BASLE AND ZURICH
Printing was introduced into Basle before 1468, having been preceded,
as in most other towns of the upper Rhine, by xylographic publications.
No Basle book bears a printed date earlier than 1473, but the absence
of such printed date does not prove that the introduction of printing
into Basle did not take place earlier, and a note of the purchase in
1468 of a copy of St. Gregory’s _Moralia in Job_, printed by Berthold
Rodt or Ruppel of Hanau, shows that he must have been at work at that
time.
From the point of view of initial letters we will pass over Berthold
Rodt and Michael Wenssler, to come to the publications of Bernard
Richel, the most interesting of which are his _Sachsenspiegel_ of
1474 and the Latin Bible, which had several editions, these appearing
in 1471-75-77. In describing this work, Panzer in his _Annales
Typographici_ remarks that the woodcut initials do not occur in all
the copies. In some of them their place is left blank. This is another
evidence of the early printer’s reluctance to adopt printed ornaments
as the definite formula, and if any further proof is necessary it will
be found in the fact that even where woodcut letters are used, they are
often more or less enlivened with colours.
We have already alluded to these initials in describing those of
Bämler, and we have touched upon the point as to who was the first
to make use of the historiated S which has a certain analogy with
the xylographic letter mentioned in a former chapter, from the _Ars
Memorandi_.
There are in this Bible four different sets of letters, but of none
of these is there a complete alphabet, although but few letters are
wanting of the largest. The next nearly complete is the second in size.
Of the four different sets, the second in size is of a special design,
different to anything we have met with. The others are pure specimens
of Maiblümchen ornamentation, and amongst the best of the kind.
The three different-sized initials with human faces are the only
letters in the volume with any trace of historiation.
Several Psalters were published either at the end of the fifteenth or
at the beginning of the sixteenth century, of exactly the same size and
general disposition, two of them with initial letters that correspond
in subject although very different in treatment. These are the Psalters
of Basle and Augsburg.
The latter has been dealt with in a previous chapter. The Basle Psalter
was published by Furter in 1501, and the initials of the two volumes
can be contrasted and compared with those that have just been dealt
with.
In these letters, the fool who saith in his heart there is no God
(_Dixit insipiens_), is represented in the D which begins the Psalm as
a jester, which is not quite appropriate. In the Mallermi Bible, where
there is instead of an historiated letter a little cut, the rendering
is more correct. The fool is there, a man with dishevelled hair, and
having every appearance of having lost his reason. The C with Absalom
hanging by his hair is reproduced as an example of Basle woodcutting in
Muther’s _Bücherillustration_.
There is amongst these initials a nondescript kind of letter which is
an example of the carelessness that sometimes occurred in the workshop.
It was intended for an E, but the draughtsman forgot that the drawing
would be reversed in the printing, and the printer has arranged matters
in the text by turning the letter upside down.
In a former essay (_The Library_, 1901) we gave three specimens--S,
T, and V--from a book entitled _Liber Decretorum sive panormia_, etc.
etc., as examples of Furter’s ornamentation. Letters of this alphabet
occur also in an extremely rare book unknown to Hain, without date
or name of printer, but undoubtedly printed at Basle, the _Decreta
Consilii Basiliensis_. It is, however, certain that they were used in a
work printed at Besançon some ten years before the _Liber Decretorum_,
and although the fifth volume of Claudin’s _Histoire de l’Imprimerie en
France_ in which this work was to be described has not yet appeared, we
have reason to believe that they are to be attributed to this town, and
were to be given in the chapter in which it is mentioned.
We shall have to refer later to the frequency of the repetition in some
volumes of the same initial. In the German Bibles, for instance, the
different books most often begin by the word ‘Der,’ and consequently
by an initial D. In a book of sermons by that extraordinarily fertile
writer, Geyler von Kaisersperg, not only does every section commence
with the letter D, but with the same identical initial. In this volume,
the _Christianliche Bilgerschaft_, printed by Adam Petri in 1512, the
preface begins by a floral letter of no consequence. After that the
D, with a pilgrim and a cross on his shoulder, is repeated at the
commencement of every chapter, possibly thirty times. The title-page
has an illustration by Urs Graf with the same subject.
The last years of the fifteenth century had passed away, but the
German printers, including even Ratdolt, who had returned to Augsburg
from Venice, still resisted the influence of Renaissance art. In
the _Narrenschiff_ of Brandt of 1493 we can see the science of the
draughtsmen excellently interpreted, but the Gothic _facture_ still
holds good against the encroachment of more modern artistic tendencies,
and it is not until towards 1512 or 1513 that the new ideas begin to be
more generally accepted.
But as a modern writer has said: ‘Dès que la Renaissance lumineuse
a paru, traînant derrière elle l’admirable cortège de ses maîtres
délicats, fils de la Grèce antique qui moulaient la feuille divine de
l’acanthe sur le sein d’une vierge endormie, le vieux monde s’écroula
et l’ornement gothique fit place à la triomphante et poétique arabesque
devenue l’aurore nouvelle.’
It is in the _Ritter von Thurn_, published by Furter in 1515, that we
see first this influence in the form of a title by Urs Graf, copied
from the Venetian original, and ornamented with dolphins and acanthus.
Besides a great many titles, Urs Graf also engraved a certain number of
alphabets, inspired to a great extent by those of Tacuinus de Tridino,
but wanting in originality, and generally inferior to the originals.
The reader can compare the two kinds of initials.
But it was the arrival of a young artist of genius that completed the
revolution at Basle in the ornamentation of books. This is not the
place to discuss the merit of Holbein as a painter, nor to study the
long series of title-pages, borders, friezes, and printers’ marks which
he composed for different printers of Basle and elsewhere.
We are concerned here only with his alphabets; and of those which
bear more particularly the mark of his genius, the alphabet of Death
occupies the first place.
This as a composition is a _chef d’œuvre_, and it was engraved on wood
by an artist of the very highest merit, Hans Lützelberger.
These initials, notwithstanding their small dimensions, about
twenty-four millimetres square, can well bear comparison with the
larger engravings in _Les Simulachres et Historiées Faces de la Mort_
which was to appear several years later at Lyons, in 1538, _chez les
frères Trechsel Soubz l’escu de Coloigne_. The alphabet is composed of
twenty-four letters, and several of the original proof-sheets are to be
found in different Continental museums. Basle and Dresden each possess
one.
The letters of this alphabet may be met with in different works
published by Bebelius, such as the New Testament in Greek of 1525,
that of 1531, the _Galen_ of 1538, and particularly in the two folio
volumes of Aristotle which appeared in 1532. In the five first, A to E,
the body of the letter is in white. In the others there is a double
outline which softens their appearance and reduces their size. Each of
the letters merits a separate description, but the reproductions given,
as far as they go, obviate all commentary, permitting the reader to
judge for himself, and to appreciate the justice of the praise that has
been lavished upon them by art critics.
The subjects in the alphabet of Death are the same as in the celebrated
Basle frescoes. In each of these scenes, men and women of all sorts
and conditions are invited to accompany him by Death, who will take no
refusal nor hear of any previous engagement; from B and C the Pope and
Emperor, to V the merchant, from the Hermit full of years W, to the
child in its cradle V, the Last Judgment Z, finishing the series.
The Latin alphabet (for there are some Greek initials) contains two
subjects not to be found either in the frescoes or in the larger
illustrations for the well-known satire, V the horseman with Death
sitting behind like black care, and S the courtesan. In the Greek
alphabet of inferior execution, certainly not the work of Lützelberger,
of which we give three specimens, there are also two other subjects,
the Σ and the Ω, a peasant and a smith.
Curiously enough, an enlarged copy of this alphabet, but of much
inferior merit, was used more than ten years before by Cephaleus of
Strasburg, who also had a smaller series in the same coarse engraving.
Some of the letters are given for comparison.
A very curious alphabet, which although not equalling Lützelberger’s
is of more than average execution, can be but little known to
bibliographers, for as far as we have ascertained it only occurs in a
few books published at Stella, in Spain. The scenes are selected from
the _Simulachres_, and each letter is a complete little picture.
Besides these alphabets a certain number of Dance of Death letters are
to be found in other books of Basle, of which the V, with Death on
horseback with an hour-glass, will serve as an example. They are also
to be met with in books of Cologne.
The Dance of Death, although intimately associated with the name
of Holbein, was not his creation, the subject having always been a
favourite one in the Middle Ages, and having been treated also by
Albert Dürer. It was the general rule to represent Death, who although
a skeleton was endowed with motion, with withered muscles. In an
extremely precious book, printed by Meydenbach at Mayence, _Der Doten
Tantz mit Figuren Clage unt Antwort schon von Allen Staten der Welt_,
which is illustrated with forty-one curious cuts with the same subjects
as Holbein’s alphabet, Death is thus represented, and the same thing is
seen in other German editions of this work of the fifteenth century,
and in the numerous French editions of the _Danse Macabre_ which
appeared about the same time. Holbein, however, preferred to suppress
these, and in so doing exhibited his ignorance of the anatomy of the
human frame. Not only are the shoulder-blades and pelvis wrongly drawn,
but the arm and thigh are represented each with two bones, whilst the
fore-arm has only one.
These mistakes have frequently been pointed out before, but the fact
that they furnish an argument in the controversy about Holbein’s
possible sojourn in Italy seems to have been less noticed. There is no
positive evidence on this point, but arguing from a change in Holbein’s
style after a certain period, in which the influence of Mantegna and
Leonardo da Vinci is manifest, it is said by some of his biographers
that he must have studied under these masters. It must be remembered,
however, that in Italy at this time there were regular schools of
painting, and it is difficult to suppose the masters above-named to
have been as ignorant of anatomy as must have been the case had Holbein
been their pupil. If his knowledge was derived, on the contrary, from
contemporary German books, his mistakes become more comprehensible.
The peasants’ alphabet, also composed of twenty-four letters but of a
different character, is another of his best compositions. The museums
of Basle and Dresden possess proofs of this alphabet.
The letters are to be found in the publications of Froben, Cratander,
and Bebelius, and Voltmann in his Bibliography of Holbein has given
some specimens of them. Butsch reproduces the whole alphabet, as indeed
he does several others, including that of the Dance of Death. The
realistic scenes depicted in some of the letters, taken from life, are
not always edifying, but this is the fault of the models rather than
that of the artist.
In A, we have musicians playing on their instruments, B to K show some
couples dancing, L is a love-scene, M a fight with swords, O a boy
holding a girl, while another boy is cooling his ardour by throwing
water over him. In P the water is being offered to a girl from a pail,
V shows a bowling ground, with a game of nine-pins, W the ride home.
Our three specimens are taken not from this alphabet but from letters
with similar subjects in the _Galen_.
Of the same size as the peasants’ is the children’s alphabet, which
is treated with the same happiness and talent of observation. Holbein
must have been especially fond of children, for they figure in a great
many of his compositions, titles, borders, and printers’ marks, and he
paints them with a grace that Lützelberger, for it is probable that
he engraved them, has caught most happily. The different incidents
of juvenile life, chiefly games, are rendered with great realism.
Sixteen letters of this alphabet can be found in the _Lactantius_ of
Cratander and Bebelius of 1532, others in various Basle works. In a
larger alphabet, children are engaged in all sorts of trades--forging,
cooking, baking, building, carpentering, fishing, playing at coopering,
at being bath-keepers and tanners. The W, which is rarely met with,
represents a boy taking off a doctor with spectacles on his nose,
whilst another is reading a book, and the third preparing some physic.
This playing at adult occupations has been taken as a subject for
alphabets by other artists, the best being that of J. van Calcar, to be
mentioned presently.
Holbein composed two sets of initials for Valentin Curio, whose name
appears on publications which are often on philological questions.
These letters, also with children, are to be found in volumes often
ornamented with pictorial borders by the same hand, our reproductions,
C, D, O, Q, being taken from the Strabo of Walder, and others being met
with in the _Enchiridion_ of Erasmus. From a smaller set by the same
printer we select A, I, N, Q, V, X, Y, Z. The A, C, D, D, H, I, O, P,
Q, V, with animals and personages, are also from the same press.
Of the many other initials we will mention the Greek capitals of the
_Lexicon Graeco-Latinum_ of René Gelli, published by Froben in 1532,
found also in the _Lexicon Graecum_ of J. Walder, 1539, in which the
Δ represents a young woman struggling as she is carried off by Death.
This letter is of singular beauty. This leads us to speak of the
four large Greek initials which we give from the _Galen_ of 1538, of
Bebelius and Cratander, remarkable from every point of view. The Δ
represents Silenus on a pig, the Θ Samson with the jaw-bone of the ass,
the Π the prodigal son eating at the same trough as the swine, the Ω a
child sailing on a shell.
Besides these four beautiful letters, of which there are only five
proofs in the work, one at the beginning of each of the five folio
volumes, the Θ occurring twice, there are numerous initials from other
alphabets scattered through its pages, such as the series of which we
give a Π with a child and a ram, and some specimens of the alphabet
engraved on metal, of which we reproduce the F representing the Deluge,
Noah’s Ark being dimly perceived through the rain, the M Jacob’s
ladder, and the Q Joseph and Potiphar’s wife. These initials, although
generally in very bad impressions, are to be met with in volumes of
Bebelius and others, and were even copied abroad. They are to be found,
for instance, in the _Commentaires sur l’Histoire des Plantes_ printed
by Jacques Gazeau in 1549.
An alphabet, of which we give the B, I, and M, is found in the
_Cyprianus_ of Froben of 1521, and in many of his later impressions.
The I with the three children, the front one with the basket on his
back, is generally by itself, that is to say, not with initials of the
same size and character.
The O, also with three children, belongs to one of the alphabets in
the same style, which are no doubt imitated from Venetian models.
We must mention the alphabet of the Master I F on a black ground in
publications by Froben after 1518, the first letters of which represent
the labours of Hercules, the following ones different scriptural and
classical subjects. The B with a child in its cradle, and the E (a
winged child on a sea-horse), are samples of the initials from Basle
books of the time, which are possibly by Ambrose rather than Hans
Holbein, as are the K and Z with children and grotesques, on a black
ground with stars.
But, however interesting the work of Holbein, however varied and supple
his genius, we cannot do more than give specimens of the whole. The
reader who is desirous of fuller documentation can refer to Woltmann’s
_Holbein und seine Zeit_, Leipsic, 1872; to the _Bücher-Ornamentik_
of Butsch, or to the more complete collection of Holbein’s Initials,
recently published by Heitz.
Holbein’s alphabets and initials were soon adopted by all the printers
of Basle, and with few exceptions until 1545 there is nothing to note
of any other artist. It was in this year, the date of Holbein’s death,
that the Basle edition of Vesalius’s _De Corporis humani fabrica_ was
printed, a work that may be considered as one of the most remarkable
products of the German Renaissance.
This book had been previously published at Venice, and its success was
so great that it was shortly after pirated at Cologne. Vesalius, in
his preface to the Basle edition, alludes to the want of international
copyright, to the dishonesty, and particularly to the vandalism,
of publishers who substituted detestable copies for the wonderful
originals of his anatomical plates, which he would have preferred
to lend them. Besides these plates, which have never been surpassed
in beauty, there is the admirable frontispiece by J. van Calcar
representing a lesson on anatomy, and two series of initial letters
depicting children, who, with inimitable seriousness, are acting as
medical consultants. In a later edition Van Calcar’s initials are
replaced by a much inferior set by another hand.
_Zurich._--There are several interesting alphabets in the books
published by Froschouer of Zurich, the most important of which is
illustrated with scenes from the Bible. The two A’s, the D, the
reversed D that serves as a C, and the F, are said to be by N. Manuel,
the S with Jesus overturning the money-changers’ tables in the Temple
by Ambrose Holbein.