The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Printed Book, by Henri Bouchot
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Title: The Printed Book
Its History, Illustration and Adornment, from the Days of
Gutenberg to the Present Time
Author: Henri Bouchot
Translator: Edward C. Bigmore
Release Date: February 13, 2014 [EBook #44890]
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PRINTED BOOK ***
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by The Internet Archive)
THE PRINTED BOOK,
Its History, Illustration, and Adornment,
_FROM THE DAYS OF GUTENBERG TO THE
PRESENT TIME._
BY
HENRI BOUCHOT,
OF THE NATIONAL LIBRARY, PARIS.
_Translated and Enlarged by_
EDWARD C. BIGMORE.
WITH ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTEEN ILLUSTRATIONS OF FACSIMILES
OF EARLY TYPOGRAPHY, PRINTERS' MARKS, COPIES OF BOOK
ILLUSTRATIONS, AND SPECIMENS OF BINDINGS OF ALL AGES.
NEW YORK:
SCRIBNER AND WELFORD,
743 and 745, BROADWAY.
1887.
PREFACE.
Considering that this short study can claim to be nothing more than a
rapid and somewhat summary survey of the history of THE BOOK, it eschews
all controversial matter, nor does it pretend to convey much fresh
information to those already possessing a special knowledge of the
subject. It is rather a condensed, but at the same time, it may be
hoped, a useful, compendium of the thousand unknown or now forgotten
essays, involving endless contradictory statements, that have been
issued on this theme. The mere enumeration of such works would simply
suffice to fill a volume. We have accordingly no intention to attempt a
bibliography, satisfying ourselves with the modest avowal of having
found so many documents in all languages, that the very abundance has
been at least as embarrassing to us as the lack of materials may have
been to others.
The Book appealing in its present form to a special public interested
more in artistic than in purely typographical topics, our attention has
been more particularly given to the illustrators, the designers,
engravers, etchers, and so forth. Such graphic embellishment seemed to
us of more weight than the manufacture of the paper, the type-casting,
the printing properly so called. This technical aspect of the subject
has been very briefly dealt with in a separate chapter, and has also
been enlarged upon in the early section. To the binding also we have
devoted only a single chapter, while fully conscious that a whole volume
would not have sufficed merely to treat the subject superficially.
At the same time, we would not have the reader conclude from all this
that our book abounds in omissions, or has overlooked any important
features. The broad lines, we trust, have been adhered to, while each
section has been so handled as to give a fair idea of the epoch it deals
with. This is the first attempt to comprise within such narrow limits an
art and an industry with a life of over four centuries, essaying to
describe its beginnings and its history down to our days, without
omitting a glance at the allied arts.
The engravings selected for illustration have, as far as possible, been
taken from unedited materials, and have been directly reproduced by
mechanical processes, while fifteen new illustrations, having special
relation to the history of the Book in England, have been added to this
edition, which is also considerably enlarged in the text on the same
subject.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
PAGE
14.. TO 1462 1
Origin of the Book--Engravers in relief--The St. Christopher of
1423--Origin of the Xylographs--The Xylographs, _Donatus_, and
_Speculum_--The Laurent Coster legend--From block books to movable
characters--John Gaensefleisch, called Gutenberg--The Strasbourg
trial--Gutenberg at Mayence--Fust and Schoeffer--The letters of
indulgence--The Bible--The "Catholicon"--The Mayence Bible--Causes of
the dispersion of the first Mayence printers--General considerations.
CHAPTER II.
1462 TO 1500 33
The Book and the printers of the second generation--The German workmen
dispersed through Europe--Caxton and the introduction of printing into
England--Nicholas Jenson and his supposed mission to Mayence--The
first printing in Paris; William Fichet and John Heinlein--The
first French printers; their installation at the Sorbonne and their
publications--The movement in France--The illustration of the Book
commenced in Italy--The Book in Italy; engraving in relief and metal
plates--The Book in Germany: Cologne, Nuremberg, Basle--The Book in
the Low Countries--French schools of ornament of the Book; Books of
Hours; booksellers at the end of the fifteenth century--Literary taste
in titles in France at the end of the fifteenth century--Printers
and booksellers' marks--The appearance of the portrait in the
Book--Progress in England--Caxton and his followers.
CHAPTER III.
1500 TO 1600 98
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.
CHAPTER IV.
1600 TO 1700 151
Tendencies of the regency of Marie de Medicis--Thomas de Leu and
Leonard Gaultier--J. Picart and Claude Mellan--Lyons and J. de
Fornazeris--The Book at the beginning of the seventeenth century in
Germany, Italy, and Holland--Crispin Pass in France--The Elzevirs
and their work in Holland--Sebastian Cramoisy and the Imprimerie
Royale--Illustration with Callot, Della Bella, and Abraham Bosse--The
publishers and the Hotel de Rambouillet--The reign of Louis XIV.;
Antoine Vitré syndic at his accession--His works and mortifications;
the Polyglot Bible of Le Jay--Art and illustrators of the grand
century--Sébastien Leclerc, Lepautre, and Chauveau--Leclerc preparing
the illustration and decoration of the Book for the eighteenth
century--The Book in England in the seventeenth century.
CHAPTER V.
THE BOOK IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 184
The regency--Publishers at the beginning of the eighteenth
century--Illustrators in France; Gillot--The school of Watteau
and Boucher--Cars--The younger Cochin; his principal works in
vignettes--French art in England; Gravelot--Eisen--Choffard--The
_Baisers_ of Dorat; the _Contes_ of La Fontaine--The publisher
Cazin and the special literature of the eighteenth century--The
younger Moreau and his illustrations--The Revolution--The school of
David--Duplessis-Bertaux--The Book in Germany; Chodowiecki--In England;
Boydell and French artists--Caslon and Baskerville--English books
with illustrations--Wood engraving in the eighteenth century; the
Papillons--Printing offices in the eighteenth century.
CHAPTER VI.
THE BOOK IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 218
The Didots and their improvements--The folio Racine--The school of
Didot--Fine publications in England and Germany--Literature and art
of the Restoration--Romanticism--Wood engraving--Bewick's pupils,
Clennell, etc.--The illustrators of romances--The generation of
1840--The Book in our days in Europe and America.
CHAPTER VII.
TYPES, IMPRESSION, PAPER, INK 239
CHAPTER VIII.
BOOKBINDING 253
The binding of the first printed books--Ancient German
bindings--Binding in the time of Louis XII.--Italian
bindings--Aldus--Maioli--Grolier--Francis I.--Henry II. and
Diane de Poitiers--Catherine de Medicis--Henry III.--The
Eves--The "fanfares"--Louis XIII.--Le Gascon--Florimond
Badier--Louis XIV.--Morocco leathers--Cramoisy--The bindings
of the time of Louis XIV.--The regency--Pasdeloup--The
Deromes--Dubuisson--Thouvenin--Lesné--The nineteenth century--English
binders--Roger Payne--Francis Bedford.
CHAPTER IX.
LIBRARIES 290
INDEX 305
THE PRINTED BOOK.
CHAPTER I.
14.. TO 1462.
Origin of the Book--Engravers in relief--The St. Christopher of
1423--Origin of the Xylographs--The Xylographs, _Donatus_, and
_Speculum_--The Laurent Coster legend--From block books to movable
characters--John Gaensefleisch, called Gutenberg--The Strasbourg
trial--Gutenberg at Mayence--Fust and Schoeffer--The letters of
indulgence--The Bible--The Catholicon--The Mayence Bible--Causes of
the dispersion of the first Mayence printers--General
considerations.
Like its forerunner, Painting, the Book has ever been the most faithful
reflection of the times when it was written and illustrated. Natural and
genuine from the first, and simply embellished with crude illustrations,
it assumed in the sixteenth century the grand airs of the Renaissance,
gay or serious according to circumstances, decked in what were then
called _histoires_--that is to say, wonderful engravings--and daintily
printed in Gothic, Roman, or choice Italic characters. But at the close
of the century it had already abandoned _wood_ for line engravings,
heightening its mysticism or its satire at the whim of passing politics
and religious wranglings. Then, under the influence of the painters and
courtiers of the _Grand Monarque_, it becomes completely transformed,
donning the peruke, so to speak, indulging in allegory and
conventionalities, pompous and showy, tricking itself out in columns and
pilasters instead of the old arabesques and scroll work of the
Renaissance, thus continuing amid the coquetries of the regency, the
pastorals and insipidities of the following reigns, until at last it
suddenly assumes with the heroes of the Revolution the austere mien and
airs of classic art. The Book has always been as closely connected with
the manners of our predecessors as art itself. The artist submits more
than he thinks to the tendency of his surroundings; and if he at times
makes his taste appreciated, it is because he has more or less received
his first influence from others.
In the sixteenth century the fashion of emblematic representation placed
under the portrait of Gaston de Foix a figure of a young plant in full
bloom; and the inscription in Latin was "Nascendo maturus"--"Mature at
birth." The Book deserves the same device; from its first day up to now
it is a marvel of simplicity and harmony. The tentative efforts which
preceded the discovery of printing were but few; it may be said that
from the moment that Gutenberg conceived the idea of separating the
characters, of arranging the words in the forme, of inking them, and of
taking a proof on paper, the Book was perfect. At best we see in
following times some modifications of detail; the art of printing was
mature, mature from its birth.
But before arriving at the movable type placed side by side, and forming
phrases, which appears to us to-day so simple and so ordinary, many
years passed. It is certain that long before Gutenberg a means was found
of cutting wood and metal in relief and reproducing by application the
image traced. Signs-manual and seals were a kind of printing, inasmuch
as the relief of their engraving is impressed upon a sheet by the hand.
But between this simple statement and the uncritical histories of
certain special writers, attributing the invention of engraving to the
fourteenth century, there is all the distance of legendary history.
Remembering that the numerous guilds of _tailleurs d'images_, or
sculptors in relief, had in the Middle Ages the specialty of carving
ivories and of placing effigies on tombs, it can be admitted without
much difficulty, that these people one day found a means of multiplying
the sketches of a figure often asked for, by modelling its contour in
relief on ivory or wood, and afterwards taking a reproduction on paper
or parchment by means of pressure. When and where was this discovery
produced? We cannot possibly say; but it is certain that playing cards
were produced by this means, and that from the year 1423 popular figures
were cut in wood, as we know from the St. Christopher of that date
belonging to Lord Spencer.
It is not our task to discuss this question at length, nor to decide if
at first these reliefs were obtained on wood or metal. It is a
recognised fact that the single sheet with a printed figure preceded the
xylographic book in which text and illustration were cut in the same
block. This process did not appear much before the second quarter of
the fifteenth century, and it was employed principally for popular works
which were then the universal taste. The engraving also was nothing more
than a kind of imposition palmed off as a manuscript; the vignettes were
often covered with brilliant colours and gold, and the whole sold as of
the best quality.
The first attempts at these little figures in relief discovered by the
image-makers and diffused by the makers of playing cards were but
indifferent. The drawing and the cutting were equally unskilful, as may
be seen in the facsimiles given by M. H. Delaborde in his _Histoire de
la Gravure_. An attempt had been made to put some text at the foot of
the St. Christopher of 1423, and the idea of giving more importance to
the text was to the advantage of the booksellers. At the mercy of the
writers who fleeced them, obliged to recoup themselves by the
exaggerated prices of the most ordinary books, they hoped to turn
engraving to account in order to obtain on better terms the technical
work needed for their trade. At the epoch of the St. Christopher, in
1423, several works were in vogue in the universities, the schools, and
with the public. Among the first of these was the Latin Syntax of Ælius
Donatus on the eight parts of speech, a kind of grammar for the use of
young students, as well as the famous _Speculum_, a collection of
precepts addressed to the faithful, which were copied and recopied
without satisfying the demand.
[Illustration: Fig. 1.--Part of a _Donatus_ taken from a xylograph, the
original of which is preserved in the Bibliothèque Nationale.]
To find a means of multiplying these treatises at little cost was a
fortune to the inventor. It is to be supposed that many artisans of the
time attempted it; and without doubt it was the booksellers themselves,
mostly mere dealers, who were tempted to the adventure by the sculptors
and wood-cutters. But none had yet been so bold as to cut in relief a
series of blocks with engravings and text to compose a complete work.
That point was reached very quickly when some legend was engraved at the
foot of a vignette, and it may be thought that the _Donatus_ was the
most ancient of books so obtained among the "Incunabuli," as we now call
them, a word that signifies origin or cradle.
The first books then were formed of sheets of paper or parchment,
laboriously printed from xylographic blocks, that is to say wooden
blocks on which a _tailleur d'images_ had left in relief the designs and
the letters of the text. He had thus to trace his characters in reverse,
so that they could be reproduced as written; he had to avoid faults,
because a phrase once done, well or ill, lasted. It was doubtless this
difficulty of correction that gave the idea of movable types. If the
cutter seriously erred, it was necessary to cancel altogether the faulty
block. This at least explains the legend of Laurent Coster, of Haarlem,
who, according to Hadrian Junius, his compatriot, discovered by accident
the secret of separate types while playing with his children. And if the
legend of which we speak contains the least truth, it must be found in
the sense above indicated, that is in the correction of faults, rather
than in the innocent game of a merchant of Haarlem. However, we shall
have occasion to return to the subject of these remarks. It should be
well established that engraving in relief on wood alone gave the idea of
making xylographic blocks and of composing books. Movable type, the
capital point of printing, the pivot of the art of the Book, developed
itself little by little, according to needs, when there was occasion to
correct an erroneous inscription; but, in any case, its origin is
unknown. Doubtless to vary the text, means were found to replace entire
phrases by other phrases, preserving the original figures; and thus the
light dawned upon these craftsmen, occupied in the manufacture and sale
of their books.
According to Hadrian Junius, Laurent Janszoon Coster (the latter name
signifying "the discoverer") published one of the celebrated series of
works under the general title of _Speculum_ which was then so popular
(the mystic style exercising so great an attraction on the people of the
fifteenth century), the _Speculum Humanæ Salvationis_. Written before
the middle of the fifteenth century, made popular by manuscripts, in
spite of its fantastic Latinity and of its false quantities, this
ascetic and crude poem was easy of access to the xylographists. Junius,
as we see, attributes to Laurent Coster the first impression of the
_Speculum_, no longer the purely xylographic impression of the _Donatus_
from an engraved block, but that of the more advanced manner in movable
types. In point of fact, this book had at least four editions, similar
in engravings and body of letters, but of different text. It must then
be admitted that the fount was dispersed, and typography discovered,
because the same cast of letters could not be adapted to different
languages. On the other hand, the vignettes do not change, indicating
sufficiently the mobility of the types. In comparison to what may be
seen in later works, the illustrations of the _Speculum_ are by no means
bad; they have the appearance, at once naïve and picturesque, of the
works of Van Eyck, and not at all of the style of the German
miniaturists; properly illuminated and gilded, they lent themselves to
the illusion of being confounded with the _histoyres_, drawn by the
hand, and this is what the publisher probably sought.
All the xylographic works of the fifteenth century may be classed in two
categories: the xylographs, rightly so called, or the block books, such
as the _Donatus_, and the books with movable types, like the _Speculum_,
of which we speak. This mystic and simple literature of pious works for
the use of people of modest resources found in printing the means of
more rapid reproduction. Then appeared the _Biblia Pauperum_, one of the
most celebrated and the most often reproduced, and the _Ars Moriendi_, a
kind of dialogue between an angel and a devil at the bedside of a dying
person, which, inspired no doubt by older manuscripts, retained for a
long time in successive editions the first tradition of its designs. On
labels displayed among the figures are found inscribed the dialogue of
the demons and angels seeking to attach to themselves the departing
soul, the temptations of Satan on the subject of faith, and the
responses of the angel on the same subject.
[Illustration: Fig. 2.--Xylographic figure from the _Ars Moriendi_,
copied in reverse in the _Art au Morier_.]
We can see what developments this theme could lend to the mysticism of
the fifteenth century. Composed in eleven designs, the _Ars Moriendi_
ran up to eight different editions. From the middle to the end of the
fifteenth century, the text was in Latin, then in French, under the
title _L'Art au Morier_. In the French edition will be found the blocks
that served for the second impression of the work. About 1480, more than
fifty years after the first essays, the _Ars Moriendi_ enjoyed so much
vogue that it employed all the resources of typography as much as in its
earliest days. The original subjects, copied in a very mediocre manner,
adorned the text, which was composed in Gothic letters, with a new and
more explicit title: _Tractatus brevis ac valde utilis de Arte et
Scientia bene moriendi_ (4to, s.l.n.d.), but the order is inverted,
figure 5 of the xylograph becoming No. 3 of the edition of 1480.
The _Ars Memorandi_, another xylographic work, of which the subject,
taken from the New Testament, was equally well adapted to the
imagination of the artists, had also a glorious destiny. The work
originally comprised thirty blocks, the fifteen blocks of text facing
the fifteen engravings. The designs represented the attributes of each
of the Evangelists, with allegories and explanatory legends. Thus, in
that which relates to the Apostle Matthew,
No. 1 represents the birth and genealogy of Jesus Christ,
No. 2 the offerings of the Magi,
No. 3 the baptism of St. John,
No. 4 the Temptation of Christ,
No. 5 the Sermon on the Mount,
No. 6 the parable of the birds.
The angel that supports the whole is the emblem of St. Matthew the
Evangelist.
[Illustration: Fig. 3.--Figure of the school of Martin Schongauer, taken
from the _Rationarium Evangelistarum_ of 1505, and copied from the
corresponding plate of the _Ars Memorandi_.]
This mnemonic treatment of the Gospels began with symbols of which we
have no means of finding the origin, but which without doubt were
employed many centuries earlier. However that may be, their success was
as great as that of the already-quoted works. In 1505 a German publisher
put forth an imitation, under the title of _Rationarium Evangelistarum_;
and this time the copier of the illustrations, retaining the tradition
of the first xylographers, no less reveals an artist of the first order,
at least a pupil of Martin Schongauer. Some of the conceptions of the
_Rationarium_ recall exactly the engravings of the great German master,
among others that of the Infant Jesus (plate 12), which nearly
approaches the style of the Infant Jesus of Schongauer; besides, the
principal figures leave but little doubt on the subject. The same wings
are on the angels and on the eagles, the same coiffures on the human
characters, often the same attitudes.
From the preceding can be judged the extraordinary favour these
productions enjoyed. From their origin they were diffused through the
whole of Europe, and attracted the attention of excellent artists.
Nevertheless their beginnings were difficult. The movable types used,
cut separately in wood, were not constituted to give an ideal
impression. We can understand the cost that the execution of these
characters must have occasioned, made as they were one by one without
the possibility of ever making them perfectly uniform. Progress was to
substitute for this irregular process types that were similar,
identical, easily produced, and used for a long time without breaking.
Following on the essays of Laurent Coster, continuous researches bore on
this point; but as the invention was said to be his, and it being of
importance to him not to divulge it, so that he should not lose his
profit, much time was lost over it in his workshop without much success.
Here history is somewhat confused. Hadrian Junius positively accuses one
of Laurent Coster's workmen of having stolen the secrets of his master
and taken flight to Mayence, where he afterwards founded a printing
office. According to Junius, the metal type was the discovery of the
Dutchman, and the name of the thief was John. Who was this John? Was it
John Gaensefleisch, called Gutenberg, or possibly John Fust? But it is
not at all apparent that Gutenberg, a gentleman of Mayence, exiled from
his country, was ever in the service of the Dutch inventor. As to Fust,
we believe his only intervention in the association of printers of
Mayence was as a money-lender, from which may be comprehended the
unlikelihood of his having been with Coster, the more so as we find
Gutenberg retired to Strasbourg, where he pursued his researches. There
he was, as it were, out of his sphere, a ruined noble whose great
knowledge was bent entirely on invention. Doubtless, like many others,
he may have had in his hands one of the printed works of Laurent Coster,
and conceived the idea of appropriating the infant process. In 1439 he
was associated with two artisans of the city of Strasbourg, ostensibly
in the fabrication of mirrors, which may be otherwise understood as
printing of _Speculums_, the Latin word signifying the same thing. These
men needed to surround themselves with precautions; printing was as yet
only a practical means of multiplying manuscripts, to impose a little on
the innocent, and fortune awaited him who, without saying anything, made
this invention serve him. The following will prove this, as well as its
tendency.
A legal document discovered in 1760 by Wencker and Schoepflin in the
Pfennigthurm of Strasbourg, and afterwards translated into French by
M. Leon de Laborde, makes us at length acquainted with the work of
Gutenberg and of his associates Andrew Dritzehen and Andrew Heilmann.
Apparently these three men were, as we have said, _Spiegelmacher_,
that is makers of mirrors. They had jointly entered into a deed by
the terms of which, if one of the partners died in the course of
their researches, his heirs would have no rights beyond an indemnity
corresponding to the amount invested by him. It happened that
Andrew Dritzehen did die, and that one of his brothers aspired to
occupy his place in the partnership. The dead man left debts behind
him; he had squandered his florins by hundreds in his experiments.
Gutenberg having offered to pay the amounts expended, the heirs of
Dritzehen, who wanted more, summoned him before the courts to show
why he should not make place for them in the work of experiments and
making of mirrors. The witnesses in their testimony before the court
told what they knew of the inventions of the partnership. One among
them deposed that after the death of Dritzehen, Gutenberg's servant
went to the workshop and begged Nicholas Dritzehen, brother of the
deceased, to displace and break up four formes placed in a press.
A second testified that the works of Andrew had cost him at the
least three hundred florins, an enormous sum for those days. Other
witnesses painted Gutenberg in a curious light: they made him out
to be a savage, a hermit, who concealed from his associates certain
arts of which the deed stipulated nothing. One fact proved that the
experiments referred to the manufacture of metallic characters. A
goldsmith, named Dünne, maintained that he had received more than a
hundred florins for printing material "das zu dem trucken gehoret."
"Trucken!"--"Typography!" The word was found, and from that day usage
has consecrated it.
Before 1439, then, John Gaensefleisch, or Gutenberg, was devoted to the
art of reproduction of texts, and had consecrated his life and feeble
resources to it. Three problems presented themselves to him. He wanted
types less fragile than wooden types and less costly than engraving. He
wanted a press by the aid of which he could obtain a clear impression on
parchment or paper. He desired also that the leaves of his books should
not be anopistograph, or printed only on one side. There were many
unknown things to vex his soul, of which he himself alone could have a
presentiment. Until then, and even long after, the xylographs were
printed _au frotton_ or with a brush, rubbing the paper upon the forme
coated with ink, thicker than ordinary ink. He dreamed of something
better.
In the course of his work John Gutenberg returned to Mayence. The idea
of publishing a Bible, the Book of books, had taken possession of his
heart. The _Spiegelmacher_ of Strasbourg was on the road to loss. The
cutting of his types had ruined him, and on his arrival in his native
town, his stock in trade, transported by him, was of no great weight:
some boxes of type, an inconvenient forme, and perhaps an ordinary
press, a wine-maker's press, with a wooden screw. The idea of using this
unwieldy instrument for the impression of his formes had already
occurred to him; but would not the _frotton_ serve still better? The
force of the blow from the bar would break the miserable type, the
raised parts of which could not resist the repeated strokes. In this
unhappy situation, Gutenberg made the acquaintance of a financier of
Mayence, named Fust, who was in search of a business, and who put a sum
of eleven hundred florins at his disposal to continue his experiments.
Unfortunately this money disappeared, it melted away, and the results
obtained were absolutely ludicrous.
It is certain that John Fust did not enter on the engagement without
protecting himself. From the first he bound his debtor in a contract for
six per cent. interest, besides a share in the profits. In addition he
stipulated repayment in case of failure. Gutenberg, improvident, as is
the way of inventors, had signed away all that he possessed to procure
funds. It is presumed, besides, that during the continuance of his
investigations, he composed some current books with the resources at his
disposal, that served a little to lighten his debts. But the printing
house of the Zum Jungen at Mayence was far from shining in the world,
because the association of Fust concerned itself only with the
publication of a Bible, and not at all with the _Speculums_ and
_Donatuses_ that were so much in vogue at this time. Besides, the
money-lender made a point of pressing his debtor, and did not allow him
any leisure to labour outside the projected work. About this time a
third actor enters on the scene. Peter Schoeffer, of Gernsheim, a
writer, introduced into the workshop of Gutenberg to design letters,
benefited by the abortive experiments, and taking up the invention at
its deadlock, conducted it to success. John of Tritenheim, called
Trithemius, the learned abbot of Spanheim, is the person who relates
these facts; but as he got his information from Schoeffer himself, too
much credence must not be given to his statements. Besides, Schoeffer
was not at all an ordinary artisan. If we credit a Strasbourg manuscript
written by his hand in 1449, he was a student of the "most glorious
university of Paris." In the workshop of Gutenberg, his industrious and
inventive intellect found a fecund mine, and this caligraphist dreamt
of other things than shaping letters for the use of wood engravers.
Gutenberg, arrested in his career by the wants of life, the worries of
business, and perhaps also the fatigues of his labours, may have let the
new-comer know something of his experiences. One cannot know, but it is
certain that, shortly after, John Fust was so fascinated by Schoeffer,
so attracted by his youth and his application, that he resolved to put
new capital into the business. He did more: to permanently attach him,
he gave him his grand-daughter in marriage, not his daughter, as was
thought until M. Auguste Bernard rectified this mistake.
We have now come to 1453, the year preceding the first dated monument of
printing in movable types: _the letters of indulgence_. It may be
acknowledged that the sudden affection of Fust for his workman depended
on some interested motive, and not at all on attraction of the heart.
Had this former student of the university of Paris found the means of
rapidly founding metallic types, the search for which had cost Gutenberg
many sleepless nights? Had he completed it by applying to it the matrix
and punch which had then and for centuries served the makers of seals
and the money-coiners? Perhaps, as was most probable, the two associates
had agreed, and putting their experiences together, had conquered
hitherto insurmountable difficulties.
The year 1454 witnessed the diffusion throughout Christendom of letters
of indulgence, accorded by Pope Nicholas V., who wished to aid in funds
the King of Cyprus against the Turks. These circular letters, scattered
by thousands to every corner of the world, employed numerous copyists.
Arrived at Mayence, the distributers found a workshop ready prepared to
furnish copies in the shortest possible time. They set to work and
brought together all the type they possessed, cast or engraved, to set
up these famous letters. Among the impressions was that of which we give
a reproduction, which belongs to the edition called that of thirty-one
lines. The original was delivered for a consideration to Josse Ott von
Mospach on the 31st of December, 1454.
It is not without interest, for the history of the Book and of printing,
to note here that these letters of indulgence, the clandestine traffic
in which was largely accelerated by rapidity of production and the small
cost of each copy, formed one of the causes of the religious reform of
Martin Luther. They afforded a means of raising money, and were so
generally resorted to that in the register of the Hotel de Ville of
Paris preserved in the Archives Nationales (H 1778) it may be seen that
the sheriffs requested the Pope to allow them to employ them in the
reconstruction of the bridge at the Hotel de Ville.
The ice once broken, Fust and Schoeffer found it hard to nourish a
useless mouth. For them Gutenberg was more of a hindrance than a profit,
and they sought brutally to rid themselves of him. Fust had a most easy
pretext, which was to demand purely and simply from his associate the
sums advanced by him, and which had produced so little. Gutenberg had
probably commenced his Bible, but, in face of the claims of Fust, he had
to abandon it altogether, types, formes, and press.
[Illustration: Fig. 4.--Letters of indulgence, from the so-called
edition of thirty-one lines, printed at Mayence in the course of 1454.]
In November, 1455, he had retired to a little house outside the city,
where he tried his best, by the aid of foreign help, to establish a
workshop, and to preserve the most perfect secrecy. Relieved of his
company, Fust and Schoeffer were able to take up the impression of the
Bible and to complete it without him. If matters did so happen, and
Schoeffer had not the excuse that he had previously discovered the
casting of type, there is but one word to designate his conduct:
robbery, and moral robbery, the worst of all. But what can be said
to-day of these people?
One thing is certain: that the Bible of Schoeffer, commenced by
Gutenberg or not, put on sale by Fust and Schoeffer alone about the end
of 1455 or beginning of 1456, proves to be the first completed book.
Retired to his new quarters, Gutenberg was taking courage, so as not
to appear too much behindhand, but the reconstitution of his workshop
cost him enormous time. And, besides, he missed the letter-maker
Schoeffer, his own Gothic letters, engraved on steel with a punch, not
having the same elegance. When his work appeared, it could not sustain
comparison. The Bible of Schoeffer was more compact, the impression was
more perfect, the ink better, the type less irregular. The original
inventor, in his business with Fust, made an unhappy competition for
himself. We give here a fragment of this celebrated book, a kind of
mute witness of the science and mortifications of the first printer.
It is now called the Mazarine Bible, from the fact that the copy in
the Mazarin Library was the first to give evidence concerning it. The
book was put on sale at the end of 1455 or beginning of 1456, for a
manuscript note of a vicar of St. Stephen at Mayence records that
he finished the binding and illuminating of the first volume on St.
Bartholomew's Day, 1456, and the second on the 15th of August. St.
Bartholomew's Day is the 13th of June, and not the 24th of August, as
the catalogue of the Bibliothèque Nationale has it.
[Illustration: Fig. 5.--Fragment of the Mazarine Bible, printed in two
columns. Beginning of the text in the second column; original size.]
All these remarks show that the printers did not proclaim themselves,
and were making pseudo-manuscripts. They did not make known their names
or address. The rubricators sided with them, for many of the copies are
illuminated with as much care and beauty as if they were the finest
manuscripts.
There is no record extant of the number of copies printed, but it was
done on both vellum and paper. Copies are by no means uncommon, most of
the great libraries having one, and many are in private collections. One
is shown among the typographical monuments in the King's Library of the
British Museum, and there is a finely illuminated copy in the show-room
of the Bibliothèque Nationale. From its very great importance as the
first book that is known to have been printed, its value has a constant
increase. Of the copies recently sold, one at the Perkins sale in 1873
on vellum sold for £3,400, another on paper at the same sale fetched
£2,900, while one on paper in the Syston Park Library sold in December,
1884, for £3,900. It has been asserted that the copies on paper were the
first issued by Gutenberg and his partners, and those on vellum
subsequently printed by Fust and Schoeffer, after they had obtained
possession of the inventor's stock.
But so many copies absolutely similar in aspect, and of so regular a
style, put in the market from day to day by Fust and Schoeffer, gave
rise to protests from the caligraphists. Criticism always attends upon
success, but having obtained the result, the two associates did not
hesitate to proclaim themselves the printers of the Bible. On the
publication of the Psalter, which followed the Bible at a year's
interval, they gave their names and added a date, 1457, the first
instance of a date being recorded in a book. This second work was of so
skilful a typography, that it might have been shown as the work of an
expert penman; the faults remarked in the letters of indulgence are no
longer seen; type had attained perfection; in two years printing had
reached its culminating point.
In spite of his disappointments, Gutenberg did not rest idle. If he had
seen his two enemies rob him of his claim of priority in the invention,
he had to show that, reduced to his own exertions and to the restricted
means furnished him by charitable people, he also could print well. Two
years after the Bible a dated book, composed in Gothic letters, appeared
at Mayence; this was the _Catholicon_ of John Balbus, of Genoa. It had
not yet occurred to these first printers to exercise their art otherwise
than on religious works. It is admitted by general opinion that the
_Catholicon_ issued from the press of Gutenberg; on the other hand, M.
Bernard believes that it ought to be attributed to a printer of Eltvil,
who published in 1467 a vocabulary called the _Vocabularium ex quo_ with
the same types. The former theory may be sustained by the words of the
colophon of the book, which is a sort of hymn to God and a recognition
of the city of Mayence without any mention of the name of the printer.
Now in the situation in which Gutenberg found himself, in the face of
his rivals, had he not some claim to regard the great discovery as his
own? But if M. Bernard is mistaken, and if our supposition has no
foundation, what a beautiful act of humility, what a noble idea of his
character, Gutenberg gives us in writing, "With the aid of the Most
High, Who releases the tongues of infants and often reveals to babes
that which is sealed to learned men, this admirable book the
_Catholicon_ was finished in the year of the incarnation of our Saviour
MCCCCLX. in the mother-country of Mayence, famous city of Germany, which
God, in His clemency, has deigned to render the most illustrious and the
first of cities; and this book was perfected without the usual help of
pen or style, but by the admirable linking of formes and types"!
[Illustration: Fig. 6.--Colophon of the _Catholicon_, supposed to have
been printed by Gutenberg in 1460.]
The history of these men, it is easy to understand, has to be regarded
with caution, people of so little consequence then that the authentic
documents relating to them have for ever disappeared. If we except that
of the Pfennigthurm of Strasbourg, of which we have before spoken, and
the deed of claim for money from Fust to Gutenberg dated 1455, we are
forced to quote from authors living long afterwards, who submitted,
without knowing better, to the miserable errors of oral tradition. It is
nearly always the same with men who have occupied a large place in the
history of art; posterity only knows of their genius at the time when no
one knows anything of them. For Gutenberg the situation was still more
terrible; a rival, Peter Schoeffer, survived him, and he did not for his
own reputation care to preserve his rival's memory; and if, as is
believed, Gutenberg left pupils and heirs, Henry Bechtermuncze, Ulrich
Zell, and Weigand Spyes, his misfortune is crowned by Bechtermuncze
being now reputed to be the printer of the _Catholicon_, of which we
have just given the history. Even Albert Pfister, one of his workmen,
dismissed at the end of his work, having obtained from his master some
rejected types, was presumed later to have invented printing. We find
this artisan established at Bamberg about 1460, composing Bibles in
movable types, the first known being that published in 1461. But Albert
Pfister showed that he was not at all an inventor by the mediocrity of
his work, and more by the old types that he used. If he had known the
secret of engraving the punches, he would have cast new letters and have
given a better aspect to his work.
[Illustration: Fig. 7.--Colophon of the Bible printed in 1462 by Fust
and Schoeffer, which is the first dated Bible. There are two different
editions with this signature. The above is from the second edition.]
In these statements all is supposition and contradiction. That which is
certain--and the dates are there to prove it--is the enormous progress
in the productions of Peter Schoeffer. In 1459 he published his third
book, Durand's _Rationale Divinorum Officiorum_, in folio. As in the
Psalter, Schoeffer employed initial letters printed in red, which the
rival workshop could not do in the _Catholicon_, the rubrics of which
are painted by hand, as in manuscripts. In time he put forth a second
edition of the Psalter, always with Fust's name joined to his own. A
great number of types were broken at the beginning, but he dreamed of
doing yet better. In 1460 he gave the _Constitutiones_ of Pope Clement
V., with a gloss and commentaries by John André; here was the first
example of a process much employed in manuscripts, but of which the
typographical composition was very difficult. Again, in 1462 a new Latin
Bible issued from their workshops in two folio volumes. It is the first
dated edition. The first volume has two hundred and forty-two folios in
double columns, the second two hundred and thirty-nine. It commences
with an epistle of St. Jerome, and on the last leaf of the second volume
is the colophon on the preceding page.
This book, one of the first worthy of the name, and which is called by
preference the Mayence Bible, appeared in one of the most troubled
epochs that the episcopal city had had to go through. Subject to its
archbishops, who were at the head of all the lay lords and fighting men,
the city found itself in 1462 the prey of two prelates of equal title
who refused to give way to one another: Thierry of Isembourg and Adolph
of Nassau-Wiesbaden. Adolph surprised Mayence on the 27th October, 1462,
pursuing his adversary, who scaled the walls with a rope to escape
quicker, and the city was sacked and pillaged from its foundations. In
the middle of this turmoil, what became of the obscure persons who were
then the printers of the Bible? Doubtless their insignificance saved
them from disaster, but as it was long before peace was re-established,
and the entire edition of their last volume could not be kept back, we
incline to believe that they were for a time going about the country as
itinerant booksellers. Paris was to them a well-indicated point of
travel--Paris, toward which all German commerce tended. The university
where Peter Schoeffer was instructed in letters, and that truly passed
for the first in Europe, appeared to them a market of the first order.
If we may believe Walchius (_Decas fabularum generis humani_:
Strasbourg, 1609, 4to, p. 181), John Fust himself went to that city,
where he put books on sale from sixty crowns a copy, then fifty, then
forty, according to the prevailing system in matters of discount. Fust
was above all things a merchant; he led it to be believed that he had
the marvellous establishment of a copyist beyond the Rhine, and he had
disposed of many copies, when the corporate scribes of the university,
becoming aware of the imposition, cried out furiously and declared it a
diabolical invention. We may now take this tale of Walchius as a fable,
as the registers of Parliament, on being consulted, rest silent on the
proceedings instituted against the "magician" of Mayence. Only we must
not lose sight of the fact that the booksellers had their masters, their
syndicate, if we may use the modern word, charged to prohibit fraudulent
publications. They were too much interested in the suppression of
printed books to judge the matter coldly. The Parliament had nothing to
see to in this.
The revolution of Mayence had otherwise great results, which were not
affected by these minor reverses. The printing workshops, or at least
the successors of Gutenberg, began to be dispersed, and Fust and
Schoeffer having established a school of printers in the city, their
trade was no longer secret. Deprived of their liberties by the new
Archbishop, many of them expatriated themselves. We shall take occasion
later to name some of these exiles, through whom the art of printing
spread itself almost simultaneously throughout the world: to Cologne and
Strasbourg, to Italy and Spain, without reckoning Holland, France,
Switzerland, and the country around Mayence. We have before named the
episcopal city of Bamberg; it had the singular fortune to be the second
city to possess a printing office, but it disappeared as quickly as it
was established, with Albert Pfister, without leaving the least trace;
we do not find printing there again before 1480, more than twenty years
later.
Gutenberg was dead before 1468. He was interred in the Church of the
Récollets of Mayence, by the pious care of a friend, who attributed the
invention of printing to him on his tomb.
We may begin to comprehend the influence of this man upon the discovery
of which all the world was then talking, but the troubles of the
archiepiscopal city hampered the respective merit of the inventors.
Peter Schoeffer and John Fust were not much affected by the political
crisis. After two years' suspension, they reappeared with a Cicero, _De
Officiis_, 1465, quarto, always at work and always surpassing
themselves. This time they freely gave up religious publications, and,
still more extraordinary, they employed Greek types.
Such is, detached from the incredible contradictions of writers on art,
and sketched solely on its main lines, the origin of printing as it is
established at this day. First came the image engraved in relief, which
we have not gone to China to find, with some of our predecessors. Upon
this image were often cut, by the same economical process, legends of
explanation that presented the idea of imitation of manuscript; and the
xylographs appeared with or without illustrations. Then from the
correction of errors in these books followed the discovery of movable
characters. This wooden type, possible when it was used with a _frotton_
for printing, would quickly break under the press, the idea of which was
gained from the common press of the wine-makers. Then a kind of metallic
type had to be found which would run in a mould struck by a punch. This
punch was not invented for the purpose; it served previously for the
makers of coins and seals. The fabrication of type from the matrix was a
simple adoption. The lead thrown into the matrix gave the desired type.
Thus were made the first books, of which we have briefly related the
composition.
As to the proportion of glory due to each one of the first printers, it
is necessary equally, to guard against error on one side or the other.
We have sought to separate from the heap of publications probable
opinions or those based on certain documents. That the origin of the
_Donatus_, the block books, was Dutch would be puerile to deny, because,
on one side, the engravings on blocks are surely of the school of Van
Eyck, and, on the other hand, Ulrich Zell, who inspired the "Cologne
Chronicle" of 1499, assigned positively to Holland the cradle of the
_Donatus_. At any rate, it was a pupil of Gutenberg, a question we have
discussed. After that we will trouble ourselves but little about Laurent
Coster. The name makes no difference in a matter of this kind.
As to Gutenberg, we have not been able to go as far as M. E. Dutuit, who
in his _Manuel a'Estampes_ (vol. i., p. 236, etc.) doubts Gutenberg's
right to the title of inventor. It is stated that in a letter of William
Fichet, prior of the Sorbonne, of whom we shall have more to say
presently, to Robert Gaguin, which M. A. Claudin found at the beginning
of a work entitled _Gasparim Pergamensis orthographiæ liber_, published
in 1470, nearly twenty years after the first work at Mayence, Gutenberg
is proclaimed the inventor of printing. Without any other, this
testimony of a _savant_ who was the first to bring the German printers
to Paris appears to us well nigh irrefutable.
As to John Fust and his grandson by marriage, Peter Schoeffer, they are
so well defended by their works, that there is no more to say here;
doubtless grave presumptions arise as to the delicacy of their conduct
with Gutenberg, but we are not so bold as to censure them beyond
measure. We know nothing precise either of the time or of the men.
Let us now imagine humble workmen, the most simple of _gens de
mestiers_, to employ the French expression then in use, shut up in a
kind of dark workshop, like a country forge, formed in little groups of
two or three persons, one designing and the other cutting the wood,
having near them a table, on which is held the engraved block after its
reliefs have been rubbed with sombre ink, who afterwards, by means of
the _frotton_, apply the damped paper to the raised parts of the block;
we shall have without much stretch of thought all the economy of the
xylographic impression. If we add to this primitive workshop the matrix
in which the types are cast, the box in which they are distributed, the
forme on which they are arranged to compose the pages, and a small
hand-press, with blacker ink and paper damped to permit the greasy ink
to take better, we have a picture of the work-room of Gutenberg, Fust,
and Schoeffer, and of the first printers with movable types.
Thus typography was born of painting, passing in its infancy through
wood-cutting, revolutionising ideas and somewhat the world. But the
mighty power of the new art was not confined to itself; it extended the
circle of engraving, which till then had suffered from the enormous
difficulties of reproduction. As if the time were ripe for all these
things, nearly at the moment when the first printers were distinguishing
themselves by serious works, a Florentine goldsmith accidentally
discovered the cutting of cast metal.[A] What would have become of this
new process if the presses of Gutenberg had not brought their powerful
assistance to the printing of engravings? It will be found then that
printing rendered a hundredfold to engraving for that which it received
from it and bore it along with its own rapid advance.
Then reappeared, following the new processes, the figures somewhat
abandoned by the Mayence workmen during the period of transformation.
Our object is to speak at length of the Book ornamented and illustrated
according to the means of relief-cutting or casting; to demonstrate the
influence of painting, of sculpture, of art, on the production of the
Book; and thus to help the reader at the same time to understand the
almost sudden and irresistible development of typography, and to mention
its foremost representatives.
[Footnote A: The opinion that Finiguerra was the unconscious inventor of
casting engravings is now abandoned.]
CHAPTER II.
1462 TO 1500.
The Book and the printers of the second generation--The German
workmen dispersed through Europe--Caxton and the introduction of
printing into England--Nicholas Jenson and his supposed mission to
Mayence--The first printing in Paris; William Fichet and John
Heinlein--The first French printers; their installation at the
Sorbonne and their publications--The movement in France--The
illustration of the Book commenced in Italy--The Book in Italy;
engraving in relief and metal plates--The Book in Germany: Cologne,
Nuremberg, Basle--The Book in the Low Countries--French schools of
ornament of the Book; Books of Hours; booksellers at the end of the
fifteenth century--Literary taste in titles in France at the end of
the fifteenth century--Printers and booksellers' marks--The
appearance of the portrait in the Book--Progress in England--Caxton
and his followers.
Considering the influence of printing on the book trade of the fifteenth
century, as referred to in the preceding pages, the dealers in
manuscripts were not disposed to give way at the first blow. An entire
class of workmen would find themselves from day to day without
employment if the new art succeeded; these were the copyists, miserable
scribes, who for meagre remuneration frequented the shops of the
merchants, where they transcribed manuscripts by the year. Before
printing the publication of books was so effected, and the booksellers
were rather intermediaries between the copyist and the buyer, than
direct dealers having shops and fittings complete. It is evident that
they would not provide themselves with these costly books long in
advance without being sure of disposing of them.
Small as was the remuneration of the writers, it was much to them; and
they were naturally the first to protest against the new invention. At
the same time, their opposition and that of the booksellers was soon
overcome, swamped, and choked by the growing crowd of printers. Then, as
always happens in similar cases, in place of fighting against the
current, most of the former workers in manuscript followed it. The
writers designed letters for engraving in wood, the booksellers sold the
printed works, and some of the illuminators engraved in relief or cast
their _histoyres_. For a long time these last continued to decorate
books with the ornamental drawings with which they had adorned the
manuscripts, and so contributed to form the fine school of illustrators
who carried their art to so high a point from the end of the fifteenth
century.
[Illustration: Fig. 8.--Imprint of Arnold Ther Hoernen, printer, of
Mayence.]
As previously related, the revolution of Mayence caused the flight of a
crowd of artisans who found their liberty suddenly compromised by the
conqueror. The want of money at this time always brought a diminution of
patronage, and working printers have been at all times tenacious of
their privileges. It so happened that their guild, in place of remaining
established at Mayence many years longer, was, as it were, turned out,
scattered to the four cardinal points by the dispersion of its members,
and scattered many years before the natural time. In point of fact, in
the common order of things, a workman here and there quits the principal
workshop to try the world. He makes his way timidly, unconscious apostle
of a marvellous art. If he succeeds, he gathers some pupils round him;
if he fails, no trace of him remains; in any case invention propagates
itself more gradually. With printing it was a thunderclap. Hardly had it
made its appearance when the exodus commenced. The greater part of the
Mayence men went to Italy: to Subiaco and to Rome, Arnold Pannartz,
Conrad Sweynheim, Ulrich Hahn; to Venice, John of Spire, Vendelin of
Spire, Christopher Valdarfer, Bernard Pictor (of Augsburg), Erhardt
Ratdolt, Peter Loslein; to Ferrara, Andrew Belfort; to Foligno, John
Neumeister; Henry Alding tried Sicily; Andrew Vyel, of Worms, printed
at Palermo. Lambert Palmart was at Valencia, in Spain, in 1477;
Nicholas Spindeler at Barcelona; Peter Hagenbach at Toledo; not far from
Mayence--that is, at Cologne--Ulrich Zell, a pupil of Gutenberg, who
dated his first work 1466. It was Arnold Ther Hoernen who numbered a
book with Arabic figures; it was Koelhof who first used signatures to
indicate to the binder the order of the sheets; it was at Eltvil that
Henry Bechtermuncze, as we have already said, printed his _Vocabularium_
in German, with the types of the _Catholicon_; at Basle, Berthold
Rüppel, of Hanau, was the first established in that city which after
Mayence did the most for printing; at Nuremberg, Koburger, who took
nearly the first rank among his contemporaries, set as many as
twenty-four presses to work, and was named by Badius the prince of
printers. And how matters went on! For instance, the very year that
followed the death of Gutenberg, monks, the Brothers of the Common Life
of Marienthal, in the Rheingau, themselves published a copy of the
indulgences accorded by Adolph of Nassau, Archbishop of Mayence. Before
1480, presses were everywhere in Germany: at Prague, Augsburg, Ulm,
Lubeck, Essling, etc.
It is to be remarked that the Mayence men did not turn towards Holland.
Is it that they found there the descendants of Laurent Coster firmly
established in their workshops? Must the coexistence, the simultaneous
advance, of the invention in Germany and in the Low Countries be
admitted? It is a secret for us and for many others, but we know for
certain that Flemish printers were established at Utrecht in 1473, at
Delft, Bruges, Gouda, Zwoll, Antwerp, and Brussels. At Louvain there
was besides John of Westphalia, who published in 1474 a work of Peter
Crescens, and several other works.
Colard Mansion was printing at Bruges about 1473; and was employed by
William Caxton, who had been for some years trading as a merchant in the
Low Countries, to print the "Recuyell of the Histories of Troy," by
Raoul Le Fevre, which Caxton had translated into English at the command
of Queen Margaret. This was issued in 1474, and was the first book
printed in the English language. In 1475 or 1476 Caxton returned to
England with a fount of types, which he had employed Mansion to cut and
cast for him, and established himself as a printer in the precincts of
Westminster Abbey. In 1477 he produced the first book printed in
England, "The Dictes and Sayings of the Philosophers," followed by a
large number of important works, many of them written or translated by
Caxton himself. Thus was typography firmly established in England; and
Caxton's immediate successors, Wynken de Worde, Richard Pynson, William
Machlinia, have had a glorious roll of followers, which has never been
broken to this day. From Westminster the art spread in England to
Oxford, where Theodoricus Rood, from Cologne, printed an _Exposicio
Sancti Jeronimi_ in 1478; and to St. Albans in 1480 by a printer who has
never been identified, and who produced the famous "Chronicle" and "Boke
of St. Albans."
The invasion, we see, had been most rapid. In less than fifteen years,
every important city had followed the movement, and was ready to
establish printing offices. If we may credit a certain controverted
document, Charles VII. had on the 3rd of October, 1458, sent to Mayence
one of the best medal engravers of the Mint of Tours to study the
process of which marvels were spoken: "The 3rd of October, 1458, the
King having learned that Messire Guthenberg, living at Mayence, in the
country of Germany, a dexterous man in carving and making letters with a
punch, had brought to light the invention of printing by punches and
types, desirous of inquiring into such a treasure, the King has
commanded the generals of his mints to nominate persons well instructed
in the said cutting and to send them secretly to the said place to
inform themselves of the said mode and invention, to understand and
learn the art of them, in order to satisfy the said Lord King; and it
was undertaken by Nicholas Jenson, who took the said journey to bring
intelligence of the said art and of the execution of it in the said
kingdom, which first has made known the said art of impression to the
said kingdom of France" (Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal, Hf 467, pp. 410,
411).
Nicholas Jenson on his return met with a cool reception from Louis XI.,
who did not continue the works of his father. It may be supposed that
this coolness was the cause of his expatriating himself and retiring to
a place where his industry could be better exercised. Ten years after
the above mission we find him established at Venice, his art of engraver
of letters joined to that of printer. His Eusebius, translated by
Trapezuntius, and his Justinian, were composed in 1470 with such
marvellous and clear types that from that day the best typographers have
imitated his founts. In spite of its success, he did not confine himself
to these letters, but he made use also of Gothic, in which he printed
by preference pious books.
[Illustration: Fig. 9.--Imprint of Nicholas Jenson to a Justinian,
printed in 1470 at Venice. This type has prevailed up to now.]
In spite of the attempts of Jenson in the name of the King of
France--that is, if these attempts ever took place in the manner
indicated above--the invention was not known to have commended itself to
the powerful university of Paris. In general, and especially for the
introduction of innovations in that learned body, it was necessary to
fight, to strike without much chance of success, save in case of having
acquaintance in the place. We have seen John Fust, obliged suddenly to
retake the road to Germany, in a fair way to find himself taxed with
sorcery, not an inconsiderable matter. For others the sale of
unauthorised books had had most unhappy consequences unless the
Parliament intervened. So ten years had passed since the journey of
Jenson, and ten or twelve since the first manifestations of typography
at Mayence, without the diabolical discovery finding admittance to the
Sorbonne. A still more extraordinary thing, a Cologne printer issued
about 1472 a small folio in Gothic type, thirty-one long lines to a
page, which was a work written in French. The _Histoires de Troyes_ of
Raoul Le Fevre, chaplain of the dukes of Burgundy, first found a
publisher in Germany, and soon after another in England, before a single
press was definitely installed at Paris.
As we have said of Peter Schoeffer, numerous German students were in the
university, where they pursued their studies, and frequently remained
later as masters. It has been found that in 1458 a former student of
Leipzig named John Heinlein, a native of Stein, in the diocese of Spire,
entered as regent of the college of Burgundy, from whence he passed to
the Sorbonne in 1462, the year of the troubles in Mayence. After the
manner of latinising names so common at that time, he called himself
Lapidanus, from the name of his native place, which means Stone in
German. Heinlein met in Paris a Savoyard, William Fichet, born in 1433
at Petit Bornand, who became an associate of the Sorbonne about 1461,
and finally rector in 1468. These two men were great friends, and their
particular instincts attracted them to men of elevated studies. They
divined at once the enormous help printing would bring to their work.
Besides, it grieved them to see through the whole of France, especially
in Touraine, German colporteurs carrying on their trade under cover of
other commerce, a practice from which the most grave inconveniences
might result. It occurred to them that to prevent fraud they would
themselves create a printing establishment; but if they deliberated on
it, it must have been in secret, for the registers of the Sorbonne are
silent on their enterprise. If Fichet conceived the idea, it may be
believed that, from his German origin, Heinlein put it into execution.
M. Philippe thinks that he was formerly at Basle. In all probability it
was from that city he tried to obtain his workmen. In 1468 six years had
elapsed since the craftsmen were dispersed and fled from Mayence. At all
events, it was from Basle that Ulrich Gering, Michael Freyburger, and
Martin Krantz, printers recommended to the two Sorbonnists, departed,
and in due course arrived in Paris. Of these three men, who were the
first to establish a printing office on the French side of the Rhine,
Ulrich Gering was a student as well as a printer, so was Freyburger,
originally of Colmar. Krantz was a letter-founder, and the only real
workman of the three companions.
We have often regretted with regard to these men, as also to Gutenberg,
Fust, and Schoeffer, that no really authentic portrait has transmitted
their features to us. Every one will recall the fur cap and loose
pantaloons of the mediocre statue at Mayence, but there is really no
portrait of Gutenberg. As to Gering, M. Philippe, in his _Histoire de
l'Origine de l'Imprimerie à Paris_, publishes a grotesque figure muffled
in the ruff of the sixteenth century, after a picture preserved at
Lucerne, but for which much cannot be said. Lacaille, in his _Histoire
de l'Imprimerie_, gives a full-length portrait of Gering, said to be
taken from a painting in the College Montagu.
The workshop of the three Germans was set up within the walls of the
Sorbonne--_in ædibus Sorbonnicis_--in 1469. There they set to work at
once, their printing establishment consisting simply of a room, none too
light, a table, a press, and formes. Krantz doubtless struck the types
chosen by the Sorbonnists, for there were then in use two sorts of
letters: German Gothic and Roman. They kept to the Roman, as being more
round and clear; and as soon as they obtained matrices and cast their
type, they entered on their task with ardour.
[Illustration: Fig. 10.--"Letters" of Gasparin of Bergamo. First page of
the first book printed at Paris, in 1470.]
The tendencies of Fichet and Heinlein were not towards transcendent
theology, but rather towards the literature of the ancients and
contemporary rhetorical works. Besides, it may be said, considering that
men are far from perfect, Fichet counted on making the authorised
presses serve his own purpose. We find him publishing a treatise on
rhetoric in quarto in 1471; meantime he supervised the work confided to
his artists. They commenced with a large volume of "Letters" of Gasparin
of Bergamo, which was set up in quarto with the Roman type, the form of
which had been accepted. At the end of the work, the impression of
which cost much time--possibly a year--the three printers placed a
quatrain in Latin distichs, which is at once a statement of identity and
a promise for the future.
[Illustration: Fig. 11.--Colophon in distichs in the "Letters" of
Gasparin of Bergamo, first book printed at Paris, at the office of the
Sorbonne.]
If we try to apportion to each of the three printers his share in the
making of the book, it may be supposed that the intellectual part of the
composition and the correction fell to Freyburger and Gering, while the
heavier work of founding, placing in formes, and press work fell to
Krantz. This essay, satisfactory as it appeared, was far from
perfection. The first Parisian printers had multiplied abbreviations and
irregular contractions, and enormous difficulties and inevitable faults
ensued. Further, either they had more than one punch, or the leaden
matrix was deformed, for the characters frequently differ. At the same
time, we must commend them for having used the _æ_ and _[oe]_, which
were uniformly written _e_ in the manuscripts, thus giving rise to
errors without number. Their punctuation was the comma, semicolon, and
full stop.
[Illustration: Fig. 12.--_Rhetorique_ of Fichet, printed at Paris in
1471. The marginal ornaments are drawn by hand.]
Fichet and Heinlein had become the modest librarians of the Sorbonne,
and this new employment gave them greater facilities for surveillance.
The printing office did not remain inactive. It issued successively the
"Orthography" of Gasparin of Bergamo, the "Letters" of Phalaris, two
books of Æneas Sylvius, the "Conspiracy of Catiline" of Sallust, the
"Epitome of Titus Livius" of Florus, and finally the "Rhetorics" of
William Fichet, which, if we may credit a letter addressed to Bessarion,
was finished in 1471. Following came the "Letters" of Bessarion, the
_Elegantia Latinæ Linguæ_ of Valla, the first folio volume from the
Sorbonne presses; and others, thirteen volumes in 1470-71 and seventeen
in 1472.
At the end of 1472 the workshop was somewhat broken up, Fichet having
left for Rome and Heinlein preaching in Germany. The three printers had
shown by their works that they were in earnest; besides, they had from
the first gratuitously distributed copies among the nobles, who, being
accustomed to pay highly for manuscripts, did not fail to note the
difference. The associates then resolved to quit the Sorbonne and create
an establishment for themselves; their patrons being no longer there to
sustain them in case of failure, and in giving up their presses and
types it may be judged that they were not without anxiety on that point.
Their oldest dated book, the _Manipulus Curatorum_ of Montrochet, was
also the first that they printed in their new quarters, at the sign of
the "Golden Sun" in the Rue St. Jacques. They remained united up to the
year 1477, when Gering alone printed at the "Golden Sun," but he
obtained associates, George Mainyal in 1480 and Berthold Rembold in
1494, who lived with him in the Rue de la Sorbonne, where he established
himself on leaving the Rue St. Jacques. Ulrich Gering died on the 23rd
of August, 1510, after a half-century of work.
The movement inaugurated by the Sorbonne was promptly followed. German
workmen opened their shops nearly everywhere in France; then the French
themselves scattered. At Lyons in 1472 a Frenchman was established, the
same at Angers, Caen, Metz, Troyes, Besançon, and Salins. But in the
central provinces we find Henry Mayer at Toulouse, John Neumeister at
Albi; in the east Metlinger at Dijon; and Michael Wensler, of Basle, at
Macon, among others, about 1493.
We have now arrived at an epoch of greater efforts. The Lyons printers
used ornamental letters, from which were developed engravings in the
Book. Since the block books illustration had been neglected, as the
means were wanting to distribute the plates here and there in the forme;
Schoeffer still employed initial letters in wood very like vignettes.
John Fust was now dead, but Peter Schoeffer continued to print without
intermission.
If we search for the precise epoch in which illustration appeared in the
history of the Book, we shall perhaps have to go back to the time of
Albert Pfister, printer of Bamberg, who issued in 1461 an edition of the
"Fables of Ulrich Bohner" with a hundred and one figures on wood. This
may be said to be the unconscious combination of xylography with
typography, a kind of transformation of old elements to new things
without other importance; art had no place in this adaptation.
Up to this time Germany had not, in its school of painters or
miniaturists, men capable of giving a personal impulse to ornament. In
the German editions of the block books the influence of Van Eyck had
made itself felt very sensibly, and the Flemish had preserved their
supremacy on this point; on the other hand, the German printers who went
to seek their fortune in Italy fell into the middle of a circle
admirably prepared to receive them and to communicate their ideas to
them. It is believed that the first book printed in Italy with woodcuts
in the text and with an ascertained date is the work of a German
established at Rome, Ulrich Hahn, in 1467. An account in the _Annuaire
du Bibliophile_, which, being without citation of authority, we quote
for what it is worth, relates that Ulrich Hahn was established as a
printer at Vienna about 1462, but was driven thence by the publication
of a pamphlet against the burgomaster of the city, and was attracted to
Rome by Torquemada, who confided to him the impression of his work the
_Meditationes_. Hahn was an engraver, as were also most of his
_confrères_ at that time--that is, he cut in relief designs to be
intercalated in the text--and Passavant relates that the designs of the
_Meditationes_ were from compositions of Fra Angelico, who died in 1455.
Be that as it may, the book, the printing of which was finished on St.
Sylvester's Day, 1467, is the first known with engravings, and only
three copies of it exist: one at Vienna, one at Nuremberg, and one in
Lord Spencer's library; it is composed in Gothic type in folio.
[Illustration: Fig. 13.--Wood engraving of Matteo Pasti for Valturius'
_De Re Militari_: Verona, 1472.]
Illustration found a true artist at Verona, Matteo Pasti, who furnished
designs for a volume on military art by Valturius, printed in Roman
characters in folio, at the expense of John of Verona, and dedicated to
Sigismond Pandolfi. Pasti's eighty-two figures are simple outlines, and
we here reproduce one of the principal--an archer shooting at a butt.
Published in 1472, the volume of Valturius followed soon after the
_Meditationes_, but the engravings enable us to see how the Italian
process, consisting mostly of lines without shadows, differed from the
Dutch and German. One thing to be remarked here is the purity of the
design, in spite of the roughness of the engraving; we see in these
figures Italian art at its height, despite the somewhat coarse
translation of the wood-cutter.
At Venice the German inventors had reaped their harvest. At the end of
the fifteenth century, fifty years after the invention of typography,
the printing offices and booksellers' shops were counted by hundreds. It
was in this city that for the first time a title with frontispiece
carrying indication of the contents, the place, the date, and the name
of the printer, was given to the Book. We give here this ornamental
title, placed before a _Calendario_ of John de Monteregio, printed by
Pictor, Loslein, and Ratdolt in 1476, folio.
The German Erhardt Ratdolt was probably the promoter of these
innovations. He soon afterwards published the first geometrical book
with figures, the "Elements of Euclid," 1482, folio; in the same year he
produced the _Poeticon Astronomicum_ of Hyginus, previously printed at
Ferrara, with illustrations on wood of excellent design, but laboriously
and unskilfully engraved. Yet the art of the Book could not remain
mediocre in this city, where the artists were creating marvels. John of
Spire and afterwards Nicholas Jenson, the emigrant from France, of whom
we have spoken above, had created, after Italian manuscripts, that Roman
letter, the primitive type of which has come down to our time very
little retouched. At the death of Jenson in 1481, his materials passed
into the hands of Andrew d'Asola, called Andrea Torresani, who did not
allow the good traditions of his master to die, and who produced among
others a book bearing signatures, catchwords, and paging ("Letters of
St. Jerome," 1488). Torresani was the father-in-law of Aldus Manutius,
who was to be for ever illustrious in the art of printing at Venice, and
raised his art to the highest perfection.
[Illustration: Fig. 14.--Title-page of the _Calendario_, first
ornamental title known. Printed in 1476 at Venice.]
But if decoration by means of relief blocks found a favourable reception
in Italy and, above all, a group of artists capable of carrying it to
success, there were at the same time other experiments conceived in a
different way. The discovery of Maso Finiguerra gave to the art a new
process of reproduction, and printing presses had now to render possible
and practicable the working of engraved plates. In order to make that
which follows comprehensible, we enter into a few technical details, the
whole subject having been so admirably and fully treated by MM.
Delaborde and Duplessis.
In the engraved wood block, as in the printing type, it is a projection
in the wood or metal which, being inked and passed under a press, leaves
on paper its lines in black. Naturally then the intercalation of an
engraving of this kind in typographical composition is made without
difficulty, and the impression of both is taken at once. On the other
hand, a line engraving is obtained from incised lines on a plate of
copper; that is, an instrument called a burin traces the lines, which
are filled with greasy ink. These incised lines only are inked. The
surface of the plate is cleaned off to avoid smudging. The sheet of
paper destined for the impression has then to be made very pliable, so
that at the striking of the press it runs, so to speak, to find the ink
in the lines and hold it. It is therefore impossible to take a text from
relief characters at the same time as an engraved plate.
[Illustration: Fig. 15.--Engraving on metal by Baccio Baldini for _El
Monte Santo di Dio_, in 1477.]
However, this kind of reproduction, which, contrary to that from
wood, allowed of half-tints or toning down, attracted in good time
the workers at the Book. It appeared to them possible to reconcile
the two printings by the successive passage of the same sheet of
paper through the press, to receive at first the impression from the
type and afterwards to find the ink deposited in the incisions in the
copper. The first manifestation of this new method of illustration was
made at Florence, the home of line engraving, by Nicholas di Lorenzo
in 1477, for the work of Antonio Bettini, of Siena, called _El Monte
Santo di Dio_. Here the artists were never known. Common opinion has
it that Baccio Baldini borrowed from Sandro Botticelli the subjects of
his plates. Italian engraving always seeks its source in Pollajuolo,
Botticelli, and Baldini. It is not the simple work of a niellist,
but it had not yet reached perfection either in the work or in the
impression; the illustrations of the _Monte Santo_ are proof of this,
as are also those of the _Dante_, by Baldini, in 1481, for the same
Nicholas di Lorenzo. From this we reproduce the Misers.
[Illustration: Fig. 16.--Metal engraving by Baccio Baldini from the
Dante of 1481.]
At this epoch engravings from the burin were taken with a pale ink, the
composition of which is very different from the fine black ink of
Schoeffer as well as of the old Italian printers. And besides in most
cases the proofs were obtained with the _frotton_, like the ancient
block books, an eminently defective process. The press was not yet well
adapted to the delicate work of line engraving, and the workmen, who did
not apply the plates until after the text was printed, preferred not to
risk the loss of their sheets by the use of inappropriate presses.
These, with the insignificant attempts made by the Germans in 1479,[A]
are the beginnings of the process of line engraving in the ornamentation
of the Book. In fact, the process failed to take its due position for
want of a more convenient mode of working. Relief engraving had got
ahead; with it the sheets used for the impression did not require
working more than once to register the figures with the text; in a word,
the labour was not so great. A century had to pass before line engraving
completely dethroned the vignette on wood, a century in which the latter
attained its height, and showed what able artisans could make of a
process apparently the least flexible.
[Footnote A: _Breviarium ecclesie Herbipolensis_: Et. Dold., 1479,
folio, copper plate engravings.]
Not to leave Italy, which had the honour of making the book with
engraved illustrations known to the world, we pass by some years,
during which Arnold Bucking gave at Rome a _Cosmographia_ of Ptolemy,
1478, with incised plates, which is the first printed atlas that was
produced, whilst as regards ordinary publications there appeared in all
parts classical and Italian works, such as Cicero, Virgil, Tacitus,
Pliny, Eusebius, among the ancients, and Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio,
etc., among moderns. Among the editions of Dante, we may cite that of
Peter of Cremona, dated 18th November, 1491, with one engraving to
each canto, of which the earlier are after Botticelli, and perhaps
drawn by him directly on the wood. Passavant believes these figures
to be cut in relief in the metal. On some of the plates there is a
signature, a Gothic b, the signification of which leaves a free
field for conjecture, and perhaps for error. Copies of this book with
the complete series of twenty plates are extremely rare; one in the
Hamilton Palace Library sold in May, 1884, for £380; the Royal Library
of Berlin recently agreed to pay £1,200 for a proof set of the plates.
[Illustration: Fig. 17.--Plate from the _Hypnerotomachia Poliphili_,
printed by Aldus Manutius, in 1499.]
As we shall see later apropos of German vignettes of the same period,
the characteristic of Italian engraving was sobriety, the complete
absence of useless work and the great simplicity of the human figure.
This special manner will be found in the famous edition of the
_Hypnerotomachia Poliphili_ of Francis Colonna, printed in 1499 by
Aldus, copied sixty years later by a French printer, and lately
reproduced in reduced size.
[Illustration: Fig. 18.--Plate from Bonino de Bonini's Dante, at
Brescia, in 1487.]
The Italian illustrators, whether they were working in wood, or, as some
writers have it, in metal, adroitly brought their figures forward by
contrasting some rudimentary work in the persons with the more
accentuated and often stippled ground, which formed a dark background.
This was also the ordinary process in their ornaments, among the most
interesting of which are the borders of the plates to an edition of
Dante by Bonino de Bonini, Brescia, 1487, of which a specimen is here
reproduced.
If we return from Italy, which then took the lead, to Germany, a school
of _Formschneiders_ is found about the year 1470 at Augsburg, whose
secluded workshops were of no benefit to the booksellers. These
ill-advised artisans went still further. Apparently furious to see
printing so widely spread as to render their bad woodcuts difficult to
get rid of, they united in a body to interdict Gunther Zainer and
Schüssler from putting engravings into their books. They must
nevertheless have come to an ultimate arrangement, for Zainer printed in
1477 a book on chess by Jacopo da Cessole, with vignettes. He was one of
the few German printers who employed Roman characters in place of the
Gothic of Peter Schoeffer. At Cologne in 1474 Arnold Ther Hoernen
published a work entitled _Fasciculus Temporum_, with small
illustrations engraved on wood. A Bible without date contains most
interesting illustrations. As to the celebrated _Todtentantz_, or "Dance
of Death," published about 1485, it contains forty-one relief plates of
the most ordinary kind, the same as in the "Chronicle of Cologne" of
1499, of which the figures, though less German, less distorted, are
worth little compared with those of the Nuremberg books, more German,
but more artistic.
[Illustration: Fig. 19.--The creation of woman, plate from the
_Schatzbehalter_, engraved after Michael Wolgemuth.]
At Nuremberg, Antony Koburger, called by Badius the prince of
booksellers, directed an immense establishment, employing more than a
hundred workmen, without counting smaller houses at Basle and Lyons.
Koburger was a capable and a fortunate man. He had at first put forth a
Bible very indifferently illustrated with the cuts of the Cologne Bible,
but he had before him something better than copying others. Michael
Wohlgemuth, born at Nuremberg in 1434, was then in the full vigour of
his talent. To his school the young Albert Dürer came to study; and as
he was able to draw on wood as well as to engrave on copper and paint on
panel, Koburger was attracted to him, and engaged him to make a set of
illustrations for a book. The projected work was the _Schatzbehalter_, a
sort of ascetic compilation, without interest, without arrangement.
Michael Wohlgemuth set to work; and, thanks to the ability of his
engravers, of whom William Pleydenwurff was probably one, Koburger was
able to put the book on sale in the course of 1491 in three hundred and
fifty-two folios of two columns. Without being perfection, the designs
of Wohlgemuth, very German, very striking, present the vigour and merit
of the future school of Nuremberg. The figure is no longer a simple
line, in the manner of the block books, but a combination of interlaced
cuttings, intended to imitate colour. Those representing the creation of
Eve and the daughter of Jephthah are here reproduced. In the search for
harmony between the text and engravings of this curious work, we shall
find grace and gaiety laid aside, on the other hand a freedom and
boldness that interest and permit us to appreciate at their value the
Nuremberg artists and Koburger, the printer. In fact, the German artists
are more individual, each one taken by himself, than the Italian
illustrators could be, condemned as they were to the hierarchical
commonplace and to a certain form of idealism into which the art of
Italy entered little by little. The German painters, naturalists and
believers, presented their heroes in the image of that robust nature
that was before their eyes. It was in this rude and unpolished spirit
that Michael Wohlgemuth decorated the _Schatzbehalter_; he also composed
the designs for the "Nuremberg Chronicle" of Dr. Hartman Schedel,
printed by Koburger in 1493.
[Illustration: Fig. 20.--The daughter of Jephthah, plate taken from the
_Schatzbehalter_, engraved after Michael Wolgemuth.]
With Dürer, at the latter end of the fifteenth century, the Book was no
more than a pretext for engravings. Thausing, his biographer, says that
the great artist felt the necessity of designing an Apocalypse at Rome
at the time that Luther was premeditating his religious revolution in
face of the worldly splendours of the pontifical court. The
"Apocalypse," published in 1511 in Latin, with Gothic characters, was an
album of fifteen large wood engravings. The Four Horsemen is the best of
these plates, and the boldest; but in this gross fancy, in these poor
halting old hacks, the fantastic and grand idea which the artist meant
to convey can hardly be seen. It may be said the genius of Dürer was
little adapted to vignettes, however large they were, and did not easily
lend itself to the exigencies of a spun-out subject. The title of his
"Apocalypse" is of its kind a curious example of German genius, but, in
spite of its vigour, it does not please like an Italian headpiece or
like a French or Flemish frontispiece. The other works of Dürer
published in the fifteenth century, "The Life of the Virgin" and "The
Passion," were also sets of prints that received a text in the sixteenth
century.
[Illustration: Fig. 21.--Title of the "Apocalypse," by Albert Dürer,
printed in 1498. First edition, without text.]
[Illustration: Fig. 22.--Title of Sebastian Brandt's "Ship of Fools,"
printed in 1497 at Basle by Bergman de Olpe.]
[Illustration: Fig. 23.--The _Bibliomaniac_. Engraving from the "Ship of
Fools."]
For the rest of his illustrations Dürer belongs to the sixteenth
century, and we shall have occasion to recur to his works. At present it
remains to speak of a curious work printed at Basle by Bergman de Olpe
in 1497, which appears to be the first comic conception of fifteenth
century artists: the _Navis Stultifera_, or "Ship of Fools," of
Sebastian Brandt. This work of the school of Basle lacks neither
originality nor vigour. At the time when it was published its success
was immense, from the strange tricks of its clowns, with fools' caps,
with which every page was adorned. Alas! the best things fall under the
satire of these jesters, even the Book and the lover of books, if we may
judge by the sarcasms against useless publications volleyed by the
personage here reproduced. "I have the first place among fools.... I
possess heaps of volumes that I rarely open. If I read them, I forget
them, and I am no wiser." Brunet sees in these humorous caricatures more
art than is really to be found in them. Their value is owing more to
their spirit and humour than to any other artistic merit. Even the
engraving is singularly fitted to the subject, with its peculiar
cutting, somewhat executed in hairlines. The designer was certainly not
a Holbein, but he is no longer the primitive artisan of the first German
plates, and his freedom is not displeasing.
We have before spoken, apropos of engraving by the burin in Italy, of
the small share of Germany in the essay at illustration by that means,
and we do not see a real and serious attempt in the two little coats of
arms in copper plate in the _Missale Herbipolense_, printed in 1479.
The Flemish had not taken any great flights in the midst of this almost
European movement. The school of Burgundy, whose influence was felt in
all the surrounding countries, had lost its authority in consequence of
the progress realized at Mayence. Without doubt the great Flemish
artists were there, but they were honoured painters, and their
inclination did not descend to seeking the booksellers beyond making
them offers of service. Besides, the first of these, officially
established in Flanders, were two Germans, John of Westphalia and John
Veldener, of Cologne, who established themselves in the university of
Louvain in 1473, three years after the first Paris printers. John of
Westphalia, who took his own portrait for his mark, edited the
_Fasciculus Temporum_, a book which had enormous success in the
fifteenth century.
At Haarlem, in spite of the block books attributed to Laurent Coster,
illustration was backward. About 1485, a Dutch translation of the
_Malheurs de Troye_ of Le Fevre was put on sale. This French book was
published at Cologne before France possessed the smallest typographical
workshop. At Bruges Colard Mansion illuminated the cuts of his
_Metamorphoses_ of Ovid in 1484. Simple engraving appeared to him far
remote from manuscripts of which the vogue had not yet passed away. At
Zwoll Peter van Os, the publisher, cut up and used the xylographic
plates of the _Biblia Pauperum_, while the master _à la navette_, John
of Cologne, an artist in the best sense of the word, was ornamenting
certain popular publications with his designs. At Utrecht Veldener came
from Louvain to establish a workshop. He published for the second time a
_Fasciculus_ in 1480; he created a style of decoration with flowers and
leaves, which shortly after developed into the trade of
_Rahmenschneiders_. Antwerp had attracted Gerard de Leeu from Gouda, and
he produced the romance of _Belle Vienne_. Schiedam had an inventive
engraver who illustrated an edition of the _Chevalier Delibéré_ of
Oliver de la Marche, in folio, with Gothic letters, after 1483, as we
read in the colophon:--
"Cet traittié fut parfait l'an mil
Quatre cens quatre vings et trois
Ainsi que sur la fin d'avril
Que l'yver est en son exil,
Et que l'esté fait ses explois.
Au bien soit pris en tous endrois
De ceulx à qui il est offert
Par celui qui _Tant a souffert_,
La Marche."
The French language, bright and harmonious, thus found hospitality in
other countries. For many examples of French books published abroad, we
cannot cite one German work printed in France. Spreading from the north
to the south, typography had from 1490 its two principal centres at
Paris and Lyons. After the success of the three Germans at the Sorbonne,
events took their own course. In 1474 Peter Cæsaris and John Stol, two
students who had been instructed by Gering and Krantz, founded the
second establishment in Paris, at the sign of the "Soufflet Vert;" and
they printed classical works. Ten years later appeared Antony Vérard,
Simon Vostre, and Pigouchet, the first of whom gave to French
bookselling an impulse that it has not since lost; but before them
Pasquier-Bonhomme published his _Grandes Chroniques_ in 1476, three
volumes folio, the oldest in date of books printed at Paris in French.
The French school of illustration was at its most flourishing point at
the end of the fifteenth century, but solely in miniature and
ornamentation by the pencil. The charming figures of the manuscripts had
at this time a Flemish and naturalistic tendency. The most celebrated
of the great artists in manuscripts, John Foucquet, could not deny the
source of his talent nor the influence of the Van Eyck school, yet the
touch remained distinctly personal. He had travelled, and was not
confined to the art circles of a single city, as were so many of the
earliest painters of Flanders. He had gone through Italy, and from
thence he transported architectural subjects for his curious designs in
the _Heures_ of Etienne Chevalier, now at Frankfort; a precious fragment
of it is preserved in the National Library of Paris. Side by side with
this undoubted master, whose works are happily known, lived a more
modest artist: John Perréal, called John of Paris, painter to Charles
VIII., Louis XII., and Anne of Brittany.
In joining with these two masters, to serve as a transition between
Foucquet and Perréal, John Bourdichon, designer to the kings of France
from Louis XI. to Francis I., we obtain already a not despicable
assemblage of living forces. Without doubt these men were not comparable
either with the admirable school of Flanders, or the Germans of
Nuremberg, or the masters of Italy; but, moderate as we may deem their
merit, they did their tasks day by day, painting miniatures, colouring
coats of arms, rendering to the kings, their masters, all the little
duties of devoted servants without conceit, and preparing, according to
their means, the great artistic movement in France of the seventeenth
century. That these men, leaving the brush for the pencil, devoted
themselves to design figures on wood, is undeniable. It is said that one
of them followed Charles VIII. to the Italian wars, and probably
sketched the battles of the campaign as they took place. Now in the
books published at this epoch in France we meet with vignettes which so
very nearly approach miniatures, that we can easily recognise in them
French taste and finish. Such are, for example, the illustrations of the
_Mer des Histoires_, printed by Le Rouge in 1488, where suppleness of
design is blended in some parts with extraordinary dexterity in
engraving. Nevertheless, others leave something to be desired; they maim
the best subjects by their unskilful line and their awkwardness of
handling. Were not these engravers on wood printers themselves: the
Commins, Guyot Marchants, Pierre Lecarrons, Jean Trepperels, and others?
We are tempted to see in certain shapeless work the hasty and light
labour of an artisan hurried in its execution. As mentioned above, the
part taken by the booksellers in the making of the plates does not make
our supposition in itself appear inadmissible.
[Illustration: Fig. 24.--Mark of Philip Pigouchet, French printer and
wood engraver of the fifteenth century.]
Printing had been established about twenty years in Paris when Philip
Pigouchet, printer and engraver on wood, began to exercise his trade for
himself or on account of other publishers. Formerly bookseller in the
University, he transported his presses to the Rue de la Harpe, and took
for his mark the curious figure here reproduced. At this moment a
veritable merchant, Simon Vostre, conceived the idea of putting forth
Books of Hours, until then disdained in France, and of publishing them
in fine editions with figures, borders, ornaments, large separate
plates, and all the resources of typography. The trials made at Venice
and Naples between 1473 and 1476 warranted the enterprise. Entering
into partnership with Pigouchet, the two were able on the 17th of April,
1488, to place on sale the _Heures à l'Usaige de Rome_, octavo, with
varied ornaments and figures. The operation having succeeded beyond
their hopes, thanks to the combination of the subjects of the borders,
subjects that could be turned and re-turned in all ways so as to obtain
the greatest variety, Simon Vostre reapplied himself to the work, and
ordered new cuts to augment the number of his decorations. Passavant's
idea is commonly received that the engraving was in relief on metal; the
line in it is very fine, the background stippled, and the borders
without scratches. Wood could not have resisted the force of the press;
the reliefs would have been crushed, the borders rubbed and broken. In
all the successive editions hard work and wear are not remarked, and we
are forced to admit the use of a harder material than the pear or
box-wood of ordinary blocks.
According to his wants, Simon Vostre designed new series of ornaments.
Among them were histories of the saints, Biblical figures, even
caricatures against Churchmen, after the manner of the old sculptors,
who thought that sin was rendered more horrible in the garb of a monk.
Then there were the Dance of Death and sibyls, allying sacred with
profane, even the trades, all forming a medley of little figures in the
margins, in the borders, nestled among acanthus leaves, distorted men,
fantastic animals, and saints piously praying. The Middle Ages live
again in these bright and charming books, French in their style, imbued
with good sense and perfect toleration.
[Illustration: Fig. 25.--Border in four separate blocks in the _Heures à
l'Usaige de Rome_, by Pigouchet, for Simon Vostre, in 1488. Small
figures from the "Dance of Death."]
The Book rose under Simon Vostre and Philip Pigouchet to the culminating
point of ornamentation. Here design and engraving improve and sustain
each other. It is not only the stippled backgrounds of the borders that
please the eye. And who was this unknown designer, this painter of bold
conceptions, whose work is complete in little nothings? However, the
large full-page figures have not always an originality of their own, nor
the French touch of the borders. Thus that of the Passion here
reproduced is inspired line for line by the German, Martin Schongauer.
Are we to suppose, that duplicates of blocks passed between France and
Germany, or was a copy made by a French designer? It is difficult to
say. Still the coincidence is not common to all the missals of the great
Parisian bookseller. The Death of the Virgin here reproduced is an
evident proof of it. It forms part of the 1488 book, and is a truly
French work.
[Illustration: Fig. 26.--Plate copied from Schongauer's Carrying of the
Cross, taken from the _Heures_ of Simon Vostre.]
[Illustration: Fig. 27.--The Death of the Virgin, plate taken from the
_Heures_ of Simon Vostre, printed in 1488. The border is separate.]
It may be said that from the artistic association of Philip Pigouchet
and Simon Vostre was born the art of illustration of the Book in France;
they worked together for eighteen years, in steady collaboration, and,
as far as we know, without a cloud. At Vostre's commencement in 1488 he
lived in the Rue Neuve Notre Dame, at the sign of "St. Jean
l'Evangeliste;" and in 1520 he was still there, having published more
than three hundred editions of the Missal, according to the use of the
several cities.
Contemporary with Simon Vostre, another publisher was giving a singular
impulse to the Book by his extreme energy, true taste, and the aid of
first-class artists. Antony Verard, the most illustrious of the old
French booksellers, was a writer, printer, illuminator, and dealer. Born
in the second half of the fifteenth century, he established himself in
Paris on the Pont Notre Dame, both sides of which were then covered with
shops, and about 1485 commenced his fine editions with a "Decameron" in
French by Laurent de Premierfait. M. Renouvier remarks in his notice of
Verard that his first books were not good, the plates were often
unskilful, and were probably borrowed or bought from others; this may be
very well understood in a beginner whose modest resources did not permit
bold enterprises; the figures were in most cases groundworks for
miniatures, outlines and sketches rather than vignettes.
[Illustration: Fig. 28.--Border of the _Grandes Heures_ of Antony
Verard: Paris, 1498 (?).]
Antony Verard was accustomed to take a certain number of fine copies on
vellum or paper of each book published by him, in which authorised
painters added miniatures and ornaments. It is curious now to find what
the cost to one of the great lords of the court of Charles VIII. was of
one of these special copies in all the details of its impression, and we
find it in a document published by M. Senemaud in a provincial journal
(_Bulletin de la Société Archéologique de la Charente_, 1859, part 2, p.
91), which enables us at the same time to penetrate into a printing
office of a great French publisher of the fifteenth century. According
to this document, Verard did not disdain to put his own hand to the
work, even to carrying the book to the house of his patron if he were a
man of consequence. It is an account of Charles de Valois-Angoulême,
father of Francis I. He was then living at Cognac; and he ordered Verard
to print separately for him on vellum the romance of Tristan, the "Book
of Consolation" of Boetius, the _Ordinaire du Chrétien_, and _Heures en
François_, each with illuminations and binding. In the detail of
expenses Verard omits nothing. He reckons the parchment at three sous
four deniers the sheet, the painted and illuminated figures at one écu
the large and five sols the small. We give here the outline of one of
the plates of the Tristan, ordered by the Duc d'Angoulême, reduced by
two-thirds, and from it it may be judged that the profession of the
illuminator, even for the time, was by no means brilliant. The binding
was in dark-coloured velvet, with two clasps with the arms of the Duke,
which cost sixty sous each. The work finished, Verard took the route for
Cognac, carrying the precious volumes. He was allowed twenty livres for
carriage; and this brings the total to 207 livres 10 sous, equivalent to
£200 to £240 of present money.
[Illustration: Fig. 29.--Plate from the Tristan published by Antony
Verard, a copy of which was illuminated for Charles of Angoulême.]
Verard had preceded Simon Vostre in the publication of books of hours,
but his first volume dated 1487 was not successful for the want of
borders and frontispieces. At the most he had introduced figures
intended for illumination, which, as well as the vignettes, were cut in
wood. In 1488, the same year that Simon Vostre commenced his
publications, Verard put forth, by "command of the King our lord," the
book called the _Grandes Heures_, which is in quarto, Gothic letter,
without paging, twenty lines to the full page. This _Grandes Heures_
contained fourteen engravings, large borders in four compartments,
smaller subjects and initials rubricated by hand. He also published more
than two hundred editions between 1487 and 1513, and among them the
_Mystère de la Passion_, with eighty figures; the _Grandes Chroniques_,
in three folio volumes, printed by John Maurand; the _Bataille Judaïque_
of Flavius Josephus; the _Legende Dorée_ of Voragine, all books for
which he called to his aid rubricators, illuminators, and miniaturists.
From the first he had two shops where he put his productions on sale:
one on the Pont Notre Dame, the other at the Palace of Justice, "au
premier pilier devant la chapelle où l'on chante la messe de
messeigneurs les présidents." From 1499, when the Pont Notre Dame was
burned, Verard transported his books to the Carrefour St. Severin. At
his death in 1513 he was living in the Rue Neuve Notre Dame, "devant
Nostre-Dame de Paris."
[Illustration: Fig. 30.--Page of the _Grandes Heures_ of Antony Verard:
Paris, fifteenth century.]
Besides Verard, Vostre, and Pigouchet, many others will be found who
imitated them in the publication of books of hours. The first was John
du Pré, who published a Paris missal in 1481, and who was at once
printer and bookseller. Like Pigouchet, Du Pré printed books of hours on
account of provincial publishers, without dreaming of the competition he
was creating for himself. The encroachments of the publishers upon one
another, the friendly exchanges, the loans of plates and type, form one
of the most curious parts of the study of the Book. Thielman Kerver, a
German, also began to put forth books of hours in 1497 in Paris,
ornamenting them with borders and figures on wood, and modelling his
work completely upon that of Simon Vostre. But after having imitated
him, he was associated with him in the publication and sale of the Paris
Missal; the competition of these men was evidently an honest one, or the
sale of pious works was sufficient to maintain all engaged in it.
Established on the Pont St. Michel, at the sign of the "Unicorn," he
sold his stock to Gilles Remacle about the beginning of the sixteenth
century.
Thielman Kerver in his own works shows himself as the rival of Simon
Vostre. The Hardouins, who followed the same profession, do not appear
to have attained the success of their predecessors; and, excepting in
the _Heures à l'Usage de Rome_, published in 1503 by Gilles Hardouin on
the Pont au Change, at the sign of the "Rose," they servilely imitated
them. There was also among the disciples of Vostre William Eustache,
bookseller to the King, "tenant la boutique dedans la grant salle du
palais du costé de messeigneurs les présidens, ou sur les grans degrés
du costé de la conciergerie à l'ymage St. Jean levangeliste." Eustache
made use of the work of Pigouchet and Kerver, not to mention the
printers of the end of the fifteenth century.
We have named the principal, the fortunate ones; but what becomes of the
crowd of other publishers whose hopes vanished before the success of
Vostre and Verard? There were Denis Meslier, with his quarto _Heures de
Bourges_, and Vincent Commin, bookseller of the Rue Neuve Notre Dame,
who thus appealed to his customers:--
"Qui veult en avoir? On en treuve
A tres grand marché et bon pris
A la Rose, dans la rue Neuve
De Nostre-Dame de Paris."
[Illustration: Fig. 31.--Plate from a book of hours of Simon Vostre,
representing the massacre of the Innocents.]
There were also Robin Chaillot, Laurent Philippe, and a hundred others
whose names have died with them or are only preserved on the torn pages
of their works.
[Illustration: Fig. 32.--Dance of Death, said to be by Verard. The Pope
and the Emperor.]
[Illustration: Fig. 33.--Dance of Death of Guyot Marchant in 1486. The
Pope and the Emperor.]
But if books of this kind found vogue and a large sale at this epoch,
the dealers did not keep to pious publications only. By a singular
mixture of the sacred and the profane, the bookmen put on sale on their
stalls the "Decameron" of Boccaccio as well as the "Hours of the
Immaculate Virgin," and the purchasers thought fit to make the
acquaintance of the one as well as the other. Besides, the end of the
fifteenth century had its literary preferences, its alluring titles, its
attractive frontispieces. At the commencement of the present century
double titles--"Atala; or, The Child of Mystery;" "Waverley; or, Sixty
Years Since"--were common, although now out of fashion. Since then came
books of travels--_Voyages au Pays des Milliards_, etc. In the fifteenth
century, and even since the fourteenth, a series of titles was in public
favour. There was first the _Débats_, or "Dialogues:" _Débat de la Dame
et de l'Escuyer_, Paris, 1490, folio; "Dialogue of Dives and Pauper,"
London, Richard Pynson, 1493; and many other eccentric titles. There
came also thousands of _complaintes_, a kind of lay in verse or prose;
_blasons_, light pieces describing this or that thing; _doctrinals_,
that had nothing to do with doctrine. And among the most approved
subjects, between the piety of some and the gaiety of others, the Dances
of Death established themselves firmly, showing, according to the
hierarchy of classes then prevalent, Death taking the great ones of the
earth, torturing equally pope, emperor, constable, or minstrel,
grimacing before youth, majesty, and love. Long before printing
appeared, the Dances of Death took the lead; they were some consolation
for the wretched against their powerful masters, the revenge of the
rabble against the king; they may be seen painted, sculptured,
illuminated, when engraving was not there to multiply their use; they
may be seen largely displayed on walls, sombre, frightful, at Dresden,
Leipzig, Erfurt, Berne, Lucerne, Rouen, Amiens, and Chaise-Dieu. It was
the great human equality, attempted first by the French, then by the
inimitable Holbein.
We can imagine the impression these bitter ironies made on the oppressed
and disdained lower classes. The first "Dance of Death" was produced by
Guyot Marchant in 1485, in ten leaves and seventeen engravings, in
folio, with Gothic characters. Marchant describes himself as "demeurant
en Champ Gaillart à Paris le vingt-huitiesme jour de septembre mil
quatre cent quatre-vingtz et cinq." The book must have gone off rapidly,
for it was republished in the following year, with additions and new
engravings. French illustration was already moving forward, as may be
judged by the reproductions here given from the folio edition of 1486.
Pope and emperor, glory and power, are led and plagued by Death, hideous
Death, with open body and frightful grin.
We could wish that the tendencies and processes of what may be called
the second generation of printers were well understood. In a few years
they surmounted the difficulties of their art, and made the Book a model
of elegance and simplicity. The smallest details were cared for, and
things apparently the most insignificant were studied and rendered
practical. Speaking of titles, an enormous progress was here made in the
publications of the end of the century. In Italy the subjects of
decoration ordinarily formed a framework for the front page, wherein
were included useful indications. The most ancient specimen of this kind
has already been referred to. A model of this species is the "St.
Jerome," published at Ferrara by Lorenzo Rossi, of Valenza, in 1497,
folio; the title, much adorned, is in Gothic letters; the engraved
initial is very adroitly left in outline, so as not to burden or break
the text.
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.
[Illustration: Fig. 34.--Typographical mark of Thielman Kerver.]
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'université
Dont 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 cura
Treschel explevit opus hoc Joannes,
Mille quingentos ubi Christus annos
Sex minus egit.
Jamque Lugduni juvenes, senesque,
Martias nonas celebres agebant
Magna Reginæ quia prepotenti
Festa parabant."
[Illustration: Fig. 35.--Frontispiece to Terence, published by Treschel
at Lyons in 1493. The author writing his book.]
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...."
[Illustration: Fig. 36.--Woodcut from Caxton's "Game and Playe of the
Chesse."]
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.
[Illustration: Fig. 37.--The Knight, a woodcut from Caxton's "Game and
Playe of the Chesse."]
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.
[Illustration: Fig. 38.--Music, a woodcut from Caxton's "Mirrour of the
World."]
[Illustration: Fig. 39.--William Caxton, from Rev. J. Lewis' "Life."]
[Illustration: Fig. 40.--Mark of Wynken de Worde.]
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.
[Illustration: Fig. 41.--Mark of Richard Pynson.]
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.
[Illustration]
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.[A]
[Footnote A: Tory in his _Champfleury_ explains thus the mark of Aldus
and his device, which was in Greek the "Make haste slowly" of Boileau:
"The anchor signifies tardiness, and the dolphin haste, which is to say
that in his business he was moderate."]
[Illustration: Fig. 42.--The anchor and dolphin, mark of Aldus Manutius,
after the original in the _Terze Rime_ of 1502, where it appears for the
first time.]
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.
[Illustration: Fig. 43.--Mark of Lucantonio Giunta, of Venice.]
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.
[Illustration: Fig. 44.--Title of the _Theuerdanck_. The flourishes of
the letters are printed.]
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.
[Illustration: Fig. 45.--Plate taken from the _Theuerdanck_,
representing Maximilian and Mary of Burgundy. Engraved on wood after
Schäufelein.]
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.
[Illustration: Fig. 46.--Vignette taken from the _Illustrations de la
Gaule et Singularitez de Troye_. Queen Anne of Brittany as Juno.]
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.
[Illustration: Fig. 47.--Title of the _Entree d'Eléonore d'Autriche a
Paris_, by Guillaume Bochetel. Printed by Geoffroy Tory in May, 1531,
quarto.]
Geoffroy Tory, born at Bourges in 1480, continued after Vostre and
Verard the onward march of illustration of the Book. He was a sort of
encyclopædist, who knew and foresaw everything, but with a singularly
subtler and finer genius than his predecessors. There is now very little
doubt that at first Tory was an engraver and printer. Moreover, he
published with Jean Petit one of his first volumes, the geography of
Pomponius Mela, printed by Gilles de Gourmont in 1507. Tory was then an
erudite and diffusive commentator. Later he published a book with poor
engravings (_Valerii Probi Grammatici Opusculum_, 1510), waiting until
his good star should place him on the right road. He had for his mark,
say the bibliographers, the cross of Lorraine [Symbol: double cross],
small enough to be lost in the ornamentation of his plates. Really this
sign is found in Tory's mark--the "Pot Cassé"--the broken jar--and also
sometimes in the letter G, which was his ordinary signature. This
opinion, which we will not try to contradict in a popular work like
this, appears to us to err, as others used this mark, as may be judged
from the essentially different touches of engravings bearing the cross
of Lorraine, and particularly those of Woériot in the middle of the
century.
If M. A. Bernard[A] may be credited, Geoffroy Tory cultivated all the
sciences with equal success. For our purpose, suffice it to recognise
his right to one of the first places in the art of decoration of books
of hours. Doubtless his travels in Italy had contributed to modify his
taste and to detach him a little from the sober and simple manner that
then characterised French engraving; but he nevertheless preserved the
indelible traces of the origin of his art, in the same way as some
people cannot correct their provincial accent. The _Heures de la
Vierge_, which he designed, and which he had engraved about 1520, on
account of Simon de Colines, is marvellously surrounded by ornaments,
until then unknown in France; at the same time, and in spite of other
tendencies, it is purely a French work, and the specimen given here is a
convincing proof.
[Footnote A: _Geoffroy Tory, Peintre et Graveur, Premier Imprimeur
Royal, Réformateur de l'Orthographe et de la Typographie_: Paris, 1857,
8vo.]
[Illustration: Fig. 48.--Full page of the _Heures_ of Simon de Colines,
by Tory.]
[Illustration: Fig. 49.--_Heures_ of Geoffroy Tory. The Circumcision.]
[Illustration: Fig. 50.--_Heures_ of Simon de Colines, with the mark of
the Cross of Lorraine.]
Geoffroy Tory composed a curious book, as poetic as learned, in which he
studied at once the form of the letter from the typographic and the
emblematic point of view, and also the French orthography of the time.
He tells us himself that he was brought to commence this book on the
fête-day of the kings, 1523, when, after a frugal repast, he was, he
says, "dreaming on my bed and revolving my memory, thinking of a
thousand little fancies, serious and mirthful, among which I thought of
some antique letters that I had made for Monseigneur the treasurer for
war, Master Jehan Grolier, councillor and secretary of our lord the
King, amateur of fine letters and of all learned personages." Tory
called his book _Champfleury, auquel est contenu l'art et science de la
deue proportion des lettres ... selon le corps et le visage humain_, and
he published it himself in small folio, putting upon it the sign of
Gilles de Gourmont, in 1529.
At heart Tory had been fascinated by the theories of Dürer on the
proportions of the human body; and he says, "The noble German painter
Albert Dürer is greatly to be praised that he has so well brought to
light his art of painting in designing geometrical forms, the ramparts
of war, and the proportions of the human body." He wished to indicate
the true measure of letters to his contemporaries, "the number of points
and turns of the compass that each one requires." The most amusing part
of this curious treatise is his short academical preface, where, under a
playful form, the great publisher studies the orthography of his time,
and exclaims against the forgers of new words, the Latinisers of the
language, "the skimmers of Latin, jesters and gibberers, ... who mock
not only their shadows, but themselves." The entire passage was copied
by Rabelais, nearly literally, and it indicates that its author was
possessed of good sense, which, unhappily, all his contemporaries were
not.
For the technical part, he added to his theories a number of designs of
geometrical letters, but he was carried away, after the fashion of the
time, by Greek and Roman models, perhaps a little further than he meant,
losing himself in the midst of idle dissertations. To these geometrical
engravings he added small and charming figures, said to be by Jean
Perréal, as well as emblematical letters of the nature of the Y which is
here given, with explanatory text and commentary. To him this Y had two
branches: one of virtue and one of vice; that of virtue shows palms,
crowns, a sceptre, and a book; that of vice birches, a gallows, and
fire.
[Illustration: Fig. 51.--Emblematical letter Y, taken from the
_Champfleury_ of Geoffroy Tory.]
With the importance that cannot be denied to his works, Geoffroy Tory
founded a school; and it was from his workshop that the plates came for
the book of Paulus Jovius on the dukes of Milan, published by Robert
Estienne in 1549, quarto. The portraits of the dukes in this work have
been attributed to Tory himself, but he died in 1533, and there is not
the least indication that he engraved these sixteen portraits with his
own hand sixteen years before their publication. Besides, our doubts as
to the cross of Lorraine being the exclusive signature of Tory, as has
been believed, lead us to think it the collective mark of a workshop,
as we meet it on works long after the death of the master. As a proof,
the mark is found on the engravings of _L'Entrée du Roi à Paris_ in
1549, which cannot be taken as a posthumous work of Tory, for these
engravings had their origin at a certain and special date. But in spite
of the absence of the monogram, the admirable block from the Diodorus
Siculus of Antoine Macault might, from its design and engraving, be
considered as by Tory himself. Holbein, who, about the same time,
designed a somewhat similar scene, the King of France seated on a
throne receiving poison from the hands of Death, never did anything
better. Within the scanty proportions of the design, all the figures
are portraits. Duprat, Montmorency and the three sons of the King may
be recognised; Macault, on the left, is reading his translation to a
circle of nobles and men of letters. This admirable page is one of the
truest and most skilful of the monuments of French engraving; it is
equal to the best inventions of Holbein, and it marks the culminating
point of the illustration of the Book before the exaggerations of the
school of Fontainebleau. Geoffroy Tory was not the publisher. The
Diodorus Siculus, doubtless prepared two or three years before, was not
published until 1535, in quarto, with his ordinary mark of the "Pot
Cassé."
[Illustration: Fig. 52.--Macault reading to Francis I. his translation
of Diodorus Siculus. Wood engraving attributed to Tory.]
We have now arrived through him at the reign of Francis I., who was
called the father of letters, and who for various reasons favoured the
arts. Doubtless grand paintings and the decoration of the royal palaces
interested him more than vignettes in books and the efforts of printers;
but, at the same time, books occupied him. He studied much, and in his
travels accumulated many volumes. An account in the French National
Archives shows that Claude Chappuis, his librarian, packed entire cases,
which were sent to Dauphiné at the time of the wars of Piedmont, the
carriage costing twenty livres tournois. Francis had, moreover,
following sudden impulses, curious fits of wantonness and mischief. It
was perceived a little later that the doctrines of Luther were
propagated by the Book; and the Sorbonne was up in arms, on the pretence
of imposing its own expurgated text of the Bible on the publishers and
tolerating no other. Theodore Beza, enemy of the Sorbonnists, said with
regard to this (we translate the antique French literally), "Our great
doctors with cherubic visage have forbidden men to see the Holy Bible in
vulgar language, of which every one has knowledge, because, they say,
the desire of knowing everything engenders nothing but error, fear, and
care. _Arguo sic_, if they so, for its abuse, wish to take away this
book, it is clear also that it is their duty to put away the wine with
which each of them makes himself drunk."
[Illustration: Fig. 53.--Robert Estienne, after the engraving in the
_Chronologie Collée_.]
This piece is only cited to show to what lengths matters had gone,
thanks to printing. It is very certain that all the pamphlets, placards,
and other horrors published to raise religious warfare, did not aid in
the progress of the Book. The King was not always disinterested on the
technical question; books merited encouragement, at least as much as
castigation, and besides, as time passed, they gradually transformed men
and ideas. In spite of apparent severities, was not the King himself a
little touched by contact with the new religion, like his sister
Marguerite, or his sister-in-law, Renée of Ferrara? However that may be,
he twice showed himself a resolute partisan of the celebrated Robert
Estienne, son-in-law and associate of Simon de Colines, whose works in
point of erudition and typography assumed day by day more importance.
Robert Estienne had the great honour of being chosen from all his
contemporaries by King Francis as the royal printer. This prince had
ordered to be engraved for him by Claude Garamond, after the design of
Ange Vergèce, the first cutter of matrices of his time, a special Greek
character in three sizes, which was used in 1544 to compose the
"Ecclesiastical History" of Eusebius. These are the famous royal
types--_typi regii_--as Estienne did not fail to indicate on the
title-pages of his works. It has been said since that Francis I. founded
the Royal Printing House, but the truth is that Estienne kept these
characters in his own office for use in the royal editions; they may now
be seen in the Imprimerie Nationale at Paris.
Robert Estienne married the daughter of Josse Badius, of Asch--Badius
Ascencianus, one of the first Parisian typographers of the time. We
reproduce the mark of Badius, representing the interior of a printing
house, and shall return in a special chapter to the functions of these
workshops. Meantime it appears proper to present to the reader a
printing office of the time of Robert Estienne and Geoffroy Tory.
[Illustration: Fig. 54.--Printing office of Josse Badius at the
commencement of the sixteenth century.]
Robert Estienne does not appear to have concerned himself much about the
decoration of the Book. The purity of the text and the characters were
essentials with him, erudition, and not art. He published many works in
Latin and Greek, among them the _Thesaurus_, a great Latin dictionary
published in 1532, also a Bible, with notes by Vatable, revised by Leon
de Juda. From that came trouble. Leon de Juda was a partisan of Zwingli;
the Sorbonne accused the Bible of leaning towards the Huguenots;
Francis I. took the part of Estienne, but when that prince died Estienne
fled to Geneva, where he was accused of having imported the royal types.
The truth was that he simply imported the matrices.
[Illustration: Fig. 55.--Portrait of Nicholas Bourbon. Wood engraving of
the commencement of the sixteenth century.]
At this time everything served for the decoration of the Book:
portraits, blazons, topographical plates, costumes, and emblems. Small
portraits engraved on wood usually ornamented the works of the poets,
like that of Nicholas Bourbon, for example, marvel of truth and skill.
The blocks of frontispieces in the folios were multiplied; large initial
letters, ingeniously engraved and stippled, like that at the
commencement of this chapter, were used. Jacques Kerver reproduced in
1545 for himself, and with plates made for him, the famous _Songe de
Poliphile_, published by Aldus in 1499. The widow of the publisher Denis
Janot, Jeanne de Marnef, published one of the most delightful books of
the time, _L'Amour de Cupidon et de Psyche_ of Apuleius, with delicious
figures in wood after Italian engravings. Many more could be named in
the extraordinary profusion of charming books.
[Illustration: Fig. 56.--King and Death. Vignette from the "Dance of
Death" by Holbein.]
Without entering into detail, something must be said of Lyons, then a
most extensive and prosperous centre of bookselling. Lyons had the
signal honour of publishing first in France the celebrated cuts of the
"Dance of Death" of Holbein, the Basle painter. Doubtless Treschel, the
printer, was not the first, as a copy of a German edition is known,
because in the Lyons edition the cuts are worn and broken. However, the
Cabinet d'Estampes of Paris has some of the figures of the Dance with a
German text, probably printed by Froben at Basle. Treschel's title was
_Les Simulachres et Historiées Faces de la Mort autant elegamment
pourtraictes que artificiellement imaginées_, and the volume in quarto
was printed by Frelon. The _Icones veteris testamenti_, which preceded
the publication of the "Dance of Death," had also been printed at Basle
before Lyons.
With Holbein, as with Geoffroy Tory, we arrive at the zenith of
illustration and marvellous skill of the engraver. If we were to
institute comparisons, it was Hans Lutzelburger who cut the blocks after
the designs of the Basle master, but, contrary to what generally
happens, the translator reaches almost to the height of his model; the
line is perfection itself, it is precise and intelligent, simple, and,
above all, explicit. If the work of Lutzelburger be admitted, it must
also be admitted that Holbein designed his cuts before 1526, date of the
death of the Basle engraver; but it was precisely before 1526 that
Holbein lived in Basle, and it was after he had travelled. We will add
nothing to the universal praise of the book of Treschel, of Lyons;
everything has been written of Holbein, and repetitions are unnecessary.
We would ask the reader to compare the Francis I. of Tory and the King
in Holbein's "Dance of Death;" there is a certain family resemblance
between the two cuts, which is a singular honour for Tory.
At the commencement of the century Basle had a school of
_Formschneiders_ working for export. Besides the numerous products used
at Lyons, it had also a trade in wood blocks, which, having been used,
were afterwards sold. Among these exchanges of engravings were many
plates of Brandt's "Ship of Fools," sold in 1520 to Galliot du Pré,
publisher, of Paris, who used them in the _Eloge de la Folie_ of
Erasmus.
The reign of Francis I. saw a great advance in the national art of
illustration. The arrival at the court of Italian artists of the
decadence, such as Rosso and Primaticcio, produced a revolution in
taste. The exaggerated slightness of the figures brought by these
artists from beyond the Alps was considered as of supreme distinction;
in their twisted draperies and mannered poses was seen a precious beauty
that tempted the ready intelligence of the court of France. The simple
and ingenuous figures of the old French artists were ranked among the
refuse of another age, and their compositions were regarded with
contempt, and deemed antique.
The rage for emblems and for allegories and mythological figures
generally was well suited to these eccentric and bizarre inventions.
From another side, an entire class of artists or artisans, book
illustrators first, then enamellers and jewellers, made use of these
Italian models, with which the King encumbered his galleries, and which,
at great expense, covered the walls of Fontainebleau. One can understand
what these skilful men made of such a movement and of so thoughtless an
infatuation. The publishers saw the demand, and composed works of which
the sale was assured by the subjects that they furnished to other
designers. This explains the quantity of Alciati's "Emblems" and Ovid's
"Metamorphoses" published at Lyons and Paris, and copied and recopied a
hundred times by the art industries of the time. Without it the enormous
success of mediocre productions, as the "Emblems," for example, in which
the meaning of the enigma or rebus cannot always be seized, is ill
understood. It was Alciati who made this literature the fashion. He was
a sort of Epicurean and miserly jurisconsult, who had as many lords and
masters on earth, as the kings and princes who liked to bid against each
other to engage him. He had quitted Italy, seduced by the offers of
Francis I., but when Sforza paid him a larger sum, he returned, giving
as reason for his vacillation that the sun had to travel the earth and
warm it by its rays; this was an emblematic answer, for his emblems had
all the coarse, sceptical humour which not a few had then already
discovered. At most these philosophical aphorisms, if we take them
seriously, have their droll side in that their author often practised
the reverse of his teaching. A miser, he abuses the avaricious; flying
his country for the love of gain, he blames those to whom "a better
condition is offered by strangers." Yet he is sometimes logical and
consistent, as when he assures us that "poverty hinders the success of
intelligence," and when, finally, lover of good cheer, he died of
indigestion in 1550.
[Illustration: Fig. 57.--Page of the "Metamorphoses" of Ovid, by Petit
Bernard. Edition of 1564.]
His book of "Emblems" had a vogue that lasted until the seventeenth
century, and repetitions were infinitely multiplied: at Paris by Wechel
in 1534; at Lyons by Hans de Tornes, of Suabia, one of the greatest
Lyons publishers; by Roville, also one of the first Lyons publishers,
and by Bonhomme; at Venice by the Alduses; in fact, everywhere,
translated into French, Spanish, and Italian.
Bernard Salomon, called _le Petit Bernard_, born at Lyons, was one of
the designers of the school of Fontainebleau--that is to say, of the
Franco-Italian school of which we have spoken above--who furnished many
of the engravings for books printed at Lyons. He illustrated the edition
of Alciati's "Emblems" published by Bonhomme in 1560; and designed
skilful little plates, which, with the text, were surrounded by a border
from the workshop of Geoffroy Tory, for Ovid's "Metamorphoses,"
published by Hans de Tornes in 1564. Bernard had all the defects and all
the qualities of those of his time, from John Cousin to the least of
them; he was a Primaticcio on a small scale, but agreeably so. His
designs for the New Testament were also very careful, but in them more
than elsewhere the manner and the affectation of the school of
Fontainebleau are apparent.
[Illustration: Fig. 58.--Portraits of Madeleine, Queen of Scotland, and
of Marguerite, Duchess of Savoy, after the originals of Cornelis of
Lyons.]
[Illustration: Fig. 59.--Portraits of Francis, dauphin, and of Charles,
Duke of Angoûleme, after the originals of Cornelis of Lyons. Woodcuts
taken from Roville's _Promptuaire des Médailles_.]
The workshops of the second city of France, we see, had at this time
attained considerable importance; but before the books of which we shall
speak, Roville published two anonymous books, one _L'Entrée du Roi Henri
II. à Lyon_, in 1549, ornamented with very graceful woodcuts, the other
the _Promptuaire des Médailles_, comprising a series of charming
portraits under the pretence of reproductions from the antique. The
designs of the _Entrée_ are often attributed to John Cousin, as it is a
rule with certain amateurs to give a known name to a work; but it must
be remembered that Lyons then had celebrated artists, Petit-Bernard,
alluded to above, and Cornelis de la Haye, of whom we have more to say;
and it is not necessary to go to Paris or to Rome to find the author of
these illustrations.
[Illustration: Fig. 60.--Captain of foot from the _Entree de Henri II. à
Lyon_ (1549).]
Cornelis de la Haye was a painter who executed nearly the same work as
Francis Clouet in Paris, portraits on panel, in a clear and harmonious
tone, then much the fashion. During a journey of the King, he had, if
Brantôme may be credited, portrayed the entire court, keeping the
sketches for himself. Ten or fifteen years after, Catherine de Medicis,
passing through Lyons, saw these portraits and highly praised them,
recognising the old costumes, astonished at the courtiers of the day,
whom she had never seen in such dress. This artist is now known, thanks
to various works that have been found, among others two portraits of the
sons of Francis I., preserved by Gaignières, who attributed them
resolutely to Cornelis, doubtless on the faith of inscriptions that have
disappeared. Both of them were engraved on wood at Lyons and published
in Roville's book the _Promptuaire des Médailles_, mentioned above,
with small differences of detail altogether insignificant. It is not
impossible then that Cornelis designed these portraits, and that they
were drawn on wood after the cabinet models spoken of by Brantôme. The
delicate figures of the _Promptuaire_ are the work of a master; and the
differences mentioned are those of the artist, not of the copyist, who
would not be permitted to change anything. It is the first time, we
believe, that these comparisons have been made; they will perhaps help
the learned Lyonnais to pierce the mystery, but in any case our
suppositions are more honourable to Cornelis de la Haye than the fancies
of Robert Dumesnil (_Peintre-graveur Français_, tome vi., p. 343). To
judge by the four little medallions here reproduced, the art of
engraving on wood was rarely more skilful than in these portraits. It
would not be astonishing if a man like Cornelis had designed the figures
of the _Entrée de Henri II._ In any case, why should we choose John
Cousin instead of Petit-Bernard? At this time, we know, the kings
carried in their suite their ordinary painters; but we do not know that
John Cousin followed the court to Lyons in 1549. He did not hold an
official position, like Clouet.
This artist produced well-authenticated works; one of them is signed,
and leaves no doubt: the _Livre de Perspective de Jehan Cousin Senonois,
Maistre Painctre_, published in 1560 by Jean le Royer, printer to the
King for mathematics. This profession of printer for mathematics had its
difficulties of engraving, for Le Royer tells us in his preface that he
had himself finished the plates commenced by Albin Olivier. In another
practical treatise, entitled _Livre de Portraiture_, published in 1593,
John Cousin is styled _peintre géometrien_. It is beyond doubt that this
master produced for many works figures and ornaments, but what were the
books? The manner was then to repeat the engraved borders of titles, the
_passe-partout_, in the centre of which the text was printed. Cousin
designed many of these title-pages on wood; that of the _Livre de
Portraiture_ affords a curious element of comparison; but he was not by
any means the inventor. In 1555 was sold at Antwerp a book printed from
engraved plates after John Vriedman, by Gerard Juif, which is simply a
collection of engravings for title-pages for the use of publishers.
[Illustration: Fig. 61.--Title of John Cousin's _Livre de Portraiture_,
published in 1593 by Le Clerc. (The spot on the title is in the
original, preserved among the prints of the Bibliothèque Nationale.)]
It is about this time that metal plates may be seen in conjunction with
wood engraving in the illustration of the Book, and the best artists
attached their names to important publications of this kind. We have
explained in a former chapter in what this process is least convenient
in the impression of a book. In fact, two successive printings, that of
the plates and that of the text, were additional trouble and a frequent
cause of errors; but wood-cutting was somewhat abandoned in the middle
of the sixteenth century, especially for separate plates, and engraved
plates took a considerable importance under different artistic
influences. The first was the facility of engraving a metal plate
compared to the difficulty of cutting a wood block. It thus naturally
happened that the artists of the burin wished to employ their art in
illustration, and taste was soon drawn to the new process.
In France the first volume of this kind was printed in 1488 by Topie de
Pymont in folio: the _Pérégrinations en Terre Sainte_ of Bernard de
Breydenbach, with figures on engraved plates copied from the Mayence
edition of 1486. Since this manner was abandoned until about 1550, as
much for the reasons given above as for others, we only meet with a
stray plate now and again, which remains as a bait, and relates to
nothing. Under the reign of Henri II. the smallness of the volumes did
not always admit of wood engravings, and the artists in metal found a
footing among illustrators; they made attempts, such as that of the
_Histoire de Jason_ of Réné Boivin in 1563, which came out under
Charles IX. in a charming volume of engraved plates by P. Woériot.
The "Emblems" of Georgette de Montenay were also in the burlesque style
of Alciati, but they had an advantage, as the author assures us:--
"Alciat fist des emblèmes exquis,
Lesquels, voyant de plusieurs requis,
Désir me prist de commencer les miens,
Lesquels je croy estre premiers chrestiens."
This orthodoxy does not make them more intelligible, but the engravings
of Woériot, unskilful as they are, import an element of interest which
surpasses the rest. It was always at Lyons, the rival and often the
master of Paris in typography, that the author printed his work.
By the privilege dated 1566, five years before publication, we see that
it is permitted to Peter Woériot, engraver of the Duke of Lorraine, to
portray, engrave, and cut in copper the said figures called emblems for
the time and term of five years (18th October, 1566). Peter Woériot
sometimes signed his prints with the small Lorraine cross adopted by
Geoffroy Tory's workshop, as may be seen in our engraving.
Copper plate engraving had by this time established itself, and the
works that were so illustrated spread themselves. Du Cerceau published
his admirable collection of _Plus Beaux Bastiments de France_ in folio
1576-79, which had numerous plans and views of the royal and princely
castles. Thevet put forth his _Cosmographie Universelle_ and his _Hommes
Illustres_, the latter adorned with skilfully engraved portraits. In
Paris the publishers Mamert Patisson, who married the widow of Robert
Estienne and took his mark, Adrien le Roy, and Robert Ballard, published
the celebrated _Ballet Comique de la Royne Faict aux Nopces de Monsieur
le Duc de Joyeuse_, composed by Balthasar de Beaujoyeux, valet de
chambre to Henri III.; and in this book, in which were put hasty
etchings, the King displayed all his immodesty and depravity. The Book
has often had the unconscious mission of transmitting to posterity the
unworthiness of its author or of its heroes. From this time the Book has
left its golden age to enter into the boastings of courtiers and
political abstractions.
[Illustration: Fig. 62.--Engraving by P. Woériot for Georgette de
Montenay's _Emblèmes_.]
Among the publications opposed to the Government of the time, the two
associates James Tortorel and John Perrissin, of Lyons, had published a
celebrated collection of plates on the religious wars that stained the
reign of Charles IX. with blood. At first engraved on metal, these
plates were worn out, and were gradually replaced by others engraved on
wood, on which several artists worked, among them James le Challeux and
also John de Gourmont, one of the most celebrated wood-cutters of the
sixteenth century. This was a work composed of single leaves in folio
size, which had an extraordinary sale among the religious people of the
time.
At the same time, illustration on wood did not stand still. The
portraits of authors diffused by the pencil of Clouet and his school
were commonly put at the head of their works. We cannot say whether
Clouet himself designed the portraits of Tiraqueau and of Taillemont in
1553; of Du Billon, the author of the _Fort Inexpugnable_, in 1555;
Papon and Ambroise Paré in 1561; Grevin, Ramus, and others; but the
precision of these physiognomies recalls the peculiar manner of the
French artists of the sixteenth century. The "Poems" of Ronsard in 1586
contains a series of very clever portraits, among them that of Muret,
his commentator, one of the most perfect of its kind. Christopher de
Savigny, author of the _Tableaux Accomplis de Tous les Arts Liberaux_,
published by John and Francis de Gourmont in 1587, is represented at
full length in the frontispiece of his work, offering the book to the
Duc de Nevers, to whom it is dedicated. This plate in folio, probably
engraved by John de Gourmont, is the best finished that we have seen.
The work of Savigny, forgotten as it may be now, had a great reputation
in its own time; and Bacon took from it the idea of his "Advancement of
Learning."
Speaking of the Duc de Nevers, it will not be without interest to our
readers to mention here a manuscript found by us in the Bibliothèque
Nationale, which enables us to give an account of the work then
necessary for the publication of an illustrated book. In 1577 the Duke
arranged for the impression of an apologetic book, of which no trace
remains; and his _intendant_ writes a long letter to him on the subject
of composition and bindings. It was necessary that the work should be
produced quickly, bound and gilt, for presents. The _intendant_ thinks
calf will be the most expeditious covering. "It would be much the best
to use black or red calf, ... well gilt above, and not vellum, which is
a thin parchment that quickly shrinks." The statements of this man of
business show that five proofs of each sheet were taken for
typographical correction, and that twelve full days were wanted for the
binding. The most interesting part of this memoir is that which treats
of the engraving on wood of the portrait. The plate was designed by an
artist who had afterwards gone away; it was not satisfactory, but the
ornaments would pass. The _intendant_ proposes to "fix a little piece of
wood in the block that could be drawn upon." Here we see correction by
elimination. The pear-wood on which the original figure was engraved was
to be cut out, and a square of boxwood substituted, "forasmuch as in
this task the pear-wood, which is the successful, well-cut block, is the
wood that is harder."
[Illustration: Fig. 63.--Portrait of Christopher Plantin, printer of
Antwerp. Engraved by Wierix.]
The portrait of the Duchesse de Nevers was better, yet the pear-wood had
given way under the work. "That of Madame is more passable.
Nevertheless, there is still something to say to one eye. The wood
cannot carry the subtlety of the line." Here, in a few clear and
explicit lines by a man of the time, we see the economy of a publication
of the sixteenth century, at a time when wood engraving was declining,
to give place to engraving on metal, which was soon to reign supreme,
through the most important book house of the century: the Plantins of
Antwerp.
Christopher Plantin, like Jenson, came originally from Tours. After
having learned his art with Macé at Caen, he went to Paris, from which
the wars soon drove him. He left for the Low Countries, and there Philip
II. nominated him as chief printer--"architypographus." Established at
Antwerp in 1555, he surrounded himself, as had the Estiennes and
Alduses, with most of the learned and literary men of his time, among
them Justus Lipsius, to whom Balzac attributed the Latin prefaces signed
by Plantin. It is certain that he was neither an Estienne nor an Aldus.
His artistic probity caused him to submit the proofs of his works to
strangers, with promise of recompense for faults indicated; the
Estiennes employed the same system. Plantin, not to be behind any of his
contemporaries in typographical perfection, brought from France the
celebrated type-founder William Lebé, and charged him to furnish a
special fount.[A] Under the orders of Philip II., he printed the
celebrated Polyglot Bible, in eight folio volumes, absolutely perfect in
its execution; unfortunately the Spanish Government, having advanced
funds in the course of publication, prosecuted him with the utmost
rigour to obtain repayment. This very nearly shut up his printing house,
but he took courage and overcame his difficulties, until he became, in
1589, the year of his death, the principal publisher of Flanders. His
mark was a hand holding a compass, with the motto "Labore et
constantia."
[Footnote A: In the Bibliothèque Nationale is a copy of an octavo _Album
de Caractères_, in which Lebé has written, "This gloss, made in Paris
(1574) by me, is my fourteenth letter, and the text is made on the
pattern of the preceding one for size, but of a better art; and from
this was printed the great Bible of Antwerp by Plantin, to whom I sold a
fount" (folio 6). On folio 20 he wrote, "I do not know whence came this
small Hebrew that I received from Plantin to make a smaller one for him.
He sent me this half-sheet, and I have not seen at Venice another
part."]
[Illustration: Fig. 64.--Plantin's mark.]
Plantin died at the age of seventy-four, leaving a prosperous business
to be divided between his three daughters. His first house at Antwerp
employed seventeen presses even at the time when he was in trouble, and
he had branches at Paris and Leyden, of less consequence. His second
daughter married Moretus, and to him descended the Antwerp workshop; he
and his descendants continued the printing house until recently; the
house of the great printer and publisher is now a typographical museum.
The Plantin printing office--"Officina Plantiniana"--was as well managed
by its descendants as by himself. The fashion of engraving in metal
spread itself before the death of the head of the house, and his
successors continued it. The principal engravers with the burin of the
Low Countries were employed by them: Wierix, Galle, Pass, Mallery, Van
Sichern; it was a real school of illustration, that created by degrees a
precious and sustained style, not without influence on the artists of
that epoch. It was from this particular manner that came Thomas de Leu
and Leonard Gaultier in France; and from Antwerp came those small
religious figures that have lasted to our time in their incomprehensible
mysticism.
The title-pages of the Plantin printing office inaugurated the
_passe-partout_ engraved by the burin, overloaded and complicated, of
which the seventeenth century took advantage. To tell the truth, these
elaborate displays, blackened by ink, do not accord well with the
titles; and there is a long distance between this decadence and the
books ornamented with wood blocks by the Italians and French of the
commencement of the century. Exception must be made in favour of Rubens,
who designed many of these titles. The heavy and squat architecture of
the time was least of all appropriate to these decorations, which wanted
grace. It passed from Plantin into France through the engravers; it went
to Rome with Martin de Vos and John Sadeler; it imposed itself
everywhere; and from that day to this it has not ceased. At the time of
which we write it had taken its flight in France, and spread itself in
Europe with extraordinary success. Engraving in relief, holding its
own until then, gave way little by little before this invasion. When
Henri IV. mounted the throne wood engraving had finished its upward
movement, it still remained in the _canards_, or popular pieces sold at
low prices, but it is easy to see what these hasty vignettes are worth.
[Illustration: Fig. 65.--Frontispiece of a book from Plantin's printing
office. Metal engraving.]
We have now seen the history of the Book and its decoration in the
sixteenth century in France: at first French epics in Italy, books of
hours, romances of chivalry; then about 1550, with the reign of Henri
II., the religious pamphlets commenced, bookselling spread itself; the
strife between illustrations on metal plates and those in relief assumed
shape, it continued under Henri III., and terminated abruptly by the
victory of the first at the extreme end of the century. With political
passions, printing had become a weapon of warfare, which it will never
cease to be. They knew in the sixteenth century what perfidious
accusations or excessive praises were worth. The Book followed the fate
of its author. If the writer was burned, so was his book. Witness the
_Christianismi Restitutio_ of the Catholic Servetus, printed at Vienne,
in Dauphiné, and consigned to the flames with its author at Geneva in
1553. A single copy was saved from the fire, and is now preserved in the
Bibliothèque Nationale; it is the identical copy annotated by Colladon,
the accuser of the unhappy Servetus, and still bears traces of fire on
its leaves.
Typography and the illustration of the Book in England in the sixteenth
century did not make the same progress as in France and Italy. Much good
work was done, but it was mostly with foreign material. Type was
obtained from French and Dutch founders, and most of the woodcuts had
the same origin. In the early part of the century most of the
publications were translations of popular foreign books, such as
Voragine's "Golden Legend," Caxton's translations of Cicero, Boetius,
etc. Too many restrictions and privileges obtained to encourage or allow
of the establishment of an English school, which was to come later with
the spread of wealth and education. Books were mostly printed in Gothic
type, or "black letter," and the woodcuts were of the coarsest kind. An
exception was the beautiful Prayer-book of John Day, 1578, known as
Queen Elizabeth's Prayer-book, from the fine portrait of the Queen,
which we reproduce, on the previous page; but in this the woodcuts were
designed by Albert Dürer and Hans Holbein. Pynson was the first to use
Roman type in England, in the _Oratio in pace nuperrimâ_, 1518, quarto;
and the first English Bible in Roman type was printed at Edinburgh in
1576. It is thought that until about 1600 printers were their own
type-founders, as no record exists of founding as a separate trade until
that time.
[Illustration: Fig. 66.--Portrait of Queen Elizabeth from the "Book of
Christian Praiers," printed by John Day, 1578.]
The greatest achievement of the sixteenth century in England was the
printing of the first English Bible, in Coverdale's translation, in
1535, folio, but even this was printed abroad, the latest investigation
giving it to Van Meteren at Antwerp. The woodcuts in it are by Hans
Sebald Beham; we reproduce one representing Cain killing Abel. Tyndall
had previously printed abroad an English New Testament. Another
importation was Brandt's "Shyp of Folys," printed by Pynson, 1509, and
John Cawood, 1570, the woodcuts in both being copied from the originals
before referred to.
[Illustration: Fig. 67.--Woodcut from Coverdale's Bible, 1535. Cain
killing Abel.]
Folio was the size usually adopted, and in this size the series of
chronicles appeared: Arnold, printed abroad in 1502; Fabian, in 1516;
Froissart, by Pynson, in two volumes, 1523-5; Harding, by Grafton, 1543;
Hall, by the same, 1548; Holinshed, in two volumes, 1577. In the same
size Chaucer was first given to the world entire by T. Godfrey in 1532,
and many times reprinted, and Sir Thomas More in 1557. Polemical and
religious treatises were mostly printed in quarto, as were the poets:
Spenser's _Faerie Queene_, in 1590; Langland's _Pierce Plowman_, in
1550; and Sidney's _Arcadia_, in 1590. Plays were also printed in
quarto, in which shape at the end of the century some of Shakespeare's
single plays were issued.
From the great perfection to which the liturgies, or books of hours, had
been brought by Vostre, Verard, and others in France, it is not perhaps
extraordinary that the service books for English use should have been
mostly printed abroad. Those for Salisbury and York were produced at
Paris, Rouen, and Antwerp. A Salisbury Primer in English was printed by
John Kyngston and Henry Sutton in 1557, and Wynken de Worde printed a
York Manual in 1509. The first English Common Prayer Book, known as
Edward VI.'s, was printed by Grafton in 1549, who also printed in 1545
Henry VIII.'s Primer in Latin and English. Edward's book is curious as
having on the last page a royal order as to the price at which it was to
be sold: "No maner of persone shall sell the present Booke vnbounde
aboue the price of two shillynges and two pence. And bound in Forell for
ii_s._ x_d._, and not aboue. And the same bound in Shepes Lether for
iii_s._ iii_d._, and not aboue. And the same bounde in paste or in
boordes, in Calues Lether, not aboue the price of iiii_s._ the pece."
Cranmer's Catechism was printed by Nicholas Hill in 1548, with
twenty-nine woodcuts by Hans Holbein, one of which we reproduce,
representing Christ casting out devils.
Translations from the classics were popular, and in the second half of
the century arose that passion for voyage and travel which has so
largely contributed to the wealth and extension of England. This was
begun by Eden's translation of Peter Martyr's "Decades of the New World;
or, West India," London, 1555, quarto, followed by Hakluyt's "Principall
Navigations, Voyages, and Discoveries," 1589, folio. Many accounts of
single voyages and discoveries were issued, and the taste thus created
culminated in the establishment of the East India Company in the last
year of the century.
The first specimen of copper plate engraving for books in England is a
frontispiece to Galen's _De Temperamentis_, printed at Cambridge 1521,
and the number of books containing copper plates engraved before 1600 is
extremely limited, the most notable being portraits of Queen Elizabeth,
Lord Leicester, and Lord Burleigh in Archbishop Parker's Bible of 1568;
Saxton's Atlas, 1579, the first atlas in England; Harrington's
translation of Ariosto, 1591, with forty-seven engraved plates.
[Illustration: Fig. 68.--Woodcut by Hans Holbein from Cranmer's
Catechism, 1548.]
The first printer at Cambridge was John Siberch, 1521. Peter of Treves
established himself at Southwark in 1514. Among his productions is a
Higden's _Polychronicon_, 1527, folio. John Oswen printed at Ipswich
1538, and among the English towns in which printers established
themselves in the century were York, Canterbury, Tavistock, Norwich, and
Worcester.
The establishment of the Reformed Church, and the diffusion of education
among the people which followed, created an original English school of
literature in the sixteenth century, and this gave employment and great
impetus to typography in England, so that by the time we reach the end
of the century we find a great improvement in the art of the Book, to be
carried to still greater perfection in the next.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER IV.
1600 TO 1700.
Tendencies of the regency of Marie de Medicis--Thomas de Leu and
Leonard Gaultier--J. Picart and Claude Mellan--Lyons and J. de
Fornazeris--The Book at the beginning of the seventeenth century in
Germany, Italy, and Holland--Crispin Pass in France--The Elzevirs
and their work in Holland--Sebastian Cramoisy and the Imprimerie
Royale--Illustration with Callot, Della Bella, and Abraham
Bosse--The publishers and the Hotel de Rambouillet--The reign of
Louis XIV., Antoine Vitré syndic at his accession--His works and
mortifications; the polyglot Bible of Le Jay--Art and illustrators
of the grand century--Sébastien Leclerc, Lepautre, and
Chauveau--Leclerc preparing the illustration and decoration of the
Book for the eighteenth century--The Book in England in the
seventeenth century.
[Illustration: Fig. 69.--Letter engraved by A. Bosse.]
Now we have arrived at a critical epoch, in which the science of the old
printers transformed itself gradually into commerce, in which taste lost
itself under the influence of religious architecture. The title of the
Book represents the portico of a cathedral, with columns, mitred saints,
and crosses, of little decorative aspect. Figures on copper plates
replaced the foliage and arabesques of the older booksellers. Through
the Plantins and their imitators, the architectural passion was far
spread. It inundated France, ran through Germany and Italy, and reigned
pre-eminent in Holland. Literary taste also underwent change; manners
were no longer those of the sixteenth century: bold, free, and gay; from
the religious wars a certain hypocrisy arose; bombast replaced the
natural; the gods were preparing, as a contemporary said, to receive
Louis and his spirit.
It is not that artists were wanting at the opening of the seventeenth
century who could, in giving scope to their talent, show themselves
worthy successors of those who went before them. Unhappily the
booksellers no longer had a loose rein; they had the rope, for they were
hung or burned at the least infraction of political or religious
propriety. Yet the reign of Henri IV. was relatively an easier period
for the artisans of the Book, in which they were less confined to the
strict terms of excessive regulations; but after this prince severity
increased, and during the year 1626 a new law was promulgated punishing
with death the printers or distributers of prohibited books. Doubtless
the books that were thus secretly sold, and prohibited in defence of
good manners, were neither _chefs-d'oeuvre_ of typography nor art. The
author threw off the indecencies by which he hoped to make profit and
fame, regardless of type or illustration. But during the regency of
Marie de Medicis, it was not only the authors of a bad standard that
were in danger of being hung; the printer or seller of the pamphlet or
book of a reputed heterodox author was also hung, and it became
difficult to steer safely among the prohibitions. Enormous numbers of
works were made with frontispieces decorated with colonnades and mitred
saints, and bearing high-sounding titles of sound orthodoxy. A somewhat
gross mysticism, from the office of Plantin, formed the most solid stock
of every respectable dealer.
[Illustration: Fig. 70.--Title of the _Metanealogie_, engraved by
Leonard Gaultier.]
Under Henri IV. and the minority of Louis XIII., two French illustrators
received from the school of Antwerp their inspiration for the ornament
of the Book. Thomas de Leu, probably from Flanders, was allied with the
old Parisian painter and engraver of celebrated portraits, Antoine
Caron, in furnishing the engraved plates for the _Images de Plate
Peinture des Deux Philostrates, Sophistes Grecs_, Paris, Claude
Cramoisy, 1609, folio; and Leonard Gaultier, his contemporary,
collaborated with Jaspar Isaac and other artists in the Book. Leonard
Gaultier contributed most to spread in France the Plantinian style, and
his somewhat cold but characteristic talent suited this art more than
that of any one else then could. He was an engraver of portraits, now
rare and valuable, in the style of Wierix or Thomas de Leu; but, at the
demand of publishers and booksellers, he composed other plates, at first
historical figures representing the royal family and the nobles for the
publisher Leclerc, in a simple and true manner; he also designed pious
figures, recording a miracle or representing the ceremonies of a jubilee
and other devotional things. But he made his great success in the
composition of frontispieces to theological and pious works, printed for
nearly all the booksellers. Leonard Gaultier had a fashion of his own
with pilasters and Grecian columns, under which he boldly placed entire
councils of cardinals and bishops; witness the heading of the
_Bibliotheca Veterum Patrum_, into which he crowded nearly forty
figures. He united also with a certain grace the sacred and the profane,
placing among ideal saints the sinning fine ladies of the time, with
their large collarettes and jewels falling on naked breasts. The work of
Andrew Valladier, chaplain of the King, entitled _Métanéalogie Sacrée_,
published by Peter Chevallier in 1609, was adorned with a title of this
particular kind, in which Gaultier had no rival, and which preserves the
precision of Flemish masters in the detail of ornaments of the toilet.
He was one of the first to work for Sebastian Cramoisy, printer and
publisher, who had established his shop in the Rue St. Jacques at the
sign of the "Stork." We shall have occasion to speak of him later in
connection with the Royal Printing House, of which he was the first
director; he is mentioned now because in 1611 Leonard Gaultier engraved
for him the frontispiece of _L'Aigle Français_, a collection of sermons
by Thomas Girault. The publisher used the same plate in 1618 for the
sermons of Raymond de Hézèque.
Besides the publications of Sebastian Cramoisy and Chevallier, Leonard
Gaultier adorned also those of Nicholas Buon and many other publishers
of the time in Paris and Lyons. With such a profusion of works emanating
from a single artist, without reckoning those which were produced in
great quantity by men of less note, wood engraving was dead. At most it
dared to put a wood block of a printer's mark on a title; more
ordinarily this mark was not alone sufficient, and showed the disdain in
which taste then held wood-cutting. Thus goes fashion, heedless of the
most elementary rules of art. To put type within an engraved title, or
to ornament a printed text with engravings, is a heresy of principle
that was established in the eighteenth century, by the strength of its
cleverness and talent. But at the beginning of the seventeenth, in spite
of Leonard Gaultier or Thomas de Leu, these overloaded titles,
overpowering the opening of the Book, offend the eye by their excessive
blackness, and incontestably make us regret the admirable frontispiece
on wood of the preceding century.
This is all the ornament, properly so called, of the reign of Louis
XIII. Leonard Gaultier composed also small vignettes for an edition of
Homer, but they are mediocre and unskilful, and it must be said that
there were others following the same path. John Picart made a
frontispiece with architecture and figures for the _Histoire de la
Maison de Châtillon-sur-Marne_ for account of Sebastian Cramoisy. A cold
and hard artist he was, the rival of Gaultier, and one of the most
employed of the vignette engravers of Paris. There was also Jaspar
Isaac, a mediocre craftsman, but who could design clever titles, among
them that of the continuation of the _Annales_ of Baronius for the
publisher Denis de la Noue. Then Claude Mellan, whose great and clever
talent did not disdain second-rate works, in which he gave free play to
his burin. It must be said, however, that his bold touch did not well
accommodate itself to reduced spaces, and that he was not working in the
field necessary to his inventive powers. We mention his portrait of
Louis XIV. at the head of the _Code Louis XIV._; the title of the
_Perfection du Chrestien_, in which is included a portrait of Cardinal
Richelieu, A. Vitré, 1647, folio; that of the _Instruction du Dauphin_
for Cramoisy, 1640; that of the works of St. Bernard for the Royal
Printing House; and, perhaps the best of all, the _Poésies_ of Pope
Urban VIII., of which we here give a copy.
[Illustration: Fig. 71.--Title engraved by Claude Mellan for Urban
VIII.'s _Poésies_, printed at the Royal Printing House, in 1642.]
Lyons did not remain far behind in the movement, but how changed from
its great reputation of the sixteenth century! J. de Fornazeris engraved
the frontispieces to Justus Lipsius, published by Horace Cardon in 1613.
Peter Favre and Audran imitated them. C. Audran designed for Claude
Landry the _Theologia Naturalis_ of Theophilus Reynaud, and the
bookseller Picquet ordered from him the title for the _Annales Minorum_
in 1628. Everywhere taste was modelled on the works of the capital, to
name only the principal centres, Rouen, Rheims, Sens, down to Venes, a
small town of Tarn, where William de Nautonnier published in 1603 his
curious book _Mécométrie_, whose frontispiece was bordered by views of
cities, with an equestrian portrait of King Henry.
And if we pass to Germany, we find Mayence with mediocre engravings for
titles according to the formula and process used elsewhere, the title of
the _Droit Civil_ of Aymar Vailius, that of the works of St. Bonaventura
in 1609 for the bookseller Antoine Hiérat, and that of the _Viridarium
Virtutûm_, rather cleverly treated by the burin in 1610. What a period
had passed since Gutenberg, Fust, and Schoeffer! There was still one
Yves Schoeffer at Mayence, but only the name lived; nothing more
remained of the old printers of the other century. It was the same at
Bamberg, Cologne, Nuremberg, and Basle, in all the cities that made the
honour of typography and the Book in former times. Cologne was neither
better nor worse favoured than others. The booksellers Boetzer, Kinck,
and De Binghy had passable engravings for their titles; and the
Commentaries of Salmeron may be mentioned, with portraits from the
German originals of the fifteenth century. At Nuremberg there was a
curious specimen treating of natural history by Basil Besler, in which
the artist gives the interior of a zoological cabinet of the time; but
the blocks and the typography of the city of Koburger are wanting. Basle
held its own later in relief engraving. Meantime there was a mediocre
set of the Dance of Death on copper, published by Miegen, 1621.
At Jena and Frankfort-on-the-Main were prosperous printing houses, but
engravings and ornamentation were neglected. Frankfort employed the
frontispiece in the _Traité du Commerce_ of Sigismond Scaccia, published
by Zuner in 1648; it was divided into compartments, in which the Bourse,
the Exchange, and the port of the city were represented.
It is scarcely necessary to mention the Italian cities which followed
the movement. Venice from the middle of the sixteenth century had used
engraved frontispieces, among which was that of Domenic Zenoi for the
_Portraits des Hommes Illustres_ of Nicholas Valegio. In the same city
James Piccini worked for account of Sgava in 1648, but he was equally at
the service of Roman publishers, for whom he designed a number of
titles. Along with him Frederic Greuter adorned the publications of
Alexander Zanetti, not without talent, but without individuality.
Bologna, Brescia, Florence, and Naples, had no original sentiment; they
followed indifferently the manner of the day.
In Holland, artists were rather numerous. The family of the Passes
designed vignettes for books, and engraved frontispieces, admirably
studied and composed. The clear and truly personal style of their works
places their illustrations in the first rank among those of their time.
They had, at the same time, the genius that created and the intelligent
burin that faithfully translated an idea. They imagined with art the
scenes that they depicted without at all copying their predecessors.
From 1599, the date of the publication of the _Hortus Deliciarum_, one
of their best works, up to about 1623, they were in Holland, at Arnheim
and at Amsterdam. In 1623 we find one of them, the most celebrated,
Crispin the younger, designing figures for the _Manège Royal_ of
Pluvinel, published by Angelier in Paris, and for another edition, with
folding plates, in 1624 for William Lenoir, at the sign of the "White
Rose Crowned." This magnificent work, in which the King, Louis XIII., is
represented receiving lessons from the rider Pluvinel, had a third and
more complete reimpression in 1625 with another publisher, Michael
Nivelle. Here we see the Dutch accredited in France, in Paris, in the
city then the most ready to understand and pay for the works of eminent
artists. In 1624 Gombauld published an _Endymion_--Boileau later
associated Gombauld with other poets to declare him a maker of pitiable
sonnets--Nicholas Buon, the bookseller named above, undertook the
publication, and employed Pass, Leonard Gaultier, and J. Picart to
furnish plates in octavo size. Heavy and black as were these vignettes,
they do not the less make a good appearance in the edition of the
forgotten poet; and it is due to truth to recognise how much Pass was
above his collaborators. The following year, 1625, he engraved the
_Dionysiaques_ of Nonus, for Robert Fouet, and the _Roman des Romans_ of
Du Verdier, comprising more than ten engravings, in a very free and bold
manner. The _Berger Extravagant_ and the _Académie de l'Espée_ came in
1628, among numerous others.
[Illustration: Fig. 72.--Title of Pluvinel's _Manège Royal_, engraved by
Crispin Pass in 1624.]
To speak truly, Crispin Pass did not devote himself entirely to Parisian
publishers; he always preserved interests in Flanders so as to return
there from time to time; but he did not find in his own country the
ready and assured sales of Paris. Still the city of Leyden had then one
of the most renowned workshops of typography; the Elzevirs had commenced
to make a good place for themselves among the printers of Europe by the
extreme correctness of their editions, the distinctness of their work,
and their marvellous art in the taste and economy of the Book. In
reality, the sizes and characters of their books were very small, but if
the smallness of the page did not allow room for vignette or ornament,
they bore a certain practical elegance that was not without charm. The
origin of the printing house was due to Louis Elzevir, who published in
1592 an edition of Eutropius at Leyden. He left sons, who associated
themselves together, and founded a house which was unrivalled.
[Illustration: Fig. 73.--Title of the _Imitation_ of the Elzevirs.]
Bonaventure Elzevir, grandson of Louis, was the most illustrious of this
family, so remarkably devoted to its art. He took Abraham as partner,
and together they put forth those little Latin classics in duodecimo of
which the value is now so great. Among others, Pliny issued from their
presses in the year 1635, in three volumes, Virgil in 1636, and Cicero
in 1642. To-day amateurs, above all those afflicted with bibliomania,
hunt for unbound Elzevirs, because they have full margins. From about
1633 to 1639 these volumes were composed of paper of rather small size,
making a page of a hundred and thirty to a hundred and thirty-three
millimetres; from 1639 onwards the paper was larger, and the page from
about a hundred and thirty-five to a hundred and thirty-seven. One must
be a book-lover to understand the interest attaching to these figures,
and employ his entire activity in the discovery of these undiscoverable
books, which are concealed as soon as they are met with.
One of the most esteemed of their works is the _De Imitatione_ of Thomas
à Kempis, printed by John and Daniel Elzevir about 1653, and known as
the edition without date. But as the association of John and Daniel is
known to have lasted from 1652 to 1654, the date 1653 appears to be very
plausible. We reproduce the entire title of this typographical _bijou_,
which merited a cleverer engraver.
The rarest of all the numerous Elzevirs, possibly by reason of the
popularity of its subject, is the _Pastissier François_, Louis and
Daniel Elzevir, Amsterdam, 1655, of which M. Morgand had an uncut copy,
measuring a hundred and forty-three millimetres, in 1878. The Benzon
copy sold in 1875 for three thousand two hundred and fifty-five francs.
It is to be remarked that the Elzevirs frequently avoided dating or even
signing their books, for reasons easy to comprehend. Publishing numerous
works, they were afraid of compromising themselves in the eyes of the
powerful, and they let them go forth without any trade mark. These
artists in typography were, besides, the most prudent and subtle of men.
Working at a time when bookselling had become an acknowledged commerce,
and a trade requiring all the skill and resources of others, they wisely
availed themselves of these, gathering for themselves honour and profit
without having done more than seize their opportunity. Employing the
characters of Claude Garamond, of James Sanlecques, and the papers of
Angoulême, M. Didot thence claims them as French publishers.
In France the Elzevirs had no rivals; but a fashion was introduced from
the end of the sixteenth century of associating together publishers in
the production of important and costly books. There were, among others,
the company of the "Grand Navire" in 1610, of the "Source" in 1622, and
of the "Soleil" in 1629. In 1631 several publishers united and founded a
second company of the "Grand Navire." These were the two Cramoisys,
Sebastian and Gabriel, Denis Béchet, John Branchu, Denis Moreau, Claude
Sonnius, and Denis Thierry. The associates took a ship as their mark,
but without putting their names on the masts, as the original company of
the "Grand Navire" had done. They published, at common expense and
divided profits, great works, of which each one of them had the right of
sale, but of course reserving to themselves the right to publish such
others as they pleased. Sebastian Cramoisy passes as the chief, the
moral director of another company, formed to publish the Fathers of the
Church, with the royal types, a company affiliated to the "Grand Navire"
and signed in 1638 by Denis Moreau, Gille Morel, Stephen Richer, Claude
Sonnius, and Gabriel Cramoisy. But as regards their personal works, if
they had neither the perfection nor the aspect of those of Froben,
Aldus, the Estiennes, or even of Plantin, they at least surpassed the
French books of the time. Formerly syndic of the Corporation in 1602,
twenty-nine years before the constitution of the "Grand Navire,"
Cramoisy was besides sheriff of Paris, and he exercised his trade in a
shop in the Rue St. Jacques which had been that of Father Nivelle, the
_doyen_ of booksellers, who died in 1603 at the age of eighty years.
The position of Cramoisy made it natural for Cardinal de Richelieu to
fix his eyes on him for the direction of the Royal Printing House. This
establishment, founded by the King in 1640, was installed within the
Louvre, in a long series of rooms which formed a workshop without rival
in the world. Sublet des Noyers was named superintendent, Trichet du
Fresne corrector; and under this triple direction the presses commenced
to work. The first book was the _Imitation de Jésus-Christ_, dated 1640,
folio, a fine book enough, but not to be compared to the Elzevir
editions. The types used in this book are attributed to Claude Garamond,
founder of the sixteenth century, to whom are due the Greek types of
Francis I. With the Royal Printing House, as often happens with State
enterprises, the cost was great, and the return nothing. Only a few
years after its foundation it had swallowed up nearly 400,000 livres, a
very heavy sum for a badly balanced treasury; it had produced sixty or
seventy volumes of moderate value; and after Cramoisy the management was
so little in earnest that it turned the workshops into a stable, called
"the little stable of the King," at the commencement of the eighteenth
century.
[Illustration: Fig. 74.--Plate taken from the _Lumière du Cloistre_.
Copper plate by Callot.]
To return to the artists of the Book under Louis XIII. and Cardinal
Richelieu, we must go back a little, before the foundation of the Royal
Printing House, and we shall find the French school of illustration at a
time when Callot was giving it a vigorous lift and trying to do away
with its affected and hard style. It must be acknowledged that Callot
was not a vignettist, a special designer; his art aimed higher, and
ordinarily succeeded better; yet he did not disdain frontispieces, and
made them for the _Coustumier de Lorraine_, the _Harpalice_ of
Bracciolini, and for a crowd of others of which the enumeration would be
tedious. Certain of his works passed into Italy, where they raised a
little the debased level of the Book. Then he adorned several works with
etchings, among them the _Lumière du Cloistre_, published by Francis
Langlois 1646. It was one of the symbolic and sententious works with
which the public taste is never satiated, and a kind of guide for the
priest. At the bottom of the little etching here given, representing
birds falling from a tree, we read,--
"Ses petits hors du nid le courbeau jette en bas,
Lorsque par leur blancheur ils lui sont dissemblables.
Le bon prélat de mesme au cloistre n'admet pas
Ceux qui n'ont rien d'esgal à ses moeurs vénérables."
Callot also made another set of emblems on the life of the Virgin Mary,
and published in 1620 a series of prints in quarto for the tragedy of
_Soliman_ of Bonarelli, for the account of Cecconnelli. France imposed
herself on fallen Italy, she got her works dispersed there, and if an
engraver arose there, he did not disdain to consecrate himself to
France. Witness Della Bella, who went from Italy to France, where he was
taken under the protection of Cardinal Richelieu. It was about the time
of the establishment of the Royal Printing House, and it was expected
that employment would be found at once for him.
Callot was the model chosen by the young Italian artist, and this choice
might have been less happy. Della Bella took from his master the
philosophic vein, the drollery of design, which he exercised at first in
humorous frontispieces, among others that of Scarron's works, where nine
fish-women, taking the place of the Muses, dance around the poet. But he
passed from gay and pleasant to severe, and made large pages of
architecture for serious titles. In 1649 he designed the plates for the
large and undigested volume of Valdor on Louis XIII., published by
Antoine Estienne at the Royal Printing House. His success was not there;
Della Bella was a painter of groups, of ornaments, of subjects somewhat
heavy and overdrawn, but which, after numerous transformations, opened a
new way to the vignettists of the eighteenth century.
[Illustration: Fig. 75.--Title of the _Manière Universelle_, by
Desargues, in 1643, by Abraham Bosse.]
With Abraham Bosse the decoration of the Book took a considerable
extension. Numerous and charming ornamented letters, heads of pages, and
tailpieces appear. There are few artists that have done so much as he
for graceful illustration and harmony between the vignette and the
printed page. His prodigious fecundity made him attempt every style; and
after the gaieties of the print in which he laughed with his
contemporaries, he adopted a grave air to trace more severe subjects on
copper. However, the book entitled _La Manière Universelle_, by
Desargues, with numerous geometrical figures and an agreeable
frontispiece, bearing the dedication to the Seigneur de Noyers,
superintendent of the Royal Printing House, was a critical work, in
which Bosse, under a serious standard, did not spare an enemy. We do not
bear ill-will to the artist, however, for the following year he
published fourteen plates for the Suetonius printed at the Louvre.
He successively designed plates for the _Histoire de St. Louis_,
numerous vignettes for pious books, figures for the _Pucelle_ of
Chapelain and for the _Larcins de la Fortune_. He was always himself,
refined and ingenious, whether in the most barren or the most
complicated subjects.
[Illustration: Fig. 76.--Print by Abraham Bosse representing the
booksellers of the Palace under Louis XIII.]
He has left us in a celebrated print a representation of a bookseller's
shop of his time. It is for us an interesting page, in which is shown
simply and rather naïvely the picturesque side of these stores, with the
dealer and his wife selling new works to their customers. The shop is
compact, and very much like the open-air stalls of to-day; posting-bills
above the shelves indicate the "new books;" and if the inscriptions
given by Bosse be credited, the Palace dealer offered his books with
singular eclecticism: Boccaccio, Aretin, the _Astrée_ of D'Urfé, the
Bible, and Machiavelli. In the hands of the woman is seen the romance
_Marianne_:
"Icy les cavaliers les plus adventureux
En lisant les romans s'animent à combattre;
Et de leur passion les amants langoureux
Flattent les mouvements par des vers de théâtre,"
says the text of Bosse. What was commonly done then is still done,
shopping and rummaging the stalls, and those of the Palace were
attractive.
If we credit Sauval, the great number of booksellers, in the middle of
the century, was due to the wits of the Hotel de Rambouillet. The
passion for novelty, for recent works, had produced that quantity of
publishers, he says, that we have seen on the Pont Neuf, and that we
still see to-day at the Palace and the University, but of which the
number is so multiplied in all these places that in the Palace they
count more than other dealers; and as to the neighbourhood of the
University, they are obliged, in order to lodge the rest, to extend the
ancient bounds from St. Yves to the river (Sauval, _Antiquités de
Paris_, viii., 354).
In fact, each year saw an increase in the number of publishers in
corporation, with syndicate and adjuncts. Under the reign of Louis
XIII., the single year 1610 had fifty to take rank, and among them
Antoine Vitré, who was to become the most illustrious of his
contemporaries. But, as there were no more than six printers, it may be
inferred that all the rest were booksellers, in the true sense of the
word, of those who encumbered afterwards the great _salle_ of which
Sauval speaks. Antoine Vitré was syndic in May, 1643, on the accession
of Louis XIV. He had four adjuncts. With him the Book marked the solemn
style that the commencement of the century had given to it. Royal
printer for the Oriental languages from 1621, he undertook a Syriac
work, the first that was attempted in Paris. The project of a Polyglot
Bible gave him the idea of acquiring for the King the Oriental
manuscripts and matrices of Savary de Brèves. The King left to him the
care of negotiating the business, but did not reimburse him without
numerous difficulties, in the midst of which the printer was made to
lose the means of conveniently continuing his trade. The advocate Le Jay
charging himself with the enormous expenses necessitated by the Polyglot
Bible, it was composed in the hope that Cardinal Richelieu would pay the
cost. He was willing to do so, but required that his name should figure
on the book; and as Le Jay, an independent man, formally opposed it,
Vitré met with ill-will from the Minister, which increased from day to
day. In 1645 the impression was finished, but Le Jay was ruined, and if
we admire the paper, the type, and the extraordinary size of the nine
volumes of the Polyglot Bible, we find in it so many faults, errors, and
misprints that it has fallen to nearly nothing, hardly being worth its
binding. There were terrible mortifications in the business, and Vitré
had to submit to them more than any one. Nevertheless he did not let his
presses stand still, and he published successively Arabic, Turkish, and
Persian works. His action against the Savary heirs, as representing the
King, in the acquisition mentioned above, continued also after the
impression of the Bible, and hindered his progress. He struggled on; and
the assembly of clergy, of which he was the printer, sought to help him
out of his difficulties. The matter being once terminated, the Cardinal
being dead, and Vitré having been named by Colbert director of the Royal
Printing House in place of Cramoisy, he died in his turn, and was later
accused of having destroyed the types and matrices of the Polyglot
Bible, so that they should not be used after him. This fable, long
accredited, has since been ascertained to be false, for the punches and
matrices passed to the Royal Library, thence to the Royal Printing
House, reorganised in 1691.
Antoine Vitré, in spite of his misfortunes, was a great personage. He
was painted by Champagne and engraved by Morin, as was Richelieu
himself. The portrait was reproduced in the book of M. Delaborde, _La
Gravure_ (p. 189). Such was the man whom we meet at the beginning of the
reign of Louis XIV. as syndic of booksellers; and it was by no means a
sinecure, a canonry giving honour and profit, quite the other way. With
the Draconian rules on the subject, the syndic assumed a heavy burden
towards the King, as well as towards his kinsmen. Religious quarrels
envenomed questions, and the revocation of the Edict of Nantes was to
have for its immediate corollary new and more severe royal ordinances.
The reign of Louis XIV. saw the zenith of engraving with the burin, but
not that of printing or illustration. Doubtless it would be puerile to
pretend that typography had not made any material progress; it had done
so in engraving and in composition; work was done more quickly, because
the presses had been made more perfect. But the wise harmony of the old
printers, their sure taste, even in their old irregular blocks, was no
longer there to form a graceful and charming whole, which is to modern
precision as a picture by Van Eyck is to a chromo-lithograph. Under
Louis XIV., titles became regular, following, as we have said above, and
modelling themselves on, the affected and peruked people who read them.
All art entered on this path of sublimity and grandeur. The painter Le
Brun is the highest exponent of this false Olympus, where an heroic pose
became necessary for the most humble movements. Made popular by
engraving by Pesne, Audran, Poilly, Edelinck, and a hundred others, this
tendency overran everything: art and industry, painting and tapestry,
illustration and typography itself. All was grand, in reverse of other
times, when all was small and mean. The embellishments of the Book were
full of gods in perukes and goddesses in armour, Louis XIV. as Apollo,
as the sun illuminating the world. "Nec pluribus impar" was not the
device of one man; it was the mighty and glorious cry of a whole people,
from great to small, from the sublime painter to the modest printer.
Ordinarily these exaggerations are not useful to the arts. Here they
were. But, for the matter that specially occupies us, it does not appear
that the Book was much advanced. It approached a marvellous epoch of a
delicate and graceful art; but it did not find its form; it dragged
painfully after the Plantinian works, heavily throwing its etchings and
burins in the middle of texts, gross and in bad taste. Yet taste in
literature had an onward tendency; Molière and La Fontaine produced on
their contemporaries the effect that in our day the naturalists have
produced on the romanticists; but this was not for long. Majesty
recovered its rights with Bossuet, Boileau, and the others.
[Illustration: Fig. 77.--Tailpiece of Sébastien Leclerc for the
_Promenade de St. Germain_.]
Sébastien Leclerc was one of the rare artists of the end of the
seventeenth century who dreamed of the vignette in the midst of this
invasion of pompous commonplace. Successor of Callot in manner, induced
by the publishers, he began this style with a romance of La Calprenède,
and continued with the _Promenade de St. Germain_ of Louis le Laboureur,
bailie of Montmorency, of whom Boileau said such curious things. This is
one of the rarest books of Leclerc, and we reproduce one of the pages,
with a charming tailpiece, which comes very near those of the eighteenth
century. There was, moreover, a charm in this ingenious designer; he
adorned the works of his contemporaries with graceful vignettes and
decorations full of suppleness. It may be believed, besides, that he did
not remain behind his _confrères_ in figure composition or allegorical
and Divine emblems. His art did not throw off the errors of the existing
school; he was content not to copy any one and to make his works truly
his own. Such were, for example, the vignettes of the _Histoire de
Turenne_, where the heads of the chapters, the ornamented letters, and
the tailpieces, harmoniously agree, and make the book, a little heavy in
impression, a most agreeable work. Leclerc then found himself ready to
design vignettes for the works of Racine for the publisher, Claude
Barbin, another name frequently encountered in Boileau. The title of
Vol. ii. merits attention.
The same year of this last publication, 1676, Sébastien Leclerc
illustrated the "Metamorphoses" of Ovid for Benserade, the engraving of
which cost the King more than 10,000 livres. Thus adorned, the book had
not a bad appearance, but a satirist of the time, Hardin very probably,
made on it this quatrain:--
"Mais quant à moi j'en trouve tout fort beau:
Papier, dorure, images, caractère,
Hormis les vers qu'il fallait laisser faire
A La Fontaine."
It may be imagined what an engraver could produce working from 1650 and
dying in 1715, that is, a life of work the longest that could be hoped
for. Leclerc was the absolute contemporary of the King. He died, like
him, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, leaving work widely
scattered among books, funeral orations, and placards. After the example
of Callot and Bosse, he did not disdain satire. One of his prettiest
vignettes served to illustrate some pamphlet of Richesource against the
journalists of his time; it represents a dandy of about 1679 offering
his gazette.
By the side of this unrivalled antagonist it is permitted to place
Lepautre, twenty years older than Leclerc, but whose studies had been
principally on architecture. In the moments that he left his special
work he devoted himself to frontispieces and vignettes; nevertheless,
although he had before him the charming designs of Leclerc, he confined
himself to a cold and hard manner, keeping, besides, as much as possible
to titles, in which his particular talent could find scope. He designed
also the Chartreux Missal of 1679, the _Gallia Christiana_ after Marot,
the _Dioptrique Oculaire_ of P. Chérubin, engraved by Edelinck, and a
thousand other works of small repute.
[Illustration: Fig. 78.--Small figure of Sébastien Leclerc for
Richesource's pamphlet.]
Very different was Francis Chauveau, who, without having the delicacy of
Sébastien Leclerc or his art of arrangement, treated at least with grace
little figures and illustrations. Certainly there is an enormous
distance between these correct and commonplace engraved plates and the
delightful wood engravings of the time of Geoffroy Tory, for example.
But, be their worth what it may, they suited very well; and even with
Molière they did not make such a bad figure. Chauveau was associated
with many of the works of Leclerc, who caused him often to be less
heavy, inasmuch as Leclerc corrected in engraving many of his
compositions. It was so with Molière, and still more with Racine in the
plate of the _Plaideurs_, in which Chauveau revealed himself a precursor
of the eighteenth century. Unhappily he did not always follow this
manner. Successively, and with various luck, he illustrated _Alaric_,
_Andromaque_, and the "Metamorphoses" of Ovid for Benserade, with
Leclerc; the _Pucelle_ of Chapelain, and the _Tragédies_ of Racine, to
which Le Brun did not disdain to put his hand.
In short, the connecting link between the beginning of the seventeenth
and that of the eighteenth century in the development of illustration is
Sébastien Leclerc. He had known the artists of the first period; he was
to see at his death appear one of the precursors of the vignettists of
the following century, Claude Gillot. Thanks to him, overburdened titles
and unskilful vignettes underwent a gradual transformation. In the
delicacy and tenuity of his designs may be seen the dominant note of the
eighteenth century, coquetry, and Choffard is divined. He was nearly the
only one who did not fall into the exaggerations of the engravers of the
time; he kept beside them without touching them, and preciously
preserved his own well-accentuated personality. By the smallness and
slenderness of his figures, Leclerc recalls somewhat the school of
Fontainebleau; but he is above all the reflection of Callot, a Lorrainer
like himself.
In Holland, a Frenchman, Bernard Picart, son of Stephen and pupil of
Leclerc, was making a great name as an illustrator. He established
himself as a print-seller at Amsterdam at the sign of "L'Etoile," and
successively designed vignettes for many works, among others the
Boileau of 1718. His vignettes and tailpieces, without possessing either
the spirit of Leclerc or the grace of the eighteenth century, express an
ingenious and inventive art that had broken with the strained traditions
of preceding epochs.
From these two artists the decoration of the Book rapidly advanced. The
form is found, and charming designers are not wanting to apply it.
The troubled state of England during the greater part of the seventeenth
century no doubt accounts for the fact that the art of the Book made but
very little progress. Theological controversies, the persecutions by the
Puritans, and, above all, the great civil war and its antecedents and
results, gave rise to a flood of publications of an ephemeral kind,
which from their nature were hurriedly produced; and there was little
room for pure literature and art. In the early part of the century,
under the influence which Elizabeth left, and which James fostered, some
important works were issued, with finely engraved illustrations; but
wood engraving declined further and further, until it was artistically
dead, to be revived in the next century. The works of the numerous poets
and dramatists were printed in quarto, and collected editions of them in
folio. Thus were issued the works of Shakespeare, first collected by
Jaggard and Blount, 1623, folio, with an engraved portrait by Droeshout,
the faithfulness of which was vouched in an opposite page of verse
signed by Ben Jonson. "Don Quixote" first appeared in an English dress
in 1612-20, published by E. Blount in quarto; and Jaggard, Blount's
partner in the Shakespeare, published Boccaccio's "Decameron," in two
volumes folio, 1620. Among other notable works of the early part of the
century were Drayton's "Polyolbion," 1613; Chapman's Homer, 1611-15,
folio, three volumes; Lord Bacon, whose essays and other single
publications appeared in the seventeenth, to be collected as his "Works"
in the next century; and William Prynne, whose _Histrio Mastrix_, 1633,
so offended Charles I. by its references to the Queen and the court
ladies, that the author had to undergo a severe and degrading
punishment. Many of these works were illustrated with meritorious
engravings on steel and copper by W. Hollar, P. Lombart, W. Marshall,
Hole, W. Pass, W. Faithorne, and R. Vaughan. So that here were all the
materials for the foundation of an English school, to be cruelly broken
up shortly afterwards by the distractions of civil warfare.
In 1611 Robert Barker first printed the Authorised Version of the Holy
Bible, which has been more often reprinted than any other book, and
which exists to this day as the great standard of the English language.
The taste for books of travel which arose in the last century was
largely increased by the voyages and discoveries of the English in North
America and the subsequent Puritan exodus there. These early accounts of
Virginia and New England, many of which are tracts of a few leaves only,
now command fabulous prices. The great collection of voyages under the
name of "Purchas: his Pilgrimes," was printed in five folio volumes,
1625-6, while De Bry, Hulsius, and Linschoten were enriching the world
with their collections of travels, printed in Germany and Holland. All
of these works were adorned with finely engraved plates, those to
"Purchas" being engraved by Elstrack, and, besides, it had a famous map
of the world, engraved by Hondius.
The controversial spirit engendered by the religious quarrels of the
century and by the great civil war gave incessant work to the printers;
and the many tracts and pamphlets thus produced were frequently
illustrated by rude and coarse woodcuts, of no value from an artistic
point of view, but curious from the indications they afford of the
costumes and manners of the time.
The first edition of Walton's "Angler" was printed by R. Marriott in
1653, 16mo, with plates in the text, engraved on steel by Lombart.
Butler's "Hudibras" appeared in 1663-78, and Milton's "Paradise Lost" in
1667, quarto. Fuller's "Worthies of England" was printed 1662, folio. We
have roughly mentioned the principal English books of the century, and
next approach the revival of literature and art in the eighteenth
century.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER V.
THE BOOK IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.
The regency--Publishers at the beginning of the eighteenth
century--Illustrators in France; Gillot--The school of Watteau and
Boucher--Cars--The younger Cochin; his principal works in
vignettes--French art in England; Gravelot--Eisen--Choffard--The
_Baisers_ of Dorat; the _Contes_ of La Fontaine--the publisher
Cazin and the special literature of the eighteenth century--The
younger Moreau and his illustrations--The Revolution--The school of
David--Duplessis-Bertaux--The Book in Germany; Chodowiecki--In
England; Boydell and French artists--Caslon and
Baskerville--English books with illustrations--Wood engraving in
the eighteenth century; the Papillons--Printing offices in the
eighteenth century.
[Illustration: Fig. 79.--Letter by Cochin for the _Mémoires d'
Artillerie_ of Suvirey de St. Remy.]
Like experience has shown us in our time, but in another manner, the
beginning of the eighteenth century produced, in the manners and tastes
of the French, an unconscious but tenacious reaction. It seemed as if
the conceptions of romanticism had lasted long enough, and that the
cycle of Middle Age chevaliers had passed away, and that a return to
what is called nature was effected in literature and art. At the death
of Louis XIV., Olympus and its gods, majestic poses and suns, had become
wearisome. By a little half-open door, gaiety escaped from its prison
and fled. For the Book that door was the hand of Sébastien Leclerc.
The ancient school was replaced. Constrained during three quarters of a
century, French manners began to be joyous under the regency of the Duc
d'Orleans. If the representatives of another age still lived, if Rigaud
always painted his portraits in peruke, there were new-comers, enlivened
by the new fashions, less solemn and more bewitching. Le Brun was then
far in the past, and as amusing to the ladies of the regency as are now
to us the fashions of the Second Empire.
The Book, after its manner, followed the movement, and gradually found
the elements of its decoration in the tendencies of the day. Small sizes
were multiplied, types showed elegance, and vignettes became more and
more agreeable and intellectual. Amateurs had their _ex-libris_
engraved. The smallest pamphlets were covered with ornamental letters,
vignettes, and tailpieces, already very clever. Costume also, in its
shorter and lighter form, gave to designers a means of agreeably
composing a page of illustration and disseminating fancy in the figures.
These revolutions worked themselves simply from day to day, as taste
became more pronounced and exacting.
The commerce of the Book was still extending from the end of the
preceding century; and if the number of printers was limited and
arrested by certain somewhat hard laws, production in Paris was
enormous. Among regulations that weighed most heavily on publishers
figured the obligation put upon them by the ordinance of 1713 to
deposit eight copies of illustrated books. In 1725 the King issued other
regulations to affirm the rights of the university against the
corporation, forcing the masters to assist in a body at the processions
of the Sorbonne and to offer on the Day of the Purification a candle to
the rector. In spite of this ordinance, more religious than useful to
commerce, the fashion of vignettes increased. The principal shops were
searched, as they are still, for novelties; the Rue St. Jacques and the
Quai des Augustins, where they were grouped, were resorted to. The most
important booksellers in 1727 were Coignard, the Barbous--who essayed
afterwards, with Lengley Dufresnoy, to copy the Elzevirs,--Cavalier,
Robustel, Fournier, Ballard, and D'Houry. Of the two last, D'Houry
printed the calendars, and Ballard had the privilege for music. Another,
Leonord, published the books of the Dauphin. At these and other
publishers', recent works were examined, those who did not buy gave
their advice and took ideas, and so fashion slowly formed itself. It was
thus that Houdart de la Motte published with G. Dupuis in 1719 a
collection of fables, with illustrations of Claude Gillot, which was the
talk at the booksellers'.
In this book all was original: the author, who had had, five years
before, the eccentric idea of translating the Iliad without knowing a
word of Greek; the text, a kind of imitation of La Fontaine, without
salt or savour; the size, quarto, admirably printed by Dupuis, in the
Rue St. Jacques, with plates by Coypel, Massé, and, above all, the
charming vignettes of Gillot, the most pleasing and clever of all his
collaborators, a sort of Callot fallen into the eighteenth century, and
who ought to take the first place by birthright. Gillot has been
called, not without reason, "the last pagan of the Renaissance;" and
this pagan had the honour to give us Watteau.
[Illustration: Fig. 80.--Vignette by Gillot for the _Chien et le Chat_,
fable by Houdart de la Motte, in 1719.]
The Count de Caylus tells the story. Gillot had quitted the pencil for
the etching needle on seeing the work of his pupil. He had no reason to
complain; his pictures were of no value, and his prints gave other
artists the idea of imitating them. The whole French school of the
eighteenth century may have had its origin in this forgotten book,
illustrated by the master of Watteau. In fact, in the manner of the
little etching here given we may easily perceive the coquetry and
affectation that were later the dominant tone of vignettes. For, it may
well be said, the graceful, feminine, and arch manner of which we speak
was, above all, conventional and false. In opposition to the designers
and engravers of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth century,
who reproduced naturally scenes of daily life in ideal conceptions, it
came, through the moral education of the artists, that they put forth
the ideal in the most ordinary things of life. Shepherds were no longer
the gross, rustic peasants that we find in primitive Flemish paintings
or in the "Hours" of Simon Vostre; they were coxcombs, pomaded and
adorned with ribbons, playing the bagpipes, and making love to the
shepherdesses of the court.
At first it was Watteau who influenced all the engravers in the pretty
and the smart; Boucher did the rest; and fatally the Book followed, and
followed impetuously, surpassing, if possible, the painted works. If the
severe poses, the grave touch, of the preceding century are no longer
found, they often go a little far in the contrary sense. It may be well
said here that the arts are ordinarily the result of the manners of an
epoch. The system of Law was not without influence on the entire
eighteenth century, by the terrible manner in which he upset fortunes,
awoke appetites, gave rein to aspirations hitherto held in check. Claude
Gillot, the designer, was one of the first victims of the Scotch banker;
he lost his fortune on the Exchange; but who may say what his artistic
ambition dreamed of in the midst of all these disorders? One thing is
certain: that Watteau, his pupil, broke off very short with the style of
the seventeenth century.
Laurent Cars was the engraver who multiplied the compositions of
Boucher, and made them the fashion. He engraved also, after the painter
of shepherds and nymphs, illustrations to Molière, the most agreeable
that there are for style and spirit. In engraving certain works of
Lemoyne, Cars did not completely desert the ancient school. He appears
at the beginning of the eighteenth century as if divided between two
manners each equally possible to him.
The work of these engravers was almost exclusively in etching, biting
with acid a copper plate covered with varnish, on which the drawing was
made by means of a point. This process, always previously used for
sketches, served also for finishing vignettes, which up to then had been
finished by the burin. The suppleness of the work was greater, and the
artist remained more himself than he could be with the stiff cutting
instrument of the seventeenth century.
The sizes of books had not yet all come to octavo or duodecimo. The
works of Molière published by Prault in 1734 in six volumes quarto,
under the direction of Marc Antoine Joly, give the idea of an important
work, not at all of theatrical pieces. To tell the truth, these somewhat
exaggerated dimensions allow artists more room for illustration; later,
when smaller forms predominated, text and engravings were so compressed
that they were not always clear and readable to every eye; but the
quarto was not graceful, it was not in harmony with the finikin, the
pastoral pieces, then presented, and it had to disappear as a current
size in illustrated publications.
The class of artisans employed on the Book is not identical in the
eighteenth century with that of printers and publishers. In the
beginning, as we have seen, the cutters of wood blocks and the printers
were often the same people, preparing their characters or their blocks,
and afterwards putting them under the press. Large printing offices had
very quickly changed that. Each particular work had its special workman.
Typography had its type-founders, compositors, forwarders, inkers, and
pressmen. In the eighteenth century this was complicated by designers,
engravers, plate-printers, and these different professions occupied
themselves on the Book in manipulating the sheets in their turn. In the
midst of this crowd, the designers and engravers, esteemed as was their
collaboration, were not the most honoured. Their homes often reflected
the effect of their life as clever artists, quick to spend the money
earned during the week; and we shall have occasion to name some of the
more miserable among them.
The booksellers, on the contrary, had become great personages. In the
preceding chapter we have seen Cramoisy and Vitré, to name only them,
acquire the greatest honours, the latter painted by Philip de Champagne,
with many others lords of the court. In the eighteenth century there
were Brunet, Ballard, Mariette, Chardon, Didot, and a host of others,
during the time of Watteau, Boucher, and Cars, of which we shall shortly
speak; and these several publishers had houses of their own, and
furnished shops and printing offices with the best apparatus. Saved from
falling into negligences by royal regulations on printing, they composed
with admirable characters, on paper of the first order, imperishable
works; and, usual consequence of their high situation, they paid the
artists badly charged with their work. It would be long and tedious to
enter into this matter in detail. They made progress by slow degrees,
and in good time they marvellously united copper plate engraving to
printed text, so marvellously, that in comparing their works to the wood
blocks of the sixteenth century, it may be asked which of the two styles
is superior in elegance and good taste.
[Illustration: Fig. 81.--Vignette for _Daphnis et Chloe_ by Cochin, for
Coustelier's edition.]
One of the ancestors of this group of vignettists was the younger
Cochin, who had engraved the plate of the monks in the fables of
Houdart, illustrated by Gillot. Cochin, in spite of his passion for
allegory and his very marked taste for affectation, gave, it may be
said, with the designer-engraver St. Aubin, an enormous impulse to the
art of adorning books. From the beginning of his career he worked for
the publishers, composing frontispieces, ornamented letters, and
tailpieces, or transferring to copper the drawings of others. Singular
type of artist, besides, educated, well brought up, epicurean and
spendthrift, friend of great lords, and protected by Madame de
Pompadour. When he travelled in Italy with her young brother Abel
Poisson, Cochin did everything, was ready at the least request,
inventing curious menus, giving representations of fêtes, and yet
finding the time to decorate books and design vignettes profusely.
He worked chiefly for Jombert, a sort of learned bookseller, King's
printer for the artillery, who dates from July, 1736. Jombert was
visited by painters. He gave little private soirées, which Cochin
attended, and where he daily made numerous friends. It was in this
house, of so special a character, and, it may be said, so little
artistic at first sight, that Cochin invented his best frontispieces,
among them that of the _Calcul Différentiel_, that of the _Astronomie
Physique_, and the plates of the _Méthode de Dessin_, after Boucher. He
was one of the first to produce engraved titles, with which the
publisher Prault ornamented his dainty volumes, and which were imitated,
up to the end of the eighteenth century, by all the illustrators who
followed. In that to the works of Madame Deshoulières the letter itself
is engraved. Since then the open letter has been copied in typography.
These vignettes were used many times by publishers, sometimes simply
effacing the inscription, sometimes reproducing the original design by
a different artist. The boy with the swan had decorated in 1744 a
"Jerusalem Delivered" in Italian, by the same publisher, Prault; it was
then engraved by Aveline. Fessard engraved the second plate, which is
here reproduced.
[Illustration: Fig. 82.--Title-page engraved by Fessard after Cochin for
the works of Madame Deshoulières, 1747.]
Nearly all the frontispieces of the Book with vignettes of the
eighteenth century preserve this arrangement: an ornamented and draped
border, with garlands of roses, symbols, and cupids, in the middle the
title, in red and black, composed in open letter, often a scroll with
the address of the publisher, but rarely a mark. It was the time of
little winged cupids, goddesses, and gods. The goddesses were the
favourites of the kings, Madame de Pompadour or the princesses, but
rarely the virtuous Marie Leczinska, too homely and too much ignored to
tempt the artists; the kings or the princes were the gods.
After Jombert, Prault, and Coustellier, Cochin worked for François
Didot, syndic of the printers, for whom he prepared a set of
illustrations to Molière. Unfortunately Didot died in 1757, and the
project fell with him. Of the work of Cochin there only remains the set
of _Tartufe_ etchings in octavo.
In the vortex into which he was plunged, he successively illustrated the
works of Rousseau, published at Brussels, quarto; those of Boileau,
published by David and Durand, octavo; and Henault's "History of
France," in the same size, with numerous vignettes. One of these should
be noted in a book treating of printing; it is that in which Cochin
pretends to show to his contemporaries the interior of a workshop in
1470. Without doubt the sketch of this print was taken in one of the
houses frequented by him--at Jombert's, Didot's, or David and
Durand's--for that room in which compositors are working and printed
sheets drying was not an invention of Cochin, and served to reproduce a
printing office of the eighteenth century.
[Illustration: Fig. 83.--Vignette taken from P. Corneille's _Théâtre_,
by Gravelot.]
With Cochin soon worked a number of designers and aqua-fortists, too
prudent to lose the opportunity. The fashion arrived for books
beribboned, festooned, and flowered. Hubert François Gravelot had
carried to London this style of new works, which he knew how to
decorate, in his manner, better than any one, with letters, figures, and
tailpieces. He did not engrave much himself, leaving this work to lesser
artists, and contenting himself with subtle invention and graceful
subjects. With Eisen, Cochin, and Moreau, he is the French artist in the
sense of the time, free, bold, and ingenious, but perhaps a little out
of place in England. He published his plates to the "Decameron" in 1757,
one of the most curious of his sets of plates, and a hundred various
vignettes. On his return to France he designed the _Théâtre_ of P.
Corneille, from which the _Galerie de Palais_ is here reproduced, on
account of the illustration of bookselling which it gives. In 1764 the
large _salon_ of the Palace was still, as in the time of Abraham Bosse,
a place where shops were fitted up and the new books discussed. Side by
side with the dressmakers and merchants of every category, the
bookseller offers to his customer the recent products of Parisian
presses. Certain works were sold under cover and not shown; there is
here something to pique the curiosity of unoccupied young men who
strolled about and prolonged their stay in the galleries.
[Illustration: Fig. 84.--Border designed by Choffard in 1758.]
Eisen has a simplicity, a good taste, and a special and singularly
perfect economy of artistic effect combined with typography. It appears
hard that the designer had no consultative voice in the choice of
impression and disposition of the Book. The union of the two forces,
the vignette and the composition, is so close that it may be believed
one was made for the other, neither venturing to assert itself. In the
pretty and elaborate inventions of the artists reigned a lackadaisical
affectation that was delightfully becoming; the rock-work, which it
still had, suited admirably the borders of the first page. The _Lettres
d'une Peruvienne_ has a very agreeable title, but little different, on
the whole, from that of Madame Deshoulières, by Cochin. It is the same
with the _Lettres Turques_, published at Amsterdam in 1750, and
generally in all the frontispieces signed by him. As to the other
decorations of the Book, there were also a number of ingenious artists,
confusing cupids and flowers, imposing blazons, delighting in playing
with accumulated difficulties. Under this assuredly involuntary but real
direction, publications attained proportions of luxury and coquetry
until then unknown. The volume of _Baisers_ of Dorat would not have
lived but for Eisen and the delightful fancies with which he adorned it.
At the same time, we find Choffard, another designer and etcher of much
repute, and sought after by the booksellers. Under his pencil the
vignette became a _chef-d'oeuvre_, the tailpiece was a delightful
compound of judicious and sportive ornament, the taste for which grew
more and more. From delicate foliage are suspended roses, shepherds'
pipes, lyres, and zithers. With the zephyrs scrolls or ribbons float,
carried by winged cupids. The initial letters are real pictures, of such
fineness and precision that the difficulties of their reproduction
prevent us from putting them before the reader.
When the _fermiers généraux_, those great amateur financiers of the last
century, conceived the idea of an edition of the _Contes_ of La Fontaine
at their expense, their eyes naturally fell upon the artists best
prepared to illustrate the inimitable fancies of the great poet, Eisen
and Choffard. The first had for his task the composition of the plates,
Choffard the general decoration. Ficquet was added for the portrait of
the _bonhomme_ La Fontaine--Ficquet, whose specialty in this _genre_ was
dazzling in its delicacy and spirit; Diderot wrote a short introduction;
the composition was confided to a printer of the first order, and it was
put on sale by Barbou.
[Illustration: Fig. 85.--Vignette by Eisen for the Quiproquo in the
Contes of La Fontaine, in the edition of the fermiers généraux.]
It is not a book to be recommended from a moral point of view, but the
typographical art, joined to that of designers and engravers, never
obtained a more complete success: the size in octavo, the impression
clear, united with the dimensions of the plates in a harmonious
elegance, well calculated to please the three rich personages and the
joyous amateurs to whom the _Contes_ address themselves. True, Eisen has
dressed the greater part of the characters in the costume of his time,
which is a little hurtful to one's feelings to-day; it may be imagined,
however, that it was La Fontaine who was mistaken, so that these
delicate, risky tales appear to be created for the seigneurs of the time
of Louis XV.
All the special literature sought for then by rich people had not the
value of the _Contes_. There was at Rheims a person, who has to-day
become the _mode_, as he was in the time of Louis XVI., who sold under
cover a quantity of licentious books of the better kind, adorned with
figures by Eisen, Marillier, or Cochin; this was Cazin, an artist in his
way, but whose good name suffered under a scandalous trial. An order of
the Council of State in 1764 enjoined him to cease his trade in the
Place Royale at Rheims, where he sold his particular merchandise. It
appears that the sentence was not without appeal, for we find Cazin at
Paris about 1785. He was one of those who were ruined by the Revolution,
after he had popularised the editions known as _Petits Formats_, printed
by Valade, of Paris.
[Illustration: Fig. 86.--Card of the publisher Prault, uncle by marriage
of Moreau le Jeune.]
We have come to the most beautiful illustrated books of the eighteenth
century, and to the illustrious artists of whom we shall speak in good
time should be added the younger Moreau and St. Aubin, the former nephew
by marriage of the publisher Prault, and therefrom a decorator of the
Book, the other thrown by Gravelot into full work, and rapidly becoming
the most subtle and adroit of the etchers of the time. Moreau did not
wait long after his marriage before setting to work. He began with
ornaments destined for the _Histoire de France_ of President Henault;
then he composed, in his own personal manner, titles and tailpieces for
his uncle. In the Book he is the propagator of garlands of roses, which
he grouped with an ideal grace; he twined them in the borders of his
frontispieces, and put them judiciously in his tailpieces. He excelled
in inventing subjects referring to the text which were not commonplace
ornaments suitable for anything. The tailpiece on p. 202, taken from the
works of Molière, brings forcibly to mind the _Médecin malgre Lui_, with
its wood-cutter unmercifully beaten with sticks and muffled in a
scientific robe. It is the same with other illustrations, that cannot
be displaced from the position assigned to them by the artist without
disappointment.
[Illustration: Fig. 87.--Tailpiece from the _Médecin malgre Lui_, by
Moreau le Jeune.]
The year 1773, which saw the publication by De Bret of the works of
Molière, may perhaps be considered as that in which the French Book of
the eighteenth century reached its culminating point. M. de Laborde,
first valet de chambre of the King and governor of the Louvre, published
with De Lormel, printer to the Academy of Music, his celebrated
collection of _Chansons_, dedicated to the young Dauphiness Marie
Antoinette, and partly illustrated by the younger Moreau. The work is
exquisite, of powerful yet simple grace. The sentimental note of the
century was struck in it, the insipid love of shepherdesses there
tenderly sighed, and the designer has delightfully rendered this arch
side of the pastoral song.
Our task does not permit us to linger over the works of this prodigious
and charming artist, but we must mention his inimitable plates to J. J.
Rousseau, the finest and most agreeable of his compositions and
vignettes, also his _chef-d'oeuvre_, the _Histoire du Costume_.
[Illustration: Fig. 88.--Vignette of the "Pardon Obtenu," designed by
Moreau le Jeune, for Laborde's _Chansons_, in 1773.]
As evidencing the activity of French artists of the Book in the
eighteenth century, we cite the number of works illustrated by the
respective artists enumerated in the last edition of M. H. Cohen's
valuable _Guide de l'Amateur de Livres à Gravures du XVIII^e
Siècle_:--
Aliamet, 34.
Audran, 16.
Aveline, 33.
Baquoy, 87.
Basan, 9.
Binet, 48.
Borel, 29.
Boucher, 47.
Bovinet, 34.
Cars, 13.
Chedel, 21.
Chenu, 18.
Choffard, 50.
Cochin, 143.
Coypel, 24.
Dambrun, 77.
Delaunay, N., 95.
Delignon, 50.
Delvaux, 66.
Duclos, 49.
Duflos, 56.
Dunker, 15.
Duplessis-Bertaux, 22.
Eisen, 135.
Elluin, 14.
Fessard, E., 69.
Ficquet, 14.
Flipart, 24.
Fokke, 14.
Folkema, 17.
Fragonard, 10.
Freudeberg, 7.
Gaucher, 55.
Ghendt, 78.
Godefroy, 29.
Gravelot, 86.
Grignion, 13.
Gutenberg, 20.
Halbou, 58.
Helman, 22.
Ingouf, 18.
Langlois, 18.
Le Barbier, 54.
Le Bas, 39.
Lebran, 21.
Leclerc, 11.
Legrand, 45.
Lemire, 77.
Lempereur, 68.
Leveau, 31.
Longueil, 97.
Marillier, 116.
Martinet, 27.
Masquelier, 42.
Massard, 40.
Monnet, 67.
Monsiau, 22.
Moreau, 138.
Née, 48.
Pasquier, 18.
Patas, 65.
Pauquet, 23.
Petit, 23.
Picart, 62.
Ponce, 65.
Prévost, 40.
Prud'hon, 14.
Queverdo, 54.
Rigaud, 18.
Roger, 17.
Romanet, 26.
Rousseau, 24.
St. Aubin, 70.
Scotin, 27.
Sève, 29.
Simonet, 83.
Tardieu, 64.
Tilliard, 15.
Trière, 39.
Doubtless some of these ascriptions are for frontispieces only, but as a
list of the principal book illustrators of the time, and as showing the
measure of their popularity, this table is of much interest.
With the Revolution the decline of the Book arrives, as that of all the
arts. Moreau, friend of David, had become affected by the new ideas and
the burlesque renaissance of Greek and Roman art. He made his apology on
the altar of the gods, and engraved portraits on wood to punish himself
for having painted the elegancies of fallen tyrants. At this game,
nerve, as well as suppleness, was lost; and if he had had only the
artistic knack of the Revolution, his daughter, married to Charles
Vernet, could not have written of him, "That which can be most admired
is, at the same time, the fecundity and flexibility of Moreau's talent,
that marvellous facility of conceiving a picturesque scene and disposing
it in an interesting and truthful manner in the least extended space."
This was true before, but after?
In spite of his passion for the ideas and men of the Revolution, Moreau
found himself at the end of his resources. Renouard, the publisher,
received him as he had received St. Aubin, to whom he advanced sum
after sum to prevent him dying of hunger. Like most of his
contemporaries, Moreau, pressed by want, "took, quitted, and retook the
cuirass and the hair-shirt." He had drawn for everybody: for Louis XVI.,
for the Republic, for Napoleon I.
The worst of it is that after his designs for Ovid, Molière, and
Rousseau, dating from the reign of Louis XVI., he should have done them
again in 1804, 1806, and 1808. The difference was great, even probably
for his publishers, Renouard and Dupréel. It does not appear that the
pontiff of the new school, David, knew of his distress; and Moreau
succumbed in 1814 to a cancerous scirrhus of the right arm, forgotten
and in the greatest misery.
We have passed a little quickly to the end of the century because it is
of no importance to name each of the publishers and artists, but only to
sketch briefly their tastes or their manner. We have not dwelt long on
the engravers so called, because of their number; but their dexterity
remains proverbial; they handled etching with extreme suppleness, and
often interpreted the drawings of illustrators in remitting them to the
needle. Many of these, not to say all, made use themselves of the
etching needle, St. Aubin for example, who knew how to give to the work
of others his personal mark and distinction.
[Illustration: Fig. 89.--Title designed by Moreau le Jeune in 1769 for
the publisher Prault.]
The Revolution passed over some among those that it ruined, and, as
stated above, they followed the movement, and lost themselves in the
school of David. It was Duplessis-Bertaux who, after having furnished to
Cazin, the publisher, vignettes for his _Recueil des Meilleurs Contes
en Vers_, 1778, and many other books, after having worked for Didot,
devoted himself to patriotic engraving and to the reproduction of scenes
of the Revolution. When he published his _Tableaux Historiques_, in
three volumes folio, adorned with nearly two hundred large plates, it
was under the Consulate, that is to say far from the time when the work
was begun. Renouvier assures us, with his exclusive disdain for the
eighteenth century, that Duplessis-Bertaux was a mystifier, and that his
scenes of the Revolution were a hoax, "in the kind of spirit in vogue
under the Directory." The truth is that the artist, in place of being a
cheerful Callot, as might be thought from his manner of engraving, so
like that of the Lorraine artist, was imbued with the emphatic and
exaggerated impressions of the first Republic, its _sans-culottes_ in
the poses of the Sabines and its _tricoteuses_ apeing Penelope.
The immense artistic advance made in France in the eighteenth century in
the manufacture and illustration of the Book made itself felt throughout
Europe. In Germany, Chodowiecki, born at Dantzic of a family of
apothecaries, developed his talent from ornamenting the boxes of his
father, and from 1758 to 1794 he designed numerous plates for books and
almanacs, a little heavy in engraving, but singularly clever in
composition. There were a few others also designing, and Kilian,
Folkema, and Ridinger produced some fine engravings, but the Book did
not make so much progress in Germany as in France and England.
In England a vast improvement was manifested. Fine types were cast by
Baskerville and Caslon; printing machines were perfected. The
illustration of books by engraved plates was in the first half of the
century almost entirely done by foreigners, but an English school was
arising, which attained perfection in the latter half of the eighteenth
and first half of the nineteenth century. Wood engraving also, which,
with the exception of blocks for head and tailpieces, had become almost
a lost art, was revived by Bewick, to become later one of the chief
adornments of the Book.
Before 1716 English printers obtained their best founts of type from
Holland, but the establishment of the Caslon foundry rendered them
independent. William Caslon, the first great English type-founder, was
born 1692, and died 1766. The foundry still exists, pre-eminent in the
beauty of its characters. Baskerville established a foundry about 1750,
and printed at Birmingham with his own types a number of extremely
beautiful books. The impetus given to fine printing by these two men
rapidly spread itself, and laid the foundation of the perfection which
English book-making reached.
As mentioned above, Gravelot illustrated many English books in the early
part of the century. He designed a set of plates to Shakespeare in 12mo,
1740, and another in quarto, 1744, besides numerous frontispieces and
other plates in all kinds of books. Among other foreigners who engraved
for English publishers were Grignion, Kip, Van der Gucht, Houbraken, and
Bartolozzi. Bartolozzi, who was very prolific in the production of
engraved plates, may perhaps be called the founder of that great English
school of engraving which arose with the establishment of the Royal
Academy in 1769 and the encouragement given by Alderman Boydell.
Houbraken and Vertue engraved a set of fine portraits in folio for
Rapin's "History of England," 1736; William Hogarth designed plates for
Butler's "Hudibras," 1744; and among other curiosities of English
engraving before 1750 were Sturt's edition of the Common Prayer,
entirely engraved on copper plates, 1717, and an edition of Horace
entirely engraved by Pine, 1733. That the taste for illustrated books
soon grew to be great is evidenced by the publication of such expensive
works as Boydell's edition of Shakespeare, in nine volumes folio,
commenced in 1791, and adorned with a hundred plates from pictures
specially commissioned by the spirited publisher; Claude's _Liber
Veritatis_, with three hundred engravings by Richard Earlom 1777, Sir
Robert Strange's engravings of fifty historical prints about 1750,
collections of views in Great Britain by Kip, Buck, and Boydell;
Holbein's "Collection of Portraits" 1792, a hundred and fifty plates to
Shakespeare engraved by S. and E. Harding 1793, all of which cost great
sums to produce, and greatly contributed to the elevation of public
taste. Among the artists of the latter half of the century who
contributed to the decoration of the Book are Thomas Stothard, whose
very beautiful designs, extending into the next century, excelled those
of all his contemporaries in their grace and spirit; Robert Smirke, best
known by his plates for Shakespeare, "Don Quixote," and "Gil Blas;"
Burney; and Richard Westall. It may be said generally that the English
books of the eighteenth century were of a more solid character than the
French, although English art, especially in the decoration of the Book,
owes much to French initiation. It is curious to read now the opinion of
a contemporary French engraver on English art. Choffard, in the preface
to Basan's _Dictionnaire_ 1767, wrote, "They" (the English), "having
been supported by some foreign talent, are trying to create talent among
themselves; but they have not seized the flame of genius that vivifies
all art in France."
[Illustration: Fig. 90.--Tailpiece engraved on wood by John Baptist
Papillon (before 1766).]
However, what had become of engraving by cutting in reverse, the figure
in relief, from which printing could be done? It had, we may think,
nearly disappeared in the midst of the continued invasion of the burin
and etching. It only appeared from time to time in head and tailpieces,
remaining purely typographical and lost in other decorations. There were
always wood engravers, not very clever, capable only of working simple
lines without charm. One of them resolved to resuscitate the art, and
made various attempts about the end of the reign of Louis XIV. and
beginning of that of Louis XV. He was named John Papillon, and was born
at St. Quentin in 1661. His experiments did not go beyond a book of
prayers, with thirty-six figures in relief after Sébastien Leclerc. His
son, John Baptist, succeeded him, and continued to engrave without
ceasing subjects of ornament, letters, often tailpieces, of a good style
upon the whole, and taking an excellent place in an elaborate book.
Unfortunately, grace had fled; the processes that the practitioners
exhibited one after the other were lost; and the Papillons
reconstituted, we may say, a vanished art. John Baptist also published
in 1766 a theoretical treatise on wood engraving, abounding in
historical errors, but in which something to learn may be found if taken
with discernment. He says in his preface, "Now that excellent work is
done on copper, wood engraving is neglected, and the use lost of
designing and cutting the shadows of the pencil on the wood block; most
of those who work in it have neither design nor taste, and only follow
their own ideas; it is not astonishing that only very mediocre pieces
come from their hands, to say nothing stronger; the profound ignorance
of nearly all who meddle with it contrives more and more to destroy the
beauties of this art in which many people find neither pleasure nor
grace. To obviate all this, if it be possible to me, I have undertaken
to give my precepts and observations to those who wish to apply
themselves to my engraving."
It was probably the essays of Papillon that provoked curious experiments
on the part of other wood engravers. Duplat, at the beginning of this
century, proposed to prepare a relief on stone, and as this would be
broken under pressure, he invented a mould; that is to say, he took a
leaden matrix from the stone cutting, and ran a resistant metal into
this mould, thus obtaining a relief similar to the stone. Renouard, the
publisher, made the trials; and the younger Moreau made the designs.
Moreau become an essayer of processes in 1811! One of the plates of La
Fontaine's _Fables_, published by Renouard in 1812, in two volumes,
12mo, is here reproduced.
[Illustration: Fig. 91.--Experiment in engraving in relief by Moreau le
Jeune for Renouard's edition of La Fontaine's _Fables_.]
It appears, however, that the publisher was thwarted by bad printing.
The printers of Didot or Mame, much as they consecrated all their care
to it, did not yet know perfect workmanship; they put the most intense
blacks into fine sheets. The great publishers trusted that better days
would leave to more clever men the task of perfecting the invention.
[Illustration: Fig. 92.--Portrait of Thomas Bewick.]
Wood engraving owes its revival and almost perfection in England to
Thomas Bewick, who published his first work in 1770, his "General
History of Quadrupeds" 1790, and his "Birds" 1797. In these works he not
only depicted his subjects with the most scrupulous fidelity, but in the
tailpieces of the several chapters he drew the most quaint, humorous,
and faithful representations of country life. He, with his brother, John
Bewick, and their pupils, among whom was Luke Clennell, had an influence
upon English art and the decoration of the Book in England which exists
to our day. Not alone with us, for he may be said to have repaid the
debt which we owed to France for her illustrated books of the eighteenth
century by stimulating the art of wood engraving, which was practised by
Tony Johannot and the other illustrators of the nineteenth century.
To return to the eighteenth century, with which this chapter is
specially occupied, we have said that the Royal Printing House, after
various fortunes, still existed; and in 1788 it worked, for better or
for worse, at the Louvre. According to the budget of that year, it cost
the King 90,000 livres, of which the director had 1,400.
There were, on the other hand, a certain number of official printing
offices, that of war, for example, which was devoted entirely to the
work of the Ministry. It was situated at Versailles, and was created in
1768. It is told of Louis XV. that, being one day in this workshop, he
found a pair of spectacles, left as if in inadvertence on a printed
sheet. As his sight was weakening, he took the spectacles and looked
through them. The sheet was a hyperbolical eulogium composed, as if at
random, by the director Bertier, in honour of the King. Louis XV.,
having read the dithyramb, replaced the spectacles, and quietly said,
"They are too strong; they make objects too large."
Who would believe that at the end of the century of Voltaire and
Rousseau a craftsman would be found desirous of leading back the
typographical art to its cradle, and of making xylographs again, under
the name of polytypes? A German was the original who conceived the plan.
He obtained an order of council for the establishment of his presses in
1785, but the same council suppressed them 1st November, 1787. His
process was to substitute for movable characters a plate of fixed
letters, and probably engraved.
Another eccentricity of typography at the end of the century was the
introduction of "logography" by John Walter, the proprietor and printer
of the _Times_ newspaper, which consisted in casting whole the words in
most common use, in place of separate letters. The system had soon to be
abandoned, but the early numbers of the _Times_, which was started
January 1st, 1785, were printed on it.
In the eighteenth century there was a printing establishment for each of
the constituted bodies; the King, the Queen, the princes, each had their
own. The royal lottery occupied a special printing house.
The young inmates of the blind asylum worked under the direction of M.
Clousier, royal printer. Louis XVI. authorised the celebrated Haüy,
their master, to allow them to print; and in 1786 they composed an essay
on the education of the blind. Pierre François Didot was in 1785 printer
to the Prince, afterwards Louis XVIII.; and he published the _Aventures
de Télémaque_, in two quarto volumes, from this special printing office.
The English colonies in North America early established printing there,
their first book, the "Book of Psalms," known as the Bay Psalm Book,
being dated 1640. By the middle of the eighteenth century literature
held a strong position in the colonies, the greater part of it being, as
might be expected, English; but the revolution and subsequent
establishment of the United States created a national American
literature, which has flourished to this day. Among the printers of
North America in the eighteenth century, the most famous was the
celebrated philosopher Dr. Benjamin Franklin, who served his
apprenticeship to the printing press in London. He returned to America
in 1726, and worked as a printer with his brother at Philadelphia.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER VI.
THE BOOK IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
The Didots and their improvements--The folio Racine--The school of
Didot--Fine publications in England and Germany--Literature and art
of the Restoration--Romanticism--Wood engraving--Bewick's pupils,
Clennell, etc.--The illustrators of romances--The generation of
1840--The Book in our days in Europe and America.
Political imitators had not been found for the French Revolution in all
the neighbouring countries of Europe, but its Greco-Roman art
established itself, and by degrees was introduced into the studios of
painters and the printing offices. Prud'hon, Gerard, Girodet, and later
Desenne, without counting the younger Moreau and his contemporaries of
the older regime, rallied to the new study, forming a school of
illustrators and vignettists with which the publishers could resolutely
advance. England followed suit with Flaxman, West, Fuseli, Barry, and a
crowd of others. Among the publishers the powerful family of the Didots
took first rank, and its members, at once type-founders, printers,
booksellers, and _savants_ of the first order, were the best fitted to
direct an artistic and literary movement. When Napoleon crowned himself
emperor of the French, the elders of the family had already brought
about a number of perfections and discoveries in their profession by
which their workshops had profited. François Ambroise, who died in the
year of the Empire, had given an exact proportion to types, a free and
elegant turn, but perhaps too regular and precise to be agreeable. He
had also invented a press called the _presse à un coup_, in which the
impression was taken by a single pull instead of being produced by a
series of successive strikings. His brother, Pierre François, spoken of
in the preceding chapter, was a type-founder and paper-maker at Essones,
and counted among his official titles "printer to the Comte de
Provence," as François Ambroise was to the Comte d'Artois.
Of these two branches equally faithful to typography, Pierre Didot, son
of François Ambroise, became the head on the death of his father. Born
in 1760, he had studied his art with passion, and had merited the
installation of his workshops in the Louvre, where he published a
celebrated collection known as the Louvre editions, the
_chef-d'oeuvre_ of which was the works of Racine. The splendid
execution of this book, in three large folio volumes, was a true
typographical revolution. Never in any country had scrupulous perfection
of detail been joined to so masterly a knowledge of disposition and form
of characters. The great artists of the Davidian school had the honour
of seeing their drawings reproduced as illustrations, and those named
above designed the fifty-seven plates with which the edition was
adorned. Pierre Didot displayed a great affectation in only printing two
hundred and fifty copies of his irreproachable and marvellous work, of
which a hundred had proofs of the plates before letters. Published by
subscription, the ordinary edition was issued at 1,200 francs, and with
proofs 1,800 francs.
To these superb works Firmin Didot, his brother, added ingenious
discoveries. Struck with certain difficulties of printing as well as of
correction, he imagined the welding together of the types of a forme,
when once obtained without faults, so as to avoid the trouble of new
composition. This process, useless for books of small number, had a
capital importance in the case of reimpressions of popular and
successful works. He named this method stereotype, and from 1799 he
published a Racine in 18mo by this method; but the originality of the
method, which he was the first to call stereotype, ended with its name,
for the process had already been discovered by William Ged, a goldsmith
of Edinburgh, in 1725, the first book produced in this manner being an
edition of Sallust, printed in 1744, 8vo, "non typis mobilibus ut vulgo
fieri solet, sed tabellis seu laminis fusis, excudebat."
This admirably directed house, we may indeed say this school of
typography, formed with Renouard, Claye, Rignoux, and others, the
greater number of the French publishers of the middle of the century.
When the Czar Alexander went to Paris, he wished to do honour to the
greatest French practitioners in the science of printing, in the persons
of the brothers Pierre and Firmin Didot. But these were not the only
ones. The sons of Pierre François, Henri and Pierre François II.--the
latter specially applied himself to paper-making, under the name of
Didot St. Leger--followed in the footsteps of their father and uncle.
Pierre François made at Essones an excellent paper, which he brought to
the perfection of making it in endless rolls, such as are made to-day
for rotary machines. Bernardin de St. Pierre retired to Essones about
the end of the last century, and there married the daughter of Pierre
François II. It is a curious coincidence that the same village contained
at once the man whose works at the beginning of the century had so
extraordinary a success and the great family of printers who had given
definitive impetus to typographical work. It was in this tranquil circle
that the author of "Paul and Virginia," at the age of sixty, sought
repose; that the publication of his book was resolved upon with all the
luxury due to its success, with admirable type and with plates by
Prud'hon and others. He added to it the _Chaumière Indienne_, written in
1790, on the eve of the Terror, which is one of the most delicate novels
of the time.
The homely and sweet literature of Bernardin de St. Pierre, the heroic
inventions of Girodet, Gerard, and Chaudet in the Greek or Roman style,
the clever but severe typography of the Didots--such is the composition
of the Book at the beginning of the century, and also its avowed
tendency and good taste. Under Louis XV. the nymphs carried panniers;
Polyeucte had peruke and sword. It would be unbecoming not to give Juno
or Venus the head-dress adopted in paintings and vignettes. At the time
which now occupies us fashion in clothing directed designers also. The
hair of goddesses was _à la Titus_; the waist was under the arms; golden
circles were on the brow. Simple mortals walked naked on the roads,
with plumed casques and superb shields. There were heroes putting forth
their disproportioned arms, others raising their eyes to heaven in
impossible attitudes. Such were all the vignettes, from Girodet to the
humblest, the last, the most forgotten.
It happens, by an oddity of which the cause is vainly sought, that this
classic and revolutionary school of David identifies itself so well with
the Napoleonic epoch, then with the people of the Restoration, that it
seems expressly made for them. At the same time, under Louis XVIII. and
Charles X. the Romans and Greeks had not the bold carriage of their
early days; they became more citizenised, and assumed the air of the
national guards of the kingdom of which later an excessive use was made.
England also had a splendid series of publishers and printers. From
Boydell, Harding, the Murrays, Fisher; from Bulmer, Bensley, Strahan,
the Whittinghams, and Hansard, to our day, there has been an unbroken
and constantly increasing line of clever, practical men, adorning the
professions to which they devoted their energies, often realising that
fortune which properly directed energies command. In the first half of
the century a vast number of splendidly printed books were issued,
ornamented in the most lavish manner with beautiful illustrations,
engraved on steel or copper plates, and with delicate woodcuts. Book
illustration in England may be said now to have reached perfection. When
the banker-poet Samuel Rogers wished to bring out an illustrated edition
of his works, he employed the two most capable artists of the time,
Thomas Stothard and J. M. W. Turner; and they produced an admirable
series of designs, which were exquisitely engraved by Finden, Goodall,
and Pye. The work was printed by T. Davidson, in two volumes, octavo:
the "Italy" in 1830 and the "Poems" in 1834; these two volumes, from the
perfect harmony of the typography and illustration and their combined
beauty, may be referred to as the perfection of book-making. A very
charming series of volumes is found in the "Annuals," "Keepsakes,"
"Amulets," and similar annual publications, illustrated with beautiful
steel plates by the best engravers. The splendidly printed and
illustrated bibliographical works of Dr. T. F. Dibdin may also be
mentioned. They extend to several volumes, and were printed by Bulmer
and his successors Nicoll and T. Bensley, illustrated by engraved plates
and woodcuts by F. C. Lewis and others. H. G. Bohn, besides the fine
series known as "Bohn's Libraries," numbering over six hundred volumes,
in every branch of literature, art, and science, published many finely
illustrated books, and as a bookseller had the largest stock of his day.
Charles Knight did marvels in popularising literature in his day.
William Pickering published a long series of very beautiful books, and
in conjunction with Charles Whittingham, printer, of the far-famed
Chiswick Press, revived the Aldine or old-faced types; one of the most
beautiful of his publications was Sir Harris Nicolas's edition of
Walton's "Angler," in two volumes, imperial octavo, with a very fine set
of steel plates, designed by Stothard and engraved by Augustus Fox and
W. J. Cooke, besides engraved vignettes and representations of fish
drawn by Inskipp.
In Germany perhaps the most remarkable achievement of the century is the
extraordinary series of volumes of English authors, now (1887) numbering
2,500, issued by Baron Tauchnitz, of Leipzig, which, although eminently
popular in their character, are well and tastefully printed. Among the
most notable of the printing and publishing houses of Germany, many of
them combining the two trades, are J. G. Cotta, dating from 1640;
Breitkopf and Härtel, dating from 1719; Justus Perthes, founded 1796; T.
O. Weigel, 1797; F. A. Brockhaus, 1805; B. G. Teubner, 1811; W.
Drugulin, 1829; J. J. Weber, 1834, etc. Germany has advanced with
England and France in fine typography and illustration in their several
kinds. The modern school of book illustration in Germany undoubtedly has
its origin in the influence given to it by the designs of the artist
Adolph Menzel, amongst which a series of two hundred illustrations to
the works of Frederick the Great, engraved on wood by the Vogels,
Unzelman and Müller, show him to be one of the most powerful and
accurate draughtsmen of the century.
To return to France, a new literature arose that was to react against
the Greek full of Gallicisms; but the movement, in reversing the ancient
state of things, in wishing to replace antiquity by the Middle Ages, old
Romans by old French, completely changed the physiognomy of the Book.
The engraved vignette and the copper plate of the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries were to lose their supremacy and to give way to
etching and wood engraving, also a revival of the Middle Ages.
[Illustration: Fig. 93.--Wood engraving by Clennell after West, for the
diploma of the Highland Society.]
It is not sufficiently known that wood engraving, after the unfortunate
attempts of Papillon in France, was restored in England by Thomas
Bewick, who founded a school, of which, at the commencement of our
century, Clennell and the brothers Thompson were members. One of the
Thompsons went to France about the middle of the Restoration, doubtless
with the hope of profiting by his art, and he offered to the Print
Department of the National Library the diploma of the Highland Society,
a large folio wood block, very adroit and very curiously cut, after the
drawing of the celebrated Benjamin West, and copied from Clennell's
original block of the same subject. M. Duchesne, then Keeper of the
Prints, speaks of this last process as of an apparition: "This print
makes apparent the long-neglected and often reappearing art of wood
engraving, which, though it could never equal copper engraving,
nevertheless merits the attention of amateurs when a capable hand is
exercised upon it." It was, we see, a curiosity then, this relief
cutting, of which the resurrection was to give an enormous impulse to
the Book from the facilities of printing and the economies realised by
the possibility of intercalation in periodicals. In fact, metal printing
necessitated so much trouble, more for engraving than for the
impression. With wood blocks surrounded by type the ordinary press
sufficed. The _Magasin Pittoresque_, which was commenced in 1833, and
the success of which from the first was very great, was born of these
new combinations. Before it the _Messager Boiteux_ of Strasbourg and
other popular almanacs progressed very well with their illustrations on
wood. A kind of firm of engravers, at the head of which were Best and
Andrew, undertook the illustrations of the _Magasin Pittoresque_. In a
few years progress was immense, other publications came into existence,
and a definitive return was made to the vignette in relief. The French
illustrated paper preceded our _Illustrated London News_ by nine years.
Lavish use was now made of wood engraving, which had thus been suddenly
revived in the very midst of the new romantic effervescence, amid a war
of books, which, in order to please, had above all to captivate the eye,
reacting at once against the spirit and the art of the Restoration.
Never before had artists to such an extent taken active part in a purely
literary warfare. All the fantastic tendencies of young France were
embodied in the lame and halting lines of the time and similar wretched
doggerel. Doubtless the leaders of the school did not go quite so far,
and their reputation even suffered from such theories; but, as always
happens in such cases, the disciples outstripped their masters.
[Illustration: Fig. 94.--Vignette by Devéria for the _Fiancé de la
Tombe_.]
The brothers Johannot were the first to join in the fray, under the flag
of the poets and others of the romantic school, such as Victor Hugo, De
Vigny, Paul Lacroix, George Sand, and Devéria, most ruthless of
illustrators. The last-named had designed vignettes on wood, of all
others, for Baour-Lormian, that is to say for the foe of the new ideas,
at once the interpreter of Ossian and the bourgeois bard, full of fire
and fury against everything in turn. The _Légendes, Ballades, et
Fabliaux_, illustrated by Devéria in 1829, although a sort of compromise
with the lovesick swains of mediæval times, did not escape the shafts of
ridicule.
In the midst of this movement the Book became democratic; it was printed
on sugar-paper for reading-rooms and scullery maids. The generation of
romancists diffused its paper-covered works, printing a thousand copies
and selling five hundred with great difficulty. Poets publishing five
hundred were happy with a sale of two hundred and fifty. Unheard-of
titles were then needed to catch the eye, ridiculous and ghastly
frontispieces to tickle the fancy of the riffraff. Paul Lacroix called
himself the "Bibliophile Jacob," and invented surprising headpieces and
foolish designs. And then, as in the fifteenth century, as in the old
times, certain signs become popular with the reading public. In the
place of the Doctrinals, Complaints, and Disputes, so common in the
titles of those epochs, new fancies spring up and have their day.
Eccentric devices recommend romantic trash, in which the assassin's
dagger, blood, and the horrors of the tomb have replaced the insipid
fantasies of the fallen regime. Pétrus Borel, the werewolf, a sort of
historic ghoul prowling about the graveyards, enjoyed a monopoly, as it
were, of the ghastly titles and contents of this charnel-house
literature; it was for his _Champavert_, published in 1833, that Gigoux
composed a kind of Bluebeard surrounded by female skeletons, that opened
the eyes of publishers to his value as a vignettist.
Although he threw himself soul and body into the romantic movement, the
young artist did not alone design subjects called "abracadabrants,"
following the neologism of the time, any more than the booksellers only
published romances. An attempt was made, by publishing them in parts, to
still further popularise the old writers at all harmonising with the
current taste. The publisher Paulin thus issued the _Gil Blas_ of Le
Sage, with illustrations in the text by the younger Gigoux, of which the
best was hoped. The history of this celebrated enterprise has been
written by the artist himself in the curious _Causeries_ published
recently by him, fifty years after his work on Gil Blas; and this
interesting view of an epoch already far distant gives us in a few words
the ordinary economy of these popular impressions in parts.
[Illustration: Fig. 95.--Vignette by John Gigoux for _Gil Blas_.]
It appears that Paulin, publisher in the Rue de Seine, not being very
well off, had associated himself with a man of business named Dubochet,
who had before made an enormous fortune with gas. The two represented
fifteen thousand to twenty thousand francs, and they ordered a hundred
drawings on wood from the young artist. He set to work with precaution,
for Dubochet was hard to please, without knowing much about the
business, and fined the engravers for the least faults. Gigoux set
himself to give his compositions in simple line, without complicated
shadows, so as to allow the wood-cutters to preserve a free outline. It
was nearly the same thing as the process of the old artists of the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, of Vostre and Holbein: true engraving
in relief. The success of the first sheets was extraordinary; new
vignettes were ordered from Gigoux; in place of a hundred they wanted
three hundred, then four hundred; then at the end of the work they
counted six hundred at least. Money filled the chests of the firm, but
when the artist claimed a small share of the benefits, they laughed in
his face.
Properly speaking, it was the first serious attempt at illustration by
the recovered method of engraving in relief, but it was not the only
one. Curmer, the publisher of the Rue Richelieu, prepared a Bible in
1835 and several other volumes, among which were the "Paul and Virginia"
and the _Chaumière Indienne_ of Bernardin de St. Pierre. He had also
collected around him a circle of artists that included Wattier, Devéria,
and Meissonier, who was the most perfect and correct of the designers on
wood. Meissonier designed very soberly, without effects of light, little
scenes admirably cut by an engraver named Lavoignat, a master in the
largest sense of the word. Curmer wrote in 1835 in the preface to one of
his books, "We hope we have raised a monument to wood engraving. It is
easy to judge of the resources presented by this art. We are compelled
to have recourse to England to accomplish our work. Peace to willing
publishers!"
[Illustration: Fig. 96.--Vignette by Daumier for the _Cholera à Paris_.]
Curmer acknowledges the importance of English specialists in this new
process for vignettes, and the willing publishers were not wanting; they
came from all parts. He himself did not stop on the way; he continued
his work on a large scale; and Charles Blanc was able to say of him
later, as well as of Furne, "He desired to illustrate books for
everybody, as the great booksellers of the last century had illustrated
their rare editions for a small number of privileged persons." But he
did not always confine himself to wood engraving; he also employed
etching and lithography. These, requiring separate printing, did not
make intercalation with the text any easier than engraving with the
burin; but they served to illustrate periodicals, the _Charivari_ and
_L'Artiste_, as well as some books, where they replaced the engraved
plates of the preceding century. At the same time, the latter process
was not altogether neglected; about 1840 it was revived, and steel was
used in place of copper, as it better resisted repeated impressions. The
publisher Furne, while he employed wood engraving, adorned with separate
plates on steel his better publications. For him worked Raffet, one of
the romanticists enamoured of the Napoleonic epic, which he had
popularised, with Charlet and Bellangé, by the pencil, wood, and
lithography. Raffet had transferred upon wood, as if in play, the three
hundred and fifty-one vignettes of the _Histoire de Napoléon_, by De
Norvins, which would to-day suffice for the glory and reputation of many
artists. In fact, the analytical and inductive spirit of the artist led
him to leave nothing to the chances of inspiration and commonplace of
illustration. He laboriously reconstituted, fragment by fragment, the
physiognomy of the "old army;" and imbued with the perfect science of
detail, he allowed his pencil full play in bold and luminous inventions,
where may be seen again, with their peculiar appearance, the heroes of
other days, the soldiers of the Rhine and Italy, of Austerlitz and
Waterloo.
A truly lively period was that of 1840, a living and unthinking
generation. By the side of those great artists of whom we have spoken,
and who will be more admired some day, there were the fantasists Traviès
and Daumier, who adorned the illustrated journals with innumerable
sketches, and Grandville and Gavarni, one caricaturing animals in a
celebrated book, _Les Animaux Peints par Eux-mêmes_, which is more than
a _chef-d'oeuvre_; the other coolly studying the vices and faults of
his time, with the precision of an anatomist, in _Les Anglais Peints par
Eux-mêmes_ of Labedollière, in the _Diable à Paris_, without counting a
thousand other works which his penetrating imagination produced.
[Illustration: Fig. 97.--Vignette by Gavarni for _Paris Marié_.]
Presently photography came, which was to reverse completely the
conditions of illustration of the Book by the numerous means of
reproduction to which it gave birth. Then wood engraving entered on a
new phase, a complete transformation of its ordinary terms, under the
influence of Gustave Doré. Little by little it had been attempted to
render in relief that which engraved plates only had hitherto done.
Black, half-tints, lowered tones, were tried where formerly a simple
line, bold and spirited, signified everything. The house of Hachette,
founded by one of the normal teachers of the liberal movement, at the
beginning of the century, was, together with Lahure, the promoter of
relief so inclusive and practical. The numerous periodicals of these
publishers spread the taste afar. England, for its part, entered on the
road, followed by America and Germany. To-day wood engravings have
reached perfection, finesse, and suppleness; but they are not, properly
speaking, engravings on wood.
[Illustration: Fig. 98.--Balzac writing his _Contes Drôlatiques_.
Vignette by Gustave Doré.]
[Illustration: Fig. 99.--Wood block by Bewick, from his "Fables," 1818.
The fox and the goat.]
We have seen that French publishers were largely indebted to English
wood engravers for their blocks. The school that was established by
Bewick and his pupils made enormous progress. From the "Fables,"
published in 1818, we reproduce an illustration as also a specimen from
the second volume of the "British Birds." Luke Clennell was one of the
most distinguished of Bewick's pupils; and he made some excellent
blocks, among them the illustrations to an edition of Rogers's "Poems"
(1812), engraved from pen-and-ink drawings by Thomas Stothard. It was
Stothard's opinion that wood engraving best reproduced pen-and-ink
drawings. Other pupils of Bewick were J. Jackson, John Thompson, who
engraved Harvey's beautiful illustrations to Milton and Henderson's
"History of Wines," S. Williams, Orrin Smith, Robert Branston, and C.
Nesbit. The most prolific and perhaps the most popular book-illustrator
of the century in England, was George Cruikshank, who engraved most of
his own designs on wood, steel, or with the etching needle; the
catalogue of his works by Mr. G. W. Reid, formerly keeper of the Prints
in the British Museum, occupies three quarto volumes. The designs of
"Phiz," as H. K. Browne called himself, largely contributed to the
popularity of the works of Charles Dickens; and the mere mention of
Richard Doyle and John Leech will recall the palmy days of _Punch_,
although both of these artists did excellent work in book illustration.
From the days of the Bewicks to the present wood engraving has formed
the most widely used means of illustration in England and the United
States. Its adaptability to the printing machine renders it admirably
suited to the production of books in large numbers and at low expense.
Without it we could not have our _Graphics_ and _Illustrated News_, nor
the floods of cheap but splendidly illustrated magazines which are
appearing on both sides of the Atlantic. True, many of these blocks are
due to the "processes" which photography has made available, but they
are nevertheless the outcome of wood engraving. We cannot leave this
subject without mentioning the admirable "Treatise on Wood Engraving,"
by W. A. Chatto, with numerous illustrations, published originally by H.
G. Bohn in 1839 and since reprinted.
[Illustration: Fig. 100.--Wood block from Bewick's "British Birds." The
common duck.]
[Illustration: Fig. 101.--Wood engraving by Clennell, after Stothard,
for Rogers's Poems, 1812.]
In our days the great Paris publishers have returned to the books of the
eighteenth century, ornamented with vignettes on copper; many of them
purely and simply imitate by photographic processes the pretty editions
of Eisen and Moreau, but they do not merit the name which they bear. As
to those whose specialty is handsome books with figures by contemporary
artists, those who always are in the front, as the Mames, Quantins,
Hachettes, Plons, Jouausts, of France; the Longmans, Murrays,
Macmillans, Kegan Pauls, Cassells, and Chattos of England; the Harpers,
Scribners, Lippincotts, and Houghtons of the United States, they are to
us what the ancients of whom we have spoken were to their
contemporaries. Now the processes of illustration are without number:
wood, metal, heliogravure, phototype, and others. And if the mechanical
means, if the heliogravures, have at present the importance claimed,
they by no means add to the intrinsic value of wood engravings, but to
the rapidity and economy of their manufacture. The Book, the true Book,
has nothing to do with all these inventions, and may well confine itself
to the burin or the relief block.
But as regards the Book, properly so called, it never was the object of
more excessive care or of more unfortunate precipitation. It may be
remarked that works least destined to live in the libraries, those
thousands of lame pamphlets on questions of small provincial erudition
or the cap-and-sword romances, are ordinarily the best and most
carefully printed, in opposition to other more important works composed
in heads of nails and on worn-out paper. There are in reading-rooms a
good number of pamphlets that will not be found in fifty years, and will
be worth their weight in banknotes, even if dirty and tattered, on
account of their intrinsic value.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER VII.
TYPES, IMPRESSION, PAPER, INK.
After this summary, and necessarily very compressed, sketch of the
general history of the Book, it will not be without importance to place
some technical information before the reader, to explain as clearly as
possible the function of the presses, the practical side of typography,
from the engraving of the character and the founding of types up to the
binding, taking by the way composition, impression, and collation. Many
of these operations have been already sketched in the preceding part of
our work; we have spoken of engraving of the punch, of impression, of
the thousand details that constitute the typographic art, and the
knowledge of which is so little diffused. We return to it now, with more
method, on the different subjects, and shall try to point out the
principal features.
We have seen in our first chapter what patient researches the discovery
necessitated for the Mayence printers in the founding of the character
in matrix. True, the punch and the matrix had existed from time
immemorial for coins and seals. To engrave in relief a punch of
material hard enough to strike a resisting metal, and to run into the
space obtained by this blow a melted alloy, which took at its extremity
the same form as the punch had given, is, in a few words, the whole
economy of the process. For the engraving of the punches a sort of burin
of tempered steel was used, which scooped out the part intended to
remain white in the letter.
From the beginning the printers themselves engraved their own
characters. The most ancient, whose constant preoccupation was the
imitation of manuscript, copied the Gothic letter of ordinary writing.
Soon afterwards, Jenson, the French refugee at Venice, designed a round
letter, like that of Sweynheim and Pannartz, the Roman publishers, in
1467; and his type, absolutely perfect, is used to this day.
In France the introducers of the invention in Paris also imitated the
Roman, but multiplied abbreviations until they became tedious. We can
imagine what the engraving of a character could be where so few letters
stood alone, where lines abridged the nasals; the words _pro_, _pre_,
figured as in manuscripts; the sign 9 signified _cum_ or _con_ in Latin
or French words, without reckoning a thousand other rigorous usages.
This truly perplexing profusion of signs as well as the want of
precision and clearness in the letter enables us now to recognise the
first Parisian _incunabula_.[A]
[Footnote A: See above, figs. 10, 11, 12.]
The first English printers used Gothic or black letter. Caxton brought
his first fount from Cologne, but that which he made afterwards for
himself was of the same character. Wynkyn de Worde, Pynson, and their
successors used the same style; and for official publications and Bibles
the black letter was used up to the seventeenth century.
[Illustration: Fig. 102.--Type-founder in the middle of the sixteenth
century. Engraving by Jost Amman.]
But the art of the founder-engraver was destined to specialise itself.
There were artisans in this branch, and among them in France, in the
fifteenth century, Simon de Collines, who engraved good Roman characters
about 1480. Later was Claude Garamond, of Paris, who died about 1561, a
pupil of Geoffroy Tory, the most celebrated of all of them; Tory
definitely proscribed the Gothic character, of which Vostre and Verard
had made constant use. Garamond worked in this way, producing with
microscopical precision new letters, among others those of Robert
Estienne, the most marvellous and the most distinct. It was he who was
charged by Francis I. to form the celebrated royal Greek types. He
assisted in getting up the _Champfleury_ of Geoffroy Tory.
On his death William Lebé succeeded him, and inherited his punches. Lebé
engraved by preference Hebrew characters, of which he made a specialty.
His travels to Rome and Venice had given him a singular value in his
art; and when he died about the end of the century, he was incontestably
the first cutter of Oriental characters in the whole world. Philip II.
of Spain had begged him to engrave the letters of the Bible of which
Plantin had undertaken the impression, and Francis I. had charged him to
make types for the Estiennes.
At the commencement of the seventeenth century we find James Sanlecque,
pupil of Lebé, and his son. During this period several women succeeded
their husbands as type-founders. In the eighteenth century Philip
Grandjean, an artist who was royal printer to Louis XIV., was keeper of
the foundry afterwards united, in 1725, to the Royal Printing House;
Fournier succeeded the Lebés, then P. S. Fournier the younger, who
engraved with great success. In our days we have seen above the Didots
themselves working their punches; and one of them, Henri, founded
microscopical characters for a La Rochefoucauld about the middle of the
nineteenth century.
We have referred to English type-founders of the eighteenth century in
Chapter V.
The type, or character used in printing, is a composition of lead and
pure antimony, which, melted, form a resisting and at the same time
supple mixture. Lead alone would be crushed, and the first printers
often suffered in making their experiments. The proportion of the
mixture is four of lead to one of antimony.
The matrix is combined in such manner that the _eye_--that is to say,
the part of the character intended to produce the impression--and also
the shank intended to hold the letter are cast together.
The letters, once founded according to their different forms, are
afterwards disposed in boxes with compartments, or "cases." These cases
serve to classify the character by letters, italics, capitals, lower
case, punctuations, accents, etc.
As we have said, the relation of letters among themselves in the
composition of a language is called the "fount." For example, it is
certain that the Italian employs the letter _a_ more than _b_, the
letter _a_ appearing in nearly every word; a compositor to compose in
this language should therefore have more of _a_ than of _b_. The
relation between these two letters and all the others is the "fount." In
French the proportion of a fount is about 5,000 _a_ for 800 _b_, 3,000
_c_, 3,000 _d_, 11,000 _e_, etc. The fount varies with the languages. In
English the proportion is 8,500 _a_ to 1,600 _b_, 3,000 _c_, 4,400 _d_,
etc.
Before 1789 there were in all twenty different "bodies" of letters that
bore fantastic names. The "Parisienne" was the smallest size, and the
"Grosse Nonpareille" the largest. In the sixteenth century a character
called "Civilité" was invented. It sought to imitate fine cursive
writing. In the last century this idea was reproduced, and the "Bâtarde
Coulée," which did not have great success, was made. In English types,
Joseph Moxon in 1669 had eleven sizes; Caslon in 1734 had thirty-eight.
[Illustration: Specimen of imposition]
When a printer wishes to compose a work, he first decides in which body
he will print it. His choice made, he places in the compositors'
"cases"--that is, in the boxes placed before each one of his
workmen--the chosen character, with its italics, capitals, signs, etc.
Then he gives them the "copy," that is to say the manuscript of the
author to be reproduced. The compositors take a "galley" according to
the size of the book; and, letter by letter, by running their fingers
through the different cases, they place side by side the words
laboriously composed, and necessarily presenting their reverse, so that
they will show their proper face when printed.
The composition terminated, the process of "imposition" takes place.
This is the disposition by pages in an iron chase, in such manner that
the sheet of paper shall be printed on both sides, the pages exactly
following one another.
It will be seen by the specimen on the preceding page that if the two
sheets be brought together, page 2 of II. will fall exactly opposite
page 1 of I, page 7 opposite page 8, and so on. Nothing is easier than
this combination for folio, quarto, or octavo sizes, but as the smaller
sizes are multiplied even to 128mo, tables are necessary to prevent
error.
The imposition is completed by building up the composition in a chase by
means of pieces of metal called "furniture," which regulate the margins.
When the whole is in proper place, it is squeezed up and adjusted by
means of sunk reglets. The chase may now be placed under the press
without fear of the characters falling out or getting mixed.
A pressman takes a "proof" after having rubbed the relief of the
characters with ink, and on this proof are corrected the author's or
compositor's faults by indications in the margin by understood signs. By
this amended proof the compositor amends his faults one by one: leaves
out superfluous characters, puts turned characters straight, spaces or
draws closer the lines, etc.
The corrections finished, the time has come to print. In the time of
Geoffroy Tory this operation was made as we shall explain; it was the
same before and the same after. Two pressmen have tempered with water
the tympan, or more elastic part of the carriage, against which will be
directed in good time the blow from the type; they have also damped the
paper intended for the impression, so that it may retain the greasy ink
with which the characters are charged; then the formes are washed before
putting them under the press.
In the figure which we reproduce, which dates from about 1530, we see
the workshop of Jodocus Badius, of Asch, father-in-law of two celebrated
printers, Vascosan and Robert Estienne. The press rolls--that is to say,
the formes--have been placed in the "carriage," or movable chase, which,
coming forward, receives the sheet of paper and the ink, and returns
under the press to receive the blow of the "bar." In the room, lighted
by two windows, the compositors work. In front one works at the bar,
while his comrade distributes the ink on the "balls." These balls are
leather pads, on which the greasy ink, made of lampblack and oil, is
spread, to more easily rub the forme after each blow. Ordinarily the
inker had two functions: he prepared the ink, distributed it, and kept
his eye on the printed sheets to correct faults, blots, and difference
of tint. Here the workman is simply occupied by the balls. Printed
sheets and prepared paper are on a table by the side of the press. This
press is composed of the rolling chase, the tympan, and the "frisket," a
smaller tympan, which work against one another. The tympan, we have said
above, receives directly the blow. And it was so for nearly four
centuries; the mechanical means of our days have a little changed the
work, but the principle is always the same.
[Illustration: Fig. 103.--Mark of Jodocus Badius of Asch, representing
the interior of a printing office about 1535. Engraving _à la croix de
Lorraine_.]
Towards the end of the sixteenth century, a press cost about a hundred
and twenty-seven crowns, with its diverse utensils, as may be seen in an
unpublished piece analysed by Dr. Giraudet, of Tours, in a very
interesting pamphlet: _Une Association d'Imprimeurs et de Libraires de
Paris Réfugiés à Tours au XVI^e Siècle_. The workshop of Jamet Métayer,
of Tours, cost a rent of eighty-three crowns--about twenty pounds of
current money.
Workmen were then paid by the "day;" and it came to be one of the
expressions then so much used in manual labour, corresponding to the sum
of the least work of a good workman. M. Ladevèze, printer, thought that
the "day" represented the work of about twenty thousand Roman or Cicero
letters employed by a compositor.
With us the "day" of compositors and pressmen is differently calculated.
The latter have to take a certain number of sheets.
The sheet, composition and press work, cost nearly seven crowns, or
nearly two pounds. Jamet Métayer paid twenty crowns for four sheets in
Italics; he demanded three months for the work.
The primitive presses were wooden screw presses, and they so remained
until the beginning of this century, when Lord Stanhope, a celebrated
electrician, author, and politician, perfected them and gave his name to
a new machine. His improvement consisted in that the bar was no longer
fixed to the vice, but to a cylinder outside. A counter-weight brought
back the platen at each blow. Pierre Didot had previously made metal
platens. In 1820 the use of the Stanhope press commenced in France.
England had, besides, taken a preponderating place in typographical
invention. The printer of the _Times_, John Walter, at the beginning of
the nineteenth century, seeking to publish his journal quicker,
associated himself with craftsmen who constructed mechanical presses for
him. The Didots lost no time, and themselves made improvements.
In 1848, the presses of the _Constitutionnel_, thanks to the application
of steam, produced twenty thousand papers an hour. In our time there are
machines that print only on one side, as well as double machines,
printing both sides at once. The rotary machines, with endless paper,
take thirty-five thousand impressions an hour. In the newspaper machines
of Marinoni, the great inventor, the paper is unrolled, printed, cut,
and folded without leaving the machine, and falls into a place from
which it is taken ready for the subscriber. The latest perfection of the
printing press is the Walter press and the rotary machine of R. Hoe and
Co., of New York, extensively used throughout the world. The elaborate
book has little to do with these marvellous processes, although in its
turn it largely benefits by the improvement of the printing machine.
It is apart from our purpose to speak at length on the manufacture of
paper. It is certain that it was well made before the invention of
printing, for most of the accounts of the fifteenth century are written
on linen paper, very resisting and well sized. Later on rags were used
in this manufacture; and here, in a few words, is how paper was made in
the mould, or "hand-made" before the invention of machinery for the
purpose:--
[Illustration: Fig. 104.--Paper-making. Workman engaged on the tub with
the frame of wires. Engraving by Jost Amman.]
The rags, having been thoroughly cleansed, were put into vats, where
they were worked up under a beating press until they were reduced to
pulp. This pulp was thrown into hot water and stirred until the mixture
was uniformly made. Then a mould of fine wire cloth, fixed upon a wooden
frame, and having a "deckle" to determine the size of the sheet, was
taken; in the middle of this frame was disposed, also in brass wire, a
factory mark, intended to appear in white in the sheet of paper, and
called the "water mark." This mould was dipped into the vat of pulp and
drawn out again. After gently shaking it to and fro in a horizontal
position, the fibres of the pulp became so connected as to form one
uniform fabric; and the water escaped through the wires. The deckle was
then removed from the mould, and the sheet of paper turned off upon a
felt, in a pile with many others, a felt intervening between each sheet,
and the whole subjected to great pressure, in order to absorb the
superfluous water. After being dried and pressed without the felts, the
sheets were dipped into a tub of size and again pressed to remove
surplus size. This primitive method of paper-making is represented in
fig. 104, and the same principle is still in use for the production of
hand-made paper. Machinery has effected many improvements and economies
in the production of woven paper.
China and Japan have their special paper manufacture. In Japan the
material employed is the bark of the _morus papifera sativa_.
[Illustration: Balance used by Jenson, at Venice.]
According to their fineness, size, and weight, papers have received
different names, proceeding from the water mark.
Faust at Mayence used paper marked with a bull's head. Jenson at Venice
used a balance of which the form varied. This latter came from a mill
which furnished Vicenza, Perugia, and Rome. Jenson used, besides a
crown, a cardinal's hat.
The bull's head underwent transformations, it had stars and roses, and
was special to Germany, and it may sometimes be found in Italy.
The wires and bridges served to determine the size of a book. Looking at
a folio leaf against the light, the wires will be seen to be
horizontal, and the bridges vertical. In quarto they will be reversed,
the paper having been folded in four instead of in two. The bridges
become horizontal. They return to the vertical in octavo, and so on.
As for ink, it was from the beginning a composition of lampblack and oil
of different quality and nature, mixed with resin to obtain a greater
and quicker dryness. Ink for engravings was more carefully made. For
coloured inks various powders are mixed with the oil and resin, and a
title in red and black has to go through the press twice: once for the
red and once for the black.
From the above it can be understood that illustrations in relief can
easily be introduced into the composition, whether in combination with
text or in separate pages. Another question presents itself: Did the old
printers employ casting, or did they print directly from the wood block
itself? In other words, the block having been cut, did they make with it
a mould into which melted metal could be poured to obtain a more
resistant relief? The fact is difficult to elucidate. It appears to-day
that Simon Vostre, Verard, and others printed relief engravings on
metal, but were they cut directly or obtained by casting, as they are
now? It cannot be determined yet.
CHAPTER VIII.
BOOKBINDING.
The binding of the first printed books--Ancient German
bindings--Binding in the time of Louis XII.--Italian
bindings--Aldus--Maioli--Grolier--Francis I.--Henri II. and Diane
de Poitiers--Catherine de Medicis--Henri III.--The Eves--The
"fanfares"--Louis XIII.--Le Gascon--Florimond Badier--Louis
XIV.--Morocco leathers--Cramoisy--The bindings of the time of Louis
XIV.--The regency--Pasdeloup--The
Deromes--Dubuisson--Thouvenin--Lesné--The nineteenth
century--English binders--Roger Payne--Francis Bedford.
Leading the reader now towards the final perfection of the Book:
printing, which had stirred up and reversed so many things, created, so
to speak, the art of binding. Previously the binder was simply a workman
sewing together the leaves of a manuscript, with no science or device
but to clasp the whole together solidly with cord and string. As luxury
increased the old binder was no longer thought of. On the wooden boards
which closed the Book, jewellers encrusted their wares, lavishing ivory
and precious stones to the taste of the amateur or the bookseller.
Generally these works covered books of precious miniatures, the
_Horoe_, or manuscripts that were deemed worthy of such magnificent
clothing, rarely copies without importance. Printing at once disordered
the tribe of copyists as well as the binders did jewellers. The demand
increasing, rich bindings were soon abandoned, and each bookseller
applied himself to the work, or at least covered in his own house books
intended for sale. The fashion was not then to expose for sale, as now,
unbound books. Purchasers wanted an article easy to handle, and which
they were not obliged to return for ulterior embellishment.
So to the public were presented the works laboriously composed by
Gutenberg, Schoeffer, and Fust, somewhat after the manner of
manuscripts, which they pretended to imitate, with their solid wooden
boards covered with pig or calfskin. At the four corners, copper nails,
with large heads, prevented rubbing against the shelves of the bookcase,
for at that time books were ranged on their sides, and not as they are
to-day. We must return to the bibliomaniac of the "Ship of Fools" to get
an idea of these depositories; before him may be seen ranged on a desk
large folios, with nails on their sides, in the shelves, so defying the
dust, in place of being placed upright on their edges, which rendered
them liable to spots and stains. (See fig. 23.)
Unhappily the wooden sides had in themselves a germ of destruction, the
worm, capable first of reducing the sides to powder and then ravaging
the body of the work, the ligatures and cords. Certain preparations
destroy the insect, but the precaution often has no effect, and it is
thus that the disappearance of volumes formerly so abundant, but almost
impossible to find now, may be explained.
[Illustration: Fig. 105.--Bookbinder's shop in the sixteenth century.
Engraving by Jost Amman.]
From the beginning the operations of the binder were what they still
are, except for improvements. They consist in the collation of the
sheets of a book, folding them, beating them to bring them together and
give them cohesion, and sewing them, first together, then on the cords
or strings, which form the five or six bands seen on the backs.
Primitively these cords were united to the wooden boards, and over both
was placed a resistant skin, on which from relief or metal engravings
were struck the most pleasing decorative subjects. Pigskin, white and
fine, lent itself, especially among the Germans, to these fine
editions; and although they were issued in great number, the wooden
boards have not permitted them all to exist in our time.
The most ancient that we are able to cite are German works of the time
of Louis XI.; they are very strong and coarse. The cords in them form an
enormous and massive projection. The inside of the board was often
without lining of paper or stuff. In the case of fine editions a sombre
velvet was sometimes used, such as Verard used to bind the books of the
father of Francis I., as we have before said.
Art did not enter into these works of preservation until about the end
of the fifteenth century, with arms and emblems. At the beginning of the
sixteenth century, some bindings were ornamented for Louis XII. and the
Queen, Anne de Bretagne; but not more than five or six specimens remain.
They are of coarse aspect. The workman who tooled the binding here
reproduced from the curious example of M. Dutuit, of Rouen, has thrown
his subjects one upon another. Arms, porcupines, ermines, are treated so
as to be confusing, and form a medley that is not pleasing. In recalling
the delightful borders of Vostre and Pigouchet, contemporaries of this
mediocre work, it is astonishing to see the degree of inferiority
reached by a profession that should be inspired by graceful subjects of
decoration.
[Illustration: Fig. 106.--Binding for Louis XII. Collection of M.
Dutuit, of Rouen.]
It happened that France again found in Italy masters capable of
revealing secrets of composition and arrangement to enable her to strike
out a new road. The Italian wars would not have had these artistic
results if it had not been for the enormous sums that they swallowed up.
The curious part of the enterprise was that a war treasurer, a
financier, employed by the French kings in these expeditions, through
his relations of taste and friendship with the Alduses of Venice,
brought to France the love of sumptuous bindings, of editions superbly
clothed. He was named Jean Grolier, that bibliophile of the sixteenth
century, who was, above all others, even King Francis, the first to
appreciate the art of binding. It is not too much to say art, for if
better had not been done before, it may safely be said that nothing
better has been done since; and the books of Grolier remain as the most
perfect and most admirable types of this kind of decoration.
Born of an Italian family established at Lyons, where most of his
relatives did a great business, Jean Grolier had the good fortune to
succeed his father, Stephen Grolier, treasurer of the Duke of Milan. He
became in his turn Minister of Finances, and was called to accompany the
kings in their expeditions in Italy. The situation of the treasurers
during these campaigns was important; they handled the pence levied with
great trouble in the cities of France "for making war." Many abused
their trust, and were punished, and among others the Lallemants, whom
documents show us to have been in connection with Grolier, and who
suffered, with Semblançay, the most terrible trials of the time.
Italian art gave then a free course in the decoration of books. Of the
interior we have spoken in our first chapters on the wood engravings;
for the exterior, the cover of the volume, foliage, golden flowers
worked with a hot iron, and polychromatic compartments obtained by
coloured pastes were multiplied. Thus was produced on the outside that
which it was not sought to obtain on the inside, the variation of tints
so select among the Italians, and so forsaken since the invention of
printing. In the midst of these literary men was a lover of books and
fine connoisseur who, not content with choosing the best editions, such
as those of Ferrara, Venice, and Basle, bound them superbly, with
compartments of admirable tone, and had his name and device inscribed on
the sides in the fashion of the time. He was named Thomas Maioli, and
following the custom of the amateurs of the time, he offered the
enjoyment of his library to his friends. "Tho. Maioli et amicorum," he
inscribed, as did later Grolier, as also did others, but he somewhat
modified the enthusiasm of his friendship by a sceptical device,
"Ingratis servire nephas," which might very well be the cry of the owner
of books betrayed by his borrowers.
Maioli did not alone use these devices; he had also a macaronic phrase
of which the sense is not very clear: "Inimici mei mea michi, non me
michi." He also sometimes used his monogram, which was composed of all
the letters of his name.
The relations of Grolier with this unknown and mysterious bibliophile,
whose name is not always found outside his volumes, are not doubtful.
Brunet possessed a volume that had belonged to Maioli and had passed
through the hands of Grolier. What better proof could be wished of the
communion of ideas and tastes between the two collectors?
But these amateurs were not alone. Beside them were princes and great
lords, lay and ecclesiastic. From the commencement of the sixteenth
century bookbinding had received an enormous impulse from the tastes and
the predilections for these lofty fancies. And it cannot be ascribed to
the simple skill of the workmen experimenting in that line. In the
century that saw Italian artists occupied in making designs for mounted
plates and painting beautiful ladies, the courtesans of Venice could not
be alarmed at finding them painting models for bindings, with
compartments of varied tone and style. Maioli affected white on a dark
background, that is to say on a background of dark leather. He made
scrolls of foliage in white or clear paste with a very happy effect.
This was the time when Grolier travelled in Italy, in the suite of the
French, and when he began his collections. He had adopted as his
heraldic emblem the gooseberry bush, which in French came very near to
his name--_groseillier_; and his motto was "Nec herba nec arbor"
("Neither tree nor herb"), explicative of the moderation of his wealth.
He was soon in connection with the Alduses, and through them with the
principal learned men and binders of the time, for it was not in the
offices of the Manutiuses that could be found workmen, like those of the
Chamber of Accounts in France, obliged to swear that they did not know
how to read. The master was not hindered by details of difference of
language, and it followed that his workmen understood Greek and Latin,
for he often gave them instruction in those languages. How far off these
erudite and conscientious workmen appear to-day!
Following the fashion, Grolier put his name on the upper side of his
books--"Jo. Grolierii et amicorum"--in gold letters, and on the other
side a pious motto, the sense of which was a hope often uttered by the
financiers of the sixteenth century, imprisoned and hung every instant:
"Portio mea, Domine, sit in terra viventium." Generally all the Grolier
books which came from the Alduses have the name on the upper side and
the motto on the other side; the title was placed above the name, and
often disposed in rows. Some large volumes had the cover ornamented with
an architectural design, like the Jamblichus of the Libri collection,
which had on the front the façade of a temple, with the title in rows on
the door. This volume was printed by Aldus in 1516, and probably
decorated by him for the account of the great French amateur.
Jean Grolier is said to have himself designed some of the subjects of
his ornaments, and their perfection indicates an active and enlightened
supervision. On his return to France, where he had a house near the
Porte de Bucy, he was put in relation with Geoffroy Tory, the artist
best fitted to understand him, and who was at once painter, engraver,
printer, and binder. It was there that, in the leisure of his financial
functions, between two projects of revictualling the forts of Outre
Seine and Yonne, Grolier invented combinations, sought interlacings, and
laid out foliage. Tory himself teaches us these works in combination. He
invented antique letters for Grolier, he tells us in his _Champfleury_.
It was for him, too, that he interwove so finely his compartments for
binding, and that he reproduced the delightful ornaments of his books of
hours in golden scrolls.
As we have said, Grolier placed his titles on the sides of his books on
account of the arrangement of the works on the shelves of the library
where they were laid. For this reason also the back was neglected, and
no ornament used upon it; thick and heavy with its projecting bands,
without decoration between the bands, this part of the bound volume was
a kind of waste in a splendidly cultivated garden. The profusion of
books brought about a revolution. There was no longer room to place on
their sides the innumerable books that were produced; they were then
placed on their edges, as now, and the back also was decorated. For this
the bands were made to disappear, and replaced by decorative subjects in
compartments like the sides. Then with Grolier the bands reappeared, and
the title was placed between them, as it still is.
The books of Grolier have been divided, according to their production,
in four or five principal classes, in which they may always be placed.
First were the works ornamented in compartments, gilt, with scrolls in
full gold; then the same with the scrolls _azurés_, that is to say
equally gilt, but having parallel lines like the _azure_ of heraldry.
Following comes the school of Geoffroy Tory, with gilt compartments in
the style of the great French decorator; last the polychromatic
bindings, in which, by the aid of colour or mastic, the alternating
tones are mixed. Grolier also had some mosaic bindings, composed of
little pieces of leather connected by incrustation or paste, pure
Italian bindings; but these were not numerous, especially if compared
with those conceived in the manner of Geoffroy Tory.
One of these latter works is here reproduced from one of the beautiful
books in the collection of M. Dutuit. This copy has the back flat, and
the interlacings of the decoration are most complicated and clever.
[Illustration: Fig. 107.--Binding for Grolier in the collection of M.
Dutuit.]
Grolier got his Levant moroccos through the dealers of Venice, to make
sure of the material he employed.
Born in 1479, the Treasurer-general of Outre Seine lived until 1565. In
1563 an original manuscript shows him much occupied with finance at over
eighty-four years of age; but his passion for bindings had cooled down,
for few books signed with his name are found the manufacture of which
could descend to the son of Henri II. After great trials, after having
seen Semblançay suffer at Montfaucon, John Lallemand beheaded, and
himself having come nearly to losing life and fortune at one blow,
Grolier passed away quietly in his house, having collected most of the
fine books of the time and many curious medals. Christopher de Thou, his
friend and _confrère_ in the love of books, had saved his reputation
before the Parliament of Paris. After his death his library was
transported to the Hotel de Vic, and from there dispersed in 1675, a
hundred years after.
Thus from Italian art came French binding, still remaining original. The
kings did not fail to follow the movement, and even to anticipate it,
thanks to the means at their disposal. We have seen Francis I. at work
with the energy of an artisan at least; but Geoffroy Tory was his
principal inspirer, and who knows but that he was the chief operative
for the prince, as for the great financier?
[Illustration: Fig. 108.--Binding for Francis I., with the arms of
France and the salamander.]
[Illustration: Fig. 109.--Mark of Guyot Marchant, printer and
bookbinder. He published the _Danse Macabre_ of 1485.]
We have said that Louis XII. knew nothing of fine bindings. During his
travels in Italy he had received presentation copies of magnificently
covered books, and among others that of _Faustus Andrelinus_, that was
bound in calf in honour of the King. He, who was so little expert in
fine arts, purchased the entire library of the Sire de la Gruthuse,
and substituted his own emblems for those of the high and mighty lord.
Francis I., with innate sentiment for masterpieces and the powerful
protection he had given them, did not allow the experiments of Grolier
to pass unnoticed. The King did not desire to be behind the treasurer,
and the workmen were put to the task. He adopted the salamander, which
emblem he used on his castles and furniture and the liveries of his
people; he lavished it also on the sides of his books. On the side the
"F" is often seen crowned, then the emblem of France and the collar of
St. Michael. In the binding of which a facsimile is here given, Geoffroy
Tory has singularly inspired the gilder, if he did not himself make the
design. For it must not be thought that this work is done at a single
blow by means of an engraved plate or a block. On the contrary, every
line is impressed by the hot tool that the workman applies by hand to
the gold laid on in advance, making it, so to speak, enter into the skin
or morocco. There is the art; blocks serve only for commercial bindings,
quickly impressed and intended for ordinary purchasers.
[Illustration: Fig. 110.--Binding for Henri II., with the "H" and
crescents.]
Under the reign of Francis I. the binders were the booksellers, as
Verard and Vostre were. The King was ordinarily served by a publisher
named Pierre Roffet, and he frequently figures in accounts that have
been preserved. Roffet not only bound, but it appears that he rebound
books to patterns which the King desired. Philip Lenoir and Guyot
Marchant were also royal workmen. The latter, whose mark is here
reproduced, frequently added to it the saints Crispin and Crispinian,
patrons of the leather-dressers, who prepared the leather for the
binder.
[Illustration: Fig. 111.--Binding for Henri II. (Mazarine Library)]
The discoveries of Grolier did not allow the binders much time to be
idle. Thousands of volumes were then destroyed to make the boards for
sides. From this many discoveries are made in our days by pulling to
pieces sixteenth century work, unknown playing cards, and early printed
works. To mention only one example, twenty leaves of the "Perspective"
of Viator were discovered in the National Library of Paris. The board
thus formed was covered indifferently with sheepskin, parchment, calf,
morocco, or goatskin; the books were sewn on raised or sunk bands,
according to the owner's taste; the edges were gilt, sometimes
gauffered, and designs often impressed upon them to match those of the
sides. In large folios wooden boards were still used, more solid, and
protected from rubbing by nails in relief. But the inside of the cover
was as yet only covered with paper. Leather linings were very uncommon.
The reign of Henri II. increased yet more the importance of bindings; it
was the time when Grolier collected, and clever artists came from all
parts. Geoffroy Tory had given the best models for letters and
interlacings. The Queen, Catherine, derived from her parents the taste
for decoration in gold and colours, and patronised the artists called by
her from the court of Florence; and the favourite, Diane de Poitiers,
Duchess of Valentinois, rivalled her in luxury and expenditure. Henri
II. in the decoration of his castles, as well as his books, introduced
equivocal emblems, of which the signification may be doubtful, but those
of his mistress may be recognised, not those of the legitimate Queen. He
interlaced two reversed "D's" by an "H," in the form shown in the border
on the preceding page. Strictly speaking, we ought to see there two
"C's" back to back; but as we find the "D" on all the bindings
displaying the arms of Diana, there can be no doubt, and Queen Catherine
doubted less than anybody. Other emblems of Diana are to be found in the
arcs and crescents that are plentifully displayed. The library of Diana
was large, owing to the King not hesitating to take valuable books from
the public collections for her. Two centuries after her death it was
dispersed, and the greater part of the books belonging to the national
collections were restored on the deaths of those who then purchased
them. Hence the largest number of the bindings of Henri II. and Diana of
Poitiers will be found in the National Library of Paris.
[Illustration: Fig. 112.--Italian binding for Catherine de Medicis, with
the initials "C. C."]
Queen Catherine also had special patterns with a monogram identical with
the double "D" mentioned above, but the branches of the "C" were a
little longer than the branches of the "H;" she also used a "K" on the
sides of her books. The specimen which we reproduce is a purely Italian
work.
From kings and queens the fashion passed to the great lords, it having
come to the kings and queens from a private individual. The Constable
Anne de Montmorency adorned his bindings with a cross and spread
eagle. Among the amateurs of binding of the sixteenth, seventeenth,
and eighteenth centuries using distinctive marks, we may mention
Philip Desportes, the poet, who used two [phi] enlaced, as did also
Superintendent Fouquet in the seventeenth century. The brothers Dupuy
adopted the double [delta], arranged as a star. Colbert had a curled
snake (_coluber_ for Colbert!), the Gondis two masses of arms, Madame
de Pompadour three towers, etc. Fouquet beside the [phi] used a
squirrel on some of his bindings.
[Illustration: Fig. 113.--Binding with the arms of Mansfeldt, with
_azure_ scroll work, from the Didot collection.]
In Germany, Count Mansfeldt adopted the ornamental style with arms, of
which a specimen is here given; and Marc Laurin de Watervliet also
decorated and dedicated his books to his friends, using the motto
"Virtus in arduo." Among the lords of the French courts who favoured
polychromatic ornament and bold compositions were the young Valois,
Louis de Sainte Maure, Marquis of Nesle, and Henri de Guise, called
"Le balafré." Charles IX. had his emblems and devices, the double "C"
crowned the legend "Pietate et justitia," but his brother, Henri III.,
loved the decoration of books more than he did. The passion of the King
for miniatures which he cut out of books is known; this passion for
golden things he repeated on bindings, for which he chose special
designs. Henri III. was an amateur of dances of death; he visited
cemeteries, attended funerals, and took a death's-head for his emblem.
This emblem was not his invention; long before him Marot had addressed
an epigram to a lady in which he brought love and death into close
conjunction. However that may be, the King chose skeletons and
penitents' tears to ornament his books. He also tolerated diamonds,
although he absolutely prohibited them in the clothing of ladies or
fixed the number _pro rata_ with the rank of the authorised person.
There was in this prince a singular mixture of taste and artistic
acuteness by the side of a mania or hallucination which was reflected on
the most intimate objects of his apparel or of his furniture. Thus if we
find, at the end of the sixteenth century, a death's-head on the sides
or the back of a volume, the binding is of the period of Henri III.
The binders of his time are known by the mention that is made of them in
the royal accounts; the Eves were the most celebrated among all of them.
Nicholas Eve was charged with the binding of the Statutes of the Order
of St. Esprit, with which the King gratified his friends. Mention of
this work is found in the Clairambault manuscripts, where we read, "To
Nicholas Eve, washer and binder of books and bookseller to the King,
forty-seven and a half escus for washing, gilding, and squaring the
edges of forty-two books of statutes and ordinances of the Order, bound
and covered with orange Levant morocco, enriched on one side with the
arms of the King, fully gilt, and on the other of France and Poland,
with monograms at the four corners, and the rest flames, with orange and
blue ribbons," etc.
[Illustration: Fig. 114.--Sixteenth century binding, called _à la
fanfare_. In the Dutuit collection.]
Louise de Lorraine, wife of Henri III., counted for little in the life
of her husband; nevertheless she had a certain number of books decorated
with their united escutcheons.
The bindings attributed to Eve were decorated all over the sides and
back with interlacing patterns of geometrical character, the spaces
between the parallel lines and in the middle of the figures left at
first quite blank, but afterwards filled in with palm branches and
wreaths of foliage; to these delicate and elaborate yet brilliant
toolings have been given the name of bindings _à la fanfare_. This
designation requires explanation, and is a good example of the grotesque
style adopted by modern amateurs in their appellations.
[Illustration: Fig. 115.--Le Gascon binding.]
The fine work of that time prepared for the coming in the seventeenth
century--about 1620--of the works of Le Gascon, or at least for the
artist with whom in our days are connected the works of the reign of
Louis XIII. Under Henri IV. the fleur-de-lys occupied most of the covers
of the royal books, from vellum to Levant morocco; works in this class
had nothing very remarkable. The first years of Louis XIII. revealed a
new process, inspired by the Eves. Le Gascon embroidered delightfully on
the fanfare ornaments; showing the fibres of the leaves, he made a new
kind of ornament, consisting of minute gold dots elaborated into lines
and curves of singular brilliancy and elegance. Of this style, called
_pointillé_, we give a specimen from the collection of M. Dutuit. The
fashion had arrived all at once; lace, banished from clothing by severe
edicts, found a refuge on the covering of books.
The times were hard then for binders; they were constrained to live in
the university and to employ only its workmen. A binder was never his
own gilder; he employed the _gaufreurs_ of shoe-leather, more expert and
bolder, to gild his leather. Among these artisans was one named
Pigorreau, whom the edict found living in the midst of publishers and
working for them; he was compelled to choose either to remain bootmaker
or become bookseller; he chose the latter, against the syndics of the
trade, against every one, and he made enemies for himself. He revenged
himself by turning the masters into ridicule in a placard.
[Illustration: Fig. 116.--Le Gascon binding for Cardinal Mazarin.]
Le Gascon was probably the assumed name of an artist in this style. The
_Guirlande de Julie_, worked by him for Mademoiselle de Rambouillet,
gave him great honour in the special circle of this little literary
court. It was the fashion then for poor authors to put a fine covering
on their works and to offer them to the great for their own profit.
Tallement des Reaux notably signalises the poet Laserre, who displayed
his luxury in irreproachable bindings. And then the farmers of the
revenue, successors of Grolier in financial trusts, formed libraries for
pure fashion, never opening the volumes covered for them in sumptuous
attire. If we may believe Sauval, author of the _Antiquités de Paris_,
they went further, and on covers without books inscribed imaginary
titles and fantastic squibs to mislead their visitors. The bookcase
being carefully closed, it was difficult to discover the imposition.
Sauval writes, "In place of books, they are content with covers of
Levant morocco, on the backs of which, in gold letters, are inscribed
the names of the most celebrated authors. A binder of the university
assured me that not long since he and his _confrères_ had made them for
a single financier to the amount of 10,000 crowns!"
The works of Le Gascon will be found more among great personages than
with the so-called collectors, which gives value to their grace and
charm. The King's brother Gaston possessed them, then Mazarin, an
example from whose library is here reproduced. On this binding Le Gascon
worked gilt compartments and elaborate arabesques; in the middle of the
sides are the arms of the Cardinal and his pretentious device: "Arma
Julii ornant Franciam!"--"The arms of Jules the ornament of France!" In
spite of the profusion of subjects, nothing could better please the eye
or indicate a man of taste.
But if Le Gascon be a legendary personage, he had an imitator or rival,
very near to him, named Florimond Badier, whose works had at least the
advantage of being signed. At the bottom of the inside cover of an
inlaid morocco binding in the National Library at Paris is the
inscription "Florimond Badier fec., inv." The analogy between this work
and those known as Le Gascon's is palpable; inside and outside, the
cover is stippled with small tools (_au petit fer_) in the same manner.
Florimond Badier was not appointed bookseller until 1645, and so could
not have composed earlier bindings attributed to Le Gascon, but this
resemblance of style evidences the existence of a Parisian school, the
adepts of which copied one another, as they do nowadays.
The work was soon simplified; pallets and wheel-shaped tools were
invented to produce that which was improperly called _dentelle_; this
mechanical work was done by a wheel-shaped tool, previously heated, on
gold in sized leaves, on which it impressed its projections.
With Louis XIV. the passion for gilding increased. Charming festoons
were designed, but they were soon abused, and inundated the libraries.
On the sides were seen rising suns, arms, and golden garlands. Cramoisy
directed the royal bindings, the King having devoted large sums to the
purchase of Levant leathers. In 1666 the Director of Works ordered red
moroccos; in 1667 he received twenty-two dozen skins, amounting, with
the expenses of transport, to 1,020 livres tournois. Successive supplies
were made, and were used for the royal library, sixty-nine dozen in
1667, forty-six dozen in 1668, and three hundred and thirty-three dozen
in 1670, costing the King more than 12,000 livres. On these admirably
dressed skins, which, in spite of incessant use, still remain now as in
their first days, the King caused to be applied, according to the size,
tools of borders, having in the middle the arms of France, with the
collar of St. Esprit.
Among the binders mentioned in the very useful work of M. J. J. Guiffrey
on the expenditure of Louis XIV., we find Gilles Dubois, who died before
1670; Levasseur, binder of Huet, Bishop of Avranches; La Tour, Mérins or
Mérius, who died before 1676; and also Ruette, the reputed inventor of
marbled paper for fly-leaves of books: to him the bindings of the
Chancellor de Séguier, with their ornament of the golden fleece, and of
Madame de Séguier, are attributed. It was probably these men who
decorated the books of the brothers Dupuy, Fouquet, and Colbert,
marvellous works of solidity, if not always of elegance, which have
resisted all assaults. Unhappily, in many instances the mechanical
_dentelle_ overburdened the work, and gave it a commonplace regularity.
In the Condé, Colbert, and perhaps even Madame de Longueville's
collections, there are many specimens of this kind with two or three
filleted borders.
We have come to an epoch when the difficulties resulting from confusion
between the booksellers' and binders' trades began to be understood. The
revocation of the Edict of Nantes had implicitly prepared a crowd of
measures and rules in all branches of national industry. It was a good
occasion to prevent the artisans of binding unduly parading themselves
as booksellers and selling merchandise of which they understood nothing;
Louis XIV. interfered, and separated the two communities. The binders
then became the _relieurs-doreurs_ of books; they had their own
organisation, but remained subject to the university; the heads of the
fraternity were called the "guards." The principal arrangements of the
regulation of 1749 were: the members of the corporation had the sole
right to bind books, from the elegant volume to registers of blank
paper. Five years of apprenticeship and three of companionship were
necessary to obtain the brevet of freedom and to hold a shop. Moreover,
it was indispensable to read and write. One regulation ordained that
the workman should be "able to bind and ornament ordinary books or
others, to render them perfect and entire, to sew the sheets at most two
together with thread and real bands, with joints of parchment, and not
paper, and in case of infraction the said books were to be remade at the
expense of the offender, who was besides condemned to a penalty of
thirty livres for each volume." Their establishment was confined to the
quarter from the Rue St. André des Arts to the Place Maubert; they
regulated the sale of calfskin and of tools; in a word, they were
surrounded by precautions by which the production remained always under
the supervision of the masters and completely satisfied the client. This
calculating policy was, in fact, a close imitation of the royal
ordinance of 1686.
[Illustration: Fig. 117.--Mosaic binding of the eighteenth century for
the _Spaccio de la Bestia Trionfante_.]
The mosaic bindings used from the end of the reign of Louis XIV. were an
application of pared leathers of colours different from the background,
pasted on to the side. The binders of the regency composed a great
number, attributed now to Pasdeloup, as all the crayons of the sixteenth
century are called Clouets, and all the panels on wood Holbeins. It is
not that there was great originality in these works, or a particular
art; more often the workman did no more than transcribe Le Gascon or Eve
or the older binders, and accommodated the processes of these artists to
the fashion of his time. In this style we may cite the _Spaccio de la
Bestia Trionfante_, printed at Paris 1584, for which the binder designed
a cover of doubtful taste and, above all, an undeniable want of
proportion. The tendency was then to flowers occupying three-fourths
of the page, to compartments too large, to open pomegranates, like the
_Spaccio_ here reproduced. If Pasdeloup had discovered these mediocre
combinations, he could not be proclaimed the regenerator of a fallen
art. The bastard style of these works may be compared to their mosaics,
constructed of pieces; it is a little of everything, and together it is
nothing. However, in the midst of the quantity of mediocre things, some
pleasing decoration is from time to time met with; the design of a
volume with the arms of the Regent and his wife, Mademoiselle de Blois,
wants neither elegance nor taste; without being perfection, it has
better proportion and balance.
[Illustration: Fig. 118.--Mosaic binding of the eighteenth century, with
the arms of the Regent. M. Morgand's collection.]
We should, however, hesitate to give names to all these works. Besides
Pasdeloup, there were the Deromes, abandoning a little the mosaics,
devising flowers and _dentelles_ in combination, and no longer the
simple products of the fillet. They formed a dynasty; and if the
Pasdeloups were at least twelve, there were fourteen Deromes all
booksellers and binders from the reign of Louis XIV. The most celebrated
was James Anthony, who died in 1761.
Peter Paul Dubuisson was not only a binder; he was a designer. He
invented heraldic ornaments, and composed models of gilding tools, in
which his contemporaries emulated him. He was intimate with the delicate
vignettist Eisen, and the counsels of an artist of this value could not
but be useful to him. It is an extraordinary thing that in this world of
celebrated printers, amateur financiers, and notable painters and
engravers, not a single man can be met to give a real impulse to the
art of which we speak, and to prevent the dull continuance of
experiments on the whole so poor. Doubtless the _dentelles_ of Derome
had a certain air of gaiety, to which the books of the eighteenth
century accommodated themselves perfectly; the tools of Dubuisson
produce most pleasing designs; but the old, the great binders, had
altogether disappeared.
Besides, Derome massacred without pity the rarest works. He loved edges
very regularly cut, and he did not fail to hew down margins opposed to
his taste. He sawed books as well; that is to say, in place of sewing
the sheets on to projecting bands, he made a groove in the back, in
which the cord was embedded. The books have no resistance.
To these celebrated names of French binders of the eighteenth century we
may add Le Monnier, who worked for the Orleans princes; Tessier, his
successor; Laferté, who decorated the small volumes of the Duc de la
Vallière as Chamot covered the large ones; in 1766 Chamot was royal
binder. There was also Pierre Engerrand, then Biziaux, an original, who
worked for Madame de Pompadour and Beaumarchais. Boyet, or Boyer, worked
(1670-80) in the style of Le Gascon, with the same minute tooling, but
simpler in character. Duseuil put very elaborate and delicate tooling on
his covers from about 1710 to 1720.
The Revolution effaced many of the fine works which displayed the
symbols "of a royalty justly detested," and Mercier wrote certain wicked
little poems against binding. Lesné was the poet of bookbinding, and he
invented the process of plain calf without boards. Certainly from
Grolier to Lesné there were numerous changes, so numerous that, in
spite of the nude calf, it may be said that the art was nearly dead. In
our days it has a little recovered. Amateurs have found new names, and
often artists, to patronise: Trautz-Bauzonnet, Capé, Duru, Lortic,
Marius Michel, in France; Bedford, Rivière, Zaehnsdorf, Pratt, in
England; Matthews, Bradstreet, Smith, in the United States; and many
others. Unhappily, fortune does not permit every one to furnish his
library luxuriously; the true connoisseur searches rather for Groliers,
Eves, and Le Gascons, than concerns himself about modern workmanship.
Whatever may be its value, it is only fit to clothe the works of the
time. A book published by Lemerre and bound by Petit is in true
character, but a fifteenth or sixteenth century book passed under the
hands of Trautz-Bauzonnet himself will be very much like an ancient
enamel in a modern frame newly gilt.
Bookbinding in England has, with very few exceptions, never attained the
artistic excellence reached in France. From the earliest times to the
present day servile imitations of foreign work only are seen. The one
purely original English binder is Roger Payne, who from about 1770
worked for thirty or forty years in London, performing with his own
hands every stage of the work, even to cutting his own tools. The result
was good, solid work, with perfectly original and often very beautiful
decoration, appropriate to the character of the work itself. His
favourite style was drooping lines of leaf ornaments in the borders and
geometrical patterns in small tools. After him came Charles Lewis, who
was an artist in the true sense of the word, and, coming down to our own
time, Francis Bedford, who, never pretending to originality, copied the
best designs of the old French and Italian binders. His full calf books,
with handsomely tooled backs, are models of solidity and taste; and his
decorations on the sides of morocco-bound books are always in good
taste, and often of great elegance. The binders of the present day,
perhaps for lack of patronage, seem to have abandoned originality; and
although much excellent work is done, it is no more than a copy of the
Eves, Le Gascon, Derome, and the older artists.
Parallel with the luxurious bindings with which we have been exclusively
occupied, there has always been the commercial work, prepared in
advance. Liturgical works, above all, are sold in this form. Books in
the Grolier style or other grand personages were worked from a pattern
engraved in relief, leaving nothing to the caprice of the artist, by
being applied to the side by a press. This process is termed blocking.
Germany made use of this process principally; also Vostre, Verard, and
Tory employed the same means. Even the interlacings and the capricious
arabesques of Grolier were imitated by means of a fixed plate, parts of
which were finished by hand to make it appear a complete work of
imagination and handicraft.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER IX.
LIBRARIES.
Art, science, and literature took refuge in convents before the
invention of Printing, and libraries did not count many books. According
to daily wants, the monastery scribes copied the treatises lent by
neighbouring houses, and the collection was thus painfully made during
many centuries. Two or three hundred works constituted ordinary
collections; the powerful abbeys found in their staff the means of
enriching their libraries, as we have said, but they were the privileged
ones.
Excepting kings and some princes, few people possessed a library. The
great expense of transcription, the want of facility for procuring
originals, and the enormous price of manuscripts left no hope to
bibliophiles of moderate fortune. Typography, on the contrary, having
multiplied books and put at relatively modest prices reproductions
formerly inaccessible, private collections commenced. We have had
occasion to speak before of Grolier and Maioli; they were the most
illustrious, but not the only ones.
At first a public library was an unknown thing. The richest and the most
easily got together, that of the King of France, was private. Since
John the Good in France the acquisitions were numerous, and Gutenberg's
invention contributed to augment the stock of volumes everywhere.
Charles VIII. and Louis XII. found or took in their expeditions in
Italy, and were able to add to the original nucleus, many rare editions,
especially from the Sforzas at Pavia, who had marvels without number.
Brought together at Blois, under the care of John de Labarre, the royal
library did not yet occupy a very large space, in spite of its increase.
Under Charles V. the number of books was about a thousand; about 1500 or
1510 they were nearly doubled, and the printed books did not number more
than two hundred.
So restricted, the royal library travelled with the other treasures of
the Crown; Francis I. transported it from Blois to Fontainebleau, and
even parts of it to the Italian wars, as related above. In its new
quarters the royal collection, in spite of the successive accessions of
the books of John d'Angoulême, grandfather of the King, and of those of
the dukes of Orleans, counted but 1,781 manuscripts and a hundred and
nine printed books on the shelves. The King, ambitious in literature no
less than in arts, nominated an illustrious _savant_, Guillaume Budé, to
the office of master of his library; and this qualification was
maintained by his successors until the fall of the royal power.
With Budé commenced the system of continuous acquisitions. The treasury
was liberally opened to vendors of rarities. At this time the books,
placed upon their sides, one upon another, gave no idea of a modern
library, with its volumes ranged on end, having their titles between
the bands of the back. In speaking of Grolier, we remarked that the
sides of a binding alone had importance on account of their place on the
shelves; it was the same with Francis I.
Under Henri II. the Fontainebleau collection was somewhat pillaged for
Diana of Poitiers, but, as a corrective for this dilapidation, the King
adopted a measure, since preserved, which substituted for acquisitions a
regular and uninterrupted supply; this was the contribution by
publishers to the library of one bound copy on vellum of all the works
printed under privilege. The ordinance was made in 1556; the successors
of Henri II. had only this means of increasing the number of their
volumes, with the exception that Charles IX. expended a large sum in the
purchase of Grolier's collection of medals.
Such was the working of the royal library for about a half-century, but
the idea of making it public had not come. Diffused as was then the
passion for books, it had not yet been democratised to the point of
being understood by the people. Amateurs and lovers of reading formed
special collections in their houses, at times rivalling that of the
King. Then the fashion was no more to lay the books on their sides, but
they were now ranged to allow room for new acquisitions. Henri IV., who
had not his great-uncle's predilection for Fontainebleau, commanded the
removal to Paris of the books buried in the castle. He added to them
those of Catherine de Medicis coming from Marshal Strozzi; and as the
college of Clermont had become vacant by the dispersion of the Jesuits,
he lodged the library in 1599 in one of the rooms of that
establishment, under the care of James Augustus de Thou, master of the
library.
We now see the royal collection brought to Paris, which it has never
quitted; but before its definitive installation, before it was made
public, it passed through a century, during which additions were made,
purchases increased, and the number of manuscripts and printed books
augmented in enormous proportions. Henri IV. desired to place it near
the court, to avoid pillage and to have the chief librarian near to him.
The return of the Jesuits in 1604 upset the first establishment a
little; the college of Clermont was evacuated; the books were
transported to the Cordeliers and distributed in rooms on the ground and
first floors, whence the names of upper and lower libraries. There was a
mass of volumes very little used, for the public did not enjoy them, and
the King held them as his own; but the time was near when the collection
was to take a very serious step under the influence of the brothers
Dupuy in 1645, and afterwards of Jerome Bignon. Always shut up in the
incommodious chambers of the Cordeliers, the library contained 5,259
volumes, manuscript and printed, perhaps less than some private
libraries; after the Dupuys it had at least 10,329 printed books.
Mazarin was the first to comprehend the natural use of collections of
books: publicity. His private library, placed before 1651 in his
magnificent house in the Rue Richelieu, where later was definitively
lodged the royal library, was opened to readers every Tuesday, from
eight to eleven and two to five. Dispersed in 1651, at the fall of the
Cardinal, it was later reconstituted, and in less than ten years
afterwards the former minister was able to open it in its new quarters,
the College of the Four Nations, where it is still.
While the Mazarin library was administering liberally to the wants of
the public, that of the King remained closely shut up in the rooms of
the Cordeliers. Colbert, influenced by this state of things, offered two
houses in the Rue Vivienne to the King, where the books could find a
more convenient lodging, and allow room for increase. The removal was
made in 1666. The royal collection for fifty-five years was lodged only
a few steps from its final resting-place, the Hotel de Nevers. So was
called at the end of the seventeenth century the splendid mansion of
Mazarin, situated near the Porte de Richelieu, in the street of the same
name, whence his books had been previously torn and sold to all the
dealers. Divided into two parts at the death of the Cardinal in 1661,
the palace fell, one part to the Duc de Mazarin, the other to the Duc de
Nevers, his nephews. At first the King dreamed, under the advice of
Louvais, of acquiring the land in the neighbourhood of the Rue Vivienne
and of elevating a monument for his library, for the thought of putting
the Hotel de Nevers to this use had not then occurred to him; but the
Duc de Mazarin having alienated his part of the palace in favour of the
Company of the Indies, Abbé Bignon, then royal librarian, perceived the
part he could play from that fact.
Thanks to the administration of Colbert and the liberalities of the
King, the collection had been augmented threefold. At the time of the
removal to the Rue Vivienne, Nicolas Clément worked at the classifying
and cataloguing of 35,000 volumes. He distributed them into methodical
classes, and devoted nine years--1675 to 1684--to his work. But this
first unravelling was soon insufficient. Less than four years after, he
commenced a new inventory in twenty-one volumes, which occupied thirty
years, having been finished in the course of March, 1714. This time the
numbers amounted to 43,000 printed volumes; his twenty-three principal
divisions, containing all the letters of the alphabet, are very nearly
preserved up to our day. In 1697 the question of publishing this
enormous work was agitated, and on this point Clément had a curious
correspondence with a learned Dane named Frederick Bostgaard; he also,
in a celebrated pamphlet, _Idée d'une Nouvelle Manière de dresser le
Catalogue d'une Bibliothèque_, indicated practical observations; he
resolved this arduous question for important collections by difference
of sizes; but his project was not executed, although favoured from the
first by Abbé Bignon.
As the collection was not available for workers, the work of Clément had
only a relative importance. A councillor of the Prince of Waldeck, a
German of the name of Nemeitz, who travelled in France in the beginning
of the eighteenth century, having seen it in the houses of the Rue
Vivienne, says that the library occupied then twenty-six rooms and
contained 75,000 volumes in all; it was shown voluntarily to strangers,
but not to the public. Nemeitz gives some other curious particulars as
to the libraries of Paris (_Séjour à Paris:_ Leyde, 1727, 8vo).
The bank of Law, that had been lodged for some time in the Hotel de
Nevers, alienated by the heirs of Mazarin, soon disappeared with the
ruin of his system. As we have said above, Bignon appreciated the
importance of the neglected palace for commodiously lodging the royal
collections. This was in 1721. The collection was about to be subdivided
into four sections, or, as they were then called in the administrative
style, four distinct departments: manuscripts, printed books, titles,
and engraved plates. The master of the library pressed the Regent to
profit by the occasion, to which he agreed. In the month of September
the removal commenced, and from the Rue Vivienne, the royal library, the
first in the world and the most valuable, as Naudé says, entered the
former palace of the Cardinal, which it was never to quit again.
We approach the epoch when this great scientific establishment was to
quit its private character and to open its doors to the learned of all
countries. In 1735 it was decided to print the catalogue of some
divisions only: theology, canonical law, public law, and _belles
lettres_. This resolution coincided precisely with the opening of the
doors which took place in 1737, in which year appeared the first volume
of the catalogue comprising the sacred Scriptures. At the end of the
eighteenth century the royal library was finally established; the
printed books then comprised about 200,000 volumes, and access was had
by a staircase leading to six grand saloons, which were surrounded by
galleries. From this moment the rooms became too small. At the
Revolution the number of books had increased to 300,000, and projects of
enlargement commenced, to be continued to our time; but, in spite of
these proposals, the surface occupied by the library has remained the
same since the time of Louis XV. Enlargements and alterations have been
made year after year on the same ground without much new construction.
But how the treasures have been augmented to this time! If the printed
books at the Revolution represented a little more than 300,000 volumes,
to-day they exceed two millions; the prints number two and a half
millions; the medals, 100,000; the manuscripts, something over 90,000.
If we have thus brought the summary history of the National Library of
Paris to our days, it was to avoid mixing it with other matters. We have
entered into such detail regarding it as is fitting for the most
important library in the world. We now return to the seventeenth
century.
At the time when Henri IV. carried from Fontainebleau to Paris the
nucleus of volumes that was to have so brilliant a destiny, the passion
for books had singularly spread itself in France. We have already spoken
of Mazarin; after him Cardinal Richelieu designed to open his private
collection to the public, and in his will he manifested his clearly held
intention. He went further in his last wishes: he prescribed the daily
sweeping and dusting of the precious collection, and its augmentation by
a thousand livres tournois each year. The great personages of the time
were not behind; and Sauval says that in the seventeenth century there
were 1,000 or 1,200 private libraries in Paris, numbering 1,700,000
volumes.
In the provinces there were few public libraries. The communities and
learned Societies, the Jesuits and other religious houses, and the
universities had collections At Orleans a library was opened for
Germans, and the students of that country were able to work at their
ease under the supervision of two librarians.
At the end of the eighteenth century the number of libraries had
increased in large proportions; the amateurs had made their influence
felt. The Book was not sought only for what it contained, but also for
its exterior clothing. Only the great libraries open to everybody
remained eclectic, and provided a little of everything. Besides the
royal library, there were in Paris a great number of other collections,
which the revolutionary storm upset and often destroyed. That of St.
Germain des Près was burnt in 1794. That of St. Geneviève, founded in
1625, had benefited by celebrated donations, among others those of the
cardinals De Berulle and De la Rochefoucauld; the Arsenal, created by
the Marquis de Paulmy, was successively enriched by important
acquisitions, among which was the collection of the Duc de la Vallière.
These collections still exist, and are open to the public, as also are
the National Library, the Mazarine, the Sorbonne, the Museum, the School
of Fine Arts, the City of Paris, the Institute, the Louvre, and the
several scientific faculties.
The provinces have not been behind in the movement. Many of the great
cities contain a considerable number of books easily accessible, among
them the libraries of Bordeaux and Rouen, amounting to 150,000 volumes;
Troyes and Besançon, 100,000, etc. Few important centres have less than
20,000. These collections have been generally composed of those of the
religious establishments, closed by the Revolution.
In our time public libraries are augmented by the legal deposit, gifts
of the State, legacies of private persons, and purchases. The legal
deposit in France relates almost exclusively to the National Library,
and proceeds from the measures taken by Henri II. in 1556. Each French
printer has now to deposit a certain number of copies of the works that
he issues, and these volumes go to swell the number of books in the Rue
de Richelieu. At the rate of 30,000 a year, the time is easily
anticipated and very near when the space will be found insufficient.
Some measures will have to be taken.
Germany, the cradle of printing, was not favoured in the beginning. It
had, however, in the seventeenth century, in Wolfenbüttel, a little town
in the duchy of Brunswick, a curious collection of books, in a detached
building, of which the engraver Merian has preserved for us the
physiognomy; it contained nearly 200,000 volumes, an enormous number for
the time. The rather low rooms were shelved all round; in the middle
were cases of the height of a man, also filled with books; the readers
helped themselves, and were seated for working. The exterior of the
building, without being sumptuous, was isolated and detached. In our
time this collection includes the Bible, glass, and inkstand of Luther
and his portrait by Lucas Cranach.
Another curious library, dating from the beginning of the seventeenth
century, is that of the city of Leyden. An engraving by Woudan shows its
state in 1610, with its classifications and divisions. The books were
ranged in cases provided with breast-high desks. The books were placed
with the edges in front, and not as now, and were so attached that they
could only be consulted in their place. Each body of shelving contained
a series of authors: theology, philosophy, mathematics, history,
medicine, law, and literature. The room, of square shape, was lighted by
windows right and left. Between the bays were portraits, views of
cities, and maps. On the right, in a shrine, was enclosed the legacy of
Joseph Scaliger. Communication was less liberal than at Wolfenbüttel;
the readers were obliged to take the books from the shelves themselves
and read them standing before the desks.
In England, the celebrated Oxford Library should be mentioned, augmented
and restored in 1597 by Sir Thomas Bodley, ambassador of Queen
Elizabeth. The generous overtures of this rich gentleman met with
unanimous approbation. He offered to the library of the university the
volumes collected by him during his travels on the Continent, whose
value exceeded £10,000. The first stone of a new building was laid in
1610, but from 1602 the collection was open to readers in a provisional
locality. David Loggan, the engraver, has preserved for us interior
views of the Bodleian of the seventeenth century. The rooms are disposed
in the form of the letter H, with pavilions to east and west, united by
a gallery. The books were and are still in the body of the library,
placed against the walls, with tables and immovable seats. The volumes
were not displaced; they were consulted in their own place. Each room
had two floors, with access to the second by stairs.
In London it was Hans Sloane who had the idea of founding a great
collection by offering to the State for £20,000 his collection of
books, which was valued at £50,000. Created in 1753 by an Act of
Parliament, the British Museum, as it was named, was quickly augmented
by many private libraries, among which was the library of printed books
and manuscripts collected by the kings of England from Henry VII. to
William III., which was added in the reign of George II. The very
extensive and valuable library of George III., 250,000 volumes, was
added by George IV. The Harleian collection added 7,500 volumes, and
Robert Cotton his manuscripts. To-day the printed books amount to
1,300,000, and are only surpassed by the National Library of France as
well in number of books as in number of readers. This immense collection
increases at a great rate, one source being the compulsory deposit of a
copy of every new book in order to secure copyright. Donations and
legacies are constantly being made, and an annual sum for purchases is
voted by Parliament. Besides the copy deposited by publishers in the
British Museum, the law of copyright compels the deposit of four other
copies, which go to augment the collections of the Bodleian Library of
Oxford, the University Library of Cambridge, and the libraries of
Edinburgh and Dublin.
If we search among the cities of Europe where establishments of this
kind are most honoured, Berlin will take the third place with 900,000
printed books and 20,000 manuscripts, preserved in the Imperial Library.
The building, constructed between 1775 and 1780, owes its special form
to Frederick II., who desired that it should take the form of a chest of
drawers. On the façade an inscription in the Latin tongue, but
conceived in German spirit, indicates that here is a spiritual
refectory--_nutrimentum spiritus_. Following come Munich, with 800,000
printed books; Vienna 400,000; Dresden, 300,000; then the universities:
Leipzig, whose library, founded in 1409 and reorganised in 1830,
contains 150,000 books and 2,000 manuscripts; Heidelberg; Göttingen,
etc.
In Italy, Florence keeps, in the National Library, 300,000 volumes,
proceeding from various amateurs, and formed since 1860. The collection
of the goldsmith Magliabecchi, that was open to readers since 1747, has
been transported there. Besides this library, Florence possesses the
celebrated Laurentian, created by Cosmo de Medicis in the middle of the
fifteenth century, where are united more than 8,000 manuscripts of an
incalculable value. Milan has at the Brera a collection of 200,000
printed books and 50,000 medals, and at the Ambrosian, due to Cardinal
Frederick Borromeo, 160,000 printed books and 8,000 manuscripts.
Rome possesses a dozen collections and celebrated deposits. The Vatican,
not numerous, is most choice; the importance of its manuscripts is known
to the entire world, but only a part of the 50,000 printed books are
catalogued. The Library of Victor Emmanuel, formerly of the Jesuits,
amounts to about 66,000 volumes. At Venice the splendid monument called
the Antiqua Libraria di St. Marco has changed its destination;
constructed in the sixteenth century and commenced by Sansovino for a
library, it is now a royal palace. This city has lost that which had
made its glory, and its collections are very modest in our days.
The magnificent educational establishments in the form of public
libraries provided in the United States deserve special mention. Nearly
every city has its public library, supported by a small tax; and many
large libraries are wholly supported by private munificence. The first
to be established was founded in 1732 by Benjamin Franklin in
Philadelphia, and still exists as the Library Company; many important
bequests have been made to it, the latest being £200,000 by Dr. Richard
Rush. The library now numbers 150,000 volumes. The Congressional Library
of Washington, besides its annual income from Government, receives by
deposit for copyright a copy of every work published in the United
States; it now has 565,000 volumes.
The Astor Library and the Lenox Library of New York were both founded
and endowed by the families whose name they bear; the former has 223,284
volumes, the latter 25,000. The city of Chicago recently fell heir to
the magnificent sum of over one million sterling for the establishment
of a library of reference, and New York was benefited by the late Mr.
Tilden to the extent of £800,000 for a public library.
When we have named the libraries of St. Petersburg and Moscow for
Russia, Stockholm for Sweden, and the Escurial for Spain, we shall have
mentioned very hastily the most important establishments in the world.
For more than four centuries the love of books has preserved and
fortified itself, and increases each day. If we were to endeavour to
approximately imagine the number of printed books diffused, we should
be frightened at it. It is by miles that to-day are counted the shelves
of the National Library or of the British Museum; and each year the
production is accelerated, as is also the number of readers.
THE END.
INDEX.
Albi, first printer at, 47.
Alciati, books of emblems, 126.
Alding, Henry, printer in Sicily, 35.
Aldus Manutius, son-in-law of Torresani, 51;
printer in Venice, 99, 103, 128;
books for Grolier, 260.
America, North, printing in, 216.
Antwerp, early printing at, 67;
Plantin, 140.
_Ars Memorandi_, block book, 10.
_Ars Moriendi_, block book, 8.
Asola, Andrew d', successor of Jenson, 50.
Audran, C., engraver, 158.
Augsburg, _Formschneiders_ at, 58.
Badier, Florimond, bookbinder, 280.
Badius, Jodocus, printer in Paris, 122, 246.
Baldini, designs for early Italian books, 54.
Ballard, printer for music, 186.
Bamberg, early printing at, 25, 29.
Barcelona, first printer, 36.
Bartolozzi, engraver, 209.
Baskerville, printer of Birmingham, 208.
Basle, first printer, 36;
school of engraving, 125.
Beaujoyeux, Balthasar de, _Ballet Comique_, 136.
Bechtermuncze, Henry, pupil of Gutenberg, 25, 36.
Bedford, Francis, bookbinder, 288.
Belfort, Andrew, printer at Ferrara, 35.
Berlin, Imperial Library of, 301.
Bernard, _le petit_, designer, 128.
Bewick, Thomas, engraver, 209, 213, 225, 234.
Bible, Gutenberg's, 15, 20;
of 1462, the Mayence, 27;
first English, 146;
Authorised Version, 182;
the Polyglot, Plantin's, 141;
Richelieu's, 173.
_Biblia Pauperum_, block book, 8.
Bignon, Jerome, royal librarian, 293.
Binding, early, 253.
Biziaux, bookbinder, 287.
Blind Asylum, printers in 1786, 216.
Bocard, Andrew, printer in Paris, 88.
Bodleian Library, 300.
Bohn, H. G., publisher, 223.
Bologna, Francisco da, engraver of type, 100.
Bonhomme, printer in Lyons, 128.
Book, the, earliest forms of, 1, 6.
Books of Hours, 70, 112;
for English use, 147.
Booksellers of Paris, 170, 186, 190, 196.
Bosse, Abraham, engraver, 170.
Botticelli, plates to Dante, 55.
Boucher, designer, 188.
Bourdichon, John, artist, 69.
Boydell, Alderman, publisher, 210.
Boyet, bookbinder, 287.
Brandt's "Ship of Fools," 65.
British Museum, library, 301.
Brothers of Common Life, printers, 1468, 36.
Browne, H. K., book illustrator, 235.
Bruges, early printing at, 37, 67.
Buckinck, Arnold, printer at
Rome, printed the first atlas, 55.
Budé, Guillaume, royal librarian, 291.
Cæsaris, Peter, and John Stol, second Paris printers, 68.
Callot, engraver, 167.
Cambridge, first printing at, 149.
Cars, Laurent, engraver, 189.
Cases for type, 243.
Caslon, William, type-founder, 208.
Catherine de Medicis, bindings for, 270.
"Catholicon," the, of 1460, printed by Gutenberg, 23.
Caxton, William, first English printer, 37, 92, 240.
Cazin, publisher, 200.
Cerceau, _Bastiments de France_, 1576, 135.
Chaillot, Robin, publisher in Paris, 82.
Challeux, James le, wood engraver, 137.
Chamot, bookbinder, 287.
_Champfleury_, Geoffroy Tory's, 116, 261.
Characters, variety of, 243.
Charles VII. sends Jenson to Mayence, 38.
Charles VIII., royal library, 291.
Charles IX., bindings for, 274.
Charles of Angoulême, books specially printed for him, 78.
Chauveau, Francis, engraver, 179.
Chess, Caxton's book on, 92.
Chodowiecki, engraver, 208.
Choffard, engraver, 198, 211.
Clement V., _Constitutiones_, 1460, printed by Schoeffer, 26.
Clément, Nicholas, royal librarian, 294.
Clennell, Luke, wood engraver, 215, 225, 234.
Cochin the younger, engraver, 191.
Colbert, bindings for, 272, 282.
Collines, Simon de, type-founder, 241.
Cologne, first printer, 36.
"Cologne Chronicle," 58.
Colonna, Francis, Poliphilus of, 1499, 56;
in French, 1545, 123.
Colophons, use of, by early printers, 88.
Commin, Vincent, bookseller in Paris, 82.
Companies of printers in France, 165.
Copper plate engraving, 135;
in England, 149.
Coster, Laurent, alleged inventor of printing, 6, 30.
Cousin, John, designs for books, 132.
Cramoisy, Sebastian, printer of Paris, 155, 165;
director of bindings for Louis XIV., 281.
Cranach, Lucas, his _Passional Christi_, 106.
Cranmer's Catechism, 1548, 148.
Cruikshank, George, book illustrator, 235.
Curmer, publisher of Paris, 230.
Dances of death, 58, 72, 85, 124.
Dante, 1481, with engraved plates, 54;
1491, with Botticelli plates, 55;
1487, printed by Bonnini, 58.
Day, John, printer, 146.
Della Bella, engraver, 168.
Deromes, bookbinders, 286.
Desportes, Philip, bindings for, 272.
Devéria, engraver, 227.
Dibdin, T. F., bibliographical works, 223.
Didot, François, printer of Paris, 194.
Didot, Pierre F., printer of Paris, 216, 219.
Didot family, 218, 242.
Dijon, first printer at, 47.
Diodorus Siculus, Geoffroy Tory's edition, 118.
Donatus, the Latin syntax of, 4, 30.
Doré, Gustave, influence on illustration, 234.
Doyle, Richard, book illustrator, 235.
Dritzehen, Andrew, associate of Gutenberg, 13.
Dubois, Gilles, bookbinder, 281.
Dubuisson, Peter Paul, bookbinder, 286.
Duchesne on wood engraving, 225.
Duplat, relief engraving on stone, 213.
Duplessis-Bertaux, engraver, 206.
Du Pré, John, printer of Books of Hours, 80.
Dupuy brothers, bindings for, 272, 282;
royal librarians, 293.
Durand's _Rationale_, 1459, printed by Schoeffer, 26.
Dürer, Albert, pupil of Wohlgemuth, 60;
"Apocalypse," 62, 104;
influence on Geoffroy Tory, 116.
Duseuil, bookbinder, 287.
Eisen, engraver, 196.
Eltvil, first printer, 36.
Elzevirs, printers at Leyden, 162.
Emblems, books of, 126, 135.
England, bookbinding in, 288;
public libraries, 300.
English books, in the fifteenth century, 92;
in the sixteenth century, 144;
seventeenth century, 181;
eighteenth century, 208;
nineteenth century, 222, 234;
school of engraving eighteenth century, 209.
Engraved plates, first book with, 52;
in France, 134, 190.
Engravers, employed by Plantin, 142;
in relief, the first, 3.
Engraving, introduction of metal plates for, 32;
the process, 52;
in the Books of Hours, 71.
Erasmus, visit to Aldus, 101.
Estienne, Robert, printer in Paris, 121, 242.
Etching, process of, 189.
Eustache, William, printer of Books of Hours, 82.
Eve, Nicholas, bookbinder, 274.
Ferrara, first printer, 35.
Fichet, William, ascribes invention of printing to Gutenberg, 31.
Flemish, illustration, 66;
printers, early, 36, 106.
Florence, National Library of, 302.
Foligno, first printer, 35.
Fontainebleau school of engraving, 128.
Fornazeris, J. de, engraver, 158.
Foucquet, John, artist, 69.
Fount of type, 243.
Fouquet, Superintendent, bindings for, 272, 282.
Fournier, type-engraver, 242.
France, early printing in, 47.
Francis I., father of letters, 120;
bindings for, 266;
royal library, 291.
Frankfort, books of the seventeenth century, 159.
Franklin, Benjamin, printer at Philadelphia, 217;
founded first American public library, 303.
French book illustration, 68, 76, 106, 166, 203;
provinces, public libraries of, 298.
Fresne, Trichet du, corrector of Royal Printing House, 166.
Furne, publisher of Paris, 232.
Fust, John, 12 _et seq_.;
in partnership with Gutenberg, 15.
Garamond, Claude, type-founder, 121, 166, 241.
Gaultier, Leonard, engraver, 142, 154.
Gavarni, designer, 233.
Ged, William, inventor of stereotype, 220.
Gering, Freyburger, and Crantz, first printers in Paris, 41.
German books, in the seventeenth century, 158;
eighteenth century, 208;
nineteenth century, 224.
German public libraries, 299.
Gigoux, John, vignettist, 228.
Gillot, Claude, engraver, 180, 186.
Giunta, Lucantonio, printer at Venice, 102.
Gondi, bindings for, 272.
Gourmont, John de, wood engraver, 137.
Grandjean, Philip, royal printer, 242.
Grandville, designer, 233.
Gravelot, Hubert Francis, engraver, 196, 213.
Grolier, John, bindings for, 256.
Guadagnino, artist of Venice, 102.
Guise, Henri de, "Le Balafré," bindings for, 274.
Gutenberg, John, 12 _et seq_.;
at Mayence, 15;
death of, 29.
Haarlem, book illustration at, 67.
Hachette, publisher of Paris, 234.
Hagenbach, Peter, printer at Toledo, 36.
Hahn, Ulrich, printer at Rome, 35;
printed first illustrated book in Italy, 48.
Hardouins, printers of Books of Hours, 82.
Haye, Cornelis de la, painter, 130.
Heilmann, Andrew, associate of Gutenberg, 13.
Heinlein and Fichet introduce printing into Paris, 40.
Henri II., _Entrée à Lyon_, 1549, 130;
bindings for, 270;
royal library, 292.
Henri III., bindings for, 274.
Henri IV., royal library, 292.
Hoe printing machines, 249.
Holbein, "Dance of Death," 86, 124;
Cranmer's Catechism, 148.
Holland, artists in the seventeenth century, 160.
Illustrations, first, in books, 47;
in the sixteenth century, 123.
Imposition, process of, 245.
Ink, composition of, 252.
Ipswich, first printer, 149.
Isaac, Jasper, engraver, 156.
Italian, books in the seventeenth century, 159;
influence on French illustration, 125;
on bindings, 256.
Italic type introduced, 100.
Italy, public libraries of, 302.
Jenson, Nicholas, sent to Mayence to learn type-founding, 38;
printer at Venice, 38, 103.
Johannot brothers, engravers, 227.
John of Cologne, master _à la navette_, 67.
Jombert, printer of Paris, 192.
Junius, Hadrian, narrator of the Coster legend, 6, 12.
Kerver, Thielman, printer of Books of Hours, 80, 88.
Knight, Charles, publisher, 223.
Koburger, first printer at Nuremberg, 36, 60.
Koelhof, first printer to use signatures, 36.
Labarre, John de, royal librarian, 291.
Laborde, _Chansons_, 202.
Laferté, bookbinder, 287.
La Fontaine, the _Contes_, 198.
La Marche, Oliver de, his _Chevalier Delibéré_, 67.
Laserre, luxury in bindings for, 278.
La Tour, bookbinder, 281.
Lavoignat, wood engraver, 230.
Lebé, William, type-founder, 140, 242.
Le Brun, painter, 175.
Leclerc, Sébastien, engraver, 176.
Leech, John, book illustrator, 235.
Leeu, Gerard de, printer at Antwerp, 67.
Le Gascon bindings, 276.
Le Jay and the Polyglot Bible, 173.
Le Maire, John, _Illustrations de la Gaule_, 107.
Le Monnier, bookbinder, 287.
Lenoir, Philip, bindings for Francis I., 268.
Lepautre, engraver, 179.
Lesné, poet of bookbinding, 287.
Letters of Indulgence, the first printed, 17.
Lettou, John, early English printer, 95.
Leu, Thomas de, engraver, 142, 154.
Levasseur, bookbinder, 281.
Lewis, Charles, bookbinder, 288.
Leyden, the Elzevirs at, 162;
public library of, 299.
Libraries, 290.
Library, National, of Paris, 291.
Lipsius, Justus, employed by Plantin, 140.
Logography, invention of, 216.
Lorenzo, Nicholas di, printer of _El Monte Santo di Dio_, first book
with engraved plates, 52.
Loslein, Peter, printer at Venice, 35.
Louis XII., ordinance on printing, 108;
bindings for, 256, 264;
royal library, 291.
Louis XIV., bindings for, 281;
regulations for bookbinders, 282.
Louvain, printer in 1474, 37.
Lutzelburger, Hans, engraver of "Dance of Death," 125.
Lyons, first printing at, 47;
in the sixteenth century, 124;
seventeenth century, 158.
Machlinia, William, early English printer, 37, 95.
Macon, first printer at, 47.
_Magasin Pittoresque_, 226.
Mainyal, George, associate of Gering, 47.
Maioli, Thomas, bindings for, 259.
Mansfeldt, Count, bindings for, 272.
Mansion, Colard, printer at Bruges, 1473, 37.
Manuscripts, influence of printing upon, 34.
Manutius. See Aldus.
Marchant, Guyot, his "Dance of Death," 86;
bindings for Francis I., 268.
Marinoni printing press, 249.
Marnef, Geoffroy and Gilbert, French printers, 107.
Mayence, revolution at, in 1462, 27;
printing in the seventeenth century, 158.
Mayer, Henry, printer at Toulouse, 47.
Mazarin, Cardinal, bindings for, 280;
his library, 293.
Meissonier, designer on wood, 230.
Mellan, Claude, engraver, 156.
Menzel, Adolph, book illustrator, 224.
_Mer des Histoires_, 1488, 70, 107.
Mérius, bookbinder, 281.
Meslier, Denis, publisher in Paris, 82.
Metal plates used for illustration, 134.
Metlinger, printer at Dijon, 47.
Milan, printing in the sixteenth
century, 103;
public libraries of, 302.
Montenay, Georgette de, his emblems, 135.
Monteregio, _Calendario_, first book with title-page, 50.
Montmorency, Anne de, bindings for, 272.
Moreau the younger, engraver, 200.
Moretus, printer of Antwerp, 141.
Mosaic bindings, 284.
Motte, Houdart de la, his "Fables," 186.
Necker, Jost, engraver of the _Theuerdanck_, 105.
Neumeister, John, printer at Albi, 47.
Neumeister, John, printer at Foligno, 35.
Nevers, Duc de, book published in 1577, 138.
Notary, Julian, early English printer, 96.
Noyers, Sublet de, superintendent of Royal Printing House, 166.
Nuremberg, first printer, 36;
books of the sixteenth century, 104;
Chronicle, 1493, 62;
books of the seventeenth century, 159.
Orleans, public library at, 298.
Os, Peter van, his _Biblia Pauperum_, 67.
Oswen, John, first printer at Ipswich, 149.
Oxford, first printer, 37;
Bodleian Library, 300.
Palermo, first printer, 35.
Palmart, Lambert, printer at Valencia, 1477, 36.
Pannartz, Arnold, printer at Rome, 35.
Paper, manufacture of, 249.
Papillons, wood engravers, 212.
Paris, Fust's visit to, 27;
first book printed at, 42;
public libraries of, 298.
Pasdeloup, bookbinder, 284.
Pasquier-Bonhomme, printer in Paris, 68.
Pass family, engravers, 160.
Pasti, Matteo, designs for Valturius, 49.
Paulin, publisher of Paris, 228.
Payne, Roger, bookbinder, 288.
Perréal, John, artist, 69.
Pfinzfing, _Theuerdanck_, 104.
Pfister, Albert, printer of Bamberg, 25.
Philippe, Laurent, publisher in Paris, 82.
Photography, use in illustration, 233.
Picart, Bernard, engraver, 180.
Picart, John, engraver, 156.
Piccini, engraver, 159.
Pickering, William, publisher, 223.
Pictor, Bernard, printer of Venice, 35.
Pigouchet, Philip, printer of Paris, 68, 70.
Plantin, Christopher, printer of Antwerp, 140.
Pluvinel, _Manège Royal_, 160.
Poitiers, Diane de, bindings for, 270.
Poliphilus, printed by Aldus, 1499, 56;
by Kerver, 1545, 123.
Polytypes, invention of, 216.
Pompadour, Madame de, bindings for, 272.
Portraits as illustrations, 89, 123, 137.
Prault, publisher of Paris, 192.
Prayer-book, Queen Elizabeth's, 146;
Edward VI's., 148.
Presses, printing, 248.
Press work, process of, 246.
Printers' marks, 87.
Prohibitions on printers, 152, 185.
_Promptuaire des Médailles_, printed by Roville, 130.
Psalter of 1457, the first dated book, 23.
Ptolemy, 1478, first printed atlas, 55.
Pynson, Richard, early English printer, 37, 95, 146.
Racine, works, the Louvre edition, 219.
Raffet, wood engraver, 232.
Ratdolt, Erhardt, printer at Venice, 35;
printed first title-page, 50, 103.
Rembold, Berthold, associate of Gering, 47.
Richelieu, Cardinal, his library, 297.
Roffet, Peter, bindings for Francis I., 267.
Rogers, Samuel, his poetical works, 222.
Roman character, 38, 240.
Rome, first printers, 35;
public libraries of, 302.
Rood, Theod., first printer at Oxford, 37.
Roville, printer of Lyons, 128, 130.
Royal Printing House in Paris, 166, 215.
Royer, John le, printer for mathematics, 1560, 132.
Ruette, bookbinder, 282.
Rüppel, Berthold, first printer at Basle, 36.
St. Albans, first printer, 37.
St. Aubin, designer and engraver, 192, 200.
St. Pierre, Bernardin de, and the Didots, 221.
Salomon, Bernard, designer, 128.
Sanlecque, James, type-founder, 242.
Schäufelein, designs for the _Theuerdanck_, 105.
Schiedam, early printing at, 67.
Schoeffer, Peter, associate of Gutenberg and Fust, 16.
Schongauer, Martin, influence on French art, 72.
Schönsperger, printer of Augsburg, 105.
Séguier, bindings for, 282.
Siberch, John, first printer at Cambridge, 149.
Sicily, first printer, 35.
Sizes of books, 147, 189.
Sloane, Sir Hans, founder of the British Museum, 300.
Smirke, Robert, book illustrator, 210.
Southwark, first printer at, 149.
Spain, book illustration in, 106.
_Speculum Humanæ Salvationis_, 7.
Spindeler, Nicholas, printer at Barcelona, 36.
Spire, John and Vendelin of, printers at Venice, 35.
Spyes, Weigand, pupil of Gutenberg, 25.
Stanhope press, 248.
Steel plates for illustrations, 232.
Stereotype, invention of, 220.
Stothard, Thomas, book illustrator, 210, 222, 234.
Strasbourg, Gutenberg's retreat to, 13.
Sweynheim, Conrad, printer at Rome, 35.
_Tailleurs d'images_ of the Middle Ages, 3.
Tauchnitz, Baron, publisher of Leipzig, 224.
Tessier, bookbinder, 287.
Ther-Hoenen, Arnold, first printer using Arabic numerals for pages,
36, 58, 88.
_Theuerdanck_, printed at Nuremberg, 104.
Thevet, books with plates, 135.
Thompson brothers, wood engravers, 225.
Thou, James Augustus de, royal librarian, 293.
Titian, influence on book illustration, 103.
Title-page, the first, 50, 86;
illustrated, 133, 142.
Toledo, first printer, 36.
Tornes, Hans de, printer in Lyons, 128.
Torresani, Andrea, succeeded Jenson, 50.
Tortorel and Perrissin, plates on the religious wars, 137.
Tory, Geoffroy, printer and engraver, 110, 241, 261.
Toulouse, first printer, 47.
Travel, books of, 148, 182.
Treschel, John, printer at Lyons, 88, 124.
Treves, Peter of, first printer at Southwark, 149.
Trithemius, account of Peter Schoeffer, 16.
Turner, J. M. W., designs for Rogers' works, 222.
Type-founding, 239, 243.
United States, printing in, 216;
public libraries in, 302.
Utrecht, early printers at, 36, 67.
Valdarfer, Christopher, printer at Venice, 35.
Valencia, first printer, 36.
Valladier, Andrew, _Métanéologie_, 155.
Valturius, _De Re Militari_, 1472, 49.
Veldener, John, printer at Louvain, 67.
Venice, first printers, 35;
first title-page printed at, 50;
sixteenth century work, 102;
seventeenth century, 159;
libraries of, 302.
Verard, Antony, printer in Paris, 68, 76;
his Books of Hours, 78.
Versailles, printing office of the Minister for War, 215.
Vinci, Leonardo da, influence on book illustration, 103.
Vitré, Antoine, publisher of Paris, 172.
Voragine, "Golden Legend," Venice, 1518, 103.
Vostre, Simon, printer in Paris, 68;
his Books of Hours, 70.
Vyel, Andrew, printer at Palermo, 35.
Walchius, story of Fust's visit to Paris, 28.
Walter, John, printer of the _Times_, 216, 249.
Water marks in paper, 251.
Watervliet, Marc Laurin de, bindings for, 272.
Watteau, engraver, 187.
Wechel, printer in Paris, 128.
Wensler, Michael, printer at Macon, 47.
Westminster, Caxton first printer at, 37.
Westphalia, John of, printer at Louvain, 1474, 37, 67.
Whittingham, Charles, printer, 223.
Woériot, Peter, engraver of emblems, 135.
Wohlgemuth, Michael, designs for the _Schatzbehalter_, 60.
Wolfenbüttel, public library of, 299.
Woodcuts, first book printed with, 48.
Wood engraving, revival of, 209, 213, 230.
Wynken de Worde, early English printer, 37, 95.
Xylographs of the fifteenth century, 8.
Zainer, Gunther, printer at Augsburg, 58.
Zell, Ulrich, pupil of Gutenberg, 25, 30, 36.
Zwoll, book illustration at, 67.
Transcriber's Note
In this text version, symbols and Greek letters in the text are replaced
by their name, enclosed in square brackets, e.g. [phi], [double cross].
In addition, oe ligatures are replaced with the letters oe, and
superscripts are introduced with the caret character, e.g. XVIII^e
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