CHAPTER II

AUGSBURG

From what has been already said, it seems evident that the aim of the first printers was to produce by the new art as perfect as possible an imitation of the manuscript.

Scheffer printed books with ornamental letters in the manuscript style. The other printers left them to be added by hand, which produced the same effect. It was not until the beginning of the seventies that the printed book assumed its definite form, and that it was recognised that new methods and new processes were necessary. The printed book was henceforth to be a printed book, and not an imitation manuscript. It was no longer to pass, for accessory embellishment, through a number of successive hands, but to be finished at a single impression.

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

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

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understanding that they should insert in their books neither woodcut pictures nor letters, a prohibition that was only withdrawn after a new arrangement which bound the printers to employ only recognised members of the Formschneider Guild.

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

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

In the next stage we have a framed initial with an ornamental groundwork, but the composition is less effective in black and white than when the letter itself is picked out in red. A good example of this is in the alphabet of the Zainer German Bible, afterwards used in the _Summa Confessorum_ of J. Friburgensis. In these initials, what a contemporary authority on lettering calls a ‘friskiness’ of the design leads to a difficulty of distinguishing between the ornamental prolongation of the different parts of the letter, and the very similar decorative groundwork,--so much so, that even the rubricator was sometimes mistaken, the colour being left unapplied where needed, and _vice versâ_.

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

Butsch (_Bücher-Ornamentik_) mentions the _Gulden Bibel_ of Rampigollis, the _Belial_ of 1472, and the _Glossae_ of Salemo, as the earliest works of G. Zainer with woodcut initials. The _Belial_, he says, has a large ornamental initial of arabesque design.

Our first selections are from the _Summa Confessorum_; the large P is from the _Margarita Davitica_ of 1475.

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

As far as Augsburg is concerned, it should be noted that the same letters were often used by different printers, and they are therefore as much illustrative of the town and period, as of any one particular press. Ludwig Hohenwang, for instance, uses the same initials in his _Gulden Bibel_ of 1477, as does J. Pflantzmann in his _Glossa_ of Salemo of the same year. The two specimens given of these printers might have been taken from either volume.

Our other examples are taken from works published by Sorg, Keller, Bämler, and Schönsperger.

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

Unfortunately we are unable to give their exact origin, as they form part of a collection of initials, cut from early books, but if the attribution ‘Bämler, 1475,’ is correct, they are of the same date as the Rihel Bible of 1475, in which there are two initials with profiles, but neither of them grotesque.[10]

[10] There are two pictorial letters in the fifth German Bible (see the reproductions of both at pp. 118, 119), in which the border is formed partly of a grotesque profile.

The five specimens given are selected from the thirteen letters comprised in the collection, and need no description. The others consist of a D, which is in reality the same as our C but reversed; a G, two L’s, an R, a T, and a V. One of the L’s has a sun with full face, and the T, besides being of an unusual pattern, has also a grotesque profile. Unfortunately it has been daubed over by a rubricator too badly for reproduction. The S with the two human figures occurs several times in Rihel’s Latin Bible, and was given by us in a former essay[11] as a specimen of Basle woodcuts. We now class it provisionally with Augsburg.

[11] ‘On Some Old Initial Letters.’ _The Library_, January 1901.

Of Sorg, our earliest specimens are of the pure Maiblümchen pattern, the S without any trace of historiation being from a copy of St. Ambrosius on St. Luke of 1476. Other letters of this type are to be found in his _Breidenbach_ and other works, but later on they become almost identical with those of Keller. Compare the A and the H from the _Valerius Maximus_ of Sorg of 1480, with the E and V from the Keller edition of Aristotle’s _Opera Nonnulla_ of 1479. The S with a grotesque profile at each end and the letters G I A dates from 1480, and is the first initial we have met with in which the fool, so popular in the imagery of the period, here complete with cap, ass’s ears, bells and cockscomb, is represented.

Schönsperger’s initials, of which four reproductions are given, are a little later, 1489.

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

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

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

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

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

But Sorg’s best historiated initials, in fact the only ones with which we are acquainted (for the B in his Bible is a copy of Zainer’s), are to be found in a work by Henricus Suso, ‘dictus Amandus,’ published in 1482: _Das Buch das heisset Der Seusse_, a translation of his _Horologium aeternae Sapientiae_.

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

Besides these illustrations there are three large pictorial initials, C, R, and S, of which the C alone occurs twice, representing, the C an angel appearing to a woman, the R a saint with a crozier, and the S an eagle, the background being filled up with Maiblümchen.

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

Amongst his other productions, Ratdolt printed a number of liturgical works, the most beautiful that we have seen being the folio Breviary of 1493. The type is admirable, and those pages which begin with the large letters, such as the C with the Pope, or the H (All Saints), printed as they are with the brilliant black ink of the period, are particularly effective. The B at the beginning of the Psalter is used again in the smaller Psalter of 1499, as are several of the smaller initials. The _pars aestivalis_ begins with the U. The C with St. Urban is at the commencement of the section _De Sanctis_.

Two of the smaller initials occur in the larger Psalter, which are not in the smaller one. A D representing a kind of Indian with a club and feathers is the fool referred to in the opening words of the Psalm _Dixit insipiens_. Another D has Jesus kneeling to His father (_Dixit Deus Domino meo_). On the other hand, the crucifixion initials of the Psalter of 1499 are not in this edition.

The Psalter of 1499, _Psalterium cum apparatu vulgari familiariter impresso--Lateinisch Psalter mit dem teutschen nutzlichen dabey gedruckt_, has not the imposing appearance of the earlier folio volume, but like all Ratdolt’s work is well printed. This would appear to have been taken as a model for Psalters in the Vulgate. There are several editions of different towns with the text framed, as it were, by a translation in the vernacular in smaller type. The Psalter of Furter has the same disposition, the initial letters, although different in treatment, corresponding almost exactly with those of Ratdolt’s Psalter. Knoblouch has a similar Psalter, but with non-historiated initials. In the Metz Psalter of Hochffeder, otherwise on the same plan, the only initial is on the title-page.

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

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

Ratdolt continued to print liturgical works for some part of the sixteenth century, but the only other volume of the kind that we have had at our disposal is the _Pars Aestivalis_ of the _Breviarium Constantiense_. Ratdolt, Aug Vindel, 1516. In this book there are four pages with borders, one of which is reproduced, and on the opposite sides are full-page engravings. There are eight initials, which we reproduce, and which are also, we believe, to be found in his Ratisbon Breviary.

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

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

The results may be seen to this day in the magnificent engravings by the great artists of the beginning of the sixteenth century, which, notwithstanding the difficulties under which they laboured, have never been excelled.[12] Their productions, even when it comes to initials, are real compositions with a personal character.

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

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

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

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

The Z with a fox trying to get at the poultry in the market-woman’s basket is from the German _Cicero_. The C (bagpiper) and the N (caricature with big head and small legs) and the P with a peacock are from the _Magni Aurelii Cassiodori variarum libri xii_. The E with the monk and nun, and the C and H in a different style, are from the German _Petrarch_. The other initials are from one or other of the volumes mentioned.