The Printed Book

In Germany there was already the appearance of bad taste and prodigality, the letters crossing each other, the Gothic type covered with bizarre appendices, the titles intricate; later they became illegible even for the Germans.

In France the first page gave the most circumstantial indications of the contents of the work, the name and abode of the printer and bookseller. Often these titles were ornamented with movable frameworks, printed in Gothic, sometimes in two colours, which necessitated two printings, one for the black and one for the red ink. The mark of the printer or publisher generally appeared, and it was nearly always a charming work. These French marks were all more or less treated heraldically; that is to say, the initials occupy a shield, sustained by supporters and cut with extreme care. The first was that of Fust and Schoeffer at Mayence, of admirable simplicity and grace. In France this early specimen of the trade mark took with Simon Vostre and Verard the shape of delicate illustrations, finely designed and carefully engraved; but the custom of allusive marks did not prevail, as we shall have occasion to see, until the sixteenth century. The mark of Pigouchet has already been given; that of Thielman Kerver is conceived in the same principles of taste and art. The sign of his house being the "Unicorn," Kerver took as supporters to his shield two unicorns affrontées.

In these colophons are found philosophic aphorisms, satirical remarks, marvels of poetry. A certain bookseller paid court to the powerful university, which dispensed glory and riches to the poor tradesmen by buying many books. Andrew Bocard engraved on his mark this flattery as a border: —

"Honneur au Roy et à la court,Salut à l'universitéDont nostre bien procède et sourt.Dieu gart de Paris la cité!"

The Germans introduced into their colophons some vainglorious notices. Arnold Ther Hoernen, already mentioned, who printed the Theutonista at Cologne in 1477, boasted in it of having corrected it all with his own hands. Jean Treschel, established at Lyons in 1493, proclaims himself a German, because the Germans were the inventors of an art that he himself possessed to an eminent degree. He prided himself on being what we may call a skilled typographer; "virum hujus artis solertissimum," he writes without false modesty. At times, in the colophons of his books, he attempted Latin verse, the Sapphic verse of Horace, of a playful turn, to say that his work was perfected in 1494.

"Arte et expensis vigilique curaTreschel explevit opus hoc Joannes,Mille quingentos ubi Christus annosSex minus egit.Jamque Lugduni juvenes, senesque,Martias nonas celebres agebantMagna Reginæ quia prepotentiFesta parabant."

The portrait is another element of illustration, the figure of the author prefixed to his work. It had already been a custom in the manuscripts to paint on the first leaf of the work the likeness of him who composed it, frequently in the act of presenting his book to some noble patron; and in this way is often preserved the only known portrait of either patron or author. Printing and engraving rendered these effigies more common, the portraits of one often served for another, and the booksellers used them without very much scruple. As we shall see later, this became in the sixteenth century a means of illustrating a book plainly, but only at the time when the portrait, drawn or painted, commenced to be more widely used. Previously the clichés of which we speak went everywhere, from the Italians to the French, from Æsop to Accursius; these uncertain physiognomies began with the manuscript romances of chivalry, from whence they were servilely copied in typography. From the first the Italians mixed the ancient and the modern. Thus in a Breviarium, printed in 1478, there is an engraved portrait of Paul Florentin. On the same principle, the portrait of Burchiello, an early Italian poet, was later reproduced in England as a likeness of William Caxton.

In France the author is often represented writing, and it was so up to the middle of the sixteenth century. In an edition of Des Cas des Nobles Hommes, by Jean Dupré, in 1483, Boccaccio is represented seated, having before him his French translator, Laurent de Premierfait. This plate is one of the oldest representations of authors in French books. In the Roman de la Rose, first edition of Paris and Lyons, in folio, probably published by William Leroy about 1485, William de Lorris, the author, is shown in his bed: —

"Une nuyt comme je songeoye,Et de fait dormir me convient,En dormant un songe m'advint…"

There is also a portrait of Alain Chartier in his Faits, printed in 1489. In the Terence of Treschel, of Lyons, in 1493, we see a grammarian of the fifteenth century in a furnished room of the time occupied in writing at a desk; this is Guy Jouvenal, of Mans, the author of the commentary.

While this good work was progressing so nobly in France, Italy, and Germany, the typographers of England were by no means idle, although the illustration of the Book in the fifteenth century was not there so forward. William Caxton had produced over sixty works, the colophons of many of them revealing much of the personal life and character of the first English printer. Some of them were ornamented with woodcuts; we reproduce two from the "Game and Playe of the Chesse," printed in folio, about 1476. The first represents a king and another person playing at chess; the smaller cut is a representation of the knight, who is thus described in Caxton's own words: "The knyght ought to be maad al armed upon an hors in suche wise that he have an helme on his heed and a spere in his right hond, and coverid with his shelde, a swerde and a mace on his left syde, clad with an halberke and plates tofore his breste, legge harnoys on his legges, spores on his heelis, on hys handes hys gauntelettes, hys hors wel broken and taught, and apte to bataylle, and coveryd with hys armes." The other Caxton block which we reproduce is a representation of music from the "Mirrour of the World," a thin folio volume of one hundred leaves printed in 1481, with thirty-eight woodcuts. These specimens will serve to show the rudimentary character of English wood engraving in the fifteenth century. No authentic portrait of Caxton is known, and the one that is generally accepted is really a portrait of an Italian poet, Burchiello, taken from an octavo edition of his work on Tuscan poetry, printed 1554; this was copied by Faithorne for Sir Hans Sloane as the portrait of Caxton, and was reproduced by Ames in his "Typographical Antiquities," 1749. Lewis prefixed the portrait here given to his "Life of Mayster Willyam Caxton," 1737, which is a copy of Faithorne's drawing with some alterations. John Lettou and William Machlinia issued various statutes and other legal works.

Wynken de Worde continued printing up to 1534, and issued over four hundred works. He used no less than nine different marks, all of them bearing Caxton's initials, evidencing the regard of the pupil for his master; the mark which we reproduce is one of rare occurrence. Richard Pynson began in 1493, and continued well into the sixteenth century, and was one of the first of the "privileged" printers, authorised to issue the legal and parliamentary publications. One of the marks used by him is here reproduced. Julian Notary began in 1498. The only style of illustration used by any of these early printers was the woodcut, and of this there was very little beyond the title-page and printer's mark. The artistic form of the Book originated on the Continent, but England was not slow to adopt it and fashion it to her own ends.

Thus was printing spread abroad, carrying with it to the countries where it was established the rules of an unchangeable principle; but, according to its surroundings, it was so transformed in a few years that its origin was no longer recognised. It was light in Italy, heavy in Germany, gay in France. Painting, of which it was accidentally the issue, returned to it under the form of illustration a short time after its first and fruitful essays. The Gothic character, generally used in Germany, continued in France with the Vostres, the Verards, and others up to the middle of the sixteenth century, although the first artisans before this used Roman type; it was also the prevailing type used in English books. In Italy it was Jenson, a Frenchman, who gave to the matrix the alphabet preserved to the present time; and it was the Venetians and Florentines who learned before all others the art of judicious ornamentation of the Book. The French came very near perfection, thanks to their printers and booksellers, at the end of the century; and the Germans found illustrious artists to scatter their compositions in their large, heavy works.

CHAPTER III

1500 TO 1600

French epics and the Renaissance – Venice and Aldus Manutius – Italian illustrators – The Germans: Theuerdanck, Schäufelein – The Book in other countries – French books at the beginning of the century, before the accession of Francis I. – Geoffroy Tory and his works – Francis I. and the Book – Robert Estienne – Lyons a centre of bookselling; Holbein's Dances of Death – School of Basle – Alciati's emblems and the illustrated books of the middle of the century – The school of Fontainebleau and its influence – Solomon Bernard – Cornelis de la Haye and the Promptuaire– John Cousin – Copper plate engraving and metal plates – Woériot – The portrait in the Book of the sixteenth century – How a book was illustrated on wood at the end of the century – Influence of Plantin on the Book; his school of engravers – General considerations – Progress in England – Coverdale's Bible – English printers and their work – Engraved plates in English books

OUR simple division into chapters will be understood without difficulty as not corresponding exactly with the most momentous epochs in the history of the Book in France and abroad. Doubtless it would be easy for France alone to find some limits and to furnish scholastic formulæ by which contemporary publishers might be grouped. But in order to present, as in a synoptical table, an essential and abridged sketch of the Book in all European countries, it appeared to us more convenient to begin with the confused and tangled notions by centuries and to unfold in our review the characteristic facts of each country conjointly. Moreover, after the sixteenth century neither Italy nor Germany could compare with France, which, less fortunate, perhaps, at the beginning than her neighbours, surpassed them in all the pride of her genius.

The commencement of the sixteenth century found the French army in Italy, under the command of Louis XII. Marching from glory to glory, the French successively saw Pisa, Capua, and Naples, and that which has since been called the Renaissance displayed itself little by little to the conquerors. At Venice was living Aldus Pius Manutius, then the greatest printer of the entire world. Aldus was proprietor of the celebrated printing office of Nicholas Jenson, through his father-in-law, Andrea Torresani, of Asola, who acquired it on the death of the French printer; and he had in a few years reached a position in which he was without a rival. We have seen that he composed, at the end of the fifteenth century, the admirable volume Hypnerotomachia, the renown of which became universal. Aldus was fifty-two years of age, having been born in 1447; and his learning was increased by daily intercourse with learned Italians, among them the celebrated Pico de la Mirandola. His establishment at Venice in 1488 had for its object the creation of a chair in Greek, in which language he was well instructed from his youth. Occupied with the idea of issuing editions of the principal Greek writers, which up to then remained in manuscript, he engaged himself in the formation of a printing office. He first published the Herone et Leandro of Musæus in 1494, quarto, in a Greek character apparently designed by him, and perhaps engraved by Francisco da Bologna; then the Greek grammar of Constantine Lascaris, with the date of 1494; and the works of Aristotle in five folio volumes. At the time of the Italian wars Aldus was making a revolution in typography, by producing more practical sizes and finer characters, which would permit a volume of the smallest height to contain the matter of a folio printed with large type. Legend says that the new letters were copied exactly from the handwriting of Petrarch, inclining like all cursive writing; the name of Italic was given to this character, which was also called Aldine, from its inventor. It was engraved by Francisco da Bologna. Aldus published in octavo size, with this kind of letter, an edition of Virgil in 1501, then a Horace, a Juvenal, a Martial, and a Petrarch in the same year. The following year, 1502, he gave an edition of the Terze Rime of Dante, and for the first time took as his typographical mark an anchor encircled by a dolphin.3

His marriage with the daughter of Andrea Torresani, of Asola, brought together into his possession two printing houses. The burden became too heavy for Manutius to think henceforth of publishing by himself. Besides, the wars did not allow him any repose, of which he bitterly complained in his prefaces. He attracted learned Greek scholars, who supervised, each one in his specialty, the works in progress, and founded a society, an Aldine academy, in which the greatest names of the epoch were united. Aldus conveys the perfect idea of a great printer of those times, doing honour to celebrated men, in spite of business preoccupations and of the annoyance caused by the war. It is said that Erasmus, passing through Venice, called on him, and not making himself known, was badly received by the powerful printer. All at once, at the name of the distinguished visitor, Aldus, overwhelmed for an instant, rose in great haste and showed him how highly he appreciated men of letters.

The war finished by ruining this state of affairs. In 1505 Aldus quitted Venice to travel, and on his return found it poorer than when he went away. Andrea d'Asola, his father-in-law, came to his aid; but the great printer had received his death-blow; and in spite of the activity which he brought to the new establishment, he further declined until 1515, when he expired, leaving an inextricable confusion to his son Paul.

He had early abandoned illustration for the scientific and useful in his publications; besides, the size of book chosen by him did not admit of plates; but other publishers employed artists in the ornamentation of the Book. Lucantonio Giunta, the most celebrated among them, was printer and engraver, a striking example of the affinity of the two trades from their origin. In 1508 Lucantonio Zonta, as he then spelt his name, published a Roman breviary in large quarto, with twelve engravings in the Lombardo-Venetian manner, signed "L. A.," in very good style. The same artist-publisher cut a portrait of Virgil for an edition of that poet about 1515. Furthermore, Giunta did not alone illustrate the book from his own office. Other designers lent him their assistance. We find evidence of this in the Bible printed by him in 1519 in small octavo.

The most meritorious of the artists of Venice at this time was John Andrea, known as Guadagnino. He designed the vignettes for Florus's epitome of Livy, printed at Venice for Melchior Sessa and Peter of Ravenna (1520, folio); in 1516 he copied the plates of Dürer's Apocalypse for that of Alexander Paganini, of Venice. A Venetian work which signalised the beginning of the sixteenth century was the Trionfo di Fortuna of Sigismond Fanti, of Ferrara, printed by Agostino da Portese in 1527.

Venice was the home of Titian, and at the present time the great artist was at the height of his glory. In 1518 two brothers, Nicholas and Dominic dal Gesù, published a translation of the celebrated "Golden Legend" of Voragine. The plates which were added to the work were manifestly inspired by the school of the Venetian master. Unhappily the engravers have not always equalled the genius of the drawings.

To resume, the city of Venice was, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, one of the most prolific in publishers and artists of talent. Since the first establishments of the Germans, typography had successively employed in Venice Nicholas Jenson, a Frenchman, inventor of the Roman character; Erhard Ratdolt, the first to employ illustration there; and Aldus Manutius, scholar and printer, whose progress in printing elevated that art to the highest rank among human discoveries; there were also remarkable engravers and draughtsmen, among others Guadagnino and Giunta, besides the anonymous masters of the school of Titian. The part of Venice in the movement, then, was great, but it may be explained by the riches of its citizens, the extent of its commerce, and the genius it possessed.

If we now return from Venice to the north, to Milan, the school of Leonardo da Vinci will make itself apparent in the Book. In order of date we will mention the Mysterii Gesta Beatæ Veronicæ Virginis, published by Gotardo de Ponte 1518, small quarto, with figures in the style of Luini, and Vitruvius in Italian by Cesariano. On the testimony of the author, the wood engravings in a book of Fra Luca Pacioli, De Divina Proportione, are attributed to Leonardo da Vinci. M. Delaborde does not believe this, but M. Passavant does.

In Germany, Nuremberg continued, with Albert Dürer and the artists of his school, to furnish book illustrations at the beginning of the century. The master reprinted his valuable engravings of the "Life of the Virgin" in 1511, and also the "Apocalypse." But after him the art commenced to decline; a hundred years later nothing remained of the honour and glory gained by Germany in the commencement. Among the most interesting of the Nuremberg publications is a chivalric poem by Melchior Pfinzfing, composed for the marriage of Maximilian and Mary of Burgundy. As M. Delaborde in his Débuts de I'Imprimerie well remarks, this is not a book destined for sale by a bookseller; it is a work of art destined by an emperor for his friends, and he saw that it was an unapproachable work.

Bold strokes, majestic letters, intertwined ornaments, are here multiplied. Three persons worked upon it for five years; these were, Peutinger says, Hans Leonard Schäufelein, the painter, Jost Necker, the engraver, and Schönsperger, the printer of Augsburg, who quitted his native city for Nuremberg. When they were able to take a proof, craftsmen were unwilling to believe it to be a book composed in movable characters; they were sure, on the contrary, that it was a true xylograph, cut in wood; and, in fact, from the title here reproduced, the error was excusable. This work, which is now called the Theuerdanck, from the name of the hero of the romance, is ornamented with a number of wood engravings, numbered by Arabic figures. We reproduce one of the last plates, in which Theuerdanck – Maximilian – is introduced to the Queen – Mary of Burgundy. The designs of Schäufelein recall very nearly the work of Albert Dürer, his master; but, as we said of him, these works, heavy and dull, although very clever, do not always suit as vignettes. Again, our criticism does not extend so much to the Theuerdanck, whose letters, excessively ornamented and much flattened, furnish a framework more suitable for the engravings than would a more slender character, which would be completely overshadowed by the German plate.

When we have mentioned the Passional Christi of Lucas Cranach, published by J. Grünenberg at Wittemberg in 1521 – twenty-six mediocre wood engravings – we shall have cited the most important of the interesting and rare volumes published in Germany at the commencement of the sixteenth century.

The Netherlands, Spain, and England were working, but without great success. In the Low Countries Plantin and his gigantic enterprises may be recalled. In Spain the taste had not yet developed itself; and although the drawing of illustrations may be careful enough, the wood-cutting is pitiable. We will mention the Seneca of Toledo in 1510, and the "Chronicle of Aragon" in 1523. Of England we will speak later.

In France, on the contrary, we find an enormous commerce in books at the commencement of the sixteenth century. All the publishers mentioned in the preceding chapter were still living, and they were feeling the effects of the French conquests in Italy. The dithyrambic literature then inaugurated, and which had its origin under Louis XII., exercised a bad influence equally upon the printers and decorators of the Book. Doubtless the composition of the text and engravings was done hastily, for the great people did not like to wait for this kind of history. Le Vergier d'Honneur, written by Octavian de St. Gelais and Andry de la Vigne, was thus published about the end of the fifteenth century and ornamented with hasty vignettes, probably at the expense of Antoine Verard. Upon the accession to the throne of Louis XII., Claude de Seyssel, his master of council, composed Les Louenges du Roy Louis XII., and soon after translated it from Latin into French for the same Verard, who printed it in 1508.

The taste for historical works induced the publishers to produce La Mer des Histoires, which had already been published in the fifteenth century; Thielman Kerver put forth the "Compendium" of Robert Gaguin in 1500 on account of Durand Gerlier and John Petit. The French version of this work was given in 1514 by Galliot du Pré, with vignettes, and afterwards under the name of Mirouer Historial, by Renaud Chaudière in 1520, by Nyverd, and others; the same with the Rozier Historial, with figures, in 1522 and 1528. Among the most popular works was the Illustrations de la Gaule et Singularitez de Troye, by John le Maire de Belges, printed in Paris and ornamented. In 1512 it was published by Geoffroy de Marnef, in 1515 by John and Gilbert de Marnef, by Regnault, by Philip le Noir, and others, always in the Gothic characters which prevailed in France at the beginning of the sixteenth century.

We give from the curious book of John le Maire an interesting woodcut representing Queen Anne of Brittany as Juno, in which we can without much difficulty see a remarkable sketch by a Bourdichon or a Perréal. The truly French style of this figure leaves no doubt as to its origin. At the same time, it may possibly have been inspired by the Virgin of a German master, say one of 1466, judging from the accessories, and even from the pose. This engraving will be found in the edition of 1512 of Gilbert de Marnef, in Gothic letter, quarto. On the reverse are the arms and device of John le Maire de Belges.

The time that elapsed from the death of Louis XI. until the accession of Francis I. – that is to say, from 1483 to 1515 – was, to employ an old expression, the golden age of French printing and illustration. Under Charles VIII. and Louis XII. the designers on wood were not yet affected by the neighbouring schools; neither the accentuated Italian influence nor the German processes had reached them; they did in their own way that which came to them, and they did it in their own fashion and habit, without foreign influence. Further, the kings did not ignore them, and Louis XII. preserved to the printers of the university all their rights and privileges in a magniloquent ordinance, in which the art of typography was extolled in the highest terms. It restores to them all the advantages that they had lost. It recites, "In consideration of the great benefit that has come to our kingdom by means of the art and science of printing, the invention of which seems more Divine than human, which, thanks to God, has been invented and found in our time by the help and industry of booksellers, by which our holy Catholic faith has been greatly augmented and strengthened, justice better understood and administered, and Divine service more honourably and diligently made, said, and celebrated, … by means of which our kingdom precedes all others," etc., etc. (Blois, 9th April, 1513). Certainly Louis made the best of himself and his kingdom in this preamble, but it must be recognised that France already held a predominant rank in the new industry, and that beyond the Italians she had no fear of serious rivalry. The school of ornamentists made constant progress. Before the books of hours, the booksellers contented themselves with miserable blocks, placed side by side, forming a framework of good and bad together; but after Simon Vostre, Verard, and the others they were singularly refined. The borders, at least in the books of hours, had become the principal part of the book; they had in them flowers, architectural, complicated, and simple subjects, all of perfect taste and extreme elegance; and, as we have observed in the representation of Anne of Brittany in the Illustrations de la Gaule, the figure subjects were no longer mechanical, commonplace, and tiresome blocks, but, on the contrary, more often works specially designed and engraved by artists of merit.