BLOCK-BOOKS
The collector of the time of George III, whose heart was set on
Typographical Antiquities, and who was ambitious enough to wish to begin
at the beginning, must have hungered after a block-book. Even in the
days of Bagford, at the very outset of the eighteenth century, interest
had been aroused in the block-printed editions of the _Speculum Humanae
Saluationis_, so that Bagford himself travelled from Amsterdam to
Haarlem on purpose to see a copy of one of the Dutch editions, and set
an English wood-cutter to work, with very poor success, to manufacture a
bogus specimen of it, wherewith "to oblige the curious." This, with a
similar imitation of a page in the _Biblia Pauperum_, was intended to
illustrate the History of Printing which Bagford had the temerity to
plan, although such of his smaller dissertations as have been preserved
show conclusively that he was quite incapable of carrying it out.
The interest thus early shown in block-books sprang from an entirely
reasonable, but probably incorrect, view of the part which they had
played in the development of printing with movable type. It was known
that woodcuts without letterpress were printed in Germany quite early in
the fifteenth century, the cut of S. Christopher, formerly in the
Spencer Collection, now in the John Rylands Library, bearing the date
1423.[3] On the other hand, printing with movable type was practised at
Mainz in the fifties, and about 1461 Albrecht Pfister published at
Bamberg several books with woodcut illustrations and printed
letterpress. In the logical order of development nothing could be more
reasonable than the sequence:
i. Woodcut pictures.
ii. Woodcut pictures and woodcut text.
iii. Woodcut pictures and text printed from movable type.
Facts, however, do not always arrange themselves with the neatness which
commends itself to an a priori historian, and the most recent students
of block-books are unable to discover sufficient justification for the
early dates which their predecessors assigned to them. On the old
theory, in order to put it in front of the invention of printing with
movable types, the _Biblia Pauperum_, which appears to be the oldest of
the block-books, was placed about 1430 or 1440, and the _Ars Moriendi_
and the other chief specimens of block-printing were all supposed to
have been produced before 1460, the main period of block-printing thus
coinciding with the interval between the S. Christopher of 1423 and
Pfister's activity at Bamberg about 1461. Positive evidence in favour of
this chronology there was none. It rested solely on the idea, at which
bibliographers had jumped, that the block-books were necessary "steps
towards the invention of printing," as they have often been called, and
on what seemed the improbability that any one, when the art of printing
with movable type had once been invented, would have troubled himself
laboriously to cut letterpress on wood.
So far from block-printing being unable to co-exist with printing from
movable type, it was not till nearly a century after printing had been
invented that block-books finally ceased to be produced. The example
generally quoted as the latest[4] is the _Opera nova contemplativa per
ogni fedel christiano laquale tratta de le figure del testamento
vecchio: le quale figure sonno verificate nel testamento nuovo_. As its
title implies, this, curiously enough, is an adaptation of the _Biblia
Pauperum_, which was thus the last, as it may have been the first, of
the block-books. It is undated, but has the name of its publisher,
Giovanni Andrea Vavassore, who worked at Venice about 1530.
The _Opera nova contemplativa_ was from one point of view a mere
survival, but Vavassore is not likely to have produced it solely to
cause twentieth century antiquaries surprise. He must have had a
business reason for having recourse to block-printing, nor is that
reason very hard to find. From the frequency with which the early
printers changed and recast their types, and the short intervals at
which popular books printed with types were set up afresh, it is clear
(1) that the type-metal[5] employed was much softer and less durable
than that now in use, and that only small impressions[6] could be taken
from the same setting up; (2) that only a small amount of type was cast
at a time, and that type was quickly distributed and used again, never
kept standing on the chance that another edition would be wanted. Now
when we come to the illustrations in printed books, we find the same
woodblocks used for five or six successive editions, and then, in many
cases, enjoying a second lease of life as job-blocks, used at haphazard
by inferior printers. It is clear, therefore, that while it was a much
more difficult and laborious business to cut the letterpress of a book
on blocks of wood than to set it up with movable types, when the blocks
were once made much more work could be got out of them. In a word, in
the case of a small book for which there was a steady demand, a printer
might be tempted to have it cut as a block-book for the same reasons as
might cause a modern publisher to have it stereotyped. The labour of
cutting the letterpress on wood was much greater than that now involved
in stereotyping, and the result clumsier. Hence it was only to short
books intended for unexacting purchasers that the process was applied
and with two or three exceptions it was used only for illustrated books
with a small amount of text. But within this restricted field it had its
own commercial possibilities, and there is thus nothing surprising in
its coexistence with printing from movable type.
When the theory that block-books were "Steps towards the Invention of
Printing" is thus opposed by the rival theory that they were forerunners
of stereotyped plates, we are left free to consider, uncoerced by
supposed necessities, such evidence as exists as to the dates of the
specimens of block-printing still extant. Putting aside the late Italian
block-book as a mere survival, we find two[7] broadly distinguished
groups, one earlier, the dates of members of which can only be
conjectured, the other later, several of which can only be definitely
connected with the years 1470 to 1473. The characteristics of the
earlier group are that they are printed (1) with a watery brown ink; (2)
always on one side of the paper only; (3) without mechanical
pressure;[8] (4) two consecutive pages at a time, so that they cannot be
arranged in quires, but must be folded and stitched separately, and the
book thus formed[9] begins and ends with a blank page and has a pair of
blank pages between each pair of printed ones. This arrangement in some
extant copies has been altered by modern binders, who have divided the
sheets, mounted each leaf on a guard, and then gathered them, at their
own will, into quires. The inconvenient intervention of the blank pages
has also sometimes been wrestled with (at an early date) by gluing the
leaves together, so that all the leaves, except the first and last, are
double, and the printed pages follow each other without interruption.
These expedients, however, are easily detected, and the original
principle of arrangement is free from doubt.
In the later block-books, on the other hand, we note one or more of the
following characteristics: (1) the use of the thick black ink (really a
kind of paint) employed in ordinary printing; (2) printing on both sides
of the paper; (3) marks of pressure, showing that the paper has been
passed through a printing-press; (4) the arrangement of the blocks in
such a way as to permit the sheets to be gathered into quires.
In the case of the more popular block-books which went through many
issues and editions[10] we can trace the gradual substitution of later
characteristics for earlier ones. At what intervals of time these changes
were made we have bibliographically no adequate grounds even for
guessing. Analogies from books printed with movable types may be quoted
on both sides. On the one hand, we find the blocks for book-illustrations
enjoying an amazingly long life. Thus blocks cut at Venice and Florence
between 1490 and 1500 continued in use for fifteen or twenty years, were
then laid aside, and reappear between 1550 and 1560, certainly the worse
for wear, but yet capable by a lucky chance of yielding quite a fair
impression. The fact that one issue of a block-book can be positively
assigned to 1470 or 1473, thus does not of itself forbid an earlier issue
being placed as far back in the fifteenth century as any one may please
to propose. On the other hand, when a printed book was a popular success
editions succeeded each other with great rapidity, and one centre of
printing vied with another in producing copies of it. The chief reason
for the current disinclination to assume a date earlier than 1450 or 1460
for any extant block-book is the total absence of any evidence demanding
it. If such evidence were forthcoming, there would be no inherent
impossibility to set against it. But in the absence of such evidence
twenty years seems an ample time to allow for the vogue of the
block-books, and (despite the neatness of the a priori theory of
development mentioned at the beginning of this chapter) this fits in
better with the history both of printing and of book-illustration than
any longer period.
The first attempt to describe the extant block-books was made by Carl
Heinrich von Heinecken in 1771, in his _Idee generale d'une collection
d'estampes_. This held the field until the publication in 1858 of Samuel
Legh Sotheby's _Principia Typographica: the block-books issued in
Holland, Flanders and Germany, during the fifteenth century_, a
painstaking and well-illustrated work in three folio volumes. The most
recent and probably the final treatment of the subject is that by Dr. W.
L. Schreiber, in Vol. IV of his _Manuel de l'Amateur de la Gravure sur
bois et sur metal au xv^e siecle_, published in 1902 (facsimiles in
Vols. VII and VIII, 1895-1900). Dr. Schreiber enumerates no fewer than
thirty-three works as existing in the form of block-books, the number of
extant issues and editions of them amounting to over one hundred. Here
it must suffice to offer brief notes on some of the more important.
_BIBLIA PAUPERUM_
A series of forty composite pictures, the central compartment in each
representing a scene from the life of Christ, while on each side of it
is an Old Testament type, and above and below are in each case two
half-figures of prophets. The explanatory letterpress is given in the
two upper corners and also on scrolls. Schreiber distinguishes ten
issues and editions, in addition to an earlier German one of a less
elaborate design and with manuscript text, which belongs to a different
tradition. The earlier of these ten editions appear to have been made in
the Netherlands. An edition with German text was published with the
colophon, "Friederich walther Mauler zu Nordlingen vnd Hans Hurning
habent dis buch mitt einender gemacht," and a second issue of this
(without the colophon) is dated 1470. In the following year another
edition, with copied cuts, was printed with the device of Hans Spoerer.
_ARS MORIENDI_
Twenty-four leaves, two containing a preface, and the remaining
twenty-two eleven pictures and eleven pages of explanatory letterpress
facing them, showing the temptations to which the dying are exposed, and
the good inspirations by which they may be resisted, and, lastly, the
final agony. The early editions are ascribed to the Netherlands or
district of the Rhine; the later to Germany. There are also editions
with German text, one of them signed "hanns Sporer," and dated 1473. A
set of engravings on copper by the Master E. S. (copied by the Master of
S. Erasmus) may be either imitations or the originals of the earliest of
these _Ars Moriendi_ designs. (See Lionel Cust's _The Master E. S. and
the Ars Moriendi_.) The designs were imitated in numerous printed
editions in various countries. In addition to a copy of the edition
usually regarded as the earliest extant, the British Museum possesses
one with the same characteristics, but of a much smaller size (the
blocks measuring 137 by 100 mm. instead of 226 by 162), and from this,
as much less known, a page is here given as an illustration.
_CANTICA CANTICORUM_
Sixteen leaves, each containing two woodcuts, illustrating the Song of
Songs as a parable of the Blessed Virgin. Produced in the Netherlands.
_APOCALYPSIS SANCTI JOHANNIS_
Fifty leaves, or in some editions forty-eight, showing scenes from the
life of S. John and illustrations of the Apocalypse, mostly with two
pictures on each leaf. The early editions are assigned to the
Netherlands, the later to Germany. A copy of the edition regarded as the
fourth, lately sold by Herr Ludwig Rosenthal, bears a manuscript note,
most probably as to the writer, just possibly as to the book, entering
the household of the Landgrave Heinrich of Hesse in 1463.
[Illustration: III. ARS MORIENDI, BLOCKBOOK, C. 1465
INSPIRATIO CONTRA VANAM GLORIAM]
_SPECULUM HUMANAE SALUATIONIS_
Scenes from Bible history, arranged in pairs, within architectural
borders, with explanatory text beneath. No complete xylographic, or
block-printed, edition is known, but twenty leaves printed from blocks
are found in conjunction with forty-four leaves printed from type, and
have not unreasonably been held to prove the previous production of a
complete block-printed edition now lost. In like manner, the fact that
two different types are used in different parts of a Dutch printed
edition has encouraged Dr. Hessels to believe that this "mixed edition"
should be regarded as proving the production of two complete editions,
one in each type. On this theory we have (1) a hypothetical Latin
block-printed edition; (2-4) three Dutch editions, each printed in a
different type; (5) a Latin edition, entirely printed from type; (6) a
Latin edition, printed partly from type, partly from some of the blocks
of No. 1. The copy of this "mixed Latin edition," as it is called, in
the University Library at Munich, is dated in manuscript 1471, and the
hypothetical complete block-printed edition may be as much earlier than
this as any one pleases to imagine. But other bibliographers recognize
only four editions and arrange them differently.
_ANTICHRISTUS_
Thirty-eight leaves, with two pictures on each leaf, illustrating the
Legends relating to the Coming of Antichrist, and the Fifteen Signs
which were to precede the Last Judgment. The text is in German, and the
block-book was executed in Germany, probably about 1470.
_FRANCISCUS DE RETZA. DEFENSORIUM INVIOLATAE CASTITATIS VIRGINIS MARIAE_
Sixteen leaves, mostly with four pictures and four pieces of explanatory
letterpress on each leaf, concerning marvels in the natural world which
were supposed to be equally wonderful with that of the Virgin Birth, and
therefore to render faith in this easier. Unfortunately the marvels are
so very marvellous that they do not inspire belief, e.g. one story
relates how the sun one day drew up the moisture from the earth with
such rapidity that an ox was drawn up with it and subsequently deposited
out of a cloud in another field. One edition was issued by a certain F.
W. in 1470, another at Ratisbon by Johann Eysenhut the following year.
_JOHANN MULLER (JOHANNES REGIOMONTANUS). KALENDER_
Thirty-two leaves, containing lunar tables, tables of the eclipses for
fifty-six years (1475-1530), other astronomical information, and a
figure of the human body with notes of the signs of the zodiac by which
it was influenced. Composed by the famous astronomer, Johann Muller, and
sold by Hans Briefftruck, probably Hans Spoerer, about 1474-5, at
Nuremberg and elsewhere.
_JOHANN HARTLIEB. DIE KUNST CHIROMANTIA_
Forty-four figures of hands, with a titlepage and page of text and a
printed wrapper. Early issues are printed on one side of the paper only,
later on both. The printer appears to have been Jorg Schaff, of
Augsburg, and the date of issue about 1475. The date 1448 found in the
book is that of composition, and it probably circulated in manuscript
for many years before being printed.
_MIRABILIA ROMAE_
A German guide-book for visitors to Rome. Ninety-two leaves, printed
with black ink on both sides of the leaf, with only a few illustrations.
It was perhaps first published to meet the rush of German pilgrims to
Rome at the Jubilee of Pope Sixtus IV, 1475. The blocks were probably
cut in Germany, and the printing done at Rome. Some of the ornaments are
said to have been used in type-printed editions by Stephan Plannck. This
suggests that the book may have been published by his predecessor,
Ulrich Han.
* * * * *
In addition to these block-books of Low Country and German origin,
mention must also be made of a very curious Italian one, a _Passio
domini nostri Jesu Christi_, fully described by the Prince d'Essling.
The copy of this at Berlin contains eighteen leaves, and was probably
executed at Venice about the middle of the fifteenth century. Some of
the blocks were subsequently used (after a scroll at the foot had been
cut off) for an edition of the _Devote Meditatione sopra la Passione del
Nostro Signore_ (attributed to S. Bonaventura), published at Venice in
1487 by Jeronimo di Sancti e Cornelio suo Compagno, and a page from this
is reproduced as a frontispiece to our chapter on Italian Illustrated
Books.
Mention has already been made of the _Opera nova contemplativa_, an
adaptation of the _Biblia Pauperum_, printed as a block-book at Venice
about 1530.
The only extant French block-book, if it can be called one, is that of
the "Nine Worthies" (_Les Neuf Preux_). This consists of three sheets,
the first showing three heathen worthies--Hector, Alexander, and Julius
Caesar; the second, three from the Old Testament--Joshua, David, and
Judas Maccabaeus; the third, three from medieval romance--Arthur,
Charlemagne, and Godfrey of Boulogne. Under each picture are six lines
of verse. These three triple woodcuts, with the woodcut text, are
assigned to about 1455.
No English block-book has yet been discovered, nor is it in the least
likely that one ever existed, though there are a few single woodcuts.
* * * * *
Block-books possess two permanent attractions in addition to their
supposed historical importance in the development of the invention of
printing on which doubt is now cast--the attraction of popular
literature and the attraction of the illustrated book. As we have seen,
it would not have been worth any one's while to cause a block-book to be
laboriously engraved, or cut, unless a large and speedy sale could be
expected for it. The most famous block-books are nearly all of a
religious character, and they prove a widespread desire for simple
instruction as to the incidents of the life of Christ and the events in
the Old Testament history which were regarded as prefigurements of them,
as to the dignity of the Blessed Virgin and the doctrine of the Virgin
Birth, as to the end of the world and the coming of Antichrist, and as
to the spiritual dangers and temptations of the dying and the means by
which they might be resisted. As early specimens of book-illustration
the value of the block-books varies very greatly. The majority of them
are more curious than beautiful, but the pictures of the _Cantica
Canticorum_, the _Speculum Humanae Saluationis_, and the _Ars Moriendi_
have all very great merit. The tall, slender figures in the Song of
Songs have a charm as great as any Dutch book-illustrations of the
fifteenth century; the cuts of the _Speculum_ are full of vigour, while
the serene dignity of the scenes in the _Ars Moriendi_ illustrating the
Inspirations of the Good Angel is as impressive as the grotesque force
used in depicting the diabolic suggestions. If we must grant, as the
weight of authority now bids us, that these woodcuts are copies from the
copper engravings of the Master E. S., it can hardly be disputed that
the wood-cutter was the better artist of the two.
The block-books are a striking example of the difficulty of gleaning
where the earlier collectors have reaped, a difficulty to which we shall
often have to call attention. They vary greatly in positive rarity. Of
the _Biblia Pauperum_ and _Ars Moriendi_, which in their different
issues and editions enjoyed the longest life and early attracted
attention, Dr. Schreiber (if I have counted rightly) was able to
enumerate in the one case as many as eighty-three copies--many of them,
it is true, mere fragments--in the other sixty-one. Of the _Apocalypse_
fifty-seven copies were known to him, of the _Speculum_ twenty-nine, of
the _Antichrist_ thirteen, of the _Defensorium_ twelve, and of the
_Mirabilia Romae_ six. But of these 261 copies and fragments no fewer
than 223 are recorded as being locked up in public libraries and
museums, the ownership of thirteen was doubtful, and only twenty-five
are definitely registered as being in the hands of private collectors,
viz. of the _Apocalypse_, eight copies or fragments; of the _Biblia
Pauperum_, six; of the _Speculum_ and _Ars Moriendi_, four each; of the
_Defensorium_, two; and of the _Cantica Canticorum_, one. The chief
owners known to Dr. Schreiber were the Earl of Pembroke, Baron Edmond
de Rothschild, and Major Holford, to whom must now be added Mr. Pierpont
Morgan and Mr. Perrins. No doubt the copies in public institutions are
much more easily enumerated than those in private hands, and probably
most of the untraced copies are owned by collectors. But when allowance
has been made for this, it remains obvious that this is no field where
an easy harvest can be reaped, and that the average collector may think
himself lucky if he obtains one or two single leaves. The last great
opportunity of acquiring such treasures was at the sale in 1872 of the
wonderful collection formed by T. O. Weigel,[11] at which the British
Museum bought a very fine copy of the first edition of the _Ars
Moriendi_, the first edition, dated 1470, of the _Biblia Pauperum_, in
German, a block-book illustrating the virtues of the hymn _Salve
Regina_, and the compassion of the Blessed Virgin, printed at Regensburg
about 1470, besides fragments and woodcut single sheets. The foundation
of the Museum collection of block-books had been laid by George III,
added to by Mr. Grenville, and completed by a series of purchases from
1838 to this final haul of 1872, since when there have been few
opportunities for new acquisitions. It is now quite adequate for
purposes of study, though not so rich as that of the Bibliotheque
Nationale at Paris.
FOOTNOTES:
[3] The authenticity of a still earlier date, 1418, on a cut of the
Blessed Virgin at Brussels is disputed.
[4] The _Libro di M. Giovanbattista Palatino_, printed at Rome in
1548, is spoken of by Mr. Campbell Dodgson as a "belated specimen" of
a block-book. But this was a writing-book, and hardly counts.
[5] Numerous references in colophons show that the metal mostly used
was brass, e.g. "_Primus in Adriaca formis impressit aenis Vrbe
libros Spira genitus de stirpe Johannes_," and the use of
Chalcographi as a name for printers. But there are one or two
references to printing "_stanneis typis_," with types of tin.
[6] Of the first book printed at Venice only 100 copies were struck
off, but the number was trebled in the case of its immediate
successors. At Rome Sweynheym and Pannartz mostly printed 275 copies,
only in a few instances as many as 300. But at the end of the century
Pynson was printing at least 600 copies of large books and as many as
1000 of small ones.
[7] A very small third group, earlier than either of these, consists
of woodcuts with manuscript text. The most important of these is a
German _Biblia Pauperum_ quite distinct from those started in the
Netherlands.
[8] Some early woodcuts were printed by pressing the block down on
the paper by hand; for the early block-books, however, the usual
method seems to have been to press the paper on to the face of the
block by rubbing it on the back with a burnisher. The paper was thus
quite as strongly indented as if passed through a press, but the
impression is usually less even. The friction on the back of the
paper often gives it a polished appearance. As long as this method
continued in use it was, of course, impossible to print on both sides
of the paper.
[9] It is possible that the earliest specimens of block-printing were
intended not to be bound in books but to be pasted on walls. In the
case of the _Biblia Pauperum_, for instance, the space between the
two woodcuts placed on each sheet is so small in some issues that the
sheets cannot be bound without concealing part of the pictures.
[10] Different issues are distinguished by the signs of wear in the
blocks, or occasionally by their being differently arranged, or with
changes made in the blocks. In a different edition we have to deal
with a new set of blocks.
[11] Since this was written the interesting collection formed by Dr.
Schreiber himself has been dispersed.