As a rule, Spanish title-pages are handsome and imposing. During the
last few years of the fifteenth century and the beginning of its
successor, the titles of books were often printed in large woodcut
letters. A Spanish _Livy_, printed at Salamanca in 1497, a
_Vocabulary_ of Antonio Lebrixa, printed by Kromberger at Seville in
1506, and a _Mar de Istorias_ printed at Valladolid in 1512, supply
examples of this practice. In an _Obra a llaors del benauenturat lo
senyor sant Cristofol_, printed at Valencia in 1498, the woodcut title
is in white on a black ground, which is also relieved by a medallion
of the saint fording the stream. Pictures were also used in connection
with the more ordinary woodcut titles in black--_e.g._ in Juan de
Lucena's _Tratado de la vita beata_, printed by Juan de Burgos in
1502, we have a cut of a king, bearing his sword of justice and
surrounded by his counsellors; and in a _Libro de Consolat tractant
dels fets maritims_ of the same year, printed by Johan Luschner at
Barcelona, beneath the woodcut title there is a large figure of a ship
up whose masts sailors are climbing, apparently in quest of a very
prominent moon.
Woodcut pictures of the hero decorate the title-pages of the romances
of Spain as of other countries, and these pictorial title-pages are
found also, though less frequently, in works of devotion and in plays.
Such pictures are less common in Spain than elsewhere, because of the
great popularity there of the heraldic title-page, in which the arms
of the country, or of the hero or patron of the work, form a
singularly successful method of ornament. These heraldic title-pages
are found in a few books, printed before 1500, and were in common use
throughout the sixteenth century.
The earliest Spanish illustrated book with which I am acquainted is
the _Libro delos Trabajos de Hercules_ of the Marquis Enrique de
Villena, printed by Antonio de Centenera at Zamora, on January 15th,
1483 (1484). This has eleven woodcuts, illustrating the hero's
exploits, and so rudely executed that they are plainly the work of a
native artist. Far more interesting than these 'prentice cuts are the
illustrative initials, apparently engraved on soft metal, in a
_Copilacion de Leyes_, promulgated in 1485, and supposed to have been
printed by Centenera in the same year. These initials are nine in
number, and must have been designed and executed by finished artists,
whose work is so fine that the printer in most instances has failed to
do justice to it. On the first page of text an initial P contains
within it figures of a king and queen, Ferdinand and Isabella. This
page has at its foot a border containing a hunting scene, with a blank
shield in its centre. The rest of the page is surrounded by a text,
printed decoratively, so as to form an open-work border. The first
section of the laws, treating of 'la Santa Fe,' has an initial E,
showing God the Father upholding the crucified Christ. The second
section sets forth the duty of the king to hear causes two days a
week, and begins with an L, here reproduced, in which the king is
unpleasantly close pressed by the litigants.
[Illustration: Initial L from a _Copilacion de Leyes_, Zamora, _c._
1485.]
Two knights spurring from the different sides of an S head the laws of
chivalry; a Canonist and his scholars in an A preside over Matrimony;
money-changers in a D over Commerce, while a luckless wretch being
hanged in the midst of a T warns evil-doers of what they may expect
under the criminal law. The pages containing these initials are
enriched also by a border in two pieces, the lower part of which shows
a shield, with a device of trees, supported by kneeling youths. The
perpendicular piece running up the outer margin bears a floral design.
All the letters, while directly illustrating the subjects of the
chapters which they begin, are at the same time essentially
decorative, and they are certainly the best pictorial initials I have
ever seen, though it must be reckoned against them that they were
unduly difficult to print with the text.
The page here reproduced, unfortunately only about one-third of its
original size, from the famous romance of _Tirant lo Blanch_, gives us
another example of this peculiar style of engraving. It is taken from
the edition printed at Valencia in 1490, and may fairly be reckoned as
one of the most decorative pages in any fifteenth-century book. The
rest of the volume has no other ornament than some good initials.
The first Spanish book with woodcuts of any artistic merit with which
I am acquainted is an edition of Diego de San Pedro's _Carcel d'Amor_,
printed at Barcelona in 1493. This has sixteen different cuts, some of
which are several times repeated. The title-cut, showing love's
prison, is here reproduced, and gives a very good idea of a
characteristic Spanish woodcut. The other illustrations show the lover
in various attitudes before his lady, a meeting in a street, the
author at work on his book, &c. Another edition of the _Carcel
d'Amor_, with the same woodcuts, was printed at Burgos in 1496 by
Fadrique Aleman.
[Illustration: Title-page of Diego de San Pedro's _Carcel d'Amor_,
Barcelona, 1493.]
Most of the other Spanish incunabula with woodcuts, which I have seen,
were printed at Seville by Meinardo Ungut and Stanislao Polono. The
first of these, Gorricio's _Contemplaciones sobre el Rosario de
nuestra se[~n]ora_, issued in 1495, has some good initials, two large
cuts nearly the full size of the quarto page, and fifteen smaller
ones, with graceful borders mostly on a black ground. The small cuts
illustrate the life of Christ and of the B. Virgin, and are, to some
extent, modelled on the pictures in the French _Horae_. In the same
year, the same printers published Ayala's _Chronica del Rey don
Pedro_, with a title-cut of a young king, seated on his throne, and
also the _Lilio de Medicina_ of B. de Gordonio with a title-cut of
lilies. In 1496, a firm of four printers, 'Paulo de Colonia, Juan
Pegnicer de Nuremberg, Magno y Thomas,' published an edition of Juan
de Mena's _Labirinto_ or _Las CCC_ (so called from the number of
stanzas in which it is written) with a title-cut of the author (?)
kneeling before a king. Three years later, still at Seville, Pedro
Brun printed in quarto the romance of the Emperor _Vespasian_, with
fourteen full-page cuts of sea voyages, sieges, the death of Pilate,
&c. Against these books printed at Seville, during the last decade of
the century, I have only notes of one or two books issued at
Salamanca, Valencia, and Barcelona, with unimportant title-cuts, and a
reprint at Burgos of the _Trabajos de Hercules_ (1499) with poor
illustrations fitted into the columns of a folio page. But it is quite
possible that my knowledge is as one-sided as it is limited, and I
must, therefore, refrain from building up any theory that Seville,
rather than any other town, was the chief home of illustrated books in
Spain. After 1500 the Spanish books which I have met have no important
illustrations beyond the cuts which appear on some of their
title-pages. But here, also, I should be sorry to make my small
experience the basis of a general statement.
The devices of the Spanish printers were greatly influenced by those
of their compeers of Italy and France. The simple circle and cross, in
white on a black ground, with the printer's initials in the
semicircles, is fairly common, while Diego de Gumiel and Arnaldo
Guillermo Brocar varied it, according to the best Italian fashion,
with very beautiful floral tracery. The tree of knowledge and pendant
shields, beloved of the French printers, appear in the marks of
Meinardo Ungut and Stanislao Polono, and of Juan de Rosembach. Arnaldo
Guillermo had another and very elaborate mark, showing a man kneeling
before the emblems of the Passion, and two angels supporting a shield
with a device of a porcupine. One of the quaintest of all printers'
marks was used by a later printer of the name Juan Brocar, whose motto
'legitime certanti' is illustrated by a mail-clad soldier grasping a
lady's hair while he himself is being seized by the devil!
[Illustration: From the _Canterbury Tales_, 2nd edition.]