not be easily understood, are chiefly diagrams explanatory of the
principles of astronomy and dialling; but besides those twenty-seven
cuts the book contains eleven more, which may be considered as
illustrative rather than explanatory. The following is a list of those
eleven cuts in the order in which they occur. They are less than the
cuts in the “Game of Chess;” the most of them not exceeding three inches
and a half by three.[IV-39]
[Footnote IV-39: Fac-similes of six of those cuts are given in Dr.
Dibdin’s edition of Ames’s Typographical Antiquities, vol.
i. p. 110-112.]
1. A school-master or “doctor,” gowned, and seated on a high-backed
chair, teaching four youths who are on their knees. 2. A person seated
on a low-backed chair, holding in his hand a kind of globe; astronomical
instruments on a table before him. 3. Christ, or the Godhead, holding in
his hand a ball and cross. 4. The creation of Eve, who appears coming
out of Adam’s side.--The next cuts are figurative of the “seven arts
liberal.” 5. Grammar. A teacher with a large birch-rod seated on a
chair, his four pupils before him on their knees. 6. Logic. Figure
bare-headed seated on a chair, and having before him a book on a kind of
reading-stand, which he appears expounding to his pupils who are
kneeling. 7. Rhetoric. An upright figure in a gown, to whom another,
kneeling, presents a paper, from which a seal is seen depending.
8. Arithmetic. A figure seated, and having before him a tablet inscribed
with numerical characters. 9. Geometry. A figure standing, with a pair
of compasses in his hand, with which he seems to be drawing diagrams on
a table. 10. Music. A female figure with a sheet of music in her hand,
singing, and a man playing on the English flute. 11. Astronomy. Figure
with a kind of quadrant in his hand, who seems to be taking an
observation.--An idea may be formed of the manner in which those cuts
are engraved from the fac-simile on the next page of No. 10, “Music.”
There are wood-cuts in the Golden Legend, 1483; the Fables of Esop,
1484; Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, and other books printed by Caxton; but
it is unnecessary either to enumerate them or to give specimens, as they
are all executed in the same rude manner as the cuts in the Book of
Chess and the Mirror of the World. In the Book of Hunting and Hawking
printed at St. Albans, 1486, there are rude wood-cuts; as also in a
second and enlarged edition of the same book printed by Wynkyn de Worde,
Caxton’s successor, at Westminster in 1496. The most considerable
wood-cut printed in England previous to 1500 is, so far as regards the
design, a representation of the Crucifixion at the end of the Golden
Legend printed by Wynkyn de Worde in 1493.[IV-40] In this cut, neither
of the thieves on each side of Christ appears to be nailed to the cross.
The arms of the thief on the right of Christ hang behind, and are bound
to the transverse piece of the cross, which passes underneath his
shoulders. His feet are neither bound nor nailed to the cross. The feet
of the thief to the left of Christ are tied to the upright piece of the
cross, to which his hands are also bound, his shoulders resting upon the
top, and his face turned upward towards the sky. To the left is seen the
Virgin,--who has fallen down,--supported by St. John. In the back-ground
to the right, the artist, like several others of that period, has
represented Christ bearing his cross.
[Illustration]
Dr. Dibdin, at page 8 of the “Disquisition on the Early State of
Engraving and Ornamental Printing in Great Britain,” prefixed to Ames’s
and Herbert’s Typographical Antiquities, makes the following
observations on this cut: “The ‘Crucifixion’ at the end of the ‘Golden
Legend’ of 1493, which Wynkyn de Worde has so frequently subjoined to
his religious pieces, is, unquestionably, the effort of some ingenious
foreign artist. It is not very improbable that Rubens had a recollection
of one of the thieves, twisted, from convulsive agony, round the top of
the cross, when he executed his celebrated picture of the same
subject.”[IV-41] In De Worde’s cut, however, it is to be remarked that
the contorted attitude of both the thieves results rather from the
manner in which they are bound to the cross, than from the convulsions
of agony.
[Footnote IV-40: A large flowered letter, a T, cut on wood, occurs
on the same page as the Crucifixion.]
[Footnote IV-41: In a note upon this passage Dr. Dibdin gives the
following extract from Sir Joshua Reynolds. “To give animation to
this subject, Rubens has chosen the point of time when an
executioner is piercing the side of Christ, while another with a
bar of iron is breaking the limbs of one of the malefactors, who
in his convulsive agony, which his body admirably expresses, has
torn one of his feet from the tree to which it was nailed. The
expression in the action of the figure is wonderful.”]
At page 7 of the same Disquisition it is said that the figures in the
Game of Chess, the Mirror of the World, and other works printed by
Caxton “are, in all probability, not the genuine productions of this
country; and may be traced to books of an earlier date printed abroad,
from which they were often borrowed without acknowledgment or the least
regard to the work in which they again appeared. Caxton, however, has
judiciously taken one of the prints from the ‘Biblia Pauperum’ to
introduce in his ‘Life of Christ.’ The cuts for his second edition of
‘Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales’ may perhaps safely be considered as the
genuine invention and execution of a British artist.”
Although I am well aware that the printers of the fifteenth century were
accustomed to copy without acknowledgment the cuts which appeared in
each other’s books, and though I think it likely that Caxton might
occasionally resort to the same practice, yet I am decidedly of opinion
that the cuts in the “Game of Chess” and the “Mirror of the World” were
designed and engraved in this country. Caxton’s Game of Chess is
certainly the first book of the kind which appeared with wood-cuts in
any country; and I am further of opinion that in no book printed
previous to 1481 will the presumed originals of the eleven principal
cuts in the Mirror of the World be found. Before we are required to
believe that the cuts in those two books were copied from similar
designs by some foreign artist, we ought to be informed in what work
such originals are to be found. If there be any merit in a first design,
however rude, it is but just to assign it to him who first employs the
unknown artist and makes his productions known. Caxton’s claims to the
merit of “illustrating” the Game of Chess and the Mirror of the World
with wood-cuts from original designs, I conceive to be indisputable.
Dr. Dibdin, in a long note at pages 33, 34, and 35 of the Typographical
Antiquities, gives a confused account of the earliest editions of books
on chess. He mentions as the first, a Latin edition--supposed by
Santander to be the work of Jacobus de Cessolis--in folio, printed about
the year 1473, by Ketelaer and Leempt. In this edition, however, there
are no cuts, and the date is only conjectural. He says that two editions
of the work of Jacobus de Cessolis on the Morality of Chess, in German
and Italian, with wood-cuts, were printed, without date, in the
fifteenth century, and he adds: “Whether Caxton borrowed the cuts in his
second edition from those in the 8vo. German edition without date, or
from this latter Italian one, I am not able to ascertain, having seen
neither.” He seems satisfied that Caxton had _borrowed_ the cuts in his
book of chess, though he is at a loss to discover the party who might
have them to _lend_. Had he even seen the two editions which he
mentions, he could not have known whether Caxton had borrowed his cuts
from them or not until he had ascertained that they were printed
previously to the English edition. There is a German edition of Jacobus
de Cessolis, in folio, with wood-cuts supposed to be printed in 1477, at
Augsburg, by Gunther Zainer, but both date and printer’s name are
conjectural. The first German edition of this work with wood-cuts, and
having a positive date, I believe to be that printed at Strasburg by
Henry Knoblochzer in 1483. Until a work on chess shall be produced of an
earlier date than that ascribed to Caxton’s, and containing similar
wood-cuts, I shall continue to believe that the wood-cuts in the second
English edition of the “Game and Playe of the Chesse” were both designed
and executed by an English artist; and I protest against bibliographers
going a-begging with wood-cuts found in old English books, and ascribing
them to foreign artists, before they have taken the slightest pains to
ascertain whether such cuts were executed in England or not.
The wood-cuts in the Game of Chess and the Mirror of the World are
equally as good as the wood-cuts which are to be found in books printed
abroad about the same period. They are even decidedly better than those
in Anthony Sorg’s German Bible, Augsburg, 1480, or those in Veldener’s
edition of the Fasciculus Temporum, printed at Utrecht in the same year.
It has been supposed that most of the wood-cuts which appear in books
printed by Caxton and De Worde were executed abroad; on the presumption
that there were at that period no professed wood engravers in England.
Although I am inclined to believe that within the fifteenth century
there were no persons in this country who practised wood engraving as a
distinct profession, yet it by no means follows from such an admission
that Caxton’s and De Worde’s cuts must have been engraved by foreign
artists. The manner in which they are executed is so coarse that they
might be cut by any person who could handle a graver. Looking at them
merely as specimens of wood engraving, they are not generally superior
to the practice-blocks cut by a modern wood-engraver’s apprentice within
the first month of his noviciate. I conceive that there would be no
greater difficulty in finding a person capable of engraving them than
there would be in finding the pieces of wood on which they were to be
executed. Persons who have noticed the embellishments in manuscripts,
the carving, the monuments, and the stained glass in churches, executed
in England about the time of Caxton, will scarcely suppose that there
were no artists in this country capable of making the designs for those
cuts. There is in fact reason to believe that in England in the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the walls of apartments, more
especially in taverns and hostelries, frequently contained paintings,
most probably in distemper, of subjects both from sacred and general
history. That paintings of sacred subjects were not unusual in churches
at those periods is well known.
In most of the cuts which are to be found in books printed by Caxton,
the effect is produced by the simplest means. The outline of the figures
is coarse and hard, and the shades and folds of the draperies are
indicated by short parallel lines. Cross-hatchings occur in none of
them, though in one or two I have noticed a few angular dots picked out
of the black part of a cut in order that it might not appear like a mere
blot. The foliage of the trees is generally represented in a manner
similar to those in the background of the cut of the knight, of which a
copy is given at page 193. The oak leaves in a wood-cut[IV-42] at the
commencement of the preface to the Golden Legend, 1483, are an exception
to the general style of Caxton’s foliage; and represent what they are
intended for with tolerable accuracy. Having thus noticed some of the
earliest books with wood-engravings printed in England, I shall now
resume my account of the progress of the art on the Continent.
[Footnote IV-42: A copy of this cut is given at p. 186, vol. i. of
Dr. Dibdin’s edition of the Typographical Antiquities.]
In an edition of Ptolemy’s Cosmography, printed at Ulm in 1482 by
Leonard Holl, we have the first instance of maps engraved on wood. The
work is in folio, and the number of the maps is twenty-seven. In a
general map of the world the engraver has thus inserted his name at the
top: “Insculptum est per Johannē Schnitzer de Armssheim.”[IV-43] At the
corners of this map the winds are represented by heads with puffed-out
cheeks, very indifferently engraved. The work also contains ornamental
initial letters engraved on wood. In a large one, the letter at the
beginning of the volume, the translator is represented offering his book
to Pope Paul II. who occupied the see of Rome from 1464 to 1471.
[Footnote IV-43: Arnsheim, which is probably the place intended,
is about twenty miles to the south-west of Mentz.]
Each map occupies two folio pages, and is printed on the verso of one
page and the recto of the next, in such a manner that when the book is
open the adjacent pages seem as if printed from one block. What may be
considered as the skeleton of each map,--such as indications of rivers
and mountains,--is coarsely cut; but as the names of the places are also
engraved on wood, the execution of those thirty-seven maps must have
been a work of considerable labour. In 1486 another edition with the
same cuts was printed at Ulm by John Regen at the cost of Justus de
Albano of Venice.
The idea of Leonard Holl’s Ptolemy was most likely suggested by an
edition of the same work printed at Rome in 1478 by Arnold Bukinck, the
successor of Conrad Sweinheim. In this edition the maps are printed from
plates of copper; and from the perfect similarity of the letters, as may
be observed in the names of places, there can be no doubt of their
having been stamped upon the plate by means of a punch in a manner
similar to that in which a bookbinder impresses the titles at the back
of a volume. It is absolutely impossible that such perfect uniformity in
the form of the letters could have been obtained, had they been
separately engraved on the plate by hand. Each single letter is as
perfectly like another of the same character,--the capital M for
instance,--as types cast by a letter-founder from the same mould. The
names of the places are all in capitals, but different sizes are used
for the names of countries and cities. The capitals at the margins
referring to the degrees of latitude are of very beautiful shape, and as
delicate as the capitals in modern hair-type.
At the back of some of the maps in the copy in the King’s Library at the
British Museum, the paper appears as if it had received, when in a damp
state, an impression from linen cloth. As this appearance of threads
crossing each other does not proceed from the texture of the paper, but
is evidently the result of pressure, I am inclined to think that it has
been occasioned by a piece of linen being placed between the paper and
the roller when the impressions were taken.
In the dedication of the work to the Pope it is stated that this edition
was prepared by Domitius Calderinus of Verona, who promised to collate
the Latin version with an ancient Greek manuscript; and that Conrad
Sweinheim, who was one of the first who introduced the art of printing
at Rome, undertook, with the assistance of “certain mathematical men,”
whom he taught, to “impress” the maps upon plates of copper. Sweinheim,
after having spent three years in preparing these plates, died before
they were finished; and Arnold Bukinck, a learned German printer,
completed the work, “that the emendations of Calderinus,--who also died
before the book was printed,--and the results of Sweinheim’s most
ingenious mechanical contrivances might not be lost to the learned
world.”[IV-44]
[Footnote IV-44: “Magister vero Conradus Suueynheyn, Germanus,
a quo formandorum Romæ librorum ars primum profecta est, occasione
hinc sumpta posteritati consulens animum ad hanc doctrinam
capessendam applicuit. Subinde mathematicis adhibitis viris
quemadmodum tabulis eneis imprimerentur edocuit, triennioque in
hac cura consumpto diem obiit. In cujus vigilarum laborumque
partem non inferiori ingenio ac studio Arnoldus Buckinck e
Germania vir apprime eruditus ad imperfectum opus succedens, ne
Domitii Conradique obitu eorum vigiliæ emendationesque sine
testimonio perirent neve virorum eruditorum censuram fugerent
immensæ subtilitatis machinimenta, examussim ad unum
perfecit.”--Dedication to the Pope, of Ptolemy’s Cosmography,
Rome, 1478.]
An edition of Ptolemy in folio, with the maps engraved on copper, was
printed at Bologna by Dominico de Lapis with the erroneous date
M.CCCC.LXII. This date is certainly wrong, for no work from the press of
this printer is known of an earlier date than 1477; and the editor of
this edition, Philip Beroaldus the elder, was only born in 1450, if not
in 1453. Supposing him to have been born in the former year, he would
only be twelve years old in 1462. Raidel, who in 1737 published a
dissertation on this edition, thinks that two numerals--XX--had
accidentally been omitted, and that the date ought to be 1482. Breitkopf
thinks that one X might be accidentally omitted in a date and pass
uncorrected, but not two. He rather thinks that the compositor had
placed an I instead of an L, and that the correct date ought to stand
thus: M CCCC L XLI--1491. I am however of opinion that no instance of
the Roman numerals, L XLI, being thus combined to express 91, can be
produced. It seems most probable that the date 1482 assigned by Raidel
is correct; although his opinion respecting the numerals--XX--being
accidentally omitted may be wrong. It is extremely difficult to account
for the erroneous dates of many books printed previous to 1500. Several
of those dates may have been accidentally wrong set by the compositor,
and overlooked by the corrector; but others are so obvious that it is
likely they were designedly introduced. The bibliographer who should
undertake to enquire what the printers’ reasons might be for falsifying
the dates of their books, would be as likely to arrive at the truth, as
he would be in an enquiry into the reason of their sometimes adding
their name, and sometimes omitting it. The execution of the maps in the
edition of De Lapis is much inferior to that of the maps begun by
Sweinheim, and finished by Bukinck in 1478.
Bukinck’s edition of Ptolemy, 1478, is the second book which contains
impressions from copper-plates. Heineken, at page 233, refers to the
“Missale Herbipolense,” folio, 1481, as the first book printed in
Germany containing a specimen of copper-plate engraving. Dr. Dibdin,
however, in the 3rd volume of his Tour, page 306, mentions the same work
as having the date of 1479 in the prefatory admonition, and says that
the plate of a shield of arms--the only one in the volume--is noticed by
Bartsch in his “Peintre-Graveur,” vol. x. p. 57. The printer of the
edition of 1481 appears from Heineken to have been George Reyser. In the
“Modus Orandi secundum chorum Herbipolensem,” folio, printed by George
Reyser, “Herbipoli,” [at Wurtzburg,] 1485, there is on folio II. a
copper-plate engraving of the arms of Rudolph de Scherenberg, bishop of
that see. This plate is also described by Bartsch in his
“Peintre-Graveur,” vol. x. p. 156. The first book which appeared with
copper-plate engravings is intitled “Il Monte Sancto di Dio,” written by
Antonio Bettini, and printed at Florence in 1477 by Nicolo di Lorenzo
della Magna. As this book is of extreme rarity, I shall here give an
account of the plates from Mercier, who first called the attention of
bibliographers to it as being of an earlier date than the folio edition
of Dante, with copper-plate engravings, printed also by Nicolo Lorenzo
in 1481. This edition of Dante was generally supposed to be the first
book containing copper-plate engravings until Bettini’s work was
described by Mercier.
The work called “Il Monte Sancto di Dio” is in quarto, and according to
Mercier there ought to be a quire or gathering of four leaves at the
commencement, containing a summary of the work, which is divided into
three parts, with a table of the chapters. On the reverse of the last of
those four leaves is the first plate, which occupies the whole page, and
“measures nine inches and seven-eighths in height, by seven inches in
width.”[IV-45] This plate represents the Holy Mountain, on the top of
which Christ is seen standing in the midst of adoring angels. A ladder
is placed against this mountain, to which it is fastened with iron
chains, and on each step is engraved the name of a virtue, for instance,
Prudence, Temperance, Fortitude, and others. A figure clothed in a long
robe, and who appears to be a monk, is seen mounting the ladder. His
eyes are directed towards a huge crucifix placed half way up the hill to
the right of the ladder, and from his mouth there proceeds a label
inscribed with these words: “_Tirami doppo ti_,”--“Draw me up after
thee.” Another figure is seen standing at the foot of the mountain,
looking towards the top, and uttering these words: “_Levavi oculos meos
in montes_,” &c. The second plate occurs at signature Iv[IV-46] after
the 115th chapter. It also represents Christ in his glory, surrounded by
angels. It is only four inches and five lines high, by six inches wide,
French measure. The third plate, which is the same size as the second,
occurs at signature Pvij, and represents a view of Hell according to the
description of Dante. Those plates, which for the period are well enough
designed and executed, especially the second, were most likely engraved
on copper; and they seem to be by the same hand as those in the edition
of Dante of 1481, from the press of Nicolo di Lorenzo, who also printed
the work of Bettini.[IV-47] A copy of “Il Monte Sancto di Dio” is in
Earl Spencer’s Library; and a description and specimens of the cuts are
given by Dr. Dibdin in the Bibliotheca Spenceriana, vol. iv. p. 30; and
by Mr. Ottley in the Inquiry into the Origin and Early History of
Engraving, vol. i. pp. 375-377.
[Footnote IV-45: This is Mr. Ottley’s measurement, taken within
the black line which bounds the subject. The width as given by
Mercier does not accord with the above. He says that the plate
“a neuf pouces et demi de haut sur six de large.”]
[Footnote IV-46: Mr. Ottley says, “on the reverse of signature N
viij.”]
[Footnote IV-47: “Lettres de M. l’Abbé de St. L***, [St. Léger,
autrefois le pere Le Mercier, ancien Bibliothecaire de St.
Genevieve] à M. le Baron de H*** sur différentes Editions rares du
XV^e. Siécle,” p. 4-5. 8vo. Paris, 1783. A short biographic sketch
of the Abbé Mercier St. Léger, one of the most eminent French
Bibliographers of the last century, will be found in Dr. Dibdin’s
Tour, vol. ii. p. 180.]
In the execution of the maps, the copper-plate engraver possesses a
decided advantage over the engraver on wood, owing to the greater
facility and clearness with which letters can be cut _in_ copper than
_on_ wood. In the engraving of letters on copper, the artist cuts the
form of the letter _into_ the plate, the character being thus in
_intaglio_; while in engraving on a block, the wood surrounding has to
be cut away, and the letter left in _relief_. On copper, using only the
graver,--for etching was not known in the fifteenth century,--as many
letters might be cut in one day as could be cut on wood in three.
Notwithstanding the disadvantage under which the ancient wood engravers
laboured in the execution of maps, they for many years contended with
the copper-plate printers for a share of this branch of business; and
the printers, at whose presses maps engraved on wood only could be
printed, were well inclined to support the wood engravers. In a folio
edition of Ptolemy, printed at Venice in 1511, by Jacobus Pentius de
Leucho, the outlines of the maps, with the indications of the mountains
and rivers, are cut on wood, and the names of the places are printed in
type, of different sizes, and with red and black ink. For instance, in
the map of Britain, which is more correct than any which had previously
appeared, the word “ALBION” is printed in large capitals, and the word
“GADINI” in small capitals, and both with red ink. The words “Curia” and
“Bremenium” are printed in small Roman characters, and with black ink.
The names of the rivers are also in small Roman, and in black ink. Such
of those maps as contain many names, are almost full of type. The double
borders surrounding them, within which the degrees of latitude are
marked, appear to have been formed of separate pieces of metal, in the
manner of wide double rules. At the head of several of the maps there
are figures of animals emblematic of the country. In the first map of
Africa there are two parrots; in the second an animal like a jackal, and
a non-descript; in the third, containing Egypt, a crocodile, and a
monstrous kind of fish like a dragon; and in the fourth, two parrots. In
the last, the “curious observer” will note a specimen of decorative
printing from two blocks of wood; for the beak, wing, and tail of one of
the parrots is printed in red.
In the last map,--of Loraine,--in an edition of Ptolemy, in folio,
printed at Strasburg in 1513, by John Schott, the attempt to print in
colours, in the manner of chiaro-scuro wood engravings, is carried yet
further. The hills and woods are printed green; the indications of towns
and cities, and the names of the most considerable places, are red;
while the names of the smaller places are black. For this map, executed
in three colours, green, red, and black, there would be required two
wood engravings and two forms of type, each of which would have to be
separately printed. The arms which form a border to the map are printed
in their proper heraldic colours.[IV-48] The only other specimen of
armorial bearings printed in colours from wood-blocks, that I am aware
of, is Earl Spencer’s arms in the first part of Savage’s Hints on
Decorative Printing, which was published in 1818, upwards of three
hundred years after the first essay.
[Footnote IV-48: I regret that I have not had an opportunity of
personally examining this map. There is a copy of Schott’s edition
in the British Museum; but all the maps, except one of the sphere,
are taken out. The above account of the map of Loraine is from
Breitkopf’s interesting essay “Ueber den Druck der Geographischen
Charten,” S. 7. 4to. Leipzig, 1777.]
At a later period a new method was adopted by which the wood engraver
was spared the trouble of cutting the letters, while the printer was
enabled to obtain a perfect copy of each map by a single impression. The
mode in which this was effected was as follows. The indications of
mountains, rivers, cities, and villages were engraved on the wood as
before, and blank spaces were left for the names. Those spaces were
afterwards cut out by means of a chisel or drill, piercing quite through
the block: and the names of the places being inserted in type, the whole
constituted only one “form,” from which an impression both of the cut
and the letters could be obtained by its being passed once through the
press. Sebastian Munster’s Cosmography, folio, printed at Basle in 1554,
by Henry Petri, affords several examples of maps executed in this
manner. This may be considered as one of the last efforts of the old
wood engravers and printers to secure to themselves a share of the
business of map-engraving. Their endeavours, however, were unavailing;
for within twenty years of that date, this branch of art was almost
exclusively in the hands of the copper-plate engravers. From the date of
the maps of Ortelius, Antwerp, 1570, engraved on copper by Ægidius
Diest, maps engraved on wood are rarely to be seen. The practice of
engraving the outlines and rivers on wood, and then piercing the block
and inserting the names of the places in type has, however, lately been
revived; and where publishers are obliged either to print maps with the
type or to give none at all, this mode may answer very well, more
especially when the object is to give the relative position of a few of
the principal places, rather than a crowded list of names. Most of the
larger maps in the Penny Cyclopædia are executed in this manner. The
holes in the blocks are pierced with the greatest rapidity by gouges of
different sizes acting vertically, and put in motion by machinery
contrived by Mr. Edward Cowper, to whose great mechanical skill the art
of steam-printing chiefly owes its perfection.
Having thus noticed consecutively the progress of map engraving, it may
not here be out of place to give a brief account of Breitkopf’s
experiment to print a map with separate pieces of metal in the manner of
type.[IV-49] Previous to 1776 some attempts had been made by a person
named Preusch, of Carlsruhe, to print maps by a process which he named
typometric, and who published an account of his plan, printed at the
press of Haass the Younger, of Basil. In 1776 Breitkopf sent a
communication to Busching’s Journal, containing some remarks on the
invention of Preusch, and stating that he had conceived a similar plan
upwards of twenty years previously, and that he had actually set up a
specimen and printed off a few copies, which he had given to his
friends. The veracity of this account having been questioned by an
illiberal critic, Breitkopf, in 1777, prefixed to his Essay on the
Printing of Maps a specimen composed of moveable pieces of metal in the
manner of types. He expressly declares that he considered his experiment
a failure; and that he only produced his specimen--a quarto map of the
country round Leipsic--in testimony of the truth of what he had
previously asserted, and to show that two persons might, independently
of each other, conceive an idea of the same invention, although they
might differ considerably in their mode of carrying it into effect.
[Footnote IV-49: The following particulars respecting Breitkopf’s
invention are derived from his essay “Ueber den Druck der
Geographischen Charten,” previously referred to.]
He was first led to think on the practicability of printing maps with
moveable pieces of metal by considering that when the letters are
omitted there remain but hills, rivers, and the indications of places;
and for these he was convinced that representations consisting of
moveable pieces of metal might be contrived. Having, however, made the
experiment, he felt satisfied that the appearance of such a map was
unpleasing to the eye, and that the invention was not likely to be
practically useful. Had it not been for the publication of Preusch, he
says that he never would have thought of mentioning his invention,
except as a mechanical experiment; and to show that the execution of
maps in such a manner was within the compass of the printer’s art.
In the specimen which he gives, rivers are represented by minute
parallel lines, which are shorter or longer as the river contracts or
expands; and the junction of the separate pieces may be distinctly
perceived. For hills and trees there are distinct characters
representing those objects. Towns and large villages are distinguished
by a small church, and small villages by a small circle. Roads are
indicated by dotted parallel lines. For the title of the map large
capitals are used. The name of the city of LEIPSIC is in small capitals.
The names of towns and villages are in _Italic_; and of woods, rivers,
and hills, in Roman type. The general appearance of the map is
unpleasing to the eye. Breitkopf has displayed his ingenuity by
producing such a typographic curiosity, and his good sense in abandoning
his invention when he found that he could not render it useful.
Mr. Ottley, at page 755 of the second volume of his Inquiry, makes the
following remarks on the subject of cross-hatching in wood
engravings:--“It appears anciently to have been the practice of those
masters who furnished designs for the wood engravers to work from,
carefully to avoid all cross-hatchings, which, it is probable, were
considered beyond the power of the Xylographist to represent. Wolgemuth
perceived that, though difficult, this was not impossible; and in the
cuts of the Nuremberg Chronicle, the execution of which, (besides
furnishing the designs,) he doubtless superintended, a successful
attempt was first made to imitate the bold hatchings of a pen-drawing,
crossing each other, as occasion prompted the designer, in various
directions: to him belongs the praise of having been the first who duly
appreciated the powers of this art.”
Although it is true that cross-hatchings are not to be found in the
earliest wood engravings, yet Mr. Ottley is wrong in assigning this
material improvement in the art to Michael Wolgemuth; for cross-hatching
is introduced in the beautiful cut forming the frontispiece to the Latin
edition of Breydenbach’s Travels, folio, first printed at Mentz, by
Erhard Reuwich, in 1486,[IV-50] seven years before the Nuremberg
Chronicle appeared. The cut in the following page is a reduced but
accurate copy of Breydenbach’s frontispiece, which is not only the
finest wood engraving which had appeared up to that date, 1486, but is
in point of design and execution as superior to the best cuts in the
Nuremberg Chronicle, as the designs of Albert Durer are to the cuts in
the oldest editions of the “Poor Preachers’ Bible.”
[Footnote IV-50: An edition of this work in German, with the same
cuts, was printed by Reuwich in 1488. Within ten years, at least
six different editions of this work were printed in Germany. It
was also translated into Low Dutch, and printed in Holland.]
[Illustration:
Philippus de bicken miles]
In this cut, cross-hatching may be observed in the drapery of the female
figure, in the upper part of the two shields on each side of her, in the
border at the top of the cut, and in other places. Whether the female
figure be intended as a personification of the city of Mentz, as is
sometimes seen in old books of the sixteenth century, or for St.
Catherine, whose shrine on Mount Sinai was visited by Breydenbach in his
travels, I shall not pretend to determine. The arms on her right are
Breydenbach’s own; on her left are the arms of John, Count of Solms and
Lord of Mintzenberg, and at the bottom of the cut those of Philip de
Bicken, knight, who were Breydenbach’s companions to the holy sepulchre
at Jerusalem and the shrine of St. Catherine on Mount Sinai. St.
Catherine, it may be observed, was esteemed the patroness of learned
men, and her figure was frequently placed in libraries in Catholic
countries, in the same manner as the bust of Minerva in the libraries of
ancient Greece and Rome. The name of the artist by whom the frontispiece
to Breydenbach’s travels was executed is unknown; but I have no
hesitation in declaring him to be one of the best wood engravers of the
period. As this is the earliest wood-cut in which I have noticed
cross-hatching, I shall venture to ascribe the merit of the invention to
the unknown artist, whoever he may have been; and shall consider the
date 1486 as marking the period when a new style of wood engraving was
introduced. Wolgemuth, as associated with wood engraving, has too long
been decked out with borrowed plumes; and persons who knew little or
nothing either of the history or practice of the art, and who are misled
by writers on whose authority they rely, believe that Michael Wolgemuth
was not only one of the best wood engravers of his day, but that he was
the first who introduced a material improvement into the practice of the
art. This error becomes more firmly rooted when such persons come to be
informed that he was the master of Albert Durer, who is generally, but
erroneously, supposed to have been the best wood engraver of his day.
Albert Durer studied under Michael Wolgemuth as a painter, and not as a
wood engraver; and I consider it as extremely questionable if either of
them ever engraved a single block. There are many evidences in Germany
of Wolgemuth having been a tolerably good painter for the age and
country in which he lived; but there is not one of his having engraved
on wood. In the Nuremberg Chronicle he is represented as having, in
conjunction with William Pleydenwurf, superintended the execution of the
wood-cuts contained in that book. Those cuts, which are frequently
referred to as excellent specimens of old wood engraving, are in fact
the most tasteless and worthless things that are to be found in any
book, ancient or modern. It is a book, however, that is easy to be
obtained; and it serves as a land-mark to superficial enquirers who are
perpetually referring to it as containing wood-cuts designed, if not
engraved, by Albert Durer’s master,--and such, they conclude, must
necessarily possess a very high degree of excellence.
Breydenbach was a canon of the cathedral church of Mentz, and he
dedicates the account of his pilgrimage to the Holy Land and visit to
Mount Sinai to Berthold, archbishop of that see. The frontispiece,
although most deserving of attention as a specimen of wood engraving, is
not the only cut in the book which is worthy of notice. Views are given,
engraved on wood, of the most remarkable places which he visited;--and
those of Venice, Corfu, Modon, and the country round Jerusalem, which
are of great length, are inserted in the book as “folding plates.” Each
of the above views is too large to have been engraved on one block. For
that of Venice, which is about five feet long, and ten inches high,
several blocks must have been required, from each of which impressions
would have to be taken singly, and afterwards pasted together, as is at
present done in such views as are too wide to be contained on one sheet.
Those views, with respect to the manner in which they are executed, are
superior to everything of the same kind which had previously appeared.
The work also contains smaller cuts printed with the type, which are not
generally remarkable for their execution, although some of them are
drawn and engraved in a free and spirited manner. The following cut is a
reduced copy of that which is prefixed to a chapter intitled “De
Surianis qui Ierosolimis et locis illis manentes etiam se asserunt esse
Christianos:”--
[Illustration]
In a cut of animals there is a figure of a giraffe,[IV-51] named by
Breydenbach “seraffa,” of a unicorn, a salamander, a camel, and an
animal something like an oran-outang, except that it has a tail. Of the
last the traveller observes, “non constat de nomine.” Some account of
this book, with fac-similes of the cuts, will be found in Dibdin’s
Bibliotheca Spenceriana, vol iii. pp. 216-228. In the copy there
described, belonging to Earl Spencer, the beautiful frontispiece was
wanting.
[Footnote IV-51: This is probably the first figure of the giraffe
that was communicated to the “reading public” of Europe. Its
existence was afterwards denied by several naturalists; and it is
only within a comparatively recent period that the existence of
such an animal was clearly established.]
Although a flowered border surrounding a whole page may be observed as
occurring twice in Veldener’s edition of the Fasciculus Temporum,
printed at Utrecht in 1480, yet I am inclined to think that the practice
of surrounding every page with an ornamental flowered border cut in
wood, was first introduced by the Parisian printers at a period somewhat
later. In 1488, an edition of the “Horæ in Laudem beatissimæ virginis
Mariæ,” in octavo, was printed at Paris by Anthony Verard, the text of
which is surrounded with ornamental borders. The practice thus
introduced was subsequently adopted by the printers of Germany and
Holland, more especially in the decoration of devotional works, such as
Horæ, Breviaries, and Psalters. Verard appears to have chiefly printed
works of devotion and love, for a greater number of Horæ and Romances
proceeded from his press than that of any other printer of his age. Most
of them contain wood-cuts, some of which, in books printed by him about
the beginning of the sixteenth century, are designed with considerable
taste and well engraved; while others, those for instance in “La Fleur
des Battailes,” 4to, 1505, are not superior to those in Caxton’s Chess:
it is, however, not unlikely that the cuts in “La Fleur des Battailes”
of this date had been used for an earlier edition.[IV-52]
[Footnote IV-52: A good specimen of early French wood engraving
may be seen in the large cut forming a kind of frontispiece to the
“Roman du Roy Artus,” folio, printed at Rouen in 1488 by Jehan de
Bourgeois. This cut, which occupies the whole page, represents
King Arthur and his knights dining off the round table. A smaller
one occurs at the beginning of the second part, and both are
surrounded by ornamental borders.]
The “Hortus Sanitatis,” folio, printed at Mentz in 1491 by Jacobus
Meydenbach, is frequently referred to by bibliographers; not so much on
account of the many wood-cuts which it contains, but as being supposed
in some degree to confirm a statement in Sebastian Munster’s
Cosmography, and in Serrarius, De Rebus Moguntinis, where a _John_
Meydenbach is mentioned as being a partner with Gutemberg and Faust. Von
Murr, as has been previously noticed, supposed that this person was a
wood engraver; and Prosper Marchand,[IV-53] though without any
authority, calls _Jacobus_ Meydenbach his son or his relation.
[Footnote IV-53: Hist. de l’Imprimerie, p. 49.]
This work, which is a kind of Natural History, explaining the uses and
virtues of herbs, fowls, fish, quadrupeds, minerals, drugs, and spices,
contains a number of wood-cuts, many of which are curious, as containing
representations of natural objects, but none of which are remarkable for
their execution as wood engravings. On the opposite page is a fac-simile
of the cut which forms the head-piece to the chapter “De Ovis.” The
figure, which possesses considerable merit, represents an old woman
going to market with her basket of eggs.
This is a fair specimen of the manner in which the cuts in the Hortus
Sanitatis are designed and executed. Among the most curious and best
designed are: the interior of an apothecary’s shop, on the reverse of
the first leaf; a monkey seated on the top of a fountain, in the chapter
on water; a butcher cutting up meat; a man selling cheese at a stall;
a woman milking a cow; and figures of the male and female mandrake. At
chapter 119, “De Pediculo,” a woman is represented brushing the head of
a boy with a peculiar kind of brush, which answers the purpose of a
small-toothed comb; and she appears to bestow her labour on no infertile
field, for each of her “sweepings,” which are seen lying on the floor,
would scarcely slip through the teeth of a garden rake. Meydenbach’s
edition has been supposed to be the first; and Linnæus, in the
Bibliotheca Botanica, has ascribed the work to one John Cuba,
a physician of Mentz; but other writers have doubted if this person were
really the author. The first edition of this work, under the title of
“Herbarus,” with a hundred and fifty wood-cuts, was printed at Mentz by
Peter Scheffer in 1484; and in 1485 he printed an enlarged edition in
German, containing three hundred and eighty cuts, under the title of
“Ortus Sanitatis oder Garten der Gesundheit.” Of the work printed by
Scheffer, Breydenbach is said to have been one of the compilers. Several
editions of the Hortus Sanitatis were subsequently printed, not only in
Germany, but in France, Holland, and Switzerland.
[Illustration]
Having previously expressed my opinion respecting the wood-cuts in the
Nuremberg Chronicle, there will be less occasion to give a detailed
account of the book and the rubbish it contains here: in speaking thus
it may perhaps be necessary to say that this character is meant to apply
to the wood-cuts and not to the literary portion of the work, which
Thomas Hearne, of black-letter memory, pronounces to be extremely
“pleasant, useful, and curious.” With the wood-cuts the Rev. Dr. Dibdin
appears to have been equally charmed.
The work called the “Nuremberg Chronicle” is a folio, compiled by
Hartman Schedel, a physician of Nuremberg, and printed in that city by
Anthony Koburger in 1493. In the colophon it is stated that the views of
cities, and figures of eminent characters, were executed under the
superintendence of Michael Wolgemuth and William Pleydenwurff,
“mathematical men”[IV-54] and skilled in the art of painting. The total
number of impressions contained in the work exceeds two thousand, but
several of the cuts are repeated eight or ten times. The following
fac-simile will afford an idea of the style in which the portraits of
illustrious men contained in this often-cited chronicle are executed.
[Footnote IV-54: The expression “adhibitis tamen viris
mathematicis” in the Nuremberg Chronicle, is evidently borrowed
from that,--“subinde mathematicis adhibitis viris,”--in the
dedication of Bukinck’s Ptolemy, 1478, to the Pope. “Mathematical
men,” in the present sense of the term, might be required to
construct the maps in the edition of Ptolemy, but scarcely to
design or engrave the vulgar figures and worthless views in the
Nuremberg Chronicle.]
[Illustration]
The above head, which the owner appears to be scratching with so much
earnestness, first occurs as that of Paris the lover of Helen; and it is
afterwards repeated as that of Thales, Anastasius, Odofredus, and the
poet Dante. In a like manner the economical printer has a stock-head for
kings and emperors; another for popes; a third for bishops; a fourth for
saints, and so on. Several cuts representing what might be supposed to
be particular events are in the same manner pressed into the general
service of the chronicler.
The peculiarity of the cuts in the Nuremberg Chronicle is that they
generally contain more of what engravers term “colour” than any which
had previously appeared. Before proceeding, however, to make any further
observations on these cuts, I shall endeavour to explain what engravers
mean by the term “colour,” as applied to an impression taken with black
ink from a copper-plate or a wood-block.
Though there is no “colour,” strictly speaking, in an engraving
consisting merely of black and white lines, yet the term is often
conventionally applied to an engraving which is supposed, from the
varied character of its lines and the contrast of light and shade, to
convey the idea of varied local colour as seen in a painting or a
water-colour drawing. For instance, an engraving is said to contain much
“colour” which appears clearly to indicate not only a variety of colour,
but also its different degrees of intensity in the several objects, and
which at the same time presents an effective combination of light and
shade. An engraver cannot certainly express the difference between green
and yellow, or red and orange, yet in engraving a figure, say that of a
cavalier by Vandyke, with brown leather boots, buff-coloured woollen
hose, doublet of red silk, and blue velvet cloak, a master of his art
will not only express a difference in the texture, but will also convey
an idea of the different parts of the dress being of different colours.
The Rent Day, engraved by Raimbach from a painting by Wilkie, and
Chelsea Pensioners hearing the Gazette of the Battle of Waterloo read,
engraved by Burnet from a picture by the same artist, may be instanced
as copper-plate engravings which contain much “colour.”
Mr. Landseer, at pages 175, 176, of his Lectures on Engraving, makes the
following remarks on the term “colour,” as conventionally applied by
engravers in speaking of impressions from plates or from
wood-blocks:--“It is not uncommon among print-publishers, nor even
amongst engravers themselves, to hear the word COLOUR mistakenly
employed to signify _shade_; so that if they think an engraving too
dark, they say it has too much _colour_, too little colour if too
light--and so forth. The same ignorance which has hitherto reigned over
the pursuits of this Art, has here imposed its authority, and with the
same unfortunate success: I cannot however yield to it the same
submission, since it is not only a palpable misuse of a word, but would
lead to endless confusion when I come to explain to you my ideas of the
means the Art of engraving possesses of rendering local colour in the
abstract. Wherefore, whenever I may use the term _colour_, I mean it in
no other than its ordinary acceptation.”
“By MIDDLE TINT, I understand and mean, ‘the medium between strong light
and strong shade.’--These are Mr. Gilpin’s words; and he adds, with a
propriety that confers value on the definition--‘the phrase is _not at
all_ expressive of colour.’”
Whether we owe the term “colour,” as applied to engravings, to the
ignorance of printsellers or not, I shall not inquire; I only know that
a number of terms equally objectionable, if their primitive meaning be
considered, are used in speaking of the arts of painting and engraving
by persons who are certainly not ignorant. We have the words _high_ and
_deep_, which strictly relate to objects of lineal altitude or
profundity, applied to denote intensity of colour; and the very word
_intensity_, when thus applied, is only relative; the speaker being
unable to find a word directly expressive of his meaning, explains
himself by referring to some object or thing previously known, as, in
this instance, by reference to the _tension_ of a string or cord. The
word _tone_, which is so frequently used in speaking of pictures, is
derived from the sister art of music. I presume that none of these terms
were introduced into the nomenclature of painting and engraving by
ignorant persons, but that they were adopted from a necessity
originating from the very constitution of the human mind. It is well
known to every person who has paid any attention to the construction of
languages, that almost every abstract term is referable to, and derived
from, the name of some material object. The very word to “think,”
implying the exercise of our mental faculties, is probably an offset
from the substantive “thing.”
It is also to be observed, that Mr. Landseer speaks as if the term
_colour_ was used by ignorant printsellers, and of course ignorant
engravers, to signify _shade_ only. It is, however, used by them to
signify that there is a considerable proportion of dark lines and
hatchings in an engraving, although such lines and hatchings are not
expressive of shade, but merely indicative of deep colours. Dark brown,
red, and purple, for instance, even when receiving direct rays of light,
would naturally contain much conventional “colour” in an engraving; and
so would a bay horse, a coal barge, or the trunk of an old oak tree,
when receiving the light in a similar manner; all would be represented
as comparatively dark, when contrasted with lighter coloured
objects,--for instance, with a blue sky, grass, or light green
foliage,--although not in shade. An engraving that appears too light,
compared with the painting from which it is copied, is said to want
“colour,” and the copper-plate engraver remedies the defect by
thickening the dark lines, or by adding cross lines and hatchings. As a
copper-plate engraver can always obtain more “colour,” he generally
keeps his work light in the first stage of a plate; on the contrary,
a wood engraver keeps his first proof dark, as he cannot afterwards
introduce more “colour,” or give to an object a greater depth of shade.
A wood engraver can make his lines thinner if they be too thick, and
thus cause his subject to appear lighter; but if he has made them too
fine at first, and more colour be wanted, it is not in his power to
remedy the defect.
What Mr. Landseer’s ideas may be of the “means [which] the art of
engraving possesses of rendering local colour in the abstract,” I cannot
very well comprehend. I am aware of the lines used conventionally by
engravers to indicate heraldic colours in coat-armour; but I can see no
natural relation between perpendicular lines in an engraving and the red
colour of a soldier’s coat. I believe that no person could tell the
colour of the draperies in Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper from an
inspection of Raphael Morghen’s engraving of it. When Mr. Landseer says
that he will use the term “colour” in its “ordinary acceptation,” he
ought to have explained what the ordinary acceptation of the word meant
when applied to impressions from copper-plates which consist of nothing
but lines and interstices of black and white.
[Illustration]
In the second paragraph Mr. Landseer displays great inconsistency in
praising Mr. Gilpin for his definition of the word “tint,” which, when
applied to engravings, is as objectionable as the term “colour.” It
appears that Mr. Gilpin may employ a conventional term with “singular
propriety,” while printsellers and engravers who should use the same
liberty would be charged with ignorance. Is there such a thing as a
_tint_ in nature which is of no colour? Mr. Gilpin’s lauded definition
involves a contradiction even when the word is applied to engravings, in
which every “tint” is indicative of positive colour. That “medium
between strong light and strong shade,” and which is yet of no colour,
remains to be discovered. Mr. Gilpin has supplied us with the “word,”
but it appears that no definite idea is necessary to be attached to it.
Having thus endeavoured to give a little brightness to the “colour” of
“ignorant printsellers and engravers,” I shall resume my observations on
the cuts in the Nuremberg Chronicle, to the “colour” of which the
preceding digression is to be ascribed.
The preceding cut, representing the Creation of Eve, is copied from one
of the best in the Nuremberg Chronicle, both with respect to design and
engraving. In this, compared with most other cuts previously executed,
much more colour will be perceived, which results from the closeness of
the single lines, as in the dark parts of the rock immediately behind
the figure of Eve; from the introduction of dark lines crossing each
other,--called “cross-hatching,”--as may be seen in the drapery of the
Divinity; and from the contrast of the shade thus produced with the
lighter parts of the cut.
[Illustration]
The subjoined cut, of the same subject, copied from the Poor Preachers’
Bible,[IV-55] will, by comparison with the preceding, illustrate more
clearly than any verbal explanation the difference with respect to
colour between the wood-cuts in the old block-books and in most others
printed between 1462 and 1493, and those contained in the Nuremberg
Chronicle. In this cut there is no indication of colour; the shades in
the drapery which are expressed by hard parallel lines are all of equal
strength, or rather weakness; and the hair of Adam’s head and the
foliage of the tree are expressed nearly in the same manner.
[Footnote IV-55: In the original, this cut, with one of Christ’s
side pierced by a soldier, and another of Moses striking the rock,
are intended to illustrate the mystery of the Sacrament of the
Lord’s Supper.]
This manner of representing the creation of Eve appears to have been
general amongst the wood engravers of the fifteenth century, for the
same subject frequently occurs in old cuts executed previous to 1500. It
is frequently represented in the same manner in illuminated missals; and
in Flaxman’s Lectures on Sculpture a lithographic print is given, copied
from an ancient piece of sculpture in Wells Cathedral, where Eve is seen
thus proceeding from the side of Adam. In a picture by Raffaele the
creation of Eve is also represented in the same manner.
In the wood-cuts which occur in Italian books printed previous to 1500
the engravers have seldom attempted anything beyond a simple outline
with occasionally an indication of shade, or of colour, by means of
short parallel lines. The following is a fac-simile of a cut in
Bonsignore’s Italian prose translation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, folio,
printed at Venice by the brothers De Lignano in 1497. It may serve at
once as a specimen of the other cuts contained in the work and of the
general style of engraving on wood in Italy for about ten years
preceding that period.
[Illustration]
The subject illustrated is the difficult labour of Alcmena through the
malign influence of Lucina, as related by Ovid in the IXth book of the
Metamorphoses, from verse 295 to 314. This would appear to have been
rather a favourite subject with designers, for it is again selected for
illustration in Ludovico Dolce’s Transformationi, a kind of paraphrase
of the Metamorphoses, 4to, printed at Venice by Gabriel Giolito in 1557;
and it is also represented in the illustrations to the Metamorphoses
designed by Virgil Solis, and printed at Frankfort, in oblong 4to, by
George Corvinus and Sigismund Feyrabent, in 1569.[IV-56]
[Footnote IV-56: Mr. Ottley in speaking of an edition of the
Metamorphoses printed at Venice in 1509, with wood-cuts, mentions
one of them as representing the “Birth of Hercules,” which is
probably treated in a manner similar to those above noticed. Mr.
Ottley also states that he had discovered the artist to be
Benedetto Montagna, who also engraved on copper.--Inquiry, vol. ii
p. 576.]
Of all the wood-cuts executed in Italy within the fifteenth century
there are none that can bear a comparison for elegance of design with
those contained in an Italian work entitled “Hypnerotomachia Poliphili,”
a folio without printer’s name or place, but certainly printed at Venice
by Aldus in 1499. This “Contest between Imagination and Love, by a
general Lover,”--for such seems to be the import of the title,--is an
obscure medley of fable, history, antiquities, mathematics, and various
other matters, highly seasoned with erotic sketches[IV-57] suggested by
the prurient imagination of a monk,--for such the author was,--who, like
many others of his fraternity, in all ages, appears to have had “a _law_
not to marry, and a _custom_ not to live chaste.” The language in which
this chaos of absurdities is composed is almost as varied as the
subjects. The ground-work is Italian, on which the author engrafts at
will whole phrases of Latin, with a number of words borrowed from the
Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, and Chaldee. “Certain persons,” says Tiraboschi,
“who admire a work the more the less they understand it, have fancied
that they could perceive in the Hypnerotomachia a complete summary of
human knowledge.”[IV-58]
[Footnote IV-57: Bibliographers and booksellers in their
catalogues specify with delight such copies as contain “la figura
rappresentante il Sacrifizio à Priapo bene conservata,” for in
some copies this choice subject is wanting, and in others
partially defaced.]
[Footnote IV-58: Some account of the Hypnerotomachia and its
author is to be found in Prosper Marchand’s Dictionnaire
Historique.]
The name of the author was Francis Colonna, who was born at Venice, and
at an early age became a monk of the order of St. Dominic. In 1467 he
professed Grammar and Classical Literature in the convent of his order
at Trevisa; and he afterwards became Professor of Theology at Padua,
where he commenced Doctor in 1473, a degree which, according to the rule
of his order, he could not assume until he was forty. At the time of his
death, which happened in 1527, he could not thus be less than
ninety-four years old. The true name of this amorous dreaming monk, and
the fictitious one of the woman with whom he was in love, are thus
expressed by combining, in the order in which they follow each other,
the initial letters of the several chapters: “POLIAM FRATER FRANSISCUS
COLUMNA PERAMAVIT.”[IV-59] If any reliance can be placed on the text and
the cuts as narrating and representing real incidents, we may gather
that the stream of love had not run smooth with father Francis any more
than with simple laymen. With respect to the true name of the mistress
of father Francis, biographers are not agreed. One says that her name
was Lucretia Maura; and another that her name was Ippolita, and that she
belonged to the noble family of Poli, of Trevisa, and that she was a nun
in that city. From the name Ippolita some authors thus derive the
fictitious name Polia: Ippolita; Polita; Polia.
[Footnote IV-59: In the life of Colonna in the Biographie
Universelle, the last word is said to be “_adamavit_,” which is a
mistake. The word formed by the initial letters of the nine last
chapters is “_peramavit_,” as above.]
A second edition, also from the Aldine press, appeared in 1545; and in
the following year a French translation was printed at Paris under the
following title: “Le Tableau des riches inventions couvertes du voile
des feintes amourouses qui sont representées dans le Songe de Poliphile,
devoilées des ombres du Songe, et subtilment exposées.” Of this
translation several editions were published; and in 1804 J. G. Legrand,
an architect of some repute in Paris, printed a kind of paraphrase of
the work, in two volumes 12mo, which, however, was not published until
after his death in 1807. In 1811 Bodoni reprinted the original work at
Parma in an elegant quarto volume.
In the original work the wood-cuts with respect to design may rank among
the best that have appeared in Italy. The whole number in the volume is
one hundred and ninety-two; of which eighty-six relate to mythology and
ancient history; fifty-four represent processions and emblematic
figures: there are thirty-six architectural and ornamental subjects; and
sixteen vases and statues. Several writers have asserted that those cuts
were designed by Raffaele,[IV-60] while others with equal confidence,
though on no better grounds, have ascribed them to Andrea Mantegna.
Except from the resemblance which they are supposed to bear to the
acknowledged works of those artists, I am not aware that there is any
reason to suppose that they were designed by either of them. As
Raffaele, who was born in 1483, was only sixteen when the
Hypnerotomachia was printed, it is not likely that all, or even any of
those cuts were designed by him; as it is highly probable that all the
drawings would be finished at least twelve months before, and many of
them contain internal evidence of their not being the productions of a
youth of fifteen. That Andrea Mantegna might design them is possible;
but this certainly cannot be a sufficient reason for positively
asserting that he actually did. Mr. Ottley, at page 576, vol. ii, of his
Inquiry, asserts that they were designed by Benedetto Montagna, an
artist who flourished about the year 1500, and who is chiefly known as
an engraver on copper. The grounds on which Mr. Ottley forms his opinion
are not very clear, but if I understand him correctly they are as
follows:
[Footnote IV-60: Heineken, in his catalogue of Raffaele’s works,
mentions the cuts in the Hypnerotomachia, but he says that it is
questionable whether he designed them all or only the eighty-six
mythological and historical subjects.--Nachrichten von Künstlern
und Kunst-Sachen, 2er Theil, S. 360. 8vo. Leipzig, 1769.]
In the collection of the late Mr. Douce there were sixteen wood
engravings which had been cut out of a folio edition of Ovid’s
Metamorphoses, printed at Venice in 1509. All those engravings, except
two, were marked with the letters +ía+, which according to Mr. Ottley
are the initials of the engraver, Ioanne Andrea di Vavassori. Between
some of the cuts from the Ovid, and certain engravings executed by
Montagna, it seems that Mr. Ottley discovered a resemblance; and as he
thought that he perceived a perfect similarity between the sixteen cuts
from the Ovid and those contained in the Hypnerotomachia, he considers
that Benedetto Montagna is thus proved to have been the designer of the
cuts in the latter work.
Not having seen the cuts in the edition of the Metamorphoses of 1509,
I cannot speak, from my own examination, of the resemblance between them
and those in the Hypnerotomachia; it, however, seems that Mr. Douce had
noticed the similarity as well as Mr. Ottley: but even admitting that
there is a perfect identity of style in the cuts of the above two works,
yet it by no means follows that, because a few of the cuts in the Ovid
resemble some copper-plate engravings executed by Benedetto Montagna, he
must have designed the cuts in the Hypnerotomachia. As the cuts in the
Ovid may, as Mr. Ottley himself remarks, have been used in an earlier
edition than that of 1509, it is not unlikely that they might appear
before Montagna’s copper-plates; and that the latter might copy the
designs of a greater artist than himself, and thus by his very
plagiarism acquire, according to Mr. Ottley’s train of reasoning, the
merit which may be justly due to another. If Benedetto Montagna be
really the designer of the cuts in the Hypnerotomachia, he has certainly
excelled himself, for they certainly display talent of a much higher
order than is to be perceived in his copper-plate engravings. Besides
the striking difference with respect to drawing between the wood-cuts in
Poliphilo[IV-61] and the engravings of Benedetto Montagna, two of the
cuts in the former work have a mark which never appears in any of that
artist’s known productions, which generally have either his name at
length or the letters B. M. In the third cut of Poliphilo, the
designer’s or engraver’s mark, a small b, may be perceived at the foot,
to the right; and the same mark is repeated in a cut at signature C.
[Footnote IV-61: The author thus names his hero in his Italian
title: “_Poliphilo_ incomincia la sua hypnerotomachia ad
descrivere et l’hora et il tempo quando gli appar ve in somno,
&c.”]
A London bookseller in his catalogue published in 1834, probably
speaking on Mr. Ottley’s hint that the cuts in the Ovid of 1509 might
have appeared in an earlier edition, thus describes Bonsignore’s Ovid,
a work in which the wood-cuts are of a very inferior description, and of
which a specimen is given in a preceding page: “Ovidii Metamorphoseos
Vulgare, con le Allegorie, [Venezia, 1497,] with numerous beautiful
wood-cuts, apparently by the artist who executed the Poliphilo, printed
by Aldus in 1499.” The wood-cuts in the Ovid of 1497 are as inferior to
those in Poliphilo as the commonest cuts in children’s school-books are
inferior to the beautiful wood-cuts in Rogers’s Pleasures of Memory,
printed in 1812, which were designed by Stothard and engraved by
Clennell. It is but fair to add, that the cuts used in the Ovid of 1497,
printed by the brothers De Lignano, cannot be the same as those in the
Ovid of 1509 referred to by Mr. Ottley; for though the subjects may be
nearly the same, the cuts in the latter edition are larger than those in
the former, and have besides an engraver’s mark which is not to be seen
in any of the cuts in the edition of 1497.
The five following cuts are fac-similes traced line for line from the
originals in Poliphilo. In the first, Mercury is seen interfering to
save Cupid from the anger of Venus, who has been punishing him and
plucking the feathers from his wings. The cause of her anger is
explained by the figure of Mars behind the net in which he and Venus had
been inclosed by Vulcan. Love had been the cause of his mother’s
misfortune.
[Illustration]
In the following cut Cupid is represented as brought by Mercury before
Jove, who in the text, “in Athica lingua,” addresses the God of Love, as
“ΣΥΜΟΙΓΛΥΚΥΣ ΚΑΙ ΠΙΚΡΟΣ”--“at once sweet and bitter.” In the
inscription in the cut, “ΑΛΛΑ” is substituted for “ΚΑΙ.”
[Illustration]
In the next cut Cupid appears piercing the sky with a dart, and thus
causing a shower of gold to fall. The figures represent persons of all
conditions whom he has wounded, looking on with amazement.
[Illustration]
The three preceding cuts, in the original work, appear as compartments
from left to right on one block. They are here given separate for the
convenience of printing, as the page is not wide enough to allow of
their being placed as in the original folio.
[Illustration]
The subjoined cut is intended to represent Autumn, according to a
description of the figure in the text, where the author is speaking of
an altar to be erected to the four seasons. On one of the sides he
proposes that the following figure should be represented “with a jolly
countenance, crowned with vine leaves, holding in one hand a bunch of
grapes, and in the other a cornucopia, with an inscription: ‘MUSTULENTO
AUTUMNO S.’”[IV-62] The face of jolly Autumn is indeed like that of one
who loved new wine, and his body seems like an ample skin to keep the
liquor in;--Sir John Falstaff playing Bacchus ere he had grown old and
inordinately fat.
[Footnote IV-62: The epithets applied to the different seasons as
represented on this votive altar are singularly beautiful and
appropriate: “Florido Veri; Flavæ Messi; Mustulento Autumno; Hyemi
Æoliæ, Sacrum.”]
The following figure of Cupid is copied from the top of a fanciful
military standard described by the author; and on a kind of banner
beneath the figure is inscribed the word “ΔΟΡΙΚΤΗΤΟΙ”--“Gained in war.”
[Illustration]
The following is a specimen of one of the ornamental vases contained in
the work. It is not, like the five preceding cuts, of the same size as
the original, but is copied on a reduced scale.
[Illustration]
The simple style in which the cuts in the Hypnerotomachia are engraved,
continued to prevail, with certain modifications, in Italy for many
years after the method of cross-hatching became general in Germany; and
from 1500 to about 1530 the characteristic of most Italian wood-cuts is
the simple manner in which they are executed compared with the more
laboured productions of the German wood engravers. While the German
proceeds with considerable labour to obtain “colour,” or shade, by means
of cross-hatching, the Italian in the early part of the sixteenth
century endeavours to attain his object by easier means, such as leaving
his lines thicker in certain parts, and in others, indicating shade by
means of short slanting parallel lines. In the execution of flowered or
ornamented initial letters a decided difference may frequently be
noticed between the work of an Italian and a German artist. The German
mostly, with considerable trouble, cuts his flourishes, figures, and
flowers in relief, according to the general practice of wood engravers;
the Italian, on the contrary, often cuts them, with much greater ease,
in _intaglio_; and thus the form of the letter, and its ornaments,
appear, when printed, white upon a black ground.[IV-63] The letter C at
the commencement of the present chapter is an example of the German
style, with the ornamental parts in _relief_; the letter M at the
commencement of chapter V. is a specimen of the manner frequently
adopted by old Italian wood engravers, the form of the letter and the
ornamental foliage being cut in _intaglio_. At a subsequent period a
more elaborate manner of engraving began to prevail in Italy, and
cross-hatching was almost as generally employed to obtain depth of
colour and shade as in Germany. The wood-cuts which appear in works
printed at Venice between 1550 and 1570 are generally as good as most
German wood-cuts of the same period; and many of them, more especially
those in books printed by the Giolitos, are executed with a clearness
and delicacy which have seldom been surpassed.
[Footnote IV-63: The letter M at the commencement of the next
chapter affords an example of this style of engraving.]
Before concluding the present chapter, which is more especially devoted
to the consideration of wood engraving in the first period of its
connexion with typography, it may not be improper to take a brief glance
at the state of the art as practised by the Briefmalers and
Formschneiders of Germany, who were the first to introduce the practice
of block-printing, and who continued to exercise this branch of their
art for many years after typography had been generally established
throughout Europe. That the ancient wood engravers continued to practise
the art of block-printing till towards the close of the fifteenth
century, there can be little doubt. There is an edition of the Poor
Preachers’ Bible, with the date 1470, printed from wood-blocks, without
place or engraver’s name, but having at the end, as a mark, two shields,
on one of which is a squirrel, and on the other something like two
pilgrim’s staves crossed. Another edition of the same work, though not
from the same blocks, appeared in 1471. In this the engraver’s mark is
two shields, on one of which is a spur, probably a rebus for the name of
“Sporer;” in the same manner that a pair of folding-doors represented
the name “Thurer,” or “Durer.” An engraver of the name of Hans Sporer
printed an edition of the Ars Moriendi from wood-blocks in 1473; and in
the preceding year Young Hans, Briefmaler, of Nuremberg, printed an
edition of the Antichrist in the same manner.[IV-64]
[Footnote IV-64: Von Murr says that “Young Hans” was
unquestionably the son of “Hans Formschneider,” whose name appears
in the town-books of Nuremberg from 1449 to 1490. He also thinks
that he might be the same person as Hans Sporer.--Journal,
2 Theil, S. 140, 141.]
It is probable that most of the single sheets and short tracts, printed
from wood-blocks, preserved in the libraries of Germany, were printed
between 1440 and 1480. Books consisting of two or more sheets printed
from wood-blocks are of rare occurrence with a date subsequent to 1480.
Although about that period the wood engravers appear to have resigned
the printing of books entirely to typographers, yet for several years
afterwards they continued to print broadsides from blocks of wood; and
until about 1500 they continued to compete with the press for the
printing of “Wand-Kalendars,” or sheet Almanacks to be hung up against a
wall. Several copies of such Almanacks, engraved between 1470 and 1500,
are preserved in libraries on the Continent that are rich in specimens
of early block-printing. But even this branch of their business the wood
engravers were at length obliged to abandon; and at the end of the
fifteenth century the practice of printing pages of text from engraved
wood-blocks may be considered as almost extinct in Germany. It probably
began with a single sheet, and with a single sheet it ended; and its
origin, perfection, decline, and extinction are comprised within a
century. 1430 may mark its origin; 1450 its perfection; 1460 the
commencement of its decline; and 1500 its fall.
In an assemblage of wood engravings printed at Gotha between 1808 and
1816,[IV-65] from old blocks collected by the Baron Von Derschau, there
are several to which the editor, Zacharias Becker, assigns an earlier
date than the year 1500. It is not unlikely that two or three of those
in his oldest class, A, may have been executed previous to that period;
but there are others in which bad drawing and rude engraving have been
mistaken for indubitable proofs of antiquity. There are also two or
three in the same class which I strongly suspect to be modern forgeries.
It would appear from a circumstance mentioned in Dr. Dibdin’s
Bibliographical Tour,[IV-66] and referred to at page 236 of the present
work, that the Baron was a person from whose collection copper-plate
engravings of questionable date had proceeded as well as wood-blocks.
The following is a reduced copy of one of those suspicious blocks, but
which the editor considers to be of an earlier date than the St.
Christopher in the collection of Earl Spencer. I am however of opinion
that it is of comparatively modern manufacture.
[Footnote IV-65: The title of this work is: “Holzschnitte alter
Deutscher Meister in den Original-Platten gesammelt von Hans
Albrecht Von Derschau. Als ein Beytrag zur Kunstgeschichte
herausgegeben, und mit einer Abhandlung über die Holzschneidekunst
begleitet, von Rudolph Zacharias Becker.” It is in large folio,
with the text in German and French. The first part was published
at Gotha in 1808; the second in 1810; and the third in 1816.]
[Footnote IV-66: Vol. iii. p. 445, edit. 1829.]
[Illustration]
The inscription, intended for old German, at the bottom of the cut, is
literally as follows: “_Hiet uch, vor den Katczen dy vorn lecken unde
hinden kraiczen_”--that is: “Beware of the cats that lick before and
scratch behind.” It is rather singular that the editor--who describes
the subject as a cat which appears to teach her kitten “le Jeu de
Souris”--should not have informed his readers that more was meant by
this inscription than met the eye, and that it was in fact part of a
German proverb descriptive of a class of females who are particularly
dangerous to simple young men.[IV-67] Among the cuts supposed to have
been engraved previous to the year 1500, another is given which I
suspect also of being a forgery, and by the same person that engraved
the cat. The cut alluded to represents a woman sitting beside a young
man, whose purse she is seen picking while she appears to fondle him.
A hawk is seen behind the woman, and an ape behind the man. At one side
is a lily, above which are the words “+Ich wart+.” At the top of the cut
is an inscription,--which seems, like that in the cut of the cat, to be
in affectedly old German,--describing the young man as a prey for hawks
and a fool, and the woman as a flatterer, who will fawn upon him until
she has emptied his pouch. The subjects of those two cuts, though not
apparently, are, in reality, connected. In the first we are presented
with the warning, and in the latter with the example. Von Murr--whom Dr.
Dibdin suspects to have forged the French St. Christopher--describes in
his Journal impressions from those blocks as old wood-cuts in the
collection of Dr. Silberrad;[IV-68] and it is certainly very singular
that the identical blocks from which Dr. Silberrad’s scarce old wood
engravings were taken should afterwards happen to be discovered and come
into the possession of the Baron Von Derschau.
[Footnote IV-67: “+Huren sind böse katzen die vornen lecken und
hinten kratzen.+”]
[Footnote IV-68: Journal zur Kunstgeschichte, 2er Theil, S. 125,
126.]
In the same work there is a rude wood-cut of St. Catharine and three
other saints; and at the back of the block there is also engraved the
figure of a soldier. At the bottom of the cut of St. Catharine, the name
of the engraver, “+Jorg Glockendon+,” appears in old German characters.
As “Glockendon” or “Glockenton” was the name of a family of artists who
appear to have been settled at Nuremberg early in the fifteenth century,
Becker concludes that the cut in question was engraved prior to 1482,
and that this “Jorg Glockendon” was “the first wood engraver known by
name, and not John Schnitzer of Arnsheim,--who engraved the maps in
Leonard Holl’s Ptolemy, printed in the above year,--as Heineken and
others pretend.” That the cut was engraved previous to 1482 rests merely
on Becker’s conjecture; and a person who would assert that it was
engraved ten or fifteen years later, would perhaps be nearer the truth.
John Schnitzer, however, is not the first wood engraver known by name.
The name of Hans Sporer appears in the Ars Moriendi of 1473; and it is
not probable that Hartlieb’s Chiromantia, in which we find the name
“+Jorg Schapff zu Augspurg+,” was engraved subsequent to 1480. It would
appear that Becker did not consider “Hans Briefmaler,” who occurs as a
wood engraver between 1470 and 1480, as a person “known by name,” though
it is probable that he had no other surname than that which was derived
from his profession.
[Illustration]
Although Derschau’s collection contains a number of old cuts which are
well worth preserving, more especially among those executed in the
sixteenth century; yet it also contains a large portion of worthless
cuts, which are neither interesting from their subjects nor their
antiquity, and which throw no light on the progress of the art. There
are also not a few modern antiques which are only illustrative of the
credulity of the collector, who mistakes rudeness of execution for a
certain test of antiquity. According to this test the following cut
ought to be ascribed to the age of Caxton, and published with a long
commentary as an undoubted specimen of early English wood engraving. It
is however nothing more than an impression from a block engraved with a
pen-knife by a printer’s apprentice between 1770 and 1780. It was one of
the numerous cuts of a similar kind belonging to the late Mr. George
Angus of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, who used them as head-pieces to chap-books
and broadside histories and ballads.
Besides the smaller block-books, almanacks, and broadsides of text,
executed by wood engravers between 1460 and 1500, they also executed a
number of single cuts, some accompanied with a few sentences of text
also cut in wood, and others containing only figures. Many of the sacred
subjects were probably executed for convents in honour of a favourite
saint; while others were engraved by them on their own account for sale
among the poorer classes of the people, who had neither the means to
purchase, nor the ability to read, a large “picture-book” which
contained a considerable portion of explanatory text. In almost every
one of the works executed by the Briefmalers and Formschneiders
subsequent to the invention of typography, there is scarcely a single
cut to be found that possesses the least merit either in design or
execution. They appear generally to have been mere workmen, who could
draw and engrave figures on wood in a rude style, but who had not the
slightest pretensions to a knowledge of art.
Having now brought the history of wood engraving to the end of the
fifteenth century, I shall here conclude the present chapter, without
expressly noticing such works of Albert Durer as were certainly engraved
on wood previous to the year 1500. The designs of this great promoter of
wood engraving mark an epoch in the progress of the art; and will, with
others of the same school, more appropriately form the subject of the
next chapter.
[Illustration]