Read Ebook: Early Woodcut Initials Containing over Thirteen Hundred Reproductions of Ornamental Letters of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries by Jennings Oscar

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It would not be exact to say that it was G?nther Zainer who relinquished the fiction of a printed manuscript, and who recognised that, in virtue of the economic principle of which the press itself is a manifestation, text and ornamental embellishments should be produced as simply as possible.

The alteration was brought about by the Augsburg printers generally, rather than by any one in particular, and was a matter of evolution rather than of sudden change.

It was hindered, too, to a great extent by the opposition of the Guild of Engravers, who saw in the innovation a menace to their privileges, and who brought an action against Zainer and Schussler in 1471 to prevent them using wood-engraving in their books, and even opposed their admission as burgesses. It was only at the intervention of Melchior Stanheim, Abbot of St. Ulrich, that the matter was arranged, on the understanding that they should insert in their books neither woodcut pictures nor letters, a prohibition that was only withdrawn after a new arrangement which bound the printers to employ only recognised members of the Formschneider Guild.

As an example of the jealousy with which these privileges of corporations were maintained, it may be mentioned that Albert D?rer was compelled to pay four florins to the Society of Painters of Venice for working at his profession during his stay in that city.

G?nther Zainer's first woodcut initials, if they can be called 'woodcuts,' are merely outline letters without any kind of ornament. They were intended simply as a guide to the rubricator.

Finally we come to initials, of which the specimens that have come down to us are coloured as often as not. These are more effective when not so treated, and were probably intended to be left as printed. The reader can judge from the specimens reproduced.

The new plan was soon adopted by the other Augsburg printers, and spread thence to other towns and countries.

Our other examples are taken from works published by Sorg, Keller, B?mler, and Sch?nsperger.

The B?mler selection is exceedingly curious as presenting probably the first example, if our date is correct, of what was afterwards so common--the grotesque profile.

Unfortunately we are unable to give their exact origin, as they form part of a collection of initials, cut from early books, but if the attribution 'B?mler, 1475,' is correct, they are of the same date as the Rihel Bible of 1475, in which there are two initials with profiles, but neither of them grotesque.

There are two pictorial letters in the fifth German Bible , in which the border is formed partly of a grotesque profile.

Sch?nsperger's initials, of which four reproductions are given, are a little later, 1489.

We come now to pictorial initials, and in this respect the printers of Augsburg had been anticipated by those of Ulm and Nuremberg.

It was in 1473 that the fourth German Bible was published at Nuremberg. It was probably the success of this edition that induced G?nther Zainer to bring out the magnificent folio classed as fifth, which may truly, from its size and solidity, be considered as a typographical monument.

Zainer's first edition was undated, but was published either in 1474 or 1475. It succeeded so well that another edition, this time dated and in two volumes, was published in 1477, with small ornamental initials at the beginnings of the chapters, as well as the large pictorial letters previously used at the commencement of each book.

The difference between the Augsburg and Nuremberg initials can be seen in our reproductions, the former being taller and surrounded with accessory ornaments. In the Nuremberg Bible, Corinthians 1 and 2, Ephesians, Philippians, Thessalonians 1 and 2, Timothy 1 and 2, Titus and Philemon, all have the same initial. Hebrews has no initial at all, nor has Galatians. In the Augsburg edition the letters are all different; Galatians has its initial, and Hebrews begins with a pictorial Z.

In Sorg's Bible of 1477, the only large historiated letter is the B at the beginning of the dedicatory epistle, with bishop and cardinal in a cell which, as can be seen in the corresponding Nuremberg initial, looks like a third-class railway compartment. There is a smaller D, not worth reproducing. The different books of the Bible are mostly preceded by small engravings.

This book contains a number of engravings on Biblical subjects, which are most often painted over beyond the possibility of reproduction. Such is the case with the copies both in the British Museum and in the Paris National Library.

Towards the end of the century Ratdolt, who had returned from Venice, was the chief printer at Augsburg.

In the Missal of Frisingen of 1492 there are no historiated letters, and the ornamental initials in the Venetian style are unfortunately most outrageously coloured in the only copy we have seen. Amongst other letters there is in it an extremely curiously designed S which is difficult to describe, but which we would recommend to students of lettering. In the D, which is in the shape of a Gothic German Q reversed, and the P, there is a branch-work pattern starting tangentially from a central circle and ending in trifoliated ornaments altogether graceful and harmonious. Ratdolt's mark is on the last page, and above it:

'Erhardi Ratdolt felicia conspice signa, Testata artificem qua valet ipse manum.'

Hitherto, with the exception of the last-mentioned work, we have had to do with what may be called the first style of engraving, in which designs and pictures drawn by the artist were executed by the wood-cutter in linear reproduction only.

With Albert D?rer, however, came a new epoch, and it became the custom for artists not only to design but also to engrave their own work. This practice, which was commenced by D?rer, who served a long apprenticeship to the celebrated Wohlgemuth, was continued by most of his pupils, and new technical methods were naturally the consequence. Henceforth the more liberal use of shading, and the invention of cross-hatching, enabled effects to be produced which had been before impossible.

The results may be seen to this day in the magnificent engravings by the great artists of the beginning of the sixteenth century, which, notwithstanding the difficulties under which they laboured, have never been excelled. Their productions, even when it comes to initials, are real compositions with a personal character.

At this time the wood employed for engraving was pear, and the surface of the block was parallel to the fibre. This made cross-hatching most difficult of execution, and in consequence of the extreme care and attention necessary, it is said that the work took eight or nine times as long as at present. It is only since the days of Bewick that boxwood has been used, and the blocks cut with the fibre of the wood perpendicular to the surface.

To mention those only who designed initial letters, and of whose works we shall give specimens, there were Albert D?rer, Hans Burgkmair, Hans Holbein, Hans Schauffelein, Anton von Worms, Lucas Cranach, Hans Baldung Gr?n.

We have here to speak of the initials generally attributed to Hans Burgkmair, but which, according to Dr. H. R?ttinger, ought to be assigned to Hans Weiditz, one of his pupils.

These initials are to be met with for the most part in the publications of Heinrich Steyner in 1531 and the following ten or eleven years, and come mostly from German translations of classical authors. The influence of Albert D?rer, of whom Burgkmair was himself the pupil, is clearly seen. Different treatises and different editions of Cicero were published in 1531, 1535, 1540; of Herodianus in 1531; Justinus, 1531; Boccaccio, 1532; Cassiodorus, 1533; Plutarch, 1534; Petrarch, 1542, in all of which we meet with specimens of these letters.

ULM AND NUREMBERG

Most writers on early bibliography, amongst others Bodemann and Muther, who both give reproductions of the initial border at the beginning of the Latin Boccaccio, quote J. Zainer as the first printer in Ulm to use woodcut initials. The date of the Boccaccio is 1473. In addition to the initial border it contains a complete alphabet, of which we give several specimens. From a decorative point of view this alphabet is not very remarkable, the letters being of small size, but the book is interesting on account of the very large historiated initial at the beginning, which is prolonged along the side and upper margins into a floro-foliated border in imitation of the more elaborate decoration of the old manuscripts. The subject represents that very unfortunate incident in the history of the first woman which was the cause of all the subsequent unhappiness of mankind. Eve, who is the heroine of the first chapter of this book on celebrated women, is represented in the act of receiving the apple from the arch deceiver, who is ensconced in the branches of the fatal tree with his tail twisted into the letter S. Above, in the branches of the tree, are small personages emblematic of the seven deadly sins. In a German edition of the same book of the same year, the initial becomes a D, and contains the arms of the noble to whom the work is dedicated, with winged angels at the corners, being prolonged into borders along the two adjacent margins. In these two instances the initial letter forms part of the general composition.

Copied from a manuscript of the fifteenth century, the 'Evangeliare of St. Udalrich.'

In another style of border the initial is merely placed in juxtaposition, and the same design is thus able to serve for any book with any letter.

The idea, however, was much older, springing from that taste for the grotesque which characterised the Middle Ages, and the relics of which are seen in so many artistic remains of the period. From the tenth century and even earlier, companies of fools existed in all large towns, and on certain occasions Mother Folly and the Lord of Misrule reigned supreme. The cult of the ass, whose ears were to become later part of the fool's insignia, was another outcome of this love of the burlesque.

Our last specimen of J. Zainer's engraving is the F which begins the dedicatory epistle of the Latin Bible of 1480, and which is a curious example of the peregrinations of woodcuts through different workshops, and of the incongruous uses to which they were put.

On the title-page of a little pamphlet entitled 'Deploration sur le Trepas de tres noble Princesse Madame Magdalain de France Royne Descoce,' of which only one copy is known, the frontispiece is a B showing the Queen holding up a dagger, and with the motto 'Memento mori.'

Here there is, of course, no absolute incompatibility between text and illustration, which was probably considered a very satisfactory makeshift for the cut which often adorns the recto or verso of contemporary title-pages, representing the author presenting his book to a patron.

M?ller, or Regiomontanus, as he styles himself in his colophons, was not only a printer, but one of the most learned mathematicians of the day. In 1471 he printed a Calendarium of his own with many astronomical figures and woodcut initials.

In 1476 Ratdolt and his partners printed an edition of this with a charming border and initials at Venice, and in 1496 it was published by J. Hamman de Landoia.

In 1473 appeared the first German Bible with large pictorial initials, the Nuremberg Bible of Frisner and Sensenschmidt, known as the fourth German Bible. In our opinion the work on these initials is amongst the best of the time, and often much superior to what is to be found in ordinary illustrative cuts of the same date. The subjects are the same as in the Augsburg Bible, but the initials differ in being wider than tall in the Nuremberg edition, and in the absence of the Maibl?mchen decorative border which is a feature of the others.

After the German Bible, we know of no initials of very great interest in Nuremberg books for some years. Koberger, who reigned supreme in this town, did not favour their use.

In a recent catalogue of thirty-seven works published by him, no woodcut initials occur in any.

In 1489 a book was published, generally attributed to G. Stuchs, which is interesting in many ways. The title, which is xylographic, runs as follows:

Proctor ascribes this work to either Conrad Zeninger or Peter Wagner.

There are two specimens of this page also in the Franks collection of book-plates at the British Museum. In one of these the space is blank, in the other it is filled up with the name of a nun, Barbara.

The chief interest of this volume, however, resides in its initial letters, after the designs which are preserved at the Pinacothek at Munich, of Israel von Mecken. Many of them are repeated a great many times, there being altogether between seventy and eighty impressions; but these represent only eight different letters of the alphabet, A, D, E, H, I, M, P, S. Of these the E, which we give, is the only letter which is both engraved and printed perfectly, the A being the next best. Nearly all the others are flat, often wanting in depth and relief, besides being badly printed.

Altogether this book is one of the most interesting relics of early typography, and is especially noticeable as being the first volume illustrated by a known artist.

BASLE AND ZURICH

There are in this Bible four different sets of letters, but of none of these is there a complete alphabet, although but few letters are wanting of the largest. The next nearly complete is the second in size.

Of the four different sets, the second in size is of a special design, different to anything we have met with. The others are pure specimens of Maibl?mchen ornamentation, and amongst the best of the kind.

The three different-sized initials with human faces are the only letters in the volume with any trace of historiation.

Several Psalters were published either at the end of the fifteenth or at the beginning of the sixteenth century, of exactly the same size and general disposition, two of them with initial letters that correspond in subject although very different in treatment. These are the Psalters of Basle and Augsburg.

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