VENICE
It was at Subiaco, not far from Rome, that printing was first
introduced by the Germans, Conrad Sweynheim and Arnold Pannartz, who
commenced operations most probably in 1464, their first book being
a Donatus. The second was a Lactantius, the earliest book in which
legible Greek characters were used, for those which appeared in a few
words in the Offices of Cicero, printed at Mayence in the same year,
were mingled with Roman letters, and with so many errors, that it
must have needed a clever reader to guess the meaning. The Lactantius
was finished on the 25th of October 1465, ‘_in venerabili Monasterio
Sublacensi_.’
After Subiaco, presses were established successively in different
towns of Italy, first at Rome, where Ulric Han or Hahn of Ingoldstadt,
in Bavaria (Gallus in the latinised form of the name), commenced
operations in 1467. Sweynheim and Pannartz also removed to Rome at that
date, where they printed for about ten years, dying respectively in
1477 and 1478.
The next comers were George Lauer of Würtzburg and Giovanni Filippo
di Lignamine, whose celebrated _Cronica Summorum Pontificum
imperatorumque_ contains interesting information about the first
printers of Mayence, Strasburg, and Rome.
But books with initials printed at Rome before the end of the
fifteenth century are not common, and even when met with, if we except
some handsome ones used in some of their books in 1470 by Sweynheim and
Pannartz, the ornamental letters of this town are relatively of but
little interest.
It was at Venice that this branch of typographical art was to reach its
highest perfection, especially in the use of beautiful initials, and
was to make its impressions renowned throughout the world and sought
after by collectors in future days.
John of Spire celebrates his arrival on the shores of the Adriatic in
the following lines, which are to be found at the end of his first
production in that town, _The Letters of Cicero_:--
‘Primus in Adriaca formis impressit aenis
Urbe libros Spira genitus de stirpe Johannes.
In reliquis sit quanta vides spes, lector, habenda,
Quom labor hic primus calami superaverit artem.
MCCCCLXVIII.’
John of Spire was succeeded by his brother Vindelin.
It was in 1470 that the first book appeared with the name of Nicolas
Jenson--the _Preparatio Evangelica_ of Eusebius--and this was followed
soon by other works which are justly considered as _chefs-d’œuvre_ of
typographical art.
According to a story which has passed current for a century and a
half, though its authority is now questioned, Jenson had been formerly
an engraver at the Mint of Tours, and had been sent to Germany by
the French king to investigate the truth about the discovery of
Gutenberg. On his return, Charles VII. having died, Jenson met with
no encouragement from his successor, Louis XI., and decided to go to
Venice. Here he published books by himself for ten years, taking as a
partner in 1480, the year before his death, John of Cologne, who had
come to Venice about the same time as himself.
Even in his own days Jenson was justly celebrated, Andrea Torresano
stating with pride in the colophon of the _Lectura in I. et II.
Decretalium_ that he had printed it ‘_inclytis famosisque characteribus
optime_ (sic) _quondam in hac parte magistri Nicolai Jenson gallici
quo nihil prestantius, nihil melius, nihil dignius_.’
This Andrea Torresano was the head of the new firm ‘J. de Colonia, N.
Jenson, sociorumque,’ and he afterwards married his daughter to Aldus
Manutius.
So great was the success of printing in Venice at this period, that
more than one hundred and fifty presses were established during the
last thirty years of the fifteenth century, and upwards of fifty were
in full work in the year 1500.
Aldus had come to Venice with the intention of publishing works in
Greek, but this did not prevent him printing in Latin and Italian.
His most famous book in the latter language was the _Hypnerotomachia
Poliphili_, which besides the most beautiful woodcuts that have
ever been printed contains also some ornamental initials generally
considered to be in the best taste. An edition of Aristophanes from the
same press also contains large interlaced letters, which are given by
Ongania.
With reference to these initials it is to be remarked that, although
in the best taste and admirably suitable to the work they embellish,
they are less interesting when seen by themselves, that is to say
independently of the text, than many others.
Our earliest specimens are taken from the works of Ratdolt, whose
books are also renowned for their beautiful borders, which in some
cases match in style the initials that accompany them. This style
is even more effective in the border than in the letters, as can be
seen by reference to his Appianus of 1478, the first page of which is
reproduced in Butsch’s _Bücherornamentik_.
The three outline initials, much more artistic in our opinion than the
interlacing letters of Aldus, are from Ratdolt’s first alphabet in the
_Calendarium_ of J. de Monteregio of 1476. The border of this book is
frequently mentioned in the earlier monographs upon the first printers
as being composed _literis florentibus_, the initials being of the same
design. It is supposed by Passavant that these letters were designed by
Ratdolt’s partner, Bernard Maler or Pictor, _i.e._ Bernard the painter,
and executed by another German engraver.
Ongania, in his work on Venetian printing,[25] has also reproduced
four of these initials, the whole alphabet, as far as it is complete,
in Ratdolt’s impressions, being given in a monograph on Ratdolt by Mr.
Redgrave.[26] Later on we find this printer preferring larger sized
initials with a white pattern on a black ground, smaller letters of the
same general design being used in some volumes. The later publications
being also more frequently met with, these large black initials are
also more commonly known and are more characteristic of Ratdolt’s work
than the others. They became one of the recognised types for Venetian
typography, and were imitated more or less by other Venice printers,
in the same way that the Maiblümchen pattern was adopted as one of the
most suitable for the early German press.
[25] _L’art de l’Imprimerie à Venise._
[26] ‘Erhard Ratdolt and his Work in Venice’--_London Bibliographical
Society_.
In a volume by Jacopo Publicio called the _Oratoriae artis epitomata;
ars memoriae, ars epistolandi_, and which has numerous other cuts,
there is a curious alphabet in which each initial is represented by an
emblem serving to fix the letter on the memory. As far, however, as
we know, this alphabet, which is engraved on one block, consists of
specimens of letters useful in mnemonics, but which have never served
in books as ornamental initials. They are only mentioned here as a
typographical curiosity.
Subsequent printers adopted a design with white leaves on a black
ground, the white ornament standing out very sharply, and often with an
exceedingly brilliant effect. In other initials, in white on a black
ground, we have children playing at all sorts of games by themselves
or with dogs, monkeys, dragons, lizards, and dolphins; sometimes
there is a large bird looking like a wild goose. In some cases there
is a combination of the two last mentioned compositions, such as a
child playing with a dog, with a foliated background. There is a very
effective F of this kind, and an O with a child making a dog sit up
and beg, in the _Epigrammata_ of J. B. Cantalycius, printed by Matteo
Capcasa.
The brothers De Gregoriis used various kinds of initials. The large A
and V are from their Herodotus, the first page of which is ornamented
with a magnificent border, which has often been reproduced. Several
other initials in different styles are from books by these printers,
amongst others the large outline P and the smaller A and E. An
interesting alphabet, most of the letters of which represent children
playing with different kinds of animals, is taken from a small treatise
on Geography by Zacharius Lilius, entitled _Orbis breviarium_, etc.,
printed at this press.
Sessa, whose mark consists of a cat with a mouse in her mouth on a
crowned shield with the initials I B S, has some of the letters just
described.
Ongania gives amongst others, as coming first from a 1496 edition
of Marco Polo’s _De le Maravigliose cose del mondo_, the D with two
children and a dog, the P with the children and bird, and a P with the
portrait of a man, here printed in red, but which is found elsewhere,
like all the other letters, printed in black. The very small initials,
mostly with heads, the H with a rabbit and the T with rabbits dancing,
are also to be found in Sessa’s impressions.
Several very large letters, two more particularly, the M and the S,
were used by Bernardinus Benalius and Matteus Capcasa in 1498, and
often printed in red. They were afterwards adopted by the Paris printer
Josse Bade.
Of the linear initials used in the missals, the beautiful B
representing Mary Regina cœlorum amongst others, appeared for the
first time in the _Missale Romanum_ of 1499 by George Arrivabene. Our
reproductions are taken from missals and breviaries of Lucantonio di
Giunta, himself especially a printer of music, but who edited a great
many liturgical works.
The largest in size of all our initials are from another missal of
Giunta, the _Missale Vallisumbrose_ of 1503. The first letter of
this series has been given by Mr. Pollard in an essay on ‘Pictorial
Initials.’
An alphabet of large letters of an interlacing pattern is to be met
with in several works, first in Plutarch’s _Lives_, translated by
Guarino of Verona and published by Melchior Sessa and Petrus de
Ravenis in 1505. They have been described as of great elegance and
finished beauty, but they are as a rule badly printed and do not look
well in reproduction, as can be seen by reference to Ongania.
The alphabet of children already mentioned is more or less completed by
letters from different works published by Tacuinus de Tridino, amongst
others the Euclid of 1517 and several earlier volumes. The C with a
child on a dolphin, the L with one child riding another, and the N
with children and dog; the grotesque O, the P also with children and
a dragon, are one from the 1517 Euclid, others from a Justinian, the
remainder from works of Horace by the same printer.
The C with a child on the back of a horse is first met with in a
_Practica_ of Serapion by Bonetus Locatellus, ‘mandato Octaviani
Scoti,’ the outlines C, P, and S with children or _amorini_ having the
same origin.
An alphabet, remarkable from the fact that it is generally found
complete, by Bernardino Vitali, serves as a rule in publications of
Sessa to initial the index. It is to be found serving this purpose at
the beginning of this printer’s edition of the _Lives_ of Plutarch and
also for the index to the works of Pliny.
Pliny’s _Natural History_ was a popular book at this time, and two
editions of it have the large interlaced initials used in the Plutarch.
In a third, in Italian, by Sessa and Petrus de Ravenna in 1516, there
are a number of ornamental letters with children: a P, with child and
dragon, precedes the eighth book; an S, with a child above and a bird
below, the tenth and thirty-second books; the thirty-first having
what at first appears to be the same, but which is really a copy. The
letters C, G, R, N are also with children, either by themselves or
with birds or dogs. As an example of the indifference to appearances,
a historiated A is used upside down as a V, in Tacuinus de Tridino’s
Homer of 1503. A fine V with children does duty as an A, and an E all
the way through as an F, in the Justin of 1508 of the same printer.
The L with a satyr, and the very handsome G, are from the same
book. The P with a child and bird is repeated eleven times in this
volume, and from the dilapidated condition the block is its chief
disfigurement. In the Horace of Guglielmo Fonteneto Monteserrati, we
find it at the beginning of the ode ‘Phoebe silvarumque potens Diana,’
but the bird is changed into what is apparently a goose. The children
have older faces, and there is a slight difference in the ornament.
In their original condition, these children initials are most
decorative, but many of the copies are greatly inferior. These are to
be found not only in Venetian impressions by other printers, but also
in some books printed in provincial towns, and they evidently inspired
many of the children’s alphabets that were used afterwards in Basle,
Cologne, Hagenau, and one or two initials we have given of Paris.
At Turin some of them were used in the _Epistole Heroidum_ of Ovid
published by F. Silva in 1510, in which we find that the L with the
satyr, the P with a bird, the T with children playing with a skipping
rope, an M with an eagle, the N with a child and dolphin, and the G,
but of much coarser execution than the original. From a documentary
point of view these letters are perhaps not so interesting as the
alphabet used currently half a century later by Giolito and other
Venetian printers, in which the games then in vogue are represented in
linear engraving upon a white ground. But the introduction of animals
in the earlier alphabet is not entirely fanciful, and the classical
student will no doubt be able to understand many of the allusions.
The A, for instance, with a boy riding upon the back of a dolphin,
is a case in point and no doubt refers to the tale of Arion told by
Herodotus, and more fully by Ovid in the _Fasti_.[27]
[27] In the eighth chapter of his ninth book, Pliny speaks of a
dolphin that had conceived a wonderful affection for the child of a
poor man. At whatever hour of the day he might happen to be called by
the boy, he would instantly fly to the surface, and sportively taking
him up on his back, he would carry him over a wide expanse of sea to
the school at Puteoli, and in like manner bring him back again. Other
instances of the same kind are related, which he says give an air of
credibility to the one that is told of Arion.
We give a somewhat numerous selection from a work which has hitherto
remained but little known to bibliographers, by a printer whose
publications are far from common, the _Vita di Sancti Padri vulgare
historiada_ of Otino da Pavia de la Luna, 1501. In an earlier edition,
also very rare, the initials are insignificant, and the chief interest
of the volume is in the little cuts which precede the lives of the
different saints. The edition from which our initials are taken is on
the contrary a perfect storehouse of interesting ornamental letters.
At the commencement of each book there is a half-page engraving
representing an incident in the life of the first saint whose history
follows, and this is surrounded by a handsome ornamental border which
sometimes surrounds the whole page. Each book commences by an initial
of larger size than the others. Some of these are given--the C with
a saint holding a bag to another, the D with a dog, the L with four
ecclesiastics, and two U’s, one with a monk tempted of the devil in
the form of a beautiful woman. The smaller letters, of which there are
sometimes as many as three or four on a single page, also represent
incidents in the lives of the different saints, the devil being often
the subject of the picture. The title-page has on it the mark of Otino
da Pavia de la Luna in black and red. Some of the initials of this
volume afterwards found their way into the possession of Bernardino
Vitali, who used them in an _Omiliario quadragesimale_, published in
1518. We have not seen this volume, but Ongania gives reproductions of
its principal typographical ornaments, amongst them a P and a U from
the Otino da Pavia de la Luna alphabets.
Of the initials not yet mentioned, the D and the Q, the former with a
monk wearing spectacles, are from a treatise on animals by Aristotle,
printed by Sessa. The curious L, with a personage in a turban, looking
at a castle on the walls of which are the heads of three of its
defenders, comes from an edition of the _Legendario de Sancti_ of
Jacobus de Voragine, printed by Nicolo è Domenico dal Gesu. We are
almost sure, however, that we have met with it in an earlier missal,
and it was subsequently used in at least one impression of Lyons. The
remaining letters are by different printers.
The two large initials with portraits of a much later date represent
respectively--the C, Cosmo de Medici; the P, Pius Romae Pontifex.