EARLY FRENCH AND SPANISH ILLUSTRATED BOOKS
Although interrupted by the death of its veteran author, Claudin's
magnificent _Histoire de l'imprimerie en France_, in the three volumes
which he lived to complete, made it for the first time possible for
students to trace the early history of book-illustration at Paris and
Lyon, the two great centres of printing in France. No illustrated books
were printed at the Sorbonne, nor by its German printers when they set
up in the rue S. Jacques, nor by their rivals there, Keysere and Stoll,
and the French printers at the sign of the Soufflet vert. In January,
1476-7, in the first French book printed at Paris, the _Chroniques de
France_ or de _S. Denis_, Pasquier Bonhomme so far recognized the
possibility of illustration as to leave a space for a miniature on the
first page of text,[37] but he used no woodcuts himself, and his son
Jean suffered himself to be anticipated in introducing them by Jean Du
Pre. Although he worked on rather narrow lines, Du Pre was the finest of
the early Parisian printers, and possessed far better taste than the
prolific publisher, Antoine Verard, of whom so much more has been
written. His first book, a Paris Missal issued in partnership with
Didier Huym, 22 September, 1481, has a large picture of the Pere Eternel
and the Crucifixion. Although this is fairly well cut, it is baldly
handled, and was far surpassed two months later (28 November) in a
similar missal for the diocese of Verdun, by a really fine metal-cut of
a priest and other worshippers at prayer at an altar. From the priest's
uplifted hands a little figure of a man is rising up to a vision of the
Pere Eternel, seen with His angels against the background of a sky full
of stars. The little figure is the priest's soul, and the cut (often
confused with pictures of the Mass of S. Gregory, in which the Host is
seen as a figure of Christ) illustrates the opening words of the
introit: "Ad te levavi animam meam." In the same Missal are a number of
smaller cuts which look as if they had been prepared for a Horae, and
may indeed have been used for one now entirely lost. The "Ad te levavi"
cut reappears in many of the later Missals of Du Pre, and subsequently
of Wolfgang Hopyl. Du Pre's first secular book to be illustrated was an
edition of Boccaccio's _De la ruine des nobles hommes_, completed 26
February, 1483-4, and of peculiar interest to English bookmen because
the woodcuts were acquired by Richard Pynson, and used in his edition of
Lydgate's _Falles of Princes_, an English verse-rendering of the same
work. They are well designed and clearly cut, if rather hard, and till
their French origin was discovered were justly praised as "some of the
very best" English woodcuts of the fifteenth century. Only a few weeks
later Jean Bonhomme (12 May, 1484) issued Maistre Jacques Millet's
_L'Histoire de la destruction de Troye la Grant_, illustrated with a
number of cuts rather neater and firmer, but of much the same kind, and
possibly from the same workshop. They passed almost at once into the
possession of Verard, and cuts from the series illustrating battles,
landings, councils, audiences, and other romantic commonplaces are found
in his _Vegece_ of 1488 and _Les Commentaires Iules Cesar_ of about the
same date (see Macfarlane's _Antoine Verard_, cuts vi-ix). A new edition
of Millet's book was printed by Jean Driard for Verard 8 May, 1498. Two
of the best of the cuts are those of the lamentation over the dead body
of Hector and the sacrifice of Polyxena on the tomb of Achilles. The
only other illustrated book published by Jean Bonhomme was his edition
of the _Livre des ruraulx prouffitz du labeur des champs_, a French
version of Crescentius, with a frontispiece of the translator presenting
his book to Charles VII (15 October, 1486). Meanwhile, a new publisher
of illustrated books had arisen, Guyot Marchant, who in September, 1485,
issued a _Danse macabre_ which went through several editions. Its grim
fantastic pictures (executed with unusual skill and delicacy, see Plate
XVIII) of Death as a grinning skeleton claiming his prey from every
class of society seem to have become quickly popular, and additional
cuts were made for later editions, including one in Latin (15 October,
1490), in which the Dance is called _Chorea ab eximio macabro versibus
alemanicis edita_. A _Danse macabre des femmes_ followed (2 May, 1491),
but the figures in this are mostly less good, as are those of a third
part (the Debate between Soul and Body, and other pieces), despite the
vivacity with which they represent the tortures of the damned. Akin to
the _Danse Macabre_ is the _Compost et Kalendrier des Bergers_ (also of
1491), a medley of weather-lore, rules for health, and moral and
religious instruction, liberally illustrated with cuts of shepherds, of
Moses, Christ and the Apostles, and of the tortures of the damned. This
in its turn was followed, in 1496, by a similar book for the
Shepherdesses, of which a new edition appeared in 1499, with added
pastoral cuts, some of which have unusual charm. Besides Guyot Marchant,
Pierre Levet began book-illustration in 1485, but most of his work was
done for Verard. His earliest venture, an _Exposition de la salutation
angelique_, has a cut of the Annunciation, the shading in which suggests
that he may have imported a cutter from Lyon.
[Illustration: XVIII. PARIS, MARCHAND, 1491
DANSE MACABRE (5^a). DEATH AND THE ARCHBISHOP. (REDUCED)]
In 1486 Jean Du Pre was very busy. At Paris he completed in June a _Vie
des anciens Saintz Peres_, with a large cut of S. Jerome writing in a
stall and the holy fathers passing before him, also numerous very neat
column-cuts and capital letters. Meanwhile, at Abbeville Du Pre was
helping Pierre Gerard to produce one of the finest French books of the
fifteenth century, the magnificent edition of S. Augustine's _Cite de
Dieu_. Early in 1486 Gerard had already printed there an edition of _La
somme rurale_, but this had only a single woodcut, and it was probably
mainly in connection with the illustrations that he now enlisted the
help of Du Pre. In the first volume of the _Cite de Dieu_ (finished 24
November, 1486) there are eleven woodcuts, in the second (finished 12
April, 1486-7) twelve, i.e. a woodcut at the beginning of each of the
twenty-two books and a frontispiece of S. Augustine writing, and the
translator, Raoul de Preules, presenting his book to the King of France.
The subjects and general design of the cuts correspond with greater or
less closeness to those in Royal MS. 14 D. 1 at the British Museum
(Books I-XI only), so that the same original was probably followed by
both. One of the most effective pictures is that to Book XIV, which
shows a man seated in a tree, offered a crown by an angel and a
money-chest by a devil, while Death is sawing the tree asunder, and two
dragons wait at its foot. Another shows S. Augustine writing, while five
devils play with his books, and an angel protects his mitre. The cutting
throughout is excellent, and the pictures, though sometimes fantastic,
are very effectively drawn. There can be little doubt that they were the
work of Paris craftsmen. As for Pierre Gerard, in 1487 he printed by
himself, still at Abbeville, an edition of _Le Triomphe des Neuf Preux_,
with rather childishly conventional cuts of the legendary heroes, but
for Bertrand Du Guesclin a portrait which at least faithfully reproduces
his bullet head. We find Du Pre forming a similar alliance two years
later with Jean Le Bourgeois of Rouen, for whom he completed at Paris
the second volume of a _Roman des Chevaliers de la Table ronde_, 16
September, 1488, while Le Bourgeois was still struggling at Rouen with
Vol. I, which ultimately got finished 24 November. This has some large
cuts of the Feast at the Round Table, etc. In 1489 Du Pre produced a
_Legende doree_, a companion volume to his _Vie des Saintz Peres_ of
1486. But by this time he was already producing Horae, which will be
spoken of later on, and Horae and Missals were his main occupations for
the rest of his career, though he produced a fine edition of the
allegorical romance _Le Chevalier Delibere_ by Olivier de la Marche,
Bonnor's _Arbre des Batailles_ (in which he used some of the same cuts),
1493, _Les vigilles du roi Charles VII_ and some other secular books.
The great Paris publisher Antoine Verard started on his busy career in
1485, and the history of book-illustration at Paris is soon immensely
complicated by his doings. Many of the printers at Paris printed for
him; illustrations originally made for other men gravitated into his
possession and were used occasionally for new editions of the book for
which they had been made, much more often as stock cuts in books with
which they had nothing to do; while if another firm brought out a
successful picture-book, Verard imitated the cuts in it with
unscrupulous and unblushing closeness. The monograph of my late friend
and colleague John Macfarlane[38] describes some 280 books published by
Verard between 1485 and 1512, and like most bibliographical work done at
first hand by personal examination of the books themselves gets at the
root of the matter, although the absence of information as to Verard's
predecessors and contemporaries, such as has since been supplied by M.
Claudin, prevented the author from pressing home some of his points.
Thus in his estimate that sets of blocks had been "expressly cut to
adorn some thirty editions," Macfarlane did not make sufficient
allowance for the cases in which these apparent sets were themselves not
original, having been acquired by Verard from earlier owners.
Nevertheless, he had no difficulty in finding support for his contention
that "the illustrations in Verard's books, when closely examined, hardly
bear out their reputation." Thus he showed that "besides being
repeatedly used in book after book, it not uncommonly happens that the
same cut is used again and again in the same book," and gave as an
extreme instance of this the repetition no fewer than twenty times of
the same cut in the _Merlin_ of 1498.[39] He pointed out, moreover, that
some far-fetched plea is nearly always needed to justify the presence of
a cut in any but the work it was designed for. "For instance, in the
_Josephus_ of 1492 the spoliation of a country is represented by the
burial of a woman, the death of Samson by a picture of the Temple, and
the Sacrifice of Isaac helps the reader to conceive the execution of a
malefactor, while a mention of the sea brings out a cut of Noah's Ark."
However crowded a book may be with cuts, if the cuts are mostly
irrelevant it cannot truly be said to be illustrated, and the number of
Verard's books which a rigorous application of this principle would
condemn is very large. An explanation of at least some of these
incongruities may be found in Verard's early training as an illuminator,
and his habit of preparing special copies on vellum for Charles VIII of
France, Henry VII of England, the Comte d'Angouleme, and other royal and
noble patrons. A woodcut in itself quite inappropriate to the text might
save an illuminator some trouble by suggesting the grouping of the
figures in a picture, and a cut of Saturn devouring his children was
actually used in this way in one of the Henry VII books in the British
Museum as a ground plan for an illumination of a Holy Family. If King
Henry ever held that illumination up to the light he would have had no
difficulty in seeing the scythe of Chronos and the limbs of a child
protruding from Saturn's mouth, but I have never seen a paper copy of
this book, and can only wonder whether the same cut was allowed to
appear in it.
Verard's earliest book was the translation of Boccaccio's _Decamerone_
by Laurent du Premierfait, completed 22 November, 1485, and illustrated
with a single cut of the author writing in an alcove looking out on a
garden where the storytellers are seen seated. An edition of _Les dits
moraux des philosophes_ of Guillaume de Tignonville (Caxton's _Dicts and
Sayings of the Philosophers_) followed in April, 1486, and the _Livre
des ruraulx prouffitz_, translated from Crescentius, with a few small
cuts, not so good as those in the edition just issued by Jean Bonhomme,
in the following July. His first important illustrated book was the
_Cent nouvelles nouvelles_, of Christmas Eve, 1486, with two large cuts,
very alike in style, of an author presenting his book to a king, and
forty column-cuts, most of them used several times, occasionally with
mutilations intended to erase features unsuitable to the later stories.
The next important book was a _Chevalier Delibere_ of 8 August, 1488,
with some excellent cuts which reappear frequently in later books.
Passing over many inferior books, we come in 1492 to a really fine one,
containing four separate treatises: (1) _Art de bien mourir_,
illustrated with copies of the old German block-book; (2) _Traite des
peines d'enfer_ (otherwise known as _L'Aiguillon de crainte divine_),
with grotesque but striking cuts of the tortures of the damned; (3)
_Advenement de antichrist_ and fifteen Tokens of Judgment, very poorly
illustrated compared with the other parts of the book; and (4) _L'Art de
bien vivre_, copiously decorated with scenes from Bible history, an
oblong set, illustrating the Adoration of the Virgin and Child, the
Lord's Prayer, Commandments, Apostles, etc.; (5) a very fine set of cuts
illustrating the Sacraments.
In June, 1493, Verard published in three large folio volumes, printed
for him by Jean Morand, _Les Croniques de France_, with pictures of a
coronation, royal entry into a town, a king sitting in judgment, etc.
etc., the cutting being only of average delicacy, but good enough to do
justice to the vigour of some of the designs. From this point onwards
his interest seems more and more to have centred in his illuminated
copies, and almost all the later Verard illustrations in M. Claudin's
great work are taken from these. Along, however, with many old cuts in
his undated _Bible historiee_ there are two very fine ones specially
made for the work, one of Adam and Eve in Eden, a round cut placed,
below the roots of a tree, in a square of black, from which it stands
out with extraordinary vividness (see Plate XIX), and a picture of the
Trinity and the four evangelists. In an undated _Terence en francois_,
printed about 1500, Verard availed himself of an idea already exploited
by Gruninger and some of the Low Country illustrators, the use of blocks
made up of five or six pieces used in different combinations, so as to
give an effect of great variety at very small expense. Many of the
individual blocks, though the figures are not at all Terentian, are very
charming, and a few of them were freely copied for the English market,
where they may be traced for over a century. About the same time as this
Verard published a _Livre des Ordonnances de la Prevoste des Marchans et
Eschevinage de la Ville de Paris_, with numerous small illustrations of
different crafts and a most interesting picture of the court of the
Prevoste with its judges and officials. After the first few years of the
sixteenth century Verard seems to have relied more than ever on his
stock of old cuts, and does not seem to have produced any notable new
books.
[Illustration: XIX. PARIS, VERARD, 1505
BIBLE EN FRANCOYS (2^a). ADAM AND EVE. (REDUCED)]
A few books printed or published by less prolific firms remain to be
noticed before we speak of the Horae which form so important a section
among Paris illustrated books as to require separate treatment. One of
Verard's printers was Pierre Le Rouge, a member of a family which worked
also at Chablis and at Troyes. In July, 1488, and February, 1488-9, Le
Rouge printed "pour Vincent Commin Marchand libraire" _La mer des
histoires_ in two great folios with large cuts of the kind Verard
subsequently used in his _Chroniques de France_, and on the titlepage a
particularly fine capital L. Philippe Pigouchet, mainly a printer of
Horae, produced in 1499 for his usual publisher, Simon Vostre, a
charmingly illustrated edition of a dull poem, _Le Chasteau de Labeur_,
attributed to the playwright of Victor Hugo's _Notre Dame de Paris_,
Pierre Gringore. Wolfgang Hopyl printed some fine Missals, mostly after
1500; Le Petit Laurens, besides working for Verard, printed for G.
Marnef _La nef des folles_, with a few cuts by one of the most skilled
of Paris craftsmen, and these were rivalled by Jean Treperel in an
undated _Paris et Vienne_; Gillet Couteau and Jean Menard printed a
_Danse Macabre_ in 1492 (not so good as Gui Marchant's) and a new
version of the _Biblia Pauperum_ entitled _Les figures du vieil
testament et du nouveau;_ Jean Lambert, in 1497, produced _La nef des
folz du monde_, with cuts imitating those in the Basel editions. It
would be easy to mention other books, but not without turning our pages
into a catalogue.
We must turn now to the Paris Horae. As already noted, among the
pictures in Jean Du Pre's Verdun Missal of November, 1481, there are a
set of cuts which seem to have been designed for a Horae, though if they
were even put to this use no copy of the edition in which they appeared
has been recorded. The earliest illustrated Horae of which copies exist
are three editions published by Verard, in February 1485-6, August 1486,
and July 1487, all of them small and with insignificant cuts, and all
known only from single copies, of which that of the earliest edition (in
private hands) is imperfect, while the woodcuts in the other two, both
at the Bibliotheque Nationale, are heavily coloured.
Verard's Horae of 1486 and 1487 are said to have been printed for him by
Jean Du Pre, and in the next group of editions Du Pre on his own account
seems to have played the chief part, with Levet and Caillaut as
subordinate actors. It is probable that the group may have been started
by a Psalter printed by Levet 23 September, 1486, and reprinted 19
February, 1488-9, the cuts of these appearing in an undated _Horae ad
usum Romanum_, printed by Du Pre, now in the British Museum. This
measures about 4(5/8) X 3(1/4) inches, and of the same size, but with
different woodcuts, are another undated Horae by Du Pre in the
Bodleian, and a third, with Caillaut's mark at the end, in the
Bibliotheque Nationale. The cuts in all three are delightfully simple
and naive, and those in the Bodleian Du Pre edition show really delicate
work. The group, which comprised other editions only known from
fragments, seems to be continued by two dated respectively 10 May, 1488,
and 4 February, 1488-9, each measuring about 5(5/8) X 3(5/8) inches, the
illustrations in which are distinctly stated to have been cut on copper
(_les vignettes de ces presentes heures imprimees en cuyvre_). The
illustrations especially referred to are the borderpieces, which are of
great importance as containing the earliest examples of a series of
small Horae cuts continued from page to page, in this case depicting
incidents in the life of Christ and their prefigurements, on the plan of
the old block-book _Biblia Pauperum_. Lastly, in 1490, we have a Du Pre
Horae, with very fine cuts and with some of the miscellaneous
borderpieces of the editions just mentioned, which is of exceptional
interest in the history of French book-illustration and printing, since
the cuts and borders in it are printed in different colours, faint red,
blue and green, two colours (laid on the same block and printed at the
same time) usually appearing together. The British Museum possesses one
of two known copies of this Horae, and the late Prince d'Essling bought
the other.
[Illustration: XX. PARIS, VERARD, 1490
GRANDES HEURES (SIG. C 6 VERSO). MASSACRE OF THE INNOCENTS]
In the Horae of the group we have been describing the subjects of the
larger cuts became fairly well settled, in accordance with the normal
contents of the prayer book. For the Kalendar there is the figure of a
man with an indication of the parts of his body presided over by the
different planets: for the sequence of the Gospels of the Passion,
sometimes a Crucifixion, sometimes a picture of S. John; for the Hours
of the Blessed Virgin, the Annunciation, Visitation, Nativity,
Shepherds, Magi, Circumcision, Massacre of the Innocents or Flight into
Egypt, and Assumption of the Blessed Virgin; for the Hours of the Cross,
a Crucifixion; for the Hours of the Holy Spirit, His Descent at
Pentecost; for the Penitential Psalms, David's fall (Bathsheba bathing
or the death of Uriah) or repentance; for the Office of the Dead, either
a Funeral, Dives and Lazarus, or the three Gallants and three Skeletons
(_les trois vifs et trois morts_); for the Suffrages, small pictures of
various saints. Any edition might have one or more additional cuts with
less usual subjects, but those named occur in almost all.
Passing on, we come now to Verard's countermove to Du Pre's group, Horae
measuring 6 inches or a little under by about 3(1/2). Editions of these
were issued in April, 1488-9, and in January, February, and April of the
following year. The last of these, completed 10 April, 1489-90, I
wrongly described, in an article in Vol. III of _Bibliographica_, as
having a titlepage bearing the words _Les figures de la Bible_. It has
such a titlepage in the copy in the British Museum, but I have now woke
up to the fact that it is a modern fabrication, added either by an
artful bookseller or an artless owner. In these Horae the borders are
made up of four pieces, one of which extends along most of the outer and
lower margins, and shows children wrestling with each other, or playing
with hobbies or go-carts. On 10 July, 1493, these are found in a Horae
issued by Laurens Philippe. Verard could the better afford to part with
them, since in August, 1490, perhaps earlier, he had substituted much
larger borders, the subjects in which seem imitated from those of Du
Pre's metal-cuts, the printed page now measuring about 8 X 5 inches, and
thus winning for them the title Grandes Heures, by which they are
generally known (see Plate XX). The large cuts, of which, though not all
appear in every edition, thereillustrate the following subjects:--
1. Prayer to the Virgin; 2. Anatomical Man; 3. A chalice the
circumference of which represents the measurement of Christ's wound;
4. Fall of Angels; 5. Creation of Eve and Fall; 6. Controversy in
heaven between Mercy, Justice, Peace, and Reason, and Annunciation; 7.
Reconciliation of Joseph and Mary, and Visitation; 8. Nativity and
Adoration by the Shepherds; 9. Angels and Shepherds, Shepherds
dancing; 10. Magi; 11. Circumcision; 12. Massacre of Innocents; 13.
Coronation of the Virgin; 14. David's choice of punishments; 15.
Hearse in a Chancel; 16. Invention of the Cross; 17. Pentecost.
The cutting is good and the pictures are both quaint and decorative,
their larger size enabling them to avoid the overcrowding which had
damaged the effect of the earlier sets. These cuts continued in use till
1498, successive editions in May, July, and October of that year, from
the press of Jean Poitevin, showing their gradual replacement by copies
of Philippe Pigouchet's second set.
This famous printer-illustrator was certainly printing as early as 1488,
though Mr. Proctor in his "Index" makes the Horae for the use of Paris,
finished 1 December, 1491, his earliest book. Although not his earliest
book, I still believe that this was Pigouchet's earliest Book of Hours,
and regret that M. Claudin, while rejecting supposed editions of 1486
and 1487, should have accepted as authentic one of 16 September, 1488,
said to have very rude and archaic cuts, while owning that he could not
trace a copy. Until the book can be produced I shall continue to believe
that this edition of 16 September, 1488, is a ghost begotten of a double
crime, a bookseller's manipulation of the date of one of Pigouchet's
best-known editions, that of "le xvi iour de Septembre Lan Mil
cccc.iiii.xx et xviii," by omitting the x in xviii, and a
bibliographer's endeavour to make this imaginary edition of 16
September, 1488, more credible by assuming--and asserting--that its cuts
were rude and archaic because over three years earlier than any
authenticated Horae from Pigouchet's press. His edition of 1 December,
1491, was printed partly for sale by himself, partly for de Marnef, who
subsequently owned the blocks. Besides the usual illustrations for the
Hours, it has pictures of S. John writing and of the Betrayal for the
Gospels of the Passion, of David's choice of punishments for the
Penitential Psalms, and of Les trois vifs et trois morts, and Dives and
Lazarus for the Office for the Dead; also a small cut, with a crible
background of the Vision of S. Gregory, and numerous small cuts of
saints. The sidepieces, which are marked with letters to indicate their
sequence, illustrate the Creation, the prophecies of the Sibyls, and the
subjects of the _Biblia Pauperum._ During the years 1491 and 1495 at
least eight or ten Horae for various uses were printed by Pigouchet,
mostly for Simon Vostre. Of most of these a good many copies have
survived printed on vellum and often illuminated for wealthy purchasers.
The paper copies, which presumably formed the bulk of each edition, are
now far rarer, and to students of book-illustration much preferable to
the coloured vellum copies. Good vellum copies with the pictures and
borders uncoloured, but with their pages brightened by illuminated
capitals and coloured paragraph marks, are the pleasantest to possess.
At the end of 1495 or early in 1496 Pigouchet began replacing the
woodcuts of this series of editions with a new set much more graceful
and less stiff, a few changes being made in the subjects. At the same
time he substituted new borderpieces for the old, among the new blocks
being a fine series of the Dance of Death, which were brought into use
as they were completed, so that we can trace the increase of them from
month to month, so frequent now were the editions. In 1497 and 1498
further additions were made to the large pictures by the addition of new
metal cuts with crible backgrounds for the Anatomical Man, chalice, Stem
of Jesse, Adoration by the Shepherds, Descent from the Cross, Death of
Uriah, and the Church Militant and Triumphant. By the end of 1499 new
crible borderpieces had been added, illustrating the life of Joseph,
history of the Prodigal Son, history of Susanna, Fifteen Tokens of
Judgment, Christ Seated in Judgment, the Cardinal Virtues, and woodland
and hunting scenes. From August, 1498, to the end of 1502 Pigouchet's
editions were at their finest. Meanwhile the cuts of his second set
were slavishly copied in editions printed for Verard. From 1497,
moreover, he had to face serious competition from Thielman Kerver, who
issued closely similar editions with pictures and borders by cutters
little, if at all, inferior either in technical skill or charm. On 5
April, 1503, Jean Pychore and Remy de Laistre completed an edition, in
which Pigouchet probably had a hand, with three very large cuts of the
Annunciation, Nativity, and Adoration by the Magi, and eight smaller
ones surrounded by architectural framework, representing S. John before
the Latin Gate, the Crucifixion, the Emperor Octavian and the Sibyl, the
Massacre of the Innocents, Descent of the Holy Spirit, Death of the
Virgin, and Raising of Lazarus, some of them showing strong traces of
the influence of Durer. From this point onwards the Renaissance spirit
became increasingly powerful in these prayer books, and while in almost
all their advances to meet it the work of Pigouchet himself, and of
Thielman Kerver, continues interesting (though the mixture of old and
new styles in their editions is often confusing), in the numerous
editions poured forth by Germain and Gillet Hardouyn, many of them
printed for them by Guillaume Anabat, and again in those printed by
Nicolas Higman for Guillaume Eustace, the cuts are very inferior, so
that they look best when most heavily illuminated. In a few editions
published by the Hardouyns spaces appear to have been left for the
illuminator to work unaided. In most of these late editions only the
pages with cuts have borders, and these of the nature of picture frames,
as contrasted with the old historiated borders.
In 1525 Geoffroi Tory, a native of Bourges (born about 1480), who at
this period of his life was at once a skilled designer, a scholar, and a
printer, completed a Horae which, though somewhat thin and unsatisfying
compared with the richer and more pictorial work of Pigouchet at his
best, far surpassed any edition produced at Paris for the previous
twenty years. Part of the edition was taken up by the great publisher of
the day, Simon Colines, and while the body of the book was only printed
once, differences in the titlepages and colophons and in the arrangement
of the almanac and privilege constitute altogether three different
issues. Whereas the best earlier editions had been printed in gothic
letter this is in roman, and both the borders and the twelve
illustrations aim at the lightness and grace necessary to match the
lighter type. The vase-like designs of the borders are meaningless, but
the pictures, despite the long faces and somewhat angular figures, have
a peculiar charm. They were used again, with some additions, in a Horae
completed 20 October, 1531. An edition of 1 October, 1527, described by
Tory's chief biographer, Auguste Bernard, as printed, "chez Simon de
Colines en caracteres romains avec des vignettes de meme genre, mais
beaucoup plus petites," I have never seen. Three weeks later Tory
printed in gothic letter a Paris Horae with borders of birds and fruits
and flowers rather in the style of some of the Flemish manuscripts. In
February, 1529, he produced a much smaller Horae in roman type without
borders, but with some very delicate little cuts, used again by Olivier
Mallard, who married his widow, in 1542. Tory appears to have died in
1533, and attributions of later work to him on the ground of its being
marked with a "cross of Lorraine" (i.e. a cross with two transverse
strokes) should be received with caution, unless the cuts are found in
books by Tory's widow or her second husband. It is not quite clear that
the cross is not the mark of a wood-cutter rather than a designer, and
if it really marks the designer we must believe that it was used by
others beside Tory, so various is the work on which it is found.
Illustrated books were published at Lyon somewhat earlier than at Paris,
and in point of numbers, if the comparison be confined to secular books
with sets of cuts especially appropriated to them, the provincial city
probably equalled, if it did not surpass, the metropolis. But if it must
be reckoned to the credit of Lyon that it had no Antoine Verard,
reckless in his use of unsuitable stock cuts, it must be noted, on the
other hand, that strikingly good illustrations are rare and bad ones
numerous. Inasmuch as Lyon, before it welcomed the art of printing, had
established some reputation for the manufacture of playing-cards, the
number of rude and badly cut illustrations is indeed surprisingly large.
The first Lyonnese printer to use pictorial woodcuts in a dated book was
Martin Huss, who issued a _Miroir de la Redemption_, 27 August, 1478,
with the aid of blocks previously used (1476) by Bernard Richel at
Basel; cuts of surgical instruments appeared in the following March,
1478-9, in the _Chirurgia_ of Guido de Cauliaco printed for Barth. Buyer
by Nicolaus Philippi and Marcus Reinhart, and the same printers' undated
_Legende doree_ with very rude pictures is probably contemporaneous with
this. The earliest woodcut of any artistic interest and of Lyonnese
origin is a picture, occupying a folio-page, of the Blessed Virgin, with
the Holy Child in her arms, standing in front of a curtain. This is
found in the _Histoire du Chevalier Oben qui vouloist acuplir le voiage
de S. Patrix_, printed by Leroy about 1480, of which the only known copy
is at the British Museum.
After 1480 all the firms we have named continued to issue illustrated
books of varying merit. On 30 September, 1483, Leroy completed a _Livre
des Eneydes_ with cuts which are often grotesque, though sometimes neat
and sometimes giving evidence of a vigour of design too great for the
wood-cutter's skill. In 1485 he found a Lyonnese cutter able to copy for
him the Paris cuts of Jean Bonhomme's edition of the _Destruction de
Troye la Grant_ quite competently, though in a much heavier style. In
May, 1486, he printed a _Livre des Sainctz Anges_ with a figure of
Christ in a mandorla (perhaps suggested by the engraving of the same
subject in Bettini's _Monte Santo di Dio_), and this, despite a certain
clumsiness in the face, is quite good. In the same year, in an edition
of _Fierabras_, Leroy went back to cuts of incredible rudeness, while
about 1490 in _Les Mysteres de la Saincte Messe_, we find him employing
for a cut of the Annunciation a skilled craftsman, signing himself I. D.
(Jean Dalles?), whose work, though lacking in charm, is neatness itself.
Some shaded cuts in his romance of Bertrand Du Guesclin (undated, but
_c._ 1487) are among the best work in any book by Leroy. Among his other
undated illustrated books are editions of _Pierre de Provence_,
_Melusine_, and the _Roman de la Rose_.
Nicolaus Philippi and Marcus Reinhart in 1482 illustrated a _Mirouer de
la vie humaine_ (from the Latin of Rodericus Zamorensis) with Augsburg
cuts purchased from the stock of Gunther Zainer[40], and copied a Paris
edition in their _Vie des Saintz peres hermites_ and German originals in
their _Mandeville_ and _Aesop_. Their edition of the _Postilla
Guillermi_ (_c._ 1482) has rather a fine Crucifixion and some primitive
but vigorous illustrations of the gospels.
Martin Huss issued an undated _Exposition de la Bible_ with rude cuts
and a French _Belial_ (version of Pierre Ferget), first printed in
November, 1481, and at least five times subsequently. After his death in
1482 his business was carried on by a kinsman, Mathieu Huss, who became
a prolific publisher of illustrated books, with cuts of very varying
merit. Two of his earliest ventures were the _Proprietaire des Choses_
(2 November, 1482), a French version of the _De proprietatibus rerum_ of
Bartholomaeus Anglicus, and a _Fasciculus temporum_ (1483), both with
very rude cuts. During a partnership with Johann Schabeler he issued
(about 1484) a French version of Boccaccio's _De casibus illustrium
virorum_, the pictures in which are hard, stiff, and a little grotesque,
but not without character. Of his later books several are illustrated
with cuts borrowed or copied from other editions; but beyond a _Legende
doree_ with shaded column-cuts, frequently reprinted, he does not seem
to have commissioned any important illustrated book.
While the pictorial work of the Lyonnese presses was thus largely
imitative, at least two very important books were first illustrated
there. The earlier of these was the _Roman de la Rose_, of which the
first printed edition, decorated with eighty-six cuts mostly small and
rudely executed, but which at least have the merit of intelligently
following the text, is now attributed to the press of Ortuin and Schenck
at Lyon about 1481.[41] These primitive pictures were quickly copied by
a cutter of somewhat greater skill but much less intelligence, who
"improved" the original designs without troubling to understand them.
This new set of cuts was used twice at Lyon, by Jean Syber (about 1485)
and by Leroy (about 1487), and was then acquired (less one of the two
larger cuts) by Jean Du Pre of Paris, who issued an edition about 1494.
About 1497, and again a few years later, new editions were issued in
which most of the same cuts reappear, Jean Petit having a share in both
editions and Verard in the first, despite the fact that he had issued a
rival edition about 1495.[42]
[Illustration: XXI. LYON, TRECHSEL, 1493
TERENCE (SIG. A 7 VERSO)]
The other famous Lyonnese illustrated book was an annotated edition of
_Terence_ "with pictures prefixed to every scene" printed in 1493 by
Johann Trechsel. This has a curious full-page picture at the beginning,
giving the artist's idea of a Roman theatre, with a box for the aediles
at the side and a ground floor labelled "Fornices." The text is
illustrated by 150 half-page cuts, a little hard, but with abundance of
life (see Plate XXI). These certainly influenced the Strassburg edition
of Gruninger (1496), and through Gruninger's that published at Paris
by Verard about 1500, and to an even greater extent the illustrated
editions issued at Venice.
How eagerly Lyonnese publishers looked out for books to imitate may be
seen from the rival Lyonnese renderings of Breidenbach's
_Peregrinationes_ and Brant's _Narrenschiff_. Of the Breidenbach, Michel
Topie and Jac. de Herrnberg issued in November, 1480, an adaptation by
Nicolas Le Huen with copies on copperplate of the maps and on wood of
the smaller pictures, both very well executed. Rather over a year later,
in February, 1490, a translation by "frere iehan de Hersin" was
published by Jacques Maillet with the original Mainz blocks. As for the
Ship of Fools, Jacques Sacon, the leading publisher at the end of the
century, issued an edition of Locher's Latin version with close copies
of the Basel cuts in June, 1498, and in the following August a French
edition was published by Guillaume Balsarin with cuts so hastily
executed that in many cases all the background has been omitted.
A few illustrated incunabula were issued at Chambery, and isolated books
elsewhere, but with the exception of Lyon and Abbeville no French
provincial town produced any notable work. In Spain the fine gothic
types and frequent use of woodcut capitals give a very decorative
appearance to most of the incunabula, but pictorial illustrations are
rare, and of the few sets of cuts known to us several are borrowed or
copied from French or German editions. The earliest Spanish illustrated
book known to me is a _Fasciculus Temporum_, printed by Bart. Segura and
Alfonsus de Portu at Seville in 1480, with a dozen metal-cuts of the
usual stock subjects; the earliest with original illustrations, the
Marquis of Villena's _Trabajos de Hercules_, printed by Antonio de
Centenera at Zamora, 15 January, 1483, with eleven extraordinarily rude
cuts of the hero's adventures. In 1484 and 1485 an unidentified printer
at Huete produced editions of the _Copilacion de Leyes_ of Diaz de
Montalvo, with some striking metal-cut pictorial capitals, illustrating
the subjects of the successive books. In one copy of the 1484 edition I
have seen a very fine full-page cut, but could not satisfy myself as to
whether this belonged to the book, or was an insertion. An edition of
Martorell's romance, entitled _Tirant lo blanch_, printed at Valentia in
1490 by Nic. Spindeler, has a decorative metal-cut border to the first
page of text, and during the following decade illustrated books become
fairly numerous. At Saragossa Paul Hurus issued in 1491 a Spanish
version of the _Speculum humanae vitae_ of Rodericus Zamorensis, with
cuts copied from the Augsburg edition, another in 1494 of Boccaccio's
_De claris Mulieribus_, with seventy-two cuts, copied from the editions
printed by Johann Zainer at Ulm, and four from some other source,
another in 1498 of Breidenbach's _Peregrinatio_, and other books, not
known to me personally, but which from their titles almost certainly
contain copies of foreign cuts. In 1500, when his press had been taken
over by three partners, Coci, Hutz, and Appentegger, there issued from
it an _Officia quotidiana_, ornamented with some fifty pictures and many
hundreds of fine capitals.
[Illustration: XXII. SEVILLE, STANISLAUS POLONUS, 1500
RICOLDUS. IMPROBATIO ALCORANI. (TITLE)]
At Barcelona several illustrated books were printed by Juan Rosenbach,
one of the earliest of them, the _Carcel d'Amor_ of Diego de San Pedro
(1493), having sixteen original cuts, characteristically Spanish in tone
and showing good craftsmanship. In or about the same year Friedrich Biel
of Basel (usually quoted as Fadrique de Basilea, or Fadrique Aleman)
headed an edition of the _Passion de Christo_ with a striking metal-cut
of Christ standing upright in the tomb, watched by the B. Virgin and S.
John. For his Spanish _Aesop_ of 1496 he presumably copied the German
cuts, and he certainly did so for his _Exemplario contra enganos_ of
1498, the 116 cuts of which are all careless copies of those in Pruss's
edition of the _Directorium humanae vitae._ Even when in (or about) the
next year he was issuing the first edition of the _Celestina_ or
_Tragicomedia de Calisto y Melibea_, he could not do so without German
models, and based his sixteen little pictures on some of those in
Gruninger's _Terence_, while for his _Stultiferae naues_ of Badius
Ascensius he went, of course, to the charming French cuts of De Marnef.
As a rule, these Spanish versions of foreign cuts have the interest
which always attaches to a free rehandling by a craftsman with a
characteristic touch and style of his own. None the less it is
refreshing to turn to more original work, and at least a little of this
(though some one with wider knowledge than myself may further minimize
the statement) is to be found at Seville. Here in 1494 Ungut and
Stanislaus Polonus issued a _Regimiento de los principes_, translated
from the Latin of Aegidius Columna, with a fine title-cut of a young
prince (his hair is long) seated in a chair of state, holding a sword
and royal orb. The same partners were responsible for another striking
titlepage in 1495, that of the _Lilio de Medicina_, Bernardus de
Gordonio, where two angels are seen upholding seven lilies in a pot;
they also issued in the same year the _Contemplaciones sobre el Rosario
de Nuestra Senora_, a fine and typically Spanish book, printed in red
and black, with good capitals, two large cuts and fifteen smaller ones,
enclosed in borders of white tracery on a black ground. In the last year
of the century they issued an _Improbatio Alcorani_ with a swart picture
of a disputation on the titlepage, not easily forgotten (see Plate
XXII). It was at Seville also that in 1498 Pedro Brun printed in quarto
the romance of the Emperor Vespasian, illustrated with fourteen
excellent cuts, some of them full of life and movement; but for these a
foreign model is quite likely some day to be discovered. On the other
hand, at Valentia also there was at least a little work indisputably of
native origin, as in the case of the title-cut to the _De regimine
domus_ of S. Bernard, printed by Nic. Spindeler about 1498, and (less
certainly) another to the _Obra allaors de S. Christofol_, issued by
Peter Trincher in the same year. Pictorial title-cuts are not so common
in Spanish books as in those of other countries, because of the Spanish
fondness for filling the titlepage with an elaborate coat of arms. But
nearly all their early bookwork is strong and effective, and the printer
who placed a cut on a titlepage nearly always secured a good one. Is it
too much to hope that Dr. Conrad Haebler, who has already done such
admirable work in recording Spanish incunabula and printing facsimiles
of their types, will some day complete his task by publishing a similar
volume of facsimiles of Spanish cuts?
FOOTNOTES:
[37] Similar spaces were left in the typographically anonymous French
version of Valerius Maximus, printed about the same date.
[38] _Antoine Verard._ By John Macfarlane. Illustrated monographs
published by the Bibliographical Society. No. VII. Printed at the
Chiswick Press, September, 1900.
[39] So in the _Lucain Suetonne et Saluste_ of 1490, five cuts of
battle-scenes, all borrowed from the _Mer des Histoires_, printed by
Lerouge in 1488, are made to do duty sixty-four times.
[40] In 1491 these are found at Saragossa in an edition printed by
Hurus.
[41] It has also been attributed to Jean Croquet at Geneva, but there
is only a typographical argument for this ascription, whereas on the
side of Lyon, in addition to (rather weaker) typographical arguments,
we have to reckon with Lyonnese paper, the similarity of the
illustrations to those of a cutter employed by Martin Huss, and the
fact that the book was copied in two editions undoubtedly Lyonnese.
See F. W. Bourdillon's _The Early Editions of the Roman de la Rose_
(1906).
[42] Only a few of the cuts in this were specially designed for it,
all the later ones being taken from stock in Verard's most haphazard
fashion.