Transcriber’s Notes
Text elements printed in italics have been transcribed _between
underscores_, small capitals have been changed to ALL CAPITALS.
More Transcriber’s Notes may be found at the end of this text.
EARLY WOODCUT INITIALS
EARLY
WOODCUT INITIALS
CONTAINING OVER THIRTEEN
HUNDRED REPRODUCTIONS OF
ORNAMENTAL LETTERS OF THE
FIFTEENTH AND SIXTEENTH
CENTURIES, SELECTED AND
ANNOTATED BY
OSCAR JENNINGS, M.D.
MEMBER OF THE
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY
[Illustration]
METHUEN AND CO.
36 ESSEX STREET
LONDON
_First published in 1908_
I DEDICATE THESE PAGES TO
MY WIFE
AS A SLIGHT RECOGNITION OF
HER CONSTANT PATIENCE
AND DEVOTION
PREFACE
From the number of works that have been published within the last few
decades on early printing and the decoration of early books, it is
evident that an increasing interest is taken in these subjects, not
only by those whose studies have specially fitted them to appreciate
such researches, but also by the general educated public.
There is, however, one variety of engraving that has hitherto attracted
but little attention, and the importance of which, both from artistic
and documentary points of view, is still unrecognised, and it may even
be said unsuspected by the great majority of students. Whilst every
engraving that may technically be termed a cut or an illustration
is catalogued and recorded in the different monographs on special
printers, those which take the form of initial letters, often of equal,
if not superior merit, are represented much more sparsely, and as
having a secondary importance only.
In a monograph on fifteenth-century printing in a certain German town,
for instance, the writer, a professional bibliographer, gives about
ten or twelve initial letters, whereas the extent of the material upon
which he might have drawn may be judged from the fact that a more
recent authority, in his history of one printer only of this town, has
been able to reproduce more than fifty specimens, many of which are
quite equal in interest to illustrations proper, some of them having
been recently pointed out by a London expert as constituting the chief
attraction of a volume[1] with both initials and illustrations which
came under his hammer.
[1] The initials in the _Leben der Heiligen Drei Könige_ of
Knoblochtzer.
The above lines, written ten years ago, when I first began to collect
material for this volume, are perhaps no longer as true absolutely
as when first penned. Besides the works of Butsch, Reiber, and Heitz
which were already in existence, Ongania’s book on Venice bibliography
contains a great many initials; Heitz has devoted a volume to those of
Holbein and other artists of the school of Basle, and others to certain
initials of Strasburg and Hagenau; and Redgrave, Haebler, Claudin,
Schorbach, Spirgatis, and Kristeller give a certain prominence to
initials in their respective monographs.
I still think, however, that a special work on the subject is needed
to do justice to the richness of artistic material available in this
special matter.
The woodcuts in early books are often merely illustrative, that is to
say explanatory of the text, and were not designed as ornaments; but
the initials were intended to be decorative, and one can see in them a
real artistic effort and sentiment.
Quaritch, indeed, has recently called attention to this fact, of the
superiority in some early books of the initials over the woodcuts, and
it is beginning to be recognised also by several great booksellers,
whose catalogues contain increasing numbers of reproductions of
ornamental letters in preference to other specimens of early engraving.
Unfortunately, circumstances have prevented my completing my first
programme, and what I offer here can only be considered as a general
introduction to the subject. But such as they are, these fragmentary
notes will not, I hope, be found entirely devoid of interest.
In conclusion, I have to express my thanks to Mr. A. W. Pollard, the
amiable and indefatigable secretary of the Bibliographical Society, for
help in seeing this volume through the press, and for many valuable
suggestions and criticisms.
OSCAR JENNINGS.
CONTENTS
PAGE
PREFACE, vii
INTRODUCTION, 1
CHAP.
I. BLOCK-BOOKS: THE INVENTION OF PRINTING: THE PSALTER OF
MAYENCE, 6
II. AUGSBURG, 14
III. ULM AND NUREMBERG, 22
IV. BASLE AND ZURICH, 29
V. LÜBECK AND BAMBERG, 39
VI. STRASBURG AND REUTLINGEN, 43
VII. COLOGNE AND GENEVA, 51
VIII. VENICE, 55
IX. OTHER ITALIAN TOWNS, 64
X. LYONS, 73
XI. PARIS, 82
XII. FRENCH PROVINCIAL TOWNS, 90
XIII. SPANISH TOWNS, 96
XIV. EARLY DUTCH INITIALS, 101
XV. LATER GERMAN INITIALS: HAGENAU, MAGDEBURG, METZ, OPPENHEIM,
INGOLDSTADT, ETC. ETC., 103
XVI. ENGLISH INITIALS, 108a
REPRODUCTIONS OF INITIALS, 111
INDEX, 281
INTRODUCTION
The ornamentation of books dates probably from the time of their
invention, that is to say, it goes back to a very remote antiquity.
From Greece, where the book-trade was flourishing at an early period,
it passed into Italy, extending thence to the provinces of the Empire,
to Gaul and Spain, where book-lovers became more and more numerous,
and as civilisation became more refined, increasingly particular about
bindings and ornamentation.
The verse of Tibullus,
‘Indicet ut nomen littera picta tuum,’
shows the extent of the embellishments to which bibliophiles had then
become accustomed, requiring the titles of their favourite authors to
be engrossed in coloured or illuminated letters.[2]
[2] Numerous passages might be quoted from Latin writers to show how
great an interest they took in books, and how valuable rare, and what
might be called original, editions had even then become. It would
seem, too, that they even knew the pleasures of book-hunting, for
Aulus Gellius relates how, having a few hours to spare after landing
at Brindisi, he spent his time looking through the contents of an
old book-stall, and was lucky enough to discover a very old work on
occult science.
Besides the title, the headings of chapters and the initial letters
were also distinguished in the same way from the rest of the work,
a custom which passed from the Roman copyists to those of the Lower
Empire, and in course of time became generally adopted in the
preparation of manuscripts. But this was not all. It is now recognised
that book illustration was known to the Romans, and that the
miniatures of the mediæval manuscripts only followed the fashion of the
rich and sumptuous volumes transcribed by the copyists of Athens and
Rome. The fourth-century Virgil, for instance, one of the treasures of
the Vatican, which has been so well described by M. Pierre de Nolhac,
is an example of this, containing as it does a large number of figures.
Like all manuscripts of the time, it was written exclusively in
majuscules, very similar to those used in Roman inscriptions.[3]
[3] Pliny speaks of a marvellous, almost divine, invention by which
pictures were added to the book of _Imagines_ of Varro--no doubt
printed by stamping.
The taste for luxury spreading from the third century, Byzantium became
the centre of the most extravagant and costly elegance in all its
manifestations, and books of that origin have come down to us written
on purple parchment in letters of gold. It was not until several
centuries later that a reaction took place, when Leo the Isaurian, in
741, considering such refinement as sinful, put an end to it by burning
the public library, together with its staff of _bibliothecarii_ and
copyists, the survivors finding a refuge for their art in the western
cloisters and monasteries.
The intelligent protection and encouragement and hospitality afforded
to men of letters by Charlemagne was a great contrast to the bigotry
of Leo the Byzantine. Interesting himself warmly in all questions
relating to instruction, he took a special interest in the copying
and transcription of manuscripts, inviting to his kingdom the Irish
and Anglo-Saxon monks, who from the sixth century had made a special
study of calligraphy, and were celebrated all over Europe for their
miniatures and historiation.
In consequence of the patronage of Charlemagne and of Charles the
Bald, son of Louis the Débonnaire, artists of all nationalities, but
more particularly Germans and Italians, who had come from Oriental
schools, received a warm welcome. At first in the sixth century the
initial letter was of the same size as the others, only distinguished
by the difference of colour, being in minium or cinnabar. A hundred
years later, under the Byzantine influence, the letter grows larger,
until it occupies the whole page, at the same time being painted with
the most vivid colours according to the fancy and caprice of the
artist. Little by little the Byzantine style first introduced became
modified, and assumed by degrees a national character. The decoration
of the initials took the form of interlaced chequer-work or of
historiated arabesques, resembling the mosaics of enamelled specimens
of Gallo-Frank jewellery.
Then come figures of animals, in which the imagination of the artist
runs riot, as in the alphabet of which Montfaucon has given a specimen
in his _Origins of the French Monarchy_.
To quote the opinion of a contemporary writer, there was nothing
under heaven or earth that had not served as a model for designers of
ornamental letters.
Towards the fourteenth century this exuberance of decoration quiets
down. Fancy is by no means excluded, but it becomes more regulated and
more sure, to the advantage of art itself, which speaks through the
skill of the painters, whose names, however, with but few exceptions,
unfortunately remain unknown to us.
Paris was renowned at an early period for the excellence of its
manuscripts, and the talents of its copyists and illuminators. Richard
de Bury, Bishop of Durham and Chancellor of England, speaks in his
_Philobiblion_ of the five libraries he had seen in that town, and the
magnificent books that he had been able to buy.
In England, illumination had flourished from before the twelfth to the
fourteenth century, but by the middle of the fifteenth art was dead,
and when handsome miniatures or other decorations were required for
books, it was to French artists that it was necessary to apply.
In Italy, the influence, as regards book ornamentation, of French art
may be judged from the passage of Dante, who, speaking to a miniaturist
of his profession, is obliged to use a periphrase to design it:
‘. . . di quell’ arte
Ch’ alluminare è chiamata in Parisi.’
The dawn of printing was at hand. Manuscripts, whether handsomely
embellished or copied simply without ornament, were expensive luxuries
which only the rich could purchase. With the revival of learning, for
students in general, for the poorer classes, for school children, cheap
books costing as little as possible, but serving the same end as the
manuscript, were necessary, and the xylograph came at its hour.[4]
[4] It should be mentioned that block-books are now considered by
some authorities to have come later than the invention of printing
with movable type, _i.e._ about 1460.
From the earliest times copyists had used stamps[5] and copper
stencillings in order to apply initials that recurred frequently, a
practice which contains in it the first germ of printing. Playing-cards
were printed by the same process and afterwards illuminated.
[5] Passavant.
Picture-books came next, with text and illustrations cut on the same
block, the leaves being printed on one side only, and afterwards gummed
back to back.
Such was the book known as the _Biblia Pauperum_, ‘Figurae typicae
veteris atque antitypicae novi testamenti,’ a short pictorial history
in forty leaves of the Old and New Testament. Another of these
block-books is devoted to the history of St. John the Evangelist and
his apocalyptic dreams, of which there are six different editions,
with texts in Flemish, Saxon, and German. The _Ars Moriendi_, or
temptations of the dying, with terrifying pictures, shows a moribund
man assailed by devils,[6] but, as in all similar productions, the
terrible is relieved by a touch of the grotesque. The _Speculum humanae
salvationis_ is remarkable for being printed partly from blocks
and partly with movable characters. This shows the transition from
xylography to printing proper. The printer of this work, in order to
economise the composition of twenty-seven leaves, used the blocks he
possessed, and printed them together with twenty-seven others composed
with movable type. The example is not unique.
[6] See, under ‘PARIS,’ the representation of one of these
death-scenes in an initial of Chevallon’s.
A last variety of xylographic impressions is known under the generic
name of ‘Donatus.’ This is a little primer of Latin grammar first
compiled by the grammarian Aelius Donatus, by whose name it was
afterwards known.
We have mentioned the xylographic publications, because in a certain
number of them ornamental initials are to be met with. These, as
would naturally be supposed, are of the same style as those found
in manuscripts of the same period. It may be observed here, that
whilst books of price were embellished with expensive work, the less
valuable manuscripts were left either without initials at all, or with
ornamental letters of a few stereotyped patterns, that experience had
shown to be most harmonious to the written text. Of these patterns
the most popular is the Maiblümchen, or lily of the valley design,
constantly seen in manuscript books, and adopted by many of the early
printers. This design will be seen in many of the first initials of the
Augsburg printers, and especially of Rihel of Basle.
Historiated initials are less frequent in the block-books, the only
one we have found being the S of an _Ars Memorandi_, of which a
reproduction is given.
We have noted briefly the successive changes in the manuscript book,
the different phases of its evolution towards its final formula and
expression as an impression from movable type.
This brings us to the invention of printing, but it must be noted
that printing, which revolutionised in so many ways the world, did
not immediately put an end to the professions of the rubricator and
illuminator. Some printed works of the end of the fifteenth and the
beginning of the sixteenth centuries are embellished with miniatures of
the very highest merit and illuminated letters of the greatest beauty.
CHAPTER I
BLOCK-BOOKS: THE INVENTION OF PRINTING: THE PSALTER OF MAYENCE
Printing, with the discovery or invention of which the name of
Gutenberg is intimately associated, goes back to the year 1454, or, if
we accept the recent discovery of an almanac which can only refer to
1448, some six years earlier.
This is not the place to relate its general history, which is to be
found in all the special works on the question. We shall set down here
only the facts which concern our subject more particularly, and show
the evolution of ornamental letters in books of the first period after
the discovery of the new art.
It is known that Gutenberg, after the expensive experiments that had
crippled his resources, had borrowed money from his fellow-citizen
Fust, for the purpose of developing his new discovery.
His methods were, however, incomplete, and, according to one of many
conjectures, it was not until two or three years later that Peter
Scheffer, presumably a workman in Gutenberg’s office, perfected it
by the invention of punches and matrices, so discovering a means of
founding the type for which he devised a more suitable alloy instead of
engraving each letter. This brought Scheffer into favour with Fust, who
gave him his daughter in marriage. A quarrel with the original inventor
ensued, and Gutenberg, nearly ruined, was forced to retire, leaving
the two others in possession of the field.
The object of the first printers was no doubt to imitate the manuscript
book as closely as possible. Gutenberg in his Bible had only attempted
to copy the letterpress proper. The two partners gave in 1457 as
their diploma piece an edition of the Psalter with two hundred and
eighty-eight capitals in two colours, besides the great initial B, the
whole forming a perfect imitation by the press of a highly decorated
manuscript.
At the present time an expert could see at a glance that this book is
printed, instead of being written. But in 1457, and until the invention
of printing had become generally known, no one could have guessed that
it was anything but what it appeared, a beautifully finished manuscript.
Of the letters, which are mostly in red and blue, the handsomest is
the initial B at the beginning of the first psalm, which is surrounded
by arabesques, continued along the margin. Besides these ornaments,
figures of a dog and bird are stencilled, as it were, in white on the
red ground of the letter.
Writers are by no means agreed as to the way in which these initials
were executed, but until recently the explanation most generally
accepted was that of _emboîtement_, each part of the letter being inked
separately and afterwards joined. According to Mr. Gordon Duff, it is
impossible to determine exactly how they were produced, but in one
edition, that of 1515, the exterior ornament has been printed, while
the letter itself and the interior ornament have not. This shows that
the letter and ornament were not on one block, and that the exterior
and interior ornaments were on different blocks. Mr. Blades thought
that the design was not printed but impressed in blank, and afterwards
filled in with colour by the illuminator. The last opinion, that of Mr.
Weale, is that the letters were not set up and printed with the rest
of the book, but subsequently to the typography, not by a pull of the
press but by a blow of the mallet on the superimposed block.
It is not, perhaps, without interest to note that the white ornaments
which have been already mentioned are reproduced on one of the initials
of the Bamberg missal. Whether or not this lends additional likelihood
to the Bamberg printer having been a workman of Gutenberg, the reader
must judge for himself.
We have said that the object of the first printers was to produce an
imitation manuscript. It has even been suggested that Scheffer tried to
palm off some of the copies of the Bible as, and at the price of, the
manuscripts.
Gabriel Naudé, in his addition to the history of King Louis XI., is
responsible for this accusation, which has been reproduced without
investigation by several historians. The passage is too long to quote
here, but he states positively that Scheffer sold the first copies
_pour manuscrites_ at seventy-five _écus_ a copy, selling others
afterwards at from twenty to thirty. Those who had paid the higher
price brought an action against him for _survente_, and he had to fly
from Paris to Mayence, where not being in safety he took refuge at
Strasburg, living for a time with Messire Philippe de Commines.
The story is charmingly circumstantial but hardly convincing. At any
rate, it is certain that no sharp practice could have been attempted
after 1457, as the colophon of the Psalter states the volume ‘Venustate
capitalium decoratus rubricationibusque sufficienter distinctus
adinventione artificiosa imprimendi et characterizandi; absque calami
ulla exaratione sic effigiatus.’
It has also been said that Scheffer was not the first to use the
Psalter initials, which formed part of the stock which Gutenberg was
compelled to relinquish in payment of the money he had borrowed of Fust.
Fischer at the beginning of the last century published the description
of a Donatus of 1451 with some of these initials, of which he gave a
facsimile, and which he attributes to Gutenberg, but this book is no
longer to be found, and it is supposed that he was the victim of a
hoax.[7] The only copy now known with these initials has come down to
us in the shape of a fragment which is preserved in the Bibliothèque
Nationale. The catalogue gives the date as 1468, but Hessels and many
other good judges place it at 1456. It is printed in the type of the
forty-two line Bible, with thirty-five lines to the page. In the
colophon Scheffer makes use of the expression ‘_cum suis capitalibus_,’
which Hessels translates ‘with his capital letters,’ a rendering, says
Mr. Gordon Duff, which is surely impossible.
[7] According to M. de Laborde, ‘Bodman archiviste de Mayence,
tourmenté par Oberlin, Fischer et tous les bibliographes du temps
pour leur trouver quelques nouveaux renseignements sur Gutenberg,
n’imagina rien de mieux que d’en fabriquer.’ Fischer in his _Essai
sur les monuments Typographiques de Jean Gutenberg_ declares that he
found two leaves of a Donatus, which was printed by Gutenberg with
the same initials as were afterwards used by Scheffer. These leaves
were in the cover of an account-book dated 1451, which was discovered
in the Archives of Mayence by Bodman. These leaves have since
disappeared.
Two other questions remain to be considered: Why Scheffer should have
used the initials frequently until 1462, and then (with the exception
of successive editions of the Psalter) have given up their use
entirely? Who was their author?
For the first there was a combination of several reasons. The
opposition of the Formschneiders may have had something to do with it.
On the other hand, Scheffer may have got tired of always using the
same initials which had been cut for him by an exceptionally clever
engraver, of whom he had afterwards lost sight. In the third place, the
sack of Mayence in 1462, which led to the dispersion of his workmen,
may have been partly the reason, but that he did not lose his material
is proved by the initials appearing in the antiquarian reprints of the
Psalter.
In our opinion the second reason is most probable, and it is supported
by the testimony of Papillon as to the identity of the artist, which
seems to have escaped recent bibliographers.
According to Heineken, a certain Meydenbach is mentioned in Sebastian
Münster’s _Cosmographia_, and also by an anonymous author in
_Serarius_, as being one of Gutenberg’s assistants. Heineken on these
grounds considers that he accompanied Gutenberg from Strasburg to
Mayence, also that he was probably an engraver or illuminator, and Von
Murr thinks he was the artist who engraved the large initials.
Fischer is convinced that they were engraved by Gutenberg himself, ‘a
person experienced in such work, as we are taught by his residence in
Strasburg,’ which Jackson declares teaches no such thing.
Papillon’s history is too long to be related here _verbatim_, but
in substance it is as follows: A German who was making the _tour
de France_ applied to him for work. He stated that his name was
Cocksperger, and that he was descended from Peter Cocksperger who had
engraved the initials of the Psalter of Mayence. Papillon only saw
him three times in 1737, when he showed him some of his work, which,
although somewhat coarse, was well cut, of a pretty taste, and not
common. His ancestors had lived in Mayence, Cologne, and Nuremberg.
One of them, Peter, had worked with Fust and Scheffer at their first
impressions, and it was a tradition in the family that he was a scribe
and miniaturist, and also engraved neatly on wood. He had been engaged
by Scheffer, who lodged him in his house, to design and engrave on wood
large initials embellished with ornaments like those he was in the
habit of drawing and painting. Also that one of his brothers, Jacques,
together with a friend named Thomas Forkanach who also engraved on
wood, had helped him to engrave the initials for Scheffer’s Psalter.
He showed Papillon a book of ‘figures of the mass,’ a xylographic
tract printed _au frotton_. Not being able to get acceptable work,
he left Paris. ‘This man,’ says Papillon, was ‘_franc et de très bon
caractère_,’ he had means to live quietly at home, had not _l’envie de
voyager_ made him leave Germany.[8]
[8] Papillon, _Histoire de la gravure sur bois_.
We have not seen any references to Cocksperger in modern works, but
Dibdin in one of his books quotes Papillon’s account of him. It would
be curious to know whether there was really a family of this name in
Mayence at the date Papillon gives, and whether there is any trace
there of such a tradition.
Besides the initials used in the different editions of the Psalter,
and in some other publications such as the _Rationale Durandi_, which
has the same subscription as the Psalter, but with the date changed to
1459, Scheffer had a splendid bichrome T for the _Canon of the Mass_,
considered by many as quite equal to the B of the Psalter.
Later in the century polychrome initials, as these letters in two
colours are somewhat incorrectly termed, are said to have been used in
early Dutch impressions. Humphreys in his _History of Printing_ gives
the reproduction of a Q in two colours from the _Dyalogus Creaturarum_,
printed at Gouda in 1480 by Gerard Leeu, which he supposes to be
printed, and which he considers, as we think erroneously, to be quite
equal to Scheffer’s B.
Initials printed in one colour are not uncommon. They are to be found,
for instance, in the _Etymologicum Magnum_ of Callierges, and sometimes
in missals, such as the Missale Olumucense of Bamberg and the Rouen
Missal, ‘ad usum insignis ecclesie Atrebatensis.’
It has been said that the Psalter letters ceased to be used in 1462.
Whatever may have been the reason for this, and it is possible after
all that it was simply from motives of economy, Scheffer’s example,
as regards the suppression of ornament, was followed by the other
printers, and with the exception of Pfister, whose impressions from
movable characters have every appearance of xylographic productions,
for some years no books were issued with typographical embellishments.
It is probable that, for the two years during which he flourished,
Pfister’s illustrated publications were tolerated because they were
generally supposed to be block-books, and that he was compelled to
stop operations by the Guilds, as soon as they found out that he was
in reality one of the hated printers. For it was not only as craftsmen
that the Formschneiders were hostile to the members of the new trade.
The engravers had become the printers of the xylographic books, then a
new and profitable industry, and they were afraid of the sale of their
own productions being interfered with by the illustrated works of the
type-printers.
From the point of view of ornamental initials there is little to say
about the xylographic impressions.
Before the invention of printing, the copies of block-books were
obtained, as has been already mentioned, by what is known as the
_frotton_ process, the paper being placed over the engraved block and
rubbed with a special pad. The ink in the originals is of a brownish
yellow. After the invention of the press, certain popular treatises
continued to be struck off from xylographic cuts, but by impression,
like ordinary books. One of these, the _Mirabilia Romae_, a guide-book
to Rome at the end of the fifteenth century, has a large historiated S
at the beginning. It is remarkable from the fact that the letterpress,
of which a specimen is given with the initial, is not cut in imitation
of type, but, as can be seen in our reproduction, of ordinary
hand-writing.
Another specimen of this kind of printing is the P, which we reproduce
with a border, from a Donatus, the first and eighth leaves of which
were preserved for centuries in an old binding.
This Donatus, of which the only leaves remaining belong to the Leipsic
Museum, was printed by Dinckmut. There is another xylographic fragment
with a colophon bearing the same name in the Bodleian Library. The
initial itself represents a schoolmaster surrounded by his pupils, a
subject frequently met with as a frontispiece to books of this class,
and it is prolonged into a border which frames the page.
When the initial of a Donatus does not represent a pedagogue and his
class, the subject is often the Virgin and Holy Family. J. Rosenthal
has an extremely valuable edition with the Virgin, the Child, and St.
Catherine. Amongst our specimens of Cologne is a Donatus without name
of printer or date, but no doubt printed by Quentell towards 1500, in
which, besides the Virgin and Child, there are grotesque profiles in
the two left corners which look as if copied from the same source as
one of the Bämler initials, and the initial with grotesques in the Bâle
Psalters.[9]
[9] The Donatus, always being in demand, was generally one of the
first books printed at a new press. It was the first work issued by
Pannartz and Sweynheim when they started at Subiaco.
During the remainder of the fifteenth century there was very little in
the way of initial ornamentation in books published at Mayence, where
Scheffer, who was always the chief printer, seems to have exhausted his
possibilities in this direction with his first experiment.
There is, however, a fine large historiated D in a German translation
of Æsop--_Das Buch und Leben des Fabeldichters Æsop_--without printer’s
name or date, but attributed to Scheffer, towards 1480. This initial
has already been reproduced in Muther’s _Bücher-Illustration_, and
more recently in a bibliography of incunabula and books printed before
1501, by Ludwig Rosenthal. The only other interesting ornamental letter
we are acquainted with of Mayence origin before 1500 is the G at the
commencement of Erhardt Reuwich’s _Breidenbach_.
During the first two decades of the sixteenth century there is the same
dearth of anything like ornament in Mayence books, but towards 1520
John, the grandson of the first Peter Scheffer, has several alphabets,
one of very large letters with arabesques of flowers, foliage, and
birds, used first in his Livy of 1518, published under the patronage
of Brandeburg, Archbishop of Magdeburg and Mayence. There is also a
smaller one with the most varied subjects, besides a few letters with
children on a black ground, and one or two linear initials also with
children, copied from Venetian models.