Part 7 (1/2)
After the publication of these works ill.u.s.tration seems to have languished for some years at Basel, but was taken up again about 1489 by Johann von Amerbach, Lienhart Ysenhut, and Michael Furter, the work of the two latter being mainly imitative. Johann Froben, who began work about this time, was too learned a publisher to concern himself with woodcuts, catering chiefly for students of the University. One of the professors, however, at the University was far from sharing this indifference to pictures. Born at Stra.s.sburg, Sebastian Brant was educated at Basel, and it was while holding there the Professors.h.i.+p of Laws that he ensured the popularity of his _Narrenschiff_ (1494) by equipping it with 115 admirable ill.u.s.trations. The original edition from the press of Johann Bergmann von Olpe was published in February, and before the end of the year Peter Wagner at Nuremberg, Greyff at Reutlingen, Schoensperger at Augsburg had all pirated it with copies of the Basel cuts. When the Latin translation by Brant's friend, Jakob Locher, was published by Bergmann in 1497, the success of the book became European, and probably no other ill.u.s.trated work of the fifteenth century is so well known.
Probably in the same year as the _Narrenschiff_ was first issued, Bergmann printed for Brant his _In laudem gloriosae virginis Mariae_, with sixteen woodcuts by the same hand. In 1495 Brant supplied him with two works in honour of the Emperor Maximilian, one celebrating the alliance with Pope Alexander VI, ill.u.s.trated with coats of arms, the other the _Origo bonorum regum_, with two woodcuts, in which the Emperor is shown receiving a sword from heaven. Brant was now in high favour with Maximilian, and his appointment as a Syndic and Imperial Chancellor at Stra.s.sburg led to his return and a consequent notable quickening of book-ill.u.s.tration in his native city.
At Stra.s.sburg Johann Mentelin had used woodcuts for diagrams in an undated edition of the _Etymologiae_ of S. Isidore, printed about 1473, but the first producer of books pictorially ill.u.s.trated was Heinrich k.n.o.blochtzer, who worked from 1476 to 1484, and issued over thirty books with woodcuts. Most of these were copies from other men's work, e.g. his _Belial_ and _Melusina_ from Bamler's, his _Philalethes_ from the Nuremberg edition of Johann Muller, his _Aesop_ and _Historie der Sigismunda_ from Johann Zainer's, his _Leben der heiligen drei Konigen_ probably from an anonymous edition by Johann Pruss. Early in his career in 1477 he issued two books on the great subject of the hour, the death of Charles the Bold, _Peter Hagenbach und der Burgundische Krieg_ and the _Burgunderkrieg_ of Erhard Tusch, in both of which he used eight woodcuts, most of them devoted to incidents of the Duke's ill-fated campaign. An anonymous edition of the _Euryalus und Lucretia_ of Aeneas Sylvius (Pope Pius II) has nineteen cuts, which were apparently commissioned by k.n.o.blochtzer, but he did not secure the services of a sufficiently skilled wood-cutter. It should be said, however, that his ”historiated” or pictorial capitals are apparently original and mostly good.
To Johann Pruss at Stra.s.sburg are now a.s.signed editions in High and Low German of the Lives of the Fathers and of Antichrist, which Mr. Proctor, though he had a shrewd suspicion of their origin, left floating about among the German ”adespota.” The cuts to the former reach the average of early work; those to the _Antichrist_ vary greatly, that of Antichrist preaching before a queen being extraordinarily successful as a presentation of a type of coa.r.s.e spiritual effrontery. The acknowledged work of Pruss includes editions of the travels of _Mandeville_, of the _Directorium Humanae Vitae_, and of the _Flores Musicae_ of Hugo Reutlingensis, with a rather famous cut showing how musical notes are produced by the wind, by a water wheel, by tapping stones, and hammering on an anvil. Pruss also printed several ill.u.s.trated editions of the _Hortus Sanitatis_.
Far more prolific than either of the foregoing Stra.s.sburg printers was Johann Reinhard of Gruningen, usually called Gruninger after his birthplace. Setting up his press in 1483, he began book-ill.u.s.tration two years later with a German Bible with woodcuts copied from those in the Low German Bibles printed at Cologne and used in 1483 at Nuremberg by Koberger. Some minor books followed, and in 1491 he issued the _Antidotarius Animae_ of Nicolaus de Saliceto, with rather rude borders to each page and a woodcut of the a.s.sumption. This, however, like some of his earlier ill.u.s.trated books, appears to have been a commission, and in a reprint of 1493 the decorations disappear. It was not until 1496, under the influence of Sebastian Brant, that he undertook any important original ill.u.s.trated work on his own account. In that year he produced his first ill.u.s.trated cla.s.sic, the comedies of Terence (_Terentius c.u.m directorio_), with a large woodcut of a theatre and eighty-seven narrow cuts of the dramatis personae, or of scenery, used five at a time in 150 different combinations. Critically examined, the cuts are rather unpleasing, and were regarded at the time as likely to provoke mirth otherwise than by expressing the humorous intent of the playwright, but another edition and a German translation similarly decorated appeared in 1499, and Gruninger issued on the same plan a _Horace_ (edited by Locher) in 1498, and the _De consolatione philosophiae_ of Boethius in 1501. His full strength was reserved for the _Virgil_ of the following year, which was superintended by Brant, and is crowded with wonderful pictures, in which on the very eve of the Renaissance Virgil is thoroughly medievalized. Besides these cla.s.sics, Gruninger printed many other ill.u.s.trated editions, minor works by Brant, medical treatises by Brunschwig, an _Evangelienbuch_, a _Legenda S. Katherinae_ in Latin and also in German, editions of the _Hortulus Animae_, the romance of Hug Schapler, etc., in the fifteenth century, and in the sixteenth a sufficient number of ill.u.s.trated books to bring his total up to about 150 editions. These may be said to form a school by themselves, distinguished by a certain richness of effect partly due to heavy cutting, but with less power of characterization and fewer gleams of beauty than are to be found in the best work of other towns, the figures being often unpleasing and notably lean in the legs. Martin Scott, Hupfuff, and Kistler were other Stra.s.sburg printers of the fifteenth century who also used ill.u.s.trations.
At Cologne book-ill.u.s.tration began in 1474 with editions of the _Fasciculus Temporum_ of Werner Rolewinck, from the presses of ther h.o.e.rnen and Nicolaus Gotz. But with the notable exception of two great Bibles issued by Heinrich Quentell, ill.u.s.trated books before 1490 are neither important nor numerous. Even in 1490 the edition of the _Historia Septem Sapientum_ of Johannes de Hauteselve, issued by the elder Koelhoff, was adorned with cuts obtained from Gerard Leeu at Antwerp. Quentell issued a few stock cuts in one book after another, and Johann Landen, Martin von Werden (if he be rightly identified with the printer ”Retro Minores”), and Cornelis von Zierickzee all used a few cuts, some of the latter's having a curiously Italian appearance. But the only important ill.u.s.trated book, other than the Bibles, is the Cologne Chronicle, issued (not to his profit, since he was imprisoned for it) by the younger Koelhoff in 1499, with armorial cuts and a few pictures of kings and queens somewhat too frequently repeated.
Quentell's Bibles in High and Low German are in curious contrast to all this work. They are ill.u.s.trated with 125 large oblong pictures, firmly if rather coa.r.s.ely cut, and full of story-telling power, several successive incidents being sometimes brought into the same picture in true medieval fas.h.i.+on. The book was imitated at Nuremberg and elsewhere, and the ill.u.s.trators of the Venetian Malermi Bible of 1490, and even Hans Holbein himself, did not disdain to take ideas from it.
At Lubeck a finely decorated edition of the _Rudimentum Noviciorum_, a universal history, was issued by Lucas Brandis as early as 1475, with some good pictorial capitals, and pictures beginning with the Creation and coming down to the life of Christ. In 1484 we come to a _Levend S.
Jeronimi_, printed by Bartholomaeus Ghotan and ill.u.s.trated by an anonymous artist whose work can be traced during the next ten years in other books of Ghotan's, in several very interesting editions by the unidentified ”Poppy-Printer” (so called from his mark), including a _Dodendantz_ (1489 and 1496), _Imitatio Christi_, _Bergitten Openbaringe_ (1496), _Reynke de Vos_ (1498), _Schakspil_, etc., and in the splendid Low German Bible printed in 1494 by Stephan Arndes, with cuts which improve on those in the Cologne editions.
[Ill.u.s.tration: IX. MAINZ, ERHARD REUWICH, 1486
BREIDENBACH. PEREGRINATIO IN MONTEM SYON SARACENS AND SYRIANS]
At Mainz, which led the way so energetically in typography, book-ill.u.s.tration is not represented at all until 1479, and then almost accidentally in the _Meditationes_ of Cardinal Turrecremata, printed by Johann Neumeister ”ciuem Moguntinensem,” with thirty-four curious metal-cuts imitating on a smaller scale the woodcuts in the editions printed at Rome by Ulrich Han. Two years later these metal-cuts were used by Neumeister at Albi, and they are subsequently found at Lyon.
That this book was printed at Mainz was made practically certain by the type appearing subsequently in the possession of Peter von Friedberg, but that the cuts were executed at Mainz seemed to me improbable until the publication of Dr. Schreibers work on German ill.u.s.trated books acquainted me with the existence of an _Agenda Moguntinensis_ of 29 June, 1480, also attributed to Neumeister's press, with a metal-cut of S. Martin and the beggar, and the arms not only of Archbishop Diether and the province of Mainz, but of Canon Bernhard von Breidenbach, of whom we shall soon hear again. The _Agenda_ and its metal-cuts are thus firmly fixed as executed at Mainz, and the metal-cuts of the _Meditationes_ must therefore be regarded as Mainz work also.
In 1486 Mainz atoned for her long delay in taking up ill.u.s.trated work, with the _Peregrinationes in Montem Syon_ of the aforesaid Canon Bernhard von Breidenbach, printed with type of Schoeffer's, under the superintendence of Erhard Reuwich of Utrecht, the ill.u.s.trator. The text of Breidenbach's book is full of interest, for he gives a vivid account of the voyage and of the hards.h.i.+ps and extortions to which pilgrims were exposed. In his preface he states that Reuwich was expressly taken on the expedition to ill.u.s.trate the narrative, and he certainly had ample skill to justify the engagement. Unfortunately, far too much of his labour was spent on great maps or views of Venice, Parenzo, Rhodes and other places pa.s.sed on the way. These are certainly interesting, as they mark all the chief buildings and are very decoratively drawn. But in the text of the book there are just a few sketches from the life, Jewish moneylenders and groups of Saracens, Syrians (see Plate IX), Indians, etc., and these are so vivid and vigorous that we may well regret that the labour bestowed on the great maps left time for very few of them.
They are interesting, moreover, not only as designs, but also for their cutting, as they introduce cross-hatching for the first time, and that very effectively, and are handled with equal firmness and freedom. At the end of the book is a jest, a full-page woodcut subscribed ”Hec sunt animalia veraciter depicta sicut vidimus in terra sancta,” among the animals thus certified as having been seen personally in the Holy Land being a unicorn and a creature (name unknown--_non constat de nomine_) with a great mane of hair and long tail, which might well serve for the missing link between a man and a gorilla. The frontispiece of the book, on the other hand, is a striking design of a woman (symbolizing the city of Mainz?) standing on a pedestal surrounded with the arms of Breidenbach and the two friends who went with him, decoratively treated, while above her is a canopy of trelliswork amid which children are joyously climbing. With the Mainz _Breidenbach_ we feel that we have pa.s.sed away from the naive craftsmans.h.i.+p of the earliest ill.u.s.trated books into a region of conscious art.
Naturally craftsmans.h.i.+p was not extinguished by the arrival of a single artist. We find it at work again in the charming and little known cut to a Leipzig edition of the Eclogues of Theodulus, printed in 1491, which the delight of recent discovery tempts me to show here (see Plate X), and at Mainz itself in the simple cuts to the _Hortus Sanitatis_, printed by Meidenbach, also in 1491, though here again there is an advance, as instead of plants and animals drawn out of the ill.u.s.trator's head merely for decorative effect we find in many of the cuts fairly careful copies made from the life.
In Conrad Botho's _Cronecken der Sa.s.sen_, printed by Schoeffer the following year, most of the armorial ill.u.s.trations and pictures of the foundation of towns are merely decoratively treated, but in one cut in which a rather wild-looking Charlemagne with lean legs is shown seated in a chair of state surmounted by an eagle, an idol crushed under his feet, the designer has given free play to his imagination.
[Ill.u.s.tration: X. LEIPZIG, CONRAD KACHELOFEN, 1489
THEODULUS. EGLOGA (I^b)]
The transition to different ideals of ill.u.s.tration thus begun at Mainz was carried on at Nuremberg, where Michael Wolgemut ill.u.s.trated two important works, the _Schatzbehalter_ in 1491 and the famous _Nuremberg Chronicle_ in 1493, this latter with the help of his stepson, Wilhelm Pleydenwurff, and no doubt also of several inferior designers. The _Schatzbehalter_, of which the text is ascribed to Stepha.n.u.s Fridelinus, a Nuremberg Franciscan, is one of several examples of a too ambitious scheme of decoration perforce abandoned for lack either of time or of money. In the first half there are ninety-two different full-page woodcuts, mostly ill.u.s.trating Scripture history, but in some cases allegorical; in the second half the number is no more than two. The pictures executed before the scheme was thus cut down vary greatly in quality, from the fine design of Christ kneeling before the throne of the Father and pointing to the emblems of the Pa.s.sion, which prepares us for the work which Durer, who was then being trained in Wolgemut's studio, was soon to execute, down to the amusing but uninspired craftsmans.h.i.+p of the picture of Solomon and a selection of his wives banqueting. For the _Liber Chronicarum_ of Hartman Schedel plans had been much more carefully worked out than for the _Schatzbehalter_, and by studying economy a seemingly profuse system of ill.u.s.tration was maintained to the end. The industry of Mr. Sydney c.o.c.kerell has evolved for us the exact figures as to the ill.u.s.tration of this book. Real liberality is shown in the large, double-page topographical cuts of twenty-six different cities, for many of which sketches must have been specially obtained, and not one of these is used a second time; but twenty-two other large cuts of cities and countries were made to serve for sixty-nine different subjects, and when we come to figures of emperors, kings, and popes we find ninety-six blocks used 598 times, or on an average half a dozen times apiece. Mr. c.o.c.kerell's grand totals are 1809 pictures printed from 645 different blocks, so that the repet.i.tions number no fewer than 1164. Both in the designs and their execution there is great inequality, but no single picture can compare with that of Christ kneeling before the Father in the _Schatzbehalter_, and both books, fine as their best work is, must be regarded rather as the crown of German medieval craftsmans.h.i.+p in book-building than as belonging to the period of self-conscious artistic aim which is heralded by the Mainz _Breidenbach_ but really begins with Durer.
With this Nuremberg work we may perhaps cla.s.s that in the one book printed at the Cistercian monastery at Zinna, near Magdeburg, the _Psalterium Beatae Mariae Virginis_, of Hermann Nitschewitz, the most richly decorated German book of the fifteenth century, executed in honour of the Emperor Frederick and his son Maximilian, who in the page here shown (Plate XI) are both represented.
Primitive Dutch and Flemish book-ill.u.s.trations when compared with German ones exhibit just the general likeness and specific differences which we might expect in the work of such near neighbours. The Low Country wood-cutters are on the whole more decorative than the Germans, they were more influenced by the work of the engravers on copper, and they were attracted by different types of the human figure, the faces and bodies of the men and women they drew being often long and thin, and often also showing a slightly fantastic touch rarely found in German work. Unfortunately, these Low Country ill.u.s.trated books are even rarer than the German ones, far fewer of them have found their way to England, and no attempt has been made to reproduce a really representative selection of them in facsimile. In 1884 Sir W. M. Conway, as the result of prolonged studies on the Continent, wrote an excellent account of these ill.u.s.trations and the makers of them under the t.i.tle, _The Woodcutters of the Netherlands in the Fifteenth Century_, which was unhappily allowed to appear without any facsimiles to elucidate the text. Thus the study of these Low Country ill.u.s.trated books is still difficult.
[Ill.u.s.tration: XI. ZINNA. MONASTERIUM CISTERCIENSE, C. 1493
NITSCHEWITZ. PSALTERIUM BEATAE MARIAE VIRGINIS FREDERICK AND MAXIMILIAN]
In the production of the early block-books (see Chapter II) the Low Countries had played a princ.i.p.al part, and we meet again with traces of them in later ill.u.s.trated books, cuts from the _Biblia Pauperum_ being used by Peter van Os at Zwolle in his _Episteln ende Evangelien_ of 5 January, 1487, and one from the _Cantic.u.m Canticorum_ in his edition of Mauberne's _Rosetum Exercitiorum Spiritualium_ in 1494. Two cut-up pieces from the block-book _Speculum Humanae Saluationis_ were used by Veldener in his _Episteln ende Evangelien_ completed at Utrecht 19 April, 1481, and all the old blocks, each divided in two, in a new edition of the _Speculum_ printed at Kuilenburg 27 September, 1483, with twelve new cuts added to them. Sir W. M. Conway has also shown that a set of sixty-four cuts used in a _Boec van der Houte_ or Legend of the Holy Cross, issued by Veldener at Kuilenburg earlier in 1483 (on 6 March), must have been obtained by dividing in a similar manner the double cuts of a block-book now entirely lost.
The first printer in the Low Countries who commissioned a woodcut for a book printed with movable type was Johann of Paderborn (John of Westphalia) at Louvain, the cut being a curious little representation of his own head, shown in white on a black oval. This he used in his _Inst.i.tutiones_ of Justinian of 21 November, 1475, and a few other books, and a similar but even better likeness of his kinsman, Conrad, appeared the next year in the _Formulae Epistularum_ of Maneken (1 December, 1476). Although Johann of Paderborn thus led the way in the use of cuts, he only resorted to them subsequently for a few diagrams, and towards the end of his career for some half-dozen miscellaneous blocks for devotional books.
The portrait of Johann of Paderborn being used only as a device, book-ill.u.s.tration begins, though on a very small scale, with Veldener's edition of the _Fasciculus Temporum_ (29 December, 1475), with its handful of poor little cuts modelled on those of the Cologne editions.