CHAPTER IV.

WOOD ENGRAVING IN CONNEXION WITH THE PRESS.

Faust and Scheffer’s Psalter of 1457 -- Printing at Bamberg in 1461 -- Books Containing Wood-Cuts Printed there by Albert Pfister -- Opposition of the Wood Engravers of Augsburg to the Earliest Printers Established in that City -- Travelling Printers -- Wood-Cuts in “Meditationes Johannis De Turre-Cremata,” Rome, 1467; and in “Valturius De Re Militari,” Verona, 1472 -- Wood-Cuts Frequent in Books Printed at Augsburg Between 1474 and 1480 -- Wood-Cuts in Books Printed by Caxton -- Maps Engraved on Wood, 1482 -- Progress of Map Engraving -- Cross-Hatching -- Flowered Borders -- Hortus Sanitatis -- Nuremberg Chronicle -- Wood Engraving in Italy -- Poliphili Hypnerotomachia -- Decline of Block-Printing -- Old Wood-Cuts in Derschau’s Collection.

Considering Gutemberg as the inventor of printing with moveable types; that his first attempts were made at Strasburg about 1436; and that with Faust’s money and Scheffer’s ingenuity the art was perfected at Mentz about 1452, I shall now proceed to trace the progress of wood engraving in its connexion with the press.

In the first book which appeared with a date and the printers’ names--the Psalter printed by Faust and Scheffer, at Mentz, in 1457--the large initial letters, engraved on wood and printed in red and blue ink, are the must beautiful specimens of this kind of ornament which the united efforts of the wood-engraver and the pressman have produced. They have been imitated in modern times, but not excelled. As they are the first letters, in point of time, printed with two colours, so are they likely to continue the first in point of excellence.

Only seven copies of the Psalter of 1457 are known, and they are all printed on vellum. Although they have all the same colophon, containing the printers’ names and the date, yet no two copies exactly correspond. A similar want of agreement is said to have been observed in different copies of the Mazarine Bible, but which are, notwithstanding, of one and the same edition. As such works would in the infancy of the art be a long time in printing--more especially the Psalter, as, in consequence of the large capitals being printed in two colours, each side of many of the sheets would have to be printed thrice--it can be a matter of no surprise that alterations and amendments should be made in the text while the work was going through the press. In the Mazarine Bible, the entire Book of Psalms, which contains a considerable number of red letters, would have to pass four times through the press, including what printers call the “reiteration.”[IV-1]

[Footnote IV-1: By the common press only one side of a sheet can be printed at once. The reiteration is the second printing of the same sheet on the blank side. Thus in the Psalter of 1457 every sheet containing letters of two colours on each side would have to pass six times through the press. It was probably in consequence of printing so much in red and black that the early printers used to employ so many presses. Melchior de Stamham, abbot of St. Ulric and St. Afra at Augsburg, and who established a printing-office within that monastery, about 1472, bought five presses of John Schüssler; a considerable number for what may be considered an amateur establishment. He also had two others made by Sixtus Saurloch.--Zapf, Annales Typographicæ Augustanæ, p. xxiv.]

The largest of the ornamented capitals in the Psalter of 1457 is the letter B, which stands at the commencement of the first psalm, “Beatus vir.” The letters which are next in size are an A, a C, a D, an E, and a P; and there are also others of a smaller size, similarly ornamented, and printed in two colours in the same manner as the larger ones. Although only two colours are used to each letter, yet when the same letter is repeated a variety is introduced by alternating the colours: for instance, the shape of the letter is in one page printed red, with the ornamental portions blue; and in another the shape of the letter is blue, and the ornamental portions red. It has been erroneously stated by Papillon that the large letters at the beginning of each psalm are printed in three colours, red, blue, and purple; and Lambinet has copied the mistake. A second edition of this Psalter appeared in 1459; a third in 1490; and a fourth in 1502, all in folio, like the first, and with the same ornamented capitals. Heineken observes that in the edition of 1490 the large letters are printed in red and green instead of red and blue.

In consequence of those large letters being printed in two colours, two blocks would necessarily be required for each; one for that portion of the letter which is red, and another for that which is blue. In the body, or shape, of the largest letter, the B at the beginning of the first psalm, the mass of colour is relieved by certain figures being cut out in the block, which appear white in the impression. On the stem of the letter a dog like a greyhound is seen chasing a bird; and flowers and ears of corn are represented on the curved portions. These figures being white, or the colour of the vellum, give additional brightness to the full-bodied red by which they are surrounded, and materially add to the beauty and effect of the whole letter.

In consequence of two blocks being required for each letter, the means were afforded of printing any of them twice in the same sheet or the same page with alternate colours; for while the body of the first was printed in red from one block, the ornamental portion of the second might be printed red at the same time from the other block. In the second printing, with the blue colour, it would only be necessary to transpose the blocks, and thus the two letters would be completed, identical in shape and ornament, and differing only from the corresponding portions being in the one letter printed red and in the other blue. In the edition of 1459 the same ornamented letter is to be found repeated on the same page; but of this I have only noticed one instance; though there are several examples of the same letter being printed twice in the same sheet.

Although the engraving of the most highly ornamented and largest of those letters cannot be considered as an extraordinary instance of skill, even at that period, for many wood-cuts of an earlier date afford proof of greater excellence, yet the artist by whom the blocks were engraved must have had considerable practice. The whole of the ornamental part, which would be the most difficult to execute, is clearly and evenly cut, and in some places with great neatness and delicacy. “This letter,” says Heineken, “is an authentic testimony that the artists employed on such a work were persons trained up and exercised in their profession. The art of wood engraving was no longer in its cradle.”

The name of the artist by whom those letters were engraved is unknown. In Sebastian Munster’s Cosmography, book iii. chapter 159, John Meydenbach is mentioned as being one of Gutemberg’s assistants; and an anonymous writer in Serarius states the same fact. Heineken in noticing these two passages writes to the following effect. “This Meydenbach is doubtless the same person who proceeded with Gutemberg from Strasburg to Mentz in 1444.[IV-2] It is probable that he was a wood engraver or an illuminator, but this is not certain; and it is still more uncertain that this person engraved the cuts in a book entitled _Apocalipsis cum figuris_, printed at Strasburg in 1502, because these are copied from the cuts in the Apocalypse engraved and printed by Albert Durer at Nuremberg. Whether this copyist was the _Jacobus Meydenbach_ who printed books at Mentz in 1491,[IV-3] or he was some other engraver, I have not been able to determine.”[IV-4]

[Footnote IV-2: Heineken in his Nachrichten, T. I. S. 108, also states that Meydenbach came from Strasburg with Gutemberg. Oberlin however observes, “Je ne sais où de Heinecke a trouvè que ce Meydenbach est venu en 1444 avec Gutenberg à Mayence.” Heineken says, “In der Nachricht von Strassburg findet man dass ein gewisser Meydenbach 1444 nach Maynz gezogen,” and refers to Fournier, p. 40. Dissert sur l’Orig. de l’Imprimerie primitive.]

[Footnote IV-3: An edition of the Hortus Sanitatis with wood-cuts was printed at Mentz, by _Jacobus Meydenbach_, in 1491.]

[Footnote IV-4: Idée Générale, p. 286.]

Although so little is positively known respecting John Meydenbach, Gutemberg’s assistant, yet Von Murr thinks that there is reason to suppose that he was the artist who engraved the large initial letters for the Psalter of 1457. Fischer, who declares that there is no sufficient grounds for this conjecture, confidently assumes, from false premises, that those letters were engraved by Gutemberg, “a person experienced in such work,” adds he, “as we are taught by his residence at Strasburg.” From the account that we have of his residence and pursuits at Strasburg, however, we are taught no such thing. We only learn from it he was engaged in some invention which related to printing. We learn that Conrad Saspach made him a press, and it is conjectured that the goldsmith Hanns Dunne was employed to engrave his letters; but there is not a word of his being an experienced wood engraver, nor is there a well authenticated passage in any account of his life from which it might be concluded that he ever engraved a single letter. Fischer’s reasons for supposing that Gutemberg engraved the large letters in Faust and Scheffer’s Psalter are, however, contradicted by facts. Having seen a few leaves of a Donatus ornamented with the same initial letters as the Psalter, he directly concluded that the former was printed by Gutemberg and Faust prior to the dissolution of their partnership; and not satisfied with this leap he takes another, and arrives at the conclusion that they were engraved by Gutemberg, as “_his_ modesty only could allow such works to appear without his name.”

Although we have no information respecting the artist by whom those letters were engraved, yet it is not unlikely that they were suggested, if not actually drawn by Scheffer, who, from his profession of a scribe or writer[IV-5] previous to his connexion with Faust, may be supposed to have been well acquainted with the various kinds of flowered and ornamented capitals with which manuscripts of that and preceding centuries were embellished. It is not unusual to find manuscripts of the early part of the fifteenth century embellished with capitals of two colours, red and blue, in the same taste as in the Psalter; and there is now lying before me a capital P, drawn on vellum in red and blue ink, in a manuscript apparently of the date of 1430, which is so like the same letter in the Psalter that the one might be supposed to have suggested the other.

[Footnote IV-5: Scheffer previous to his connexion with Faust was a “clericus,”--not a _clerk_ as distinguished from a layman, but a writer or scribe. A specimen of his “set-hand,” written at Paris in 1449, is given by Schœpflin in his Vindiciæ Typographicæ. Several of the earliest printers were writers or illuminators; among whom may be mentioned John Mentelin of Strasburg, John Baemler of Augsburg, Ulric Zell of Cologne, and Colard Mansion of Bruges.]

It was an object with Faust and Scheffer to recommend their Psalter--probably the first work printed by them after Gutemberg had been obliged to withdraw from the partnership--by the beauty of its capitals and the sufficiency and distinctness of its “rubrications;”[IV-6] and it is evident that they did not fail in the attempt. The Psalter of 1457 is, with respect to ornamental printing, their greatest work; for in no subsequent production of their press does the typographic art appear to have reached a higher degree of excellence. It may with truth be said that the art of printing--be the inventor who he may--was perfected by Faust and Scheffer; for the earliest known production of their press remains to the present day unsurpassed as a specimen of skill in ornamental printing.

[Footnote IV-6: This is intimated in the colophon, which, with the contracted words written at length, is as follows: “Presens Spalmorum codex venustate capitalium decoratus Rubricationibusque sufficienter distinctus. Adinventione artificiosa imprimendi ac caracterizandi absque calami ulla exaracione sic effigiatus. Et ad eusebiam dei industrie est consummatus. Per Johannem Fust, Civem maguntinum. Et Petrum Schoffer de Gernzheim, Anno domini Millesimo. cccc. lvii. In vigilia Assumpcionis.” In the second edition the mis-spelling, “Spalmorum” for “Psalmorum,” is corrected.]

A fac-simile of the large B at the commencement of the Psalter, printed in colours the same as the original, is given in the first volume of Dibdin’s Bibliotheca Spenceriana, and in Savage’s Hints on Decorative Printing; but in neither of those works has the excellence of the original letter been attained. In the Bibliotheca Spenceriana, although the volume has been printed little more than twenty years, the red colour in which the body of the letter is printed has assumed a coppery hue, while in the original, executed nearly four hundred years ago, the freshness and purity of the colours remain unimpaired. In Savage’s work, though the letter and its ornaments are faithfully copied[IV-7] and tolerably well printed, yet the colours are not equal to those of the original. In the modern copy the blue is too faint; and the red, which in the original is like well impasted paint, has not sufficient body, but appears like a wash, through which in many places the white paper may be seen. The whole letter compared with the original seems like a water-colour copy compared with a painting in oil.

[Footnote IV-7: It is to be observed that in Savage’s copy the perpendicular flourishes are given horizontally, above and below the letter, in order to save room. In a copy of the edition of 1459, in the King’s Library, part of the lower flourish has not been inked, as it would have interfered with the letter Q at the commencement of the second psalm “_Quare fremuerunt gentes_.” Traces of the flourish where not coloured may be observed impressed in the vellum.]

Although it has been generally supposed that the art of printing was first carried from Mentz in 1462 when Faust and Scheffer’s sworn workmen were dispersed[IV-8] on the capture of that city by the archbishop Adolphus of Nassau, yet there can be no doubt that it was practised at Bamberg before that period; for a book of fables printed at the latter place by Albert Pfister is expressly dated on St. Valentine’s day, 1461; and a history of Joseph, Daniel, Judith, and Esther was also printed by Pfister at Bamberg in 1462, “+Nit lang nach sand walpurgen tag+,”--not long after St. Walburg’s day.[IV-9] It is therefore certain that the art was practised beyond Mentz previous to the capture of that city, which was not taken until the eve of St. Simon and St. Jude; that is, on the 28th of October in 1462. As it is very probable that Pfister would have to superintend the formation of his own types and the construction of his own presses,--for none of his types are of the same fount as those used by Gutemberg or by Faust and Scheffer,--we may presume that he would be occupied for some considerable time in preparing his materials and utensils before he could begin to print. As his first known work with a date, containing a hundred and one wood-cuts, was finished on the 14th of February 1461, it is not unlikely that he might have begun to make preparations three or four years before. Upon these grounds it seems but reasonable to conclude with Aretin, that the art was carried from Mentz by some of Gutemberg and Faust’s workmen on the dissolution of their partnership in 1455; and that the date of the capture of Mentz--when for a time all the male inhabitants capable of bearing arms were compelled to leave the city by the captors--marks the period of its more general diffusion. The occasion of the disaster to which Mentz was exposed for nearly three years was a contest for the succession to the archbishopric. Theodoric von Erpach having died in May 1459, a majority of the chapter chose Thierry von Isenburg to succeed him, while another party supported the pretensions of Adolphus of Nassau. An appeal having been made to Rome, the election of Thierry was annulled, and Adolphus was declared by the Pope to be the lawful archbishop of Mentz. Thierry, being in possession and supported by the citizens, refused to resign, until his rival, assisted by the forces of his adherents and relations, succeeded in obtaining possession of the city.[IV-10]

[Footnote IV-8: The following passage occurs in the colophon of two works printed by John Scheffer at Mentz in 1515 and 1516; the one being the “Trithemii Breviarium Historiæ Francorum,” and the other “Breviarium Ecclesiæ Mindensis:” “Retinuerunt autem hi duo jam prænominati, _Johannes Fust et Petrus Scheffer_, hanc artem in secreto, (omnibus ministris et familiaribus eorum, ne illam quoquo modo manifestarent, jure jurando adstrictis :) quæ tandem anno Domini M.CCCC.LXII. per eosdem familiares in diversas terrarum provincias divulgata, haud parvum sumpsit incrementum.”]

[Footnote IV-9: St. Walburg’s day is on the 25th of February; though her feast is also held both on the 1st of May and on the 12th of October. The eve of her feast on the 1st of May is more particularly celebrated; and it is then that the witches and warlocks of Germany hold their annual meeting on the Brocken. St. Walburg, though born of royal parents in Saxony, was yet educated in England, at the convent of Wimborn in Dorsetshire, of which she became afterwards abbess, and where she died in 779.]

[Footnote IV-10: A mournful account of the expulsion of the inhabitants and the plundering of the city is given by Trithemius at page 30 of his “Res Gestæ Frederici Palatini,” published with notes by Marquard Freher, at Heidelberg, 4to. 1603.]

Until the discovery of Pfister’s book containing the four histories, most bibliographers supposed that the date 1461, in the fables, related to the composition of the work or the completion of the manuscript, and not to the printing of the book. Saubert, who was the first to notice it, in 1643, describes it as being printed, both text and figures, from wood-blocks; and Meerman has adopted the same erroneous opinion. Heineken was the first to describe it truly, as having the text printed with moveable types, though he expresses himself doubtfully as to the date, 1461, being that of the impression.

As the discovery of Pfister’s tracts has thrown considerable light on the progress of typography and wood engraving, I shall give an account of the most important of them, as connected with those subjects; with a brief notice of a few circumstances relative to the early connexion of wood engraving with the press, and to the dispersion of the printers on the capture of Mentz in 1462.

The discovery of the history of Joseph, Daniel, Judith, and Esther, with the date 1462, printed at Bamberg by Pfister, has established the fact that the dates refer to the years in which the books were printed, and not to the period when the works were composed or transcribed. An account of the history above named, written by M. J. Steiner, pastor of the church of St. Ulric at Augsburg, was first printed in Meusel’s Historical and Literary Magazine in 1792; and a more ample description of this and other tracts printed by Pfister was published by Camus in 1800,[IV-11] when the volume containing them, which was the identical one that had been previously seen by Steiner, was deposited in the National Library at Paris.

[Footnote IV-11: Under the title of “Notice d’un Livre imprimé à Bamberg en CIↃCCCCLXII. lue à l’Institut National, par Camus.” 4to. Paris, An VII. [1800.]]

The book of fables[IV-12] printed by Pfister at Bamberg in 1461 is a small folio consisting of twenty-eight leaves, and containing eighty-five fables in rhyme in the old German language. As those fables, which are ascribed to one “Boner, dictus der Edelstein,” are known to have been written previous to 1330, the words at the end of the volume,--“Zu Bamberg dies Büchlein geendet ist,”--At Bamberg this book is finished,--most certainly relate to the time when it was printed, and not when it was written. It is therefore the earliest book printed with moveable types which is illustrated with wood-cuts containing figures. Not having an opportunity of seeing this extremely rare book,--of which only one perfect copy is known,--I am unable to speak from personal examination of the style in which its hundred and one cuts are engraved. Heineken, however, has given a fac-simile of the first, and he says that the others are of a similar kind. The following is a reduced copy of the fac-simile given by Heineken, and which forms the head-piece to the first fable. On the manner in which it is engraved I shall make no remark, until I shall have produced some specimens of the cuts contained in a “Biblia Pauperum Predicatorum,” also printed by Pfister, and having the text in the German language.

[Footnote IV-12: The copy of those fables belonging to the Wolfenbuttel Library, and which is the only one known, was taken away by the French and placed in the National Library at Paris, but was restored on the surrender of Paris in 1815.]

The volume described by Camus contains three different works; and although Pfister’s name, with the date 1462, appears in only one of them, the “Four Histories,” yet, as the type is the same in all, there can be no doubt of the other two being printed by the same person and about the same period. The following particulars respecting its contents are derived from the “Notice” of Camus. It is a small folio consisting altogether of a hundred and one leaves of paper of good quality, moderately thick and white, and in which the water-mark is an ox’s head. The text is printed in a large type, called missal-type; and though the characters are larger, and there is a trifling variation in three or four of the capitals, yet they evidently appear to have been copied from those of the Mazarine Bible.

The first work is that which Heineken calls “une Allégorie sur la Mort;”[IV-13] but this title does not give a just idea of its contents. It is in fact a collection of accusations preferred against Death, with his answers to them. The object is to show that such complaints are unavailing, and that, instead of making them, people ought rather to employ themselves in endeavouring to live well. In this tract, which consists of twenty-four leaves, there are five wood-cuts, each occupying an entire page. The first represents Death seated on a throne. Before him there is a man with a child, who appears to accuse Death of having deprived him of his wife, who is seen on a tomb wrapped in a winding-sheet.--In the second cut, Death is also seen seated on a throne, with the same person apparently complaining against him, while a number of persons appear approaching sad and slow, to lay down the ensigns of their dignity at his feet.--In the third cut there are two figures of Death; one on foot mows down youths and maidens with a scythe, while another, mounted, is seen chasing a number of figures on horseback, at whom he at the same time discharges his arrows.--The fourth cut consists of two parts, the one above the other. In the upper part, Death appears seated on a throne, with a person before him in the act of complaining, as in the first and second cuts. In the lower part, to the left of the cut, is seen a convent, at the gate of which there are two persons in religious habits; to the right a garden is represented, in which are perceived a tree laden with fruit, a woman crowning an infant, and another woman conversing with a young man. In the space between the convent and the garden certain signs are engraved, which Camus thinks are intended to represent various branches of learning and science,--none of which can afford protection against death,--as they are treated of in the chapter which precedes the cut. In the fifth cut, Death and the Complainant are seen before Christ, who is seated on a throne with an angel on each side of him, under a canopy ornamented with stars. Although neither Heineken nor Camus give specimens of those cuts, nor speak of the style in which they are executed, it may be presumed that they are not superior either in design or engraving to those contained in the other tracts.

[Footnote IV-13: Idée Générale, p. 276. Dr. Dibdin in his Bibliographical Tour says that this work “is entitled by Camus the ALLEGORY OF DEATH.” This is a mistake; for Camus, who objects to this title,--which was given to it by Heineken,--always refers to the book under the title of “Les Plaintes contre la Mort.”]

The text of the work is divided into thirty-four chapters, each of which, except the first, is preceded by a summary; and their numbers are printed in Roman characters. The initial letter of each chapter is red, and appears to have been formed by means of a stencil. The first chapter, which has neither title nor numeral, commences with the Complainant’s recital of his injuries; in the second, Death defends himself; in the third the Complainant resumes, in the fourth Death replies; and in this manner the work proceeds, the Complainant and Death speaking alternately through thirty-two chapters. In the thirty-third, God decides between the parties; and after a few common-place reflections and observations on the readiness of people to complain on all occasions, sentence is pronounced in these words: “The Complainant is condemned, and Death has gained the cause. Of right, the Life of every man is due to Death; to Earth his Body, and to Us his Soul.” In the thirty-fourth chapter, the Complainant, perceiving that he has lost his suit, proceeds to pray to God on behalf of his deceased wife. In the summary prefixed to the chapter the reader is informed that he is now about to peruse a model of a prayer; and that the name of the Complainant is expressed by the large red letters which are to be found in the chapter. Accordingly, in the course of the chapter, six red letters, besides the initial at the beginning, occur at the commencement of so many different sentences. They are formed by means of a stencil, while the letters at the commencement of other similar sentences are printed black. Those red letters, including the initial at the beginning of the chapter, occur in the following order, IHESANW. Whether the name is expressed by them as they stand, or whether they are to be combined in some other manner, Camus will not venture to decide.[IV-14] From the prayer it appears that the name of the Complainant’s deceased wife was Margaret. In this singular composition, which in the summary is declared to be a model, the author, not forgetting the court language of his native country, calls the Almighty “the Elector who determines the choice of all Electors,” “Hoffmeister” of the court of Heaven, and “Herzog” of the Heavenly host. The text is in the German language, such as was spoken and written in the fifteenth century.

[Footnote IV-14: “Outre la lettre initiale, on remarque, dans le cours du chapitre, six lettres rouges non imprimées, mais peintes à la plaque, qui commencent six phrases diverses. Les lettres initiales des autres phrases du même chapitre sont imprimées en noir. Les lettres rouges sont IHESANW. Doit-on les assembler dans l’ordre où elles sont placées, ou bien doivent-elles recevoir un autre arrangement? Je ne prends pas sur moi de le décider.”--Camus, Notice, p. 6.]

The German words “_Hoffmeister_” and “_Herzog_” appear extremely ridiculous in Camus’s French translation,--“le Maître-d’hôtel de la cour céleste,” and “le Grand-duc de l’armée céleste.” But this is clothing ancient and dignified German in modern French frippery. The word “Hoffmeister”--literally, “court-master or governor”--is used in modern German in nearly the same sense as the English word “steward;” and the governor or tutor of a young prince or nobleman is called by the same name. The word “Herzog”--the “Grand-duc” of Camus--in its original signification means the leader of a host or army. It is a German title of honour which defines its original meaning, and is in modern language synonymous with the English title “Duke.” The ancient German “Herzog” was a leader of hosts; the modern French “Grand-duc” is a clean-shaved gentleman in a court-dress, redolent of eau-de-Cologne, and bedizened with stars and strings. The two words are characteristic of the two languages.

The second work in the volume is the Histories of Joseph, Daniel, Judith, and Esther. It has no general frontispiece nor title; but each separate history commences with the words: “Here begins the history of . . . .” in German. Each history forms a separate gathering, and the whole four are contained in sixty leaves, of which two, about the middle, are blank, although there is no appearance of any deficiency in the history. The text is accompanied with wood-cuts which are much less than those in the “Complaints against Death,” each occupying only the space of eleven lines in a page, which when full contains twenty-eight. The number of the cuts is sixty-one; but there are only fifty-five different subjects, four of them having been printed twice, and one thrice. Camus gives a specimen of one of the cuts, which represents the Jews of Bethuliah rejoicing and offering sacrifice on the return of Judith after she had cut off the head of Holofernes. It is certainly a very indifferent performance, both with respect to design and engraving; and from Camus’s remarks on the artist’s ignorance and want of taste it would appear that the others are no better. In one of them Haman is decorated with the collar of an order from which a cross is suspended; and in another Jacob is seen travelling to Egypt in a carriage[IV-15] drawn by two horses, which are harnessed according to the manner of the fifteenth century, and driven by a postilion seated on a saddle, and with his feet in stirrups. All the cuts in the “Four Histories” are coarsely coloured.

[Footnote IV-15: Camus calls it a “voiture,” but I question if such a carriage was known in 1462; and am inclined to think that he has converted a kind of light waggon into a modern “voiture.” A light sort of waggon, called by Stow a “Wherlicote,” was used in England by the mother of Richard the Second in the manner of a modern coach. I have noticed in an old wood-cut a light travelling waggon, drawn by what is called a “unicorn team” of three horses; that is, one as a “leader,” and two “wheelers,” with the driver riding on the “near side” wheeler. This cut is in the Bagford collection in the British Museum, and is one of a series of ninety subjects from the Old and New Testament which have been cut out of a book. A manuscript note in German states that they are by Michael Wolgemuth, and printed in 1491. In no wood-cut executed previous to 1500 have I seen a vehicle like a modern French voiture.]

It is this work which Camus, in his title-page, professes to give an account of, although in his tract he describes the other two contained in the same volume with no less minuteness. He especially announced a notice of this work as “a book printed at Bamberg in 1462,” in consequence of its being the most important in the volume; for it contains not only the date and place, but also the printer’s name. In the book of Fables, printed with the same types at Bamberg in 1461, Pfister’s name does not appear.

The text of the “Four Histories” ends at the fourth line on the recto of the sixtieth leaf; and after a blank space equal to that of a line, thirteen lines succeed, forming the colophon, and containing the place, date, and printer’s name. Although those lines run continuously on, occupying the full width of the page as in prose, yet they consist of couplets in German rhyme. The end of each verse is marked with a point, and the first word of the succeeding one begins with a capital. Camus has given a fac-simile of those lines, that he might at once present his readers with a specimen of the type and a copy of this colophon, so interesting to bibliographers as establishing the important fact in the history of printing, namely, that the art was practised beyond Mentz prior to 1462. The following copy, though not a fac-simile, is printed line for line from Camus.

+Ein ittlich mensch von herzen gert . Das er wer weiss und wol gelert . An meister un’ schrift das nit mag sein . So kun’ wir all auch nit latein . Darauff han ich ein teil gedacht . Und vier historii zu samen pra- cht . Joseph daniel un’ auch judith . Und hester auch mit gutem sith. die vier het got in seiner hut . Als er noch ye de’ guten thut . Dar durch wir pessern unser lebe’ . De’ puchlein ist sein ende gebe’ . Tʒu bambergh in der selbe’ stat . Das albrecht pfister gedrucket hat Do ma’ zalt tausent un’ vierhu’dert iar . Im zwei und sechzigste’ das ist war . Nit lang nach sand walpur- gen tag . Die uns wol gnad erberben mag . Frid un’ das ewig lebe’ . Das wolle uns got alle’ gebe’ . Ame’.+

The following is a translation of the above, in English couplets of similar rhythm and measure as the original:

With heart’s desire each man doth seek That he were wise and learned eke: But books and teacher he doth need, And all men cannot Latin read. As on this subject oft I thought, These hist’ries four I therefore wrote; Of Joseph, Daniel, Judith too, And Esther eke, with purpose true: These four did God with bliss requite, As he doth all who act upright. That men may learn their lives to mend This book at Bamberg here I end. In the same city, as I’ve hinted, It was by Albert Pfister printed, In th’ year of grace, I tell you true, A thousand four hundred and sixty-two; Soon after good St. Walburg’s day, Who well may aid us on our way, And help us to eternal bliss: God, of his mercy, grant us this. Amen.

The third work contained in the volume described by Camus is an edition of the “Poor Preachers’ Bible,” with the text in German, and printed on both sides. The number of the leaves is eighteen, of which only seventeen are printed; and as there is a “history” on each page, the total number in the work is thirty-four, each of which is illustrated with five cuts. The subjects of those cuts and their arrangement on the page is not precisely the same as in the earlier Latin editions; and as in the latter there are forty “histories,” six are wanting in the Bamberg edition, namely: 1. Christ in the garden; 2. The soldiers alarmed at the sepulchre; 3. The Last Judgment; 4. Hell; 5. The eternal Father receiving the righteous into his bosom; and 6. The crowning of the Saints. As the cuts illustrative of these subjects are the last in the Latin editions, it is possible that the Bamberg copy described by Camus might be defective; he, however, observes that there is no appearance of any leaves being wanting.[IV-16] In each page of the Bamberg edition the text is in two columns below the cuts, which are arranged in the following manner in the upper part of the page:

The following cuts are fac-similes of those given by Camus; and the numbers underneath each relate to their position in the preceding example of their arrangement. In No. 1 the heads are intended for David and the author of the Book of Wisdom; in No. 2, for Isaiah and Ezekiel.

[Footnote IV-16: The copy of the Bamberg edition in the Wolfenbuttel Library, seen and described by Heineken, Idée Générale, pp. 327-329, contained only twenty-six “histories,” or general subjects.]

The subject represented in the following cut, No. 3, forming the centre piece at the top in the arrangement of the original page, is Christ appearing to his disciples after his resurrection. The figure on the right of Christ is intended for St. Peter, and that on his left for St. John. I believe that in no wood-cut, ancient or modern, is Christ represented with so uncomely an aspect and so clumsy a figure.

The subject of No. 4 is Joseph making himself known to his brethren; from Genesis, chapter XLV.

In No. 5 the subject represented is the Prodigal Son received by his father; from St. Luke, chapter XV. Camus says that the cuts given by him were engraved on wood by Duplaa with the greatest exactitude from tracings of the originals by Dubrena.

Supposing that all the cuts in the four works, printed by Pfister and described in the preceding pages, were designed in a similar taste and executed in a similar manner to those of which specimens are given, the persons by whom they were engraved--for it is not likely that they were all engraved by one man--must have had very little knowledge of the art. Looking merely at the manner in which they are engraved, without reference to the wretched drawing of the figures and want of “feeling” displayed in the general treatment of the subjects, a moderately apt lad, at the present day, generally will cut as well by the time that he has had a month or two’s practice. If those cuts were to be considered as fair specimens of wood engraving in Germany in 1462, it would be evident that the art was then declining; for none of the specimens that I have seen of the cuts printed by Pfister can bear a comparison with those contained in the early block-books, such as the Apocalypse, the History of the Virgin, or the early editions of the Poor Preachers’ Bible. To the cuts contained in the latter works they are decidedly inferior, both with respect to design and engraving. Even the earliest wood-cuts which are known,--for instance, the St. Christopher, the St. Bridget, and the Annunciation, in Earl Spencer’s collection,--are executed in a superior manner.

It would, however, be unfair to conclude that the cuts which appear in Pfister’s works were the best that were executed at that period. On the contrary, it is probable that they are the productions of persons who in their own age would be esteemed only as inferior artists. As the progress of typography was regarded with jealousy by the early wood engravers and block printers, who were apprehensive that it would ruin their trade, and as previous to the establishment of printing they were already formed into companies or fellowships, which were extremely sensitive on the subject of their exclusive rights, it is not unlikely that the earliest type-printers who adorned their books with wood-cuts would be obliged to have them executed by a person who was not professionally a wood engraver. It is only upon this supposition that we can account for the fact of the wood-cuts in the earliest books printed with type being so very inferior to those in the earliest block-books. This supposition is corroborated by the account which we have of the proceedings of the wood engravers of Augsburg shortly after type-printing was first established in that city. In 1471 they opposed Gunther Zainer’s[IV-17] admission to the privileges of a burgess, and endeavoured to prevent him printing wood engravings in his books. Melchior Stamham, however, abbot of St. Ulric and Afra, a warm promoter of typography, interested himself on behalf of Zainer, and obtained an order from the magistracy that he and John Schussler--another printer whom the wood engravers had also objected to--should be allowed to follow without interruption their art of printing. They were, however, forbid to print initial letters from wood-blocks or to insert wood-cuts in their books, as this would be an infringement on the privileges of the fellowship of wood engravers. Subsequently the wood engravers came to an understanding with Zainer, and agreed that he should print as many initial letters and wood-cuts as he pleased, provided that they engraved them.[IV-18] Whether Schussler came to the same agreement or not is uncertain, as there is no book known to be printed by him of a later date than 1472. It is probable that he is the person,--named John _Schüssler_ in the memorandum printed by Zapf,--of whom Melchior de Stamham in that year bought five presses for the printing-office which he established in his convent of St. Ulric and St. Afra. To John Bämler, who at the same time carried on the business of a printer at Augsburg, no objection appears to have been made. As he was originally a “calligraphus” or ornamental writer, it is probable that he was a member of the wood engravers’ guild, and thus entitled to engrave and print his own works without interruption.

[Footnote IV-17: Gunther Zainer was a native of Reutlingen, in Wirtemberg, and was the first printer in Germany who used Roman characters,--in an edition of “Isidori Episcopi Hispalensis Etymologia,” printed by him in 1472. He first began to print at Augsburg in 1468. In 1472 he printed a German translation of the book entitled “Belial,” with wood-cuts. A Latin edition of this book was printed by Schussler in the same year. Von Murr says that Schussler printed another edition of “Belial” in 1477; but this would seem to be a mistake, for Veith asserts in his “Diatribe de Origine et Incrementis Artis Typographicæ in urbe Augusta Vindelica,” prefixed to Zapf’s “Annales,” that Schussler only printed in the years 1470, 1471, and 1472.]

[Footnote IV-18: Von Murr, Journal, 2 Theil, S. 144.--Zapf, Buchdruckergeschichte von Augsburg, 1 Band.]

As it is probable that the wood-cuts which appear in books printed within the first thirty years from the establishment of typography at Mentz were intended to be coloured, this may in some degree account for the coarseness with which they are engraved; but as the wood-cuts in the earlier block-books were also intended to be coloured in a similar manner, the inferiority of the former can only be accounted for by supposing that the best wood engravers declined to assist in promoting what they would consider to be a rival art, and that the earlier printers would generally be obliged to have their cuts engraved by persons connected with their own establishments, and who had not by a regular course of apprenticeship acquired a knowledge of the art. About seventy or eighty years ago, and until a more recent period, many country printers in England used themselves to engrave such rude wood-cuts as they might occasionally want. A most extensive assortment of such wood-cuts belonged to the printing-office of the late Mr. George Angus of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, who used them as head-pieces and general illustrations to ballads and chap-books. A considerable number of them were cut with a penknife, on pear-tree wood, by an apprentice named Randell, who died about forty years ago. Persons who are fond of a “rough harvest” of such modern-antiques are referred to the “Historical Delights,” the “History of Ripon,” and other works published by Thomas Gent at York about 1733.

Notwithstanding the rudeness with which the cuts are engraved in the four works printed by Pfister, yet from their number a considerable portion of time must have been occupied in their execution. In the “Four Histories” there are sixty-one cuts, which have been printed from fifty-five blocks. In the “Fables” there are one hundred and one cuts; in the “Complaints against Death,” five; and in the “Poor Preachers’ Bible,” one hundred and seventy, reckoning each subject separately. Supposing each cut in the _three_ last works was printed from a separate block, the total number of blocks required for the _four_ would be three hundred and thirty-one.[IV-19] Supposing that each cut on an average contained as much work as that which is numbered 4 in the preceding specimens--Joseph making himself known to his brethren--and supposing that the artist drew the subjects himself, the execution of those three hundred and thirty-one cuts would occupy one person for about two years and a half, allowing him to work three hundred days in each year. It is true that a modern wood engraver might finish more than three of such cuts in a week, yet I question if any one of the profession would complete the whole number, with his own hands, in less time than I have specified.

[Footnote IV-19: Lichtenberger, in his Initia Typographica, referring to Sprenger’s History of Printing at Bamberg, says that, besides those four, five other tracts are printed with Pfister’s types, of which three contain wood-cuts. One of those three, however, a “Poor Preachers’ Bible,” with the text in Latin, has the same cuts as the “Poor Preachers’ Bible” with the text in German. Only one of those other five works contains the place and date.]

From the similarity between Pfister’s types and those with which a Bible without place or date is printed, several bibliographers have ascribed the latter work to his press. This Bible, which in the Royal Library at Paris is bound in three volumes folio, is the rarest of all editions of the Scriptures printed in Latin. Schelhorn, who wrote a dissertation on this edition, endeavoured to show that it was the first of the Bibles printed at Mentz, and that it was partly printed by Gutemberg and Faust previous to their separation, and finished by Faust and Scheffer in 1456.[IV-20] Lichtenberger, without expressly assenting to Schelhorn’s opinion, is inclined to think that it was printed at Mentz, and by Gutemberg. The reasons which he assigns, however, are not such as are likely to gain assent without a previous willingness to believe. He admits that Pfister’s types are similar to those of the Bible, though he says that the former are somewhat ruder.

[Footnote IV-20: De Antiquissima Latinorum Bibliorum editione . . . . Jo. Georgii Schelhorn Diatribe. Ulmæ, 4to. 1760.]

Camus considers that the tracts unquestionably printed by Pfister throw considerable light on the question as to whom this Bible is to be ascribed. There are two specimens of this Bible, the one given by Masch in his Bibliotheca Sacra, and the other by Schelhorn, in a dissertation prefixed to Quirini’s account of the principal works printed at Rome. Camus, on comparing these specimens with the text of Pfister’s tracts, immediately perceived the most perfect resemblance between the characters; and on applying a tracing of the last thirteen lines of the “Four Histories” to the corresponding letters in Schelhorn’s specimen, he found that the characters exactly corresponded. This perfect identity induced him to believe that the Bible described by Schelhorn was printed with Pfister’s types. A correspondent in Meusel’s Magazine, No. VII. 1794, had previously advanced the same opinion; and he moreover thought that the Bible had been printed previous to the Fables dated 1461, because the characters of the Bible are cleaner, and appear as if they had been impressed from newer types than those of the Fables.[IV-21] In support of this opinion an extract is given, in the same magazine, from a curious manuscript of the date of 1459, and preserved in the library of Cracow. This manuscript is a kind of dictionary of arts and sciences, composed by Paul of Prague, doctor of medicine and philosophy, who, in his definition of the word “Libripagus,” gives a curious piece of information to the following effect. The barbarous Latin of the original passage, to which I shall have occasion to refer, will be found in the subjoined note.[IV-22] “He is an artist who dexterously cuts figures, letters, and whatever he pleases on plates of copper, of iron, of solid blocks of wood, and other materials, that he may print upon paper, on a wall, or on a clean board. He cuts whatever he pleases; and he proceeds in this manner with respect to pictures. In my time somebody of Bamberg cut the entire Bible upon plates; in four weeks he impressed the whole Bible, thus sculptured, upon thin parchment.”

[Footnote IV-21: Dr. Dibdin says that a copy of this Bible, which formerly belonged to the Earl of Oxford, and is now in the Royal Library at Paris, contains “an undoubted coeval MS. date, in red ink, of 1461.”--Bibliog. Tour, vol. ii p. 108. Second edition.]

[Footnote IV-22: “Libripagus est artifex sculpens subtiliter in laminibus æreis, ferreis, ac ligneis solidi ligni, atque aliis, imagines, scripturam et omne quodlibet, ut prius imprimat papyro aut parieti aut asseri mundo. Scindit omne quod cupit, et est homo faciens talia cum picturis; et tempore mei Bambergæ quidam sculpsit integram bibliam super lamellas, et in quatuor septimanis totam bibliam in pergameno subtili præsignavit sculpturam.”]

Although I am of opinion that the weight of evidence is in favour of Pfister being the printer of the Bible in question, yet I cannot think that the arguments which have been adduced in his favour derive any additional support from this passage. The writer, like many other dictionary makers, both in ancient and modern times, has found it a more difficult matter to give a clear account of a _thing_ than to find the synonym of a _word_. But, notwithstanding his confused account, I think that I can perceive in it the “disjecta membra” of an ancient Formschneider and a Briefmaler, but no indication of a typographer.

In a jargon worthy of the “Epistolæ obscurorum virorum” he describes an artist, or rather an artizan, “sculpens subtiliter in laminibus[IV-23] [laminis] æreis, ferreis, ac ligneis solidi ligni, atque aliis, imagines, scripturam et omne quodlibet.” In this passage the business of the “Formschneider” may be clearly enough distinguished: he cuts figures and animals in plates of copper and iron;--but not in the manner of a modern copper-plate engraver; but in the manner in which a stenciller pierces his patterns. That this is the true meaning of the writer is evident from the context, wherein he informs us of the artist’s object in cutting such letters and figures, namely, “ut prius imprimat papyro aut parieti aut asseri mundo,”--that he may print upon paper, on a wall, or on a clean board. This is evidently descriptive of the practice of stencilling, and proves, if the manuscript be authentic, that the old “Briefmalers” were accustomed to “slapdash” walls as well as to engrave and colour cards. In the distinction which is made of the “laminibus ligneis _ligni solidi_,” it is probable that the writer meant to specify the difference between cutting out letters and figures on thin plates of metal, and cutting _upon_ blocks of solid wood. When he speaks of a Bible being cut, at Bamberg, “super lamellas,” he most likely means a “Poor Preachers’ Bible,” engraved on blocks of wood. An impression of a hundred or more copies of such a work might easily enough be taken in a month when the blocks were all ready engraved; but we cannot suppose that the Bible ascribed to Pfister could be worked off in so short a time. This Bible consists of eight hundred and seventy leaves; and to print an edition of three hundred copies at the rate of three hundred sheets a day would require four hundred and fifty days. About three hundred copies of each work appears to have been the usual number which Sweinheim and Pannartz and Ulric Hahn printed, on the establishment of the art in Italy; and Philip de Lignamine in his chronicle mentions, under the year 1458, that Gutemberg and Faust, at Mentz, and Mentelin at Strasburg, printed three hundred sheets in a day.[IV-24]

[Footnote IV-23: In 1793, a learned doctor of divinity of Cambridge is said in a like manner to have broken Priscian’s head with “_paginibus_.” An epigram on this “blunder_bus_” is to be found in the “Gradus ad Cantabrigiam.”]

[Footnote IV-24: Lichtenberger, Initia Typographica, p. 51.]

Of Pfister nothing more is positively known than what the tracts printed by him afford; namely, that he dwelt at Bamberg, and exercised the business of a printer there in 1461 and 1462. He might indeed print there both before and after those years, but of this we have no direct evidence. From 1462 to 1481 no book is known to have been printed at Bamberg. In the latter year, a press was established there by John Sensenschmidt of Egra, who had previously, that is from 1470, printed several works at Nuremberg.

Panzer, alluding to Pfister as the printer only of the Fables and of the tracts contained in the volume described by Camus, says that he can scarcely believe that he had a fixed residence at Bamberg; and that those tracts most likely proceeded from the press of a travelling printer.[IV-25] Several of the early printers, who commenced on their own account, on the dispersion of Faust and Scheffer’s workmen in 1462, were accustomed to travel with their small stock of materials from one place to another; sometimes finding employment in a monastery, and sometimes taking up their temporary abode in a small town; removing to another as soon as public curiosity was satisfied, and the demand for the productions of their press began to decline. As they seldom put their names, or that of the place, to the works which they printed, it is extremely difficult to decide on the locality or the date of many old books printed in Germany. It is very likely that they were their own letter-founders, and that they themselves engraved such wood-cuts as they might require. As their object was to gain money, it is not unlikely that they might occasionally sell a portion of their types to each other;[IV-26] or to a novice who wished to begin the business, or to a learned abbot who might be desirous of establishing an amateur press within the precinct of his monastery, where copies of the Facetiæ of Poggius might be multiplied as well as the works of St. Augustine. Although it has been asserted the monks regarded with jealousy the progress of printing, as if it were likely to make knowledge too cheap, and to interfere with a part of their business as transcribers of books, such does not appear to have been the fact. In every country in Europe we find them to have been the first to encourage and promote the new art; and the annals of typography most clearly show that the greater part of the books printed within the first thirty years from the time of Gutemberg and Faust’s partnership were chiefly for the use of the monks and the secular clergy.

[Footnote IV-25: “Opuscula quæ typis mandavit typographus hic, hactenus ignotus, ad litteraturam Teutonicam pertinent. Imprimis Pfisterum hunc Bambergæ fixam habuisse sedem vix crediderim. Videntur potius hi libri Teutonici monumenta transeuntis typographi.”--Annal. Typogr. tom. i. p. 142, cited by Camus.]

[Footnote IV-26: Breitkopf, Ueber Bibliographie, S. 25. 4to. Leipzig, 1793.]

From 1462 to 1467 there appears to have been no book printed containing wood-cuts. In the latter year Ulric Hahn, a German, printed at Rome a book entitled “Meditationes Johannis de Turrecremata,”[IV-27] which contains wood-cuts engraved in simple outline in a coarse manner. The work is in folio, and consists of thirty-four leaves of stout paper, on which the water-mark is a hunter’s horn. The number of cuts is also thirty-four; and the following--the creation of animals--is a reduced copy of the first.

[Footnote IV-27: The following is the title at length as it is printed, in red letters, underneath the first cut: “Meditationes Reverē dissimi patris dñi Johannis de turre cremata sacros͞ce Romane eccl’ie cardinalis posite & depicte de ipsius mādato ī eccl’ie ambitu Marie de Minerva. Rome.” The book is described in Von Murr’s Memorabilia Bibliothecar. Publicar. Norimbergensium and in Dibdin’s Ædes Althorpianæ, vol. ii. p. 273, with specimens of the cuts.]

The remainder of the cuts are executed in a similar style; and though designed with more spirit than those contained in Pfister’s tracts, yet it can scarcely be said that they are better engraved. The following is an enumeration of the subjects. 1. The Creation, as above represented. 2. The Almighty speaking to Adam. 3. Eve taking the apple. (From No. 3 the rest of the cuts are illustrative of the New Testament or of Ecclesiastical History.) 4. The Annunciation. 5. The Nativity. 6. Circumcision of Christ. 7. Adoration of the Magi. 8. Simeon’s Benediction. 9. The Flight into Egypt. 10. Christ disputing with the Doctors in the Temple. 11. Christ baptized. 12. The Temptation in the Wilderness. 13. The keys given to Peter. 14. The Transfiguration. 15. Christ washing the Apostles’ feet. 16. The Last Supper. 17. Christ betrayed by Judas. 18. Christ led before the High Priest. 19. The Crucifixion. 20. Mater Dolorosa. 21. The Descent into Hell. 22. The Resurrection. 23. Christ appearing to his Disciples. 24. The Ascension. 25. The feast of Pentecost 26. The Host borne by a bishop. 27. The mystery of the Trinity; Abraham sees three and adores one. 28. St. Dominic extended like the “_Stam-Herr_” or first ancestor in a pedigree, and sending forth numerous branches as Popes, Cardinals, and Saints. 29. Christ appearing to St. Sixtus. 30. The Assumption of the Virgin. 31. Christ seated amidst a choir of Angels. 32. Christ seated at the Virgin’s right hand in the assembly of Saints. 33. The Office of Mass for the Dead. 34. The Last Judgment.

Zani says that those cuts were engraved by an Italian artist, but beyond his assertion there is no authority for the fact. It is most likely that they were cut by one of Hahn’s workmen, who could occasionally “turn his hand” to wood-engraving and type-founding, as well as compose and work at press; and it is most probable that Hahn’s workmen when he first established a press in Rome were Germans, and not Italians.

The second book printed in Italy with wood-cuts is the “Editio Princeps” of the treatise of R. Valturius de Re Militari, which appeared at Verona from the press of “Johannes de Verona,” son of Nicholas the surgeon, and master of the art of printing.[IV-28] This work is dedicated by the author to Sigismund Malatesta, lord of Rimini, who is styled in pompous phrase, “Splendidissimum Arminensium Regem ac Imperatorem semper invictum.” The work, however, must have been written several years before it was printed, for Baluze transcribed from a MS. dated 1463 a letter written in the name of Malatesta, and sent by the author with a copy of his work to the Sultan Mahomet II. The bearer of this letter was the painter Matteo Pasti, a friend of the author, who visited Constantinople at the Sultan’s request in order that he might paint his portrait. It is said that the cuts in this work were designed by Pasti; and it is very probable that he might make the drawings in Malatesta’s own copy, from which it is likely that the book was printed. As Valturius has mentioned Pasti as being eminently skilful in the arts of Painting, Sculpture, and _Engraving_,[IV-29] Maffei has conjectured,--and Mr. Ottley adds, “with some appearance of probability,”--that the cuts in question were executed by his hand. If such were the fact, it only could be regretted that an artist so eminent should have mis-spent his time in a manner so unworthy of his reputation; for, allowing that a considerable degree of talent is displayed in many of the designs, there is nothing in the engraving, as they are mere outlines, but what might be cut by a novice. There is not, however, the slightest reasonable ground to suppose that those engravings were cut by Matteo Pasti, for I believe that he died before printing was introduced into Italy; and it surely would be presuming beyond the verge of probability to assert that they might be engraved in anticipation of the art being introduced, and of the book being printed at some time or other, when the blocks would be all ready engraved, in a simple style of art indeed, but with a master’s hand. A master-sculptor’s hand, however, is not very easily distinguished in the mere rough-dressing of a block of sandstone, which any country mason’s apprentice might do as well. It is very questionable if Matteo Pasti was an engraver in the present sense of the word; the engraving meant by Valturius was probably that of gold and silver vessels and ornaments; but not the engraving of plates of copper or other metal for the purpose of being printed.

[Footnote IV-28: The following is a copy of the colophon: “Johannes ex verona oriundus: Nicolai cyrurgie medici filius: Artis impressorie magister: hunc de re militari librum elegantissimum: litteris et figuratis signis sua in patria primus impressit. An. MCCCCLXXII.”]

[Footnote IV-29: “Valturius speaks of Pasti in one of his letters as being eminently skilful in the arts of Painting, Sculpture, and Engraving.”--Ottley, Inquiry, p. 257.]

Several of those cuts occupy an entire folio page, though the greater number are of smaller size. They chiefly represent warlike engines, which display considerable mechanical skill on the part of the contriver; modes of attack and defence both by land and water, with various contrivances for passing a river which is not fordable, by means of rafts, inflated bladders, and floating bridges. In some of them inventions may be noticed which are generally ascribed to a later period: such as a boat with paddle-wheels, which are put in motion by a kind of crank; a gun with a stock, fired from the shoulder; and a bomb-shell. It has frequently been asserted that hand-guns were first introduced about the beginning of the sixteenth century, yet the figure of one in the work of Valturius makes it evident that they were known some time before. It is also likely that the drawing was made and the description written at least ten years before the book was printed. It has also been generally asserted that bomb-shells were first used by Charles VIII. of France when besieging Naples in 1495. Valturius, however, in treating of cannon, ascribes the invention to Malatesta.[IV-30] Gibbon, in chapter lxviii. of his History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, notices this cut of a bomb-shell. His reference is to the second edition of the work, in Italian, printed also at Verona by Bonin de Bononis in 1483, with the same cuts as the first edition in Latin.[IV-31] The two following cuts are fac-similes of the bomb-shell and the hand-gun, as represented in the edition of 1472. The figure armed with the gun,--a portion of a large cut,--is firing from a kind of floating battery; and in the original two figures armed with similar weapons are stationed immediately above him.

[Footnote IV-30: “Inventum est quoque alterum machinæ hujusce tuum Sigismonde Panpulfe [Malatesta]: qua pilæ æneæ tormentarii pulveris plenæ cum fungi aridi fomite urientis emittuntur.”--We hence learn that the first bomb-shells were made of copper, and that the fuzee was a piece of a dried fungus. As the first edition has neither numerals nor signatures, I cannot refer to the page in which the above passage is to be found. It is, however, opposite to the cut in which the bomb-shell appears, and that is about the middle of the volume.]

[Footnote IV-31: “Robert Valturio published at Verona, in 1483, his twelve books de Re Militari, in which he first mentions the use of bombs. By his patron Sigismond Malatesti, Prince of Rimini, it had been addressed with a Latin epistle to Mahomet II.”--Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chap. lxviii., note.]

The following fac-simile of a cut representing a man shooting with a cross-bow is the best in the book. The drawing of the figure is good, and the attitude graceful and natural. The figure, indeed, is not only the best in the work of Valturius, but is one of the best, so far as respects the drawing, that is to be met with in any book printed in the fifteenth century.

The practice of introducing wood-cuts into printed books seems to have been first generally adopted at Augsburg, where Gunther Zainer, in 1471, printed a German translation of the “Legenda Sanctorum” with figures of the saints coarsely engraved on wood. This, I believe, is the first book, after Pfister’s tracts, printed in Germany with wood-cuts and containing a date. In 1472 he printed a second volume of the same work, and an edition of the book entitled “Belial,”[IV-32] both containing wood-cuts. Several other works printed by him between 1471 and 1475 are illustrated in a similar manner. Zainer’s example was followed at Augsburg by his contemporaries John Bämler and John Schussler; and by them, and Anthony Sorg, who first began to print there about 1475, more books with wood-cuts were printed in that city previous to 1480 than at any other place within the same period. In 1477 the first German Bible with wood-cuts was printed by Sorg, who printed another edition with the same cuts and initial letters in 1480. In 1483 he printed an account of the Council of Constance held in 1431, with upwards of a thousand wood-cuts of figures and of the arms of the principal persons both lay and spiritual who attended the council. Upon this work Gebhard, in his Genealogical History of the Heritable States of the German Empire, makes the following observations:--“The first printed collection of arms is that of 1483 in the History of the Council of Constance written by Ulrich Reichenthal. To this council we are indebted accidentally for the collection. From the thirteenth century it was customary to hang up the shields of noble and honourable persons deceased in churches; and subsequently the practice was introduced of painting them upon the walls, or of placing them in the windows in stained glass. A similar custom prevailed at the Council of Constance; for every person of consideration who attended had his arms painted on the wall in front of his chamber; and thus Reichenthal, who caused those arms to be copied and engraved on wood, was enabled to give in his history the first general collection of coat-armour which had appeared; as eminent persons from all the Catholic states of Europe attended this council.”[IV-33]

[Footnote IV-32: Von Murr says that the person who engraved the cuts for this book also engraved the cuts in a German edition of the Speculum without date, but printed at Augsburg, and dedicated to John [von Giltingen] abbot of the monastery of St. Ulric and St. Afra, who was chosen to that office in 1482. Heineken supposed that the person to whom the book was dedicated was John von Hohenstein, but he resigned the office of abbot in 1459; and the book was certainly not printed at that period.--See Heineken, Idée Gén. p. 466; and Von Murr, Journal, 2 Theil, S. 145.]

[Footnote IV-33: L. A. Gebhard, Genealogische Geschichte, 1 Theil, Vorrede, S. 11. Cited by Veith in his “Diatribe,” prefixed to Zapf’s “Annales Typographiæ Augustanæ.”]

The practice of introducing wood-cuts became in a few years general throughout Germany. In 1473, John Zainer of Reutlingen, who is said to have been the brother of Gunther, printed an edition of Boccacio’s work “De mulieribus claris,” with wood-cuts, at Ulm. In 1474 the first edition of Werner Rolewinck de Laer’s chronicle, entitled “Fasciculus Temporum,” was printed with wood-cuts by Arnold Ther-Hoernen at Cologne; and in 1476 an edition of the same work, also with wood-cuts, was printed at Louvain by John Veldener, who previously had been a printer at Cologne. In another edition of the same work printed by Veldener at Utrecht in 1480, the first page is surrounded with a border of foliage and flowers cut on wood; and another page, about the middle of the volume, is ornamented in a similar manner. These are the earliest instances of ornamental borders from wood-blocks which I have observed. About the beginning of the sixteenth century title-pages surrounded with ornamental borders are frequent. From the name of those borders, _Rahmen_, the German wood engravers of that period are sometimes called _Rahmenschneiders_. Prosper Marchand, in his “Dictionnaire Historique,” tom. ii. p. 156, has stated that Erhard Ratdolt, a native of Augsburg, who began to print at Venice about 1475, was the first printer who introduced flowered initial letters, and vignettes--meaning by the latter term wood-cuts; but his information is scarcely correct. Wood-cuts--without reference to Pfister’s tracts, which were not known when Marchand wrote--were introduced at Augsburg six years before Ratdolt and his partners[IV-34] printed at Venice in 1476 the “Calendarium Joannis Regiomontani,” the work to which Marchand alludes. It may be true that he introduced a new kind of initial letters ornamented with flowers in this work, but much more beautiful initial letters had appeared long before in the Psalter, in the “Durandi Rationale,” and the “Donatus” printed by Faust and Scheffer. The first person who mentions Ratdolt as the inventor of “florentes litteræ,” so named from the flowers with which they are intermixed, is Maittaire, in his Annales Typographici, tom. i. part i. p. 53.

[Footnote IV-34: The following colophon to an edition of Appian informs us that his partners were Bernard the painter and Peter Loslein, who also acted as corrector of the press: “Impressum est hoc opus Venetiis per Bernardū pictorem & Erhardum ratdolt de Augusta una cum Petro Loslein de Langenzen correctore ac socio. Laus Deo. MCCCCLXXVII.”]

In 1483 Veldener,[IV-35] as has been previously observed at page 106, printed at Culemburg an edition in small quarto of the Speculum Salvationis, with the same blocks as had been used in the earlier folio editions, which are so confidently ascribed to Lawrence Coster. In Veldener’s edition each of the large blocks, consisting of two compartments, is sawn in two in order to adapt them to a smaller page. A German translation of the Speculum, with wood-cuts, was printed at Basle, in folio, in 1476; and Jansen says that the first book printed in France with wood-cuts was an edition of the Speculum, at Lyons, in 1478; and that the second was a translation of the book named “Belial,” printed at the same place in 1482.

[Footnote IV-35: Veldener at the conclusion of a book printed by him in 1476, containing “_Epistolares quasdam formulas_,” thus informs the reader of his name and qualifications: “Accipito huic artifici nomen esse magistro Johanni Veldener, cui quidem certa manu insculpendi, celandi, intorculandi, caracterandi adsit industria; adde et figurandi et effigiendi.” That is, his name was John Veldener; he could engrave, could work both at press and case, and moreover he knew something of sculpture, and could paint a little.]

The first printed book in the English language that contains wood-cuts is the second edition of Caxton’s “Game and Playe of the Chesse,” a small folio, without date or place, but generally supposed to have been printed about 1476.[IV-36] The first edition of the same work, without cuts, was printed in 1474. On the blank leaves at the end of a copy of the first edition in the King’s Library, at the British Museum, there is written in a contemporary hand a list of the bannerets and knights[IV-37] made at the battle of “Stooke by syde newerke apon trent the xvi day of june the ii^de yer of harry the vii.” that is, in 1487. In this battle Martin Swart was killed. He commanded the Flemings, who were sent by the Duchess of Burgundy to assist Lambert Simnel. It was at the request of the duchess, who was Edward the Fourth’s sister, that Caxton translated the “Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye,” the first book printed in the English language, and which appeared at Cologne in 1471 or 1472.

[Footnote IV-36: Heineken, Idée Gén. p. 207, erroneously states that the first book with wood-cuts printed in England was the Golden Legend, by Caxton, in 1483. It is probable that the second edition of the Game of Chess preceded it by seven years, and it certainly was printed after the Mirror of the World.]

[Footnote IV-37: The following are some of the names as they are written: “S gilbert talbott . S John cheiny . S williā stoner . Theis iij wer made byfore the bataile, and after the bataile were made the same day : S^r. John of Arundell . Thomas Cooksey . John forteskew . Edmond benyngfeld . james blount . ric . of Croffte . Geofrey Stanley . ric . delaber . John mortymer . williā troutbeke.” The above appear to have been created _Bannerets_, for after them follows a list of “_Knyghtes_ made at the same bataile.” It is likely that the owner of the volume was at the battle, and that the names were written immediately after.]

In Dr. Dibdin’s edition of Ames’s Typographical Antiquities there is a “Description of the Pieces and Pawns” in the second edition of Caxton’s Chess; which description is said to be illustrated with facsimile wood-cuts. There are indeed fac-similes of some of the figures given, but not of the wood-cuts generally; for in almost every cut given by Dr. Dibdin the back-ground of the original is omitted. In the description of the first fac-simile there is also an error: it is said to be “the _first_ cut in the work,” while in fact it is the _second_. The following I believe to be a correct list of these first fruits of English wood-engraving.

1. An executioner with an axe cutting to pieces, on a block, the limbs of a man. On the head, which is lying on the ground, there is a crown. Birds are seen seizing and flying away with portions of the limbs. There are buildings in the distance, and three figures, one of whom is a king with a crown and sceptre, appear looking on. 2. A figure sitting at a table, with a chess-board before him, and holding one of the chess-men in his hand. This is the cut which Dr. Dibdin says is the first in the book. 3. A king and another person playing at chess. 4. The king at chess, seated on a throne. 5. The king and queen. 6. The “alphyns,” now called “bishops” in the game of chess, “in the maner of judges sittyng.” 7. The knight. 8. The “rook,” or castle, a figure on horseback wearing a hood and holding a staff in his hand. From No. 9 to No. 15 inclusive, the pawns are thus represented. 9. Labourers and workmen, the principal figure representing the first pawn, with a spade in his right hand and a cart-whip in his left. 10. The second pawn, a smith with his buttriss in the string of his apron, and a hammer in his right hand. 11. The third pawn, represented as a _clerk_, that is a writer or transcriber, in the same sense as Peter Scheffer and Ulric Zell are styled _clerici_, with his case of writing materials at his girdle, a pair of shears in one hand, and a large knife in the other. The knife, which has a large curved blade, appears more fit for a butcher’s chopper than to make or mend pens. 12. The fourth pawn, a man with a pair of scales, and having a purse at his girdle, representing “marchauntes or chaungers.” 13. The fifth pawn, a figure seated on a chair, having in his right hand a book, and in his left a sort of casket or box of ointments, representing a physician, spicer, or apothecary. 14. The sixth pawn, an innkeeper, receiving a guest. 15. The seventh pawn, a figure with a yard measure in his right hand, a bunch of keys in his left, and an open purse at his girdle, representing “customers and tolle gaderers.” 16. The eighth pawn, a figure with a sort of badge on his breast near to his right shoulder, after the manner of a nobleman’s retainer, and holding a pair of dice in his left hand, representing dice-players, messengers, and “currours,” that is “couriers.” In old authors the numerous idle retainers of the nobility are frequently represented as gamblers, swash-bucklers, and tavern-haunters.

Although there are twenty-four impressions in the volume, yet there are only sixteen subjects, as described above; the remaining eight being repetitions of the cuts numbered 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 10, with two impressions of the cut No. 2, besides that towards the commencement.

The above cut is a reduced copy of the knight, No. 7; and his character is thus described: “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. When the Knyghtes been maad they ben bayned or bathed . That is the signe that they sholde lede a newe lyf and newe maners . also they wake alle the nyght in prayers and orisons unto god that he wil geve hem grace that they may gete that thyng that they may not gete by nature. The kyng or prynce gyrdeth a boute them a swerde in signe that they shold abyde and kepen hym of whom they taken their dispences and dignyte.”

The following cut of the sixth or bishop’s pawn, No. 14, “whiche is lykened to taverners and vytayllers,” is thus described in Caxton’s own words: “The sixte pawn whiche stondeth before the alphyn on the lyfte syde is made in this forme . ffor hit is a man that hath the right hond stretched out for to calle men, and holdeth in his left honde a loof of breed and a cuppe of wyn . and on his gurdel hangyng a bondel of keyes, and this resemblith the taverners hostelers and sellars of vytayl . and these ought properly to be sette to fore the alphyn as to fore a juge, for there sourdeth oft tymes amonge hem contencion noyse and stryf, which behoveth to be determyned and trayted by the alphyn which is juge of the kynge.”

The next book containing wood-cuts printed by Caxton is the “Mirrour of the World, or thymage of the same,” as he entitles it at the head of the table of contents. It is a thin folio consisting of one hundred leaves; and, in the Prologue, Caxton informs the reader that it “conteyneth in all lxvii chapitres and xxvii figures, without which it may not lightly be understāde.” He also says that he translated it from the French at the “request, desire, coste, and dispense of the honourable and worshipful man Hugh Bryce, alderman cytezeyn of London,” who intended to present the same to William, Lord Hastings, chamberlain to Edward IV, and lieutenant of the same for the town of Calais and the marches there. On the last page he again mentions Hugh Bryce and Lord Hastings, and says of his translation: “Whiche book I begun first to trāslate the second day of Janyuer the yere of our lord M.cccc.lxxx. And fynysshed the viii day of Marche the same yere, and the xxi yere of the reign of the most crysten kynge, Kynge Edward the fourthe.”[IV-38]

[Footnote IV-38: Edward IV. began to reign 4th March 1461; the twenty-first year of his reign would consequently commence on 4th March 1481; Caxton’s dates therefore do not agree, unless we suppose that he reckoned the commencement of the year from 21st March. If so, his date viii March 1480, and the xxi year of the reign of Edward IV. would agree; and the year of Christ, according to our present mode of reckoning, would be 1481. Dr. Dibdin assigns to the Mirror the date 1481.--Typ. Ant. i. p. 100.]

The “xxvii figures” mentioned by Caxton, without which the work might not be easily understood, are chiefly diagrams explanatory of the principles of astronomy and dialling; but besides those twenty-seven cuts the book contains eleven more, which may be considered as illustrative rather than explanatory. The following is a list of those eleven cuts in the order in which they occur. They are less than the cuts in the “Game of Chess;” the most of them not exceeding three inches and a half by three.[IV-39]

[Footnote IV-39: Fac-similes of six of those cuts are given in Dr. Dibdin’s edition of Ames’s Typographical Antiquities, vol. i. p. 110-112.]

1. A school-master or “doctor,” gowned, and seated on a high-backed chair, teaching four youths who are on their knees. 2. A person seated on a low-backed chair, holding in his hand a kind of globe; astronomical instruments on a table before him. 3. Christ, or the Godhead, holding in his hand a ball and cross. 4. The creation of Eve, who appears coming out of Adam’s side.--The next cuts are figurative of the “seven arts liberal.” 5. Grammar. A teacher with a large birch-rod seated on a chair, his four pupils before him on their knees. 6. Logic. Figure bare-headed seated on a chair, and having before him a book on a kind of reading-stand, which he appears expounding to his pupils who are kneeling. 7. Rhetoric. An upright figure in a gown, to whom another, kneeling, presents a paper, from which a seal is seen depending. 8. Arithmetic. A figure seated, and having before him a tablet inscribed with numerical characters. 9. Geometry. A figure standing, with a pair of compasses in his hand, with which he seems to be drawing diagrams on a table. 10. Music. A female figure with a sheet of music in her hand, singing, and a man playing on the English flute. 11. Astronomy. Figure with a kind of quadrant in his hand, who seems to be taking an observation.--An idea may be formed of the manner in which those cuts are engraved from the fac-simile on the next page of No. 10, “Music.”

There are wood-cuts in the Golden Legend, 1483; the Fables of Esop, 1484; Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, and other books printed by Caxton; but it is unnecessary either to enumerate them or to give specimens, as they are all executed in the same rude manner as the cuts in the Book of Chess and the Mirror of the World. In the Book of Hunting and Hawking printed at St. Albans, 1486, there are rude wood-cuts; as also in a second and enlarged edition of the same book printed by Wynkyn de Worde, Caxton’s successor, at Westminster in 1496. The most considerable wood-cut printed in England previous to 1500 is, so far as regards the design, a representation of the Crucifixion at the end of the Golden Legend printed by Wynkyn de Worde in 1493.[IV-40] In this cut, neither of the thieves on each side of Christ appears to be nailed to the cross. The arms of the thief on the right of Christ hang behind, and are bound to the transverse piece of the cross, which passes underneath his shoulders. His feet are neither bound nor nailed to the cross. The feet of the thief to the left of Christ are tied to the upright piece of the cross, to which his hands are also bound, his shoulders resting upon the top, and his face turned upward towards the sky. To the left is seen the Virgin,--who has fallen down,--supported by St. John. In the back-ground to the right, the artist, like several others of that period, has represented Christ bearing his cross.

Dr. Dibdin, at page 8 of the “Disquisition on the Early State of Engraving and Ornamental Printing in Great Britain,” prefixed to Ames’s and Herbert’s Typographical Antiquities, makes the following observations on this cut: “The ‘Crucifixion’ at the end of the ‘Golden Legend’ of 1493, which Wynkyn de Worde has so frequently subjoined to his religious pieces, is, unquestionably, the effort of some ingenious foreign artist. It is not very improbable that Rubens had a recollection of one of the thieves, twisted, from convulsive agony, round the top of the cross, when he executed his celebrated picture of the same subject.”[IV-41] In De Worde’s cut, however, it is to be remarked that the contorted attitude of both the thieves results rather from the manner in which they are bound to the cross, than from the convulsions of agony.

[Footnote IV-40: A large flowered letter, a T, cut on wood, occurs on the same page as the Crucifixion.]

[Footnote IV-41: In a note upon this passage Dr. Dibdin gives the following extract from Sir Joshua Reynolds. “To give animation to this subject, Rubens has chosen the point of time when an executioner is piercing the side of Christ, while another with a bar of iron is breaking the limbs of one of the malefactors, who in his convulsive agony, which his body admirably expresses, has torn one of his feet from the tree to which it was nailed. The expression in the action of the figure is wonderful.”]

At page 7 of the same Disquisition it is said that the figures in the Game of Chess, the Mirror of the World, and other works printed by Caxton “are, in all probability, not the genuine productions of this country; and may be traced to books of an earlier date printed abroad, from which they were often borrowed without acknowledgment or the least regard to the work in which they again appeared. Caxton, however, has judiciously taken one of the prints from the ‘Biblia Pauperum’ to introduce in his ‘Life of Christ.’ The cuts for his second edition of ‘Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales’ may perhaps safely be considered as the genuine invention and execution of a British artist.”

Although I am well aware that the printers of the fifteenth century were accustomed to copy without acknowledgment the cuts which appeared in each other’s books, and though I think it likely that Caxton might occasionally resort to the same practice, yet I am decidedly of opinion that the cuts in the “Game of Chess” and the “Mirror of the World” were designed and engraved in this country. Caxton’s Game of Chess is certainly the first book of the kind which appeared with wood-cuts in any country; and I am further of opinion that in no book printed previous to 1481 will the presumed originals of the eleven principal cuts in the Mirror of the World be found. Before we are required to believe that the cuts in those two books were copied from similar designs by some foreign artist, we ought to be informed in what work such originals are to be found. If there be any merit in a first design, however rude, it is but just to assign it to him who first employs the unknown artist and makes his productions known. Caxton’s claims to the merit of “illustrating” the Game of Chess and the Mirror of the World with wood-cuts from original designs, I conceive to be indisputable.

Dr. Dibdin, in a long note at pages 33, 34, and 35 of the Typographical Antiquities, gives a confused account of the earliest editions of books on chess. He mentions as the first, a Latin edition--supposed by Santander to be the work of Jacobus de Cessolis--in folio, printed about the year 1473, by Ketelaer and Leempt. In this edition, however, there are no cuts, and the date is only conjectural. He says that two editions of the work of Jacobus de Cessolis on the Morality of Chess, in German and Italian, with wood-cuts, were printed, without date, in the fifteenth century, and he adds: “Whether Caxton borrowed the cuts in his second edition from those in the 8vo. German edition without date, or from this latter Italian one, I am not able to ascertain, having seen neither.” He seems satisfied that Caxton had _borrowed_ the cuts in his book of chess, though he is at a loss to discover the party who might have them to _lend_. Had he even seen the two editions which he mentions, he could not have known whether Caxton had borrowed his cuts from them or not until he had ascertained that they were printed previously to the English edition. There is a German edition of Jacobus de Cessolis, in folio, with wood-cuts supposed to be printed in 1477, at Augsburg, by Gunther Zainer, but both date and printer’s name are conjectural. The first German edition of this work with wood-cuts, and having a positive date, I believe to be that printed at Strasburg by Henry Knoblochzer in 1483. Until a work on chess shall be produced of an earlier date than that ascribed to Caxton’s, and containing similar wood-cuts, I shall continue to believe that the wood-cuts in the second English edition of the “Game and Playe of the Chesse” were both designed and executed by an English artist; and I protest against bibliographers going a-begging with wood-cuts found in old English books, and ascribing them to foreign artists, before they have taken the slightest pains to ascertain whether such cuts were executed in England or not.

The wood-cuts in the Game of Chess and the Mirror of the World are equally as good as the wood-cuts which are to be found in books printed abroad about the same period. They are even decidedly better than those in Anthony Sorg’s German Bible, Augsburg, 1480, or those in Veldener’s edition of the Fasciculus Temporum, printed at Utrecht in the same year.

It has been supposed that most of the wood-cuts which appear in books printed by Caxton and De Worde were executed abroad; on the presumption that there were at that period no professed wood engravers in England. Although I am inclined to believe that within the fifteenth century there were no persons in this country who practised wood engraving as a distinct profession, yet it by no means follows from such an admission that Caxton’s and De Worde’s cuts must have been engraved by foreign artists. The manner in which they are executed is so coarse that they might be cut by any person who could handle a graver. Looking at them merely as specimens of wood engraving, they are not generally superior to the practice-blocks cut by a modern wood-engraver’s apprentice within the first month of his noviciate. I conceive that there would be no greater difficulty in finding a person capable of engraving them than there would be in finding the pieces of wood on which they were to be executed. Persons who have noticed the embellishments in manuscripts, the carving, the monuments, and the stained glass in churches, executed in England about the time of Caxton, will scarcely suppose that there were no artists in this country capable of making the designs for those cuts. There is in fact reason to believe that in England in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the walls of apartments, more especially in taverns and hostelries, frequently contained paintings, most probably in distemper, of subjects both from sacred and general history. That paintings of sacred subjects were not unusual in churches at those periods is well known.

In most of the cuts which are to be found in books printed by Caxton, the effect is produced by the simplest means. The outline of the figures is coarse and hard, and the shades and folds of the draperies are indicated by short parallel lines. Cross-hatchings occur in none of them, though in one or two I have noticed a few angular dots picked out of the black part of a cut in order that it might not appear like a mere blot. The foliage of the trees is generally represented in a manner similar to those in the background of the cut of the knight, of which a copy is given at page 193. The oak leaves in a wood-cut[IV-42] at the commencement of the preface to the Golden Legend, 1483, are an exception to the general style of Caxton’s foliage; and represent what they are intended for with tolerable accuracy. Having thus noticed some of the earliest books with wood-engravings printed in England, I shall now resume my account of the progress of the art on the Continent.

[Footnote IV-42: A copy of this cut is given at p. 186, vol. i. of Dr. Dibdin’s edition of the Typographical Antiquities.]

In an edition of Ptolemy’s Cosmography, printed at Ulm in 1482 by Leonard Holl, we have the first instance of maps engraved on wood. The work is in folio, and the number of the maps is twenty-seven. In a general map of the world the engraver has thus inserted his name at the top: “Insculptum est per Johannē Schnitzer de Armssheim.”[IV-43] At the corners of this map the winds are represented by heads with puffed-out cheeks, very indifferently engraved. The work also contains ornamental initial letters engraved on wood. In a large one, the letter at the beginning of the volume, the translator is represented offering his book to Pope Paul II. who occupied the see of Rome from 1464 to 1471.

[Footnote IV-43: Arnsheim, which is probably the place intended, is about twenty miles to the south-west of Mentz.]

Each map occupies two folio pages, and is printed on the verso of one page and the recto of the next, in such a manner that when the book is open the adjacent pages seem as if printed from one block. What may be considered as the skeleton of each map,--such as indications of rivers and mountains,--is coarsely cut; but as the names of the places are also engraved on wood, the execution of those thirty-seven maps must have been a work of considerable labour. In 1486 another edition with the same cuts was printed at Ulm by John Regen at the cost of Justus de Albano of Venice.

The idea of Leonard Holl’s Ptolemy was most likely suggested by an edition of the same work printed at Rome in 1478 by Arnold Bukinck, the successor of Conrad Sweinheim. In this edition the maps are printed from plates of copper; and from the perfect similarity of the letters, as may be observed in the names of places, there can be no doubt of their having been stamped upon the plate by means of a punch in a manner similar to that in which a bookbinder impresses the titles at the back of a volume. It is absolutely impossible that such perfect uniformity in the form of the letters could have been obtained, had they been separately engraved on the plate by hand. Each single letter is as perfectly like another of the same character,--the capital M for instance,--as types cast by a letter-founder from the same mould. The names of the places are all in capitals, but different sizes are used for the names of countries and cities. The capitals at the margins referring to the degrees of latitude are of very beautiful shape, and as delicate as the capitals in modern hair-type.

At the back of some of the maps in the copy in the King’s Library at the British Museum, the paper appears as if it had received, when in a damp state, an impression from linen cloth. As this appearance of threads crossing each other does not proceed from the texture of the paper, but is evidently the result of pressure, I am inclined to think that it has been occasioned by a piece of linen being placed between the paper and the roller when the impressions were taken.

In the dedication of the work to the Pope it is stated that this edition was prepared by Domitius Calderinus of Verona, who promised to collate the Latin version with an ancient Greek manuscript; and that Conrad Sweinheim, who was one of the first who introduced the art of printing at Rome, undertook, with the assistance of “certain mathematical men,” whom he taught, to “impress” the maps upon plates of copper. Sweinheim, after having spent three years in preparing these plates, died before they were finished; and Arnold Bukinck, a learned German printer, completed the work, “that the emendations of Calderinus,--who also died before the book was printed,--and the results of Sweinheim’s most ingenious mechanical contrivances might not be lost to the learned world.”[IV-44]

[Footnote IV-44: “Magister vero Conradus Suueynheyn, Germanus, a quo formandorum Romæ librorum ars primum profecta est, occasione hinc sumpta posteritati consulens animum ad hanc doctrinam capessendam applicuit. Subinde mathematicis adhibitis viris quemadmodum tabulis eneis imprimerentur edocuit, triennioque in hac cura consumpto diem obiit. In cujus vigilarum laborumque partem non inferiori ingenio ac studio Arnoldus Buckinck e Germania vir apprime eruditus ad imperfectum opus succedens, ne Domitii Conradique obitu eorum vigiliæ emendationesque sine testimonio perirent neve virorum eruditorum censuram fugerent immensæ subtilitatis machinimenta, examussim ad unum perfecit.”--Dedication to the Pope, of Ptolemy’s Cosmography, Rome, 1478.]

An edition of Ptolemy in folio, with the maps engraved on copper, was printed at Bologna by Dominico de Lapis with the erroneous date M.CCCC.LXII. This date is certainly wrong, for no work from the press of this printer is known of an earlier date than 1477; and the editor of this edition, Philip Beroaldus the elder, was only born in 1450, if not in 1453. Supposing him to have been born in the former year, he would only be twelve years old in 1462. Raidel, who in 1737 published a dissertation on this edition, thinks that two numerals--XX--had accidentally been omitted, and that the date ought to be 1482. Breitkopf thinks that one X might be accidentally omitted in a date and pass uncorrected, but not two. He rather thinks that the compositor had placed an I instead of an L, and that the correct date ought to stand thus: M CCCC L XLI--1491. I am however of opinion that no instance of the Roman numerals, L XLI, being thus combined to express 91, can be produced. It seems most probable that the date 1482 assigned by Raidel is correct; although his opinion respecting the numerals--XX--being accidentally omitted may be wrong. It is extremely difficult to account for the erroneous dates of many books printed previous to 1500. Several of those dates may have been accidentally wrong set by the compositor, and overlooked by the corrector; but others are so obvious that it is likely they were designedly introduced. The bibliographer who should undertake to enquire what the printers’ reasons might be for falsifying the dates of their books, would be as likely to arrive at the truth, as he would be in an enquiry into the reason of their sometimes adding their name, and sometimes omitting it. The execution of the maps in the edition of De Lapis is much inferior to that of the maps begun by Sweinheim, and finished by Bukinck in 1478.

Bukinck’s edition of Ptolemy, 1478, is the second book which contains impressions from copper-plates. Heineken, at page 233, refers to the “Missale Herbipolense,” folio, 1481, as the first book printed in Germany containing a specimen of copper-plate engraving. Dr. Dibdin, however, in the 3rd volume of his Tour, page 306, mentions the same work as having the date of 1479 in the prefatory admonition, and says that the plate of a shield of arms--the only one in the volume--is noticed by Bartsch in his “Peintre-Graveur,” vol. x. p. 57. The printer of the edition of 1481 appears from Heineken to have been George Reyser. In the “Modus Orandi secundum chorum Herbipolensem,” folio, printed by George Reyser, “Herbipoli,” [at Wurtzburg,] 1485, there is on folio II. a copper-plate engraving of the arms of Rudolph de Scherenberg, bishop of that see. This plate is also described by Bartsch in his “Peintre-Graveur,” vol. x. p. 156. The first book which appeared with copper-plate engravings is intitled “Il Monte Sancto di Dio,” written by Antonio Bettini, and printed at Florence in 1477 by Nicolo di Lorenzo della Magna. As this book is of extreme rarity, I shall here give an account of the plates from Mercier, who first called the attention of bibliographers to it as being of an earlier date than the folio edition of Dante, with copper-plate engravings, printed also by Nicolo Lorenzo in 1481. This edition of Dante was generally supposed to be the first book containing copper-plate engravings until Bettini’s work was described by Mercier.

The work called “Il Monte Sancto di Dio” is in quarto, and according to Mercier there ought to be a quire or gathering of four leaves at the commencement, containing a summary of the work, which is divided into three parts, with a table of the chapters. On the reverse of the last of those four leaves is the first plate, which occupies the whole page, and “measures nine inches and seven-eighths in height, by seven inches in width.”[IV-45] This plate represents the Holy Mountain, on the top of which Christ is seen standing in the midst of adoring angels. A ladder is placed against this mountain, to which it is fastened with iron chains, and on each step is engraved the name of a virtue, for instance, Prudence, Temperance, Fortitude, and others. A figure clothed in a long robe, and who appears to be a monk, is seen mounting the ladder. His eyes are directed towards a huge crucifix placed half way up the hill to the right of the ladder, and from his mouth there proceeds a label inscribed with these words: “_Tirami doppo ti_,”--“Draw me up after thee.” Another figure is seen standing at the foot of the mountain, looking towards the top, and uttering these words: “_Levavi oculos meos in montes_,” &c. The second plate occurs at signature Iv[IV-46] after the 115th chapter. It also represents Christ in his glory, surrounded by angels. It is only four inches and five lines high, by six inches wide, French measure. The third plate, which is the same size as the second, occurs at signature Pvij, and represents a view of Hell according to the description of Dante. Those plates, which for the period are well enough designed and executed, especially the second, were most likely engraved on copper; and they seem to be by the same hand as those in the edition of Dante of 1481, from the press of Nicolo di Lorenzo, who also printed the work of Bettini.[IV-47] A copy of “Il Monte Sancto di Dio” is in Earl Spencer’s Library; and a description and specimens of the cuts are given by Dr. Dibdin in the Bibliotheca Spenceriana, vol. iv. p. 30; and by Mr. Ottley in the Inquiry into the Origin and Early History of Engraving, vol. i. pp. 375-377.

[Footnote IV-45: This is Mr. Ottley’s measurement, taken within the black line which bounds the subject. The width as given by Mercier does not accord with the above. He says that the plate “a neuf pouces et demi de haut sur six de large.”]

[Footnote IV-46: Mr. Ottley says, “on the reverse of signature N viij.”]

[Footnote IV-47: “Lettres de M. l’Abbé de St. L***, [St. Léger, autrefois le pere Le Mercier, ancien Bibliothecaire de St. Genevieve] à M. le Baron de H*** sur différentes Editions rares du XV^e. Siécle,” p. 4-5. 8vo. Paris, 1783. A short biographic sketch of the Abbé Mercier St. Léger, one of the most eminent French Bibliographers of the last century, will be found in Dr. Dibdin’s Tour, vol. ii. p. 180.]

In the execution of the maps, the copper-plate engraver possesses a decided advantage over the engraver on wood, owing to the greater facility and clearness with which letters can be cut _in_ copper than _on_ wood. In the engraving of letters on copper, the artist cuts the form of the letter _into_ the plate, the character being thus in _intaglio_; while in engraving on a block, the wood surrounding has to be cut away, and the letter left in _relief_. On copper, using only the graver,--for etching was not known in the fifteenth century,--as many letters might be cut in one day as could be cut on wood in three. Notwithstanding the disadvantage under which the ancient wood engravers laboured in the execution of maps, they for many years contended with the copper-plate printers for a share of this branch of business; and the printers, at whose presses maps engraved on wood only could be printed, were well inclined to support the wood engravers. In a folio edition of Ptolemy, printed at Venice in 1511, by Jacobus Pentius de Leucho, the outlines of the maps, with the indications of the mountains and rivers, are cut on wood, and the names of the places are printed in type, of different sizes, and with red and black ink. For instance, in the map of Britain, which is more correct than any which had previously appeared, the word “ALBION” is printed in large capitals, and the word “GADINI” in small capitals, and both with red ink. The words “Curia” and “Bremenium” are printed in small Roman characters, and with black ink. The names of the rivers are also in small Roman, and in black ink. Such of those maps as contain many names, are almost full of type. The double borders surrounding them, within which the degrees of latitude are marked, appear to have been formed of separate pieces of metal, in the manner of wide double rules. At the head of several of the maps there are figures of animals emblematic of the country. In the first map of Africa there are two parrots; in the second an animal like a jackal, and a non-descript; in the third, containing Egypt, a crocodile, and a monstrous kind of fish like a dragon; and in the fourth, two parrots. In the last, the “curious observer” will note a specimen of decorative printing from two blocks of wood; for the beak, wing, and tail of one of the parrots is printed in red.

In the last map,--of Loraine,--in an edition of Ptolemy, in folio, printed at Strasburg in 1513, by John Schott, the attempt to print in colours, in the manner of chiaro-scuro wood engravings, is carried yet further. The hills and woods are printed green; the indications of towns and cities, and the names of the most considerable places, are red; while the names of the smaller places are black. For this map, executed in three colours, green, red, and black, there would be required two wood engravings and two forms of type, each of which would have to be separately printed. The arms which form a border to the map are printed in their proper heraldic colours.[IV-48] The only other specimen of armorial bearings printed in colours from wood-blocks, that I am aware of, is Earl Spencer’s arms in the first part of Savage’s Hints on Decorative Printing, which was published in 1818, upwards of three hundred years after the first essay.

[Footnote IV-48: I regret that I have not had an opportunity of personally examining this map. There is a copy of Schott’s edition in the British Museum; but all the maps, except one of the sphere, are taken out. The above account of the map of Loraine is from Breitkopf’s interesting essay “Ueber den Druck der Geographischen Charten,” S. 7. 4to. Leipzig, 1777.]

At a later period a new method was adopted by which the wood engraver was spared the trouble of cutting the letters, while the printer was enabled to obtain a perfect copy of each map by a single impression. The mode in which this was effected was as follows. The indications of mountains, rivers, cities, and villages were engraved on the wood as before, and blank spaces were left for the names. Those spaces were afterwards cut out by means of a chisel or drill, piercing quite through the block: and the names of the places being inserted in type, the whole constituted only one “form,” from which an impression both of the cut and the letters could be obtained by its being passed once through the press. Sebastian Munster’s Cosmography, folio, printed at Basle in 1554, by Henry Petri, affords several examples of maps executed in this manner. This may be considered as one of the last efforts of the old wood engravers and printers to secure to themselves a share of the business of map-engraving. Their endeavours, however, were unavailing; for within twenty years of that date, this branch of art was almost exclusively in the hands of the copper-plate engravers. From the date of the maps of Ortelius, Antwerp, 1570, engraved on copper by Ægidius Diest, maps engraved on wood are rarely to be seen. The practice of engraving the outlines and rivers on wood, and then piercing the block and inserting the names of the places in type has, however, lately been revived; and where publishers are obliged either to print maps with the type or to give none at all, this mode may answer very well, more especially when the object is to give the relative position of a few of the principal places, rather than a crowded list of names. Most of the larger maps in the Penny Cyclopædia are executed in this manner. The holes in the blocks are pierced with the greatest rapidity by gouges of different sizes acting vertically, and put in motion by machinery contrived by Mr. Edward Cowper, to whose great mechanical skill the art of steam-printing chiefly owes its perfection.

Having thus noticed consecutively the progress of map engraving, it may not here be out of place to give a brief account of Breitkopf’s experiment to print a map with separate pieces of metal in the manner of type.[IV-49] Previous to 1776 some attempts had been made by a person named Preusch, of Carlsruhe, to print maps by a process which he named typometric, and who published an account of his plan, printed at the press of Haass the Younger, of Basil. In 1776 Breitkopf sent a communication to Busching’s Journal, containing some remarks on the invention of Preusch, and stating that he had conceived a similar plan upwards of twenty years previously, and that he had actually set up a specimen and printed off a few copies, which he had given to his friends. The veracity of this account having been questioned by an illiberal critic, Breitkopf, in 1777, prefixed to his Essay on the Printing of Maps a specimen composed of moveable pieces of metal in the manner of types. He expressly declares that he considered his experiment a failure; and that he only produced his specimen--a quarto map of the country round Leipsic--in testimony of the truth of what he had previously asserted, and to show that two persons might, independently of each other, conceive an idea of the same invention, although they might differ considerably in their mode of carrying it into effect.

[Footnote IV-49: The following particulars respecting Breitkopf’s invention are derived from his essay “Ueber den Druck der Geographischen Charten,” previously referred to.]

He was first led to think on the practicability of printing maps with moveable pieces of metal by considering that when the letters are omitted there remain but hills, rivers, and the indications of places; and for these he was convinced that representations consisting of moveable pieces of metal might be contrived. Having, however, made the experiment, he felt satisfied that the appearance of such a map was unpleasing to the eye, and that the invention was not likely to be practically useful. Had it not been for the publication of Preusch, he says that he never would have thought of mentioning his invention, except as a mechanical experiment; and to show that the execution of maps in such a manner was within the compass of the printer’s art.

In the specimen which he gives, rivers are represented by minute parallel lines, which are shorter or longer as the river contracts or expands; and the junction of the separate pieces may be distinctly perceived. For hills and trees there are distinct characters representing those objects. Towns and large villages are distinguished by a small church, and small villages by a small circle. Roads are indicated by dotted parallel lines. For the title of the map large capitals are used. The name of the city of LEIPSIC is in small capitals. The names of towns and villages are in _Italic_; and of woods, rivers, and hills, in Roman type. The general appearance of the map is unpleasing to the eye. Breitkopf has displayed his ingenuity by producing such a typographic curiosity, and his good sense in abandoning his invention when he found that he could not render it useful.

Mr. Ottley, at page 755 of the second volume of his Inquiry, makes the following remarks on the subject of cross-hatching in wood engravings:--“It appears anciently to have been the practice of those masters who furnished designs for the wood engravers to work from, carefully to avoid all cross-hatchings, which, it is probable, were considered beyond the power of the Xylographist to represent. Wolgemuth perceived that, though difficult, this was not impossible; and in the cuts of the Nuremberg Chronicle, the execution of which, (besides furnishing the designs,) he doubtless superintended, a successful attempt was first made to imitate the bold hatchings of a pen-drawing, crossing each other, as occasion prompted the designer, in various directions: to him belongs the praise of having been the first who duly appreciated the powers of this art.”

Although it is true that cross-hatchings are not to be found in the earliest wood engravings, yet Mr. Ottley is wrong in assigning this material improvement in the art to Michael Wolgemuth; for cross-hatching is introduced in the beautiful cut forming the frontispiece to the Latin edition of Breydenbach’s Travels, folio, first printed at Mentz, by Erhard Reuwich, in 1486,[IV-50] seven years before the Nuremberg Chronicle appeared. The cut in the following page is a reduced but accurate copy of Breydenbach’s frontispiece, which is not only the finest wood engraving which had appeared up to that date, 1486, but is in point of design and execution as superior to the best cuts in the Nuremberg Chronicle, as the designs of Albert Durer are to the cuts in the oldest editions of the “Poor Preachers’ Bible.”

[Footnote IV-50: An edition of this work in German, with the same cuts, was printed by Reuwich in 1488. Within ten years, at least six different editions of this work were printed in Germany. It was also translated into Low Dutch, and printed in Holland.]

In this cut, cross-hatching may be observed in the drapery of the female figure, in the upper part of the two shields on each side of her, in the border at the top of the cut, and in other places. Whether the female figure be intended as a personification of the city of Mentz, as is sometimes seen in old books of the sixteenth century, or for St. Catherine, whose shrine on Mount Sinai was visited by Breydenbach in his travels, I shall not pretend to determine. The arms on her right are Breydenbach’s own; on her left are the arms of John, Count of Solms and Lord of Mintzenberg, and at the bottom of the cut those of Philip de Bicken, knight, who were Breydenbach’s companions to the holy sepulchre at Jerusalem and the shrine of St. Catherine on Mount Sinai. St. Catherine, it may be observed, was esteemed the patroness of learned men, and her figure was frequently placed in libraries in Catholic countries, in the same manner as the bust of Minerva in the libraries of ancient Greece and Rome. The name of the artist by whom the frontispiece to Breydenbach’s travels was executed is unknown; but I have no hesitation in declaring him to be one of the best wood engravers of the period. As this is the earliest wood-cut in which I have noticed cross-hatching, I shall venture to ascribe the merit of the invention to the unknown artist, whoever he may have been; and shall consider the date 1486 as marking the period when a new style of wood engraving was introduced. Wolgemuth, as associated with wood engraving, has too long been decked out with borrowed plumes; and persons who knew little or nothing either of the history or practice of the art, and who are misled by writers on whose authority they rely, believe that Michael Wolgemuth was not only one of the best wood engravers of his day, but that he was the first who introduced a material improvement into the practice of the art. This error becomes more firmly rooted when such persons come to be informed that he was the master of Albert Durer, who is generally, but erroneously, supposed to have been the best wood engraver of his day. Albert Durer studied under Michael Wolgemuth as a painter, and not as a wood engraver; and I consider it as extremely questionable if either of them ever engraved a single block. There are many evidences in Germany of Wolgemuth having been a tolerably good painter for the age and country in which he lived; but there is not one of his having engraved on wood. In the Nuremberg Chronicle he is represented as having, in conjunction with William Pleydenwurf, superintended the execution of the wood-cuts contained in that book. Those cuts, which are frequently referred to as excellent specimens of old wood engraving, are in fact the most tasteless and worthless things that are to be found in any book, ancient or modern. It is a book, however, that is easy to be obtained; and it serves as a land-mark to superficial enquirers who are perpetually referring to it as containing wood-cuts designed, if not engraved, by Albert Durer’s master,--and such, they conclude, must necessarily possess a very high degree of excellence.

Breydenbach was a canon of the cathedral church of Mentz, and he dedicates the account of his pilgrimage to the Holy Land and visit to Mount Sinai to Berthold, archbishop of that see. The frontispiece, although most deserving of attention as a specimen of wood engraving, is not the only cut in the book which is worthy of notice. Views are given, engraved on wood, of the most remarkable places which he visited;--and those of Venice, Corfu, Modon, and the country round Jerusalem, which are of great length, are inserted in the book as “folding plates.” Each of the above views is too large to have been engraved on one block. For that of Venice, which is about five feet long, and ten inches high, several blocks must have been required, from each of which impressions would have to be taken singly, and afterwards pasted together, as is at present done in such views as are too wide to be contained on one sheet. Those views, with respect to the manner in which they are executed, are superior to everything of the same kind which had previously appeared. The work also contains smaller cuts printed with the type, which are not generally remarkable for their execution, although some of them are drawn and engraved in a free and spirited manner. The following cut is a reduced copy of that which is prefixed to a chapter intitled “De Surianis qui Ierosolimis et locis illis manentes etiam se asserunt esse Christianos:”--

In a cut of animals there is a figure of a giraffe,[IV-51] named by Breydenbach “seraffa,” of a unicorn, a salamander, a camel, and an animal something like an oran-outang, except that it has a tail. Of the last the traveller observes, “non constat de nomine.” Some account of this book, with fac-similes of the cuts, will be found in Dibdin’s Bibliotheca Spenceriana, vol iii. pp. 216-228. In the copy there described, belonging to Earl Spencer, the beautiful frontispiece was wanting.

[Footnote IV-51: This is probably the first figure of the giraffe that was communicated to the “reading public” of Europe. Its existence was afterwards denied by several naturalists; and it is only within a comparatively recent period that the existence of such an animal was clearly established.]

Although a flowered border surrounding a whole page may be observed as occurring twice in Veldener’s edition of the Fasciculus Temporum, printed at Utrecht in 1480, yet I am inclined to think that the practice of surrounding every page with an ornamental flowered border cut in wood, was first introduced by the Parisian printers at a period somewhat later. In 1488, an edition of the “Horæ in Laudem beatissimæ virginis Mariæ,” in octavo, was printed at Paris by Anthony Verard, the text of which is surrounded with ornamental borders. The practice thus introduced was subsequently adopted by the printers of Germany and Holland, more especially in the decoration of devotional works, such as Horæ, Breviaries, and Psalters. Verard appears to have chiefly printed works of devotion and love, for a greater number of Horæ and Romances proceeded from his press than that of any other printer of his age. Most of them contain wood-cuts, some of which, in books printed by him about the beginning of the sixteenth century, are designed with considerable taste and well engraved; while others, those for instance in “La Fleur des Battailes,” 4to, 1505, are not superior to those in Caxton’s Chess: it is, however, not unlikely that the cuts in “La Fleur des Battailes” of this date had been used for an earlier edition.[IV-52]

[Footnote IV-52: A good specimen of early French wood engraving may be seen in the large cut forming a kind of frontispiece to the “Roman du Roy Artus,” folio, printed at Rouen in 1488 by Jehan de Bourgeois. This cut, which occupies the whole page, represents King Arthur and his knights dining off the round table. A smaller one occurs at the beginning of the second part, and both are surrounded by ornamental borders.]

The “Hortus Sanitatis,” folio, printed at Mentz in 1491 by Jacobus Meydenbach, is frequently referred to by bibliographers; not so much on account of the many wood-cuts which it contains, but as being supposed in some degree to confirm a statement in Sebastian Munster’s Cosmography, and in Serrarius, De Rebus Moguntinis, where a _John_ Meydenbach is mentioned as being a partner with Gutemberg and Faust. Von Murr, as has been previously noticed, supposed that this person was a wood engraver; and Prosper Marchand,[IV-53] though without any authority, calls _Jacobus_ Meydenbach his son or his relation.

[Footnote IV-53: Hist. de l’Imprimerie, p. 49.]

This work, which is a kind of Natural History, explaining the uses and virtues of herbs, fowls, fish, quadrupeds, minerals, drugs, and spices, contains a number of wood-cuts, many of which are curious, as containing representations of natural objects, but none of which are remarkable for their execution as wood engravings. On the opposite page is a fac-simile of the cut which forms the head-piece to the chapter “De Ovis.” The figure, which possesses considerable merit, represents an old woman going to market with her basket of eggs.

This is a fair specimen of the manner in which the cuts in the Hortus Sanitatis are designed and executed. Among the most curious and best designed are: the interior of an apothecary’s shop, on the reverse of the first leaf; a monkey seated on the top of a fountain, in the chapter on water; a butcher cutting up meat; a man selling cheese at a stall; a woman milking a cow; and figures of the male and female mandrake. At