SPANISH TOWNS
‘Spanish books,’ says Mr. Pollard, ‘are distinguished by the excellence
of their initial letters, which are always as plentiful as they are
good, the great majority of books after 1485 being fully provided with
them.’
Our own experience confirms this statement, but we have found that they
are as a rule ornamental rather than historiated, and that there is,
moreover, a certain sameness about them.
For this reason we shall only give six specimens of the first variety,
but these will serve to give an idea of the initials of this kind
usually met with in Spanish books. The C and the M are taken from
a volume printed by G. Castilla at Valencia, the E from a _Comento
di Eusebio_, printed in 1522 by order of the Reverend Archbishop of
Toledo, at the noble town of Salamanca, by Hans Gyffer Aleman di
Silgenstat. The origin of the three others, L, P, U, is uncertain, but
is referred to further on. The seven smaller initials, or ‘lettrines,’
as they are called, are taken from the Eusebius.
Our historiated specimens are much more numerous. The first set of nine
letters is taken from a work of the very greatest rarity, to which
Mr. Pollard has called attention, the _Compilacion de Leyes_, printed
at Zamora in 1485. This consists of eight different sections and a
preface, each of which is preceded by one of the initials.
In the I, which is the first in the book and precedes the preface,
there is amongst others a personage with a black rod, probably
symbolising the dignity of the Court. On the first page of the text
is a P with the King and Queen, Ferdinand and Isabella. ‘The first
section of the laws,’ says Mr. Pollard, ‘treating of the _Santa Fé_,
has an initial E showing God the Father upholding the Crucified Christ;
the second section sets forth the duty of the King to hear causes two
days a week, and begins with an L in which he is unpleasantly closely
pressed by the litigants. Two knights spurring from the different sides
of an S head the laws of chivalry; a canonist and his scholars in A
preside over matrimony; money-changers in a D over commerce; while a
luckless wretch being hanged in the centre of a T warns evil-doers what
they may expect under the criminal law.’
We may add that in the other E there is a representation of what is
probably a prison. Unfortunately, the proofs of these initials in the
British Museum copy, from which we have reproduced them, are most
defective. As Mr. Pollard says, ‘They must have been designed and
executed by clever artists whose work is so fine that the printer
in most instances has failed to do justice to it.’ In some of these
letters there is in parts only the faintest impression of the design,
and it has been necessary in this case to have them retouched.
Of our other historiated specimens, some have been reproduced from a
collection of initials, some photographed by ourselves, and some are
from books no longer at our disposal, and not having been able to refer
always to the volumes from which they were taken, we give some of their
origins _sous toutes réserves_.
Such is the case with the E and P with Biblical scenes, which,
notwithstanding the nature of the subjects, come from a medical book,
with another pair of initials with Biblical scenes A and E, the P with
a portrait, and the three ornamental letters of the same kind, L, P,
U, given above. We can only say that the two first and three last come
from one or other of the following books:--
The _Epilogo en Medicina y en cirurgia conveniente a la Salud_,
Pampelune, 1495; the _Libro di Medicina llamado_, etc., Cromberger,
Seville, 1517; and the _Medicina y cirurgia_ of Burgos, 1495.
The large E with the initials S. M. (St. Mark) is from a book printed
by Juan de Varila at Seville; the G by J. Alvera of Coimbra. Of the
five others, the S and the T each representing the Almighty, the L with
a child on a branched groundwork, and the A and U of the same size with
saints, we can only affirm the Spanish origin, without being able to
give fuller particulars.
The large P with a scribe at his desk is in the Eusebius of Salamanca
already mentioned, the only historiated initial in the four large
volumes.
The A with a king kneeling, the N with a doctor exhorting a student,
and the T, are from two books printed in the same type, but only one of
them has the name of a printer. This, the _Libellus de beneficiis in
curia vacantibus_, from which the N is taken, was printed at the most
noble and loyal city of Seville by Jacob Cromberger, in 1512. The two
others are from a work with a long title beginning _Clarissimi cesarei
juris doctor ac in studio Salmantino primarii regentis Didaca de Segura
solemnis et elegantissima repetitio_. It is curious as containing a
warning on the title-page to dishonest booksellers and printers against
infringing the author’s rights: _Cautum est a Serenissimis principibus
nostris ut nemo avidus Bibliopola nec quicunque alius audeat imprimere
sub poena in privilegio contenta_.
The four letters from an alphabet of Death occur in several books
printed in the town of Stella. According to different authorities,
Stella corresponds to what is now known as Estella. Deschamps says
‘Voyez Flavonia,’ and under this heading ‘Flavonia (Merula Cosmograph).
Compostella (Mariana) Santiago di Compostella. St. Jacques di
Compostella, town of Spain in the dependence of La Carogne (Galacie).’
This information is not very explicit, but it is supplemented by
the statement that Stella was celebrated amongst other things by a
book published in 1693 against the abuse of _escatados_, that is
the fashion amongst ladies of cutting their dresses low between the
shoulders.
The alphabet of which the E, F, N, and V form part, is a copy not of
Holbein’s alphabet of Death, but of the little pictures that illustrate
his _Simulachres_ or _faces historiées de la Mort_. Some of them
occur in a book entitled _Series totius historiae sacri Evangelii
autore Petro Trurozqui Navarro_ (Stellae, Adrian Anverez, 1557), which
contains also most of the letters of an alphabet copied from the
Biblical series of Froshover of Zurich, mentioned in its place.
Another book without printer’s name, but dated 1555, in which they
occur, merits from us a more particular description, inasmuch as
it consists almost entirely of initial letters. The title of this
typographical curiosity is _Libro Sotilissimo y provechoso para
deprender a escrevir y contar el qual lleva la misma orden que lleva
un maestro con su discipulo en que estan puestas las cinco reglas mas
principales de guarismo y otras cosas sotiles y prouechosas_. Each page
of the little volume is surrounded by a woodcut border. On the verso of
the title, the notice to the reader begins with the M of the Dance of
Death alphabet. The two succeeding pages have little pictures of the
saints.
On the verso of the fourth page begins the same Biblical alphabet as
in the other volume, the first letter, A, representing Eve and the
tempter with the Tree of Knowledge, the alphabet, the letters of which
are used as illustrative cuts and not as initials, being continued one
letter per page with about five lines of text underneath; B (Abraham),
C (Jacob), D (David), E (Absalom), and so on. When the Biblical
alphabet is finished, the Dance of Death letters take its place, two
on a page with a _cul de lampe_ underneath the border, but no text.
They are twenty-three in number, occupying twelve pages, the last being
accompanied by the A (Eve and the Tree of Life) of the other series.
Then come the remaining letters of the first alphabet, this time two by
two, one under the other, without any text, but with a woodcut border.
The last page but one has two little cuts of saints on each side, the
last one having four still smaller on the recto which entirely fill it,
but nothing on the verso.
In the language of typography the town of Alcala de Henares was styled
Complutum, and one of its chief printers was Arnaldus Guilelmus
Brocart, who, before coming here, had been established at Pampeluna,
where he printed, amongst others, liturgical works.
The two large linear initials are taken from a book of this kind, the
_Passionarium cum Lamentationibus Jeremie atque Benedictione cerei
Paschalis_, published in 1516. They are the only letters of the size
in the volume, the P recurring thrice. There are some smaller initials
in the same style, but not of much interest, besides a number of the
pen-letters with more or less grotesque profiles in the style, although
coarser, of the alphabet of Vérard.