V.1Chiaro-scuros are executed by means of two or more blocks, in imitation of a drawing in sepia, India ink, or any other colour of two or more shades. The older chiaro-scuros are seldom executed with more than three blocks; on the first of which the general outline of the subject and the stronger shades were engraved and printed in the usual manner; from the second the lighter shades were communicated; and from the third a general tint was printed over the impressions of the other two.V.2This print is one of the valuable collection left to the Museum by the Rev. C. M. Cracherode, and the following remark in that gentleman’s writing is inserted on the opposite page of the folio in which it is preserved: “The Presepe is a plain proof that printing in chiaro-scuro was known before the time of Ugo da Carpi, who is erroneously reputed the inventor of this art at the beginning of the sixteenth century.” The print in question is certainly not a proof of the art of engraving in chiaro-scuro; and Mr. Ottley has added the following correction in pencil: “But the white here is put on with a pencil, and not left in printing, as it would have been if the tint had been added by a wooden block after the copper-plate had been printed.”V.3Bartsch describes this print in his Peintre-Graveur, tom. vi. p. 364, No. 4; but he takes no notice of Joseph holding a candle, nor of its wanting a light.V.4Some single cuts executed in this manner are supposed to be at least as old as the year 1450. The earliest that I have noticed in a book occur in a Life of Christ printed at Cologne about 1485.V.5In a folio of Albert Durer’s drawings in the Print Room at the British Museum there is a portrait of “Fronica, Formschneiderin,” with the date 1525. In 1433 we find a woman at Nuremberg described as a card-maker: “Eli. Kartenmacherin.” It is scarcely necessary to remind the reader that the earliest German wood engravers were card-makers.—See chapterII.p. 41.V.6The following is Bartsch’s French version of this letter, which is given in the original German in Von Murr’s Journal, 9er.Theil, S. 53. “Cher Michel Beheim. Je vous envoie les armoiries, en vous priant de les laisser comme elles sont. Personne d’ailleurs ne les corrigeroit en mieux, car je les ai faites exprès et avec art; c’est pourquoi ceux qui s’y connoissent et qui les verront vous en rendront bonne raison. Si l’on haussoit les lambrequins du heaume, ils couvriroient le volet.”—Bartsch, Peintre-Graveur, tom. vii. p. 27.V.7In Durer’s Journal of his visit to the Netherlands in 1520 there is the following passage: “Item hab dem von Rogendorff sein Wappen auf Holz gerissen, dafür hat er mir geschenckt vii. Ein Sammet.”—“Also I have drawn for Von Rogendorff his arms on wood, for which he has presented me with seven yards of velvet.”—Von Murr, Journal zur Kunstgeschichte, 7er.Theil, S. 76.V.8Bibliographical Tour, vol. iii. p. 442, second edition.V.9The Baron was the collector of the wood-cuts published with Becker’s explanations, referred to at page 226, chapterIV.The anecdote alluded to will be found in Dr. Dibdin’s Bibliographical Tour, vol. iii. pp. 445, 446. The Baron sold a rare specimen of copper-plate engraving with the dateM. CCCC. XXX.to the Doctor, and it seems that he also soldanotherimpression from the same plate to Mr. John Payne. There is no doubt of their being gross forgeries; and it is not unlikely that the plate was in the Baron’s possession.V.10“Dieser Hieronymus hat allhier im breiten Gassen gewohnt, dessen Wohnung hinten ins Frauengässlein ging.”V.11Neudörffer, quoted in Von Murr’s Journal, 2ter Theil, S. 158, 159.V.12At the end of the first edition of the cuts illustrative of the Apocalypse, 1498, we find the words:“Gedruktdurch Albrecht Durer, Maler,”—Printed by Albert Durer, painter; and the same in Latin in the second edition, printed about 1510. The passion of Christ and the History of the Virgin are respectively said to have been “effigiata” and “per figuras digesta”—“drawn” and “pictorially represented” by Albert Durer; and the cuts of the Triumphal Car of the Emperor Maximilian are described as being “erfunden und geordnet”—“invented and arranged” by him.—Bartsch, Peintre-Graveur, tom. vii. p. 28.V.13The time that a German artist spends in travel from the expiration of his apprenticeship to the period of his settling as a master is called his“wander-jahre,”—his travelling years. It is customary with many trades in Germany for the young men to travel for a certain time on the termination of their apprenticeship before they are admitted to the full privileges of the company or fellowship.V.14It has been stated, though erroneously, that Albert Durer was a pupil of Martin Schongauer, or Schön, as the surname was spelled by some writers, one of the most eminent painters and copper-plate engravers of his day. It has been generally supposed that he died in 1486; but, if an old memorandum at the back of his portrait in the collection of Count de Fries can be depended on, his death did not take place till the 2d of February 1499. An account of this memorandum will be found in Ottley’s Inquiry into the Origin and Early History of Engraving, vol. ii. p. 640.V.15On a passage, in which Durer alludes to his wife, in one of his letters from Venice, 1506, to his friend Bilibald Pirkheimer, Von Murr makes the following remark: “This Xantippe must even at that time have vexed him much; and he was obliged to drag on his life with her for twenty-two years longer, till she fairly plagued him to death.”—Journal, 10er Theil, S. 32.V.16Bartsch is decidedly of opinion that Michael Wolgemuth was not an engraver; and he ascribes all the plates marked with a W, which others have supposed to be Wolgemuth’s, to Wenceslaus of Olmutz, an artist of whom nothing is positively known.V.17This subject has also been engraved by Israel Von Mecken, and by an artist supposed to be Wenceslaus of Olmutz. It is probable that those artists have copied Durer’s engraving. On the globe in Israel Von Mecken’s plate the letters are O. G. B.V.18This caution is in the original expressed in the following indignant terms: “Heus, tu insidiator, ac alieni laboris et ingenii surreptor, ne manus temerarias his nostris operibus inicias cave. Scias enim a gloriosissimo Romanorum imperatore Maximiliano nobis concessum esse ne quis suppositiciis formis has imagines imprimere seu impressas per imperii limites vendere audeat: q’ per contemptum seu avariciæ crimen secus feceris, post bonorum confiscationem tibi maximum periculum subeundum esse certissime scias.”V.19Von Murr says that the subject of this picture was the martyrdom of St. Bartholomew, the saint to whom the church was dedicated; and that the painting afterwards came into the possession of the Emperor Rudolf II. and was placed in his gallery at Prague. It seems that Durer had taken some pictures with him to Venice; for in his fifth letter he says that he has sold two for twenty-four ducats, and exchanged three others for three rings, valued also at twenty-four ducats.V.20In the Venetian dialect of that period Giovanni Bellini was called Zan Belin; and Durer spells the name “Sambellinus.” He was the master of Titian, and died in 1514, at the age of ninety.—Von Murr, Journal, 10er Theil, S. 8.V.21Von Murr says that he cannot discover what Jacob is here meant. It would not be Jacob Walsch, as he died in 1500. The person alluded to was certainly not an Italian.V.22Bilibald Pirkheimer was a learned man, and a person of great authority in the city of Nuremberg. He was also a member of the Imperial Council, and was frequently employed in negociations with neighbouring states. He published several works; and among others a humorous essay entitled “Laus Podagræ”—The Praise of the Gout. His memory is still held in great respect in Germany as the friend of Albert Durer and Ulrich Hutten, two of the most extraordinary men that Germany has produced. He died in 1530, aged 60.V.23The kind of engraving meant was copper-plate engraving. Durer’s words are: “Ich hab awch dy Moler all gesthrilt dy do sagten, ImStechenwer ich gut, aber im molen west ich nit mit farben um zu gen.” The word “Stechen” applies to engraving on copper; “Schneiden” to engraving on wood.—Von Murr, Journal, 10er Theil, S. 28.V.24The title at length is as follows: “Epitome in Divæ Parthenices Marie Historiam ab Alberto Durero Norico per figuras digestam, cum versibus annexis Chelidonii.” Chelidonius, who was a Benedictine monk of Nuremberg, also furnished the descriptive text to the series of twelve cuts illustrative of Christ’s Passion, of which specimens will be found between page 246 and page 250.V.25The cuts of these two works appear to have been in the hands of the engraver at the same time. Of those in the History of the Virgin one is dated 1509; and two bear the date 1510; and in the Passion of Christ four are dated 1510.V.26The Latin title of the work is as follows: “Passio Domini nostri Jesu, ex Hieronymo Paduano, Dominico Mancino, Sedulio, et Baptista Mantuana, per fratrem Chelidonium collecta, cum figuris Alberti Dureri Norici Pictoris.”V.27The Latin title of this work is “Passio Christi,” and the explanatory verses are from the pen of Chelidonius. Durer, in the Journal of his Visit to the Netherlands, twice mentions it as “die Kleine Passion,” and each time with a distinction which proves that he did not mean the Passion engraved by him on copper and probably published in 1512. “Item Sebaldt Fischer hat mir zu Antorff [Antwerp] abkaufft 16kleiner Passion, pro 4 fl. Mehr 32 grosser Bücher pro 8 fl. Mehr 6 gestochne Passion pro 3 fl.”—“Darnach die drey Bücher unser Frauen Leben, Apocalypsin, und den grossen Passion, darnachden klein Passion, und den Passion in Kupffer.”—Albrecht Dürers Reisejournal, in Von Murr, 7er Theil, S. 60 and 67. The size of the cuts of the Little Passion is five inches high by three and seven-eighths wide. Four impressions from the original blocks are given in Ottley’s Inquiry, vol. ii. between page 730 and page731.V.28Inquiry into the Origin and Early History of Engraving, vol. ii. p. 782. The objections to the general truth of Vasari’s story appear to be much stronger than the presumptions in its favour. 1. The improbability of Albert Durer having visited Venice subsequent to 1506; 2. The fact of Marc Antonio’s copies of the cuts of the Little Passionnotcontaining Albert Durer’s mark; and 3. The probability of Mark Antonio residing beyond the jurisdiction of the Venetian government at the time of his engraving them.V.29There is a copy of this head, also engraved on wood, of the size of the original, but without Durer’s, or any other mark. Underneath an impression of the copy, in the Print Room of the British Museum, there is written in a hand which appears to be at least as old as the year 1550, “Dieser hatHSBehaim gerissen”—“H. S. Behaim drew this.” Hans Sebald Behaim, a painter and designer on wood, was born at Nuremberg in 1500, and was the pupil of his uncle, also named Behaim, a painter and engraver of that city. The younger Behaim abandoned the arts to become a tavern-keeper at Frankfort, where he died in 1550.V.30In the edition with Latin inscriptions, 1523, are the words, “Excogitatus et depictus est currus iste Nurembergæ, impressus vero per Albertum Durer. AnnoMDXXIII.”The Latin words “excogitatus et depictus” are expressed by “gefunden und geordnet” in the German inscriptions in the edition of 1522. A sketch by Durer, for the Triumphal Car, is preserved in the Print Room in the British Museum.V.31Bibliographical Tour, vol. iii. p. 438. Edit. 1829.V.32Ibid. p. 330.V.33The two last names are, in the first edition, pasted over others which appear to have been “The Gate of Honour” and “The Gate of Relationship, Friendship, and Alliance.” The last name alludes to the emperor’s possessions as acquired by descent or marriage, and to his power as strengthened by his friendly alliances with neighbouring states.V.34“Item wist auch das Ich K. Mt. ausserhalb des Tryumps sonst viel mancherley Fisyrung gemacht hab.”—“You must also know that I have made many other drawings for the emperor besides those of the Triumph.” The date of this letter is not given, but Durer informs his friend that he had been already three years employed for the emperor, and that if he had not exerted himself the beautiful “work” would not have been so soon completed. If this is to be understood of the Triumphal Arch, it would seem that the designs at least were all finished before the emperor’s death.—Von Murr, Journal, 9er Theil, S. 4.V.35In the process of etching the plate is first covered with a resinous composition—called etching ground—on which the lines intended to beetched, or bit into the plate, are drawn through to the surface of the metal by means of a small pointed tool called an etching needle, or an etching point. When the drawing of the subject upon the etching ground is finished, the plate is surrounded with a slightly raised border, or “wall,” as it is technically termed, formed of rosin, bee’s-wax, and lard; and, a corrosive liquid being poured upon the plate, the lines are “bit” into the copper or steel. When the engraver thinks that the lines are corroded to a sufficient depth, he pours off the liquid, cleans the plate by means of turpentine, and proceeds to finish his work with the graver and dry-point. According to the practice of modern engravers, where severaltintsare required, as is most frequently the case, the process of “biting-in” is repeated; the corrosive liquid being again poured on the plate to corrode deeper the stronger lines, while the more delicate are “stopped out,”—that is, covered with a kind of varnish that soon hardens, to preserve them from further corrosion. Most of our best engravers now use a diamond point in etching.Nitrousacid is used for “biting-in” on copper in the proportion of one part acid to four parts water, and the mixture is considered to be better after it has been once or twice used. Before using the acid it is advisable to take the stopper out of the bottle for twenty-four hours in order to allow a portion of the strength to evaporate. During the process of biting-in a large copper-plate the fumes which arise are so powerful as frequently to cause an unpleasant stricture in the throat, and sometimes to bring on a spitting of blood when they have been incautiously inhaled by the engraver. At such times it is usual for the engraver to have near him some powerful essence, generally hartshorn, in order to counteract the effects of the noxious vapour. For biting-in onsteel,nitricacid is used in the proportion of thirty drops to half a pint of distilled water; and the mixture is never used for more than one plate.—When acopper-plate is sufficiently bit-in, it is only necessary to wash it with a little water previous to removing the etching ground with turpentine; but, besides this, with asteelplate it is further necessary to set it on one of its edges against a wall or other support, and to blow it with a pair of small bellows till every particle of moisture in the lines is perfectly evaporated. The plate is then rubbed with oil, otherwise the lines would rust from the action of the atmosphere and the plate be consequently spoiled. Previous to a steel plate being laid aside for any length of time it ought to be warmed, and the engraved surface rubbed carefully over with virgin wax so that it may be completely covered, and every line filled. A piece of thick paper the size of the plate, laid over the wax while it is yet adhesive, will prove an additional safeguard. For this information respecting the process of biting-in, the writer is indebted to an eminent engraver, Mr. J. T. Wilmore.V.36The account of the naming of John the Baptist will be found in St. Luke’s Gospel, chap. i. verse 59-64.V.37Durer’s Journal of his Travels is given by Von Murr, 7er Theil, S. 55-98. The title which the Editor has prefixed to it is, “Reisejournal Albrecht Dürer’s von seiner Niederländischen Reise, 1520 und 1521. E. Bibliotheca Ebneriana.” In the same volume, Von Murr gives some specimens of Durer’s poetry. The first couplet which he made in 1509 is as follows:“Du aller Engel Spiegel und Erlöser der Welt,Deine grosse Marter sey für mein Sünd ein Widergelt.”Thou mirror of all Angels and Redeemer of mankind,Through thy martyrdom, for all my sins may I a ransom find.This couplet being ridiculed by Bilibald Pirkheimer, who said that rhyming verses ought not to consist of more than eight syllables, Durer wrote several others in a shorter measure, but with no better success; for he says at the conclusion, that they did not please the learned counsellor. With Durer’s rhymes there is an epistle in verse from his friend Lazarus Sprengel, written to dissuade him from attempting to become a poet. Durer’s verses want “the right butter-woman’s trot to market,” and are sadly deficient in rhythm when compared with the more regular clink of his friend’s.V.38Subsequently, Durer mentions having delivered to the Margrave John, at Brussels, a letter of recommendation [Fürderbrief] from the Bishop of Bamberg.V.39As Durer was at Cologne about the 26th July, it is probable that he would arrive at Antwerp about the last day of that month.V.40The maid, Susanna, seems to have been rather a “humble friend” than amenialservant; for she is mentioned in another part of the Journal as being entertained with Durer’s wife at the house of “Tomasin Florianus,” whom Durer describes as “Romanus, von Luca bürtig.”V.41The Assumption of the Virgin is celebrated in the Roman Catholic Church on the 15th August.V.42Albrecht Dürer’s Reisejournal, in Von Murr, 7er Theil, S. 63-65.V.43This “gross Fischpein” was probably part of the back-bone of a whale.V.44The stiver was the twenty-fourth part of a guilder or florin of gold, which was equal to about nine shillings English money of the present time; the stiver would therefore be equal to about four pence half-penny. About the same time, Durer sold a copy of his Christ’s Passion, probably the large one, for twelve stivers, and an impression of his copper-plate of Adam and Eve for four stivers. Shortly after his first arrival at Antwerp, he sold sixteen copies of the Little Passion for four guilders or florins; and thirty-two copies of his larger works,—probably the Apocalypse, the History of the Virgin, and the Great Passion,—for eight florins, being at the rate of sixteen stivers for each copy. He also sold six copies of the Passion engraved on copper at the same price. He gave to his host a painting of the Virgin on canvass to sell for two Rhenish florins. The sum that he received for each portrait in pencil [the German is mit Kohlen, which is literally charcoal], when the partiesdidpay, appears to have been a florin.V.45In Von Murr the words are “AmDonnerstagenach Marien Himmelfahrt,”—On the Thursday after theAssumptionof the Virgin. But this is evidently incorrect, the feast of the Assumption being kept on 15th August. The “Marien Opferung”—the Presentation of the Virgin—which is commemorated on 21st November, is evidently meant.V.46Luther’s safe-conduct from Worms to Wittenberg was limited to twenty-one days, at the expiration of which he was declared to be under the ban of the empire, or, in other words, an outlaw, to whom no prince or free city of Germany was to afford a refuge. Luther, previous to leaving Worms, was informed of the elector’s intention of secretly apprehending him on the road and conveying him to a place of safety. After getting into the wood, Luther was mounted on horseback, and conveyed to Wartburg, a castle belonging to the elector, where he continued to live disguised as a knight—Junker Jörge—till March 1522. Luther was accustomed to call the castle of Wartburg his Patmos.V.47Durer, though an advocate of Luther, does not seem to have withdrawn himself from the communion of the Church of Rome. In his Journal, in 1521, he enters a sum of ten stivers given to his confessor, and, subsequently, eight stivers given to a monk who visited his wife when she was sick. The passage in which the last item occurs is curious, and seems to prove that female practitioners were then accustomed both to dispense and administer medical preparations at Antwerp. “Meine Frau ward krank,—der Apothekerinn für Klystiren gegeben 14 Stüber; dem Mönch, der sie besuchte, 8 Stüber.”—Von Murr, Journal, 7er Theil, S. 93.V.48This inducement for Erasmus to stand forth as a candidate for the honour of martyrdom is, in the original, as simple in expression as it is novel in conception: “Du bist doch sonst ein altes Menniken.” Literally: For thou art already an oldmannikin. Erasmus, however, was not a spirit to be charmed to enter such a circle by such an invocation. As he said of himself, “his gift did not lie that way,” and he had as little taste for martyrdom as he had for fish.—In one or two other passages in Durer’s Journal there is an allusion to the diminutive stature of Erasmus.V.49Von Murr, Journal, 7er Theil, S. 88-93. In volume X, p. 41, Von Murr gives from Peucer, the son-in-law of Melancthon, the following anecdote: “Melancthon, when at Nuremberg, on church and university affairs, was much in the society of Pirkheimer; and Albert Durer, the painter, an intelligent man, whose least merit, as Melancthon used to say, was his art, was frequently one of the party. Between Pirkheimer and Durer there were frequent disputes respecting the recent [religious] contest, in which Durer, as he was a man of strong mind, vigorously opposed Pirkheimer, and refuted his arguments as if he had come prepared for the discussion. Pirkheimer growing warm, for he was very irritable and much plagued with the gout, would sometimes exclaim “Not so:—these things cannot bepainted.”—“And the arguments which you allege,” Durer would reply, “can neither be correctly expressed nor comprehended.”—Whatever might have been the particular points in dispute between the two friends, Pirkheimer, as well as Durer, was a supporter of the doctrines ofLuther.”V.50Corpus Christi day is a moveable festival, and is celebrated on the first Thursday after Trinity Sunday.V.51St. Margaret’s day is the 20th July.V.52Durer says that this astronomer was a German, and a native of Munich.V.53Ulrich Varnbuler was subsequently the chancellor of the Emperor Ferdinand I. Durer mentions him in a letter addressed to “HernnFrey in Zurich,” and dated from Nuremberg on the Sundayafter St. Andrew’s day, 1523. With this letter Durer sent to his correspondent a humorous sketch, in pen and ink, of apes dancing, which in 1776 was still preserved in the Public Library of Basle. The date of this letter proves the incorrectness of Mr. Ottley’s statement, in page 723 of his Inquiry, where he says that Durer did not return to Nuremberg from the Low Countries “untilthe middle of the year1524.” Mr. Ottley is not more correct when he says, at page 735, that the portrait of Varnbuler is the “size of nature.”V.54It is supposed that Shakspeare, in alluding to the “dozen white luces” in Master Shallow’s coat of arms,—Merry Wives of Windsor, Act I,—intended to ridicule Sir Thomas Lucy of Charlecotte, Wiltshire, before whom he is said to have been brought in his youth on a charge of deer-stealing.V.55Etliche Underricht zu Befestigung der Stett, Schloss, und Flecken; Underweysung der Messung mit der Zirckel und Richtscheyt; Bucher von Menschlicher Proportion. All in folio. Those treatises were subsequently translated into Latin and several times reprinted. The treatise on the Proportions of the Human Body was also translated into French and printed at Paris in 1557. A collection of Durer’s writings was published by J. Jansen, 1604.V.56This letter is addressed to “Johann Tscherte,” an architect residing at Vienna, the mutual friend of Pirkheimer and Durer.—Von Murr, Journal, 10er Theil, S. 36.V.57Those three engravings are respectively numbered 1, 60, and 67 in Bartsch’s list of Durer’s works in his Peintre-Graveur, tom. vii. The Adam and Eve is nine inches and three-fourths high by seven inches and a half wide,—date 1504; St. Jerome, nine inches and five-eighths high by seven inches and three-eighths wide,—date 1514; Melancolia, nine inches and three-eighths high by seven inches and one fourth wide,—date 1514.V.58Isaiah, chapter xxxv. verse 9.V.59One of the largest wood-cuts designed by Cranach is a subject representing the baptism of some saint; and having on one side a portrait of Frederick, Elector of Saxony, and on the other a portrait of Luther. The block has consisted of three pieces, and from the impressions it seems as if the parts containing the portraits of the elector and Luther had been added after the central part had been finished. The piece altogether is comparatively worthless in design, and is very indifferently engraved.V.60Burgmair also made the designs for a series of saints, male and female, of the family of the emperor, which are also engraved on wood. The original blocks, with the names of the engravers written at the back, are still preserved, and are at present in the Imperial Library at Vienna.V.61“Solche Gestalt unser baider was,Im Spigel aber nix dan das!”A small engraving in a slight manner appears to have been made of the portraits of Burgmair and his wife by George Christopher Kilian, an artist of Augsburg, about 1774.—Von Murr, Journal, 4er Theil, S. 22.V.62The original title of the work is: “Die gevarlichkeiten und eins teils der Geschichten des loblichen streytparen und hochberümbten Helds und Ritters Tewrdanckha.” That is: The adventurous deeds and part of the history of the famous, valiant, and highly-renowned hero Sir Theurdank. The name, Theurdank, in the language of the period, would seem to imply a person whose thoughts were only employed on noble and elevated subjects. Goethe, who in his youth was fond of looking over old books illustrated with wood-cuts, alludes to Sir Theurdank in his admirable play of Götz von Berlichingen: “Geht! Geht!” says Adelheid to Weislingen, “Erzählt das Mädchen die den Teurdanck lesen, und sich so einen Mann wünschen.”—“Go! Go! Tell that to a girl who reads Sir Theurdank, and wishes that she may have such a husband.” In Sir Walter Scott’s faulty translation of this play—under the name ofWilliamScott, 1799,—the passage is rendered as follows: “Go! Go! Talk of that to some forsaken damsel whose Corydon has proved forsworn.” In another passage where Goethe makes Adelheid allude to the popular “Märchen,” or tale, of Number-Nip, the point is completely lost in the translation: “Entbinden nicht unsre Gesetze solchen Schwüren?—Macht das Kindern weiss die den Rübezahl glauben.” Literally, “Do not our laws release you from such oaths?—Tell that to children who believe Number-Nip.” In Sir Walter Scott’s translation the passage is thus most incorrectly rendered: “Such agreement is no more binding than an unjust extorted oath. Every child knows what faith is to be kept with robbers.” The nameRübezahlis literally translated byNumber-Neep; Rübe is the German name for a turnip,—Scoticè, a neep. The story is as well known in Germany as that of Jack the Giant-Killer in England.V.63Charaktere Teutscher Dichter und Prosaisten, S. 71. Berlin, 1781.V.64Nec sic incipies, ut scriptor cyclicus olim:“Fortunam Priami cantabo, et nobile bellum:”Quid dignum tanto feret hic promissor hiatu?Parturiunt montes; nascetur ridiculus mus.Ars Poetica, v. 136-139.In a Greek epigram the Cyclic poets are thus noticed:Τοὺς κυκλίους τούτους τοὺς αὐτὰρ ἔπειτα λέγονταςΜισῶ λωποδύτας ἀλλοτρίων ἐπέων.V.65Dissertation sur l’Origine et les Progres de l’Art de Graver en Bois, p. 74. Paris, 1758.V.66The kind of character in which the text of Sir Theurdank is printed is called “Fractur” by German printers. “The first work,” says Breitkopf, “which afforded an example of a perfectly-shapedFracturfor printing, was unquestionably the Theurdank, printed at Nuremberg, 1517.”—Ueber Bibliographie und Bibliophile, S. 8. 1793.—Neudörffer, a contemporary, who lived at Nuremberg at the time when Sir Theurdank was first published, says that the specimens for the types were written by Vincent Rockner, the emperor’s court-secretary.—Von Murr, Journal, 2er Theil, S. 159; and Lichtenberger, Initia Typographica, p. 194.V.67The title of the volume is “Der Weiss Kunig. Eine Erzehlung von den Thaten Kaiser Maximilian des Ersten. Von Marx Treitzsaurwein auf dessen Angeben zusammen getragen, nebst von Hannsen Burgmair dazu verfertigten Holzschnitten. Herausgegeben aus dem Manuscripte der Kaiserl. Königl. Hofbibliothek. Wien, auf Kosten Joseph Kurzböckens, 1775.”V.68In the Imperial Library at Vienna there is a series of old impressions of cuts intended for “Der Weiss Kunig,” consisting of two hundred and fifty pieces; it would therefore appear, supposing this set to be perfect, that there are fourteen of the original blocks lost. Why a single modern cut has been admitted into the book, and thirteen of the old impressions not re-engraved, it perhaps would be difficult to give a satisfactory reason.V.69Charaktere Teutscher Dichter und Prosaisten, S. 70.V.70Bibliographical Tour, vol iii. p. 330.V.71The subjects of those sixteen cuts are chiefly the statues of the emperor’s ancestors, with representations of himself, and of his family alliances. Several of the carriages are propelled by mechanical contrivances, which for laborious ingenuity may vie with the machine for uncorking bottles in one of the subjects of Hogarth’s Marriage à la Mode. In the copy before me those engravings are numbered 89, 90, 91, 91, 92, 92, 93, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 99, 101, 102, 103.V.72Breitkopf, Ueber Bibliographie und Bibliophile, S. 4. Leipzig, 1793. Von Murr, Journal, 9er Theil, S. 1. At page 255 I have said: “Though I have not been able to ascertain satisfactorily the subject of Durer’s painting in the Town-hall of Nuremberg, I am inclined to think that it is the TriumphalCarof Maximilian.” Since the sheet containing the above passage was printed off I have ascertained that the subjectisthe Triumphal Car; and that it is described in Von Murr’s Nürnbergischen Merkwürdigkeiten, S. 395.V.73JobstandJos, in this inscription, are probably intended for the name of the same person. For the name Jobst, Jost, Josse, or Jos—for it is thus variously spelled—we have no equivalent in English. It is not unusual in Germany as a baptismal name—it can scarcely be calledChristian—and is Latinized, I believe, under the more lengthy form ofJodocus.V.74The printed numbers on those two cuts are 105 and 106, though the descriptions are numbered 120 and 121 in the text. The subjects are, No. 105, two ranks, of five men each, on foot, carrying long lances; and No. 106, two ranks, of five men each, on foot, carrying large two-handed swords on their shoulders.—Perhaps it may not be out of place to correct here the following passage which occurs at page 285 of this volume: “Bartsch, however, observes, that ‘what Strutt has said about there being two persons of this name [Hans Schaufflein], an elder and a younger, seems to be a mere conjecture.’” Since the sheet containing this passage was printed off, I have learnt from a paper, in Meusel’s Neue Miscellaneen, 5tes. Stück, S. 210, that Hans Schäufflein had a son of the same name who was also a painter, and that the elder Schäufflein died at Nordlingen, in 1539. At page 281, his death, on the authority of Bartsch, is erroneously placed in 1550.V.75The name of Cornelius Liefrink occurs at the back of some of the wood-cuts representing the saints of the family of Maximilian, designed by Burgmair, mentioned at page 278, note.V.76In all the blocks, the tablets and scrolls, and the upper part of banners intended to receive verses and inscriptions, were left unengraved. In order that the appearance of the cuts might not be injured, the black ground, intended for the letters, was cut away in most of the tablets and scrolls, in the edition of 1796.V.77That part of the flail which comes in contact with the corn is, in the North of England, termed aswingel.V.78The substance of almost every rhyme and inscription is, that the person who bears the rhyme-tablet or scroll has derived great improvement in his art or profession from the instructions or suggestions of the emperor. Huntsmen, falconers, trumpeters, organists, fencing-masters, ballet-masters, tourniers, and jousters, all acknowledge their obligations in this respect to Maximilian. For the wit and humour of the jesters and the natural fools, the emperor, with great forbearance, takes to himself no credit; and Anthony von Dornstett, the leader of the drummers and fifers, is one of the few whose art he has not improved.V.79Those three are the numbers 77, 78, 79, representing musicians on horseback. The same person who drew the standard-bearers has evidently drawn those three cuts also.V.80Minutes of Evidence before the Select Committee on Arts and Manufactures, p. 130. Ordered to be printed, 16th August 1836.V.81Among the principal modern wood-cuts engraved on blocks consisting of several pieces the following may be mentioned: The Chillingham Bull, by Thomas Bewick, 1789; A view of St. Nicholas’ Church, Newcastle-on-Tyne, by Charlton Nesbit, from a drawing by R. Johnson, 1798; The Diploma of the Highland Society, by Luke Clennell, from a design by B. West, P.R.A. 1808; The Death of Dentatus, by William Harvey, from a painting by B. R. Haydon, 1821; and The Old Horse waiting for Death, left unfinished, by T. Bewick, and published in 1832.V.82At the foot of this cut, to the right, after the name of the designer,—“Raphael Urbinas,”—is the following privilege, granted by Pope Leo X. and the Doge of Venice, prohibiting all persons from pirating the work. “Quisque has tabellas invito autore imprimet ex Divi Leonis X. et Il͞l Principis Venetiarum decretis excominicationis sententiam et alias penas incurret.” Below this inscription is the engraver’s name with the date: “Romæ apud Ugum de Carpi impressum.MDXVIII.”V.83“J’ai trouvé dans lesReceueilsde l’Abbé de Marolles, au Cabinet du Roi de France, une piece détachée, qui, suivant mon sentiment, est la plus ancienne de celles, qui sont gravées en bois dans les Païs-Bas, et qui portent le nom de l’artiste. Cette estampe est marquée:Gheprint t’ Antwerpen by my Phillery de figursnider—Imprimé à Anvers, chez moi Phillery, le graveur de figures. Elle sert de preuve, que les graveurs de moules étoient aussi, dans cet ancien tems, imprimeurs à Anvers.”—Idée Générale d’une Collection complette d’Estampes, p. 197.V.84In a work of a similar kind, and of equal authority, published in 1834, we are informed that Ugo da Carpi was a historical painter, and that he died in 1500. He was only born in 1486.V.85The sign of Mr. Benjamin White, formerly a bookseller in Fleet Street, was Horace’s Head. In Scopoli’s Deliciæ, Flora, et Fauna Insubriæ, plate 24 is thus inscribed: “Auspiciis Benjamini White et Horatii Head, Bibliopol. Londinensium.” The learned naturalist had mistaken Mr. White’s sign for his partner in the business.V.86This cut of Urse Graff is described in Bartsch’s Peintre-Graveur, tom. vii. p. 465, No. 16.V.87The device of Frobenius at the end of an edition of the same work, printed by him in 1518, is much inferior to that in the edition of 1519. In both, the ornamental border of the title-page is the same.V.88The title of this book is, in red letters, “Triompho di Fortuna, di Sigismondo Fanti, Ferrarese.” The title-page is also ornamented with a wood-cut, representing the Pope, with Virtue on one side, and Vice on the other, seated above the globe, which is supported by Atlas, and provided with an axis, having a handle at each side, like a winch. At one of the handles is a devil, and at the other an angel; to the left is a naked figure holding a die, and near to him is an astronomer taking an observation. At the foot of the cut is the mark I. M. or T. M., for I cannot positively decide whether the first letter be intended for an I or a T. The following is the colophon: “Impresso in la inclita citta di Venegia per Agostin da Portese. Nel anno dil virgineo partoMD.XXVII.Nel mese di Genaro, ad instātia di Jacomo Giunta Mercatāte Florentino. Con il Privilegio di Clemente Papa VII, et del Senato Veneto a requisitione di l’Autore.” In the Catalogue of the British Museum this book is erroneously entered as printed at Rome, 1526. The compiler had mistaken the date of the Pope’s licence for the time when the book was printed. This trifling mistake is noticed here, as from similar oversights bibliographers have sometimes described books as having been twice or thrice printed, when, in fact, there had been only one edition.V.89The following questions, selected from a number of others, will perhaps afford some idea of this “Opera utilissima et jocosa,” as it is called by the author. “Se glie bene a pigliar bella, o bruta donna; se’l servo sara fidele al suo signore; se quest’ anno sara carestia o abundantia; quanti mariti havera la donna; se glie bene a far viaggio et a che tempo; se’l parto della donna sara maschio o femina; se’l sogno fatto sara vero; se’l fin del huomo sara buono.” The three small illustrations of the last query are of evil omen; in one, is seen a gallows; in another, a man praying; and in the third, the quarters of a human body hung up in terrorem.V.90The following lines descriptive of this cut are printed underneath it:How Mary and Joseph with iesu were fayne.In to Egypte for socour to fle.Whan the Innocentes for his sake wer slayne.By com̄issyon of Herodescrueltie.V.91In a folio work entitled “Epitome Thesauri Antiquitatum, hoc estImpp.Rom. Orientalium et Occidentalium Iconum, ex Antiquis Numismatibus quam fidelissime delineatarum. Ex Musæo Jacobi de Strada Mantuani Antiquarii,” Lyons, 1553, it is stated that the first work containing portraits of the Roman emperors engraved from their coins was that entitled “Illustrium Imagines,” written by Cardinal Sadolet, and printed at Rome by Jacobus Mazochius.—In Strada’s work the portraits are executed in the same manner as in that of Huttichius. The wood-cut containing the printer’s device, on the title-page of Strada’s work, is admirably engraved.V.92Heineken ranks the following in the class oflittle masters: Henry Aldgrever, Albert Altdorffer, Bartholomew Behaim, Hans Sebald Behaim, Hans Binck, Henry Goerting, George Penez, and Virgil Solis. Most of them were engravers on copper.V.93The following curious testimony respecting a lock of Albert Durer’s hair, which had formerly been in the possession of Hans Baldung Grün, is translated from an article in Meusel’s Neue Miscellaneen, 1799. The lock of hair and the document were then in the possession of Herr H. S. Hüsgen of Frankfort on the Mayn: “Herein is the hair which was cut from the head of that ingenious and celebrated painter Albert Durer, after his death at Nuremberg, 8th April 1528, as a token of remembrance. It afterwards came into the possession of that skilful painter Hans Baldung, burger of this city, Strasburg; and after his death, in 1545, my late brother-in-law, Nicholas Krämer, painter, of this city, having bought sundry of his works and other things, among them found this lock of hair, in an old letter, wherein was written an account of what it contained. On the death of my brother-in-law, in 1550, it was presented to me by my sister Dorothy, and I now enclose it in this letter for a memorial. 1559.Sebold Büheler.” To this testimony are subjoined two or three others of subsequent date, showing in whose possession the valued relic had been before it came into the hands of Herr Hüsgen.V.94Evidence of Dr. G. F. Waagen of Berlin before the Select Committee of the House of Commons on Arts and their Connexion with Manufactures, 1835.
V.1Chiaro-scuros are executed by means of two or more blocks, in imitation of a drawing in sepia, India ink, or any other colour of two or more shades. The older chiaro-scuros are seldom executed with more than three blocks; on the first of which the general outline of the subject and the stronger shades were engraved and printed in the usual manner; from the second the lighter shades were communicated; and from the third a general tint was printed over the impressions of the other two.V.2This print is one of the valuable collection left to the Museum by the Rev. C. M. Cracherode, and the following remark in that gentleman’s writing is inserted on the opposite page of the folio in which it is preserved: “The Presepe is a plain proof that printing in chiaro-scuro was known before the time of Ugo da Carpi, who is erroneously reputed the inventor of this art at the beginning of the sixteenth century.” The print in question is certainly not a proof of the art of engraving in chiaro-scuro; and Mr. Ottley has added the following correction in pencil: “But the white here is put on with a pencil, and not left in printing, as it would have been if the tint had been added by a wooden block after the copper-plate had been printed.”V.3Bartsch describes this print in his Peintre-Graveur, tom. vi. p. 364, No. 4; but he takes no notice of Joseph holding a candle, nor of its wanting a light.V.4Some single cuts executed in this manner are supposed to be at least as old as the year 1450. The earliest that I have noticed in a book occur in a Life of Christ printed at Cologne about 1485.V.5In a folio of Albert Durer’s drawings in the Print Room at the British Museum there is a portrait of “Fronica, Formschneiderin,” with the date 1525. In 1433 we find a woman at Nuremberg described as a card-maker: “Eli. Kartenmacherin.” It is scarcely necessary to remind the reader that the earliest German wood engravers were card-makers.—See chapterII.p. 41.V.6The following is Bartsch’s French version of this letter, which is given in the original German in Von Murr’s Journal, 9er.Theil, S. 53. “Cher Michel Beheim. Je vous envoie les armoiries, en vous priant de les laisser comme elles sont. Personne d’ailleurs ne les corrigeroit en mieux, car je les ai faites exprès et avec art; c’est pourquoi ceux qui s’y connoissent et qui les verront vous en rendront bonne raison. Si l’on haussoit les lambrequins du heaume, ils couvriroient le volet.”—Bartsch, Peintre-Graveur, tom. vii. p. 27.V.7In Durer’s Journal of his visit to the Netherlands in 1520 there is the following passage: “Item hab dem von Rogendorff sein Wappen auf Holz gerissen, dafür hat er mir geschenckt vii. Ein Sammet.”—“Also I have drawn for Von Rogendorff his arms on wood, for which he has presented me with seven yards of velvet.”—Von Murr, Journal zur Kunstgeschichte, 7er.Theil, S. 76.V.8Bibliographical Tour, vol. iii. p. 442, second edition.V.9The Baron was the collector of the wood-cuts published with Becker’s explanations, referred to at page 226, chapterIV.The anecdote alluded to will be found in Dr. Dibdin’s Bibliographical Tour, vol. iii. pp. 445, 446. The Baron sold a rare specimen of copper-plate engraving with the dateM. CCCC. XXX.to the Doctor, and it seems that he also soldanotherimpression from the same plate to Mr. John Payne. There is no doubt of their being gross forgeries; and it is not unlikely that the plate was in the Baron’s possession.V.10“Dieser Hieronymus hat allhier im breiten Gassen gewohnt, dessen Wohnung hinten ins Frauengässlein ging.”V.11Neudörffer, quoted in Von Murr’s Journal, 2ter Theil, S. 158, 159.V.12At the end of the first edition of the cuts illustrative of the Apocalypse, 1498, we find the words:“Gedruktdurch Albrecht Durer, Maler,”—Printed by Albert Durer, painter; and the same in Latin in the second edition, printed about 1510. The passion of Christ and the History of the Virgin are respectively said to have been “effigiata” and “per figuras digesta”—“drawn” and “pictorially represented” by Albert Durer; and the cuts of the Triumphal Car of the Emperor Maximilian are described as being “erfunden und geordnet”—“invented and arranged” by him.—Bartsch, Peintre-Graveur, tom. vii. p. 28.V.13The time that a German artist spends in travel from the expiration of his apprenticeship to the period of his settling as a master is called his“wander-jahre,”—his travelling years. It is customary with many trades in Germany for the young men to travel for a certain time on the termination of their apprenticeship before they are admitted to the full privileges of the company or fellowship.V.14It has been stated, though erroneously, that Albert Durer was a pupil of Martin Schongauer, or Schön, as the surname was spelled by some writers, one of the most eminent painters and copper-plate engravers of his day. It has been generally supposed that he died in 1486; but, if an old memorandum at the back of his portrait in the collection of Count de Fries can be depended on, his death did not take place till the 2d of February 1499. An account of this memorandum will be found in Ottley’s Inquiry into the Origin and Early History of Engraving, vol. ii. p. 640.V.15On a passage, in which Durer alludes to his wife, in one of his letters from Venice, 1506, to his friend Bilibald Pirkheimer, Von Murr makes the following remark: “This Xantippe must even at that time have vexed him much; and he was obliged to drag on his life with her for twenty-two years longer, till she fairly plagued him to death.”—Journal, 10er Theil, S. 32.V.16Bartsch is decidedly of opinion that Michael Wolgemuth was not an engraver; and he ascribes all the plates marked with a W, which others have supposed to be Wolgemuth’s, to Wenceslaus of Olmutz, an artist of whom nothing is positively known.V.17This subject has also been engraved by Israel Von Mecken, and by an artist supposed to be Wenceslaus of Olmutz. It is probable that those artists have copied Durer’s engraving. On the globe in Israel Von Mecken’s plate the letters are O. G. B.V.18This caution is in the original expressed in the following indignant terms: “Heus, tu insidiator, ac alieni laboris et ingenii surreptor, ne manus temerarias his nostris operibus inicias cave. Scias enim a gloriosissimo Romanorum imperatore Maximiliano nobis concessum esse ne quis suppositiciis formis has imagines imprimere seu impressas per imperii limites vendere audeat: q’ per contemptum seu avariciæ crimen secus feceris, post bonorum confiscationem tibi maximum periculum subeundum esse certissime scias.”V.19Von Murr says that the subject of this picture was the martyrdom of St. Bartholomew, the saint to whom the church was dedicated; and that the painting afterwards came into the possession of the Emperor Rudolf II. and was placed in his gallery at Prague. It seems that Durer had taken some pictures with him to Venice; for in his fifth letter he says that he has sold two for twenty-four ducats, and exchanged three others for three rings, valued also at twenty-four ducats.V.20In the Venetian dialect of that period Giovanni Bellini was called Zan Belin; and Durer spells the name “Sambellinus.” He was the master of Titian, and died in 1514, at the age of ninety.—Von Murr, Journal, 10er Theil, S. 8.V.21Von Murr says that he cannot discover what Jacob is here meant. It would not be Jacob Walsch, as he died in 1500. The person alluded to was certainly not an Italian.V.22Bilibald Pirkheimer was a learned man, and a person of great authority in the city of Nuremberg. He was also a member of the Imperial Council, and was frequently employed in negociations with neighbouring states. He published several works; and among others a humorous essay entitled “Laus Podagræ”—The Praise of the Gout. His memory is still held in great respect in Germany as the friend of Albert Durer and Ulrich Hutten, two of the most extraordinary men that Germany has produced. He died in 1530, aged 60.V.23The kind of engraving meant was copper-plate engraving. Durer’s words are: “Ich hab awch dy Moler all gesthrilt dy do sagten, ImStechenwer ich gut, aber im molen west ich nit mit farben um zu gen.” The word “Stechen” applies to engraving on copper; “Schneiden” to engraving on wood.—Von Murr, Journal, 10er Theil, S. 28.V.24The title at length is as follows: “Epitome in Divæ Parthenices Marie Historiam ab Alberto Durero Norico per figuras digestam, cum versibus annexis Chelidonii.” Chelidonius, who was a Benedictine monk of Nuremberg, also furnished the descriptive text to the series of twelve cuts illustrative of Christ’s Passion, of which specimens will be found between page 246 and page 250.V.25The cuts of these two works appear to have been in the hands of the engraver at the same time. Of those in the History of the Virgin one is dated 1509; and two bear the date 1510; and in the Passion of Christ four are dated 1510.V.26The Latin title of the work is as follows: “Passio Domini nostri Jesu, ex Hieronymo Paduano, Dominico Mancino, Sedulio, et Baptista Mantuana, per fratrem Chelidonium collecta, cum figuris Alberti Dureri Norici Pictoris.”V.27The Latin title of this work is “Passio Christi,” and the explanatory verses are from the pen of Chelidonius. Durer, in the Journal of his Visit to the Netherlands, twice mentions it as “die Kleine Passion,” and each time with a distinction which proves that he did not mean the Passion engraved by him on copper and probably published in 1512. “Item Sebaldt Fischer hat mir zu Antorff [Antwerp] abkaufft 16kleiner Passion, pro 4 fl. Mehr 32 grosser Bücher pro 8 fl. Mehr 6 gestochne Passion pro 3 fl.”—“Darnach die drey Bücher unser Frauen Leben, Apocalypsin, und den grossen Passion, darnachden klein Passion, und den Passion in Kupffer.”—Albrecht Dürers Reisejournal, in Von Murr, 7er Theil, S. 60 and 67. The size of the cuts of the Little Passion is five inches high by three and seven-eighths wide. Four impressions from the original blocks are given in Ottley’s Inquiry, vol. ii. between page 730 and page731.V.28Inquiry into the Origin and Early History of Engraving, vol. ii. p. 782. The objections to the general truth of Vasari’s story appear to be much stronger than the presumptions in its favour. 1. The improbability of Albert Durer having visited Venice subsequent to 1506; 2. The fact of Marc Antonio’s copies of the cuts of the Little Passionnotcontaining Albert Durer’s mark; and 3. The probability of Mark Antonio residing beyond the jurisdiction of the Venetian government at the time of his engraving them.V.29There is a copy of this head, also engraved on wood, of the size of the original, but without Durer’s, or any other mark. Underneath an impression of the copy, in the Print Room of the British Museum, there is written in a hand which appears to be at least as old as the year 1550, “Dieser hatHSBehaim gerissen”—“H. S. Behaim drew this.” Hans Sebald Behaim, a painter and designer on wood, was born at Nuremberg in 1500, and was the pupil of his uncle, also named Behaim, a painter and engraver of that city. The younger Behaim abandoned the arts to become a tavern-keeper at Frankfort, where he died in 1550.V.30In the edition with Latin inscriptions, 1523, are the words, “Excogitatus et depictus est currus iste Nurembergæ, impressus vero per Albertum Durer. AnnoMDXXIII.”The Latin words “excogitatus et depictus” are expressed by “gefunden und geordnet” in the German inscriptions in the edition of 1522. A sketch by Durer, for the Triumphal Car, is preserved in the Print Room in the British Museum.V.31Bibliographical Tour, vol. iii. p. 438. Edit. 1829.V.32Ibid. p. 330.V.33The two last names are, in the first edition, pasted over others which appear to have been “The Gate of Honour” and “The Gate of Relationship, Friendship, and Alliance.” The last name alludes to the emperor’s possessions as acquired by descent or marriage, and to his power as strengthened by his friendly alliances with neighbouring states.V.34“Item wist auch das Ich K. Mt. ausserhalb des Tryumps sonst viel mancherley Fisyrung gemacht hab.”—“You must also know that I have made many other drawings for the emperor besides those of the Triumph.” The date of this letter is not given, but Durer informs his friend that he had been already three years employed for the emperor, and that if he had not exerted himself the beautiful “work” would not have been so soon completed. If this is to be understood of the Triumphal Arch, it would seem that the designs at least were all finished before the emperor’s death.—Von Murr, Journal, 9er Theil, S. 4.V.35In the process of etching the plate is first covered with a resinous composition—called etching ground—on which the lines intended to beetched, or bit into the plate, are drawn through to the surface of the metal by means of a small pointed tool called an etching needle, or an etching point. When the drawing of the subject upon the etching ground is finished, the plate is surrounded with a slightly raised border, or “wall,” as it is technically termed, formed of rosin, bee’s-wax, and lard; and, a corrosive liquid being poured upon the plate, the lines are “bit” into the copper or steel. When the engraver thinks that the lines are corroded to a sufficient depth, he pours off the liquid, cleans the plate by means of turpentine, and proceeds to finish his work with the graver and dry-point. According to the practice of modern engravers, where severaltintsare required, as is most frequently the case, the process of “biting-in” is repeated; the corrosive liquid being again poured on the plate to corrode deeper the stronger lines, while the more delicate are “stopped out,”—that is, covered with a kind of varnish that soon hardens, to preserve them from further corrosion. Most of our best engravers now use a diamond point in etching.Nitrousacid is used for “biting-in” on copper in the proportion of one part acid to four parts water, and the mixture is considered to be better after it has been once or twice used. Before using the acid it is advisable to take the stopper out of the bottle for twenty-four hours in order to allow a portion of the strength to evaporate. During the process of biting-in a large copper-plate the fumes which arise are so powerful as frequently to cause an unpleasant stricture in the throat, and sometimes to bring on a spitting of blood when they have been incautiously inhaled by the engraver. At such times it is usual for the engraver to have near him some powerful essence, generally hartshorn, in order to counteract the effects of the noxious vapour. For biting-in onsteel,nitricacid is used in the proportion of thirty drops to half a pint of distilled water; and the mixture is never used for more than one plate.—When acopper-plate is sufficiently bit-in, it is only necessary to wash it with a little water previous to removing the etching ground with turpentine; but, besides this, with asteelplate it is further necessary to set it on one of its edges against a wall or other support, and to blow it with a pair of small bellows till every particle of moisture in the lines is perfectly evaporated. The plate is then rubbed with oil, otherwise the lines would rust from the action of the atmosphere and the plate be consequently spoiled. Previous to a steel plate being laid aside for any length of time it ought to be warmed, and the engraved surface rubbed carefully over with virgin wax so that it may be completely covered, and every line filled. A piece of thick paper the size of the plate, laid over the wax while it is yet adhesive, will prove an additional safeguard. For this information respecting the process of biting-in, the writer is indebted to an eminent engraver, Mr. J. T. Wilmore.V.36The account of the naming of John the Baptist will be found in St. Luke’s Gospel, chap. i. verse 59-64.V.37Durer’s Journal of his Travels is given by Von Murr, 7er Theil, S. 55-98. The title which the Editor has prefixed to it is, “Reisejournal Albrecht Dürer’s von seiner Niederländischen Reise, 1520 und 1521. E. Bibliotheca Ebneriana.” In the same volume, Von Murr gives some specimens of Durer’s poetry. The first couplet which he made in 1509 is as follows:“Du aller Engel Spiegel und Erlöser der Welt,Deine grosse Marter sey für mein Sünd ein Widergelt.”Thou mirror of all Angels and Redeemer of mankind,Through thy martyrdom, for all my sins may I a ransom find.This couplet being ridiculed by Bilibald Pirkheimer, who said that rhyming verses ought not to consist of more than eight syllables, Durer wrote several others in a shorter measure, but with no better success; for he says at the conclusion, that they did not please the learned counsellor. With Durer’s rhymes there is an epistle in verse from his friend Lazarus Sprengel, written to dissuade him from attempting to become a poet. Durer’s verses want “the right butter-woman’s trot to market,” and are sadly deficient in rhythm when compared with the more regular clink of his friend’s.V.38Subsequently, Durer mentions having delivered to the Margrave John, at Brussels, a letter of recommendation [Fürderbrief] from the Bishop of Bamberg.V.39As Durer was at Cologne about the 26th July, it is probable that he would arrive at Antwerp about the last day of that month.V.40The maid, Susanna, seems to have been rather a “humble friend” than amenialservant; for she is mentioned in another part of the Journal as being entertained with Durer’s wife at the house of “Tomasin Florianus,” whom Durer describes as “Romanus, von Luca bürtig.”V.41The Assumption of the Virgin is celebrated in the Roman Catholic Church on the 15th August.V.42Albrecht Dürer’s Reisejournal, in Von Murr, 7er Theil, S. 63-65.V.43This “gross Fischpein” was probably part of the back-bone of a whale.V.44The stiver was the twenty-fourth part of a guilder or florin of gold, which was equal to about nine shillings English money of the present time; the stiver would therefore be equal to about four pence half-penny. About the same time, Durer sold a copy of his Christ’s Passion, probably the large one, for twelve stivers, and an impression of his copper-plate of Adam and Eve for four stivers. Shortly after his first arrival at Antwerp, he sold sixteen copies of the Little Passion for four guilders or florins; and thirty-two copies of his larger works,—probably the Apocalypse, the History of the Virgin, and the Great Passion,—for eight florins, being at the rate of sixteen stivers for each copy. He also sold six copies of the Passion engraved on copper at the same price. He gave to his host a painting of the Virgin on canvass to sell for two Rhenish florins. The sum that he received for each portrait in pencil [the German is mit Kohlen, which is literally charcoal], when the partiesdidpay, appears to have been a florin.V.45In Von Murr the words are “AmDonnerstagenach Marien Himmelfahrt,”—On the Thursday after theAssumptionof the Virgin. But this is evidently incorrect, the feast of the Assumption being kept on 15th August. The “Marien Opferung”—the Presentation of the Virgin—which is commemorated on 21st November, is evidently meant.V.46Luther’s safe-conduct from Worms to Wittenberg was limited to twenty-one days, at the expiration of which he was declared to be under the ban of the empire, or, in other words, an outlaw, to whom no prince or free city of Germany was to afford a refuge. Luther, previous to leaving Worms, was informed of the elector’s intention of secretly apprehending him on the road and conveying him to a place of safety. After getting into the wood, Luther was mounted on horseback, and conveyed to Wartburg, a castle belonging to the elector, where he continued to live disguised as a knight—Junker Jörge—till March 1522. Luther was accustomed to call the castle of Wartburg his Patmos.V.47Durer, though an advocate of Luther, does not seem to have withdrawn himself from the communion of the Church of Rome. In his Journal, in 1521, he enters a sum of ten stivers given to his confessor, and, subsequently, eight stivers given to a monk who visited his wife when she was sick. The passage in which the last item occurs is curious, and seems to prove that female practitioners were then accustomed both to dispense and administer medical preparations at Antwerp. “Meine Frau ward krank,—der Apothekerinn für Klystiren gegeben 14 Stüber; dem Mönch, der sie besuchte, 8 Stüber.”—Von Murr, Journal, 7er Theil, S. 93.V.48This inducement for Erasmus to stand forth as a candidate for the honour of martyrdom is, in the original, as simple in expression as it is novel in conception: “Du bist doch sonst ein altes Menniken.” Literally: For thou art already an oldmannikin. Erasmus, however, was not a spirit to be charmed to enter such a circle by such an invocation. As he said of himself, “his gift did not lie that way,” and he had as little taste for martyrdom as he had for fish.—In one or two other passages in Durer’s Journal there is an allusion to the diminutive stature of Erasmus.V.49Von Murr, Journal, 7er Theil, S. 88-93. In volume X, p. 41, Von Murr gives from Peucer, the son-in-law of Melancthon, the following anecdote: “Melancthon, when at Nuremberg, on church and university affairs, was much in the society of Pirkheimer; and Albert Durer, the painter, an intelligent man, whose least merit, as Melancthon used to say, was his art, was frequently one of the party. Between Pirkheimer and Durer there were frequent disputes respecting the recent [religious] contest, in which Durer, as he was a man of strong mind, vigorously opposed Pirkheimer, and refuted his arguments as if he had come prepared for the discussion. Pirkheimer growing warm, for he was very irritable and much plagued with the gout, would sometimes exclaim “Not so:—these things cannot bepainted.”—“And the arguments which you allege,” Durer would reply, “can neither be correctly expressed nor comprehended.”—Whatever might have been the particular points in dispute between the two friends, Pirkheimer, as well as Durer, was a supporter of the doctrines ofLuther.”V.50Corpus Christi day is a moveable festival, and is celebrated on the first Thursday after Trinity Sunday.V.51St. Margaret’s day is the 20th July.V.52Durer says that this astronomer was a German, and a native of Munich.V.53Ulrich Varnbuler was subsequently the chancellor of the Emperor Ferdinand I. Durer mentions him in a letter addressed to “HernnFrey in Zurich,” and dated from Nuremberg on the Sundayafter St. Andrew’s day, 1523. With this letter Durer sent to his correspondent a humorous sketch, in pen and ink, of apes dancing, which in 1776 was still preserved in the Public Library of Basle. The date of this letter proves the incorrectness of Mr. Ottley’s statement, in page 723 of his Inquiry, where he says that Durer did not return to Nuremberg from the Low Countries “untilthe middle of the year1524.” Mr. Ottley is not more correct when he says, at page 735, that the portrait of Varnbuler is the “size of nature.”V.54It is supposed that Shakspeare, in alluding to the “dozen white luces” in Master Shallow’s coat of arms,—Merry Wives of Windsor, Act I,—intended to ridicule Sir Thomas Lucy of Charlecotte, Wiltshire, before whom he is said to have been brought in his youth on a charge of deer-stealing.V.55Etliche Underricht zu Befestigung der Stett, Schloss, und Flecken; Underweysung der Messung mit der Zirckel und Richtscheyt; Bucher von Menschlicher Proportion. All in folio. Those treatises were subsequently translated into Latin and several times reprinted. The treatise on the Proportions of the Human Body was also translated into French and printed at Paris in 1557. A collection of Durer’s writings was published by J. Jansen, 1604.V.56This letter is addressed to “Johann Tscherte,” an architect residing at Vienna, the mutual friend of Pirkheimer and Durer.—Von Murr, Journal, 10er Theil, S. 36.V.57Those three engravings are respectively numbered 1, 60, and 67 in Bartsch’s list of Durer’s works in his Peintre-Graveur, tom. vii. The Adam and Eve is nine inches and three-fourths high by seven inches and a half wide,—date 1504; St. Jerome, nine inches and five-eighths high by seven inches and three-eighths wide,—date 1514; Melancolia, nine inches and three-eighths high by seven inches and one fourth wide,—date 1514.V.58Isaiah, chapter xxxv. verse 9.V.59One of the largest wood-cuts designed by Cranach is a subject representing the baptism of some saint; and having on one side a portrait of Frederick, Elector of Saxony, and on the other a portrait of Luther. The block has consisted of three pieces, and from the impressions it seems as if the parts containing the portraits of the elector and Luther had been added after the central part had been finished. The piece altogether is comparatively worthless in design, and is very indifferently engraved.V.60Burgmair also made the designs for a series of saints, male and female, of the family of the emperor, which are also engraved on wood. The original blocks, with the names of the engravers written at the back, are still preserved, and are at present in the Imperial Library at Vienna.V.61“Solche Gestalt unser baider was,Im Spigel aber nix dan das!”A small engraving in a slight manner appears to have been made of the portraits of Burgmair and his wife by George Christopher Kilian, an artist of Augsburg, about 1774.—Von Murr, Journal, 4er Theil, S. 22.V.62The original title of the work is: “Die gevarlichkeiten und eins teils der Geschichten des loblichen streytparen und hochberümbten Helds und Ritters Tewrdanckha.” That is: The adventurous deeds and part of the history of the famous, valiant, and highly-renowned hero Sir Theurdank. The name, Theurdank, in the language of the period, would seem to imply a person whose thoughts were only employed on noble and elevated subjects. Goethe, who in his youth was fond of looking over old books illustrated with wood-cuts, alludes to Sir Theurdank in his admirable play of Götz von Berlichingen: “Geht! Geht!” says Adelheid to Weislingen, “Erzählt das Mädchen die den Teurdanck lesen, und sich so einen Mann wünschen.”—“Go! Go! Tell that to a girl who reads Sir Theurdank, and wishes that she may have such a husband.” In Sir Walter Scott’s faulty translation of this play—under the name ofWilliamScott, 1799,—the passage is rendered as follows: “Go! Go! Talk of that to some forsaken damsel whose Corydon has proved forsworn.” In another passage where Goethe makes Adelheid allude to the popular “Märchen,” or tale, of Number-Nip, the point is completely lost in the translation: “Entbinden nicht unsre Gesetze solchen Schwüren?—Macht das Kindern weiss die den Rübezahl glauben.” Literally, “Do not our laws release you from such oaths?—Tell that to children who believe Number-Nip.” In Sir Walter Scott’s translation the passage is thus most incorrectly rendered: “Such agreement is no more binding than an unjust extorted oath. Every child knows what faith is to be kept with robbers.” The nameRübezahlis literally translated byNumber-Neep; Rübe is the German name for a turnip,—Scoticè, a neep. The story is as well known in Germany as that of Jack the Giant-Killer in England.V.63Charaktere Teutscher Dichter und Prosaisten, S. 71. Berlin, 1781.V.64Nec sic incipies, ut scriptor cyclicus olim:“Fortunam Priami cantabo, et nobile bellum:”Quid dignum tanto feret hic promissor hiatu?Parturiunt montes; nascetur ridiculus mus.Ars Poetica, v. 136-139.In a Greek epigram the Cyclic poets are thus noticed:Τοὺς κυκλίους τούτους τοὺς αὐτὰρ ἔπειτα λέγονταςΜισῶ λωποδύτας ἀλλοτρίων ἐπέων.V.65Dissertation sur l’Origine et les Progres de l’Art de Graver en Bois, p. 74. Paris, 1758.V.66The kind of character in which the text of Sir Theurdank is printed is called “Fractur” by German printers. “The first work,” says Breitkopf, “which afforded an example of a perfectly-shapedFracturfor printing, was unquestionably the Theurdank, printed at Nuremberg, 1517.”—Ueber Bibliographie und Bibliophile, S. 8. 1793.—Neudörffer, a contemporary, who lived at Nuremberg at the time when Sir Theurdank was first published, says that the specimens for the types were written by Vincent Rockner, the emperor’s court-secretary.—Von Murr, Journal, 2er Theil, S. 159; and Lichtenberger, Initia Typographica, p. 194.V.67The title of the volume is “Der Weiss Kunig. Eine Erzehlung von den Thaten Kaiser Maximilian des Ersten. Von Marx Treitzsaurwein auf dessen Angeben zusammen getragen, nebst von Hannsen Burgmair dazu verfertigten Holzschnitten. Herausgegeben aus dem Manuscripte der Kaiserl. Königl. Hofbibliothek. Wien, auf Kosten Joseph Kurzböckens, 1775.”V.68In the Imperial Library at Vienna there is a series of old impressions of cuts intended for “Der Weiss Kunig,” consisting of two hundred and fifty pieces; it would therefore appear, supposing this set to be perfect, that there are fourteen of the original blocks lost. Why a single modern cut has been admitted into the book, and thirteen of the old impressions not re-engraved, it perhaps would be difficult to give a satisfactory reason.V.69Charaktere Teutscher Dichter und Prosaisten, S. 70.V.70Bibliographical Tour, vol iii. p. 330.V.71The subjects of those sixteen cuts are chiefly the statues of the emperor’s ancestors, with representations of himself, and of his family alliances. Several of the carriages are propelled by mechanical contrivances, which for laborious ingenuity may vie with the machine for uncorking bottles in one of the subjects of Hogarth’s Marriage à la Mode. In the copy before me those engravings are numbered 89, 90, 91, 91, 92, 92, 93, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 99, 101, 102, 103.V.72Breitkopf, Ueber Bibliographie und Bibliophile, S. 4. Leipzig, 1793. Von Murr, Journal, 9er Theil, S. 1. At page 255 I have said: “Though I have not been able to ascertain satisfactorily the subject of Durer’s painting in the Town-hall of Nuremberg, I am inclined to think that it is the TriumphalCarof Maximilian.” Since the sheet containing the above passage was printed off I have ascertained that the subjectisthe Triumphal Car; and that it is described in Von Murr’s Nürnbergischen Merkwürdigkeiten, S. 395.V.73JobstandJos, in this inscription, are probably intended for the name of the same person. For the name Jobst, Jost, Josse, or Jos—for it is thus variously spelled—we have no equivalent in English. It is not unusual in Germany as a baptismal name—it can scarcely be calledChristian—and is Latinized, I believe, under the more lengthy form ofJodocus.V.74The printed numbers on those two cuts are 105 and 106, though the descriptions are numbered 120 and 121 in the text. The subjects are, No. 105, two ranks, of five men each, on foot, carrying long lances; and No. 106, two ranks, of five men each, on foot, carrying large two-handed swords on their shoulders.—Perhaps it may not be out of place to correct here the following passage which occurs at page 285 of this volume: “Bartsch, however, observes, that ‘what Strutt has said about there being two persons of this name [Hans Schaufflein], an elder and a younger, seems to be a mere conjecture.’” Since the sheet containing this passage was printed off, I have learnt from a paper, in Meusel’s Neue Miscellaneen, 5tes. Stück, S. 210, that Hans Schäufflein had a son of the same name who was also a painter, and that the elder Schäufflein died at Nordlingen, in 1539. At page 281, his death, on the authority of Bartsch, is erroneously placed in 1550.V.75The name of Cornelius Liefrink occurs at the back of some of the wood-cuts representing the saints of the family of Maximilian, designed by Burgmair, mentioned at page 278, note.V.76In all the blocks, the tablets and scrolls, and the upper part of banners intended to receive verses and inscriptions, were left unengraved. In order that the appearance of the cuts might not be injured, the black ground, intended for the letters, was cut away in most of the tablets and scrolls, in the edition of 1796.V.77That part of the flail which comes in contact with the corn is, in the North of England, termed aswingel.V.78The substance of almost every rhyme and inscription is, that the person who bears the rhyme-tablet or scroll has derived great improvement in his art or profession from the instructions or suggestions of the emperor. Huntsmen, falconers, trumpeters, organists, fencing-masters, ballet-masters, tourniers, and jousters, all acknowledge their obligations in this respect to Maximilian. For the wit and humour of the jesters and the natural fools, the emperor, with great forbearance, takes to himself no credit; and Anthony von Dornstett, the leader of the drummers and fifers, is one of the few whose art he has not improved.V.79Those three are the numbers 77, 78, 79, representing musicians on horseback. The same person who drew the standard-bearers has evidently drawn those three cuts also.V.80Minutes of Evidence before the Select Committee on Arts and Manufactures, p. 130. Ordered to be printed, 16th August 1836.V.81Among the principal modern wood-cuts engraved on blocks consisting of several pieces the following may be mentioned: The Chillingham Bull, by Thomas Bewick, 1789; A view of St. Nicholas’ Church, Newcastle-on-Tyne, by Charlton Nesbit, from a drawing by R. Johnson, 1798; The Diploma of the Highland Society, by Luke Clennell, from a design by B. West, P.R.A. 1808; The Death of Dentatus, by William Harvey, from a painting by B. R. Haydon, 1821; and The Old Horse waiting for Death, left unfinished, by T. Bewick, and published in 1832.V.82At the foot of this cut, to the right, after the name of the designer,—“Raphael Urbinas,”—is the following privilege, granted by Pope Leo X. and the Doge of Venice, prohibiting all persons from pirating the work. “Quisque has tabellas invito autore imprimet ex Divi Leonis X. et Il͞l Principis Venetiarum decretis excominicationis sententiam et alias penas incurret.” Below this inscription is the engraver’s name with the date: “Romæ apud Ugum de Carpi impressum.MDXVIII.”V.83“J’ai trouvé dans lesReceueilsde l’Abbé de Marolles, au Cabinet du Roi de France, une piece détachée, qui, suivant mon sentiment, est la plus ancienne de celles, qui sont gravées en bois dans les Païs-Bas, et qui portent le nom de l’artiste. Cette estampe est marquée:Gheprint t’ Antwerpen by my Phillery de figursnider—Imprimé à Anvers, chez moi Phillery, le graveur de figures. Elle sert de preuve, que les graveurs de moules étoient aussi, dans cet ancien tems, imprimeurs à Anvers.”—Idée Générale d’une Collection complette d’Estampes, p. 197.V.84In a work of a similar kind, and of equal authority, published in 1834, we are informed that Ugo da Carpi was a historical painter, and that he died in 1500. He was only born in 1486.V.85The sign of Mr. Benjamin White, formerly a bookseller in Fleet Street, was Horace’s Head. In Scopoli’s Deliciæ, Flora, et Fauna Insubriæ, plate 24 is thus inscribed: “Auspiciis Benjamini White et Horatii Head, Bibliopol. Londinensium.” The learned naturalist had mistaken Mr. White’s sign for his partner in the business.V.86This cut of Urse Graff is described in Bartsch’s Peintre-Graveur, tom. vii. p. 465, No. 16.V.87The device of Frobenius at the end of an edition of the same work, printed by him in 1518, is much inferior to that in the edition of 1519. In both, the ornamental border of the title-page is the same.V.88The title of this book is, in red letters, “Triompho di Fortuna, di Sigismondo Fanti, Ferrarese.” The title-page is also ornamented with a wood-cut, representing the Pope, with Virtue on one side, and Vice on the other, seated above the globe, which is supported by Atlas, and provided with an axis, having a handle at each side, like a winch. At one of the handles is a devil, and at the other an angel; to the left is a naked figure holding a die, and near to him is an astronomer taking an observation. At the foot of the cut is the mark I. M. or T. M., for I cannot positively decide whether the first letter be intended for an I or a T. The following is the colophon: “Impresso in la inclita citta di Venegia per Agostin da Portese. Nel anno dil virgineo partoMD.XXVII.Nel mese di Genaro, ad instātia di Jacomo Giunta Mercatāte Florentino. Con il Privilegio di Clemente Papa VII, et del Senato Veneto a requisitione di l’Autore.” In the Catalogue of the British Museum this book is erroneously entered as printed at Rome, 1526. The compiler had mistaken the date of the Pope’s licence for the time when the book was printed. This trifling mistake is noticed here, as from similar oversights bibliographers have sometimes described books as having been twice or thrice printed, when, in fact, there had been only one edition.V.89The following questions, selected from a number of others, will perhaps afford some idea of this “Opera utilissima et jocosa,” as it is called by the author. “Se glie bene a pigliar bella, o bruta donna; se’l servo sara fidele al suo signore; se quest’ anno sara carestia o abundantia; quanti mariti havera la donna; se glie bene a far viaggio et a che tempo; se’l parto della donna sara maschio o femina; se’l sogno fatto sara vero; se’l fin del huomo sara buono.” The three small illustrations of the last query are of evil omen; in one, is seen a gallows; in another, a man praying; and in the third, the quarters of a human body hung up in terrorem.V.90The following lines descriptive of this cut are printed underneath it:How Mary and Joseph with iesu were fayne.In to Egypte for socour to fle.Whan the Innocentes for his sake wer slayne.By com̄issyon of Herodescrueltie.V.91In a folio work entitled “Epitome Thesauri Antiquitatum, hoc estImpp.Rom. Orientalium et Occidentalium Iconum, ex Antiquis Numismatibus quam fidelissime delineatarum. Ex Musæo Jacobi de Strada Mantuani Antiquarii,” Lyons, 1553, it is stated that the first work containing portraits of the Roman emperors engraved from their coins was that entitled “Illustrium Imagines,” written by Cardinal Sadolet, and printed at Rome by Jacobus Mazochius.—In Strada’s work the portraits are executed in the same manner as in that of Huttichius. The wood-cut containing the printer’s device, on the title-page of Strada’s work, is admirably engraved.V.92Heineken ranks the following in the class oflittle masters: Henry Aldgrever, Albert Altdorffer, Bartholomew Behaim, Hans Sebald Behaim, Hans Binck, Henry Goerting, George Penez, and Virgil Solis. Most of them were engravers on copper.V.93The following curious testimony respecting a lock of Albert Durer’s hair, which had formerly been in the possession of Hans Baldung Grün, is translated from an article in Meusel’s Neue Miscellaneen, 1799. The lock of hair and the document were then in the possession of Herr H. S. Hüsgen of Frankfort on the Mayn: “Herein is the hair which was cut from the head of that ingenious and celebrated painter Albert Durer, after his death at Nuremberg, 8th April 1528, as a token of remembrance. It afterwards came into the possession of that skilful painter Hans Baldung, burger of this city, Strasburg; and after his death, in 1545, my late brother-in-law, Nicholas Krämer, painter, of this city, having bought sundry of his works and other things, among them found this lock of hair, in an old letter, wherein was written an account of what it contained. On the death of my brother-in-law, in 1550, it was presented to me by my sister Dorothy, and I now enclose it in this letter for a memorial. 1559.Sebold Büheler.” To this testimony are subjoined two or three others of subsequent date, showing in whose possession the valued relic had been before it came into the hands of Herr Hüsgen.V.94Evidence of Dr. G. F. Waagen of Berlin before the Select Committee of the House of Commons on Arts and their Connexion with Manufactures, 1835.
V.1Chiaro-scuros are executed by means of two or more blocks, in imitation of a drawing in sepia, India ink, or any other colour of two or more shades. The older chiaro-scuros are seldom executed with more than three blocks; on the first of which the general outline of the subject and the stronger shades were engraved and printed in the usual manner; from the second the lighter shades were communicated; and from the third a general tint was printed over the impressions of the other two.
V.2This print is one of the valuable collection left to the Museum by the Rev. C. M. Cracherode, and the following remark in that gentleman’s writing is inserted on the opposite page of the folio in which it is preserved: “The Presepe is a plain proof that printing in chiaro-scuro was known before the time of Ugo da Carpi, who is erroneously reputed the inventor of this art at the beginning of the sixteenth century.” The print in question is certainly not a proof of the art of engraving in chiaro-scuro; and Mr. Ottley has added the following correction in pencil: “But the white here is put on with a pencil, and not left in printing, as it would have been if the tint had been added by a wooden block after the copper-plate had been printed.”
V.3Bartsch describes this print in his Peintre-Graveur, tom. vi. p. 364, No. 4; but he takes no notice of Joseph holding a candle, nor of its wanting a light.
V.4Some single cuts executed in this manner are supposed to be at least as old as the year 1450. The earliest that I have noticed in a book occur in a Life of Christ printed at Cologne about 1485.
V.5In a folio of Albert Durer’s drawings in the Print Room at the British Museum there is a portrait of “Fronica, Formschneiderin,” with the date 1525. In 1433 we find a woman at Nuremberg described as a card-maker: “Eli. Kartenmacherin.” It is scarcely necessary to remind the reader that the earliest German wood engravers were card-makers.—See chapterII.p. 41.
V.6The following is Bartsch’s French version of this letter, which is given in the original German in Von Murr’s Journal, 9er.Theil, S. 53. “Cher Michel Beheim. Je vous envoie les armoiries, en vous priant de les laisser comme elles sont. Personne d’ailleurs ne les corrigeroit en mieux, car je les ai faites exprès et avec art; c’est pourquoi ceux qui s’y connoissent et qui les verront vous en rendront bonne raison. Si l’on haussoit les lambrequins du heaume, ils couvriroient le volet.”—Bartsch, Peintre-Graveur, tom. vii. p. 27.
V.7In Durer’s Journal of his visit to the Netherlands in 1520 there is the following passage: “Item hab dem von Rogendorff sein Wappen auf Holz gerissen, dafür hat er mir geschenckt vii. Ein Sammet.”—“Also I have drawn for Von Rogendorff his arms on wood, for which he has presented me with seven yards of velvet.”—Von Murr, Journal zur Kunstgeschichte, 7er.Theil, S. 76.
V.8Bibliographical Tour, vol. iii. p. 442, second edition.
V.9The Baron was the collector of the wood-cuts published with Becker’s explanations, referred to at page 226, chapterIV.The anecdote alluded to will be found in Dr. Dibdin’s Bibliographical Tour, vol. iii. pp. 445, 446. The Baron sold a rare specimen of copper-plate engraving with the dateM. CCCC. XXX.to the Doctor, and it seems that he also soldanotherimpression from the same plate to Mr. John Payne. There is no doubt of their being gross forgeries; and it is not unlikely that the plate was in the Baron’s possession.
V.10“Dieser Hieronymus hat allhier im breiten Gassen gewohnt, dessen Wohnung hinten ins Frauengässlein ging.”
V.11Neudörffer, quoted in Von Murr’s Journal, 2ter Theil, S. 158, 159.
V.12At the end of the first edition of the cuts illustrative of the Apocalypse, 1498, we find the words:“Gedruktdurch Albrecht Durer, Maler,”—Printed by Albert Durer, painter; and the same in Latin in the second edition, printed about 1510. The passion of Christ and the History of the Virgin are respectively said to have been “effigiata” and “per figuras digesta”—“drawn” and “pictorially represented” by Albert Durer; and the cuts of the Triumphal Car of the Emperor Maximilian are described as being “erfunden und geordnet”—“invented and arranged” by him.—Bartsch, Peintre-Graveur, tom. vii. p. 28.
V.13The time that a German artist spends in travel from the expiration of his apprenticeship to the period of his settling as a master is called his“wander-jahre,”—his travelling years. It is customary with many trades in Germany for the young men to travel for a certain time on the termination of their apprenticeship before they are admitted to the full privileges of the company or fellowship.
V.14It has been stated, though erroneously, that Albert Durer was a pupil of Martin Schongauer, or Schön, as the surname was spelled by some writers, one of the most eminent painters and copper-plate engravers of his day. It has been generally supposed that he died in 1486; but, if an old memorandum at the back of his portrait in the collection of Count de Fries can be depended on, his death did not take place till the 2d of February 1499. An account of this memorandum will be found in Ottley’s Inquiry into the Origin and Early History of Engraving, vol. ii. p. 640.
V.15On a passage, in which Durer alludes to his wife, in one of his letters from Venice, 1506, to his friend Bilibald Pirkheimer, Von Murr makes the following remark: “This Xantippe must even at that time have vexed him much; and he was obliged to drag on his life with her for twenty-two years longer, till she fairly plagued him to death.”—Journal, 10er Theil, S. 32.
V.16Bartsch is decidedly of opinion that Michael Wolgemuth was not an engraver; and he ascribes all the plates marked with a W, which others have supposed to be Wolgemuth’s, to Wenceslaus of Olmutz, an artist of whom nothing is positively known.
V.17This subject has also been engraved by Israel Von Mecken, and by an artist supposed to be Wenceslaus of Olmutz. It is probable that those artists have copied Durer’s engraving. On the globe in Israel Von Mecken’s plate the letters are O. G. B.
V.18This caution is in the original expressed in the following indignant terms: “Heus, tu insidiator, ac alieni laboris et ingenii surreptor, ne manus temerarias his nostris operibus inicias cave. Scias enim a gloriosissimo Romanorum imperatore Maximiliano nobis concessum esse ne quis suppositiciis formis has imagines imprimere seu impressas per imperii limites vendere audeat: q’ per contemptum seu avariciæ crimen secus feceris, post bonorum confiscationem tibi maximum periculum subeundum esse certissime scias.”
V.19Von Murr says that the subject of this picture was the martyrdom of St. Bartholomew, the saint to whom the church was dedicated; and that the painting afterwards came into the possession of the Emperor Rudolf II. and was placed in his gallery at Prague. It seems that Durer had taken some pictures with him to Venice; for in his fifth letter he says that he has sold two for twenty-four ducats, and exchanged three others for three rings, valued also at twenty-four ducats.
V.20In the Venetian dialect of that period Giovanni Bellini was called Zan Belin; and Durer spells the name “Sambellinus.” He was the master of Titian, and died in 1514, at the age of ninety.—Von Murr, Journal, 10er Theil, S. 8.
V.21Von Murr says that he cannot discover what Jacob is here meant. It would not be Jacob Walsch, as he died in 1500. The person alluded to was certainly not an Italian.
V.22Bilibald Pirkheimer was a learned man, and a person of great authority in the city of Nuremberg. He was also a member of the Imperial Council, and was frequently employed in negociations with neighbouring states. He published several works; and among others a humorous essay entitled “Laus Podagræ”—The Praise of the Gout. His memory is still held in great respect in Germany as the friend of Albert Durer and Ulrich Hutten, two of the most extraordinary men that Germany has produced. He died in 1530, aged 60.
V.23The kind of engraving meant was copper-plate engraving. Durer’s words are: “Ich hab awch dy Moler all gesthrilt dy do sagten, ImStechenwer ich gut, aber im molen west ich nit mit farben um zu gen.” The word “Stechen” applies to engraving on copper; “Schneiden” to engraving on wood.—Von Murr, Journal, 10er Theil, S. 28.
V.24The title at length is as follows: “Epitome in Divæ Parthenices Marie Historiam ab Alberto Durero Norico per figuras digestam, cum versibus annexis Chelidonii.” Chelidonius, who was a Benedictine monk of Nuremberg, also furnished the descriptive text to the series of twelve cuts illustrative of Christ’s Passion, of which specimens will be found between page 246 and page 250.
V.25The cuts of these two works appear to have been in the hands of the engraver at the same time. Of those in the History of the Virgin one is dated 1509; and two bear the date 1510; and in the Passion of Christ four are dated 1510.
V.26The Latin title of the work is as follows: “Passio Domini nostri Jesu, ex Hieronymo Paduano, Dominico Mancino, Sedulio, et Baptista Mantuana, per fratrem Chelidonium collecta, cum figuris Alberti Dureri Norici Pictoris.”
V.27The Latin title of this work is “Passio Christi,” and the explanatory verses are from the pen of Chelidonius. Durer, in the Journal of his Visit to the Netherlands, twice mentions it as “die Kleine Passion,” and each time with a distinction which proves that he did not mean the Passion engraved by him on copper and probably published in 1512. “Item Sebaldt Fischer hat mir zu Antorff [Antwerp] abkaufft 16kleiner Passion, pro 4 fl. Mehr 32 grosser Bücher pro 8 fl. Mehr 6 gestochne Passion pro 3 fl.”—“Darnach die drey Bücher unser Frauen Leben, Apocalypsin, und den grossen Passion, darnachden klein Passion, und den Passion in Kupffer.”—Albrecht Dürers Reisejournal, in Von Murr, 7er Theil, S. 60 and 67. The size of the cuts of the Little Passion is five inches high by three and seven-eighths wide. Four impressions from the original blocks are given in Ottley’s Inquiry, vol. ii. between page 730 and page731.
V.28Inquiry into the Origin and Early History of Engraving, vol. ii. p. 782. The objections to the general truth of Vasari’s story appear to be much stronger than the presumptions in its favour. 1. The improbability of Albert Durer having visited Venice subsequent to 1506; 2. The fact of Marc Antonio’s copies of the cuts of the Little Passionnotcontaining Albert Durer’s mark; and 3. The probability of Mark Antonio residing beyond the jurisdiction of the Venetian government at the time of his engraving them.
V.29There is a copy of this head, also engraved on wood, of the size of the original, but without Durer’s, or any other mark. Underneath an impression of the copy, in the Print Room of the British Museum, there is written in a hand which appears to be at least as old as the year 1550, “Dieser hatHSBehaim gerissen”—“H. S. Behaim drew this.” Hans Sebald Behaim, a painter and designer on wood, was born at Nuremberg in 1500, and was the pupil of his uncle, also named Behaim, a painter and engraver of that city. The younger Behaim abandoned the arts to become a tavern-keeper at Frankfort, where he died in 1550.
V.30In the edition with Latin inscriptions, 1523, are the words, “Excogitatus et depictus est currus iste Nurembergæ, impressus vero per Albertum Durer. AnnoMDXXIII.”The Latin words “excogitatus et depictus” are expressed by “gefunden und geordnet” in the German inscriptions in the edition of 1522. A sketch by Durer, for the Triumphal Car, is preserved in the Print Room in the British Museum.
V.31Bibliographical Tour, vol. iii. p. 438. Edit. 1829.
V.32Ibid. p. 330.
V.33The two last names are, in the first edition, pasted over others which appear to have been “The Gate of Honour” and “The Gate of Relationship, Friendship, and Alliance.” The last name alludes to the emperor’s possessions as acquired by descent or marriage, and to his power as strengthened by his friendly alliances with neighbouring states.
V.34“Item wist auch das Ich K. Mt. ausserhalb des Tryumps sonst viel mancherley Fisyrung gemacht hab.”—“You must also know that I have made many other drawings for the emperor besides those of the Triumph.” The date of this letter is not given, but Durer informs his friend that he had been already three years employed for the emperor, and that if he had not exerted himself the beautiful “work” would not have been so soon completed. If this is to be understood of the Triumphal Arch, it would seem that the designs at least were all finished before the emperor’s death.—Von Murr, Journal, 9er Theil, S. 4.
V.35In the process of etching the plate is first covered with a resinous composition—called etching ground—on which the lines intended to beetched, or bit into the plate, are drawn through to the surface of the metal by means of a small pointed tool called an etching needle, or an etching point. When the drawing of the subject upon the etching ground is finished, the plate is surrounded with a slightly raised border, or “wall,” as it is technically termed, formed of rosin, bee’s-wax, and lard; and, a corrosive liquid being poured upon the plate, the lines are “bit” into the copper or steel. When the engraver thinks that the lines are corroded to a sufficient depth, he pours off the liquid, cleans the plate by means of turpentine, and proceeds to finish his work with the graver and dry-point. According to the practice of modern engravers, where severaltintsare required, as is most frequently the case, the process of “biting-in” is repeated; the corrosive liquid being again poured on the plate to corrode deeper the stronger lines, while the more delicate are “stopped out,”—that is, covered with a kind of varnish that soon hardens, to preserve them from further corrosion. Most of our best engravers now use a diamond point in etching.Nitrousacid is used for “biting-in” on copper in the proportion of one part acid to four parts water, and the mixture is considered to be better after it has been once or twice used. Before using the acid it is advisable to take the stopper out of the bottle for twenty-four hours in order to allow a portion of the strength to evaporate. During the process of biting-in a large copper-plate the fumes which arise are so powerful as frequently to cause an unpleasant stricture in the throat, and sometimes to bring on a spitting of blood when they have been incautiously inhaled by the engraver. At such times it is usual for the engraver to have near him some powerful essence, generally hartshorn, in order to counteract the effects of the noxious vapour. For biting-in onsteel,nitricacid is used in the proportion of thirty drops to half a pint of distilled water; and the mixture is never used for more than one plate.—When acopper-plate is sufficiently bit-in, it is only necessary to wash it with a little water previous to removing the etching ground with turpentine; but, besides this, with asteelplate it is further necessary to set it on one of its edges against a wall or other support, and to blow it with a pair of small bellows till every particle of moisture in the lines is perfectly evaporated. The plate is then rubbed with oil, otherwise the lines would rust from the action of the atmosphere and the plate be consequently spoiled. Previous to a steel plate being laid aside for any length of time it ought to be warmed, and the engraved surface rubbed carefully over with virgin wax so that it may be completely covered, and every line filled. A piece of thick paper the size of the plate, laid over the wax while it is yet adhesive, will prove an additional safeguard. For this information respecting the process of biting-in, the writer is indebted to an eminent engraver, Mr. J. T. Wilmore.
V.36The account of the naming of John the Baptist will be found in St. Luke’s Gospel, chap. i. verse 59-64.
V.37Durer’s Journal of his Travels is given by Von Murr, 7er Theil, S. 55-98. The title which the Editor has prefixed to it is, “Reisejournal Albrecht Dürer’s von seiner Niederländischen Reise, 1520 und 1521. E. Bibliotheca Ebneriana.” In the same volume, Von Murr gives some specimens of Durer’s poetry. The first couplet which he made in 1509 is as follows:
“Du aller Engel Spiegel und Erlöser der Welt,Deine grosse Marter sey für mein Sünd ein Widergelt.”
“Du aller Engel Spiegel und Erlöser der Welt,
Deine grosse Marter sey für mein Sünd ein Widergelt.”
Thou mirror of all Angels and Redeemer of mankind,Through thy martyrdom, for all my sins may I a ransom find.
Thou mirror of all Angels and Redeemer of mankind,
Through thy martyrdom, for all my sins may I a ransom find.
This couplet being ridiculed by Bilibald Pirkheimer, who said that rhyming verses ought not to consist of more than eight syllables, Durer wrote several others in a shorter measure, but with no better success; for he says at the conclusion, that they did not please the learned counsellor. With Durer’s rhymes there is an epistle in verse from his friend Lazarus Sprengel, written to dissuade him from attempting to become a poet. Durer’s verses want “the right butter-woman’s trot to market,” and are sadly deficient in rhythm when compared with the more regular clink of his friend’s.
V.38Subsequently, Durer mentions having delivered to the Margrave John, at Brussels, a letter of recommendation [Fürderbrief] from the Bishop of Bamberg.
V.39As Durer was at Cologne about the 26th July, it is probable that he would arrive at Antwerp about the last day of that month.
V.40The maid, Susanna, seems to have been rather a “humble friend” than amenialservant; for she is mentioned in another part of the Journal as being entertained with Durer’s wife at the house of “Tomasin Florianus,” whom Durer describes as “Romanus, von Luca bürtig.”
V.41The Assumption of the Virgin is celebrated in the Roman Catholic Church on the 15th August.
V.42Albrecht Dürer’s Reisejournal, in Von Murr, 7er Theil, S. 63-65.
V.43This “gross Fischpein” was probably part of the back-bone of a whale.
V.44The stiver was the twenty-fourth part of a guilder or florin of gold, which was equal to about nine shillings English money of the present time; the stiver would therefore be equal to about four pence half-penny. About the same time, Durer sold a copy of his Christ’s Passion, probably the large one, for twelve stivers, and an impression of his copper-plate of Adam and Eve for four stivers. Shortly after his first arrival at Antwerp, he sold sixteen copies of the Little Passion for four guilders or florins; and thirty-two copies of his larger works,—probably the Apocalypse, the History of the Virgin, and the Great Passion,—for eight florins, being at the rate of sixteen stivers for each copy. He also sold six copies of the Passion engraved on copper at the same price. He gave to his host a painting of the Virgin on canvass to sell for two Rhenish florins. The sum that he received for each portrait in pencil [the German is mit Kohlen, which is literally charcoal], when the partiesdidpay, appears to have been a florin.
V.45In Von Murr the words are “AmDonnerstagenach Marien Himmelfahrt,”—On the Thursday after theAssumptionof the Virgin. But this is evidently incorrect, the feast of the Assumption being kept on 15th August. The “Marien Opferung”—the Presentation of the Virgin—which is commemorated on 21st November, is evidently meant.
V.46Luther’s safe-conduct from Worms to Wittenberg was limited to twenty-one days, at the expiration of which he was declared to be under the ban of the empire, or, in other words, an outlaw, to whom no prince or free city of Germany was to afford a refuge. Luther, previous to leaving Worms, was informed of the elector’s intention of secretly apprehending him on the road and conveying him to a place of safety. After getting into the wood, Luther was mounted on horseback, and conveyed to Wartburg, a castle belonging to the elector, where he continued to live disguised as a knight—Junker Jörge—till March 1522. Luther was accustomed to call the castle of Wartburg his Patmos.
V.47Durer, though an advocate of Luther, does not seem to have withdrawn himself from the communion of the Church of Rome. In his Journal, in 1521, he enters a sum of ten stivers given to his confessor, and, subsequently, eight stivers given to a monk who visited his wife when she was sick. The passage in which the last item occurs is curious, and seems to prove that female practitioners were then accustomed both to dispense and administer medical preparations at Antwerp. “Meine Frau ward krank,—der Apothekerinn für Klystiren gegeben 14 Stüber; dem Mönch, der sie besuchte, 8 Stüber.”—Von Murr, Journal, 7er Theil, S. 93.
V.48This inducement for Erasmus to stand forth as a candidate for the honour of martyrdom is, in the original, as simple in expression as it is novel in conception: “Du bist doch sonst ein altes Menniken.” Literally: For thou art already an oldmannikin. Erasmus, however, was not a spirit to be charmed to enter such a circle by such an invocation. As he said of himself, “his gift did not lie that way,” and he had as little taste for martyrdom as he had for fish.—In one or two other passages in Durer’s Journal there is an allusion to the diminutive stature of Erasmus.
V.49Von Murr, Journal, 7er Theil, S. 88-93. In volume X, p. 41, Von Murr gives from Peucer, the son-in-law of Melancthon, the following anecdote: “Melancthon, when at Nuremberg, on church and university affairs, was much in the society of Pirkheimer; and Albert Durer, the painter, an intelligent man, whose least merit, as Melancthon used to say, was his art, was frequently one of the party. Between Pirkheimer and Durer there were frequent disputes respecting the recent [religious] contest, in which Durer, as he was a man of strong mind, vigorously opposed Pirkheimer, and refuted his arguments as if he had come prepared for the discussion. Pirkheimer growing warm, for he was very irritable and much plagued with the gout, would sometimes exclaim “Not so:—these things cannot bepainted.”—“And the arguments which you allege,” Durer would reply, “can neither be correctly expressed nor comprehended.”—Whatever might have been the particular points in dispute between the two friends, Pirkheimer, as well as Durer, was a supporter of the doctrines ofLuther.”
V.50Corpus Christi day is a moveable festival, and is celebrated on the first Thursday after Trinity Sunday.
V.51St. Margaret’s day is the 20th July.
V.52Durer says that this astronomer was a German, and a native of Munich.
V.53Ulrich Varnbuler was subsequently the chancellor of the Emperor Ferdinand I. Durer mentions him in a letter addressed to “HernnFrey in Zurich,” and dated from Nuremberg on the Sundayafter St. Andrew’s day, 1523. With this letter Durer sent to his correspondent a humorous sketch, in pen and ink, of apes dancing, which in 1776 was still preserved in the Public Library of Basle. The date of this letter proves the incorrectness of Mr. Ottley’s statement, in page 723 of his Inquiry, where he says that Durer did not return to Nuremberg from the Low Countries “untilthe middle of the year1524.” Mr. Ottley is not more correct when he says, at page 735, that the portrait of Varnbuler is the “size of nature.”
V.54It is supposed that Shakspeare, in alluding to the “dozen white luces” in Master Shallow’s coat of arms,—Merry Wives of Windsor, Act I,—intended to ridicule Sir Thomas Lucy of Charlecotte, Wiltshire, before whom he is said to have been brought in his youth on a charge of deer-stealing.
V.55Etliche Underricht zu Befestigung der Stett, Schloss, und Flecken; Underweysung der Messung mit der Zirckel und Richtscheyt; Bucher von Menschlicher Proportion. All in folio. Those treatises were subsequently translated into Latin and several times reprinted. The treatise on the Proportions of the Human Body was also translated into French and printed at Paris in 1557. A collection of Durer’s writings was published by J. Jansen, 1604.
V.56This letter is addressed to “Johann Tscherte,” an architect residing at Vienna, the mutual friend of Pirkheimer and Durer.—Von Murr, Journal, 10er Theil, S. 36.
V.57Those three engravings are respectively numbered 1, 60, and 67 in Bartsch’s list of Durer’s works in his Peintre-Graveur, tom. vii. The Adam and Eve is nine inches and three-fourths high by seven inches and a half wide,—date 1504; St. Jerome, nine inches and five-eighths high by seven inches and three-eighths wide,—date 1514; Melancolia, nine inches and three-eighths high by seven inches and one fourth wide,—date 1514.
V.58Isaiah, chapter xxxv. verse 9.
V.59One of the largest wood-cuts designed by Cranach is a subject representing the baptism of some saint; and having on one side a portrait of Frederick, Elector of Saxony, and on the other a portrait of Luther. The block has consisted of three pieces, and from the impressions it seems as if the parts containing the portraits of the elector and Luther had been added after the central part had been finished. The piece altogether is comparatively worthless in design, and is very indifferently engraved.
V.60Burgmair also made the designs for a series of saints, male and female, of the family of the emperor, which are also engraved on wood. The original blocks, with the names of the engravers written at the back, are still preserved, and are at present in the Imperial Library at Vienna.
V.61
“Solche Gestalt unser baider was,Im Spigel aber nix dan das!”
“Solche Gestalt unser baider was,
Im Spigel aber nix dan das!”
A small engraving in a slight manner appears to have been made of the portraits of Burgmair and his wife by George Christopher Kilian, an artist of Augsburg, about 1774.—Von Murr, Journal, 4er Theil, S. 22.
V.62The original title of the work is: “Die gevarlichkeiten und eins teils der Geschichten des loblichen streytparen und hochberümbten Helds und Ritters Tewrdanckha.” That is: The adventurous deeds and part of the history of the famous, valiant, and highly-renowned hero Sir Theurdank. The name, Theurdank, in the language of the period, would seem to imply a person whose thoughts were only employed on noble and elevated subjects. Goethe, who in his youth was fond of looking over old books illustrated with wood-cuts, alludes to Sir Theurdank in his admirable play of Götz von Berlichingen: “Geht! Geht!” says Adelheid to Weislingen, “Erzählt das Mädchen die den Teurdanck lesen, und sich so einen Mann wünschen.”—“Go! Go! Tell that to a girl who reads Sir Theurdank, and wishes that she may have such a husband.” In Sir Walter Scott’s faulty translation of this play—under the name ofWilliamScott, 1799,—the passage is rendered as follows: “Go! Go! Talk of that to some forsaken damsel whose Corydon has proved forsworn.” In another passage where Goethe makes Adelheid allude to the popular “Märchen,” or tale, of Number-Nip, the point is completely lost in the translation: “Entbinden nicht unsre Gesetze solchen Schwüren?—Macht das Kindern weiss die den Rübezahl glauben.” Literally, “Do not our laws release you from such oaths?—Tell that to children who believe Number-Nip.” In Sir Walter Scott’s translation the passage is thus most incorrectly rendered: “Such agreement is no more binding than an unjust extorted oath. Every child knows what faith is to be kept with robbers.” The nameRübezahlis literally translated byNumber-Neep; Rübe is the German name for a turnip,—Scoticè, a neep. The story is as well known in Germany as that of Jack the Giant-Killer in England.
V.63Charaktere Teutscher Dichter und Prosaisten, S. 71. Berlin, 1781.
V.64
Nec sic incipies, ut scriptor cyclicus olim:“Fortunam Priami cantabo, et nobile bellum:”Quid dignum tanto feret hic promissor hiatu?Parturiunt montes; nascetur ridiculus mus.Ars Poetica, v. 136-139.
Nec sic incipies, ut scriptor cyclicus olim:
“Fortunam Priami cantabo, et nobile bellum:”
Quid dignum tanto feret hic promissor hiatu?
Parturiunt montes; nascetur ridiculus mus.
Ars Poetica, v. 136-139.
In a Greek epigram the Cyclic poets are thus noticed:
Τοὺς κυκλίους τούτους τοὺς αὐτὰρ ἔπειτα λέγονταςΜισῶ λωποδύτας ἀλλοτρίων ἐπέων.
Τοὺς κυκλίους τούτους τοὺς αὐτὰρ ἔπειτα λέγοντας
Μισῶ λωποδύτας ἀλλοτρίων ἐπέων.
V.65Dissertation sur l’Origine et les Progres de l’Art de Graver en Bois, p. 74. Paris, 1758.
V.66The kind of character in which the text of Sir Theurdank is printed is called “Fractur” by German printers. “The first work,” says Breitkopf, “which afforded an example of a perfectly-shapedFracturfor printing, was unquestionably the Theurdank, printed at Nuremberg, 1517.”—Ueber Bibliographie und Bibliophile, S. 8. 1793.—Neudörffer, a contemporary, who lived at Nuremberg at the time when Sir Theurdank was first published, says that the specimens for the types were written by Vincent Rockner, the emperor’s court-secretary.—Von Murr, Journal, 2er Theil, S. 159; and Lichtenberger, Initia Typographica, p. 194.
V.67The title of the volume is “Der Weiss Kunig. Eine Erzehlung von den Thaten Kaiser Maximilian des Ersten. Von Marx Treitzsaurwein auf dessen Angeben zusammen getragen, nebst von Hannsen Burgmair dazu verfertigten Holzschnitten. Herausgegeben aus dem Manuscripte der Kaiserl. Königl. Hofbibliothek. Wien, auf Kosten Joseph Kurzböckens, 1775.”
V.68In the Imperial Library at Vienna there is a series of old impressions of cuts intended for “Der Weiss Kunig,” consisting of two hundred and fifty pieces; it would therefore appear, supposing this set to be perfect, that there are fourteen of the original blocks lost. Why a single modern cut has been admitted into the book, and thirteen of the old impressions not re-engraved, it perhaps would be difficult to give a satisfactory reason.
V.69Charaktere Teutscher Dichter und Prosaisten, S. 70.
V.70Bibliographical Tour, vol iii. p. 330.
V.71The subjects of those sixteen cuts are chiefly the statues of the emperor’s ancestors, with representations of himself, and of his family alliances. Several of the carriages are propelled by mechanical contrivances, which for laborious ingenuity may vie with the machine for uncorking bottles in one of the subjects of Hogarth’s Marriage à la Mode. In the copy before me those engravings are numbered 89, 90, 91, 91, 92, 92, 93, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 99, 101, 102, 103.
V.72Breitkopf, Ueber Bibliographie und Bibliophile, S. 4. Leipzig, 1793. Von Murr, Journal, 9er Theil, S. 1. At page 255 I have said: “Though I have not been able to ascertain satisfactorily the subject of Durer’s painting in the Town-hall of Nuremberg, I am inclined to think that it is the TriumphalCarof Maximilian.” Since the sheet containing the above passage was printed off I have ascertained that the subjectisthe Triumphal Car; and that it is described in Von Murr’s Nürnbergischen Merkwürdigkeiten, S. 395.
V.73JobstandJos, in this inscription, are probably intended for the name of the same person. For the name Jobst, Jost, Josse, or Jos—for it is thus variously spelled—we have no equivalent in English. It is not unusual in Germany as a baptismal name—it can scarcely be calledChristian—and is Latinized, I believe, under the more lengthy form ofJodocus.
V.74The printed numbers on those two cuts are 105 and 106, though the descriptions are numbered 120 and 121 in the text. The subjects are, No. 105, two ranks, of five men each, on foot, carrying long lances; and No. 106, two ranks, of five men each, on foot, carrying large two-handed swords on their shoulders.—Perhaps it may not be out of place to correct here the following passage which occurs at page 285 of this volume: “Bartsch, however, observes, that ‘what Strutt has said about there being two persons of this name [Hans Schaufflein], an elder and a younger, seems to be a mere conjecture.’” Since the sheet containing this passage was printed off, I have learnt from a paper, in Meusel’s Neue Miscellaneen, 5tes. Stück, S. 210, that Hans Schäufflein had a son of the same name who was also a painter, and that the elder Schäufflein died at Nordlingen, in 1539. At page 281, his death, on the authority of Bartsch, is erroneously placed in 1550.
V.75The name of Cornelius Liefrink occurs at the back of some of the wood-cuts representing the saints of the family of Maximilian, designed by Burgmair, mentioned at page 278, note.
V.76In all the blocks, the tablets and scrolls, and the upper part of banners intended to receive verses and inscriptions, were left unengraved. In order that the appearance of the cuts might not be injured, the black ground, intended for the letters, was cut away in most of the tablets and scrolls, in the edition of 1796.
V.77That part of the flail which comes in contact with the corn is, in the North of England, termed aswingel.
V.78The substance of almost every rhyme and inscription is, that the person who bears the rhyme-tablet or scroll has derived great improvement in his art or profession from the instructions or suggestions of the emperor. Huntsmen, falconers, trumpeters, organists, fencing-masters, ballet-masters, tourniers, and jousters, all acknowledge their obligations in this respect to Maximilian. For the wit and humour of the jesters and the natural fools, the emperor, with great forbearance, takes to himself no credit; and Anthony von Dornstett, the leader of the drummers and fifers, is one of the few whose art he has not improved.
V.79Those three are the numbers 77, 78, 79, representing musicians on horseback. The same person who drew the standard-bearers has evidently drawn those three cuts also.
V.80Minutes of Evidence before the Select Committee on Arts and Manufactures, p. 130. Ordered to be printed, 16th August 1836.
V.81Among the principal modern wood-cuts engraved on blocks consisting of several pieces the following may be mentioned: The Chillingham Bull, by Thomas Bewick, 1789; A view of St. Nicholas’ Church, Newcastle-on-Tyne, by Charlton Nesbit, from a drawing by R. Johnson, 1798; The Diploma of the Highland Society, by Luke Clennell, from a design by B. West, P.R.A. 1808; The Death of Dentatus, by William Harvey, from a painting by B. R. Haydon, 1821; and The Old Horse waiting for Death, left unfinished, by T. Bewick, and published in 1832.
V.82At the foot of this cut, to the right, after the name of the designer,—“Raphael Urbinas,”—is the following privilege, granted by Pope Leo X. and the Doge of Venice, prohibiting all persons from pirating the work. “Quisque has tabellas invito autore imprimet ex Divi Leonis X. et Il͞l Principis Venetiarum decretis excominicationis sententiam et alias penas incurret.” Below this inscription is the engraver’s name with the date: “Romæ apud Ugum de Carpi impressum.MDXVIII.”
V.83“J’ai trouvé dans lesReceueilsde l’Abbé de Marolles, au Cabinet du Roi de France, une piece détachée, qui, suivant mon sentiment, est la plus ancienne de celles, qui sont gravées en bois dans les Païs-Bas, et qui portent le nom de l’artiste. Cette estampe est marquée:Gheprint t’ Antwerpen by my Phillery de figursnider—Imprimé à Anvers, chez moi Phillery, le graveur de figures. Elle sert de preuve, que les graveurs de moules étoient aussi, dans cet ancien tems, imprimeurs à Anvers.”—Idée Générale d’une Collection complette d’Estampes, p. 197.
V.84In a work of a similar kind, and of equal authority, published in 1834, we are informed that Ugo da Carpi was a historical painter, and that he died in 1500. He was only born in 1486.
V.85The sign of Mr. Benjamin White, formerly a bookseller in Fleet Street, was Horace’s Head. In Scopoli’s Deliciæ, Flora, et Fauna Insubriæ, plate 24 is thus inscribed: “Auspiciis Benjamini White et Horatii Head, Bibliopol. Londinensium.” The learned naturalist had mistaken Mr. White’s sign for his partner in the business.
V.86This cut of Urse Graff is described in Bartsch’s Peintre-Graveur, tom. vii. p. 465, No. 16.
V.87The device of Frobenius at the end of an edition of the same work, printed by him in 1518, is much inferior to that in the edition of 1519. In both, the ornamental border of the title-page is the same.
V.88The title of this book is, in red letters, “Triompho di Fortuna, di Sigismondo Fanti, Ferrarese.” The title-page is also ornamented with a wood-cut, representing the Pope, with Virtue on one side, and Vice on the other, seated above the globe, which is supported by Atlas, and provided with an axis, having a handle at each side, like a winch. At one of the handles is a devil, and at the other an angel; to the left is a naked figure holding a die, and near to him is an astronomer taking an observation. At the foot of the cut is the mark I. M. or T. M., for I cannot positively decide whether the first letter be intended for an I or a T. The following is the colophon: “Impresso in la inclita citta di Venegia per Agostin da Portese. Nel anno dil virgineo partoMD.XXVII.Nel mese di Genaro, ad instātia di Jacomo Giunta Mercatāte Florentino. Con il Privilegio di Clemente Papa VII, et del Senato Veneto a requisitione di l’Autore.” In the Catalogue of the British Museum this book is erroneously entered as printed at Rome, 1526. The compiler had mistaken the date of the Pope’s licence for the time when the book was printed. This trifling mistake is noticed here, as from similar oversights bibliographers have sometimes described books as having been twice or thrice printed, when, in fact, there had been only one edition.
V.89The following questions, selected from a number of others, will perhaps afford some idea of this “Opera utilissima et jocosa,” as it is called by the author. “Se glie bene a pigliar bella, o bruta donna; se’l servo sara fidele al suo signore; se quest’ anno sara carestia o abundantia; quanti mariti havera la donna; se glie bene a far viaggio et a che tempo; se’l parto della donna sara maschio o femina; se’l sogno fatto sara vero; se’l fin del huomo sara buono.” The three small illustrations of the last query are of evil omen; in one, is seen a gallows; in another, a man praying; and in the third, the quarters of a human body hung up in terrorem.
V.90The following lines descriptive of this cut are printed underneath it:
How Mary and Joseph with iesu were fayne.In to Egypte for socour to fle.Whan the Innocentes for his sake wer slayne.By com̄issyon of Herodescrueltie.
How Mary and Joseph with iesu were fayne.
In to Egypte for socour to fle.
Whan the Innocentes for his sake wer slayne.
By com̄issyon of Herodescrueltie.
V.91In a folio work entitled “Epitome Thesauri Antiquitatum, hoc estImpp.Rom. Orientalium et Occidentalium Iconum, ex Antiquis Numismatibus quam fidelissime delineatarum. Ex Musæo Jacobi de Strada Mantuani Antiquarii,” Lyons, 1553, it is stated that the first work containing portraits of the Roman emperors engraved from their coins was that entitled “Illustrium Imagines,” written by Cardinal Sadolet, and printed at Rome by Jacobus Mazochius.—In Strada’s work the portraits are executed in the same manner as in that of Huttichius. The wood-cut containing the printer’s device, on the title-page of Strada’s work, is admirably engraved.
V.92Heineken ranks the following in the class oflittle masters: Henry Aldgrever, Albert Altdorffer, Bartholomew Behaim, Hans Sebald Behaim, Hans Binck, Henry Goerting, George Penez, and Virgil Solis. Most of them were engravers on copper.
V.93The following curious testimony respecting a lock of Albert Durer’s hair, which had formerly been in the possession of Hans Baldung Grün, is translated from an article in Meusel’s Neue Miscellaneen, 1799. The lock of hair and the document were then in the possession of Herr H. S. Hüsgen of Frankfort on the Mayn: “Herein is the hair which was cut from the head of that ingenious and celebrated painter Albert Durer, after his death at Nuremberg, 8th April 1528, as a token of remembrance. It afterwards came into the possession of that skilful painter Hans Baldung, burger of this city, Strasburg; and after his death, in 1545, my late brother-in-law, Nicholas Krämer, painter, of this city, having bought sundry of his works and other things, among them found this lock of hair, in an old letter, wherein was written an account of what it contained. On the death of my brother-in-law, in 1550, it was presented to me by my sister Dorothy, and I now enclose it in this letter for a memorial. 1559.Sebold Büheler.” To this testimony are subjoined two or three others of subsequent date, showing in whose possession the valued relic had been before it came into the hands of Herr Hüsgen.
V.94Evidence of Dr. G. F. Waagen of Berlin before the Select Committee of the House of Commons on Arts and their Connexion with Manufactures, 1835.