ULM AND NUREMBERG
Most writers on early bibliography, amongst others Bodemann and Muther,
who both give reproductions of the initial border at the beginning of
the Latin Boccaccio, quote J. Zainer as the first printer in Ulm to
use woodcut initials. The date of the Boccaccio is 1473. In addition
to the initial border it contains a complete alphabet,[13] of which we
give several specimens. From a decorative point of view this alphabet
is not very remarkable, the letters being of small size, but the book
is interesting on account of the very large historiated initial at the
beginning, which is prolonged along the side and upper margins into a
floro-foliated border in imitation of the more elaborate decoration
of the old manuscripts. The subject represents that very unfortunate
incident in the history of the first woman which was the cause of all
the subsequent unhappiness of mankind. Eve, who is the heroine of the
first chapter of this book on celebrated women, is represented in the
act of receiving the apple from the arch deceiver, who is ensconced in
the branches of the fatal tree with his tail twisted into the letter S.
Above, in the branches of the tree, are small personages emblematic of
the seven deadly sins. In a German edition of the same book of the same
year, the initial becomes a D, and contains the arms of the noble to
whom the work is dedicated, with winged angels at the corners, being
prolonged into borders along the two adjacent margins. In these two
instances the initial letter forms part of the general composition.
[13] Copied from a manuscript of the fifteenth century, the
‘Evangeliare of St. Udalrich.’
In another style of border the initial is merely placed in
juxtaposition, and the same design is thus able to serve for any book
with any letter.
There is a remarkably vigorous folio-floral border with the head and
shoulders of a fool with his cap, bells, and other insignia, at the
angle of the two margins in the _Liber Biblie Moralis_, 1474. The same
composition is used in the _Alvarus Pelagius_ the year before.[14]
[14] In church architecture, and in early book ornamentation, which
reflects so well the ideas and customs of the time, the fool did
not make his appearance before the middle of the fifteenth century.
Wright, in his _History of Caricature_, mentions as early instances
some sculptures of this date in churches of Cornwall, and it was
about the same time that this personage is first seen in manuscript
decoration.
The idea, however, was much older, springing from that taste for
the grotesque which characterised the Middle Ages, and the relics
of which are seen in so many artistic remains of the period. From
the tenth century and even earlier, companies of fools existed in
all large towns, and on certain occasions Mother Folly and the Lord
of Misrule reigned supreme. The cult of the ass, whose ears were to
become later part of the fool’s insignia, was another outcome of this
love of the burlesque.
In printed books, the first engraving we are acquainted with of a
fool is in the border to the _Liber Biblie Moralis_ of 1475. In
initial letters, as far as we have been able to ascertain, this
subject was not used before 1480, when it is to be found in specimens
both of Augsburg and of Strasburg. A remarkable portrait of a fool
is contained in an O in Schott’s _Plenarium_, printed, as is stated
in the colophon, at ‘Strospurg,’ in 1481. Knoblochtzer’s large S,
for the _Dyalogus Solomonis et Marcolfi_, gives a fool with another
personage at full length, and at last the typical fool, with a
marotte and all other accoutrements, is met with in initials of
different Psalters, being well seen in that of Fürter of Basle.
Henceforth, with a face characterised by leering cunning, the type
is to remain unchanged, and Brandt, Erasmus, and Holbein only add to
its popularity, without modifying the general conception. There is a
little pictorial initial by Quentell, in which the usual expression
is replaced by one of extreme _finesse_, but coarser cunning is
the rule, and it is under this aspect that the fool is depicted by
Holbein in the R of the alphabet of Death.
In the _Quadragesimale_ of Gritsch there is a similar border, but the
fool is replaced by a personage with a doctor’s bonnet. The letters
accompanying these borders belong to the alphabet, of which we give
several reproductions, and which is the most frequently used in J.
Zainer’s works.[15]
[15] Reiber in his _Art pour Tous_ gives a similar alphabet of the
Augsburg Zainer, which, he says, is copied from a manuscript of the
tenth century.
Another great work from the Ulm press is the _Cosmographia_ of Ptolemy,
printed by Leonard Holl, in which there is an alphabet of initials not
unlike those of Schönsperger already given. Those of L. Holl ought to
have been preferred as illustrations, inasmuch as they are earlier than
the others, 1482, but they are almost invariably painted and unfit
for zincotype reproduction. The chief interest, moreover, in the book
is in its two large historiated initials on the first two pages, the
first showing the printer offering his book to the Pope, the second
representing probably Ptolemy himself.
Our last specimen of J. Zainer’s engraving is the F which begins the
dedicatory epistle of the Latin Bible of 1480, and which is a curious
example of the peregrinations of woodcuts through different workshops,
and of the incongruous uses to which they were put.
In the Ulm Bible the letter is much fresher and the border-line very
little broken, but our reproduction is from an impression made when it
was much the worse for wear, and had passed into the hands of Hupfuff
of Strasburg. It has been used by him without any kind of _apropos_,
not as an initial but as a frontispiece to a tract published in 1507
with the following title: _Canon Sacratissime Misse una cū; Expositione
ejusdem ubi in primis praemittitur pulchra contemplatio ante missam
habenda de Cristi pulchritudine_.[16]
[16] On the title-page of a little pamphlet entitled ‘Deploration sur
le Trepas de tres noble Princesse Madame Magdalain de France Royne
Descoce,’ of which only one copy is known, the frontispiece is a B
showing the Queen holding up a dagger, and with the motto ‘Memento
mori.’
Every student of bibliography has met with instances of the use of
illustrations having no reference to the text, simply to fill up
a space and because nothing more suitable was at hand. Cuts, for
instance, from Brandt’s illustrations to Grüninger’s Virgil are to be
found in some volumes of Geyler’s Sermons. The same indifference to
the reader’s opinion was often displayed in connection with ornamental
letters. When the letter is simply ornamental it does not much matter:
a C turned over becomes a D, and _vice versâ_. An M at a pinch serves
reversed as a W, an N on its side does for a Z. But when, as is
sometimes the case, the letter taken liberties with is pictorial or
historiated, the resulting effect is far from artistic.
Here there is, of course, no absolute incompatibility between text
and illustration, which was probably considered a very satisfactory
makeshift for the cut which often adorns the recto or verso of
contemporary title-pages, representing the author presenting his book
to a patron.
In 1496 J. Reger published books with initials, of which we have
selected the M, the C, and the S. They come from the _Obsidionis
Rhodie Urbis descriptio_ of Caoursin, a work very much sought after on
account of its full-page woodcuts, some of which represent incidents
in the siege, others the entertainment of an ambassador by the Grand
Master. The M and the C are the only letters with animated subjects;
the others, R, H, N, and G are simply foliated, and the proofs are too
inferior for reproduction.
The same printer has another book of the same date about Rhodes, the
_Stabilimenta Rhodiorum militum_, with three interesting initials, an
F, a boy with a dog, an O, a naked winged babe, and an X, a bird with
foliage.
_Nuremberg._--If Zainer at Augsburg was the first to introduce woodcut
letters printed in black ink, the practice was adopted very soon
after at Nuremberg, if indeed, setting aside the outline initials
already mentioned, Nuremberg has not the priority as regards genuine
ornamental woodcutting. For whereas the _Belial_ of 1472 is the
first work mentioned by Butsch with woodcut letters at Augsburg, at
Nuremberg, where J. Müller of Königsberg (Regiomontanus), as is stated
by Panzer, settled in 1471, his first publication, the _Theoricae Novae
Planetarum_ of Georgius Purbachius, is embellished with eight initials.
These are interesting as affording another example of the fact that the
earlier designs were generally taken from manuscripts, for Olschki, in
his _Monumenta Typographica_, gives the reproduction of a manuscript
initial which is of the same size and of the same pattern as the S we
have given from the _Theoricae Novae_, and which contains besides eight
smaller initials, D, L, M, O, P, Q, S, V, measuring 2·4 centimetres.
There is a Q of the same style and size in the _Astronomicon_ of M.
Manilius, published by Müller in 1473.
Müller, or Regiomontanus, as he styles himself in his colophons, was
not only a printer, but one of the most learned mathematicians of the
day. In 1471 he printed a Calendarium of his own with many astronomical
figures and woodcut initials.
In 1476 Ratdolt and his partners printed an edition of this with a
charming border and initials at Venice, and in 1496 it was published by
J. Hamman de Landoia.
In 1473 appeared the first German Bible with large pictorial initials,
the Nuremberg Bible of Frisner and Sensenschmidt, known as the fourth
German Bible. In our opinion the work on these initials is amongst the
best of the time, and often much superior to what is to be found in
ordinary illustrative cuts of the same date. The subjects are the same
as in the Augsburg Bible, but the initials differ in being wider than
tall in the Nuremberg edition, and in the absence of the Maiblümchen
decorative border which is a feature of the others.
After the German Bible, we know of no initials of very great interest
in Nuremberg books for some years. Koberger, who reigned supreme in
this town, did not favour their use.[17]
[17] In a recent catalogue of thirty-seven works published by him, no
woodcut initials occur in any.
In 1489 a book was published, generally attributed to G. Stuchs, which
is interesting in many ways.[18] The title, which is xylographic, runs
as follows:
‘_Versehung leib sel er unnd gut_,’
_anglicé_: ‘The way to preserve body, soul, honour, and means,’ and on
the verso is a remarkable engraving of a sick person in bed surrounded
by attendants, which evidently suggested the cut representing the sick
fool in Brandt’s celebrated _Navis Fatuorum_. At the end of the volume
is a great typographical curiosity, which constitutes, when completed
by hand, an _ex-libris_. This is a woodcut engraving occupying nearly
the whole of the page, with a shield in blank and two scrolls. On one
of these are engraved the words, _Das Puch und der Schild ist_, the
corresponding one being intended for the owner’s name, and the shield
for his coat of arms.
[18] Proctor ascribes this work to either Conrad Zeninger or Peter
Wagner.
In our copy this book-plate remains in its original condition, but we
have seen another that was filled up at the time, and which has been
the means of rescuing the name of a worthy monk from oblivion. In it,
the first part of the sentence is completed by the addition of the
words, _des Closters zum Parfusen hat Eundres Gewder gemacht_, the
whole forming an _ex-libris_ of the Monastery of Barefooted Brothers
of St. Francis, and testifying to the skill of the ‘bibliothecarius,’
Andrew Gewder, who engrossed and illuminated it.
There are two specimens of this page also in the Franks collection of
book-plates at the British Museum. In one of these the space is blank,
in the other it is filled up with the name of a nun, Barbara.
The chief interest of this volume, however, resides in its initial
letters, after the designs which are preserved at the Pinacothek at
Munich, of Israel von Mecken. Many of them are repeated a great many
times, there being altogether between seventy and eighty impressions;
but these represent only eight different letters of the alphabet,
A, D, E, H, I, M, P, S. Of these the E, which we give, is the only
letter which is both engraved and printed perfectly, the A being the
next best. Nearly all the others are flat, often wanting in depth and
relief, besides being badly printed.
Altogether this book is one of the most interesting relics of early
typography, and is especially noticeable as being the first volume
illustrated by a known artist.
In the early sixteenth century, works published at Nuremberg were not
as a rule well supplied with ornamental initials, the complicated
calligraphic letters that became so common in German books, and
that were little used elsewhere, taking their place. Butsch in his
reproductions of alphabets of this period does not give any specimens.
This is all the more remarkable in that Nuremberg was the home of
Albert Dürer and the great centre of the wood-engraver’s art. The few
examples, moreover, that we have seen, are very primitive both in
design and in execution, as the reader can see from the reproductions
taken from the _Missale Pataviense_, printed by Jodocus Gutnecht, 1514.