CHAPTER VIII

VENICE

It was at Subiaco, not far from Rome, that printing was first introduced by the Germans, Conrad Sweynheim and Arnold Pannartz, who commenced operations most probably in 1464, their first book being a Donatus. The second was a Lactantius, the earliest book in which legible Greek characters were used, for those which appeared in a few words in the Offices of Cicero, printed at Mayence in the same year, were mingled with Roman letters, and with so many errors, that it must have needed a clever reader to guess the meaning. The Lactantius was finished on the 25th of October 1465, ‘_in venerabili Monasterio Sublacensi_.’

After Subiaco, presses were established successively in different towns of Italy, first at Rome, where Ulric Han or Hahn of Ingoldstadt, in Bavaria (Gallus in the latinised form of the name), commenced operations in 1467. Sweynheim and Pannartz also removed to Rome at that date, where they printed for about ten years, dying respectively in 1477 and 1478.

The next comers were George Lauer of Würtzburg and Giovanni Filippo di Lignamine, whose celebrated _Cronica Summorum Pontificum imperatorumque_ contains interesting information about the first printers of Mayence, Strasburg, and Rome.

But books with initials printed at Rome before the end of the fifteenth century are not common, and even when met with, if we except some handsome ones used in some of their books in 1470 by Sweynheim and Pannartz, the ornamental letters of this town are relatively of but little interest.

It was at Venice that this branch of typographical art was to reach its highest perfection, especially in the use of beautiful initials, and was to make its impressions renowned throughout the world and sought after by collectors in future days.

John of Spire celebrates his arrival on the shores of the Adriatic in the following lines, which are to be found at the end of his first production in that town, _The Letters of Cicero_:--

‘Primus in Adriaca formis impressit aenis Urbe libros Spira genitus de stirpe Johannes. In reliquis sit quanta vides spes, lector, habenda, Quom labor hic primus calami superaverit artem. MCCCCLXVIII.’

John of Spire was succeeded by his brother Vindelin.

It was in 1470 that the first book appeared with the name of Nicolas Jenson--the _Preparatio Evangelica_ of Eusebius--and this was followed soon by other works which are justly considered as _chefs-d’œuvre_ of typographical art.

According to a story which has passed current for a century and a half, though its authority is now questioned, Jenson had been formerly an engraver at the Mint of Tours, and had been sent to Germany by the French king to investigate the truth about the discovery of Gutenberg. On his return, Charles VII. having died, Jenson met with no encouragement from his successor, Louis XI., and decided to go to Venice. Here he published books by himself for ten years, taking as a partner in 1480, the year before his death, John of Cologne, who had come to Venice about the same time as himself.

Even in his own days Jenson was justly celebrated, Andrea Torresano stating with pride in the colophon of the _Lectura in I. et II. Decretalium_ that he had printed it ‘_inclytis famosisque characteribus optime_ (sic) _quondam in hac parte magistri Nicolai Jenson gallici quo nihil prestantius, nihil melius, nihil dignius_.’

This Andrea Torresano was the head of the new firm ‘J. de Colonia, N. Jenson, sociorumque,’ and he afterwards married his daughter to Aldus Manutius.

So great was the success of printing in Venice at this period, that more than one hundred and fifty presses were established during the last thirty years of the fifteenth century, and upwards of fifty were in full work in the year 1500.

Aldus had come to Venice with the intention of publishing works in Greek, but this did not prevent him printing in Latin and Italian. His most famous book in the latter language was the _Hypnerotomachia Poliphili_, which besides the most beautiful woodcuts that have ever been printed contains also some ornamental initials generally considered to be in the best taste. An edition of Aristophanes from the same press also contains large interlaced letters, which are given by Ongania.

With reference to these initials it is to be remarked that, although in the best taste and admirably suitable to the work they embellish, they are less interesting when seen by themselves, that is to say independently of the text, than many others.

Our earliest specimens are taken from the works of Ratdolt, whose books are also renowned for their beautiful borders, which in some cases match in style the initials that accompany them. This style is even more effective in the border than in the letters, as can be seen by reference to his Appianus of 1478, the first page of which is reproduced in Butsch’s _Bücherornamentik_.

The three outline initials, much more artistic in our opinion than the interlacing letters of Aldus, are from Ratdolt’s first alphabet in the _Calendarium_ of J. de Monteregio of 1476. The border of this book is frequently mentioned in the earlier monographs upon the first printers as being composed _literis florentibus_, the initials being of the same design. It is supposed by Passavant that these letters were designed by Ratdolt’s partner, Bernard Maler or Pictor, _i.e._ Bernard the painter, and executed by another German engraver.

Ongania, in his work on Venetian printing,[25] has also reproduced four of these initials, the whole alphabet, as far as it is complete, in Ratdolt’s impressions, being given in a monograph on Ratdolt by Mr. Redgrave.[26] Later on we find this printer preferring larger sized initials with a white pattern on a black ground, smaller letters of the same general design being used in some volumes. The later publications being also more frequently met with, these large black initials are also more commonly known and are more characteristic of Ratdolt’s work than the others. They became one of the recognised types for Venetian typography, and were imitated more or less by other Venice printers, in the same way that the Maiblümchen pattern was adopted as one of the most suitable for the early German press.

[25] _L’art de l’Imprimerie à Venise._

[26] ‘Erhard Ratdolt and his Work in Venice’--_London Bibliographical Society_.

In a volume by Jacopo Publicio called the _Oratoriae artis epitomata; ars memoriae, ars epistolandi_, and which has numerous other cuts, there is a curious alphabet in which each initial is represented by an emblem serving to fix the letter on the memory. As far, however, as we know, this alphabet, which is engraved on one block, consists of specimens of letters useful in mnemonics, but which have never served in books as ornamental initials. They are only mentioned here as a typographical curiosity.

Subsequent printers adopted a design with white leaves on a black ground, the white ornament standing out very sharply, and often with an exceedingly brilliant effect. In other initials, in white on a black ground, we have children playing at all sorts of games by themselves or with dogs, monkeys, dragons, lizards, and dolphins; sometimes there is a large bird looking like a wild goose. In some cases there is a combination of the two last mentioned compositions, such as a child playing with a dog, with a foliated background. There is a very effective F of this kind, and an O with a child making a dog sit up and beg, in the _Epigrammata_ of J. B. Cantalycius, printed by Matteo Capcasa.

The brothers De Gregoriis used various kinds of initials. The large A and V are from their Herodotus, the first page of which is ornamented with a magnificent border, which has often been reproduced. Several other initials in different styles are from books by these printers, amongst others the large outline P and the smaller A and E. An interesting alphabet, most of the letters of which represent children playing with different kinds of animals, is taken from a small treatise on Geography by Zacharius Lilius, entitled _Orbis breviarium_, etc., printed at this press.

Sessa, whose mark consists of a cat with a mouse in her mouth on a crowned shield with the initials I B S, has some of the letters just described.

Ongania gives amongst others, as coming first from a 1496 edition of Marco Polo’s _De le Maravigliose cose del mondo_, the D with two children and a dog, the P with the children and bird, and a P with the portrait of a man, here printed in red, but which is found elsewhere, like all the other letters, printed in black. The very small initials, mostly with heads, the H with a rabbit and the T with rabbits dancing, are also to be found in Sessa’s impressions.

Several very large letters, two more particularly, the M and the S, were used by Bernardinus Benalius and Matteus Capcasa in 1498, and often printed in red. They were afterwards adopted by the Paris printer Josse Bade.

Of the linear initials used in the missals, the beautiful B representing Mary Regina cœlorum amongst others, appeared for the first time in the _Missale Romanum_ of 1499 by George Arrivabene. Our reproductions are taken from missals and breviaries of Lucantonio di Giunta, himself especially a printer of music, but who edited a great many liturgical works.

The largest in size of all our initials are from another missal of Giunta, the _Missale Vallisumbrose_ of 1503. The first letter of this series has been given by Mr. Pollard in an essay on ‘Pictorial Initials.’

An alphabet of large letters of an interlacing pattern is to be met with in several works, first in Plutarch’s _Lives_, translated by Guarino of Verona and published by Melchior Sessa and Petrus de Ravenis in 1505. They have been described as of great elegance and finished beauty, but they are as a rule badly printed and do not look well in reproduction, as can be seen by reference to Ongania.

The alphabet of children already mentioned is more or less completed by letters from different works published by Tacuinus de Tridino, amongst others the Euclid of 1517 and several earlier volumes. The C with a child on a dolphin, the L with one child riding another, and the N with children and dog; the grotesque O, the P also with children and a dragon, are one from the 1517 Euclid, others from a Justinian, the remainder from works of Horace by the same printer.

The C with a child on the back of a horse is first met with in a _Practica_ of Serapion by Bonetus Locatellus, ‘mandato Octaviani Scoti,’ the outlines C, P, and S with children or _amorini_ having the same origin.

An alphabet, remarkable from the fact that it is generally found complete, by Bernardino Vitali, serves as a rule in publications of Sessa to initial the index. It is to be found serving this purpose at the beginning of this printer’s edition of the _Lives_ of Plutarch and also for the index to the works of Pliny.

Pliny’s _Natural History_ was a popular book at this time, and two editions of it have the large interlaced initials used in the Plutarch. In a third, in Italian, by Sessa and Petrus de Ravenna in 1516, there are a number of ornamental letters with children: a P, with child and dragon, precedes the eighth book; an S, with a child above and a bird below, the tenth and thirty-second books; the thirty-first having what at first appears to be the same, but which is really a copy. The letters C, G, R, N are also with children, either by themselves or with birds or dogs. As an example of the indifference to appearances, a historiated A is used upside down as a V, in Tacuinus de Tridino’s Homer of 1503. A fine V with children does duty as an A, and an E all the way through as an F, in the Justin of 1508 of the same printer.

The L with a satyr, and the very handsome G, are from the same book. The P with a child and bird is repeated eleven times in this volume, and from the dilapidated condition the block is its chief disfigurement. In the Horace of Guglielmo Fonteneto Monteserrati, we find it at the beginning of the ode ‘Phoebe silvarumque potens Diana,’ but the bird is changed into what is apparently a goose. The children have older faces, and there is a slight difference in the ornament.

In their original condition, these children initials are most decorative, but many of the copies are greatly inferior. These are to be found not only in Venetian impressions by other printers, but also in some books printed in provincial towns, and they evidently inspired many of the children’s alphabets that were used afterwards in Basle, Cologne, Hagenau, and one or two initials we have given of Paris.

At Turin some of them were used in the _Epistole Heroidum_ of Ovid published by F. Silva in 1510, in which we find that the L with the satyr, the P with a bird, the T with children playing with a skipping rope, an M with an eagle, the N with a child and dolphin, and the G, but of much coarser execution than the original. From a documentary point of view these letters are perhaps not so interesting as the alphabet used currently half a century later by Giolito and other Venetian printers, in which the games then in vogue are represented in linear engraving upon a white ground. But the introduction of animals in the earlier alphabet is not entirely fanciful, and the classical student will no doubt be able to understand many of the allusions.

The A, for instance, with a boy riding upon the back of a dolphin, is a case in point and no doubt refers to the tale of Arion told by Herodotus, and more fully by Ovid in the _Fasti_.[27]

[27] In the eighth chapter of his ninth book, Pliny speaks of a dolphin that had conceived a wonderful affection for the child of a poor man. At whatever hour of the day he might happen to be called by the boy, he would instantly fly to the surface, and sportively taking him up on his back, he would carry him over a wide expanse of sea to the school at Puteoli, and in like manner bring him back again. Other instances of the same kind are related, which he says give an air of credibility to the one that is told of Arion.

We give a somewhat numerous selection from a work which has hitherto remained but little known to bibliographers, by a printer whose publications are far from common, the _Vita di Sancti Padri vulgare historiada_ of Otino da Pavia de la Luna, 1501. In an earlier edition, also very rare, the initials are insignificant, and the chief interest of the volume is in the little cuts which precede the lives of the different saints. The edition from which our initials are taken is on the contrary a perfect storehouse of interesting ornamental letters. At the commencement of each book there is a half-page engraving representing an incident in the life of the first saint whose history follows, and this is surrounded by a handsome ornamental border which sometimes surrounds the whole page. Each book commences by an initial of larger size than the others. Some of these are given--the C with a saint holding a bag to another, the D with a dog, the L with four ecclesiastics, and two U’s, one with a monk tempted of the devil in the form of a beautiful woman. The smaller letters, of which there are sometimes as many as three or four on a single page, also represent incidents in the lives of the different saints, the devil being often the subject of the picture. The title-page has on it the mark of Otino da Pavia de la Luna in black and red. Some of the initials of this volume afterwards found their way into the possession of Bernardino Vitali, who used them in an _Omiliario quadragesimale_, published in 1518. We have not seen this volume, but Ongania gives reproductions of its principal typographical ornaments, amongst them a P and a U from the Otino da Pavia de la Luna alphabets.

Of the initials not yet mentioned, the D and the Q, the former with a monk wearing spectacles, are from a treatise on animals by Aristotle, printed by Sessa. The curious L, with a personage in a turban, looking at a castle on the walls of which are the heads of three of its defenders, comes from an edition of the _Legendario de Sancti_ of Jacobus de Voragine, printed by Nicolo è Domenico dal Gesu. We are almost sure, however, that we have met with it in an earlier missal, and it was subsequently used in at least one impression of Lyons. The remaining letters are by different printers.

The two large initials with portraits of a much later date represent respectively--the C, Cosmo de Medici; the P, Pius Romae Pontifex.