see textsee textsee textIn the next cut Cupid appears piercing the sky with a dart, and thus causing a shower of gold to fall. The figures represent persons of all conditions whom he has wounded, looking on with amazement.223The three preceding cuts, in the original work, appear as compartments from left to right on one block. They are here given separate for the convenience of printing, as the page is not wide enough to allow of their being placed as in the original folio.see textThe subjoined cut is intended to represent Autumn, according to a description of the figure in the text, where the author is speaking of an altar to be erected to the four seasons. On one of the sides he proposes that the following figure should be represented “with a jolly countenance, crowned with vine leaves, holding in one hand a bunch of grapes, and in the other a cornucopia, with an inscription: ‘Mustulento Autumno S.’”IV.62The face of jolly Autumn is indeed like that of one who loved new wine, and his body seems like an ample skin to keep the liquor in;—Sir John Falstaff playing Bacchus ere he had grown old and inordinately fat.224see textThe following figure of Cupid is copied from the top of a fanciful military standard described by the author; and on a kind of banner beneath the figure is inscribed the word “ΔΟΡΙΚΤΗΤΟΙ”—“Gained in war.”The following is a specimen of one of the ornamental vases contained in the work. It is not, like the five preceding cuts, of the same size as the original, but is copied on a reduced scale.see textThe simple style in which the cuts in the Hypnerotomachia are engraved, continued to prevail, with certain modifications, in Italy for many years after the method of cross-hatching became general in Germany; and from 1500 to about 1530 the characteristic of most Italian wood-cuts is the simple manner in which they are executed compared with the more laboured productions of the German wood engravers. While the German proceeds with considerable labour to obtain “colour,” or shade, by means of cross-hatching, the Italian in the early part of the sixteenth century endeavours to attain his object by easier means, such as leaving his lines thicker in certain parts, and in others, indicating shade by means of short slanting parallel lines. In the execution of flowered or ornamented initial letters a decided difference may frequently be noticed between the work of an Italian and a German artist. The German mostly, with considerable trouble, cuts his flourishes, figures, and flowers in relief, according to the general practice of wood engravers; the Italian, on the contrary, often cuts them, with much greater ease, inintaglio; and thus the form of the letter, and its ornaments, appear, when printed, white upon a black ground.IV.63The letter C at the commencement of the present chapter is an example of the German style, with the ornamental parts inrelief; the letter M at the commencement of chapterV.is a specimen of the manner frequently adopted by old Italian wood engravers, the form of the letter and the ornamental foliage being cut inintaglio. At a subsequent period a more elaborate manner of engraving began to prevail in Italy, and cross-hatching was almost as generally employed to obtain depth of colour and shade as in Germany. The wood-cuts which appear in works printed at Venice between 1550 and 1570 are generally as good as most German wood-cuts of the same period; and225many of them, more especially those in books printed by the Giolitos, are executed with a clearness and delicacy which have seldom been surpassed.Before concluding the present chapter, which is more especially devoted to the consideration of wood engraving in the first period of its connexion with typography, it may not be improper to take a brief glance at the state of the art as practised by the Briefmalers and Formschneiders of Germany, who were the first to introduce the practice of block-printing, and who continued to exercise this branch of their art for many years after typography had been generally established throughout Europe. That the ancient wood engravers continued to practise the art of block-printing till towards the close of the fifteenth century, there can be little doubt. There is an edition of the Poor Preachers’ Bible, with the date 1470, printed from wood-blocks, without place or engraver’s name, but having at the end, as a mark, two shields, on one of which is a squirrel, and on the other something like two pilgrim’s staves crossed. Another edition of the same work, though not from the same blocks, appeared in 1471. In this the engraver’s mark is two shields, on one of which is a spur, probably a rebus for the name of “Sporer;” in the same manner that a pair of folding-doors represented the name “Thurer,” or “Durer.” An engraver of the name of Hans Sporer printed an edition of the Ars Moriendi from wood-blocks in 1473; and in the preceding year Young Hans, Briefmaler, of Nuremberg, printed an edition of the Antichrist in the same manner.IV.64It is probable that most of the single sheets and short tracts, printed from wood-blocks, preserved in the libraries of Germany, were printed between 1440 and 1480. Books consisting of two or more sheets printed from wood-blocks are of rare occurrence with a date subsequent to 1480. Although about that period the wood engravers appear to have resigned the printing of books entirely to typographers, yet for several years afterwards they continued to print broadsides from blocks of wood; and until about 1500 they continued to compete with the press for the printing of “Wand-Kalendars,” or sheet Almanacks to be hung up against a wall. Several copies of such Almanacks, engraved between 1470 and 1500, are preserved in libraries on the Continent that are rich in specimens of early block-printing. But even this branch of their business the wood engravers were at length obliged to abandon; and at the end of the fifteenth century the practice of printing pages of text from engraved wood-blocks may be considered as almost extinct in Germany. It probably began with a single sheet, and with a226single sheet it ended; and its origin, perfection, decline, and extinction are comprised within a century. 1430 may mark its origin; 1450 its perfection; 1460 the commencement of its decline; and 1500 its fall.In an assemblage of wood engravings printed at Gotha between 1808 and 1816,IV.65from old blocks collected by the Baron Von Derschau, there are several to which the editor, Zacharias Becker, assigns an earlier date than the year 1500. It is not unlikely that two or three of those in his oldest class, A, may have been executed previous to that period; but there are others in which bad drawing and rude engraving have been mistaken for indubitable proofs of antiquity. There are also two or three in the same class which I strongly suspect to be modern forgeries. It would appear from a circumstance mentioned in Dr. Dibdin’s Bibliographical Tour,IV.66and referred to at page 236 of the present work, that the Baron was a person from whose collection copper-plate engravings of questionable date had proceeded as well as wood-blocks. The following is a reduced copy of one of those suspicious blocks, but which the editor considers to be of an earlier date than the St. Christopher in the collection of Earl Spencer. I am however of opinion that it is of comparatively modern manufacture.see textThe inscription, intended for old German, at the bottom of the cut, is literally as follows: “Hiet uch, vor den Katczen dy vorn lecken unde227hinden kraiczen”—that is: “Beware of the cats that lick before and scratch behind.” It is rather singular that the editor—who describes the subject as a cat which appears to teach her kitten “le Jeu de Souris”—should not have informed his readers that more was meant by this inscription than met the eye, and that it was in fact part of a German proverb descriptive of a class of females who are particularly dangerous to simple young men.IV.67Among the cuts supposed to have been engraved previous to the year 1500, another is given which I suspect also of being a forgery, and by the same person that engraved the cat. The cut alluded to represents a woman sitting beside a young man, whose purse she is seen picking while she appears to fondle him. A hawk is seen behind the woman, and an ape behind the man. At one side is a lily, above which are the words “Ich wart.” At the top of the cut is an inscription,—which seems, like that in the cut of the cat, to be in affectedly old German,—describing the young man as a prey for hawks and a fool, and the woman as a flatterer, who will fawn upon him until she has emptied his pouch. The subjects of those two cuts, though not apparently, are, in reality, connected. In the first we are presented with the warning, and in the latter with the example. Von Murr—whom Dr. Dibdin suspects to have forged the French St. Christopher—describes in his Journal impressions from those blocks as old wood-cuts in the collection of Dr. Silberrad;IV.68and it is certainly very singular that the identical blocks from which Dr. Silberrad’s scarce old wood engravings were taken should afterwards happen to be discovered and come into the possession of the Baron Von Derschau.In the same work there is a rude wood-cut of St. Catharine and three other saints; and at the back of the block there is also engraved the figure of a soldier. At the bottom of the cut of St. Catharine, the name of the engraver, “Jorg Glockendon,” appears in old German characters. As “Glockendon” or “Glockenton” was the name of a family of artists who appear to have been settled at Nuremberg early in the fifteenth century, Becker concludes that the cut in question was engraved prior to 1482, and that this “Jorg Glockendon” was “the first wood engraver known by name, and not John Schnitzer of Arnsheim,—who engraved the maps in Leonard Holl’s Ptolemy, printed in the above year,—as Heineken and others pretend.” That the cut was engraved previous to 1482 rests merely on Becker’s conjecture; and a person who would assert that it was engraved ten or fifteen years later, would perhaps be nearer the truth. John Schnitzer, however, is not the first wood engraver known by name. The name of Hans Sporer appears in the Ars Moriendi of 1473; and it is not probable that Hartlieb’s228Chiromantia, in which we find the name “Jorg Schapff zu Augspurg,” was engraved subsequent to 1480. It would appear that Becker did not consider “Hans Briefmaler,” who occurs as a wood engraver between 1470 and 1480, as a person “known by name,” though it is probable that he had no other surname than that which was derived from his profession.see textAlthough Derschau’s collection contains a number of old cuts which are well worth preserving, more especially among those executed in the sixteenth century; yet it also contains a large portion of worthless cuts, which are neither interesting from their subjects nor their antiquity, and which throw no light on the progress of the art. There are also not a few modern antiques which are only illustrative of the credulity of the collector, who mistakes rudeness of execution for a certain test of antiquity. According to this test the following cut ought to be ascribed to the age of Caxton, and published with a long commentary as an undoubted specimen of early English wood engraving. It is however nothing more than an impression from a block engraved with a pen-knife by a printer’s apprentice between 1770 and 1780. It was one of the numerous cuts of a similar kind belonging to the late Mr. George Angus of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, who used them as head-pieces to chap-books and broadside histories and ballads.Besides the smaller block-books, almanacks, and broadsides of text, executed by wood engravers between 1460 and 1500, they also executed a number of single cuts, some accompanied with a few sentences of229text also cut in wood, and others containing only figures. Many of the sacred subjects were probably executed for convents in honour of a favourite saint; while others were engraved by them on their own account for sale among the poorer classes of the people, who had neither the means to purchase, nor the ability to read, a large “picture-book” which contained a considerable portion of explanatory text. In almost every one of the works executed by the Briefmalers and Formschneiders subsequent to the invention of typography, there is scarcely a single cut to be found that possesses the least merit either in design or execution. They appear generally to have been mere workmen, who could draw and engrave figures on wood in a rude style, but who had not the slightest pretensions to a knowledge of art.Having now brought the history of wood engraving to the end of the fifteenth century, I shall here conclude the present chapter, without expressly noticing such works of Albert Durer as were certainly engraved on wood previous to the year 1500. The designs of this great promoter of wood engraving mark an epoch in the progress of the art; and will, with others of the same school, more appropriately form the subject of the next chapter.see textIV.1By the common press only one side of a sheet can be printed at once. The reiteration is the second printing of the same sheet on the blank side. Thus in the Psalter of 1457 every sheet containing letters of two colours on each side would have to pass six times through the press. It was probably in consequence of printing so much in red and black that the early printers used to employ so many presses. Melchior de Stamham, abbot of St. Ulric and St. Afra at Augsburg, and who established a printing-office within that monastery, about 1472, bought five presses of John Schüssler; a considerable number for what may be considered an amateur establishment. He also had two others made by Sixtus Saurloch.—Zapf, Annales Typographicæ Augustanæ, p. xxiv.IV.2Heineken in his Nachrichten, T. I. S. 108, also states that Meydenbach came from Strasburg with Gutemberg. Oberlin however observes, “Je ne sais où de Heinecke a trouvè que ce Meydenbach est venu en 1444 avec Gutenberg à Mayence.” Heineken says, “In der Nachricht von Strassburg findet man dass ein gewisser Meydenbach 1444 nach Maynz gezogen,” and refers to Fournier, p. 40. Dissert sur l’Orig. de l’Imprimerie primitive.IV.3An edition of the Hortus Sanitatis with wood-cuts was printed at Mentz, byJacobus Meydenbach, in 1491.IV.4Idée Générale, p. 286.IV.5Scheffer previous to his connexion with Faust was a “clericus,”—not aclerkas distinguished from a layman, but a writer or scribe. A specimen of his “set-hand,” writtenatParis in 1449, is given by Schœpflin in his Vindiciæ Typographicæ. Several of the earliest printers were writers or illuminators; among whom may be mentioned John Mentelin of Strasburg, John Baemler of Augsburg, Ulric Zell of Cologne, and Colard Mansion of Bruges.IV.6This is intimated in the colophon, which, with the contracted words written at length, is as follows: “Presens Spalmorum codex venustate capitalium decoratus Rubricationibusque sufficienter distinctus. Adinventione artificiosa imprimendi ac caracterizandi absque calami ulla exaracione sic effigiatus. Et ad eusebiam dei industrie est consummatus. Per Johannem Fust, Civem maguntinum. Et Petrum Schoffer de Gernzheim, Anno domini Millesimo. cccc. lvii. In vigilia Assumpcionis.” In the second edition the mis-spelling, “Spalmorum” for “Psalmorum,” is corrected.IV.7It is to be observed that in Savage’s copy the perpendicular flourishes are given horizontally, above and below the letter, in order to save room. In a copy of the edition of 1459, in the King’s Library, part of the lower flourish has not been inked, as it would have interfered with the letter Q at the commencement of the second psalm “Quare fremuerunt gentes.” Traces of the flourish where not coloured may be observed impressed in the vellum.IV.8The following passage occurs in the colophon of two works printed by John Scheffer at Mentz in 1515 and 1516; the one being the “Trithemii Breviarium Historiæ Francorum,” and the other “Breviarium Ecclesiæ Mindensis:” “Retinuerunt autem hi duo jam prænominati,Johannes Fust et Petrus Scheffer, hanc artem in secreto, (omnibus ministris et familiaribus eorum, ne illam quoquo modo manifestarent, jure jurando adstrictis :) quæ tandem anno DominiM.CCCC.LXII.per eosdem familiares in diversas terrarum provincias divulgata, haud parvum sumpsit incrementum.”IV.9St. Walburg’s day is on the 25th of February; though her feast is also held both on the 1st of May and on the 12th of October. The eve of her feast on the 1st of May is more particularly celebrated; and it is then that the witches and warlocks of Germany hold their annual meeting on the Brocken. St. Walburg, though born of royal parents in Saxony, was yet educated in England, at the convent of Wimborn in Dorsetshire, of which she became afterwards abbess, and where she died in 779.IV.10A mournful account of the expulsion of the inhabitants and the plundering of the city is given by Trithemius at page 30 of his “Res Gestæ Frederici Palatini,” published with notes by Marquard Freher, at Heidelberg, 4to. 1603.IV.11Under the title of “Notice d’un Livre imprimé à Bamberg enCIↃCCCCLXII.lue à l’Institut National, par Camus.” 4to. Paris, AnVII.[1800.]IV.12The copy of those fables belonging to the Wolfenbuttel Library, and which is the only one known, was taken away by the French and placed in the National Library at Paris, but was restored on the surrender of Paris in 1815.IV.13Idée Générale, p. 276. Dr. Dibdin in his Bibliographical Tour says that this work “is entitled by Camus theAllegory of Death.” This is a mistake; for Camus, who objects to this title,—which was given to it by Heineken,—always refers to the book under the title of “Les Plaintes contre la Mort.”IV.14“Outre la lettre initiale, on remarque, dans le cours du chapitre, six lettres rouges non imprimées, mais peintes à la plaque, qui commencent six phrases diverses. Les lettres initiales des autres phrases du même chapitre sont imprimées en noir. Les lettres rouges sont IHESANW. Doit-on les assembler dans l’ordre où elles sont placées, ou bien doivent-elles recevoir un autre arrangement? Je ne prends pas sur moi de le décider.”—Camus, Notice, p. 6.IV.15Camus calls it a “voiture,” but I question if such a carriage was known in 1462; and am inclined to think that he has converted a kind of light waggon into a modern “voiture.” A light sort of waggon, called by Stow a “Wherlicote,” was used in England by the mother of Richard the Second in the manner of a modern coach. I have noticed in an old wood-cut a light travelling waggon, drawn by what is called a “unicorn team” of three horses; that is, one as a “leader,” and two “wheelers,” with the driver riding on the “near side” wheeler. This cut is in the Bagford collection in the British Museum, and is one of a series of ninety subjects from the Old and New Testament which have been cut out of a book. A manuscript note in German states that they are by Michael Wolgemuth, and printed in 1491. In no wood-cut executed previous to 1500 have I seen a vehicle like a modern French voiture.IV.16The copy of the Bamberg edition in the Wolfenbuttel Library, seen and described by Heineken, Idée Générale, pp. 327-329, contained only twenty-six “histories,” or general subjects.IV.17Gunther Zainer was a native of Reutlingen, in Wirtemberg, and was the first printer in Germany who used Roman characters,—in an edition of “Isidori Episcopi Hispalensis Etymologia,” printed by him in 1472. He first began to print at Augsburg in 1468. In 1472 he printed a German translation of the book entitled “Belial,” with wood-cuts. A Latin edition of this book was printed by Schussler in the same year. Von Murr says that Schussler printed another edition of “Belial” in 1477; but this would seem to be a mistake, for Veith asserts in his “Diatribe de Origine et Incrementis Artis Typographicæ in urbe Augusta Vindelica,” prefixed to Zapf’s “Annales,” that Schussler only printed in the years 1470, 1471, and 1472.IV.18Von Murr, Journal, 2 Theil, S. 144.—Zapf, Buchdruckergeschichte von Augsburg, 1 Band.IV.19Lichtenberger, in his Initia Typographica, referring to Sprenger’s History of Printing at Bamberg, says that, besides those four, five other tracts are printed with Pfister’s types, of which three contain wood-cuts. One of those three, however, a “Poor Preachers’ Bible,” with the text in Latin, has the same cuts as the “Poor Preachers’ Bible” with the text in German. Only one of those other five works contains the place and date.IV.20De Antiquissima Latinorum Bibliorum editione . . . . Jo. Georgii Schelhorn Diatribe. Ulmæ, 4to. 1760.IV.21Dr. Dibdin says that a copy of this Bible, which formerly belonged to the Earl of Oxford, and is now in the Royal Library at Paris, contains “an undoubted coeval MS. date, in red ink, of 1461.”—Bibliog. Tour, vol. ii p. 108. Second edition.IV.22“Libripagus est artifex sculpens subtiliter in laminibus æreis, ferreis, ac ligneis solidi ligni, atque aliis, imagines, scripturam et omne quodlibet, ut prius imprimat papyro aut parieti aut asseri mundo. Scindit omne quod cupit, et est homo faciens talia cum picturis; et tempore mei Bambergæ quidam sculpsit integram bibliam super lamellas, et in quatuor septimanis totam bibliam in pergameno subtili præsignavit sculpturam.”IV.23In 1793, a learned doctor of divinity of Cambridge is said in a like manner to have broken Priscian’s head with “paginibus.” An epigram on this “blunderbus” is to be found in the “Gradus ad Cantabrigiam.”IV.24Lichtenberger, Initia Typographica, p. 51.IV.25“Opuscula quæ typis mandavit typographus hic, hactenus ignotus, ad litteraturam Teutonicam pertinent. Imprimis Pfisterum hunc Bambergæ fixam habuisse sedem vix crediderim. Videntur potius hi libri Teutonici monumenta transeuntis typographi.”—Annal. Typogr. tom. i. p. 142, cited by Camus.IV.26Breitkopf, Ueber Bibliographie, S. 25. 4to. Leipzig, 1793.IV.27The following is the title at length as it is printed, in red letters, underneath the first cut: “Meditationes Reverē dissimi patris dñi Johannis de turre cremata sacros͞ce Romane eccl’ie cardinalis posite & depicte de ipsius mādato ī eccl’ie ambitu Marie de Minerva. Rome.” The book is described in Von Murr’s Memorabilia Bibliothecar. Publicar. Norimbergensium and in Dibdin’s Ædes Althorpianæ, vol. ii. p. 273, with specimens of the cuts.IV.28The following is a copy of the colophon: “Johannes ex verona oriundus: Nicolai cyrurgie medici filius: Artis impressorie magister: hunc de re militari librum elegantissimum: litteris et figuratis signis sua in patria primus impressit. An.MCCCCLXXII.”IV.29“Valturius speaks of Pasti in one of his letters as being eminently skilful in the arts of Painting, Sculpture, and Engraving.”—Ottley, Inquiry, p. 257.IV.30“Inventum est quoque alterum machinæ hujusce tuum Sigismonde Panpulfe [Malatesta]: qua pilæ æneæ tormentarii pulveris plenæ cum fungi aridi fomite urientis emittuntur.”—We hence learn that the first bomb-shells were made of copper, and that the fuzee was a piece of a dried fungus. As the first edition has neither numerals nor signatures, I cannot refer to the page in which the above passage is to be found. It is, however, opposite to the cut in which the bomb-shell appears, and that is about the middle of the volume.IV.31“Robert Valturio published at Verona, in 1483, his twelve books de Re Militari, in which he first mentions the use of bombs. By his patron Sigismond Malatesti, Prince of Rimini, it had been addressed with a Latin epistle to Mahomet II.”—Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chap. lxviii., note.IV.32Von Murr says that the person who engraved the cuts for this book also engraved the cuts in a German edition of the Speculum without date, but printed at Augsburg, and dedicated to John [von Giltingen] abbot of the monastery of St. Ulric and St. Afra, who was chosen to that office in 1482. Heineken supposed that the person to whom the book was dedicated was John von Hohenstein, but he resigned the office of abbot in 1459; and the book was certainly not printed at that period.—See Heineken, Idée Gén. p. 466; and Von Murr, Journal, 2 Theil, S. 145.IV.33L. A. Gebhard, Genealogische Geschichte, 1 Theil, Vorrede, S. 11. Cited by Veith in his “Diatribe,” prefixed to Zapf’s “Annales Typographiæ Augustanæ.”IV.34The following colophon to an edition of Appian informs us that his partners were Bernard the painter and Peter Loslein, who also acted as corrector of the press: “Impressum est hoc opus Venetiis per Bernardū pictorem & Erhardum ratdolt de Augusta una cum Petro Loslein de Langenzen correctore ac socio. Laus Deo.MCCCCLXXVII.”IV.35Veldener at the conclusion of a book printed by him in 1476, containing “Epistolares quasdam formulas,” thus informs the reader of his name and qualifications: “Accipito huic artifici nomen esse magistro Johanni Veldener, cui quidem certa manu insculpendi, celandi, intorculandi, caracterandi adsit industria; adde et figurandi et effigiendi.” That is, his name was John Veldener; he could engrave, could work both at press and case, and moreover he knew something of sculpture, and could paint a little.IV.36Heineken, Idée Gén. p. 207, erroneously states that the first book with wood-cuts printed in England was the Golden Legend, by Caxton, in 1483. It is probable that the second edition of the Game of Chess preceded it by seven years, and it certainly was printed after the Mirror of the World.IV.37The following are some of the names as they are written: “S gilbert talbott . S John cheiny . S williā stoner . Theis iij wer made byfore the bataile, and after the bataile were made the same day : Sr.John of Arundell . Thomas Cooksey . John forteskew . Edmond benyngfeld . james blount . ric . of Croffte . Geofrey Stanley . ric . delaber . John mortymer . williā troutbeke.” The above appear to have been createdBannerets, for after them follows a list of “Knyghtesmade at the same bataile.” It is likely that the owner of the volume was at the battle, and that the names were written immediately after.IV.38Edward IV. began to reign 4th March 1461; the twenty-first year of his reign would consequently commence on 4th March 1481; Caxton’s dates therefore do not agree, unless we suppose that he reckoned the commencement of the year from 21st March. If so, his date viii March 1480, and the xxi year of the reign of Edward IV. would agree; and the year of Christ, according to our present mode of reckoning, would be 1481. Dr. Dibdin assigns to the Mirror the date 1481.—Typ. Ant. i. p. 100.IV.39Fac-similes of six of those cuts are given in Dr. Dibdin’s edition of Ames’s Typographical Antiquities, vol. i. p. 110-112.IV.40A large flowered letter, a T, cut on wood, occurs on the same page as the Crucifixion.IV.41In a note upon this passage Dr. Dibdin gives the following extract from Sir Joshua Reynolds. “To give animation to this subject, Rubens has chosen the point of time when an executioner is piercing the side of Christ, while another with a bar of iron is breaking the limbs of one of the malefactors, who in his convulsive agony, which his body admirably expresses, has torn one of his feet from the tree to which it was nailed. The expression in the action of the figure is wonderful.”IV.42A copy of this cut is given at p. 186, vol. i. of Dr. Dibdin’s edition of the Typographical Antiquities.IV.43Arnsheim, which is probably the place intended, is about twenty miles to the south-west of Mentz.IV.44“Magister vero Conradus Suueynheyn, Germanus, a quo formandorum Romæ librorum ars primum profecta est, occasione hinc sumpta posteritati consulens animum ad hanc doctrinam capessendam applicuit. Subinde mathematicis adhibitis viris quemadmodum tabulis eneis imprimerentur edocuit, triennioque in hac cura consumpto diem obiit. In cujus vigilarum laborumque partem non inferiori ingenio ac studio Arnoldus Buckinck e Germania vir apprime eruditus ad imperfectum opus succedens, ne Domitii Conradique obitu eorum vigiliæ emendationesque sine testimonio perirent neve virorum eruditorum censuram fugerent immensæ subtilitatis machinimenta, examussim ad unum perfecit.”—Dedication to the Pope, of Ptolemy’s Cosmography, Rome, 1478.IV.45This is Mr. Ottley’s measurement, taken within the black line which bounds the subject. The width as given by Mercier does not accord with the above. He says that the plate “a neuf pouces et demi de haut sur six de large.”IV.46Mr. Ottley says, “on the reverse of signature N viij.”IV.47“Lettres de M. l’Abbé de St. L***, [St. Léger, autrefois le pere Le Mercier, ancien Bibliothecaire de St. Genevieve] à M. le Baron de H*** sur différentes Editions rares du XVe. Siécle,” p. 4-5. 8vo. Paris, 1783. A short biographic sketch of the Abbé Mercier St. Léger, one of the most eminent French Bibliographers of the last century, will be found in Dr. Dibdin’s Tour, vol. ii. p. 180.IV.48I regret that I have not had an opportunity of personally examining this map. There is a copy of Schott’s edition in the British Museum; but all the maps, except one of the sphere, are taken out. The above account of the map of Loraine is from Breitkopf’s interesting essay “Ueber den Druck der Geographischen Charten,” S. 7. 4to. Leipzig, 1777.IV.49The following particulars respecting Breitkopf’s invention are derived from his essay “Ueber den Druck der Geographischen Charten,” previously referred to.IV.50An edition of this work in German, with the same cuts, was printed by Reuwich in 1488. Within ten years, at least six different editions of this work were printed in Germany. It was also translated into Low Dutch, and printed in Holland.IV.51This is probably the first figure of the giraffe that was communicated to the “reading public” of Europe. Its existence was afterwards denied by several naturalists; and it is only within a comparatively recent period that the existence of such an animal was clearly established.IV.52A good specimen of early French wood engraving may be seen in the large cut forming a kind of frontispiece to the “Roman du Roy Artus,” folio, printed at Rouen in 1488 by Jehan de Bourgeois. This cut, which occupies the whole page, represents King Arthur and his knights dining off the round table. A smaller one occurs at the beginning of the second part, and both are surrounded by ornamental borders.IV.53Hist. de l’Imprimerie, p. 49.IV.54The expression “adhibitis tamen viris mathematicis” in the Nuremberg Chronicle, is evidently borrowed from that,—“subinde mathematicis adhibitis viris,”—in the dedication of Bukinck’s Ptolemy, 1478, to the Pope. “Mathematical men,” in the present sense of the term, might be required to construct the maps in the edition of Ptolemy, but scarcely to design or engrave the vulgar figures and worthless views in the Nuremberg Chronicle.IV.55In the original, this cut, with one of Christ’s side pierced by a soldier, and another of Moses striking the rock, are intended to illustrate the mystery of the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper.IV.56Mr. Ottley in speaking of an edition of the Metamorphoses printed at Venice in 1509, with wood-cuts, mentions one of them as representing the “Birth of Hercules,” which is probably treated in a manner similar to those above noticed. Mr. Ottley also states that he had discovered the artist to be Benedetto Montagna, who also engraved on copper.—Inquiry, vol. ii p. 576.IV.57Bibliographers and booksellers in their catalogues specify with delight such copies as contain “la figura rappresentante il Sacrifizio à Priapo bene conservata,” for in some copies this choice subject is wanting, and in others partially defaced.IV.58Some account of the Hypnerotomachia and its author is to be found in Prosper Marchand’s Dictionnaire Historique.IV.59In the life of Colonna in the Biographie Universelle, the last word is said to be “adamavit,” which is a mistake. The word formed by the initial letters of the nine last chapters is “peramavit,” as above.IV.60Heineken, in his catalogue of Raffaele’s works, mentions the cuts in the Hypnerotomachia, but he says that it is questionable whether he designed them all or only the eighty-six mythological and historical subjects.—Nachrichten von Künstlern und Kunst-Sachen, 2er Theil, S. 360. 8vo. Leipzig, 1769.IV.61The author thus names his hero in his Italian title: “Poliphiloincomincia la sua hypnerotomachia ad descrivere et l’hora et il tempo quando gli appar ve in somno, &c.”IV.62The epithets applied to the different seasons as represented on this votive altar are singularly beautiful and appropriate: “Florido Veri; Flavæ Messi; Mustulento Autumno; Hyemi Æoliæ, Sacrum.”IV.63The letter M at the commencement of the next chapter affords an example of this style of engraving.IV.64Von Murr says that “Young Hans” was unquestionably the son of “Hans Formschneider,” whose name appears in the town-books of Nuremberg from 1449 to 1490. He also thinks that he might be the same person as Hans Sporer.—Journal, 2 Theil, S. 140, 141.IV.65The title of this work is: “Holzschnitte alter Deutscher Meister in den Original-Platten gesammelt von Hans Albrecht Von Derschau. Als ein Beytrag zur Kunstgeschichte herausgegeben, und mit einer Abhandlung über die Holzschneidekunst begleitet, von Rudolph Zacharias Becker.” It is in large folio, with the text in German and French. The first part was published at Gotha in 1808; the second in 1810; and the third in 1816.IV.66Vol. iii. p. 445, edit. 1829.IV.67“Huren sind böse katzen die vornen lecken und hinten kratzen.”IV.68Journal zur Kunstgeschichte, 2er Theil, S. 125, 126.
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In the next cut Cupid appears piercing the sky with a dart, and thus causing a shower of gold to fall. The figures represent persons of all conditions whom he has wounded, looking on with amazement.
The three preceding cuts, in the original work, appear as compartments from left to right on one block. They are here given separate for the convenience of printing, as the page is not wide enough to allow of their being placed as in the original folio.
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The subjoined cut is intended to represent Autumn, according to a description of the figure in the text, where the author is speaking of an altar to be erected to the four seasons. On one of the sides he proposes that the following figure should be represented “with a jolly countenance, crowned with vine leaves, holding in one hand a bunch of grapes, and in the other a cornucopia, with an inscription: ‘Mustulento Autumno S.’”IV.62The face of jolly Autumn is indeed like that of one who loved new wine, and his body seems like an ample skin to keep the liquor in;—Sir John Falstaff playing Bacchus ere he had grown old and inordinately fat.
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The following figure of Cupid is copied from the top of a fanciful military standard described by the author; and on a kind of banner beneath the figure is inscribed the word “ΔΟΡΙΚΤΗΤΟΙ”—“Gained in war.”
The following is a specimen of one of the ornamental vases contained in the work. It is not, like the five preceding cuts, of the same size as the original, but is copied on a reduced scale.
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The simple style in which the cuts in the Hypnerotomachia are engraved, continued to prevail, with certain modifications, in Italy for many years after the method of cross-hatching became general in Germany; and from 1500 to about 1530 the characteristic of most Italian wood-cuts is the simple manner in which they are executed compared with the more laboured productions of the German wood engravers. While the German proceeds with considerable labour to obtain “colour,” or shade, by means of cross-hatching, the Italian in the early part of the sixteenth century endeavours to attain his object by easier means, such as leaving his lines thicker in certain parts, and in others, indicating shade by means of short slanting parallel lines. In the execution of flowered or ornamented initial letters a decided difference may frequently be noticed between the work of an Italian and a German artist. The German mostly, with considerable trouble, cuts his flourishes, figures, and flowers in relief, according to the general practice of wood engravers; the Italian, on the contrary, often cuts them, with much greater ease, inintaglio; and thus the form of the letter, and its ornaments, appear, when printed, white upon a black ground.IV.63The letter C at the commencement of the present chapter is an example of the German style, with the ornamental parts inrelief; the letter M at the commencement of chapterV.is a specimen of the manner frequently adopted by old Italian wood engravers, the form of the letter and the ornamental foliage being cut inintaglio. At a subsequent period a more elaborate manner of engraving began to prevail in Italy, and cross-hatching was almost as generally employed to obtain depth of colour and shade as in Germany. The wood-cuts which appear in works printed at Venice between 1550 and 1570 are generally as good as most German wood-cuts of the same period; and225many of them, more especially those in books printed by the Giolitos, are executed with a clearness and delicacy which have seldom been surpassed.
Before concluding the present chapter, which is more especially devoted to the consideration of wood engraving in the first period of its connexion with typography, it may not be improper to take a brief glance at the state of the art as practised by the Briefmalers and Formschneiders of Germany, who were the first to introduce the practice of block-printing, and who continued to exercise this branch of their art for many years after typography had been generally established throughout Europe. That the ancient wood engravers continued to practise the art of block-printing till towards the close of the fifteenth century, there can be little doubt. There is an edition of the Poor Preachers’ Bible, with the date 1470, printed from wood-blocks, without place or engraver’s name, but having at the end, as a mark, two shields, on one of which is a squirrel, and on the other something like two pilgrim’s staves crossed. Another edition of the same work, though not from the same blocks, appeared in 1471. In this the engraver’s mark is two shields, on one of which is a spur, probably a rebus for the name of “Sporer;” in the same manner that a pair of folding-doors represented the name “Thurer,” or “Durer.” An engraver of the name of Hans Sporer printed an edition of the Ars Moriendi from wood-blocks in 1473; and in the preceding year Young Hans, Briefmaler, of Nuremberg, printed an edition of the Antichrist in the same manner.IV.64
It is probable that most of the single sheets and short tracts, printed from wood-blocks, preserved in the libraries of Germany, were printed between 1440 and 1480. Books consisting of two or more sheets printed from wood-blocks are of rare occurrence with a date subsequent to 1480. Although about that period the wood engravers appear to have resigned the printing of books entirely to typographers, yet for several years afterwards they continued to print broadsides from blocks of wood; and until about 1500 they continued to compete with the press for the printing of “Wand-Kalendars,” or sheet Almanacks to be hung up against a wall. Several copies of such Almanacks, engraved between 1470 and 1500, are preserved in libraries on the Continent that are rich in specimens of early block-printing. But even this branch of their business the wood engravers were at length obliged to abandon; and at the end of the fifteenth century the practice of printing pages of text from engraved wood-blocks may be considered as almost extinct in Germany. It probably began with a single sheet, and with a226single sheet it ended; and its origin, perfection, decline, and extinction are comprised within a century. 1430 may mark its origin; 1450 its perfection; 1460 the commencement of its decline; and 1500 its fall.
In an assemblage of wood engravings printed at Gotha between 1808 and 1816,IV.65from old blocks collected by the Baron Von Derschau, there are several to which the editor, Zacharias Becker, assigns an earlier date than the year 1500. It is not unlikely that two or three of those in his oldest class, A, may have been executed previous to that period; but there are others in which bad drawing and rude engraving have been mistaken for indubitable proofs of antiquity. There are also two or three in the same class which I strongly suspect to be modern forgeries. It would appear from a circumstance mentioned in Dr. Dibdin’s Bibliographical Tour,IV.66and referred to at page 236 of the present work, that the Baron was a person from whose collection copper-plate engravings of questionable date had proceeded as well as wood-blocks. The following is a reduced copy of one of those suspicious blocks, but which the editor considers to be of an earlier date than the St. Christopher in the collection of Earl Spencer. I am however of opinion that it is of comparatively modern manufacture.
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The inscription, intended for old German, at the bottom of the cut, is literally as follows: “Hiet uch, vor den Katczen dy vorn lecken unde227hinden kraiczen”—that is: “Beware of the cats that lick before and scratch behind.” It is rather singular that the editor—who describes the subject as a cat which appears to teach her kitten “le Jeu de Souris”—should not have informed his readers that more was meant by this inscription than met the eye, and that it was in fact part of a German proverb descriptive of a class of females who are particularly dangerous to simple young men.IV.67Among the cuts supposed to have been engraved previous to the year 1500, another is given which I suspect also of being a forgery, and by the same person that engraved the cat. The cut alluded to represents a woman sitting beside a young man, whose purse she is seen picking while she appears to fondle him. A hawk is seen behind the woman, and an ape behind the man. At one side is a lily, above which are the words “Ich wart.” At the top of the cut is an inscription,—which seems, like that in the cut of the cat, to be in affectedly old German,—describing the young man as a prey for hawks and a fool, and the woman as a flatterer, who will fawn upon him until she has emptied his pouch. The subjects of those two cuts, though not apparently, are, in reality, connected. In the first we are presented with the warning, and in the latter with the example. Von Murr—whom Dr. Dibdin suspects to have forged the French St. Christopher—describes in his Journal impressions from those blocks as old wood-cuts in the collection of Dr. Silberrad;IV.68and it is certainly very singular that the identical blocks from which Dr. Silberrad’s scarce old wood engravings were taken should afterwards happen to be discovered and come into the possession of the Baron Von Derschau.
In the same work there is a rude wood-cut of St. Catharine and three other saints; and at the back of the block there is also engraved the figure of a soldier. At the bottom of the cut of St. Catharine, the name of the engraver, “Jorg Glockendon,” appears in old German characters. As “Glockendon” or “Glockenton” was the name of a family of artists who appear to have been settled at Nuremberg early in the fifteenth century, Becker concludes that the cut in question was engraved prior to 1482, and that this “Jorg Glockendon” was “the first wood engraver known by name, and not John Schnitzer of Arnsheim,—who engraved the maps in Leonard Holl’s Ptolemy, printed in the above year,—as Heineken and others pretend.” That the cut was engraved previous to 1482 rests merely on Becker’s conjecture; and a person who would assert that it was engraved ten or fifteen years later, would perhaps be nearer the truth. John Schnitzer, however, is not the first wood engraver known by name. The name of Hans Sporer appears in the Ars Moriendi of 1473; and it is not probable that Hartlieb’s228Chiromantia, in which we find the name “Jorg Schapff zu Augspurg,” was engraved subsequent to 1480. It would appear that Becker did not consider “Hans Briefmaler,” who occurs as a wood engraver between 1470 and 1480, as a person “known by name,” though it is probable that he had no other surname than that which was derived from his profession.
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Although Derschau’s collection contains a number of old cuts which are well worth preserving, more especially among those executed in the sixteenth century; yet it also contains a large portion of worthless cuts, which are neither interesting from their subjects nor their antiquity, and which throw no light on the progress of the art. There are also not a few modern antiques which are only illustrative of the credulity of the collector, who mistakes rudeness of execution for a certain test of antiquity. According to this test the following cut ought to be ascribed to the age of Caxton, and published with a long commentary as an undoubted specimen of early English wood engraving. It is however nothing more than an impression from a block engraved with a pen-knife by a printer’s apprentice between 1770 and 1780. It was one of the numerous cuts of a similar kind belonging to the late Mr. George Angus of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, who used them as head-pieces to chap-books and broadside histories and ballads.
Besides the smaller block-books, almanacks, and broadsides of text, executed by wood engravers between 1460 and 1500, they also executed a number of single cuts, some accompanied with a few sentences of229text also cut in wood, and others containing only figures. Many of the sacred subjects were probably executed for convents in honour of a favourite saint; while others were engraved by them on their own account for sale among the poorer classes of the people, who had neither the means to purchase, nor the ability to read, a large “picture-book” which contained a considerable portion of explanatory text. In almost every one of the works executed by the Briefmalers and Formschneiders subsequent to the invention of typography, there is scarcely a single cut to be found that possesses the least merit either in design or execution. They appear generally to have been mere workmen, who could draw and engrave figures on wood in a rude style, but who had not the slightest pretensions to a knowledge of art.
Having now brought the history of wood engraving to the end of the fifteenth century, I shall here conclude the present chapter, without expressly noticing such works of Albert Durer as were certainly engraved on wood previous to the year 1500. The designs of this great promoter of wood engraving mark an epoch in the progress of the art; and will, with others of the same school, more appropriately form the subject of the next chapter.
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IV.1By the common press only one side of a sheet can be printed at once. The reiteration is the second printing of the same sheet on the blank side. Thus in the Psalter of 1457 every sheet containing letters of two colours on each side would have to pass six times through the press. It was probably in consequence of printing so much in red and black that the early printers used to employ so many presses. Melchior de Stamham, abbot of St. Ulric and St. Afra at Augsburg, and who established a printing-office within that monastery, about 1472, bought five presses of John Schüssler; a considerable number for what may be considered an amateur establishment. He also had two others made by Sixtus Saurloch.—Zapf, Annales Typographicæ Augustanæ, p. xxiv.IV.2Heineken in his Nachrichten, T. I. S. 108, also states that Meydenbach came from Strasburg with Gutemberg. Oberlin however observes, “Je ne sais où de Heinecke a trouvè que ce Meydenbach est venu en 1444 avec Gutenberg à Mayence.” Heineken says, “In der Nachricht von Strassburg findet man dass ein gewisser Meydenbach 1444 nach Maynz gezogen,” and refers to Fournier, p. 40. Dissert sur l’Orig. de l’Imprimerie primitive.IV.3An edition of the Hortus Sanitatis with wood-cuts was printed at Mentz, byJacobus Meydenbach, in 1491.IV.4Idée Générale, p. 286.IV.5Scheffer previous to his connexion with Faust was a “clericus,”—not aclerkas distinguished from a layman, but a writer or scribe. A specimen of his “set-hand,” writtenatParis in 1449, is given by Schœpflin in his Vindiciæ Typographicæ. Several of the earliest printers were writers or illuminators; among whom may be mentioned John Mentelin of Strasburg, John Baemler of Augsburg, Ulric Zell of Cologne, and Colard Mansion of Bruges.IV.6This is intimated in the colophon, which, with the contracted words written at length, is as follows: “Presens Spalmorum codex venustate capitalium decoratus Rubricationibusque sufficienter distinctus. Adinventione artificiosa imprimendi ac caracterizandi absque calami ulla exaracione sic effigiatus. Et ad eusebiam dei industrie est consummatus. Per Johannem Fust, Civem maguntinum. Et Petrum Schoffer de Gernzheim, Anno domini Millesimo. cccc. lvii. In vigilia Assumpcionis.” In the second edition the mis-spelling, “Spalmorum” for “Psalmorum,” is corrected.IV.7It is to be observed that in Savage’s copy the perpendicular flourishes are given horizontally, above and below the letter, in order to save room. In a copy of the edition of 1459, in the King’s Library, part of the lower flourish has not been inked, as it would have interfered with the letter Q at the commencement of the second psalm “Quare fremuerunt gentes.” Traces of the flourish where not coloured may be observed impressed in the vellum.IV.8The following passage occurs in the colophon of two works printed by John Scheffer at Mentz in 1515 and 1516; the one being the “Trithemii Breviarium Historiæ Francorum,” and the other “Breviarium Ecclesiæ Mindensis:” “Retinuerunt autem hi duo jam prænominati,Johannes Fust et Petrus Scheffer, hanc artem in secreto, (omnibus ministris et familiaribus eorum, ne illam quoquo modo manifestarent, jure jurando adstrictis :) quæ tandem anno DominiM.CCCC.LXII.per eosdem familiares in diversas terrarum provincias divulgata, haud parvum sumpsit incrementum.”IV.9St. Walburg’s day is on the 25th of February; though her feast is also held both on the 1st of May and on the 12th of October. The eve of her feast on the 1st of May is more particularly celebrated; and it is then that the witches and warlocks of Germany hold their annual meeting on the Brocken. St. Walburg, though born of royal parents in Saxony, was yet educated in England, at the convent of Wimborn in Dorsetshire, of which she became afterwards abbess, and where she died in 779.IV.10A mournful account of the expulsion of the inhabitants and the plundering of the city is given by Trithemius at page 30 of his “Res Gestæ Frederici Palatini,” published with notes by Marquard Freher, at Heidelberg, 4to. 1603.IV.11Under the title of “Notice d’un Livre imprimé à Bamberg enCIↃCCCCLXII.lue à l’Institut National, par Camus.” 4to. Paris, AnVII.[1800.]IV.12The copy of those fables belonging to the Wolfenbuttel Library, and which is the only one known, was taken away by the French and placed in the National Library at Paris, but was restored on the surrender of Paris in 1815.IV.13Idée Générale, p. 276. Dr. Dibdin in his Bibliographical Tour says that this work “is entitled by Camus theAllegory of Death.” This is a mistake; for Camus, who objects to this title,—which was given to it by Heineken,—always refers to the book under the title of “Les Plaintes contre la Mort.”IV.14“Outre la lettre initiale, on remarque, dans le cours du chapitre, six lettres rouges non imprimées, mais peintes à la plaque, qui commencent six phrases diverses. Les lettres initiales des autres phrases du même chapitre sont imprimées en noir. Les lettres rouges sont IHESANW. Doit-on les assembler dans l’ordre où elles sont placées, ou bien doivent-elles recevoir un autre arrangement? Je ne prends pas sur moi de le décider.”—Camus, Notice, p. 6.IV.15Camus calls it a “voiture,” but I question if such a carriage was known in 1462; and am inclined to think that he has converted a kind of light waggon into a modern “voiture.” A light sort of waggon, called by Stow a “Wherlicote,” was used in England by the mother of Richard the Second in the manner of a modern coach. I have noticed in an old wood-cut a light travelling waggon, drawn by what is called a “unicorn team” of three horses; that is, one as a “leader,” and two “wheelers,” with the driver riding on the “near side” wheeler. This cut is in the Bagford collection in the British Museum, and is one of a series of ninety subjects from the Old and New Testament which have been cut out of a book. A manuscript note in German states that they are by Michael Wolgemuth, and printed in 1491. In no wood-cut executed previous to 1500 have I seen a vehicle like a modern French voiture.IV.16The copy of the Bamberg edition in the Wolfenbuttel Library, seen and described by Heineken, Idée Générale, pp. 327-329, contained only twenty-six “histories,” or general subjects.IV.17Gunther Zainer was a native of Reutlingen, in Wirtemberg, and was the first printer in Germany who used Roman characters,—in an edition of “Isidori Episcopi Hispalensis Etymologia,” printed by him in 1472. He first began to print at Augsburg in 1468. In 1472 he printed a German translation of the book entitled “Belial,” with wood-cuts. A Latin edition of this book was printed by Schussler in the same year. Von Murr says that Schussler printed another edition of “Belial” in 1477; but this would seem to be a mistake, for Veith asserts in his “Diatribe de Origine et Incrementis Artis Typographicæ in urbe Augusta Vindelica,” prefixed to Zapf’s “Annales,” that Schussler only printed in the years 1470, 1471, and 1472.IV.18Von Murr, Journal, 2 Theil, S. 144.—Zapf, Buchdruckergeschichte von Augsburg, 1 Band.IV.19Lichtenberger, in his Initia Typographica, referring to Sprenger’s History of Printing at Bamberg, says that, besides those four, five other tracts are printed with Pfister’s types, of which three contain wood-cuts. One of those three, however, a “Poor Preachers’ Bible,” with the text in Latin, has the same cuts as the “Poor Preachers’ Bible” with the text in German. Only one of those other five works contains the place and date.IV.20De Antiquissima Latinorum Bibliorum editione . . . . Jo. Georgii Schelhorn Diatribe. Ulmæ, 4to. 1760.IV.21Dr. Dibdin says that a copy of this Bible, which formerly belonged to the Earl of Oxford, and is now in the Royal Library at Paris, contains “an undoubted coeval MS. date, in red ink, of 1461.”—Bibliog. Tour, vol. ii p. 108. Second edition.IV.22“Libripagus est artifex sculpens subtiliter in laminibus æreis, ferreis, ac ligneis solidi ligni, atque aliis, imagines, scripturam et omne quodlibet, ut prius imprimat papyro aut parieti aut asseri mundo. Scindit omne quod cupit, et est homo faciens talia cum picturis; et tempore mei Bambergæ quidam sculpsit integram bibliam super lamellas, et in quatuor septimanis totam bibliam in pergameno subtili præsignavit sculpturam.”IV.23In 1793, a learned doctor of divinity of Cambridge is said in a like manner to have broken Priscian’s head with “paginibus.” An epigram on this “blunderbus” is to be found in the “Gradus ad Cantabrigiam.”IV.24Lichtenberger, Initia Typographica, p. 51.IV.25“Opuscula quæ typis mandavit typographus hic, hactenus ignotus, ad litteraturam Teutonicam pertinent. Imprimis Pfisterum hunc Bambergæ fixam habuisse sedem vix crediderim. Videntur potius hi libri Teutonici monumenta transeuntis typographi.”—Annal. Typogr. tom. i. p. 142, cited by Camus.IV.26Breitkopf, Ueber Bibliographie, S. 25. 4to. Leipzig, 1793.IV.27The following is the title at length as it is printed, in red letters, underneath the first cut: “Meditationes Reverē dissimi patris dñi Johannis de turre cremata sacros͞ce Romane eccl’ie cardinalis posite & depicte de ipsius mādato ī eccl’ie ambitu Marie de Minerva. Rome.” The book is described in Von Murr’s Memorabilia Bibliothecar. Publicar. Norimbergensium and in Dibdin’s Ædes Althorpianæ, vol. ii. p. 273, with specimens of the cuts.IV.28The following is a copy of the colophon: “Johannes ex verona oriundus: Nicolai cyrurgie medici filius: Artis impressorie magister: hunc de re militari librum elegantissimum: litteris et figuratis signis sua in patria primus impressit. An.MCCCCLXXII.”IV.29“Valturius speaks of Pasti in one of his letters as being eminently skilful in the arts of Painting, Sculpture, and Engraving.”—Ottley, Inquiry, p. 257.IV.30“Inventum est quoque alterum machinæ hujusce tuum Sigismonde Panpulfe [Malatesta]: qua pilæ æneæ tormentarii pulveris plenæ cum fungi aridi fomite urientis emittuntur.”—We hence learn that the first bomb-shells were made of copper, and that the fuzee was a piece of a dried fungus. As the first edition has neither numerals nor signatures, I cannot refer to the page in which the above passage is to be found. It is, however, opposite to the cut in which the bomb-shell appears, and that is about the middle of the volume.IV.31“Robert Valturio published at Verona, in 1483, his twelve books de Re Militari, in which he first mentions the use of bombs. By his patron Sigismond Malatesti, Prince of Rimini, it had been addressed with a Latin epistle to Mahomet II.”—Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chap. lxviii., note.IV.32Von Murr says that the person who engraved the cuts for this book also engraved the cuts in a German edition of the Speculum without date, but printed at Augsburg, and dedicated to John [von Giltingen] abbot of the monastery of St. Ulric and St. Afra, who was chosen to that office in 1482. Heineken supposed that the person to whom the book was dedicated was John von Hohenstein, but he resigned the office of abbot in 1459; and the book was certainly not printed at that period.—See Heineken, Idée Gén. p. 466; and Von Murr, Journal, 2 Theil, S. 145.IV.33L. A. Gebhard, Genealogische Geschichte, 1 Theil, Vorrede, S. 11. Cited by Veith in his “Diatribe,” prefixed to Zapf’s “Annales Typographiæ Augustanæ.”IV.34The following colophon to an edition of Appian informs us that his partners were Bernard the painter and Peter Loslein, who also acted as corrector of the press: “Impressum est hoc opus Venetiis per Bernardū pictorem & Erhardum ratdolt de Augusta una cum Petro Loslein de Langenzen correctore ac socio. Laus Deo.MCCCCLXXVII.”IV.35Veldener at the conclusion of a book printed by him in 1476, containing “Epistolares quasdam formulas,” thus informs the reader of his name and qualifications: “Accipito huic artifici nomen esse magistro Johanni Veldener, cui quidem certa manu insculpendi, celandi, intorculandi, caracterandi adsit industria; adde et figurandi et effigiendi.” That is, his name was John Veldener; he could engrave, could work both at press and case, and moreover he knew something of sculpture, and could paint a little.IV.36Heineken, Idée Gén. p. 207, erroneously states that the first book with wood-cuts printed in England was the Golden Legend, by Caxton, in 1483. It is probable that the second edition of the Game of Chess preceded it by seven years, and it certainly was printed after the Mirror of the World.IV.37The following are some of the names as they are written: “S gilbert talbott . S John cheiny . S williā stoner . Theis iij wer made byfore the bataile, and after the bataile were made the same day : Sr.John of Arundell . Thomas Cooksey . John forteskew . Edmond benyngfeld . james blount . ric . of Croffte . Geofrey Stanley . ric . delaber . John mortymer . williā troutbeke.” The above appear to have been createdBannerets, for after them follows a list of “Knyghtesmade at the same bataile.” It is likely that the owner of the volume was at the battle, and that the names were written immediately after.IV.38Edward IV. began to reign 4th March 1461; the twenty-first year of his reign would consequently commence on 4th March 1481; Caxton’s dates therefore do not agree, unless we suppose that he reckoned the commencement of the year from 21st March. If so, his date viii March 1480, and the xxi year of the reign of Edward IV. would agree; and the year of Christ, according to our present mode of reckoning, would be 1481. Dr. Dibdin assigns to the Mirror the date 1481.—Typ. Ant. i. p. 100.IV.39Fac-similes of six of those cuts are given in Dr. Dibdin’s edition of Ames’s Typographical Antiquities, vol. i. p. 110-112.IV.40A large flowered letter, a T, cut on wood, occurs on the same page as the Crucifixion.IV.41In a note upon this passage Dr. Dibdin gives the following extract from Sir Joshua Reynolds. “To give animation to this subject, Rubens has chosen the point of time when an executioner is piercing the side of Christ, while another with a bar of iron is breaking the limbs of one of the malefactors, who in his convulsive agony, which his body admirably expresses, has torn one of his feet from the tree to which it was nailed. The expression in the action of the figure is wonderful.”IV.42A copy of this cut is given at p. 186, vol. i. of Dr. Dibdin’s edition of the Typographical Antiquities.IV.43Arnsheim, which is probably the place intended, is about twenty miles to the south-west of Mentz.IV.44“Magister vero Conradus Suueynheyn, Germanus, a quo formandorum Romæ librorum ars primum profecta est, occasione hinc sumpta posteritati consulens animum ad hanc doctrinam capessendam applicuit. Subinde mathematicis adhibitis viris quemadmodum tabulis eneis imprimerentur edocuit, triennioque in hac cura consumpto diem obiit. In cujus vigilarum laborumque partem non inferiori ingenio ac studio Arnoldus Buckinck e Germania vir apprime eruditus ad imperfectum opus succedens, ne Domitii Conradique obitu eorum vigiliæ emendationesque sine testimonio perirent neve virorum eruditorum censuram fugerent immensæ subtilitatis machinimenta, examussim ad unum perfecit.”—Dedication to the Pope, of Ptolemy’s Cosmography, Rome, 1478.IV.45This is Mr. Ottley’s measurement, taken within the black line which bounds the subject. The width as given by Mercier does not accord with the above. He says that the plate “a neuf pouces et demi de haut sur six de large.”IV.46Mr. Ottley says, “on the reverse of signature N viij.”IV.47“Lettres de M. l’Abbé de St. L***, [St. Léger, autrefois le pere Le Mercier, ancien Bibliothecaire de St. Genevieve] à M. le Baron de H*** sur différentes Editions rares du XVe. Siécle,” p. 4-5. 8vo. Paris, 1783. A short biographic sketch of the Abbé Mercier St. Léger, one of the most eminent French Bibliographers of the last century, will be found in Dr. Dibdin’s Tour, vol. ii. p. 180.IV.48I regret that I have not had an opportunity of personally examining this map. There is a copy of Schott’s edition in the British Museum; but all the maps, except one of the sphere, are taken out. The above account of the map of Loraine is from Breitkopf’s interesting essay “Ueber den Druck der Geographischen Charten,” S. 7. 4to. Leipzig, 1777.IV.49The following particulars respecting Breitkopf’s invention are derived from his essay “Ueber den Druck der Geographischen Charten,” previously referred to.IV.50An edition of this work in German, with the same cuts, was printed by Reuwich in 1488. Within ten years, at least six different editions of this work were printed in Germany. It was also translated into Low Dutch, and printed in Holland.IV.51This is probably the first figure of the giraffe that was communicated to the “reading public” of Europe. Its existence was afterwards denied by several naturalists; and it is only within a comparatively recent period that the existence of such an animal was clearly established.IV.52A good specimen of early French wood engraving may be seen in the large cut forming a kind of frontispiece to the “Roman du Roy Artus,” folio, printed at Rouen in 1488 by Jehan de Bourgeois. This cut, which occupies the whole page, represents King Arthur and his knights dining off the round table. A smaller one occurs at the beginning of the second part, and both are surrounded by ornamental borders.IV.53Hist. de l’Imprimerie, p. 49.IV.54The expression “adhibitis tamen viris mathematicis” in the Nuremberg Chronicle, is evidently borrowed from that,—“subinde mathematicis adhibitis viris,”—in the dedication of Bukinck’s Ptolemy, 1478, to the Pope. “Mathematical men,” in the present sense of the term, might be required to construct the maps in the edition of Ptolemy, but scarcely to design or engrave the vulgar figures and worthless views in the Nuremberg Chronicle.IV.55In the original, this cut, with one of Christ’s side pierced by a soldier, and another of Moses striking the rock, are intended to illustrate the mystery of the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper.IV.56Mr. Ottley in speaking of an edition of the Metamorphoses printed at Venice in 1509, with wood-cuts, mentions one of them as representing the “Birth of Hercules,” which is probably treated in a manner similar to those above noticed. Mr. Ottley also states that he had discovered the artist to be Benedetto Montagna, who also engraved on copper.—Inquiry, vol. ii p. 576.IV.57Bibliographers and booksellers in their catalogues specify with delight such copies as contain “la figura rappresentante il Sacrifizio à Priapo bene conservata,” for in some copies this choice subject is wanting, and in others partially defaced.IV.58Some account of the Hypnerotomachia and its author is to be found in Prosper Marchand’s Dictionnaire Historique.IV.59In the life of Colonna in the Biographie Universelle, the last word is said to be “adamavit,” which is a mistake. The word formed by the initial letters of the nine last chapters is “peramavit,” as above.IV.60Heineken, in his catalogue of Raffaele’s works, mentions the cuts in the Hypnerotomachia, but he says that it is questionable whether he designed them all or only the eighty-six mythological and historical subjects.—Nachrichten von Künstlern und Kunst-Sachen, 2er Theil, S. 360. 8vo. Leipzig, 1769.IV.61The author thus names his hero in his Italian title: “Poliphiloincomincia la sua hypnerotomachia ad descrivere et l’hora et il tempo quando gli appar ve in somno, &c.”IV.62The epithets applied to the different seasons as represented on this votive altar are singularly beautiful and appropriate: “Florido Veri; Flavæ Messi; Mustulento Autumno; Hyemi Æoliæ, Sacrum.”IV.63The letter M at the commencement of the next chapter affords an example of this style of engraving.IV.64Von Murr says that “Young Hans” was unquestionably the son of “Hans Formschneider,” whose name appears in the town-books of Nuremberg from 1449 to 1490. He also thinks that he might be the same person as Hans Sporer.—Journal, 2 Theil, S. 140, 141.IV.65The title of this work is: “Holzschnitte alter Deutscher Meister in den Original-Platten gesammelt von Hans Albrecht Von Derschau. Als ein Beytrag zur Kunstgeschichte herausgegeben, und mit einer Abhandlung über die Holzschneidekunst begleitet, von Rudolph Zacharias Becker.” It is in large folio, with the text in German and French. The first part was published at Gotha in 1808; the second in 1810; and the third in 1816.IV.66Vol. iii. p. 445, edit. 1829.IV.67“Huren sind böse katzen die vornen lecken und hinten kratzen.”IV.68Journal zur Kunstgeschichte, 2er Theil, S. 125, 126.
IV.1By the common press only one side of a sheet can be printed at once. The reiteration is the second printing of the same sheet on the blank side. Thus in the Psalter of 1457 every sheet containing letters of two colours on each side would have to pass six times through the press. It was probably in consequence of printing so much in red and black that the early printers used to employ so many presses. Melchior de Stamham, abbot of St. Ulric and St. Afra at Augsburg, and who established a printing-office within that monastery, about 1472, bought five presses of John Schüssler; a considerable number for what may be considered an amateur establishment. He also had two others made by Sixtus Saurloch.—Zapf, Annales Typographicæ Augustanæ, p. xxiv.
IV.2Heineken in his Nachrichten, T. I. S. 108, also states that Meydenbach came from Strasburg with Gutemberg. Oberlin however observes, “Je ne sais où de Heinecke a trouvè que ce Meydenbach est venu en 1444 avec Gutenberg à Mayence.” Heineken says, “In der Nachricht von Strassburg findet man dass ein gewisser Meydenbach 1444 nach Maynz gezogen,” and refers to Fournier, p. 40. Dissert sur l’Orig. de l’Imprimerie primitive.
IV.3An edition of the Hortus Sanitatis with wood-cuts was printed at Mentz, byJacobus Meydenbach, in 1491.
IV.4Idée Générale, p. 286.
IV.5Scheffer previous to his connexion with Faust was a “clericus,”—not aclerkas distinguished from a layman, but a writer or scribe. A specimen of his “set-hand,” writtenatParis in 1449, is given by Schœpflin in his Vindiciæ Typographicæ. Several of the earliest printers were writers or illuminators; among whom may be mentioned John Mentelin of Strasburg, John Baemler of Augsburg, Ulric Zell of Cologne, and Colard Mansion of Bruges.
IV.6This is intimated in the colophon, which, with the contracted words written at length, is as follows: “Presens Spalmorum codex venustate capitalium decoratus Rubricationibusque sufficienter distinctus. Adinventione artificiosa imprimendi ac caracterizandi absque calami ulla exaracione sic effigiatus. Et ad eusebiam dei industrie est consummatus. Per Johannem Fust, Civem maguntinum. Et Petrum Schoffer de Gernzheim, Anno domini Millesimo. cccc. lvii. In vigilia Assumpcionis.” In the second edition the mis-spelling, “Spalmorum” for “Psalmorum,” is corrected.
IV.7It is to be observed that in Savage’s copy the perpendicular flourishes are given horizontally, above and below the letter, in order to save room. In a copy of the edition of 1459, in the King’s Library, part of the lower flourish has not been inked, as it would have interfered with the letter Q at the commencement of the second psalm “Quare fremuerunt gentes.” Traces of the flourish where not coloured may be observed impressed in the vellum.
IV.8The following passage occurs in the colophon of two works printed by John Scheffer at Mentz in 1515 and 1516; the one being the “Trithemii Breviarium Historiæ Francorum,” and the other “Breviarium Ecclesiæ Mindensis:” “Retinuerunt autem hi duo jam prænominati,Johannes Fust et Petrus Scheffer, hanc artem in secreto, (omnibus ministris et familiaribus eorum, ne illam quoquo modo manifestarent, jure jurando adstrictis :) quæ tandem anno DominiM.CCCC.LXII.per eosdem familiares in diversas terrarum provincias divulgata, haud parvum sumpsit incrementum.”
IV.9St. Walburg’s day is on the 25th of February; though her feast is also held both on the 1st of May and on the 12th of October. The eve of her feast on the 1st of May is more particularly celebrated; and it is then that the witches and warlocks of Germany hold their annual meeting on the Brocken. St. Walburg, though born of royal parents in Saxony, was yet educated in England, at the convent of Wimborn in Dorsetshire, of which she became afterwards abbess, and where she died in 779.
IV.10A mournful account of the expulsion of the inhabitants and the plundering of the city is given by Trithemius at page 30 of his “Res Gestæ Frederici Palatini,” published with notes by Marquard Freher, at Heidelberg, 4to. 1603.
IV.11Under the title of “Notice d’un Livre imprimé à Bamberg enCIↃCCCCLXII.lue à l’Institut National, par Camus.” 4to. Paris, AnVII.[1800.]
IV.12The copy of those fables belonging to the Wolfenbuttel Library, and which is the only one known, was taken away by the French and placed in the National Library at Paris, but was restored on the surrender of Paris in 1815.
IV.13Idée Générale, p. 276. Dr. Dibdin in his Bibliographical Tour says that this work “is entitled by Camus theAllegory of Death.” This is a mistake; for Camus, who objects to this title,—which was given to it by Heineken,—always refers to the book under the title of “Les Plaintes contre la Mort.”
IV.14“Outre la lettre initiale, on remarque, dans le cours du chapitre, six lettres rouges non imprimées, mais peintes à la plaque, qui commencent six phrases diverses. Les lettres initiales des autres phrases du même chapitre sont imprimées en noir. Les lettres rouges sont IHESANW. Doit-on les assembler dans l’ordre où elles sont placées, ou bien doivent-elles recevoir un autre arrangement? Je ne prends pas sur moi de le décider.”—Camus, Notice, p. 6.
IV.15Camus calls it a “voiture,” but I question if such a carriage was known in 1462; and am inclined to think that he has converted a kind of light waggon into a modern “voiture.” A light sort of waggon, called by Stow a “Wherlicote,” was used in England by the mother of Richard the Second in the manner of a modern coach. I have noticed in an old wood-cut a light travelling waggon, drawn by what is called a “unicorn team” of three horses; that is, one as a “leader,” and two “wheelers,” with the driver riding on the “near side” wheeler. This cut is in the Bagford collection in the British Museum, and is one of a series of ninety subjects from the Old and New Testament which have been cut out of a book. A manuscript note in German states that they are by Michael Wolgemuth, and printed in 1491. In no wood-cut executed previous to 1500 have I seen a vehicle like a modern French voiture.
IV.16The copy of the Bamberg edition in the Wolfenbuttel Library, seen and described by Heineken, Idée Générale, pp. 327-329, contained only twenty-six “histories,” or general subjects.
IV.17Gunther Zainer was a native of Reutlingen, in Wirtemberg, and was the first printer in Germany who used Roman characters,—in an edition of “Isidori Episcopi Hispalensis Etymologia,” printed by him in 1472. He first began to print at Augsburg in 1468. In 1472 he printed a German translation of the book entitled “Belial,” with wood-cuts. A Latin edition of this book was printed by Schussler in the same year. Von Murr says that Schussler printed another edition of “Belial” in 1477; but this would seem to be a mistake, for Veith asserts in his “Diatribe de Origine et Incrementis Artis Typographicæ in urbe Augusta Vindelica,” prefixed to Zapf’s “Annales,” that Schussler only printed in the years 1470, 1471, and 1472.
IV.18Von Murr, Journal, 2 Theil, S. 144.—Zapf, Buchdruckergeschichte von Augsburg, 1 Band.
IV.19Lichtenberger, in his Initia Typographica, referring to Sprenger’s History of Printing at Bamberg, says that, besides those four, five other tracts are printed with Pfister’s types, of which three contain wood-cuts. One of those three, however, a “Poor Preachers’ Bible,” with the text in Latin, has the same cuts as the “Poor Preachers’ Bible” with the text in German. Only one of those other five works contains the place and date.
IV.20De Antiquissima Latinorum Bibliorum editione . . . . Jo. Georgii Schelhorn Diatribe. Ulmæ, 4to. 1760.
IV.21Dr. Dibdin says that a copy of this Bible, which formerly belonged to the Earl of Oxford, and is now in the Royal Library at Paris, contains “an undoubted coeval MS. date, in red ink, of 1461.”—Bibliog. Tour, vol. ii p. 108. Second edition.
IV.22“Libripagus est artifex sculpens subtiliter in laminibus æreis, ferreis, ac ligneis solidi ligni, atque aliis, imagines, scripturam et omne quodlibet, ut prius imprimat papyro aut parieti aut asseri mundo. Scindit omne quod cupit, et est homo faciens talia cum picturis; et tempore mei Bambergæ quidam sculpsit integram bibliam super lamellas, et in quatuor septimanis totam bibliam in pergameno subtili præsignavit sculpturam.”
IV.23In 1793, a learned doctor of divinity of Cambridge is said in a like manner to have broken Priscian’s head with “paginibus.” An epigram on this “blunderbus” is to be found in the “Gradus ad Cantabrigiam.”
IV.24Lichtenberger, Initia Typographica, p. 51.
IV.25“Opuscula quæ typis mandavit typographus hic, hactenus ignotus, ad litteraturam Teutonicam pertinent. Imprimis Pfisterum hunc Bambergæ fixam habuisse sedem vix crediderim. Videntur potius hi libri Teutonici monumenta transeuntis typographi.”—Annal. Typogr. tom. i. p. 142, cited by Camus.
IV.26Breitkopf, Ueber Bibliographie, S. 25. 4to. Leipzig, 1793.
IV.27The following is the title at length as it is printed, in red letters, underneath the first cut: “Meditationes Reverē dissimi patris dñi Johannis de turre cremata sacros͞ce Romane eccl’ie cardinalis posite & depicte de ipsius mādato ī eccl’ie ambitu Marie de Minerva. Rome.” The book is described in Von Murr’s Memorabilia Bibliothecar. Publicar. Norimbergensium and in Dibdin’s Ædes Althorpianæ, vol. ii. p. 273, with specimens of the cuts.
IV.28The following is a copy of the colophon: “Johannes ex verona oriundus: Nicolai cyrurgie medici filius: Artis impressorie magister: hunc de re militari librum elegantissimum: litteris et figuratis signis sua in patria primus impressit. An.MCCCCLXXII.”
IV.29“Valturius speaks of Pasti in one of his letters as being eminently skilful in the arts of Painting, Sculpture, and Engraving.”—Ottley, Inquiry, p. 257.
IV.30“Inventum est quoque alterum machinæ hujusce tuum Sigismonde Panpulfe [Malatesta]: qua pilæ æneæ tormentarii pulveris plenæ cum fungi aridi fomite urientis emittuntur.”—We hence learn that the first bomb-shells were made of copper, and that the fuzee was a piece of a dried fungus. As the first edition has neither numerals nor signatures, I cannot refer to the page in which the above passage is to be found. It is, however, opposite to the cut in which the bomb-shell appears, and that is about the middle of the volume.
IV.31“Robert Valturio published at Verona, in 1483, his twelve books de Re Militari, in which he first mentions the use of bombs. By his patron Sigismond Malatesti, Prince of Rimini, it had been addressed with a Latin epistle to Mahomet II.”—Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chap. lxviii., note.
IV.32Von Murr says that the person who engraved the cuts for this book also engraved the cuts in a German edition of the Speculum without date, but printed at Augsburg, and dedicated to John [von Giltingen] abbot of the monastery of St. Ulric and St. Afra, who was chosen to that office in 1482. Heineken supposed that the person to whom the book was dedicated was John von Hohenstein, but he resigned the office of abbot in 1459; and the book was certainly not printed at that period.—See Heineken, Idée Gén. p. 466; and Von Murr, Journal, 2 Theil, S. 145.
IV.33L. A. Gebhard, Genealogische Geschichte, 1 Theil, Vorrede, S. 11. Cited by Veith in his “Diatribe,” prefixed to Zapf’s “Annales Typographiæ Augustanæ.”
IV.34The following colophon to an edition of Appian informs us that his partners were Bernard the painter and Peter Loslein, who also acted as corrector of the press: “Impressum est hoc opus Venetiis per Bernardū pictorem & Erhardum ratdolt de Augusta una cum Petro Loslein de Langenzen correctore ac socio. Laus Deo.MCCCCLXXVII.”
IV.35Veldener at the conclusion of a book printed by him in 1476, containing “Epistolares quasdam formulas,” thus informs the reader of his name and qualifications: “Accipito huic artifici nomen esse magistro Johanni Veldener, cui quidem certa manu insculpendi, celandi, intorculandi, caracterandi adsit industria; adde et figurandi et effigiendi.” That is, his name was John Veldener; he could engrave, could work both at press and case, and moreover he knew something of sculpture, and could paint a little.
IV.36Heineken, Idée Gén. p. 207, erroneously states that the first book with wood-cuts printed in England was the Golden Legend, by Caxton, in 1483. It is probable that the second edition of the Game of Chess preceded it by seven years, and it certainly was printed after the Mirror of the World.
IV.37The following are some of the names as they are written: “S gilbert talbott . S John cheiny . S williā stoner . Theis iij wer made byfore the bataile, and after the bataile were made the same day : Sr.John of Arundell . Thomas Cooksey . John forteskew . Edmond benyngfeld . james blount . ric . of Croffte . Geofrey Stanley . ric . delaber . John mortymer . williā troutbeke.” The above appear to have been createdBannerets, for after them follows a list of “Knyghtesmade at the same bataile.” It is likely that the owner of the volume was at the battle, and that the names were written immediately after.
IV.38Edward IV. began to reign 4th March 1461; the twenty-first year of his reign would consequently commence on 4th March 1481; Caxton’s dates therefore do not agree, unless we suppose that he reckoned the commencement of the year from 21st March. If so, his date viii March 1480, and the xxi year of the reign of Edward IV. would agree; and the year of Christ, according to our present mode of reckoning, would be 1481. Dr. Dibdin assigns to the Mirror the date 1481.—Typ. Ant. i. p. 100.
IV.39Fac-similes of six of those cuts are given in Dr. Dibdin’s edition of Ames’s Typographical Antiquities, vol. i. p. 110-112.
IV.40A large flowered letter, a T, cut on wood, occurs on the same page as the Crucifixion.
IV.41In a note upon this passage Dr. Dibdin gives the following extract from Sir Joshua Reynolds. “To give animation to this subject, Rubens has chosen the point of time when an executioner is piercing the side of Christ, while another with a bar of iron is breaking the limbs of one of the malefactors, who in his convulsive agony, which his body admirably expresses, has torn one of his feet from the tree to which it was nailed. The expression in the action of the figure is wonderful.”
IV.42A copy of this cut is given at p. 186, vol. i. of Dr. Dibdin’s edition of the Typographical Antiquities.
IV.43Arnsheim, which is probably the place intended, is about twenty miles to the south-west of Mentz.
IV.44“Magister vero Conradus Suueynheyn, Germanus, a quo formandorum Romæ librorum ars primum profecta est, occasione hinc sumpta posteritati consulens animum ad hanc doctrinam capessendam applicuit. Subinde mathematicis adhibitis viris quemadmodum tabulis eneis imprimerentur edocuit, triennioque in hac cura consumpto diem obiit. In cujus vigilarum laborumque partem non inferiori ingenio ac studio Arnoldus Buckinck e Germania vir apprime eruditus ad imperfectum opus succedens, ne Domitii Conradique obitu eorum vigiliæ emendationesque sine testimonio perirent neve virorum eruditorum censuram fugerent immensæ subtilitatis machinimenta, examussim ad unum perfecit.”—Dedication to the Pope, of Ptolemy’s Cosmography, Rome, 1478.
IV.45This is Mr. Ottley’s measurement, taken within the black line which bounds the subject. The width as given by Mercier does not accord with the above. He says that the plate “a neuf pouces et demi de haut sur six de large.”
IV.46Mr. Ottley says, “on the reverse of signature N viij.”
IV.47“Lettres de M. l’Abbé de St. L***, [St. Léger, autrefois le pere Le Mercier, ancien Bibliothecaire de St. Genevieve] à M. le Baron de H*** sur différentes Editions rares du XVe. Siécle,” p. 4-5. 8vo. Paris, 1783. A short biographic sketch of the Abbé Mercier St. Léger, one of the most eminent French Bibliographers of the last century, will be found in Dr. Dibdin’s Tour, vol. ii. p. 180.
IV.48I regret that I have not had an opportunity of personally examining this map. There is a copy of Schott’s edition in the British Museum; but all the maps, except one of the sphere, are taken out. The above account of the map of Loraine is from Breitkopf’s interesting essay “Ueber den Druck der Geographischen Charten,” S. 7. 4to. Leipzig, 1777.
IV.49The following particulars respecting Breitkopf’s invention are derived from his essay “Ueber den Druck der Geographischen Charten,” previously referred to.
IV.50An edition of this work in German, with the same cuts, was printed by Reuwich in 1488. Within ten years, at least six different editions of this work were printed in Germany. It was also translated into Low Dutch, and printed in Holland.
IV.51This is probably the first figure of the giraffe that was communicated to the “reading public” of Europe. Its existence was afterwards denied by several naturalists; and it is only within a comparatively recent period that the existence of such an animal was clearly established.
IV.52A good specimen of early French wood engraving may be seen in the large cut forming a kind of frontispiece to the “Roman du Roy Artus,” folio, printed at Rouen in 1488 by Jehan de Bourgeois. This cut, which occupies the whole page, represents King Arthur and his knights dining off the round table. A smaller one occurs at the beginning of the second part, and both are surrounded by ornamental borders.
IV.53Hist. de l’Imprimerie, p. 49.
IV.54The expression “adhibitis tamen viris mathematicis” in the Nuremberg Chronicle, is evidently borrowed from that,—“subinde mathematicis adhibitis viris,”—in the dedication of Bukinck’s Ptolemy, 1478, to the Pope. “Mathematical men,” in the present sense of the term, might be required to construct the maps in the edition of Ptolemy, but scarcely to design or engrave the vulgar figures and worthless views in the Nuremberg Chronicle.
IV.55In the original, this cut, with one of Christ’s side pierced by a soldier, and another of Moses striking the rock, are intended to illustrate the mystery of the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper.
IV.56Mr. Ottley in speaking of an edition of the Metamorphoses printed at Venice in 1509, with wood-cuts, mentions one of them as representing the “Birth of Hercules,” which is probably treated in a manner similar to those above noticed. Mr. Ottley also states that he had discovered the artist to be Benedetto Montagna, who also engraved on copper.—Inquiry, vol. ii p. 576.
IV.57Bibliographers and booksellers in their catalogues specify with delight such copies as contain “la figura rappresentante il Sacrifizio à Priapo bene conservata,” for in some copies this choice subject is wanting, and in others partially defaced.
IV.58Some account of the Hypnerotomachia and its author is to be found in Prosper Marchand’s Dictionnaire Historique.
IV.59In the life of Colonna in the Biographie Universelle, the last word is said to be “adamavit,” which is a mistake. The word formed by the initial letters of the nine last chapters is “peramavit,” as above.
IV.60Heineken, in his catalogue of Raffaele’s works, mentions the cuts in the Hypnerotomachia, but he says that it is questionable whether he designed them all or only the eighty-six mythological and historical subjects.—Nachrichten von Künstlern und Kunst-Sachen, 2er Theil, S. 360. 8vo. Leipzig, 1769.
IV.61The author thus names his hero in his Italian title: “Poliphiloincomincia la sua hypnerotomachia ad descrivere et l’hora et il tempo quando gli appar ve in somno, &c.”
IV.62The epithets applied to the different seasons as represented on this votive altar are singularly beautiful and appropriate: “Florido Veri; Flavæ Messi; Mustulento Autumno; Hyemi Æoliæ, Sacrum.”
IV.63The letter M at the commencement of the next chapter affords an example of this style of engraving.
IV.64Von Murr says that “Young Hans” was unquestionably the son of “Hans Formschneider,” whose name appears in the town-books of Nuremberg from 1449 to 1490. He also thinks that he might be the same person as Hans Sporer.—Journal, 2 Theil, S. 140, 141.
IV.65The title of this work is: “Holzschnitte alter Deutscher Meister in den Original-Platten gesammelt von Hans Albrecht Von Derschau. Als ein Beytrag zur Kunstgeschichte herausgegeben, und mit einer Abhandlung über die Holzschneidekunst begleitet, von Rudolph Zacharias Becker.” It is in large folio, with the text in German and French. The first part was published at Gotha in 1808; the second in 1810; and the third in 1816.
IV.66Vol. iii. p. 445, edit. 1829.
IV.67“Huren sind böse katzen die vornen lecken und hinten kratzen.”
IV.68Journal zur Kunstgeschichte, 2er Theil, S. 125, 126.