onsideringGutemberg as the inventor of printing with moveable types; that his first attempts were made at Strasburg about 1436; and that with Faust’s money and Scheffer’s ingenuity the art was perfected at Mentz about 1452, I shall now proceed to trace the progress of wood engraving in its connexion with the press.In the first book which appeared with a date and the printers’ names—the Psalter printed by Faust and Scheffer, at Mentz, in 1457—the large initial letters, engraved on wood and printed in red and blue ink, are the must beautiful specimens of this kind of ornament which the united efforts of the wood-engraver and the pressman have produced. They have been imitated in modern times, but not excelled. As they are the first letters, in point of time, printed with two colours, so are they likely to continue the first in point of excellence.Only seven copies of the Psalter of 1457 are known, and they are all printed on vellum. Although they have all the same colophon, containing the printers’ names and the date, yet no two copies exactly correspond. A similar want of agreement is said to have been observed in different copies of the Mazarine Bible, but which are, notwithstanding, of one and the same edition. As such works would in the infancy of the art be a long time in printing—more especially the Psalter, as,165in consequence of the large capitals being printed in two colours, each side of many of the sheets would have to be printed thrice—it can be a matter of no surprise that alterations and amendments should be made in the text while the work was going through the press. In the Mazarine Bible, the entire Book of Psalms, which contains a considerable number of red letters, would have to pass four times through the press, including what printers call the “reiteration.”IV.1The largest of the ornamented capitals in the Psalter of 1457 is the letter B, which stands at the commencement of the first psalm, “Beatus vir.” The letters which are next in size are an A, a C, a D, an E, and a P; and there are also others of a smaller size, similarly ornamented, and printed in two colours in the same manner as the larger ones. Although only two colours are used to each letter, yet when the same letter is repeated a variety is introduced by alternating the colours: for instance, the shape of the letter is in one page printed red, with the ornamental portions blue; and in another the shape of the letter is blue, and the ornamental portions red. It has been erroneously stated by Papillon that the large letters at the beginning of each psalm are printed in three colours, red, blue, and purple; and Lambinet has copied the mistake. A second edition of this Psalter appeared in 1459; a third in 1490; and a fourth in 1502, all in folio, like the first, and with the same ornamented capitals. Heineken observes that in the edition of 1490 the large letters are printed in red and green instead of red and blue.Page imageshowing original layout.In consequence of those large letters being printed in two colours, two blocks would necessarily be required for each; one for that portion of the letter which is red, and another for that which is blue. In the body, or shape, of the largest letter, the B at the beginning of the first psalm, the mass of colour is relieved by certain figures being cut out in the block, which appear white in the impression. On the stem of the letter a dog like a greyhound is seen chasing a bird; and flowers and ears of corn are represented on the curved portions. These figures being white, or the colour of the vellum, give additional brightness to the full-bodied red by which they are surrounded, and materially add to the beauty and effect of the whole letter.In consequence of two blocks being required for each letter, the166means were afforded of printing any of them twice in the same sheet or the same page with alternate colours; for while the body of the first was printed in red from one block, the ornamental portion of the second might be printed red at the same time from the other block. In the second printing, with the blue colour, it would only be necessary to transpose the blocks, and thus the two letters would be completed, identical in shape and ornament, and differing only from the corresponding portions being in the one letter printed red and in the other blue. In the edition of 1459 the same ornamented letter is to be found repeated on the same page; but of this I have only noticed one instance; though there are several examples of the same letter being printed twice in the same sheet.Although the engraving of the most highly ornamented and largest of those letters cannot be considered as an extraordinary instance of skill, even at that period, for many wood-cuts of an earlier date afford proof of greater excellence, yet the artist by whom the blocks were engraved must have had considerable practice. The whole of the ornamental part, which would be the most difficult to execute, is clearly and evenly cut, and in some places with great neatness and delicacy. “This letter,” says Heineken, “is an authentic testimony that the artists employed on such a work were persons trained up and exercised in their profession. The art of wood engraving was no longer in its cradle.”The name of the artist by whom those letters were engraved is unknown. In Sebastian Munster’s Cosmography, book iii. chapter 159, John Meydenbach is mentioned as being one of Gutemberg’s assistants; and an anonymous writer in Serarius states the same fact. Heineken in noticing these two passages writes to the following effect. “This Meydenbach is doubtless the same person who proceeded with Gutemberg from Strasburg to Mentz in 1444.IV.2It is probable that he was a wood engraver or an illuminator, but this is not certain; and it is still more uncertain that this person engraved the cuts in a book entitledApocalipsis cum figuris, printed at Strasburg in 1502, because these are copied from the cuts in the Apocalypse engraved and printed by Albert Durer at Nuremberg. Whether this copyist was theJacobus Meydenbachwho printed books at Mentz in 1491,IV.3or he was some other engraver, I have not been able to determine.”IV.4167Although so little is positively known respecting John Meydenbach, Gutemberg’s assistant, yet Von Murr thinks that there is reason to suppose that he was the artist who engraved the large initial letters for the Psalter of 1457. Fischer, who declares that there is no sufficient grounds for this conjecture, confidently assumes, from false premises, that those letters were engraved by Gutemberg, “a person experienced in such work,” adds he, “as we are taught by his residence at Strasburg.” From the account that we have of his residence and pursuits at Strasburg, however, we are taught no such thing. We only learn from it he was engaged in some invention which related to printing. We learn that Conrad Saspach made him a press, and it is conjectured that the goldsmith Hanns Dunne was employed to engrave his letters; but there is not a word of his being an experienced wood engraver, nor is there a well authenticated passage in any account of his life from which it might be concluded that he ever engraved a single letter. Fischer’s reasons for supposing that Gutemberg engraved the large letters in Faust and Scheffer’s Psalter are, however, contradicted by facts. Having seen a few leaves of a Donatus ornamented with the same initial letters as the Psalter, he directly concluded that the former was printed by Gutemberg and Faust prior to the dissolution of their partnership; and not satisfied with this leap he takes another, and arrives at the conclusion that they were engraved by Gutemberg, as “hismodesty only could allow such works to appear without his name.”Although we have no information respecting the artist by whom those letters were engraved, yet it is not unlikely that they were suggested, if not actually drawn by Scheffer, who, from his profession of a scribe or writerIV.5previous to his connexion with Faust, may be supposed to have been well acquainted with the various kinds of flowered and ornamented capitals with which manuscripts of that and preceding centuries were embellished. It is not unusual to find manuscripts of the early part of the fifteenth century embellished with capitals of two colours, red and blue, in the same taste as in the Psalter; and there is now lying before me a capital P, drawn on vellum in red and blue ink, in a manuscript apparently of the date of 1430, which is so like the same letter in the Psalter that the one might be supposed to have suggested the other.It was an object with Faust and Scheffer to recommend their Psalter—probably168the first work printed by them after Gutemberg had been obliged to withdraw from the partnership—by the beauty of its capitals and the sufficiency and distinctness of its “rubrications;”IV.6and it is evident that they did not fail in the attempt. The Psalter of 1457 is, with respect to ornamental printing, their greatest work; for in no subsequent production of their press does the typographic art appear to have reached a higher degree of excellence. It may with truth be said that the art of printing—be the inventor who he may—was perfected by Faust and Scheffer; for the earliest known production of their press remains to the present day unsurpassed as a specimen of skill in ornamental printing.A fac-simile of the large B at the commencement of the Psalter, printed in colours the same as the original, is given in the first volume of Dibdin’s Bibliotheca Spenceriana, and in Savage’s Hints on Decorative Printing; but in neither of those works has the excellence of the original letter been attained. In the Bibliotheca Spenceriana, although the volume has been printed little more than twenty years, the red colour in which the body of the letter is printed has assumed a coppery hue, while in the original, executed nearly four hundred years ago, the freshness and purity of the colours remain unimpaired. In Savage’s work, though the letter and its ornaments are faithfully copiedIV.7and tolerably well printed, yet the colours are not equal to those of the original. In the modern copy the blue is too faint; and the red, which in the original is like well impasted paint, has not sufficient body, but appears like a wash, through which in many places the white paper may be seen. The whole letter compared with the original seems like a water-colour copy compared with a painting in oil.Although it has been generally supposed that the art of printing was first carried from Mentz in 1462 when Faust and Scheffer’s sworn workmen were dispersedIV.8on the capture of that city by the archbishop169Adolphus of Nassau, yet there can be no doubt that it was practised at Bamberg before that period; for a book of fables printed at the latter place by Albert Pfister is expressly dated on St. Valentine’s day, 1461; and a history of Joseph, Daniel, Judith, and Esther was also printed by Pfister at Bamberg in 1462, “Nit lang nach sand walpurgen tag,”—not long after St. Walburg’s day.IV.9It is therefore certain that the art was practised beyond Mentz previous to the capture of that city, which was not taken until the eve of St. Simon and St. Jude; that is, on the 28th of October in 1462. As it is very probable that Pfister would have to superintend the formation of his own types and the construction of his own presses,—for none of his types are of the same fount as those used by Gutemberg or by Faust and Scheffer,—we may presume that he would be occupied for some considerable time in preparing his materials and utensils before he could begin to print. As his first known work with a date, containing a hundred and one wood-cuts, was finished on the 14th of February 1461, it is not unlikely that he might have begun to make preparations three or four years before. Upon these grounds it seems but reasonable to conclude with Aretin, that the art was carried from Mentz by some of Gutemberg and Faust’s workmen on the dissolution of their partnership in 1455; and that the date of the capture of Mentz—when for a time all the male inhabitants capable of bearing arms were compelled to leave the city by the captors—marks the period of its more general diffusion. The occasion of the disaster to which Mentz was exposed for nearly three years was a contest for the succession to the archbishopric. Theodoric von Erpach having died in May 1459, a majority of the chapter chose Thierry von Isenburg to succeed him, while another party supported the pretensions of Adolphus of Nassau. An appeal having been made to Rome, the election of Thierry was annulled, and Adolphus was declared by the Pope to be the lawful archbishop of Mentz. Thierry, being in possession and supported by the citizens, refused to resign, until his rival, assisted by the forces of his adherents and relations, succeeded in obtaining possession of the city.IV.10170Until the discovery of Pfister’s book containing the four histories, most bibliographers supposed that the date 1461, in the fables, related to the composition of the work or the completion of the manuscript, and not to the printing of the book. Saubert, who was the first to notice it, in 1643, describes it as being printed, both text and figures, from wood-blocks; and Meerman has adopted the same erroneous opinion. Heineken was the first to describe it truly, as having the text printed with moveable types, though he expresses himself doubtfully as to the date, 1461, being that of the impression.As the discovery of Pfister’s tracts has thrown considerable light on the progress of typography and wood engraving, I shall give an account of the most important of them, as connected with those subjects; with a brief notice of a few circumstances relative to the early connexion of wood engraving with the press, and to the dispersion of the printers on the capture of Mentz in 1462.The discovery of the history of Joseph, Daniel, Judith, and Esther, with the date 1462, printed at Bamberg by Pfister, has established the fact that the dates refer to the years in which the books were printed, and not to the period when the works were composed or transcribed. An account of the history above named, written by M. J. Steiner, pastor of the church of St. Ulric at Augsburg, was first printed in Meusel’s Historical and Literary Magazine in 1792; and a more ample description of this and other tracts printed by Pfister was published by Camus in 1800,IV.11when the volume containing them, which was the identical one that had been previously seen by Steiner, was deposited in the National Library at Paris.The book of fablesIV.12printed by Pfister at Bamberg in 1461 is a small folio consisting of twenty-eight leaves, and containing eighty-five fables in rhyme in the old German language. As those fables, which are ascribed to one “Boner, dictus der Edelstein,” are known to have been written previous to 1330, the words at the end of the volume,—“Zu Bamberg dies Büchlein geendet ist,”—At Bamberg this book is finished,—most certainly relate to the time when it was printed, and not when it was written. It is therefore the earliest book printed with moveable types which is illustrated with wood-cuts containing figures. Not having an opportunity of seeing this extremely rare book,—of which only one perfect copy is known,—I am unable to speak from personal examination of the style in which its hundred and one cuts are engraved. Heineken,171however, has given a fac-simile of the first, and he says that the others are of a similar kind. The following is a reduced copy of the fac-simile given by Heineken, and which forms the head-piece to the first fable. On the manner in which it is engraved I shall make no remark, until I shall have produced some specimens of the cuts contained in a “Biblia Pauperum Predicatorum,” also printed by Pfister, and having the text in the German language.see textThe volume described by Camus contains three different works; and although Pfister’s name, with the date 1462, appears in only one of them, the “Four Histories,” yet, as the type is the same in all, there can be no doubt of the other two being printed by the same person and about the same period. The following particulars respecting its contents are derived from the “Notice” of Camus. It is a small folio consisting altogether of a hundred and one leaves of paper of good quality, moderately thick and white, and in which the water-mark is an ox’s head. The text is printed in a large type, called missal-type; and though the characters are larger, and there is a trifling variation in three or four of the capitals, yet they evidently appear to have been copied from those of the Mazarine Bible.The first work is that which Heineken calls “une Allégorie sur la Mort;”IV.13but this title does not give a just idea of its contents. It is in fact a collection of accusations preferred against Death, with his answers to them. The object is to show that such complaints are unavailing, and that, instead of making them, people ought rather to employ themselves in endeavouring to live well. In this tract, which172consists of twenty-four leaves, there are five wood-cuts, each occupying an entire page. The first represents Death seated on a throne. Before him there is a man with a child, who appears to accuse Death of having deprived him of his wife, who is seen on a tomb wrapped in a winding-sheet.—In the second cut, Death is also seen seated on a throne, with the same person apparently complaining against him, while a number of persons appear approaching sad and slow, to lay down the ensigns of their dignity at his feet.—In the third cut there are two figures of Death; one on foot mows down youths and maidens with a scythe, while another, mounted, is seen chasing a number of figures on horseback, at whom he at the same time discharges his arrows.—The fourth cut consists of two parts, the one above the other. In the upper part, Death appears seated on a throne, with a person before him in the act of complaining, as in the first and second cuts. In the lower part, to the left of the cut, is seen a convent, at the gate of which there are two persons in religious habits; to the right a garden is represented, in which are perceived a tree laden with fruit, a woman crowning an infant, and another woman conversing with a young man. In the space between the convent and the garden certain signs are engraved, which Camus thinks are intended to represent various branches of learning and science,—none of which can afford protection against death,—as they are treated of in the chapter which precedes the cut. In the fifth cut, Death and the Complainant are seen before Christ, who is seated on a throne with an angel on each side of him, under a canopy ornamented with stars. Although neither Heineken nor Camus give specimens of those cuts, nor speak of the style in which they are executed, it may be presumed that they are not superior either in design or engraving to those contained in the other tracts.The text of the work is divided into thirty-four chapters, each of which, except the first, is preceded by a summary; and their numbers are printed in Roman characters. The initial letter of each chapter is red, and appears to have been formed by means of a stencil. The first chapter, which has neither title nor numeral, commences with the Complainant’s recital of his injuries; in the second, Death defends himself; in the third the Complainant resumes, in the fourth Death replies; and in this manner the work proceeds, the Complainant and Death speaking alternately through thirty-two chapters. In the thirty-third, God decides between the parties; and after a few common-place reflections and observations on the readiness of people to complain on all occasions, sentence is pronounced in these words: “The Complainant is condemned, and Death has gained the cause. Of right, the Life of every man is due to Death; to Earth his Body, and to Us his Soul.” In the thirty-fourth chapter, the Complainant, perceiving that he has lost his173suit, proceeds to pray to God on behalf of his deceased wife. In the summary prefixed to the chapter the reader is informed that he is now about to peruse a model of a prayer; and that the name of the Complainant is expressed by the large red letters which are to be found in the chapter. Accordingly, in the course of the chapter, six red letters, besides the initial at the beginning, occur at the commencement of so many different sentences. They are formed by means of a stencil, while the letters at the commencement of other similar sentences are printed black. Those red letters, including the initial at the beginning of the chapter, occur in the following order, IHESANW. Whether the name is expressed by them as they stand, or whether they are to be combined in some other manner, Camus will not venture to decide.IV.14From the prayer it appears that the name of the Complainant’s deceased wife was Margaret. In this singular composition, which in the summary is declared to be a model, the author, not forgetting the court language of his native country, calls the Almighty “the Elector who determines the choice of all Electors,” “Hoffmeister” of the court of Heaven, and “Herzog” of the Heavenly host. The text is in the German language, such as was spoken and written in the fifteenth century.The German words “Hoffmeister” and “Herzog” appear extremely ridiculous in Camus’s French translation,—“le Maître-d’hôtel de la cour céleste,” and “le Grand-duc de l’armée céleste.” But this is clothing ancient and dignified German in modern French frippery. The word “Hoffmeister”—literally, “court-master or governor”—is used in modern German in nearly the same sense as the English word “steward;” and the governor or tutor of a young prince or nobleman is called by the same name. The word “Herzog”—the “Grand-duc” of Camus—in its original signification means the leader of a host or army. It is a German title of honour which defines its original meaning, and is in modern language synonymous with the English title “Duke.” The ancient German “Herzog” was a leader of hosts; the modern French “Grand-duc” is a clean-shaved gentleman in a court-dress, redolent of eau-de-Cologne, and bedizened with stars and strings. The two words are characteristic of the two languages.The second work in the volume is the Histories of Joseph, Daniel, Judith, and Esther. It has no general frontispiece nor title; but each separate history commences with the words: “Here begins the history174of . . . .” in German. Each history forms a separate gathering, and the whole four are contained in sixty leaves, of which two, about the middle, are blank, although there is no appearance of any deficiency in the history. The text is accompanied with wood-cuts which are much less than those in the “Complaints against Death,” each occupying only the space of eleven lines in a page, which when full contains twenty-eight. The number of the cuts is sixty-one; but there are only fifty-five different subjects, four of them having been printed twice, and one thrice. Camus gives a specimen of one of the cuts, which represents the Jews of Bethuliah rejoicing and offering sacrifice on the return of Judith after she had cut off the head of Holofernes. It is certainly a very indifferent performance, both with respect to design and engraving; and from Camus’s remarks on the artist’s ignorance and want of taste it would appear that the others are no better. In one of them Haman is decorated with the collar of an order from which a cross is suspended; and in another Jacob is seen travelling to Egypt in a carriageIV.15drawn by two horses, which are harnessed according to the manner of the fifteenth century, and driven by a postilion seated on a saddle, and with his feet in stirrups. All the cuts in the “Four Histories” are coarsely coloured.It is this work which Camus, in his title-page, professes to give an account of, although in his tract he describes the other two contained in the same volume with no less minuteness. He especially announced a notice of this work as “a book printed at Bamberg in 1462,” in consequence of its being the most important in the volume; for it contains not only the date and place, but also the printer’s name. In the book of Fables, printed with the same types at Bamberg in 1461, Pfister’s name does not appear.The text of the “Four Histories” ends at the fourth line on the recto of the sixtieth leaf; and after a blank space equal to that of a line, thirteen lines succeed, forming the colophon, and containing the place, date, and printer’s name. Although those lines run continuously on, occupying the full width of the page as in prose, yet they consist of couplets in German rhyme. The end of each verse is marked with a point, and the first word of the succeeding one begins with a capital.175Camus has given a fac-simile of those lines, that he might at once present his readers with a specimen of the type and a copy of this colophon, so interesting to bibliographers as establishing the important fact in the history of printing, namely, that the art was practised beyond Mentz prior to 1462. The following copy, though not a fac-simile, is printed line for line from Camus.Ein ittlich mensch von herzen gert . Das er wer weissund wol gelert . An meister un’ schrift das nit magsein . So kun’ wir all auch nit latein . Darauff hanich ein teil gedacht . Und vier historii zu samen pra-cht . Joseph daniel un’ auch judith . Und hester auchmit gutem sith. die vier het got in seiner hut . Als ernoch ye de’ guten thut . Dar durch wir pessern unserlebe’ . De’ puchlein ist sein ende gebe’ . Tʒu bamberghin der selbe’ stat . Das albrecht pfister gedrucket hatDo ma’ zalt tausent un’ vierhu’dert iar . Im zwei undsechzigste’ das ist war . Nit lang nach sand walpur-gen tag . Die uns wol gnad erberben mag . Frid un’das ewig lebe’ . Das wolle uns got alle’ gebe’ . Ame’.The following is a translation of the above, in English couplets of similar rhythm and measure as the original:With heart’s desire each man doth seekThat he were wise and learned eke:But books and teacher he doth need,And all men cannot Latin read.As on this subject oft I thought,These hist’ries four I therefore wrote;Of Joseph, Daniel, Judith too,And Esther eke, with purpose true:These four did God with bliss requite,As he doth all who act upright.That men may learn their lives to mendThis book at Bamberg here I end.In the same city, as I’ve hinted,It was by Albert Pfister printed,In th’ year of grace, I tell you true,A thousand four hundred and sixty-two;Soon after good St. Walburg’s day,Who well may aid us on our way,And help us to eternal bliss:God, of his mercy, grant us this. Amen.The third work contained in the volume described by Camus is an edition of the “Poor Preachers’ Bible,” with the text in German, and176printed on both sides. The number of the leaves is eighteen, of which only seventeen are printed; and as there is a “history” on each page, the total number in the work is thirty-four, each of which is illustrated with five cuts. The subjects of those cuts and their arrangement on the page is not precisely the same as in the earlier Latin editions; and as in the latter there are forty “histories,” six are wanting in the Bamberg edition, namely: 1. Christ in the garden; 2. The soldiers alarmed at the sepulchre; 3. The Last Judgment; 4. Hell; 5. The eternal Father receiving the righteous into his bosom; and 6. The crowning of the Saints. As the cuts illustrative of these subjects are the last in the Latin editions, it is possible that the Bamberg copy described by Camus might be defective; he, however, observes that there is no appearance of any leaves being wanting.IV.16In each page of the Bamberg edition the text is in two columns below the cuts, which are arranged in the following manner in the upper part of the page:3Christ appearing to the Apostles.1Busts.2Busts.4Joseph making himself known to his brethern.5The Prodigal Son’s return to his father.The following cuts are fac-similes of those given by Camus; and the numbers underneath each relate to their position in the preceding177example of their arrangement. In No. 1 the heads are intended for David and the author of the Book of Wisdom; in No. 2, for Isaiah and Ezekiel.see text and captionNo. 1.see text and captionNo. 2.The subject represented in the following cut, No. 3, forming the centre piece at the top in the arrangement of the original page, is Christ appearing to his disciples after his resurrection. The figure on the right of Christ is intended for St. Peter, and that on his left for St. John. I believe that in no wood-cut, ancient or modern, is Christ represented with so uncomely an aspect and so clumsy a figure.see text and captionNo. 3.The subject of No. 4 is Joseph making himself known to his brethren; from Genesis, chapterXLV.178see text and captionNo. 4.In No. 5 the subject represented is the Prodigal Son received by his father; from St. Luke, chapterXV.Camus says that the cuts given by him were engraved on wood by Duplaa with the greatest exactitude from tracings of the originals by Dubrena.see text and captionNo. 5.Supposing that all the cuts in the four works, printed by Pfister and described in the preceding pages, were designed in a similar taste and executed in a similar manner to those of which specimens are given, the persons by whom they were engraved—for it is not likely that they were179all engraved by one man—must have had very little knowledge of the art. Looking merely at the manner in which they are engraved, without reference to the wretched drawing of the figures and want of “feeling” displayed in the general treatment of the subjects, a moderately apt lad, at the present day, generally will cut as well by the time that he has had a month or two’s practice. If those cuts were to be considered as fair specimens of wood engraving in Germany in 1462, it would be evident that the art was then declining; for none of the specimens that I have seen of the cuts printed by Pfister can bear a comparison with those contained in the early block-books, such as the Apocalypse, the History of the Virgin, or the early editions of the Poor Preachers’ Bible. To the cuts contained in the latter works they are decidedly inferior, both with respect to design and engraving. Even the earliest wood-cuts which are known,—for instance, the St. Christopher, the St. Bridget, and the Annunciation, in Earl Spencer’s collection,—are executed in a superior manner.It would, however, be unfair to conclude that the cuts which appear in Pfister’s works were the best that were executed at that period. On the contrary, it is probable that they are the productions of persons who in their own age would be esteemed only as inferior artists. As the progress of typography was regarded with jealousy by the early wood engravers and block printers, who were apprehensive that it would ruin their trade, and as previous to the establishment of printing they were already formed into companies or fellowships, which were extremely sensitive on the subject of their exclusive rights, it is not unlikely that the earliest type-printers who adorned their books with wood-cuts would be obliged to have them executed by a person who was not professionally a wood engraver. It is only upon this supposition that we can account for the fact of the wood-cuts in the earliest books printed with type being so very inferior to those in the earliest block-books. This supposition is corroborated by the account which we have of the proceedings of the wood engravers of Augsburg shortly after type-printing was first established in that city. In 1471 they opposed Gunther Zainer’sIV.17admission to the privileges of a burgess, and endeavoured to prevent him printing wood engravings in his books.180Melchior Stamham, however, abbot of St. Ulric and Afra, a warm promoter of typography, interested himself on behalf of Zainer, and obtained an order from the magistracy that he and John Schussler—another printer whom the wood engravers had also objected to—should be allowed to follow without interruption their art of printing. They were, however, forbid to print initial letters from wood-blocks or to insert wood-cuts in their books, as this would be an infringement on the privileges of the fellowship of wood engravers. Subsequently the wood engravers came to an understanding with Zainer, and agreed that he should print as many initial letters and wood-cuts as he pleased, provided that they engraved them.IV.18Whether Schussler came to the same agreement or not is uncertain, as there is no book known to be printed by him of a later date than 1472. It is probable that he is the person,—named JohnSchüsslerin the memorandum printed by Zapf,—of whom Melchior de Stamham in that year bought five presses for the printing-office which he established in his convent of St. Ulric and St. Afra. To John Bämler, who at the same time carried on the business of a printer at Augsburg, no objection appears to have been made. As he was originally a “calligraphus” or ornamental writer, it is probable that he was a member of the wood engravers’ guild, and thus entitled to engrave and print his own works without interruption.As it is probable that the wood-cuts which appear in books printed within the first thirty years from the establishment of typography at Mentz were intended to be coloured, this may in some degree account for the coarseness with which they are engraved; but as the wood-cuts in the earlier block-books were also intended to be coloured in a similar manner, the inferiority of the former can only be accounted for by supposing that the best wood engravers declined to assist in promoting what they would consider to be a rival art, and that the earlier printers would generally be obliged to have their cuts engraved by persons connected with their own establishments, and who had not by a regular course of apprenticeship acquired a knowledge of the art. About seventy or eighty years ago, and until a more recent period, many country printers in England used themselves to engrave such rude wood-cuts as they might occasionally want. A most extensive assortment of such wood-cuts belonged to the printing-office of the late Mr. George Angus of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, who used them as head-pieces and general illustrations to ballads and chap-books. A considerable number of them were cut with a penknife, on pear-tree wood, by an apprentice named Randell, who died about forty years ago.181Persons who are fond of a “rough harvest” of such modern-antiques are referred to the “Historical Delights,” the “History of Ripon,” and other works published by Thomas Gent at York about 1733.Notwithstanding the rudeness with which the cuts are engraved in the four works printed by Pfister, yet from their number a considerable portion of time must have been occupied in their execution. In the “Four Histories” there are sixty-one cuts, which have been printed from fifty-five blocks. In the “Fables” there are one hundred and one cuts; in the “Complaints against Death,” five; and in the “Poor Preachers’ Bible,” one hundred and seventy, reckoning each subject separately. Supposing each cut in thethreelast works was printed from a separate block, the total number of blocks required for thefourwould be three hundred and thirty-one.IV.19Supposing that each cut on an average contained as much work as that which is numbered 4 in the preceding specimens—Joseph making himself known to his brethren—and supposing that the artist drew the subjects himself, the execution of those three hundred and thirty-one cuts would occupy one person for about two years and a half, allowing him to work three hundred days in each year. It is true that a modern wood engraver might finish more than three of such cuts in a week, yet I question if any one of the profession would complete the whole number, with his own hands, in less time than I have specified.From the similarity between Pfister’s types and those with which a Bible without place or date is printed, several bibliographers have ascribed the latter work to his press. This Bible, which in the Royal Library at Paris is bound in three volumes folio, is the rarest of all editions of the Scriptures printed in Latin. Schelhorn, who wrote a dissertation on this edition, endeavoured to show that it was the first of the Bibles printed at Mentz, and that it was partly printed by Gutemberg and Faust previous to their separation, and finished by Faust and Scheffer in 1456.IV.20Lichtenberger, without expressly assenting to Schelhorn’s opinion, is inclined to think that it was printed at Mentz, and by Gutemberg. The reasons which he assigns, however, are not such as are likely to gain assent without a previous willingness to believe. He admits that Pfister’s types are similar to those of the Bible, though he says that the former are somewhat ruder.182Camus considers that the tracts unquestionably printed by Pfister throw considerable light on the question as to whom this Bible is to be ascribed. There are two specimens of this Bible, the one given by Masch in his Bibliotheca Sacra, and the other by Schelhorn, in a dissertation prefixed to Quirini’s account of the principal works printed at Rome. Camus, on comparing these specimens with the text of Pfister’s tracts, immediately perceived the most perfect resemblance between the characters; and on applying a tracing of the last thirteen lines of the “Four Histories” to the corresponding letters in Schelhorn’s specimen, he found that the characters exactly corresponded. This perfect identity induced him to believe that the Bible described by Schelhorn was printed with Pfister’s types. A correspondent in Meusel’s Magazine, No. VII. 1794, had previously advanced the same opinion; and he moreover thought that the Bible had been printed previous to the Fables dated 1461, because the characters of the Bible are cleaner, and appear as if they had been impressed from newer types than those of the Fables.IV.21In support of this opinion an extract is given, in the same magazine, from a curious manuscript of the date of 1459, and preserved in the library of Cracow. This manuscript is a kind of dictionary of arts and sciences, composed by Paul of Prague, doctor of medicine and philosophy, who, in his definition of the word “Libripagus,” gives a curious piece of information to the following effect. The barbarous Latin of the original passage, to which I shall have occasion to refer, will be found in the subjoined note.IV.22“He is an artist who dexterously cuts figures, letters, and whatever he pleases on plates of copper, of iron, of solid blocks of wood, and other materials, that he may print upon paper, on a wall, or on a clean board. He cuts whatever he pleases; and he proceeds in this manner with respect to pictures. In my time somebody of Bamberg cut the entire Bible upon plates; in four weeks he impressed the whole Bible, thus sculptured, upon thin parchment.”Although I am of opinion that the weight of evidence is in favour of Pfister being the printer of the Bible in question, yet I cannot think that the arguments which have been adduced in his favour derive any additional support from this passage. The writer, like many other dictionary makers, both in ancient and modern times, has found it a more difficult matter to give a clear account of athingthan to find the183synonym of aword. But, notwithstanding his confused account, I think that I can perceive in it the “disjecta membra” of an ancient Formschneider and a Briefmaler, but no indication of a typographer.In a jargon worthy of the “Epistolæ obscurorum virorum” he describes an artist, or rather an artizan, “sculpens subtiliter in laminibusIV.23[laminis] æreis, ferreis, ac ligneis solidi ligni, atque aliis, imagines, scripturam et omne quodlibet.” In this passage the business of the “Formschneider” may be clearly enough distinguished: he cuts figures and animals in plates of copper and iron;—but not in the manner of a modern copper-plate engraver; but in the manner in which a stenciller pierces his patterns. That this is the true meaning of the writer is evident from the context, wherein he informs us of the artist’s object in cutting such letters and figures, namely, “ut prius imprimat papyro aut parieti aut asseri mundo,”—that he may print upon paper, on a wall, or on a clean board. This is evidently descriptive of the practice of stencilling, and proves, if the manuscript be authentic, that the old “Briefmalers” were accustomed to “slapdash” walls as well as to engrave and colour cards. In the distinction which is made of the “laminibus ligneisligni solidi,” it is probable that the writer meant to specify the difference between cutting out letters and figures on thin plates of metal, and cuttinguponblocks of solid wood. When he speaks of a Bible being cut, at Bamberg, “super lamellas,” he most likely means a “Poor Preachers’ Bible,” engraved on blocks of wood. An impression of a hundred or more copies of such a work might easily enough be taken in a month when the blocks were all ready engraved; but we cannot suppose that the Bible ascribed to Pfister could be worked off in so short a time. This Bible consists of eight hundred and seventy leaves; and to print an edition of three hundred copies at the rate of three hundred sheets a day would require four hundred and fifty days. About three hundred copies of each work appears to have been the usual number which Sweinheim and Pannartz and Ulric Hahn printed, on the establishment of the art in Italy; and Philip de Lignamine in his chronicle mentions, under the year 1458, that Gutemberg and Faust, at Mentz, and Mentelin at Strasburg, printed three hundred sheets in a day.IV.24Of Pfister nothing more is positively known than what the tracts printed by him afford; namely, that he dwelt at Bamberg, and exercised the business of a printer there in 1461 and 1462. He might indeed print there both before and after those years, but of this we have no direct184evidence. From 1462 to 1481 no book is known to have been printed at Bamberg. In the latter year, a press was established there by John Sensenschmidt of Egra, who had previously, that is from 1470, printed several works at Nuremberg.Panzer, alluding to Pfister as the printer only of the Fables and of the tracts contained in the volume described by Camus, says that he can scarcely believe that he had a fixed residence at Bamberg; and that those tracts most likely proceeded from the press of a travelling printer.IV.25Several of the early printers, who commenced on their own account, on the dispersion of Faust and Scheffer’s workmen in 1462, were accustomed to travel with their small stock of materials from one place to another; sometimes finding employment in a monastery, and sometimes taking up their temporary abode in a small town; removing to another as soon as public curiosity was satisfied, and the demand for the productions of their press began to decline. As they seldom put their names, or that of the place, to the works which they printed, it is extremely difficult to decide on the locality or the date of many old books printed in Germany. It is very likely that they were their own letter-founders, and that they themselves engraved such wood-cuts as they might require. As their object was to gain money, it is not unlikely that they might occasionally sell a portion of their types to each other;IV.26or to a novice who wished to begin the business, or to a learned abbot who might be desirous of establishing an amateur press within the precinct of his monastery, where copies of the Facetiæ of Poggius might be multiplied as well as the works of St. Augustine. Although it has been asserted the monks regarded with jealousy the progress of printing, as if it were likely to make knowledge too cheap, and to interfere with a part of their business as transcribers of books, such does not appear to have been the fact. In every country in Europe we find them to have been the first to encourage and promote the new art; and the annals of typography most clearly show that the greater part of the books printed within the first thirty years from the time of Gutemberg and Faust’s partnership were chiefly for the use of the monks and the secular clergy.From 1462 to 1467 there appears to have been no book printed containing wood-cuts. In the latter year Ulric Hahn, a German, printed at Rome a book entitled “Meditationes Johannis de Turrecremata,”IV.27which185contains wood-cuts engraved in simple outline in a coarse manner. The work is in folio, and consists of thirty-four leaves of stout paper, on which the water-mark is a hunter’s horn. The number of cuts is also thirty-four; and the following—the creation of animals—is a reduced copy of the first.see textThe remainder of the cuts are executed in a similar style; and though designed with more spirit than those contained in Pfister’s tracts, yet it can scarcely be said that they are better engraved. The following is an enumeration of the subjects. 1. The Creation, as above represented. 2. The Almighty speaking to Adam. 3. Eve taking the apple. (From No. 3 the rest of the cuts are illustrative of the New Testament or of Ecclesiastical History.) 4. The Annunciation. 5. The Nativity. 6. Circumcision of Christ. 7. Adoration of the Magi. 8. Simeon’s Benediction. 9. The Flight into Egypt. 10. Christ disputing with the Doctors in the Temple. 11. Christ baptized. 12. The Temptation in the Wilderness. 13. The keys given to Peter. 14. The Transfiguration. 15. Christ washing the Apostles’ feet. 16. The Last Supper. 17. Christ betrayed by Judas. 18. Christ led before the High Priest. 19. The Crucifixion. 20. Mater Dolorosa. 21. The Descent into Hell. 22. The Resurrection. 23. Christ appearing to his Disciples. 24. The Ascension. 25. The feast of Pentecost 26. The Host borne by a bishop. 27. The mystery of the Trinity; Abraham sees three and adores one. 28. St. Dominic extended like the “Stam-Herr” or first ancestor in a pedigree, and sending forth186numerous branches as Popes, Cardinals, and Saints. 29. Christ appearing to St. Sixtus. 30. The Assumption of the Virgin. 31. Christ seated amidst a choir of Angels. 32. Christ seated at the Virgin’s right hand in the assembly of Saints. 33. The Office of Mass for the Dead. 34. The Last Judgment.Zani says that those cuts were engraved by an Italian artist, but beyond his assertion there is no authority for the fact. It is most likely that they were cut by one of Hahn’s workmen, who could occasionally “turn his hand” to wood-engraving and type-founding, as well as compose and work at press; and it is most probable that Hahn’s workmen when he first established a press in Rome were Germans, and not Italians.The second book printed in Italy with wood-cuts is the “Editio Princeps” of the treatise of R. Valturius de Re Militari, which appeared at Verona from the press of “Johannes de Verona,” son of Nicholas the surgeon, and master of the art of printing.IV.28This work is dedicated by the author to Sigismund Malatesta, lord of Rimini, who is styled in pompous phrase, “Splendidissimum Arminensium Regem ac Imperatorem semper invictum.” The work, however, must have been written several years before it was printed, for Baluze transcribed from a MS. dated 1463 a letter written in the name of Malatesta, and sent by the author with a copy of his work to the Sultan Mahomet II. The bearer of this letter was the painter Matteo Pasti, a friend of the author, who visited Constantinople at the Sultan’s request in order that he might paint his portrait. It is said that the cuts in this work were designed by Pasti; and it is very probable that he might make the drawings in Malatesta’s own copy, from which it is likely that the book was printed. As Valturius has mentioned Pasti as being eminently skilful in the arts of Painting, Sculpture, andEngraving,IV.29Maffei has conjectured,—and Mr. Ottley adds, “with some appearance of probability,”—that the cuts in question were executed by his hand. If such were the fact, it only could be regretted that an artist so eminent should have mis-spent his time in a manner so unworthy of his reputation; for, allowing that a considerable degree of talent is displayed in many of the designs, there is nothing in the engraving, as they are mere outlines, but what might be cut by a novice. There is not, however, the slightest reasonable ground to suppose that those engravings were cut by Matteo Pasti, for I believe that he died before printing was introduced into Italy; and it surely would be187presuming beyond the verge of probability to assert that they might be engraved in anticipation of the art being introduced, and of the book being printed at some time or other, when the blocks would be all ready engraved, in a simple style of art indeed, but with a master’s hand. A master-sculptor’s hand, however, is not very easily distinguished in the mere rough-dressing of a block of sandstone, which any country mason’s apprentice might do as well. It is very questionable if Matteo Pasti was an engraver in the present sense of the word; the engraving meant by Valturius was probably that of gold and silver vessels and ornaments; but not the engraving of plates of copper or other metal for the purpose of being printed.Several of those cuts occupy an entire folio page, though the greater number are of smaller size. They chiefly represent warlike engines, which display considerable mechanical skill on the part of the contriver; modes of attack and defence both by land and water, with various contrivances for passing a river which is not fordable, by means of rafts, inflated bladders, and floating bridges. In some of them inventions may be noticed which are generally ascribed to a later period: such as a boat with paddle-wheels, which are put in motion by a kind of crank; a gun with a stock, fired from the shoulder; and a bomb-shell. It has frequently been asserted that hand-guns were first introduced about the beginning of the sixteenth century, yet the figure of one in the work of Valturius makes it evident that they were known some time before. It is also likely that the drawing was made and the description written at least ten years before the book was printed. It has also been generally asserted that bomb-shells were first used by Charles VIII. of France when besieging Naples in 1495. Valturius, however, in treating of cannon, ascribes the invention to Malatesta.IV.30Gibbon, in chapter lxviii. of his History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, notices this cut of a bomb-shell. His reference is to the second edition of the work, in Italian, printed also at Verona by Bonin de Bononis in 1483, with the same cuts as the first edition in Latin.IV.31The two following cuts are fac-similes of the bomb-shell and the hand-gun, as represented in the edition of 1472. The figure armed with the gun,—a portion of a188large cut,—is firing from a kind of floating battery; and in the original two figures armed with similar weapons are stationed immediately above him.see textThe following fac-simile of a cut representing a man shooting with a cross-bow is the best in the book. The drawing of the figure is good, and the attitude graceful and natural. The figure, indeed, is not only the best in the work of Valturius, but is one of the best, so far as respects the drawing, that is to be met with in any book printed in the fifteenth century.see textThe practice of introducing wood-cuts into printed books seems to have been first generally adopted at Augsburg, where Gunther Zainer, in 1471, printed a German translation of the “Legenda Sanctorum” with figures of the saints coarsely engraved on wood. This, I believe, is the first book, after Pfister’s tracts, printed in Germany with wood-cuts and containing a date. In 1472 he printed a second volume of the same work, and an edition of the book entitled “Belial,”IV.32both containing wood-cuts. Several other works printed by him between 1471 and 1475 are illustrated in a similar manner. Zainer’s example was followed at Augsburg by his contemporaries John Bämler and John Schussler;189and by them, and Anthony Sorg, who first began to print there about 1475, more books with wood-cuts were printed in that city previous to 1480 than at any other place within the same period. In 1477 the first German Bible with wood-cuts was printed by Sorg, who printed another edition with the same cuts and initial letters in 1480. In 1483 he printed an account of the Council of Constance held in 1431, with upwards of a thousand wood-cuts of figures and of the arms of the principal persons both lay and spiritual who attended the council. Upon this work Gebhard, in his Genealogical History of the Heritable States of the German Empire, makes the following observations:—“The first printed collection of arms is that of 1483 in the History of the Council of Constance written by Ulrich Reichenthal. To this council we are indebted accidentally for the collection. From the thirteenth century it was customary to hang up the shields of noble and honourable persons deceased in churches; and subsequently the practice was introduced of painting them upon the walls, or of placing them in the windows in stained glass. A similar custom prevailed at the Council of Constance; for every person of consideration who attended190had his arms painted on the wall in front of his chamber; and thus Reichenthal, who caused those arms to be copied and engraved on wood, was enabled to give in his history the first general collection of coat-armour which had appeared; as eminent persons from all the Catholic states of Europe attended this council.”IV.33The practice of introducing wood-cuts became in a few years general throughout Germany. In 1473, John Zainer of Reutlingen, who is said to have been the brother of Gunther, printed an edition of Boccacio’s work “De mulieribus claris,” with wood-cuts, at Ulm. In 1474 the first edition of Werner Rolewinck de Laer’s chronicle, entitled “Fasciculus Temporum,” was printed with wood-cuts by Arnold Ther-Hoernen at Cologne; and in 1476 an edition of the same work, also with wood-cuts, was printed at Louvain by John Veldener, who previously had been a printer at Cologne. In another edition of the same work printed by Veldener at Utrecht in 1480, the first page is surrounded with a border of foliage and flowers cut on wood; and another page, about the middle of the volume, is ornamented in a similar manner. These are the earliest instances of ornamental borders from wood-blocks which I have observed. About the beginning of the sixteenth century title-pages surrounded with ornamental borders are frequent. From the name of those borders,Rahmen, the German wood engravers of that period are sometimes calledRahmenschneiders. Prosper Marchand, in his “Dictionnaire Historique,” tom. ii. p. 156, has stated that Erhard Ratdolt, a native of Augsburg, who began to print at Venice about 1475, was the first printer who introduced flowered initial letters, and vignettes—meaning by the latter term wood-cuts; but his information is scarcely correct. Wood-cuts—without reference to Pfister’s tracts, which were not known when Marchand wrote—were introduced at Augsburg six years before Ratdolt and his partnersIV.34printed at Venice in 1476 the “Calendarium Joannis Regiomontani,” the work to which Marchand alludes. It may be true that he introduced a new kind of initial letters ornamented with flowers in this work, but much more beautiful initial letters had appeared long before in the Psalter, in the “Durandi Rationale,” and the “Donatus” printed by Faust and Scheffer. The first person who mentions Ratdolt as the inventor of “florentes litteræ,” so named from the flowers with which they are intermixed, is Maittaire, in his Annales Typographici, tom. i. part i. p. 53.191In 1483 Veldener,IV.35as has been previously observed at page 106, printed at Culemburg an edition in small quarto of the Speculum Salvationis, with the same blocks as had been used in the earlier folio editions, which are so confidently ascribed to Lawrence Coster. In Veldener’s edition each of the large blocks, consisting of two compartments, is sawn in two in order to adapt them to a smaller page. A German translation of the Speculum, with wood-cuts, was printed at Basle, in folio, in 1476; and Jansen says that the first book printed in France with wood-cuts was an edition of the Speculum, at Lyons, in 1478; and that the second was a translation of the book named “Belial,” printed at the same place in 1482.The first printed book in the English language that contains wood-cuts is the second edition of Caxton’s “Game and Playe of the Chesse,” a small folio, without date or place, but generally supposed to have been printed about 1476.IV.36The first edition of the same work, without cuts, was printed in 1474. On the blank leaves at the end of a copy of the first edition in the King’s Library, at the British Museum, there is written in a contemporary hand a list of the bannerets and knightsIV.37made at the battle of “Stooke by syde newerke apon trent the xvi day of june the iideyer of harry the vii.” that is, in 1487. In this battle Martin Swart was killed. He commanded the Flemings, who were sent by the Duchess of Burgundy to assist Lambert Simnel. It was at the request of the duchess, who was Edward the Fourth’s sister, that Caxton translated the “Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye,” the first book printed in the English language, and which appeared at Cologne in 1471 or 1472.In Dr. Dibdin’s edition of Ames’s Typographical Antiquities there is a “Description of the Pieces and Pawns” in the second edition of Caxton’s Chess; which description is said to be illustrated with facsimile192wood-cuts. There are indeed fac-similes of some of the figures given, but not of the wood-cuts generally; for in almost every cut given by Dr. Dibdin the back-ground of the original is omitted. In the description of the first fac-simile there is also an error: it is said to be “thefirstcut in the work,” while in fact it is thesecond. The following I believe to be a correct list of these first fruits of English wood-engraving.1. An executioner with an axe cutting to pieces, on a block, the limbs of a man. On the head, which is lying on the ground, there is a crown. Birds are seen seizing and flying away with portions of the limbs. There are buildings in the distance, and three figures, one of whom is a king with a crown and sceptre, appear looking on. 2. A figure sitting at a table, with a chess-board before him, and holding one of the chess-men in his hand. This is the cut which Dr. Dibdin says is the first in the book. 3. A king and another person playing at chess. 4. The king at chess, seated on a throne. 5. The king and queen. 6. The “alphyns,” now called “bishops” in the game of chess, “in the maner of judges sittyng.” 7. The knight. 8. The “rook,” or castle, a figure on horseback wearing a hood and holding a staff in his hand. From No. 9 to No. 15 inclusive, the pawns are thus represented. 9. Labourers and workmen, the principal figure representing the first pawn, with a spade in his right hand and a cart-whip in his left. 10. The second pawn, a smith with his buttriss in the string of his apron, and a hammer in his right hand. 11. The third pawn, represented as aclerk, that is a writer or transcriber, in the same sense as Peter Scheffer and Ulric Zell are styledclerici, with his case of writing materials at his girdle, a pair of shears in one hand, and a large knife in the other. The knife, which has a large curved blade, appears more fit for a butcher’s chopper than to make or mend pens. 12. The fourth pawn, a man with a pair of scales, and having a purse at his girdle, representing “marchauntes or chaungers.” 13. The fifth pawn, a figure seated on a chair, having in his right hand a book, and in his left a sort of casket or box of ointments, representing a physician, spicer, or apothecary. 14. The sixth pawn, an innkeeper, receiving a guest. 15. The seventh pawn, a figure with a yard measure in his right hand, a bunch of keys in his left, and an open purse at his girdle, representing “customers and tolle gaderers.” 16. The eighth pawn, a figure with a sort of badge on his breast near to his right shoulder, after the manner of a nobleman’s retainer, and holding a pair of dice in his left hand, representing dice-players, messengers, and “currours,” that is “couriers.” In old authors the numerous idle retainers of the nobility are frequently represented as gamblers, swash-bucklers, and tavern-haunters.Although there are twenty-four impressions in the volume, yet there are only sixteen subjects, as described above; the remaining eight being193repetitions of the cuts numbered 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 10, with two impressions of the cut No. 2, besides that towards the commencement.see textThe above cut is a reduced copy of the knight, No. 7; and his character is thus described: “The knyght ought to be maad al armed upon an hors in suche wise that he have an helme on his heed and a spere in his right hond, and coverid with his shelde, a swerde and a mace on his left syde . clad with an halberke and plates tofore his breste . legge harnoys on his legges . spores on his heelis, on hys handes hys gauntelettes . hys hors wel broken and taught and apte to bataylle and coveryd with hys armes. When the Knyghtes been maad they ben bayned or bathed . That is the signe that they sholde lede a newe lyf and newe maners . also they wake alle the nyght in prayers and orisons unto god that he wil geve hem grace that they may gete that thyng that they may not gete by nature. The kyng or prynce gyrdeth a boute them a swerde in signe that they shold abyde and kepen hym of whom they taken their dispences and dignyte.”The following cut of the sixth or bishop’s pawn, No. 14, “whiche is lykened to taverners and vytayllers,” is thus described in Caxton’s own words: “The sixte pawn whiche stondeth before the alphyn on the lyfte syde is made in this forme . ffor hit is a man that hath the right hond stretched out for to calle men, and holdeth in his left honde a loof of breed and a cuppe of wyn . and on his gurdel hangyng a bondel of keyes, and this resemblith the taverners hostelers and sellars of vytayl . and194these ought properly to be sette to fore the alphyn as to fore a juge, for there sourdeth oft tymes amonge hem contencion noyse and stryf, which behoveth to be determyned and trayted by the alphyn which is juge of the kynge.”see textThe next book containing wood-cuts printed by Caxton is the “Mirrour of the World, or thymage of the same,” as he entitles it at the head of the table of contents. It is a thin folio consisting of one hundred leaves; and, in the Prologue, Caxton informs the reader that it “conteyneth in all lxvii chapitres and xxvii figures, without which it may not lightly be understāde.” He also says that he translated it from the French at the “request, desire, coste, and dispense of the honourable and worshipful man Hugh Bryce, alderman cytezeyn of London,” who intended to present the same to William, Lord Hastings, chamberlain to Edward IV, and lieutenant of the same for the town of Calais and the marches there. On the last page he again mentions Hugh Bryce and Lord Hastings, and says of his translation: “Whiche book I begun first to trāslate the second day of Janyuer the yere of our lordM.cccc.lxxx. And fynysshed the viii day of Marche the same yere, and the xxi yere of the reign of the most crysten kynge, Kynge Edward the fourthe.”IV.38195The “xxvii figures” mentioned by Caxton, without which the work might not be easily understood, are chiefly diagrams explanatory of the principles of astronomy and dialling; but besides those twenty-seven cuts the book contains eleven more, which may be considered as illustrative rather than explanatory. The following is a list of those eleven cuts in the order in which they occur. They are less than the cuts in the “Game of Chess;” the most of them not exceeding three inches and a half by three.IV.391. A school-master or “doctor,” gowned, and seated on a high-backed chair, teaching four youths who are on their knees. 2. A person seated on a low-backed chair, holding in his hand a kind of globe; astronomical instruments on a table before him. 3. Christ, or the Godhead, holding in his hand a ball and cross. 4. The creation of Eve, who appears coming out of Adam’s side.—The next cuts are figurative of the “seven arts liberal.” 5. Grammar. A teacher with a large birch-rod seated on a chair, his four pupils before him on their knees. 6. Logic. Figure bare-headed seated on a chair, and having before him a book on a kind of reading-stand, which he appears expounding to his pupils who are kneeling. 7. Rhetoric. An upright figure in a gown, to whom another, kneeling, presents a paper, from which a seal is seen depending. 8. Arithmetic. A figure seated, and having before him a tablet inscribed with numerical characters. 9. Geometry. A figure standing, with a pair of compasses in his hand, with which he seems to be drawing diagrams on a table. 10. Music. A female figure with a sheet of music in her hand, singing, and a man playing on the English flute. 11. Astronomy. Figure with a kind of quadrant in his hand, who seems to be taking an observation.—An idea may be formed of the manner in which those cuts are engraved from the fac-simile on the next page of No. 10, “Music.”There are wood-cuts in the Golden Legend, 1483; the Fables of Esop, 1484; Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, and other books printed by Caxton; but it is unnecessary either to enumerate them or to give specimens, as they are all executed in the same rude manner as the cuts in the Book of Chess and the Mirror of the World. In the Book of Hunting and Hawking printed at St. Albans, 1486, there are rude wood-cuts; as also in a second and enlarged edition of the same book printed by Wynkyn de Worde, Caxton’s successor, at Westminster in 1496. The most considerable wood-cut printed in England previous to 1500 is, so far as regards the design, a representation of the Crucifixion at the end of the Golden Legend printed by Wynkyn de Worde in1961493.IV.40In this cut, neither of the thieves on each side of Christ appears to be nailed to the cross. The arms of the thief on the right of Christ hang behind, and are bound to the transverse piece of the cross, which passes underneath his shoulders. His feet are neither bound nor nailed to the cross. The feet of the thief to the left of Christ are tied to the upright piece of the cross, to which his hands are also bound, his shoulders resting upon the top, and his face turned upward towards the sky. To the left is seen the Virgin,—who has fallen down,—supported by St. John. In the back-ground to the right, the artist, like several others of that period, has represented Christ bearing his cross.see textDr. Dibdin, at page 8 of the “Disquisition on the Early State of Engraving and Ornamental Printing in Great Britain,” prefixed to Ames’s and Herbert’s Typographical Antiquities, makes the following observations on this cut: “The ‘Crucifixion’ at the end of the ‘Golden Legend’ of 1493, which Wynkyn de Worde has so frequently subjoined to his religious pieces, is, unquestionably, the effort of some ingenious foreign artist. It is not very improbable that Rubens had a recollection of one of the thieves, twisted, from convulsive agony, round the top of the cross, when he executed his celebrated picture of the same subject.”IV.41197In De Worde’s cut, however, it is to be remarked that the contorted attitude of both the thieves results rather from the manner in which they are bound to the cross, than from the convulsions of agony.
onsideringGutemberg as the inventor of printing with moveable types; that his first attempts were made at Strasburg about 1436; and that with Faust’s money and Scheffer’s ingenuity the art was perfected at Mentz about 1452, I shall now proceed to trace the progress of wood engraving in its connexion with the press.In the first book which appeared with a date and the printers’ names—the Psalter printed by Faust and Scheffer, at Mentz, in 1457—the large initial letters, engraved on wood and printed in red and blue ink, are the must beautiful specimens of this kind of ornament which the united efforts of the wood-engraver and the pressman have produced. They have been imitated in modern times, but not excelled. As they are the first letters, in point of time, printed with two colours, so are they likely to continue the first in point of excellence.Only seven copies of the Psalter of 1457 are known, and they are all printed on vellum. Although they have all the same colophon, containing the printers’ names and the date, yet no two copies exactly correspond. A similar want of agreement is said to have been observed in different copies of the Mazarine Bible, but which are, notwithstanding, of one and the same edition. As such works would in the infancy of the art be a long time in printing—more especially the Psalter, as,165in consequence of the large capitals being printed in two colours, each side of many of the sheets would have to be printed thrice—it can be a matter of no surprise that alterations and amendments should be made in the text while the work was going through the press. In the Mazarine Bible, the entire Book of Psalms, which contains a considerable number of red letters, would have to pass four times through the press, including what printers call the “reiteration.”IV.1The largest of the ornamented capitals in the Psalter of 1457 is the letter B, which stands at the commencement of the first psalm, “Beatus vir.” The letters which are next in size are an A, a C, a D, an E, and a P; and there are also others of a smaller size, similarly ornamented, and printed in two colours in the same manner as the larger ones. Although only two colours are used to each letter, yet when the same letter is repeated a variety is introduced by alternating the colours: for instance, the shape of the letter is in one page printed red, with the ornamental portions blue; and in another the shape of the letter is blue, and the ornamental portions red. It has been erroneously stated by Papillon that the large letters at the beginning of each psalm are printed in three colours, red, blue, and purple; and Lambinet has copied the mistake. A second edition of this Psalter appeared in 1459; a third in 1490; and a fourth in 1502, all in folio, like the first, and with the same ornamented capitals. Heineken observes that in the edition of 1490 the large letters are printed in red and green instead of red and blue.
onsideringGutemberg as the inventor of printing with moveable types; that his first attempts were made at Strasburg about 1436; and that with Faust’s money and Scheffer’s ingenuity the art was perfected at Mentz about 1452, I shall now proceed to trace the progress of wood engraving in its connexion with the press.
In the first book which appeared with a date and the printers’ names—the Psalter printed by Faust and Scheffer, at Mentz, in 1457—the large initial letters, engraved on wood and printed in red and blue ink, are the must beautiful specimens of this kind of ornament which the united efforts of the wood-engraver and the pressman have produced. They have been imitated in modern times, but not excelled. As they are the first letters, in point of time, printed with two colours, so are they likely to continue the first in point of excellence.
Only seven copies of the Psalter of 1457 are known, and they are all printed on vellum. Although they have all the same colophon, containing the printers’ names and the date, yet no two copies exactly correspond. A similar want of agreement is said to have been observed in different copies of the Mazarine Bible, but which are, notwithstanding, of one and the same edition. As such works would in the infancy of the art be a long time in printing—more especially the Psalter, as,165in consequence of the large capitals being printed in two colours, each side of many of the sheets would have to be printed thrice—it can be a matter of no surprise that alterations and amendments should be made in the text while the work was going through the press. In the Mazarine Bible, the entire Book of Psalms, which contains a considerable number of red letters, would have to pass four times through the press, including what printers call the “reiteration.”IV.1
Only seven copies of the Psalter of 1457 are known, and they are all printed on vellum. Although they have all the same colophon, containing the printers’ names and the date, yet no two copies exactly correspond. A similar want of agreement is said to have been observed in different copies of the Mazarine Bible, but which are, notwithstanding, of one and the same edition. As such works would in the infancy of the art be a long time in printing—more especially the Psalter, as,165in consequence of the large capitals being printed in two colours, each side of many of the sheets would have to be printed thrice—it can be a matter of no surprise that alterations and amendments should be made in the text while the work was going through the press. In the Mazarine Bible, the entire Book of Psalms, which contains a considerable number of red letters, would have to pass four times through the press, including what printers call the “reiteration.”IV.1
The largest of the ornamented capitals in the Psalter of 1457 is the letter B, which stands at the commencement of the first psalm, “Beatus vir.” The letters which are next in size are an A, a C, a D, an E, and a P; and there are also others of a smaller size, similarly ornamented, and printed in two colours in the same manner as the larger ones. Although only two colours are used to each letter, yet when the same letter is repeated a variety is introduced by alternating the colours: for instance, the shape of the letter is in one page printed red, with the ornamental portions blue; and in another the shape of the letter is blue, and the ornamental portions red. It has been erroneously stated by Papillon that the large letters at the beginning of each psalm are printed in three colours, red, blue, and purple; and Lambinet has copied the mistake. A second edition of this Psalter appeared in 1459; a third in 1490; and a fourth in 1502, all in folio, like the first, and with the same ornamented capitals. Heineken observes that in the edition of 1490 the large letters are printed in red and green instead of red and blue.
The largest of the ornamented capitals in the Psalter of 1457 is the letter B, which stands at the commencement of the first psalm, “Beatus vir.” The letters which are next in size are an A, a C, a D, an E, and a P; and there are also others of a smaller size, similarly ornamented, and printed in two colours in the same manner as the larger ones. Although only two colours are used to each letter, yet when the same letter is repeated a variety is introduced by alternating the colours: for instance, the shape of the letter is in one page printed red, with the ornamental portions blue; and in another the shape of the letter is blue, and the ornamental portions red. It has been erroneously stated by Papillon that the large letters at the beginning of each psalm are printed in three colours, red, blue, and purple; and Lambinet has copied the mistake. A second edition of this Psalter appeared in 1459; a third in 1490; and a fourth in 1502, all in folio, like the first, and with the same ornamented capitals. Heineken observes that in the edition of 1490 the large letters are printed in red and green instead of red and blue.
Page imageshowing original layout.
Page imageshowing original layout.
In consequence of those large letters being printed in two colours, two blocks would necessarily be required for each; one for that portion of the letter which is red, and another for that which is blue. In the body, or shape, of the largest letter, the B at the beginning of the first psalm, the mass of colour is relieved by certain figures being cut out in the block, which appear white in the impression. On the stem of the letter a dog like a greyhound is seen chasing a bird; and flowers and ears of corn are represented on the curved portions. These figures being white, or the colour of the vellum, give additional brightness to the full-bodied red by which they are surrounded, and materially add to the beauty and effect of the whole letter.
In consequence of two blocks being required for each letter, the166means were afforded of printing any of them twice in the same sheet or the same page with alternate colours; for while the body of the first was printed in red from one block, the ornamental portion of the second might be printed red at the same time from the other block. In the second printing, with the blue colour, it would only be necessary to transpose the blocks, and thus the two letters would be completed, identical in shape and ornament, and differing only from the corresponding portions being in the one letter printed red and in the other blue. In the edition of 1459 the same ornamented letter is to be found repeated on the same page; but of this I have only noticed one instance; though there are several examples of the same letter being printed twice in the same sheet.
Although the engraving of the most highly ornamented and largest of those letters cannot be considered as an extraordinary instance of skill, even at that period, for many wood-cuts of an earlier date afford proof of greater excellence, yet the artist by whom the blocks were engraved must have had considerable practice. The whole of the ornamental part, which would be the most difficult to execute, is clearly and evenly cut, and in some places with great neatness and delicacy. “This letter,” says Heineken, “is an authentic testimony that the artists employed on such a work were persons trained up and exercised in their profession. The art of wood engraving was no longer in its cradle.”
The name of the artist by whom those letters were engraved is unknown. In Sebastian Munster’s Cosmography, book iii. chapter 159, John Meydenbach is mentioned as being one of Gutemberg’s assistants; and an anonymous writer in Serarius states the same fact. Heineken in noticing these two passages writes to the following effect. “This Meydenbach is doubtless the same person who proceeded with Gutemberg from Strasburg to Mentz in 1444.IV.2It is probable that he was a wood engraver or an illuminator, but this is not certain; and it is still more uncertain that this person engraved the cuts in a book entitledApocalipsis cum figuris, printed at Strasburg in 1502, because these are copied from the cuts in the Apocalypse engraved and printed by Albert Durer at Nuremberg. Whether this copyist was theJacobus Meydenbachwho printed books at Mentz in 1491,IV.3or he was some other engraver, I have not been able to determine.”IV.4
Although so little is positively known respecting John Meydenbach, Gutemberg’s assistant, yet Von Murr thinks that there is reason to suppose that he was the artist who engraved the large initial letters for the Psalter of 1457. Fischer, who declares that there is no sufficient grounds for this conjecture, confidently assumes, from false premises, that those letters were engraved by Gutemberg, “a person experienced in such work,” adds he, “as we are taught by his residence at Strasburg.” From the account that we have of his residence and pursuits at Strasburg, however, we are taught no such thing. We only learn from it he was engaged in some invention which related to printing. We learn that Conrad Saspach made him a press, and it is conjectured that the goldsmith Hanns Dunne was employed to engrave his letters; but there is not a word of his being an experienced wood engraver, nor is there a well authenticated passage in any account of his life from which it might be concluded that he ever engraved a single letter. Fischer’s reasons for supposing that Gutemberg engraved the large letters in Faust and Scheffer’s Psalter are, however, contradicted by facts. Having seen a few leaves of a Donatus ornamented with the same initial letters as the Psalter, he directly concluded that the former was printed by Gutemberg and Faust prior to the dissolution of their partnership; and not satisfied with this leap he takes another, and arrives at the conclusion that they were engraved by Gutemberg, as “hismodesty only could allow such works to appear without his name.”
Although we have no information respecting the artist by whom those letters were engraved, yet it is not unlikely that they were suggested, if not actually drawn by Scheffer, who, from his profession of a scribe or writerIV.5previous to his connexion with Faust, may be supposed to have been well acquainted with the various kinds of flowered and ornamented capitals with which manuscripts of that and preceding centuries were embellished. It is not unusual to find manuscripts of the early part of the fifteenth century embellished with capitals of two colours, red and blue, in the same taste as in the Psalter; and there is now lying before me a capital P, drawn on vellum in red and blue ink, in a manuscript apparently of the date of 1430, which is so like the same letter in the Psalter that the one might be supposed to have suggested the other.
It was an object with Faust and Scheffer to recommend their Psalter—probably168the first work printed by them after Gutemberg had been obliged to withdraw from the partnership—by the beauty of its capitals and the sufficiency and distinctness of its “rubrications;”IV.6and it is evident that they did not fail in the attempt. The Psalter of 1457 is, with respect to ornamental printing, their greatest work; for in no subsequent production of their press does the typographic art appear to have reached a higher degree of excellence. It may with truth be said that the art of printing—be the inventor who he may—was perfected by Faust and Scheffer; for the earliest known production of their press remains to the present day unsurpassed as a specimen of skill in ornamental printing.
A fac-simile of the large B at the commencement of the Psalter, printed in colours the same as the original, is given in the first volume of Dibdin’s Bibliotheca Spenceriana, and in Savage’s Hints on Decorative Printing; but in neither of those works has the excellence of the original letter been attained. In the Bibliotheca Spenceriana, although the volume has been printed little more than twenty years, the red colour in which the body of the letter is printed has assumed a coppery hue, while in the original, executed nearly four hundred years ago, the freshness and purity of the colours remain unimpaired. In Savage’s work, though the letter and its ornaments are faithfully copiedIV.7and tolerably well printed, yet the colours are not equal to those of the original. In the modern copy the blue is too faint; and the red, which in the original is like well impasted paint, has not sufficient body, but appears like a wash, through which in many places the white paper may be seen. The whole letter compared with the original seems like a water-colour copy compared with a painting in oil.
Although it has been generally supposed that the art of printing was first carried from Mentz in 1462 when Faust and Scheffer’s sworn workmen were dispersedIV.8on the capture of that city by the archbishop169Adolphus of Nassau, yet there can be no doubt that it was practised at Bamberg before that period; for a book of fables printed at the latter place by Albert Pfister is expressly dated on St. Valentine’s day, 1461; and a history of Joseph, Daniel, Judith, and Esther was also printed by Pfister at Bamberg in 1462, “Nit lang nach sand walpurgen tag,”—not long after St. Walburg’s day.IV.9It is therefore certain that the art was practised beyond Mentz previous to the capture of that city, which was not taken until the eve of St. Simon and St. Jude; that is, on the 28th of October in 1462. As it is very probable that Pfister would have to superintend the formation of his own types and the construction of his own presses,—for none of his types are of the same fount as those used by Gutemberg or by Faust and Scheffer,—we may presume that he would be occupied for some considerable time in preparing his materials and utensils before he could begin to print. As his first known work with a date, containing a hundred and one wood-cuts, was finished on the 14th of February 1461, it is not unlikely that he might have begun to make preparations three or four years before. Upon these grounds it seems but reasonable to conclude with Aretin, that the art was carried from Mentz by some of Gutemberg and Faust’s workmen on the dissolution of their partnership in 1455; and that the date of the capture of Mentz—when for a time all the male inhabitants capable of bearing arms were compelled to leave the city by the captors—marks the period of its more general diffusion. The occasion of the disaster to which Mentz was exposed for nearly three years was a contest for the succession to the archbishopric. Theodoric von Erpach having died in May 1459, a majority of the chapter chose Thierry von Isenburg to succeed him, while another party supported the pretensions of Adolphus of Nassau. An appeal having been made to Rome, the election of Thierry was annulled, and Adolphus was declared by the Pope to be the lawful archbishop of Mentz. Thierry, being in possession and supported by the citizens, refused to resign, until his rival, assisted by the forces of his adherents and relations, succeeded in obtaining possession of the city.IV.10
Until the discovery of Pfister’s book containing the four histories, most bibliographers supposed that the date 1461, in the fables, related to the composition of the work or the completion of the manuscript, and not to the printing of the book. Saubert, who was the first to notice it, in 1643, describes it as being printed, both text and figures, from wood-blocks; and Meerman has adopted the same erroneous opinion. Heineken was the first to describe it truly, as having the text printed with moveable types, though he expresses himself doubtfully as to the date, 1461, being that of the impression.
As the discovery of Pfister’s tracts has thrown considerable light on the progress of typography and wood engraving, I shall give an account of the most important of them, as connected with those subjects; with a brief notice of a few circumstances relative to the early connexion of wood engraving with the press, and to the dispersion of the printers on the capture of Mentz in 1462.
The discovery of the history of Joseph, Daniel, Judith, and Esther, with the date 1462, printed at Bamberg by Pfister, has established the fact that the dates refer to the years in which the books were printed, and not to the period when the works were composed or transcribed. An account of the history above named, written by M. J. Steiner, pastor of the church of St. Ulric at Augsburg, was first printed in Meusel’s Historical and Literary Magazine in 1792; and a more ample description of this and other tracts printed by Pfister was published by Camus in 1800,IV.11when the volume containing them, which was the identical one that had been previously seen by Steiner, was deposited in the National Library at Paris.
The book of fablesIV.12printed by Pfister at Bamberg in 1461 is a small folio consisting of twenty-eight leaves, and containing eighty-five fables in rhyme in the old German language. As those fables, which are ascribed to one “Boner, dictus der Edelstein,” are known to have been written previous to 1330, the words at the end of the volume,—“Zu Bamberg dies Büchlein geendet ist,”—At Bamberg this book is finished,—most certainly relate to the time when it was printed, and not when it was written. It is therefore the earliest book printed with moveable types which is illustrated with wood-cuts containing figures. Not having an opportunity of seeing this extremely rare book,—of which only one perfect copy is known,—I am unable to speak from personal examination of the style in which its hundred and one cuts are engraved. Heineken,171however, has given a fac-simile of the first, and he says that the others are of a similar kind. The following is a reduced copy of the fac-simile given by Heineken, and which forms the head-piece to the first fable. On the manner in which it is engraved I shall make no remark, until I shall have produced some specimens of the cuts contained in a “Biblia Pauperum Predicatorum,” also printed by Pfister, and having the text in the German language.
see text
The volume described by Camus contains three different works; and although Pfister’s name, with the date 1462, appears in only one of them, the “Four Histories,” yet, as the type is the same in all, there can be no doubt of the other two being printed by the same person and about the same period. The following particulars respecting its contents are derived from the “Notice” of Camus. It is a small folio consisting altogether of a hundred and one leaves of paper of good quality, moderately thick and white, and in which the water-mark is an ox’s head. The text is printed in a large type, called missal-type; and though the characters are larger, and there is a trifling variation in three or four of the capitals, yet they evidently appear to have been copied from those of the Mazarine Bible.
The first work is that which Heineken calls “une Allégorie sur la Mort;”IV.13but this title does not give a just idea of its contents. It is in fact a collection of accusations preferred against Death, with his answers to them. The object is to show that such complaints are unavailing, and that, instead of making them, people ought rather to employ themselves in endeavouring to live well. In this tract, which172consists of twenty-four leaves, there are five wood-cuts, each occupying an entire page. The first represents Death seated on a throne. Before him there is a man with a child, who appears to accuse Death of having deprived him of his wife, who is seen on a tomb wrapped in a winding-sheet.—In the second cut, Death is also seen seated on a throne, with the same person apparently complaining against him, while a number of persons appear approaching sad and slow, to lay down the ensigns of their dignity at his feet.—In the third cut there are two figures of Death; one on foot mows down youths and maidens with a scythe, while another, mounted, is seen chasing a number of figures on horseback, at whom he at the same time discharges his arrows.—The fourth cut consists of two parts, the one above the other. In the upper part, Death appears seated on a throne, with a person before him in the act of complaining, as in the first and second cuts. In the lower part, to the left of the cut, is seen a convent, at the gate of which there are two persons in religious habits; to the right a garden is represented, in which are perceived a tree laden with fruit, a woman crowning an infant, and another woman conversing with a young man. In the space between the convent and the garden certain signs are engraved, which Camus thinks are intended to represent various branches of learning and science,—none of which can afford protection against death,—as they are treated of in the chapter which precedes the cut. In the fifth cut, Death and the Complainant are seen before Christ, who is seated on a throne with an angel on each side of him, under a canopy ornamented with stars. Although neither Heineken nor Camus give specimens of those cuts, nor speak of the style in which they are executed, it may be presumed that they are not superior either in design or engraving to those contained in the other tracts.
The text of the work is divided into thirty-four chapters, each of which, except the first, is preceded by a summary; and their numbers are printed in Roman characters. The initial letter of each chapter is red, and appears to have been formed by means of a stencil. The first chapter, which has neither title nor numeral, commences with the Complainant’s recital of his injuries; in the second, Death defends himself; in the third the Complainant resumes, in the fourth Death replies; and in this manner the work proceeds, the Complainant and Death speaking alternately through thirty-two chapters. In the thirty-third, God decides between the parties; and after a few common-place reflections and observations on the readiness of people to complain on all occasions, sentence is pronounced in these words: “The Complainant is condemned, and Death has gained the cause. Of right, the Life of every man is due to Death; to Earth his Body, and to Us his Soul.” In the thirty-fourth chapter, the Complainant, perceiving that he has lost his173suit, proceeds to pray to God on behalf of his deceased wife. In the summary prefixed to the chapter the reader is informed that he is now about to peruse a model of a prayer; and that the name of the Complainant is expressed by the large red letters which are to be found in the chapter. Accordingly, in the course of the chapter, six red letters, besides the initial at the beginning, occur at the commencement of so many different sentences. They are formed by means of a stencil, while the letters at the commencement of other similar sentences are printed black. Those red letters, including the initial at the beginning of the chapter, occur in the following order, IHESANW. Whether the name is expressed by them as they stand, or whether they are to be combined in some other manner, Camus will not venture to decide.IV.14From the prayer it appears that the name of the Complainant’s deceased wife was Margaret. In this singular composition, which in the summary is declared to be a model, the author, not forgetting the court language of his native country, calls the Almighty “the Elector who determines the choice of all Electors,” “Hoffmeister” of the court of Heaven, and “Herzog” of the Heavenly host. The text is in the German language, such as was spoken and written in the fifteenth century.
The German words “Hoffmeister” and “Herzog” appear extremely ridiculous in Camus’s French translation,—“le Maître-d’hôtel de la cour céleste,” and “le Grand-duc de l’armée céleste.” But this is clothing ancient and dignified German in modern French frippery. The word “Hoffmeister”—literally, “court-master or governor”—is used in modern German in nearly the same sense as the English word “steward;” and the governor or tutor of a young prince or nobleman is called by the same name. The word “Herzog”—the “Grand-duc” of Camus—in its original signification means the leader of a host or army. It is a German title of honour which defines its original meaning, and is in modern language synonymous with the English title “Duke.” The ancient German “Herzog” was a leader of hosts; the modern French “Grand-duc” is a clean-shaved gentleman in a court-dress, redolent of eau-de-Cologne, and bedizened with stars and strings. The two words are characteristic of the two languages.
The second work in the volume is the Histories of Joseph, Daniel, Judith, and Esther. It has no general frontispiece nor title; but each separate history commences with the words: “Here begins the history174of . . . .” in German. Each history forms a separate gathering, and the whole four are contained in sixty leaves, of which two, about the middle, are blank, although there is no appearance of any deficiency in the history. The text is accompanied with wood-cuts which are much less than those in the “Complaints against Death,” each occupying only the space of eleven lines in a page, which when full contains twenty-eight. The number of the cuts is sixty-one; but there are only fifty-five different subjects, four of them having been printed twice, and one thrice. Camus gives a specimen of one of the cuts, which represents the Jews of Bethuliah rejoicing and offering sacrifice on the return of Judith after she had cut off the head of Holofernes. It is certainly a very indifferent performance, both with respect to design and engraving; and from Camus’s remarks on the artist’s ignorance and want of taste it would appear that the others are no better. In one of them Haman is decorated with the collar of an order from which a cross is suspended; and in another Jacob is seen travelling to Egypt in a carriageIV.15drawn by two horses, which are harnessed according to the manner of the fifteenth century, and driven by a postilion seated on a saddle, and with his feet in stirrups. All the cuts in the “Four Histories” are coarsely coloured.
It is this work which Camus, in his title-page, professes to give an account of, although in his tract he describes the other two contained in the same volume with no less minuteness. He especially announced a notice of this work as “a book printed at Bamberg in 1462,” in consequence of its being the most important in the volume; for it contains not only the date and place, but also the printer’s name. In the book of Fables, printed with the same types at Bamberg in 1461, Pfister’s name does not appear.
The text of the “Four Histories” ends at the fourth line on the recto of the sixtieth leaf; and after a blank space equal to that of a line, thirteen lines succeed, forming the colophon, and containing the place, date, and printer’s name. Although those lines run continuously on, occupying the full width of the page as in prose, yet they consist of couplets in German rhyme. The end of each verse is marked with a point, and the first word of the succeeding one begins with a capital.175Camus has given a fac-simile of those lines, that he might at once present his readers with a specimen of the type and a copy of this colophon, so interesting to bibliographers as establishing the important fact in the history of printing, namely, that the art was practised beyond Mentz prior to 1462. The following copy, though not a fac-simile, is printed line for line from Camus.
Ein ittlich mensch von herzen gert . Das er wer weissund wol gelert . An meister un’ schrift das nit magsein . So kun’ wir all auch nit latein . Darauff hanich ein teil gedacht . Und vier historii zu samen pra-cht . Joseph daniel un’ auch judith . Und hester auchmit gutem sith. die vier het got in seiner hut . Als ernoch ye de’ guten thut . Dar durch wir pessern unserlebe’ . De’ puchlein ist sein ende gebe’ . Tʒu bamberghin der selbe’ stat . Das albrecht pfister gedrucket hatDo ma’ zalt tausent un’ vierhu’dert iar . Im zwei undsechzigste’ das ist war . Nit lang nach sand walpur-gen tag . Die uns wol gnad erberben mag . Frid un’das ewig lebe’ . Das wolle uns got alle’ gebe’ . Ame’.
The following is a translation of the above, in English couplets of similar rhythm and measure as the original:
With heart’s desire each man doth seekThat he were wise and learned eke:But books and teacher he doth need,And all men cannot Latin read.As on this subject oft I thought,These hist’ries four I therefore wrote;Of Joseph, Daniel, Judith too,And Esther eke, with purpose true:These four did God with bliss requite,As he doth all who act upright.That men may learn their lives to mendThis book at Bamberg here I end.In the same city, as I’ve hinted,It was by Albert Pfister printed,In th’ year of grace, I tell you true,A thousand four hundred and sixty-two;Soon after good St. Walburg’s day,Who well may aid us on our way,And help us to eternal bliss:God, of his mercy, grant us this. Amen.
With heart’s desire each man doth seek
That he were wise and learned eke:
But books and teacher he doth need,
And all men cannot Latin read.
As on this subject oft I thought,
These hist’ries four I therefore wrote;
Of Joseph, Daniel, Judith too,
And Esther eke, with purpose true:
These four did God with bliss requite,
As he doth all who act upright.
That men may learn their lives to mend
This book at Bamberg here I end.
In the same city, as I’ve hinted,
It was by Albert Pfister printed,
In th’ year of grace, I tell you true,
A thousand four hundred and sixty-two;
Soon after good St. Walburg’s day,
Who well may aid us on our way,
And help us to eternal bliss:
God, of his mercy, grant us this. Amen.
The third work contained in the volume described by Camus is an edition of the “Poor Preachers’ Bible,” with the text in German, and176printed on both sides. The number of the leaves is eighteen, of which only seventeen are printed; and as there is a “history” on each page, the total number in the work is thirty-four, each of which is illustrated with five cuts. The subjects of those cuts and their arrangement on the page is not precisely the same as in the earlier Latin editions; and as in the latter there are forty “histories,” six are wanting in the Bamberg edition, namely: 1. Christ in the garden; 2. The soldiers alarmed at the sepulchre; 3. The Last Judgment; 4. Hell; 5. The eternal Father receiving the righteous into his bosom; and 6. The crowning of the Saints. As the cuts illustrative of these subjects are the last in the Latin editions, it is possible that the Bamberg copy described by Camus might be defective; he, however, observes that there is no appearance of any leaves being wanting.IV.16In each page of the Bamberg edition the text is in two columns below the cuts, which are arranged in the following manner in the upper part of the page:
The following cuts are fac-similes of those given by Camus; and the numbers underneath each relate to their position in the preceding177example of their arrangement. In No. 1 the heads are intended for David and the author of the Book of Wisdom; in No. 2, for Isaiah and Ezekiel.
see text and captionNo. 1.see text and captionNo. 2.
see text and captionNo. 1.
see text and caption
No. 1.
see text and captionNo. 2.
see text and caption
No. 2.
The subject represented in the following cut, No. 3, forming the centre piece at the top in the arrangement of the original page, is Christ appearing to his disciples after his resurrection. The figure on the right of Christ is intended for St. Peter, and that on his left for St. John. I believe that in no wood-cut, ancient or modern, is Christ represented with so uncomely an aspect and so clumsy a figure.
see text and caption
No. 3.
The subject of No. 4 is Joseph making himself known to his brethren; from Genesis, chapterXLV.
see text and caption
No. 4.
In No. 5 the subject represented is the Prodigal Son received by his father; from St. Luke, chapterXV.Camus says that the cuts given by him were engraved on wood by Duplaa with the greatest exactitude from tracings of the originals by Dubrena.
see text and caption
No. 5.
Supposing that all the cuts in the four works, printed by Pfister and described in the preceding pages, were designed in a similar taste and executed in a similar manner to those of which specimens are given, the persons by whom they were engraved—for it is not likely that they were179all engraved by one man—must have had very little knowledge of the art. Looking merely at the manner in which they are engraved, without reference to the wretched drawing of the figures and want of “feeling” displayed in the general treatment of the subjects, a moderately apt lad, at the present day, generally will cut as well by the time that he has had a month or two’s practice. If those cuts were to be considered as fair specimens of wood engraving in Germany in 1462, it would be evident that the art was then declining; for none of the specimens that I have seen of the cuts printed by Pfister can bear a comparison with those contained in the early block-books, such as the Apocalypse, the History of the Virgin, or the early editions of the Poor Preachers’ Bible. To the cuts contained in the latter works they are decidedly inferior, both with respect to design and engraving. Even the earliest wood-cuts which are known,—for instance, the St. Christopher, the St. Bridget, and the Annunciation, in Earl Spencer’s collection,—are executed in a superior manner.
It would, however, be unfair to conclude that the cuts which appear in Pfister’s works were the best that were executed at that period. On the contrary, it is probable that they are the productions of persons who in their own age would be esteemed only as inferior artists. As the progress of typography was regarded with jealousy by the early wood engravers and block printers, who were apprehensive that it would ruin their trade, and as previous to the establishment of printing they were already formed into companies or fellowships, which were extremely sensitive on the subject of their exclusive rights, it is not unlikely that the earliest type-printers who adorned their books with wood-cuts would be obliged to have them executed by a person who was not professionally a wood engraver. It is only upon this supposition that we can account for the fact of the wood-cuts in the earliest books printed with type being so very inferior to those in the earliest block-books. This supposition is corroborated by the account which we have of the proceedings of the wood engravers of Augsburg shortly after type-printing was first established in that city. In 1471 they opposed Gunther Zainer’sIV.17admission to the privileges of a burgess, and endeavoured to prevent him printing wood engravings in his books.180Melchior Stamham, however, abbot of St. Ulric and Afra, a warm promoter of typography, interested himself on behalf of Zainer, and obtained an order from the magistracy that he and John Schussler—another printer whom the wood engravers had also objected to—should be allowed to follow without interruption their art of printing. They were, however, forbid to print initial letters from wood-blocks or to insert wood-cuts in their books, as this would be an infringement on the privileges of the fellowship of wood engravers. Subsequently the wood engravers came to an understanding with Zainer, and agreed that he should print as many initial letters and wood-cuts as he pleased, provided that they engraved them.IV.18Whether Schussler came to the same agreement or not is uncertain, as there is no book known to be printed by him of a later date than 1472. It is probable that he is the person,—named JohnSchüsslerin the memorandum printed by Zapf,—of whom Melchior de Stamham in that year bought five presses for the printing-office which he established in his convent of St. Ulric and St. Afra. To John Bämler, who at the same time carried on the business of a printer at Augsburg, no objection appears to have been made. As he was originally a “calligraphus” or ornamental writer, it is probable that he was a member of the wood engravers’ guild, and thus entitled to engrave and print his own works without interruption.
As it is probable that the wood-cuts which appear in books printed within the first thirty years from the establishment of typography at Mentz were intended to be coloured, this may in some degree account for the coarseness with which they are engraved; but as the wood-cuts in the earlier block-books were also intended to be coloured in a similar manner, the inferiority of the former can only be accounted for by supposing that the best wood engravers declined to assist in promoting what they would consider to be a rival art, and that the earlier printers would generally be obliged to have their cuts engraved by persons connected with their own establishments, and who had not by a regular course of apprenticeship acquired a knowledge of the art. About seventy or eighty years ago, and until a more recent period, many country printers in England used themselves to engrave such rude wood-cuts as they might occasionally want. A most extensive assortment of such wood-cuts belonged to the printing-office of the late Mr. George Angus of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, who used them as head-pieces and general illustrations to ballads and chap-books. A considerable number of them were cut with a penknife, on pear-tree wood, by an apprentice named Randell, who died about forty years ago.181Persons who are fond of a “rough harvest” of such modern-antiques are referred to the “Historical Delights,” the “History of Ripon,” and other works published by Thomas Gent at York about 1733.
Notwithstanding the rudeness with which the cuts are engraved in the four works printed by Pfister, yet from their number a considerable portion of time must have been occupied in their execution. In the “Four Histories” there are sixty-one cuts, which have been printed from fifty-five blocks. In the “Fables” there are one hundred and one cuts; in the “Complaints against Death,” five; and in the “Poor Preachers’ Bible,” one hundred and seventy, reckoning each subject separately. Supposing each cut in thethreelast works was printed from a separate block, the total number of blocks required for thefourwould be three hundred and thirty-one.IV.19Supposing that each cut on an average contained as much work as that which is numbered 4 in the preceding specimens—Joseph making himself known to his brethren—and supposing that the artist drew the subjects himself, the execution of those three hundred and thirty-one cuts would occupy one person for about two years and a half, allowing him to work three hundred days in each year. It is true that a modern wood engraver might finish more than three of such cuts in a week, yet I question if any one of the profession would complete the whole number, with his own hands, in less time than I have specified.
From the similarity between Pfister’s types and those with which a Bible without place or date is printed, several bibliographers have ascribed the latter work to his press. This Bible, which in the Royal Library at Paris is bound in three volumes folio, is the rarest of all editions of the Scriptures printed in Latin. Schelhorn, who wrote a dissertation on this edition, endeavoured to show that it was the first of the Bibles printed at Mentz, and that it was partly printed by Gutemberg and Faust previous to their separation, and finished by Faust and Scheffer in 1456.IV.20Lichtenberger, without expressly assenting to Schelhorn’s opinion, is inclined to think that it was printed at Mentz, and by Gutemberg. The reasons which he assigns, however, are not such as are likely to gain assent without a previous willingness to believe. He admits that Pfister’s types are similar to those of the Bible, though he says that the former are somewhat ruder.
Camus considers that the tracts unquestionably printed by Pfister throw considerable light on the question as to whom this Bible is to be ascribed. There are two specimens of this Bible, the one given by Masch in his Bibliotheca Sacra, and the other by Schelhorn, in a dissertation prefixed to Quirini’s account of the principal works printed at Rome. Camus, on comparing these specimens with the text of Pfister’s tracts, immediately perceived the most perfect resemblance between the characters; and on applying a tracing of the last thirteen lines of the “Four Histories” to the corresponding letters in Schelhorn’s specimen, he found that the characters exactly corresponded. This perfect identity induced him to believe that the Bible described by Schelhorn was printed with Pfister’s types. A correspondent in Meusel’s Magazine, No. VII. 1794, had previously advanced the same opinion; and he moreover thought that the Bible had been printed previous to the Fables dated 1461, because the characters of the Bible are cleaner, and appear as if they had been impressed from newer types than those of the Fables.IV.21In support of this opinion an extract is given, in the same magazine, from a curious manuscript of the date of 1459, and preserved in the library of Cracow. This manuscript is a kind of dictionary of arts and sciences, composed by Paul of Prague, doctor of medicine and philosophy, who, in his definition of the word “Libripagus,” gives a curious piece of information to the following effect. The barbarous Latin of the original passage, to which I shall have occasion to refer, will be found in the subjoined note.IV.22“He is an artist who dexterously cuts figures, letters, and whatever he pleases on plates of copper, of iron, of solid blocks of wood, and other materials, that he may print upon paper, on a wall, or on a clean board. He cuts whatever he pleases; and he proceeds in this manner with respect to pictures. In my time somebody of Bamberg cut the entire Bible upon plates; in four weeks he impressed the whole Bible, thus sculptured, upon thin parchment.”
Although I am of opinion that the weight of evidence is in favour of Pfister being the printer of the Bible in question, yet I cannot think that the arguments which have been adduced in his favour derive any additional support from this passage. The writer, like many other dictionary makers, both in ancient and modern times, has found it a more difficult matter to give a clear account of athingthan to find the183synonym of aword. But, notwithstanding his confused account, I think that I can perceive in it the “disjecta membra” of an ancient Formschneider and a Briefmaler, but no indication of a typographer.
In a jargon worthy of the “Epistolæ obscurorum virorum” he describes an artist, or rather an artizan, “sculpens subtiliter in laminibusIV.23[laminis] æreis, ferreis, ac ligneis solidi ligni, atque aliis, imagines, scripturam et omne quodlibet.” In this passage the business of the “Formschneider” may be clearly enough distinguished: he cuts figures and animals in plates of copper and iron;—but not in the manner of a modern copper-plate engraver; but in the manner in which a stenciller pierces his patterns. That this is the true meaning of the writer is evident from the context, wherein he informs us of the artist’s object in cutting such letters and figures, namely, “ut prius imprimat papyro aut parieti aut asseri mundo,”—that he may print upon paper, on a wall, or on a clean board. This is evidently descriptive of the practice of stencilling, and proves, if the manuscript be authentic, that the old “Briefmalers” were accustomed to “slapdash” walls as well as to engrave and colour cards. In the distinction which is made of the “laminibus ligneisligni solidi,” it is probable that the writer meant to specify the difference between cutting out letters and figures on thin plates of metal, and cuttinguponblocks of solid wood. When he speaks of a Bible being cut, at Bamberg, “super lamellas,” he most likely means a “Poor Preachers’ Bible,” engraved on blocks of wood. An impression of a hundred or more copies of such a work might easily enough be taken in a month when the blocks were all ready engraved; but we cannot suppose that the Bible ascribed to Pfister could be worked off in so short a time. This Bible consists of eight hundred and seventy leaves; and to print an edition of three hundred copies at the rate of three hundred sheets a day would require four hundred and fifty days. About three hundred copies of each work appears to have been the usual number which Sweinheim and Pannartz and Ulric Hahn printed, on the establishment of the art in Italy; and Philip de Lignamine in his chronicle mentions, under the year 1458, that Gutemberg and Faust, at Mentz, and Mentelin at Strasburg, printed three hundred sheets in a day.IV.24
Of Pfister nothing more is positively known than what the tracts printed by him afford; namely, that he dwelt at Bamberg, and exercised the business of a printer there in 1461 and 1462. He might indeed print there both before and after those years, but of this we have no direct184evidence. From 1462 to 1481 no book is known to have been printed at Bamberg. In the latter year, a press was established there by John Sensenschmidt of Egra, who had previously, that is from 1470, printed several works at Nuremberg.
Panzer, alluding to Pfister as the printer only of the Fables and of the tracts contained in the volume described by Camus, says that he can scarcely believe that he had a fixed residence at Bamberg; and that those tracts most likely proceeded from the press of a travelling printer.IV.25Several of the early printers, who commenced on their own account, on the dispersion of Faust and Scheffer’s workmen in 1462, were accustomed to travel with their small stock of materials from one place to another; sometimes finding employment in a monastery, and sometimes taking up their temporary abode in a small town; removing to another as soon as public curiosity was satisfied, and the demand for the productions of their press began to decline. As they seldom put their names, or that of the place, to the works which they printed, it is extremely difficult to decide on the locality or the date of many old books printed in Germany. It is very likely that they were their own letter-founders, and that they themselves engraved such wood-cuts as they might require. As their object was to gain money, it is not unlikely that they might occasionally sell a portion of their types to each other;IV.26or to a novice who wished to begin the business, or to a learned abbot who might be desirous of establishing an amateur press within the precinct of his monastery, where copies of the Facetiæ of Poggius might be multiplied as well as the works of St. Augustine. Although it has been asserted the monks regarded with jealousy the progress of printing, as if it were likely to make knowledge too cheap, and to interfere with a part of their business as transcribers of books, such does not appear to have been the fact. In every country in Europe we find them to have been the first to encourage and promote the new art; and the annals of typography most clearly show that the greater part of the books printed within the first thirty years from the time of Gutemberg and Faust’s partnership were chiefly for the use of the monks and the secular clergy.
From 1462 to 1467 there appears to have been no book printed containing wood-cuts. In the latter year Ulric Hahn, a German, printed at Rome a book entitled “Meditationes Johannis de Turrecremata,”IV.27which185contains wood-cuts engraved in simple outline in a coarse manner. The work is in folio, and consists of thirty-four leaves of stout paper, on which the water-mark is a hunter’s horn. The number of cuts is also thirty-four; and the following—the creation of animals—is a reduced copy of the first.
see text
The remainder of the cuts are executed in a similar style; and though designed with more spirit than those contained in Pfister’s tracts, yet it can scarcely be said that they are better engraved. The following is an enumeration of the subjects. 1. The Creation, as above represented. 2. The Almighty speaking to Adam. 3. Eve taking the apple. (From No. 3 the rest of the cuts are illustrative of the New Testament or of Ecclesiastical History.) 4. The Annunciation. 5. The Nativity. 6. Circumcision of Christ. 7. Adoration of the Magi. 8. Simeon’s Benediction. 9. The Flight into Egypt. 10. Christ disputing with the Doctors in the Temple. 11. Christ baptized. 12. The Temptation in the Wilderness. 13. The keys given to Peter. 14. The Transfiguration. 15. Christ washing the Apostles’ feet. 16. The Last Supper. 17. Christ betrayed by Judas. 18. Christ led before the High Priest. 19. The Crucifixion. 20. Mater Dolorosa. 21. The Descent into Hell. 22. The Resurrection. 23. Christ appearing to his Disciples. 24. The Ascension. 25. The feast of Pentecost 26. The Host borne by a bishop. 27. The mystery of the Trinity; Abraham sees three and adores one. 28. St. Dominic extended like the “Stam-Herr” or first ancestor in a pedigree, and sending forth186numerous branches as Popes, Cardinals, and Saints. 29. Christ appearing to St. Sixtus. 30. The Assumption of the Virgin. 31. Christ seated amidst a choir of Angels. 32. Christ seated at the Virgin’s right hand in the assembly of Saints. 33. The Office of Mass for the Dead. 34. The Last Judgment.
Zani says that those cuts were engraved by an Italian artist, but beyond his assertion there is no authority for the fact. It is most likely that they were cut by one of Hahn’s workmen, who could occasionally “turn his hand” to wood-engraving and type-founding, as well as compose and work at press; and it is most probable that Hahn’s workmen when he first established a press in Rome were Germans, and not Italians.
The second book printed in Italy with wood-cuts is the “Editio Princeps” of the treatise of R. Valturius de Re Militari, which appeared at Verona from the press of “Johannes de Verona,” son of Nicholas the surgeon, and master of the art of printing.IV.28This work is dedicated by the author to Sigismund Malatesta, lord of Rimini, who is styled in pompous phrase, “Splendidissimum Arminensium Regem ac Imperatorem semper invictum.” The work, however, must have been written several years before it was printed, for Baluze transcribed from a MS. dated 1463 a letter written in the name of Malatesta, and sent by the author with a copy of his work to the Sultan Mahomet II. The bearer of this letter was the painter Matteo Pasti, a friend of the author, who visited Constantinople at the Sultan’s request in order that he might paint his portrait. It is said that the cuts in this work were designed by Pasti; and it is very probable that he might make the drawings in Malatesta’s own copy, from which it is likely that the book was printed. As Valturius has mentioned Pasti as being eminently skilful in the arts of Painting, Sculpture, andEngraving,IV.29Maffei has conjectured,—and Mr. Ottley adds, “with some appearance of probability,”—that the cuts in question were executed by his hand. If such were the fact, it only could be regretted that an artist so eminent should have mis-spent his time in a manner so unworthy of his reputation; for, allowing that a considerable degree of talent is displayed in many of the designs, there is nothing in the engraving, as they are mere outlines, but what might be cut by a novice. There is not, however, the slightest reasonable ground to suppose that those engravings were cut by Matteo Pasti, for I believe that he died before printing was introduced into Italy; and it surely would be187presuming beyond the verge of probability to assert that they might be engraved in anticipation of the art being introduced, and of the book being printed at some time or other, when the blocks would be all ready engraved, in a simple style of art indeed, but with a master’s hand. A master-sculptor’s hand, however, is not very easily distinguished in the mere rough-dressing of a block of sandstone, which any country mason’s apprentice might do as well. It is very questionable if Matteo Pasti was an engraver in the present sense of the word; the engraving meant by Valturius was probably that of gold and silver vessels and ornaments; but not the engraving of plates of copper or other metal for the purpose of being printed.
Several of those cuts occupy an entire folio page, though the greater number are of smaller size. They chiefly represent warlike engines, which display considerable mechanical skill on the part of the contriver; modes of attack and defence both by land and water, with various contrivances for passing a river which is not fordable, by means of rafts, inflated bladders, and floating bridges. In some of them inventions may be noticed which are generally ascribed to a later period: such as a boat with paddle-wheels, which are put in motion by a kind of crank; a gun with a stock, fired from the shoulder; and a bomb-shell. It has frequently been asserted that hand-guns were first introduced about the beginning of the sixteenth century, yet the figure of one in the work of Valturius makes it evident that they were known some time before. It is also likely that the drawing was made and the description written at least ten years before the book was printed. It has also been generally asserted that bomb-shells were first used by Charles VIII. of France when besieging Naples in 1495. Valturius, however, in treating of cannon, ascribes the invention to Malatesta.IV.30Gibbon, in chapter lxviii. of his History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, notices this cut of a bomb-shell. His reference is to the second edition of the work, in Italian, printed also at Verona by Bonin de Bononis in 1483, with the same cuts as the first edition in Latin.IV.31The two following cuts are fac-similes of the bomb-shell and the hand-gun, as represented in the edition of 1472. The figure armed with the gun,—a portion of a188large cut,—is firing from a kind of floating battery; and in the original two figures armed with similar weapons are stationed immediately above him.
see text
The following fac-simile of a cut representing a man shooting with a cross-bow is the best in the book. The drawing of the figure is good, and the attitude graceful and natural. The figure, indeed, is not only the best in the work of Valturius, but is one of the best, so far as respects the drawing, that is to be met with in any book printed in the fifteenth century.
see text
The practice of introducing wood-cuts into printed books seems to have been first generally adopted at Augsburg, where Gunther Zainer, in 1471, printed a German translation of the “Legenda Sanctorum” with figures of the saints coarsely engraved on wood. This, I believe, is the first book, after Pfister’s tracts, printed in Germany with wood-cuts and containing a date. In 1472 he printed a second volume of the same work, and an edition of the book entitled “Belial,”IV.32both containing wood-cuts. Several other works printed by him between 1471 and 1475 are illustrated in a similar manner. Zainer’s example was followed at Augsburg by his contemporaries John Bämler and John Schussler;189and by them, and Anthony Sorg, who first began to print there about 1475, more books with wood-cuts were printed in that city previous to 1480 than at any other place within the same period. In 1477 the first German Bible with wood-cuts was printed by Sorg, who printed another edition with the same cuts and initial letters in 1480. In 1483 he printed an account of the Council of Constance held in 1431, with upwards of a thousand wood-cuts of figures and of the arms of the principal persons both lay and spiritual who attended the council. Upon this work Gebhard, in his Genealogical History of the Heritable States of the German Empire, makes the following observations:—“The first printed collection of arms is that of 1483 in the History of the Council of Constance written by Ulrich Reichenthal. To this council we are indebted accidentally for the collection. From the thirteenth century it was customary to hang up the shields of noble and honourable persons deceased in churches; and subsequently the practice was introduced of painting them upon the walls, or of placing them in the windows in stained glass. A similar custom prevailed at the Council of Constance; for every person of consideration who attended190had his arms painted on the wall in front of his chamber; and thus Reichenthal, who caused those arms to be copied and engraved on wood, was enabled to give in his history the first general collection of coat-armour which had appeared; as eminent persons from all the Catholic states of Europe attended this council.”IV.33
The practice of introducing wood-cuts became in a few years general throughout Germany. In 1473, John Zainer of Reutlingen, who is said to have been the brother of Gunther, printed an edition of Boccacio’s work “De mulieribus claris,” with wood-cuts, at Ulm. In 1474 the first edition of Werner Rolewinck de Laer’s chronicle, entitled “Fasciculus Temporum,” was printed with wood-cuts by Arnold Ther-Hoernen at Cologne; and in 1476 an edition of the same work, also with wood-cuts, was printed at Louvain by John Veldener, who previously had been a printer at Cologne. In another edition of the same work printed by Veldener at Utrecht in 1480, the first page is surrounded with a border of foliage and flowers cut on wood; and another page, about the middle of the volume, is ornamented in a similar manner. These are the earliest instances of ornamental borders from wood-blocks which I have observed. About the beginning of the sixteenth century title-pages surrounded with ornamental borders are frequent. From the name of those borders,Rahmen, the German wood engravers of that period are sometimes calledRahmenschneiders. Prosper Marchand, in his “Dictionnaire Historique,” tom. ii. p. 156, has stated that Erhard Ratdolt, a native of Augsburg, who began to print at Venice about 1475, was the first printer who introduced flowered initial letters, and vignettes—meaning by the latter term wood-cuts; but his information is scarcely correct. Wood-cuts—without reference to Pfister’s tracts, which were not known when Marchand wrote—were introduced at Augsburg six years before Ratdolt and his partnersIV.34printed at Venice in 1476 the “Calendarium Joannis Regiomontani,” the work to which Marchand alludes. It may be true that he introduced a new kind of initial letters ornamented with flowers in this work, but much more beautiful initial letters had appeared long before in the Psalter, in the “Durandi Rationale,” and the “Donatus” printed by Faust and Scheffer. The first person who mentions Ratdolt as the inventor of “florentes litteræ,” so named from the flowers with which they are intermixed, is Maittaire, in his Annales Typographici, tom. i. part i. p. 53.
In 1483 Veldener,IV.35as has been previously observed at page 106, printed at Culemburg an edition in small quarto of the Speculum Salvationis, with the same blocks as had been used in the earlier folio editions, which are so confidently ascribed to Lawrence Coster. In Veldener’s edition each of the large blocks, consisting of two compartments, is sawn in two in order to adapt them to a smaller page. A German translation of the Speculum, with wood-cuts, was printed at Basle, in folio, in 1476; and Jansen says that the first book printed in France with wood-cuts was an edition of the Speculum, at Lyons, in 1478; and that the second was a translation of the book named “Belial,” printed at the same place in 1482.
The first printed book in the English language that contains wood-cuts is the second edition of Caxton’s “Game and Playe of the Chesse,” a small folio, without date or place, but generally supposed to have been printed about 1476.IV.36The first edition of the same work, without cuts, was printed in 1474. On the blank leaves at the end of a copy of the first edition in the King’s Library, at the British Museum, there is written in a contemporary hand a list of the bannerets and knightsIV.37made at the battle of “Stooke by syde newerke apon trent the xvi day of june the iideyer of harry the vii.” that is, in 1487. In this battle Martin Swart was killed. He commanded the Flemings, who were sent by the Duchess of Burgundy to assist Lambert Simnel. It was at the request of the duchess, who was Edward the Fourth’s sister, that Caxton translated the “Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye,” the first book printed in the English language, and which appeared at Cologne in 1471 or 1472.
In Dr. Dibdin’s edition of Ames’s Typographical Antiquities there is a “Description of the Pieces and Pawns” in the second edition of Caxton’s Chess; which description is said to be illustrated with facsimile192wood-cuts. There are indeed fac-similes of some of the figures given, but not of the wood-cuts generally; for in almost every cut given by Dr. Dibdin the back-ground of the original is omitted. In the description of the first fac-simile there is also an error: it is said to be “thefirstcut in the work,” while in fact it is thesecond. The following I believe to be a correct list of these first fruits of English wood-engraving.
1. An executioner with an axe cutting to pieces, on a block, the limbs of a man. On the head, which is lying on the ground, there is a crown. Birds are seen seizing and flying away with portions of the limbs. There are buildings in the distance, and three figures, one of whom is a king with a crown and sceptre, appear looking on. 2. A figure sitting at a table, with a chess-board before him, and holding one of the chess-men in his hand. This is the cut which Dr. Dibdin says is the first in the book. 3. A king and another person playing at chess. 4. The king at chess, seated on a throne. 5. The king and queen. 6. The “alphyns,” now called “bishops” in the game of chess, “in the maner of judges sittyng.” 7. The knight. 8. The “rook,” or castle, a figure on horseback wearing a hood and holding a staff in his hand. From No. 9 to No. 15 inclusive, the pawns are thus represented. 9. Labourers and workmen, the principal figure representing the first pawn, with a spade in his right hand and a cart-whip in his left. 10. The second pawn, a smith with his buttriss in the string of his apron, and a hammer in his right hand. 11. The third pawn, represented as aclerk, that is a writer or transcriber, in the same sense as Peter Scheffer and Ulric Zell are styledclerici, with his case of writing materials at his girdle, a pair of shears in one hand, and a large knife in the other. The knife, which has a large curved blade, appears more fit for a butcher’s chopper than to make or mend pens. 12. The fourth pawn, a man with a pair of scales, and having a purse at his girdle, representing “marchauntes or chaungers.” 13. The fifth pawn, a figure seated on a chair, having in his right hand a book, and in his left a sort of casket or box of ointments, representing a physician, spicer, or apothecary. 14. The sixth pawn, an innkeeper, receiving a guest. 15. The seventh pawn, a figure with a yard measure in his right hand, a bunch of keys in his left, and an open purse at his girdle, representing “customers and tolle gaderers.” 16. The eighth pawn, a figure with a sort of badge on his breast near to his right shoulder, after the manner of a nobleman’s retainer, and holding a pair of dice in his left hand, representing dice-players, messengers, and “currours,” that is “couriers.” In old authors the numerous idle retainers of the nobility are frequently represented as gamblers, swash-bucklers, and tavern-haunters.
Although there are twenty-four impressions in the volume, yet there are only sixteen subjects, as described above; the remaining eight being193repetitions of the cuts numbered 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 10, with two impressions of the cut No. 2, besides that towards the commencement.
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The above cut is a reduced copy of the knight, No. 7; and his character is thus described: “The knyght ought to be maad al armed upon an hors in suche wise that he have an helme on his heed and a spere in his right hond, and coverid with his shelde, a swerde and a mace on his left syde . clad with an halberke and plates tofore his breste . legge harnoys on his legges . spores on his heelis, on hys handes hys gauntelettes . hys hors wel broken and taught and apte to bataylle and coveryd with hys armes. When the Knyghtes been maad they ben bayned or bathed . That is the signe that they sholde lede a newe lyf and newe maners . also they wake alle the nyght in prayers and orisons unto god that he wil geve hem grace that they may gete that thyng that they may not gete by nature. The kyng or prynce gyrdeth a boute them a swerde in signe that they shold abyde and kepen hym of whom they taken their dispences and dignyte.”
The following cut of the sixth or bishop’s pawn, No. 14, “whiche is lykened to taverners and vytayllers,” is thus described in Caxton’s own words: “The sixte pawn whiche stondeth before the alphyn on the lyfte syde is made in this forme . ffor hit is a man that hath the right hond stretched out for to calle men, and holdeth in his left honde a loof of breed and a cuppe of wyn . and on his gurdel hangyng a bondel of keyes, and this resemblith the taverners hostelers and sellars of vytayl . and194these ought properly to be sette to fore the alphyn as to fore a juge, for there sourdeth oft tymes amonge hem contencion noyse and stryf, which behoveth to be determyned and trayted by the alphyn which is juge of the kynge.”
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The next book containing wood-cuts printed by Caxton is the “Mirrour of the World, or thymage of the same,” as he entitles it at the head of the table of contents. It is a thin folio consisting of one hundred leaves; and, in the Prologue, Caxton informs the reader that it “conteyneth in all lxvii chapitres and xxvii figures, without which it may not lightly be understāde.” He also says that he translated it from the French at the “request, desire, coste, and dispense of the honourable and worshipful man Hugh Bryce, alderman cytezeyn of London,” who intended to present the same to William, Lord Hastings, chamberlain to Edward IV, and lieutenant of the same for the town of Calais and the marches there. On the last page he again mentions Hugh Bryce and Lord Hastings, and says of his translation: “Whiche book I begun first to trāslate the second day of Janyuer the yere of our lordM.cccc.lxxx. And fynysshed the viii day of Marche the same yere, and the xxi yere of the reign of the most crysten kynge, Kynge Edward the fourthe.”IV.38
The “xxvii figures” mentioned by Caxton, without which the work might not be easily understood, are chiefly diagrams explanatory of the principles of astronomy and dialling; but besides those twenty-seven cuts the book contains eleven more, which may be considered as illustrative rather than explanatory. The following is a list of those eleven cuts in the order in which they occur. They are less than the cuts in the “Game of Chess;” the most of them not exceeding three inches and a half by three.IV.39
1. A school-master or “doctor,” gowned, and seated on a high-backed chair, teaching four youths who are on their knees. 2. A person seated on a low-backed chair, holding in his hand a kind of globe; astronomical instruments on a table before him. 3. Christ, or the Godhead, holding in his hand a ball and cross. 4. The creation of Eve, who appears coming out of Adam’s side.—The next cuts are figurative of the “seven arts liberal.” 5. Grammar. A teacher with a large birch-rod seated on a chair, his four pupils before him on their knees. 6. Logic. Figure bare-headed seated on a chair, and having before him a book on a kind of reading-stand, which he appears expounding to his pupils who are kneeling. 7. Rhetoric. An upright figure in a gown, to whom another, kneeling, presents a paper, from which a seal is seen depending. 8. Arithmetic. A figure seated, and having before him a tablet inscribed with numerical characters. 9. Geometry. A figure standing, with a pair of compasses in his hand, with which he seems to be drawing diagrams on a table. 10. Music. A female figure with a sheet of music in her hand, singing, and a man playing on the English flute. 11. Astronomy. Figure with a kind of quadrant in his hand, who seems to be taking an observation.—An idea may be formed of the manner in which those cuts are engraved from the fac-simile on the next page of No. 10, “Music.”
There are wood-cuts in the Golden Legend, 1483; the Fables of Esop, 1484; Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, and other books printed by Caxton; but it is unnecessary either to enumerate them or to give specimens, as they are all executed in the same rude manner as the cuts in the Book of Chess and the Mirror of the World. In the Book of Hunting and Hawking printed at St. Albans, 1486, there are rude wood-cuts; as also in a second and enlarged edition of the same book printed by Wynkyn de Worde, Caxton’s successor, at Westminster in 1496. The most considerable wood-cut printed in England previous to 1500 is, so far as regards the design, a representation of the Crucifixion at the end of the Golden Legend printed by Wynkyn de Worde in1961493.IV.40In this cut, neither of the thieves on each side of Christ appears to be nailed to the cross. The arms of the thief on the right of Christ hang behind, and are bound to the transverse piece of the cross, which passes underneath his shoulders. His feet are neither bound nor nailed to the cross. The feet of the thief to the left of Christ are tied to the upright piece of the cross, to which his hands are also bound, his shoulders resting upon the top, and his face turned upward towards the sky. To the left is seen the Virgin,—who has fallen down,—supported by St. John. In the back-ground to the right, the artist, like several others of that period, has represented Christ bearing his cross.
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Dr. Dibdin, at page 8 of the “Disquisition on the Early State of Engraving and Ornamental Printing in Great Britain,” prefixed to Ames’s and Herbert’s Typographical Antiquities, makes the following observations on this cut: “The ‘Crucifixion’ at the end of the ‘Golden Legend’ of 1493, which Wynkyn de Worde has so frequently subjoined to his religious pieces, is, unquestionably, the effort of some ingenious foreign artist. It is not very improbable that Rubens had a recollection of one of the thieves, twisted, from convulsive agony, round the top of the cross, when he executed his celebrated picture of the same subject.”IV.41197In De Worde’s cut, however, it is to be remarked that the contorted attitude of both the thieves results rather from the manner in which they are bound to the cross, than from the convulsions of agony.