CHAPTER XI
PARIS
As with Lyons, the material upon which one could draw for Paris is almost inexhaustible. Dibdin considers the initials of this town to be the finest that can be found, and gives the letters of Josse Bade with branches growing out of the heads of the personages as examples. As regards book illustration, however, Paris was behind Lyons, where the earliest attempts at decoration were made in 1478.
The first book printed in Paris with ornamental letters was the _Vies des Anciens Sainctz Pères of Dupré_, which appeared in 1486, that is to say, eight years later. Mr. Pollard thinks that these initials, of which there are only eight, five of which we reproduce, afforded the first hint for the first calligraphic initials used for title-pages, of which several have been given under Lyons. Dupré was one of the printers who worked for Vérard, who was chiefly a publisher. An alphabet of small calligraphic initials was frequently used in the volumes printed for him by the Lerouges of Paris and Troyes, and is to be found complete in the _Jardin de Santé_. Pen-letters, as they are called, of this type, are of frequent occurrence in manuscripts.
Of the large calligraphic initials a sufficient number of specimens have been given under the heading of Lyons, and, as a rule, they are more quaint than those used by Paris printers.
The huge initials already spoken of in the _Mer des Hystoires_ are too large for our _format_. In the same work is a serpentine S equally out of proportion to this volume, an I with a picture of Christ, and a P of similar size in the style of those that often occur in works of Vérard, representing a scribe at work, and recalling the cuts so often seen on the verso of title-pages. For these initials, which are too large for reproduction in this volume, the reader is referred to Claudin’s _History of French Printing_ and Monceau’s monograph on the Lerouges. Of those more moderate in size, the January and May initial on the title-pages of the _Doctrinal de Sapience_, the _Quinze Joyes du mariage_, and many other works by Vérard, Trepperel, and Lenoir, is the best known (see under Geneva). The _Livre du Faulcon_ has an initial with two grotesque profiles, also very frequently met with on other title-pages. This, together with the L with three monkeys, is reproduced by Mr. Pollard in his _Early Illustrated Books_, to which the reader is referred.
Shortly before the end of the fifteenth century, in 1497, Bocard published an edition of Robert Gaguin’s _De origine et gestis Francorum_, with a few large grotesque initials, and a very pretty one of the Virgin of the same size, as well as an alphabet of smaller letters. The first leaf of this book begins with an initial which is badly coloured in the only original at our disposal, but which is interesting as forming at the same time an _ex-libris_. The letter in question is an F, and in each of the segments (separated by the central bar) is a scroll, in which an early owner of the volume had written his name.
In the _Nef de Santé et Condemnacion des Banquetz_ of Trepperel are some other grotesques, found also in others of his publications.
About the same time the use of ornamental initials was commenced by Rembolt and Gering. Gering, who was one of the earliest German printers to settle in Paris, published with his partner, in 1499, a book entitled _Divi Augustini in sacras Pauli epistolas Interpretatio_, with the large P, representing, no doubt, St. Augustine preaching to his followers, which occurs at the beginning of almost every chapter, and a number of smaller ones.
It is in the smaller initials of Gering and Rembolt that we have some of the best examples, as far as historiated letters are concerned, of those compound animals so often met with in the ornamentation of the fifteenth century. If we look at the records of antiquity, such as Egyptian hieroglyphs, Roman medals and pottery, and other artistic remains, it will be seen that from a very early time it was considered humorous to represent animals carrying on the occupations of men, or doing the duties of other animals. By a natural extension of this idea, men were depicted in the roles of animals who had usurped their supremacy, and who are represented as treating their tyrant in the way that they themselves were accustomed to be treated. Wright and Champfleury in their Histories of Caricature have given numerous examples. In an Egyptian papyrus, a cat is seen walking erect and driving a flock of geese, a fox is carrying a basket and playing the flute, and the lion and the unicorn are playing at chess. In a thirteenth-century tile, a rabbit going a-hunting is riding his hereditary foe the dog, and in a manuscript of the fourteenth, a dog with his paws tied is being conveyed in a cart drawn by two rabbits and led by a third, towards a hill on which a gallows has been prepared for him. In a carving of the same period, another example of ‘the world turned upside down,’ four geese are shown hanging their old enemy the fox. Roman statuettes still exist, in which the personages represented are satirised by their heads being replaced by those of animals, such as rats or wolves.
These fancies, which are said to have come from Greece, led to the creation of such beings as the Sphinx, the most celebrated of the compound animals of antiquity, and later on to the Chimerae and Grylli, which were the predecessors of the innumerable fantastic hybrids that the imaginations of the artists of the Middle Ages called into existence. These creatures have already been represented in our Lyons initials. In one of Saccon’s letters there is a kind of armadillo with a human head, and amongst the reproductions from the _Regimen Sanitatis_ there are two copied from Gering and Rembolt originals, which are also given.
In these latter the R, with a monster with a neck ending in a human head, is particularly noticeable, as it occurs frequently in the borders of the same printers, and the Books of Hours of other presses. It is to be remarked that the belief in the existence of these unnatural monsters was quite general. Wright quotes Giraldus Cambrensis as describing animals in Ireland, some half bulls, half men, others half stags, half cows, others half monkeys, half dogs. The dog-faced monkeys had always been worshipped in Egypt, and for this reason possibly had become an object of suspicion to the mediæval clergy, who made them figure as devils both in church architecture and manuscript decoration. It is in this rôle that they are constantly represented in woodcut initials.
The following year the first edition of the _Cornucopia_ of Perottus appeared, the first part of which has one of the larger initials on every twentieth or thirtieth page. Towards the end of the volume they become much more frequent; not only are they to be met with on every page, but on some there are half a dozen or more. Another edition of this work, which was often printed, was published by Rembolt in 1507, mostly with the same initials, but the P with the Nativity was not used in the second edition.
The two armorial initials are from a French translation of the _History of Denmark_ by Saxo Grammaticus, published by Josse Bade in 1514. Besides these there are three others in the same style, a D, an I, and a P. The D is like the N in general arrangement, but without the supporters, and the legend ‘Arma regis Dacie’ is in scrolls with the letters C. P. and C. L. In the I the central shield is suppressed, and the shields are framed by banderolles with the legend: ‘Arma regis Dacie Swecie Norvegie, sclavorum gottorumque anno domini MDXIIII.’ The P is similar to the two others in being without supporters, and the legend is slightly modified: ‘Arma regis Dacie Swecie Norvegie.’ These initials were particularly admired by Dibdin, who calls attention to their beauty.
Amongst the publications of Trepperel are several editions of the _Jardin de Santé_, which, in the Latin _Hortus Sanitatis_, is a thick folio dealing first with birds, beasts, and fishes, and finishing with an alphabetical account of medicinal plants, and finally stones (minerals). A treatise, _De urinis_, completes the whole.
Vérard’s edition already mentioned was of the same proportions, but Trepperel published his as an octavo on plants only. The initials are not always well printed, rather the reverse. The best are given in our illustrations. A few of these letters are to be found in a small folio with woodcuts, entitled _Les œuvres de Justin, vray hystoriographe sur les faictz et gestes de Troge Pompee_, etc. etc., in much better proof. In this same book is the L with a harpy, which, together with the M, the only other letter of the kind we have seen, is to be frequently met with in the _Chroniques de France_ and in a great many other books by Philippe Lenoir, finally in a Paris _Missale Carthusiense_. The two letters with children, inspired by Venetian initials, with the linear R of the same size and the big ‘philosophus’ Q, are taken from a work on the Logic of Aristotle by Jacobus Stapulensis, published by H. Estienne in 1510. In other works the same initial occurs, but the word ‘philosophus’ is replaced by ‘Aristoteles,’ or by some other philosopher’s name. We have met with several varieties. The smaller letters are to be found also in books printed by J. Petit, H. Estienne, and Josse Bade.
It may be here observed that the Paris printers had quite a specialty for missals, and in some of them initial letters of the most varied origin are mixed together. In one of them, the _Missale ad consuetudinem insignis ecclesie Parisiensis_, by Wolfgang Hopyl, in 1504, the initials belong to different alphabets. The best are the A (Annunciation), the P (Nativity), another P (the Circumcision), an E (visit of the wise men), S (Pentecost), C (a priest saying mass), and when the proofs are perfect it would be difficult to imagine anything more effective. But the handsomest set is in the _Missale Leodiense_, also printed by Wolfgang Hopyl, in 1513. These initials are used in other missals, but are here in their best condition. Some of them are to be found in the 1526 edition of the Liége missal by Marnef and Hopyl, and again in the _Missel de Chartres_ of Kerver, 1529.
In most works of this kind the subjects of the _histoires_ are of a Biblical nature, particularly incidents in the lives of the saints, although relieved sometimes by a touch of the grotesque.
In other missals the grotesque reigns supreme, showing how intimately it was associated with the idea of Church Art, as is well seen in the beautiful Books of Hours by Philippe Pigouchet and others, in which the borders are a mixture of the grotesque and the macabre.
One of the books most frequently reprinted at this period was the _Propriétaire_, the translation of the work of Bartolomæus de Glanville, _De proprietatibus rerum_, which was the book on which Caxton worked at Cologne. It is a kind of general encyclopædia, beginning with a disquisition on the Trinity, and ending with a chapter on Astrology. It is from this work that we have reproduced the twelve letters, amongst others the Q with a bagpiper, and an L representing a person in a fool’s cap giving a baby pap. These occur in a great many other works of Philippe Lenoir.
In the treatise ‘On Men and Women,’ the different sections are preceded by initials which correspond to the signs of the Zodiac, as in the Lyons copy, of which we have given specimens. But in the Paris edition, curiously enough, the first two sections, Aries and Taurus, have no initials, although ornamental letters with a ram and bull respectively, and entirely inappropriate anywhere else, are to be found in other books published by this printer, such as the _Chroniques de France_ and the _Saint Graal_.
The two large initials, one of them with a portrait, formed part of the alphabet of Vascosan, used in, amongst other books, the work of Oronce Fine, or Finée, as he is variously called. The vignette of the O is said to be his portrait. It is authenticated by the initials O. F.
Josse Bade has some large initials in the Venetian style, with intertwisting bands and no historiation, generally described in book catalogues as ‘magnificent ornamental letters.’ We admit to a predilection for initials with personages, and prefer to give here some of the smaller set, sometimes printed in red in the original, which particularly excited Dibdin’s admiration, and which are graceful, even when not historiated. They are to be found in a great many of this printer’s productions, as well as in those of Simon de Colines and others.
The missal letters of two sizes, beginning with an A representing the Trinity, are considered by experts to have been designed by Geoffroy Tory or members of his school. They form part of a fragment consisting of eight or nine pictorial pages, such as are to be met with in the missals. Several have the Crucifixion surrounded by an ornamental border, in one of which is the mark of Tory’s _atelier_--the cross of Lorraine. On these leaves, which have not been identified--they were perhaps only proof-sheets--the letters did not serve as initials, but were placed end to end, to form a compartment border.
In two instances where initials were used at the beginning of the text, they came from an alphabet of one of the missals given above.
The smaller of the two remaining sets, with the little D dated 1526, was used in the publications of Simon de Colines and others.
A similar initial used by Chevallon at the beginning of a treatise of diseases of women by Hippocrates is dated 1524, but after 1545 the date is replaced by the letters C. G., the initials of Chevallon’s widow, Charlotte Guiard.
In a large folio edition published by Chevallon in 1528 of the _Digesta seu Pandectae Juris Civilis_, most of the initials are too badly printed for reproduction. One of them, however, is of good impression, and besides that is supremely interesting, as it forms a little picture representing a scene from one of the xylographic _Ars Moriendi_. It is the only letter of the kind we know, and this is the only time we have met with it. In the original the initial is of the smaller dimension, but it is so interesting that we have had it enlarged. In the block books, scrolls are generally seen emerging from the mouths of the devils, with the suggestions printed on them by which they attempt to turn aside the dying soul from thoughts of piety. This miniature composition is too small for such insertions, but the attitude of the arch fiend shows that he is ready to seize any opportunity that may present itself.
There are a great many more alphabets of Paris printers that we should have liked to reproduce, had it been possible to multiply our examples indefinitely--amongst them that of Kerver, of which we give the C with a knight in armour. The three others, B, C, and L, are coarse copies of Kerver letters used in England, these being taken from a medical work by Bullein. Of the next three, the L with a saint is a copy of the same letter of Rembolt, the two others from Philip le Noir both recurring frequently in his impressions.
The P with a master and pupils is from the press of N. de la Barre.
The three little pen letters are from the same source.
We cannot bring this short selection of Parisian letters to a close without mentioning the Royal letters designed by Geoffroy Tory and used by Robert Estienne in a Bible and in other books after 1536. Independently of the accessory ornamentation, the letters themselves have since served as models of proportion.