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-The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Printed Book, by Henri Bouchot
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
-almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
-re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
-with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
-
-
-Title: The Printed Book
-       Its History, Illustration and Adornment, from the Days of
-       Gutenberg to the Present Time
-
-Author: Henri Bouchot
-
-Translator: Edward C. Bigmore
-
-Release Date: February 13, 2014 [EBook #44890]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
-
-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PRINTED BOOK ***
-
-
-
-
-Produced by Chris Curnow, Tony De Vita and the Online
-Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
-file was produced from images generously made available
-by The Internet Archive)
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-  THE PRINTED BOOK,
-
-  Its History, Illustration, and Adornment,
-
-  _FROM THE DAYS OF GUTENBERG TO THE
-  PRESENT TIME._
-
-  BY
-  HENRI BOUCHOT,
-  OF THE NATIONAL LIBRARY, PARIS.
-
-  _Translated and Enlarged by_
-  EDWARD C. BIGMORE.
-
-  WITH ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTEEN ILLUSTRATIONS OF FACSIMILES
-  OF EARLY TYPOGRAPHY, PRINTERS' MARKS, COPIES OF BOOK
-  ILLUSTRATIONS, AND SPECIMENS OF BINDINGS OF ALL AGES.
-
-  NEW YORK:
-  SCRIBNER AND WELFORD,
-  743 and 745, BROADWAY.
-  1887.
-
-
-
-
-PREFACE.
-
-
-Considering that this short study can claim to be nothing more than a
-rapid and somewhat summary survey of the history of THE BOOK, it eschews
-all controversial matter, nor does it pretend to convey much fresh
-information to those already possessing a special knowledge of the
-subject. It is rather a condensed, but at the same time, it may be
-hoped, a useful, compendium of the thousand unknown or now forgotten
-essays, involving endless contradictory statements, that have been
-issued on this theme. The mere enumeration of such works would simply
-suffice to fill a volume. We have accordingly no intention to attempt a
-bibliography, satisfying ourselves with the modest avowal of having
-found so many documents in all languages, that the very abundance has
-been at least as embarrassing to us as the lack of materials may have
-been to others.
-
-The Book appealing in its present form to a special public interested
-more in artistic than in purely typographical topics, our attention has
-been more particularly given to the illustrators, the designers,
-engravers, etchers, and so forth. Such graphic embellishment seemed to
-us of more weight than the manufacture of the paper, the type-casting,
-the printing properly so called. This technical aspect of the subject
-has been very briefly dealt with in a separate chapter, and has also
-been enlarged upon in the early section. To the binding also we have
-devoted only a single chapter, while fully conscious that a whole volume
-would not have sufficed merely to treat the subject superficially.
-
-At the same time, we would not have the reader conclude from all this
-that our book abounds in omissions, or has overlooked any important
-features. The broad lines, we trust, have been adhered to, while each
-section has been so handled as to give a fair idea of the epoch it deals
-with. This is the first attempt to comprise within such narrow limits an
-art and an industry with a life of over four centuries, essaying to
-describe its beginnings and its history down to our days, without
-omitting a glance at the allied arts.
-
-The engravings selected for illustration have, as far as possible, been
-taken from unedited materials, and have been directly reproduced by
-mechanical processes, while fifteen new illustrations, having special
-relation to the history of the Book in England, have been added to this
-edition, which is also considerably enlarged in the text on the same
-subject.
-
-
-
-
-CONTENTS.
-
-
-CHAPTER I.
-
-                                                                 PAGE
-
-  14.. TO 1462                                                      1
-
-Origin of the Book--Engravers in relief--The St. Christopher of
-1423--Origin of the Xylographs--The Xylographs, _Donatus_, and
-_Speculum_--The Laurent Coster legend--From block books to movable
-characters--John Gaensefleisch, called Gutenberg--The Strasbourg
-trial--Gutenberg at Mayence--Fust and Schoeffer--The letters of
-indulgence--The Bible--The "Catholicon"--The Mayence Bible--Causes of
-the dispersion of the first Mayence printers--General considerations.
-
-CHAPTER II.
-
-  1462 TO 1500                                                     33
-
-The Book and the printers of the second generation--The German workmen
-dispersed through Europe--Caxton and the introduction of printing into
-England--Nicholas Jenson and his supposed mission to Mayence--The
-first printing in Paris; William Fichet and John Heinlein--The
-first French printers; their installation at the Sorbonne and their
-publications--The movement in France--The illustration of the Book
-commenced in Italy--The Book in Italy; engraving in relief and metal
-plates--The Book in Germany: Cologne, Nuremberg, Basle--The Book in
-the Low Countries--French schools of ornament of the Book; Books of
-Hours; booksellers at the end of the fifteenth century--Literary taste
-in titles in France at the end of the fifteenth century--Printers
-and booksellers' marks--The appearance of the portrait in the
-Book--Progress in England--Caxton and his followers.
-
-CHAPTER III.
-
-  1500 TO 1600                                                     98
-
-French epics and the Renaissance--Venice and Aldus Manutius--Italian
-illustrators--The Germans; _Theuerdanck_, Schäufelein--The Book in
-other countries--French books at the beginning of the century, before
-the accession of Francis I.--Geoffroy Tory and his works--Francis
-I. and the Book--Robert Estienne--Lyons a centre of bookselling;
-Holbein's Dances of Death--School of Basle--Alciati's emblems and
-the illustrated books of the middle of the century--The school of
-Fontainebleau and its influence--Solomon Bernard--Cornelis de la Haye
-and the _Promptuaire_--John Cousin--Copper plate engraving and metal
-plates--Woériot--The portrait in the Book of the sixteenth century--How
-a book was illustrated on wood at the end of the century--Influence
-of Plantin on the Book; his school of engravers--General
-considerations--Progress in England--Coverdale's Bible--English
-printers and their work--Engraved plates in English books.
-
-CHAPTER IV.
-
-  1600 TO 1700                                                    151
-
-Tendencies of the regency of Marie de Medicis--Thomas de Leu and
-Leonard Gaultier--J. Picart and Claude Mellan--Lyons and J. de
-Fornazeris--The Book at the beginning of the seventeenth century in
-Germany, Italy, and Holland--Crispin Pass in France--The Elzevirs
-and their work in Holland--Sebastian Cramoisy and the Imprimerie
-Royale--Illustration with Callot, Della Bella, and Abraham Bosse--The
-publishers and the Hotel de Rambouillet--The reign of Louis XIV.;
-Antoine Vitré syndic at his accession--His works and mortifications;
-the Polyglot Bible of Le Jay--Art and illustrators of the grand
-century--Sébastien Leclerc, Lepautre, and Chauveau--Leclerc preparing
-the illustration and decoration of the Book for the eighteenth
-century--The Book in England in the seventeenth century.
-
-CHAPTER V.
-
-  THE BOOK IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY                              184
-
-The regency--Publishers at the beginning of the eighteenth
-century--Illustrators in France; Gillot--The school of Watteau
-and Boucher--Cars--The younger Cochin; his principal works in
-vignettes--French art in England; Gravelot--Eisen--Choffard--The
-_Baisers_ of Dorat; the _Contes_ of La Fontaine--The publisher
-Cazin and the special literature of the eighteenth century--The
-younger Moreau and his illustrations--The Revolution--The school of
-David--Duplessis-Bertaux--The Book in Germany; Chodowiecki--In England;
-Boydell and French artists--Caslon and Baskerville--English books
-with illustrations--Wood engraving in the eighteenth century; the
-Papillons--Printing offices in the eighteenth century.
-
-CHAPTER VI.
-
-  THE BOOK IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY                              218
-
-The Didots and their improvements--The folio Racine--The school of
-Didot--Fine publications in England and Germany--Literature and art
-of the Restoration--Romanticism--Wood engraving--Bewick's pupils,
-Clennell, etc.--The illustrators of romances--The generation of
-1840--The Book in our days in Europe and America.
-
-CHAPTER VII.
-
-  TYPES, IMPRESSION, PAPER, INK                                   239
-
-CHAPTER VIII.
-
-  BOOKBINDING                                                     253
-
-The binding of the first printed books--Ancient German
-bindings--Binding in the time of Louis XII.--Italian
-bindings--Aldus--Maioli--Grolier--Francis I.--Henry II. and
-Diane de Poitiers--Catherine de Medicis--Henry III.--The
-Eves--The "fanfares"--Louis XIII.--Le Gascon--Florimond
-Badier--Louis XIV.--Morocco leathers--Cramoisy--The bindings
-of the time of Louis XIV.--The regency--Pasdeloup--The
-Deromes--Dubuisson--Thouvenin--Lesné--The nineteenth century--English
-binders--Roger Payne--Francis Bedford.
-
-CHAPTER IX.
-
-  LIBRARIES                                                       290
-
-  INDEX                                                           305
-
-
-
-
-THE PRINTED BOOK.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER I.
-
-14.. TO 1462.
-
-
-     Origin of the Book--Engravers in relief--The St. Christopher of
-     1423--Origin of the Xylographs--The Xylographs, _Donatus_, and
-     _Speculum_--The Laurent Coster legend--From block books to movable
-     characters--John Gaensefleisch, called Gutenberg--The Strasbourg
-     trial--Gutenberg at Mayence--Fust and Schoeffer--The letters of
-     indulgence--The Bible--The Catholicon--The Mayence Bible--Causes of
-     the dispersion of the first Mayence printers--General
-     considerations.
-
-
-Like its forerunner, Painting, the Book has ever been the most faithful
-reflection of the times when it was written and illustrated. Natural and
-genuine from the first, and simply embellished with crude illustrations,
-it assumed in the sixteenth century the grand airs of the Renaissance,
-gay or serious according to circumstances, decked in what were then
-called _histoires_--that is to say, wonderful engravings--and daintily
-printed in Gothic, Roman, or choice Italic characters. But at the close
-of the century it had already abandoned _wood_ for line engravings,
-heightening its mysticism or its satire at the whim of passing politics
-and religious wranglings. Then, under the influence of the painters and
-courtiers of the _Grand Monarque_, it becomes completely transformed,
-donning the peruke, so to speak, indulging in allegory and
-conventionalities, pompous and showy, tricking itself out in columns and
-pilasters instead of the old arabesques and scroll work of the
-Renaissance, thus continuing amid the coquetries of the regency, the
-pastorals and insipidities of the following reigns, until at last it
-suddenly assumes with the heroes of the Revolution the austere mien and
-airs of classic art. The Book has always been as closely connected with
-the manners of our predecessors as art itself. The artist submits more
-than he thinks to the tendency of his surroundings; and if he at times
-makes his taste appreciated, it is because he has more or less received
-his first influence from others.
-
-In the sixteenth century the fashion of emblematic representation placed
-under the portrait of Gaston de Foix a figure of a young plant in full
-bloom; and the inscription in Latin was "Nascendo maturus"--"Mature at
-birth." The Book deserves the same device; from its first day up to now
-it is a marvel of simplicity and harmony. The tentative efforts which
-preceded the discovery of printing were but few; it may be said that
-from the moment that Gutenberg conceived the idea of separating the
-characters, of arranging the words in the forme, of inking them, and of
-taking a proof on paper, the Book was perfect. At best we see in
-following times some modifications of detail; the art of printing was
-mature, mature from its birth.
-
-But before arriving at the movable type placed side by side, and forming
-phrases, which appears to us to-day so simple and so ordinary, many
-years passed. It is certain that long before Gutenberg a means was found
-of cutting wood and metal in relief and reproducing by application the
-image traced. Signs-manual and seals were a kind of printing, inasmuch
-as the relief of their engraving is impressed upon a sheet by the hand.
-But between this simple statement and the uncritical histories of
-certain special writers, attributing the invention of engraving to the
-fourteenth century, there is all the distance of legendary history.
-Remembering that the numerous guilds of _tailleurs d'images_, or
-sculptors in relief, had in the Middle Ages the specialty of carving
-ivories and of placing effigies on tombs, it can be admitted without
-much difficulty, that these people one day found a means of multiplying
-the sketches of a figure often asked for, by modelling its contour in
-relief on ivory or wood, and afterwards taking a reproduction on paper
-or parchment by means of pressure. When and where was this discovery
-produced? We cannot possibly say; but it is certain that playing cards
-were produced by this means, and that from the year 1423 popular figures
-were cut in wood, as we know from the St. Christopher of that date
-belonging to Lord Spencer.
-
-It is not our task to discuss this question at length, nor to decide if
-at first these reliefs were obtained on wood or metal. It is a
-recognised fact that the single sheet with a printed figure preceded the
-xylographic book in which text and illustration were cut in the same
-block. This process did not appear much before the second quarter of
-the fifteenth century, and it was employed principally for popular works
-which were then the universal taste. The engraving also was nothing more
-than a kind of imposition palmed off as a manuscript; the vignettes were
-often covered with brilliant colours and gold, and the whole sold as of
-the best quality.
-
-The first attempts at these little figures in relief discovered by the
-image-makers and diffused by the makers of playing cards were but
-indifferent. The drawing and the cutting were equally unskilful, as may
-be seen in the facsimiles given by M. H. Delaborde in his _Histoire de
-la Gravure_. An attempt had been made to put some text at the foot of
-the St. Christopher of 1423, and the idea of giving more importance to
-the text was to the advantage of the booksellers. At the mercy of the
-writers who fleeced them, obliged to recoup themselves by the
-exaggerated prices of the most ordinary books, they hoped to turn
-engraving to account in order to obtain on better terms the technical
-work needed for their trade. At the epoch of the St. Christopher, in
-1423, several works were in vogue in the universities, the schools, and
-with the public. Among the first of these was the Latin Syntax of Ælius
-Donatus on the eight parts of speech, a kind of grammar for the use of
-young students, as well as the famous _Speculum_, a collection of
-precepts addressed to the faithful, which were copied and recopied
-without satisfying the demand.
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 1.--Part of a _Donatus_ taken from a xylograph, the
-original of which is preserved in the Bibliothèque Nationale.]
-
-To find a means of multiplying these treatises at little cost was a
-fortune to the inventor. It is to be supposed that many artisans of the
-time attempted it; and without doubt it was the booksellers themselves,
-mostly mere dealers, who were tempted to the adventure by the sculptors
-and wood-cutters. But none had yet been so bold as to cut in relief a
-series of blocks with engravings and text to compose a complete work.
-That point was reached very quickly when some legend was engraved at the
-foot of a vignette, and it may be thought that the _Donatus_ was the
-most ancient of books so obtained among the "Incunabuli," as we now call
-them, a word that signifies origin or cradle.
-
-The first books then were formed of sheets of paper or parchment,
-laboriously printed from xylographic blocks, that is to say wooden
-blocks on which a _tailleur d'images_ had left in relief the designs and
-the letters of the text. He had thus to trace his characters in reverse,
-so that they could be reproduced as written; he had to avoid faults,
-because a phrase once done, well or ill, lasted. It was doubtless this
-difficulty of correction that gave the idea of movable types. If the
-cutter seriously erred, it was necessary to cancel altogether the faulty
-block. This at least explains the legend of Laurent Coster, of Haarlem,
-who, according to Hadrian Junius, his compatriot, discovered by accident
-the secret of separate types while playing with his children. And if the
-legend of which we speak contains the least truth, it must be found in
-the sense above indicated, that is in the correction of faults, rather
-than in the innocent game of a merchant of Haarlem. However, we shall
-have occasion to return to the subject of these remarks. It should be
-well established that engraving in relief on wood alone gave the idea of
-making xylographic blocks and of composing books. Movable type, the
-capital point of printing, the pivot of the art of the Book, developed
-itself little by little, according to needs, when there was occasion to
-correct an erroneous inscription; but, in any case, its origin is
-unknown. Doubtless to vary the text, means were found to replace entire
-phrases by other phrases, preserving the original figures; and thus the
-light dawned upon these craftsmen, occupied in the manufacture and sale
-of their books.
-
-According to Hadrian Junius, Laurent Janszoon Coster (the latter name
-signifying "the discoverer") published one of the celebrated series of
-works under the general title of _Speculum_ which was then so popular
-(the mystic style exercising so great an attraction on the people of the
-fifteenth century), the _Speculum Humanæ Salvationis_. Written before
-the middle of the fifteenth century, made popular by manuscripts, in
-spite of its fantastic Latinity and of its false quantities, this
-ascetic and crude poem was easy of access to the xylographists. Junius,
-as we see, attributes to Laurent Coster the first impression of the
-_Speculum_, no longer the purely xylographic impression of the _Donatus_
-from an engraved block, but that of the more advanced manner in movable
-types. In point of fact, this book had at least four editions, similar
-in engravings and body of letters, but of different text. It must then
-be admitted that the fount was dispersed, and typography discovered,
-because the same cast of letters could not be adapted to different
-languages. On the other hand, the vignettes do not change, indicating
-sufficiently the mobility of the types. In comparison to what may be
-seen in later works, the illustrations of the _Speculum_ are by no means
-bad; they have the appearance, at once naïve and picturesque, of the
-works of Van Eyck, and not at all of the style of the German
-miniaturists; properly illuminated and gilded, they lent themselves to
-the illusion of being confounded with the _histoyres_, drawn by the
-hand, and this is what the publisher probably sought.
-
-All the xylographic works of the fifteenth century may be classed in two
-categories: the xylographs, rightly so called, or the block books, such
-as the _Donatus_, and the books with movable types, like the _Speculum_,
-of which we speak. This mystic and simple literature of pious works for
-the use of people of modest resources found in printing the means of
-more rapid reproduction. Then appeared the _Biblia Pauperum_, one of the
-most celebrated and the most often reproduced, and the _Ars Moriendi_, a
-kind of dialogue between an angel and a devil at the bedside of a dying
-person, which, inspired no doubt by older manuscripts, retained for a
-long time in successive editions the first tradition of its designs. On
-labels displayed among the figures are found inscribed the dialogue of
-the demons and angels seeking to attach to themselves the departing
-soul, the temptations of Satan on the subject of faith, and the
-responses of the angel on the same subject.
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 2.--Xylographic figure from the _Ars Moriendi_,
-copied in reverse in the _Art au Morier_.]
-
-We can see what developments this theme could lend to the mysticism of
-the fifteenth century. Composed in eleven designs, the _Ars Moriendi_
-ran up to eight different editions. From the middle to the end of the
-fifteenth century, the text was in Latin, then in French, under the
-title _L'Art au Morier_. In the French edition will be found the blocks
-that served for the second impression of the work. About 1480, more than
-fifty years after the first essays, the _Ars Moriendi_ enjoyed so much
-vogue that it employed all the resources of typography as much as in its
-earliest days. The original subjects, copied in a very mediocre manner,
-adorned the text, which was composed in Gothic letters, with a new and
-more explicit title: _Tractatus brevis ac valde utilis de Arte et
-Scientia bene moriendi_ (4to, s.l.n.d.), but the order is inverted,
-figure 5 of the xylograph becoming No. 3 of the edition of 1480.
-
-The _Ars Memorandi_, another xylographic work, of which the subject,
-taken from the New Testament, was equally well adapted to the
-imagination of the artists, had also a glorious destiny. The work
-originally comprised thirty blocks, the fifteen blocks of text facing
-the fifteen engravings. The designs represented the attributes of each
-of the Evangelists, with allegories and explanatory legends. Thus, in
-that which relates to the Apostle Matthew,
-
-  No. 1 represents the birth and genealogy of Jesus Christ,
-  No. 2 the offerings of the Magi,
-  No. 3 the baptism of St. John,
-  No. 4 the Temptation of Christ,
-  No. 5 the Sermon on the Mount,
-  No. 6 the parable of the birds.
-
-The angel that supports the whole is the emblem of St. Matthew the
-Evangelist.
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 3.--Figure of the school of Martin Schongauer, taken
-from the _Rationarium Evangelistarum_ of 1505, and copied from the
-corresponding plate of the _Ars Memorandi_.]
-
-This mnemonic treatment of the Gospels began with symbols of which we
-have no means of finding the origin, but which without doubt were
-employed many centuries earlier. However that may be, their success was
-as great as that of the already-quoted works. In 1505 a German publisher
-put forth an imitation, under the title of _Rationarium Evangelistarum_;
-and this time the copier of the illustrations, retaining the tradition
-of the first xylographers, no less reveals an artist of the first order,
-at least a pupil of Martin Schongauer. Some of the conceptions of the
-_Rationarium_ recall exactly the engravings of the great German master,
-among others that of the Infant Jesus (plate 12), which nearly
-approaches the style of the Infant Jesus of Schongauer; besides, the
-principal figures leave but little doubt on the subject. The same wings
-are on the angels and on the eagles, the same coiffures on the human
-characters, often the same attitudes.
-
-From the preceding can be judged the extraordinary favour these
-productions enjoyed. From their origin they were diffused through the
-whole of Europe, and attracted the attention of excellent artists.
-Nevertheless their beginnings were difficult. The movable types used,
-cut separately in wood, were not constituted to give an ideal
-impression. We can understand the cost that the execution of these
-characters must have occasioned, made as they were one by one without
-the possibility of ever making them perfectly uniform. Progress was to
-substitute for this irregular process types that were similar,
-identical, easily produced, and used for a long time without breaking.
-Following on the essays of Laurent Coster, continuous researches bore on
-this point; but as the invention was said to be his, and it being of
-importance to him not to divulge it, so that he should not lose his
-profit, much time was lost over it in his workshop without much success.
-Here history is somewhat confused. Hadrian Junius positively accuses one
-of Laurent Coster's workmen of having stolen the secrets of his master
-and taken flight to Mayence, where he afterwards founded a printing
-office. According to Junius, the metal type was the discovery of the
-Dutchman, and the name of the thief was John. Who was this John? Was it
-John Gaensefleisch, called Gutenberg, or possibly John Fust? But it is
-not at all apparent that Gutenberg, a gentleman of Mayence, exiled from
-his country, was ever in the service of the Dutch inventor. As to Fust,
-we believe his only intervention in the association of printers of
-Mayence was as a money-lender, from which may be comprehended the
-unlikelihood of his having been with Coster, the more so as we find
-Gutenberg retired to Strasbourg, where he pursued his researches. There
-he was, as it were, out of his sphere, a ruined noble whose great
-knowledge was bent entirely on invention. Doubtless, like many others,
-he may have had in his hands one of the printed works of Laurent Coster,
-and conceived the idea of appropriating the infant process. In 1439 he
-was associated with two artisans of the city of Strasbourg, ostensibly
-in the fabrication of mirrors, which may be otherwise understood as
-printing of _Speculums_, the Latin word signifying the same thing. These
-men needed to surround themselves with precautions; printing was as yet
-only a practical means of multiplying manuscripts, to impose a little on
-the innocent, and fortune awaited him who, without saying anything, made
-this invention serve him. The following will prove this, as well as its
-tendency.
-
-A legal document discovered in 1760 by Wencker and Schoepflin in the
-Pfennigthurm of Strasbourg, and afterwards translated into French by
-M. Leon de Laborde, makes us at length acquainted with the work of
-Gutenberg and of his associates Andrew Dritzehen and Andrew Heilmann.
-Apparently these three men were, as we have said, _Spiegelmacher_,
-that is makers of mirrors. They had jointly entered into a deed by
-the terms of which, if one of the partners died in the course of
-their researches, his heirs would have no rights beyond an indemnity
-corresponding to the amount invested by him. It happened that
-Andrew Dritzehen did die, and that one of his brothers aspired to
-occupy his place in the partnership. The dead man left debts behind
-him; he had squandered his florins by hundreds in his experiments.
-Gutenberg having offered to pay the amounts expended, the heirs of
-Dritzehen, who wanted more, summoned him before the courts to show
-why he should not make place for them in the work of experiments and
-making of mirrors. The witnesses in their testimony before the court
-told what they knew of the inventions of the partnership. One among
-them deposed that after the death of Dritzehen, Gutenberg's servant
-went to the workshop and begged Nicholas Dritzehen, brother of the
-deceased, to displace and break up four formes placed in a press.
-A second testified that the works of Andrew had cost him at the
-least three hundred florins, an enormous sum for those days. Other
-witnesses painted Gutenberg in a curious light: they made him out
-to be a savage, a hermit, who concealed from his associates certain
-arts of which the deed stipulated nothing. One fact proved that the
-experiments referred to the manufacture of metallic characters. A
-goldsmith, named Dünne, maintained that he had received more than a
-hundred florins for printing material "das zu dem trucken gehoret."
-"Trucken!"--"Typography!" The word was found, and from that day usage
-has consecrated it.
-
-Before 1439, then, John Gaensefleisch, or Gutenberg, was devoted to the
-art of reproduction of texts, and had consecrated his life and feeble
-resources to it. Three problems presented themselves to him. He wanted
-types less fragile than wooden types and less costly than engraving. He
-wanted a press by the aid of which he could obtain a clear impression on
-parchment or paper. He desired also that the leaves of his books should
-not be anopistograph, or printed only on one side. There were many
-unknown things to vex his soul, of which he himself alone could have a
-presentiment. Until then, and even long after, the xylographs were
-printed _au frotton_ or with a brush, rubbing the paper upon the forme
-coated with ink, thicker than ordinary ink. He dreamed of something
-better.
-
-In the course of his work John Gutenberg returned to Mayence. The idea
-of publishing a Bible, the Book of books, had taken possession of his
-heart. The _Spiegelmacher_ of Strasbourg was on the road to loss. The
-cutting of his types had ruined him, and on his arrival in his native
-town, his stock in trade, transported by him, was of no great weight:
-some boxes of type, an inconvenient forme, and perhaps an ordinary
-press, a wine-maker's press, with a wooden screw. The idea of using this
-unwieldy instrument for the impression of his formes had already
-occurred to him; but would not the _frotton_ serve still better? The
-force of the blow from the bar would break the miserable type, the
-raised parts of which could not resist the repeated strokes. In this
-unhappy situation, Gutenberg made the acquaintance of a financier of
-Mayence, named Fust, who was in search of a business, and who put a sum
-of eleven hundred florins at his disposal to continue his experiments.
-Unfortunately this money disappeared, it melted away, and the results
-obtained were absolutely ludicrous.
-
-It is certain that John Fust did not enter on the engagement without
-protecting himself. From the first he bound his debtor in a contract for
-six per cent. interest, besides a share in the profits. In addition he
-stipulated repayment in case of failure. Gutenberg, improvident, as is
-the way of inventors, had signed away all that he possessed to procure
-funds. It is presumed, besides, that during the continuance of his
-investigations, he composed some current books with the resources at his
-disposal, that served a little to lighten his debts. But the printing
-house of the Zum Jungen at Mayence was far from shining in the world,
-because the association of Fust concerned itself only with the
-publication of a Bible, and not at all with the _Speculums_ and
-_Donatuses_ that were so much in vogue at this time. Besides, the
-money-lender made a point of pressing his debtor, and did not allow him
-any leisure to labour outside the projected work. About this time a
-third actor enters on the scene. Peter Schoeffer, of Gernsheim, a
-writer, introduced into the workshop of Gutenberg to design letters,
-benefited by the abortive experiments, and taking up the invention at
-its deadlock, conducted it to success. John of Tritenheim, called
-Trithemius, the learned abbot of Spanheim, is the person who relates
-these facts; but as he got his information from Schoeffer himself, too
-much credence must not be given to his statements. Besides, Schoeffer
-was not at all an ordinary artisan. If we credit a Strasbourg manuscript
-written by his hand in 1449, he was a student of the "most glorious
-university of Paris." In the workshop of Gutenberg, his industrious and
-inventive intellect found a fecund mine, and this caligraphist dreamt
-of other things than shaping letters for the use of wood engravers.
-Gutenberg, arrested in his career by the wants of life, the worries of
-business, and perhaps also the fatigues of his labours, may have let the
-new-comer know something of his experiences. One cannot know, but it is
-certain that, shortly after, John Fust was so fascinated by Schoeffer,
-so attracted by his youth and his application, that he resolved to put
-new capital into the business. He did more: to permanently attach him,
-he gave him his grand-daughter in marriage, not his daughter, as was
-thought until M. Auguste Bernard rectified this mistake.
-
-We have now come to 1453, the year preceding the first dated monument of
-printing in movable types: _the letters of indulgence_. It may be
-acknowledged that the sudden affection of Fust for his workman depended
-on some interested motive, and not at all on attraction of the heart.
-Had this former student of the university of Paris found the means of
-rapidly founding metallic types, the search for which had cost Gutenberg
-many sleepless nights? Had he completed it by applying to it the matrix
-and punch which had then and for centuries served the makers of seals
-and the money-coiners? Perhaps, as was most probable, the two associates
-had agreed, and putting their experiences together, had conquered
-hitherto insurmountable difficulties.
-
-The year 1454 witnessed the diffusion throughout Christendom of letters
-of indulgence, accorded by Pope Nicholas V., who wished to aid in funds
-the King of Cyprus against the Turks. These circular letters, scattered
-by thousands to every corner of the world, employed numerous copyists.
-Arrived at Mayence, the distributers found a workshop ready prepared to
-furnish copies in the shortest possible time. They set to work and
-brought together all the type they possessed, cast or engraved, to set
-up these famous letters. Among the impressions was that of which we give
-a reproduction, which belongs to the edition called that of thirty-one
-lines. The original was delivered for a consideration to Josse Ott von
-Mospach on the 31st of December, 1454.
-
-It is not without interest, for the history of the Book and of printing,
-to note here that these letters of indulgence, the clandestine traffic
-in which was largely accelerated by rapidity of production and the small
-cost of each copy, formed one of the causes of the religious reform of
-Martin Luther. They afforded a means of raising money, and were so
-generally resorted to that in the register of the Hotel de Ville of
-Paris preserved in the Archives Nationales (H 1778) it may be seen that
-the sheriffs requested the Pope to allow them to employ them in the
-reconstruction of the bridge at the Hotel de Ville.
-
-The ice once broken, Fust and Schoeffer found it hard to nourish a
-useless mouth. For them Gutenberg was more of a hindrance than a profit,
-and they sought brutally to rid themselves of him. Fust had a most easy
-pretext, which was to demand purely and simply from his associate the
-sums advanced by him, and which had produced so little. Gutenberg had
-probably commenced his Bible, but, in face of the claims of Fust, he had
-to abandon it altogether, types, formes, and press.
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 4.--Letters of indulgence, from the so-called
-edition of thirty-one lines, printed at Mayence in the course of 1454.]
-
-In November, 1455, he had retired to a little house outside the city,
-where he tried his best, by the aid of foreign help, to establish a
-workshop, and to preserve the most perfect secrecy. Relieved of his
-company, Fust and Schoeffer were able to take up the impression of the
-Bible and to complete it without him. If matters did so happen, and
-Schoeffer had not the excuse that he had previously discovered the
-casting of type, there is but one word to designate his conduct:
-robbery, and moral robbery, the worst of all. But what can be said
-to-day of these people?
-
-One thing is certain: that the Bible of Schoeffer, commenced by
-Gutenberg or not, put on sale by Fust and Schoeffer alone about the end
-of 1455 or beginning of 1456, proves to be the first completed book.
-Retired to his new quarters, Gutenberg was taking courage, so as not
-to appear too much behindhand, but the reconstitution of his workshop
-cost him enormous time. And, besides, he missed the letter-maker
-Schoeffer, his own Gothic letters, engraved on steel with a punch, not
-having the same elegance. When his work appeared, it could not sustain
-comparison. The Bible of Schoeffer was more compact, the impression was
-more perfect, the ink better, the type less irregular. The original
-inventor, in his business with Fust, made an unhappy competition for
-himself. We give here a fragment of this celebrated book, a kind of
-mute witness of the science and mortifications of the first printer.
-It is now called the Mazarine Bible, from the fact that the copy in
-the Mazarin Library was the first to give evidence concerning it. The
-book was put on sale at the end of 1455 or beginning of 1456, for a
-manuscript note of a vicar of St. Stephen at Mayence records that
-he finished the binding and illuminating of the first volume on St.
-Bartholomew's Day, 1456, and the second on the 15th of August. St.
-Bartholomew's Day is the 13th of June, and not the 24th of August, as
-the catalogue of the Bibliothèque Nationale has it.
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 5.--Fragment of the Mazarine Bible, printed in two
-columns. Beginning of the text in the second column; original size.]
-
-All these remarks show that the printers did not proclaim themselves,
-and were making pseudo-manuscripts. They did not make known their names
-or address. The rubricators sided with them, for many of the copies are
-illuminated with as much care and beauty as if they were the finest
-manuscripts.
-
-There is no record extant of the number of copies printed, but it was
-done on both vellum and paper. Copies are by no means uncommon, most of
-the great libraries having one, and many are in private collections. One
-is shown among the typographical monuments in the King's Library of the
-British Museum, and there is a finely illuminated copy in the show-room
-of the Bibliothèque Nationale. From its very great importance as the
-first book that is known to have been printed, its value has a constant
-increase. Of the copies recently sold, one at the Perkins sale in 1873
-on vellum sold for £3,400, another on paper at the same sale fetched
-£2,900, while one on paper in the Syston Park Library sold in December,
-1884, for £3,900. It has been asserted that the copies on paper were the
-first issued by Gutenberg and his partners, and those on vellum
-subsequently printed by Fust and Schoeffer, after they had obtained
-possession of the inventor's stock.
-
-But so many copies absolutely similar in aspect, and of so regular a
-style, put in the market from day to day by Fust and Schoeffer, gave
-rise to protests from the caligraphists. Criticism always attends upon
-success, but having obtained the result, the two associates did not
-hesitate to proclaim themselves the printers of the Bible. On the
-publication of the Psalter, which followed the Bible at a year's
-interval, they gave their names and added a date, 1457, the first
-instance of a date being recorded in a book. This second work was of so
-skilful a typography, that it might have been shown as the work of an
-expert penman; the faults remarked in the letters of indulgence are no
-longer seen; type had attained perfection; in two years printing had
-reached its culminating point.
-
-In spite of his disappointments, Gutenberg did not rest idle. If he had
-seen his two enemies rob him of his claim of priority in the invention,
-he had to show that, reduced to his own exertions and to the restricted
-means furnished him by charitable people, he also could print well. Two
-years after the Bible a dated book, composed in Gothic letters, appeared
-at Mayence; this was the _Catholicon_ of John Balbus, of Genoa. It had
-not yet occurred to these first printers to exercise their art otherwise
-than on religious works. It is admitted by general opinion that the
-_Catholicon_ issued from the press of Gutenberg; on the other hand, M.
-Bernard believes that it ought to be attributed to a printer of Eltvil,
-who published in 1467 a vocabulary called the _Vocabularium ex quo_ with
-the same types. The former theory may be sustained by the words of the
-colophon of the book, which is a sort of hymn to God and a recognition
-of the city of Mayence without any mention of the name of the printer.
-Now in the situation in which Gutenberg found himself, in the face of
-his rivals, had he not some claim to regard the great discovery as his
-own? But if M. Bernard is mistaken, and if our supposition has no
-foundation, what a beautiful act of humility, what a noble idea of his
-character, Gutenberg gives us in writing, "With the aid of the Most
-High, Who releases the tongues of infants and often reveals to babes
-that which is sealed to learned men, this admirable book the
-_Catholicon_ was finished in the year of the incarnation of our Saviour
-MCCCCLX. in the mother-country of Mayence, famous city of Germany, which
-God, in His clemency, has deigned to render the most illustrious and the
-first of cities; and this book was perfected without the usual help of
-pen or style, but by the admirable linking of formes and types"!
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 6.--Colophon of the _Catholicon_, supposed to have
-been printed by Gutenberg in 1460.]
-
-The history of these men, it is easy to understand, has to be regarded
-with caution, people of so little consequence then that the authentic
-documents relating to them have for ever disappeared. If we except that
-of the Pfennigthurm of Strasbourg, of which we have before spoken, and
-the deed of claim for money from Fust to Gutenberg dated 1455, we are
-forced to quote from authors living long afterwards, who submitted,
-without knowing better, to the miserable errors of oral tradition. It is
-nearly always the same with men who have occupied a large place in the
-history of art; posterity only knows of their genius at the time when no
-one knows anything of them. For Gutenberg the situation was still more
-terrible; a rival, Peter Schoeffer, survived him, and he did not for his
-own reputation care to preserve his rival's memory; and if, as is
-believed, Gutenberg left pupils and heirs, Henry Bechtermuncze, Ulrich
-Zell, and Weigand Spyes, his misfortune is crowned by Bechtermuncze
-being now reputed to be the printer of the _Catholicon_, of which we
-have just given the history. Even Albert Pfister, one of his workmen,
-dismissed at the end of his work, having obtained from his master some
-rejected types, was presumed later to have invented printing. We find
-this artisan established at Bamberg about 1460, composing Bibles in
-movable types, the first known being that published in 1461. But Albert
-Pfister showed that he was not at all an inventor by the mediocrity of
-his work, and more by the old types that he used. If he had known the
-secret of engraving the punches, he would have cast new letters and have
-given a better aspect to his work.
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 7.--Colophon of the Bible printed in 1462 by Fust
-and Schoeffer, which is the first dated Bible. There are two different
-editions with this signature. The above is from the second edition.]
-
-In these statements all is supposition and contradiction. That which is
-certain--and the dates are there to prove it--is the enormous progress
-in the productions of Peter Schoeffer. In 1459 he published his third
-book, Durand's _Rationale Divinorum Officiorum_, in folio. As in the
-Psalter, Schoeffer employed initial letters printed in red, which the
-rival workshop could not do in the _Catholicon_, the rubrics of which
-are painted by hand, as in manuscripts. In time he put forth a second
-edition of the Psalter, always with Fust's name joined to his own. A
-great number of types were broken at the beginning, but he dreamed of
-doing yet better. In 1460 he gave the _Constitutiones_ of Pope Clement
-V., with a gloss and commentaries by John André; here was the first
-example of a process much employed in manuscripts, but of which the
-typographical composition was very difficult. Again, in 1462 a new Latin
-Bible issued from their workshops in two folio volumes. It is the first
-dated edition. The first volume has two hundred and forty-two folios in
-double columns, the second two hundred and thirty-nine. It commences
-with an epistle of St. Jerome, and on the last leaf of the second volume
-is the colophon on the preceding page.
-
-This book, one of the first worthy of the name, and which is called by
-preference the Mayence Bible, appeared in one of the most troubled
-epochs that the episcopal city had had to go through. Subject to its
-archbishops, who were at the head of all the lay lords and fighting men,
-the city found itself in 1462 the prey of two prelates of equal title
-who refused to give way to one another: Thierry of Isembourg and Adolph
-of Nassau-Wiesbaden. Adolph surprised Mayence on the 27th October, 1462,
-pursuing his adversary, who scaled the walls with a rope to escape
-quicker, and the city was sacked and pillaged from its foundations. In
-the middle of this turmoil, what became of the obscure persons who were
-then the printers of the Bible? Doubtless their insignificance saved
-them from disaster, but as it was long before peace was re-established,
-and the entire edition of their last volume could not be kept back, we
-incline to believe that they were for a time going about the country as
-itinerant booksellers. Paris was to them a well-indicated point of
-travel--Paris, toward which all German commerce tended. The university
-where Peter Schoeffer was instructed in letters, and that truly passed
-for the first in Europe, appeared to them a market of the first order.
-If we may believe Walchius (_Decas fabularum generis humani_:
-Strasbourg, 1609, 4to, p. 181), John Fust himself went to that city,
-where he put books on sale from sixty crowns a copy, then fifty, then
-forty, according to the prevailing system in matters of discount. Fust
-was above all things a merchant; he led it to be believed that he had
-the marvellous establishment of a copyist beyond the Rhine, and he had
-disposed of many copies, when the corporate scribes of the university,
-becoming aware of the imposition, cried out furiously and declared it a
-diabolical invention. We may now take this tale of Walchius as a fable,
-as the registers of Parliament, on being consulted, rest silent on the
-proceedings instituted against the "magician" of Mayence. Only we must
-not lose sight of the fact that the booksellers had their masters, their
-syndicate, if we may use the modern word, charged to prohibit fraudulent
-publications. They were too much interested in the suppression of
-printed books to judge the matter coldly. The Parliament had nothing to
-see to in this.
-
-The revolution of Mayence had otherwise great results, which were not
-affected by these minor reverses. The printing workshops, or at least
-the successors of Gutenberg, began to be dispersed, and Fust and
-Schoeffer having established a school of printers in the city, their
-trade was no longer secret. Deprived of their liberties by the new
-Archbishop, many of them expatriated themselves. We shall take occasion
-later to name some of these exiles, through whom the art of printing
-spread itself almost simultaneously throughout the world: to Cologne and
-Strasbourg, to Italy and Spain, without reckoning Holland, France,
-Switzerland, and the country around Mayence. We have before named the
-episcopal city of Bamberg; it had the singular fortune to be the second
-city to possess a printing office, but it disappeared as quickly as it
-was established, with Albert Pfister, without leaving the least trace;
-we do not find printing there again before 1480, more than twenty years
-later.
-
-Gutenberg was dead before 1468. He was interred in the Church of the
-Récollets of Mayence, by the pious care of a friend, who attributed the
-invention of printing to him on his tomb.
-
-We may begin to comprehend the influence of this man upon the discovery
-of which all the world was then talking, but the troubles of the
-archiepiscopal city hampered the respective merit of the inventors.
-Peter Schoeffer and John Fust were not much affected by the political
-crisis. After two years' suspension, they reappeared with a Cicero, _De
-Officiis_, 1465, quarto, always at work and always surpassing
-themselves. This time they freely gave up religious publications, and,
-still more extraordinary, they employed Greek types.
-
-Such is, detached from the incredible contradictions of writers on art,
-and sketched solely on its main lines, the origin of printing as it is
-established at this day. First came the image engraved in relief, which
-we have not gone to China to find, with some of our predecessors. Upon
-this image were often cut, by the same economical process, legends of
-explanation that presented the idea of imitation of manuscript; and the
-xylographs appeared with or without illustrations. Then from the
-correction of errors in these books followed the discovery of movable
-characters. This wooden type, possible when it was used with a _frotton_
-for printing, would quickly break under the press, the idea of which was
-gained from the common press of the wine-makers. Then a kind of metallic
-type had to be found which would run in a mould struck by a punch. This
-punch was not invented for the purpose; it served previously for the
-makers of coins and seals. The fabrication of type from the matrix was a
-simple adoption. The lead thrown into the matrix gave the desired type.
-Thus were made the first books, of which we have briefly related the
-composition.
-
-As to the proportion of glory due to each one of the first printers, it
-is necessary equally, to guard against error on one side or the other.
-We have sought to separate from the heap of publications probable
-opinions or those based on certain documents. That the origin of the
-_Donatus_, the block books, was Dutch would be puerile to deny, because,
-on one side, the engravings on blocks are surely of the school of Van
-Eyck, and, on the other hand, Ulrich Zell, who inspired the "Cologne
-Chronicle" of 1499, assigned positively to Holland the cradle of the
-_Donatus_. At any rate, it was a pupil of Gutenberg, a question we have
-discussed. After that we will trouble ourselves but little about Laurent
-Coster. The name makes no difference in a matter of this kind.
-
-As to Gutenberg, we have not been able to go as far as M. E. Dutuit, who
-in his _Manuel a'Estampes_ (vol. i., p. 236, etc.) doubts Gutenberg's
-right to the title of inventor. It is stated that in a letter of William
-Fichet, prior of the Sorbonne, of whom we shall have more to say
-presently, to Robert Gaguin, which M. A. Claudin found at the beginning
-of a work entitled _Gasparim Pergamensis orthographiæ liber_, published
-in 1470, nearly twenty years after the first work at Mayence, Gutenberg
-is proclaimed the inventor of printing. Without any other, this
-testimony of a _savant_ who was the first to bring the German printers
-to Paris appears to us well nigh irrefutable.
-
-As to John Fust and his grandson by marriage, Peter Schoeffer, they are
-so well defended by their works, that there is no more to say here;
-doubtless grave presumptions arise as to the delicacy of their conduct
-with Gutenberg, but we are not so bold as to censure them beyond
-measure. We know nothing precise either of the time or of the men.
-
-Let us now imagine humble workmen, the most simple of _gens de
-mestiers_, to employ the French expression then in use, shut up in a
-kind of dark workshop, like a country forge, formed in little groups of
-two or three persons, one designing and the other cutting the wood,
-having near them a table, on which is held the engraved block after its
-reliefs have been rubbed with sombre ink, who afterwards, by means of
-the _frotton_, apply the damped paper to the raised parts of the block;
-we shall have without much stretch of thought all the economy of the
-xylographic impression. If we add to this primitive workshop the matrix
-in which the types are cast, the box in which they are distributed, the
-forme on which they are arranged to compose the pages, and a small
-hand-press, with blacker ink and paper damped to permit the greasy ink
-to take better, we have a picture of the work-room of Gutenberg, Fust,
-and Schoeffer, and of the first printers with movable types.
-
-Thus typography was born of painting, passing in its infancy through
-wood-cutting, revolutionising ideas and somewhat the world. But the
-mighty power of the new art was not confined to itself; it extended the
-circle of engraving, which till then had suffered from the enormous
-difficulties of reproduction. As if the time were ripe for all these
-things, nearly at the moment when the first printers were distinguishing
-themselves by serious works, a Florentine goldsmith accidentally
-discovered the cutting of cast metal.[A] What would have become of this
-new process if the presses of Gutenberg had not brought their powerful
-assistance to the printing of engravings? It will be found then that
-printing rendered a hundredfold to engraving for that which it received
-from it and bore it along with its own rapid advance.
-
-Then reappeared, following the new processes, the figures somewhat
-abandoned by the Mayence workmen during the period of transformation.
-Our object is to speak at length of the Book ornamented and illustrated
-according to the means of relief-cutting or casting; to demonstrate the
-influence of painting, of sculpture, of art, on the production of the
-Book; and thus to help the reader at the same time to understand the
-almost sudden and irresistible development of typography, and to mention
-its foremost representatives.
-
-[Footnote A: The opinion that Finiguerra was the unconscious inventor of
-casting engravings is now abandoned.]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER II.
-
-1462 TO 1500.
-
-     The Book and the printers of the second generation--The German
-     workmen dispersed through Europe--Caxton and the introduction of
-     printing into England--Nicholas Jenson and his supposed mission to
-     Mayence--The first printing in Paris; William Fichet and John
-     Heinlein--The first French printers; their installation at the
-     Sorbonne and their publications--The movement in France--The
-     illustration of the Book commenced in Italy--The Book in Italy;
-     engraving in relief and metal plates--The Book in Germany: Cologne,
-     Nuremberg, Basle--The Book in the Low Countries--French schools of
-     ornament of the Book; Books of Hours; booksellers at the end of the
-     fifteenth century--Literary taste in titles in France at the end of
-     the fifteenth century--Printers and booksellers' marks--The
-     appearance of the portrait in the Book--Progress in England--Caxton
-     and his followers.
-
-
-Considering the influence of printing on the book trade of the fifteenth
-century, as referred to in the preceding pages, the dealers in
-manuscripts were not disposed to give way at the first blow. An entire
-class of workmen would find themselves from day to day without
-employment if the new art succeeded; these were the copyists, miserable
-scribes, who for meagre remuneration frequented the shops of the
-merchants, where they transcribed manuscripts by the year. Before
-printing the publication of books was so effected, and the booksellers
-were rather intermediaries between the copyist and the buyer, than
-direct dealers having shops and fittings complete. It is evident that
-they would not provide themselves with these costly books long in
-advance without being sure of disposing of them.
-
-Small as was the remuneration of the writers, it was much to them; and
-they were naturally the first to protest against the new invention. At
-the same time, their opposition and that of the booksellers was soon
-overcome, swamped, and choked by the growing crowd of printers. Then, as
-always happens in similar cases, in place of fighting against the
-current, most of the former workers in manuscript followed it. The
-writers designed letters for engraving in wood, the booksellers sold the
-printed works, and some of the illuminators engraved in relief or cast
-their _histoyres_. For a long time these last continued to decorate
-books with the ornamental drawings with which they had adorned the
-manuscripts, and so contributed to form the fine school of illustrators
-who carried their art to so high a point from the end of the fifteenth
-century.
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 8.--Imprint of Arnold Ther Hoernen, printer, of
-Mayence.]
-
-As previously related, the revolution of Mayence caused the flight of a
-crowd of artisans who found their liberty suddenly compromised by the
-conqueror. The want of money at this time always brought a diminution of
-patronage, and working printers have been at all times tenacious of
-their privileges. It so happened that their guild, in place of remaining
-established at Mayence many years longer, was, as it were, turned out,
-scattered to the four cardinal points by the dispersion of its members,
-and scattered many years before the natural time. In point of fact, in
-the common order of things, a workman here and there quits the principal
-workshop to try the world. He makes his way timidly, unconscious apostle
-of a marvellous art. If he succeeds, he gathers some pupils round him;
-if he fails, no trace of him remains; in any case invention propagates
-itself more gradually. With printing it was a thunderclap. Hardly had it
-made its appearance when the exodus commenced. The greater part of the
-Mayence men went to Italy: to Subiaco and to Rome, Arnold Pannartz,
-Conrad Sweynheim, Ulrich Hahn; to Venice, John of Spire, Vendelin of
-Spire, Christopher Valdarfer, Bernard Pictor (of Augsburg), Erhardt
-Ratdolt, Peter Loslein; to Ferrara, Andrew Belfort; to Foligno, John
-Neumeister; Henry Alding tried Sicily; Andrew Vyel, of Worms, printed
-at Palermo. Lambert Palmart was at Valencia, in Spain, in 1477;
-Nicholas Spindeler at Barcelona; Peter Hagenbach at Toledo; not far from
-Mayence--that is, at Cologne--Ulrich Zell, a pupil of Gutenberg, who
-dated his first work 1466. It was Arnold Ther Hoernen who numbered a
-book with Arabic figures; it was Koelhof who first used signatures to
-indicate to the binder the order of the sheets; it was at Eltvil that
-Henry Bechtermuncze, as we have already said, printed his _Vocabularium_
-in German, with the types of the _Catholicon_; at Basle, Berthold
-Rüppel, of Hanau, was the first established in that city which after
-Mayence did the most for printing; at Nuremberg, Koburger, who took
-nearly the first rank among his contemporaries, set as many as
-twenty-four presses to work, and was named by Badius the prince of
-printers. And how matters went on! For instance, the very year that
-followed the death of Gutenberg, monks, the Brothers of the Common Life
-of Marienthal, in the Rheingau, themselves published a copy of the
-indulgences accorded by Adolph of Nassau, Archbishop of Mayence. Before
-1480, presses were everywhere in Germany: at Prague, Augsburg, Ulm,
-Lubeck, Essling, etc.
-
-It is to be remarked that the Mayence men did not turn towards Holland.
-Is it that they found there the descendants of Laurent Coster firmly
-established in their workshops? Must the coexistence, the simultaneous
-advance, of the invention in Germany and in the Low Countries be
-admitted? It is a secret for us and for many others, but we know for
-certain that Flemish printers were established at Utrecht in 1473, at
-Delft, Bruges, Gouda, Zwoll, Antwerp, and Brussels. At Louvain there
-was besides John of Westphalia, who published in 1474 a work of Peter
-Crescens, and several other works.
-
-Colard Mansion was printing at Bruges about 1473; and was employed by
-William Caxton, who had been for some years trading as a merchant in the
-Low Countries, to print the "Recuyell of the Histories of Troy," by
-Raoul Le Fevre, which Caxton had translated into English at the command
-of Queen Margaret. This was issued in 1474, and was the first book
-printed in the English language. In 1475 or 1476 Caxton returned to
-England with a fount of types, which he had employed Mansion to cut and
-cast for him, and established himself as a printer in the precincts of
-Westminster Abbey. In 1477 he produced the first book printed in
-England, "The Dictes and Sayings of the Philosophers," followed by a
-large number of important works, many of them written or translated by
-Caxton himself. Thus was typography firmly established in England; and
-Caxton's immediate successors, Wynken de Worde, Richard Pynson, William
-Machlinia, have had a glorious roll of followers, which has never been
-broken to this day. From Westminster the art spread in England to
-Oxford, where Theodoricus Rood, from Cologne, printed an _Exposicio
-Sancti Jeronimi_ in 1478; and to St. Albans in 1480 by a printer who has
-never been identified, and who produced the famous "Chronicle" and "Boke
-of St. Albans."
-
-The invasion, we see, had been most rapid. In less than fifteen years,
-every important city had followed the movement, and was ready to
-establish printing offices. If we may credit a certain controverted
-document, Charles VII. had on the 3rd of October, 1458, sent to Mayence
-one of the best medal engravers of the Mint of Tours to study the
-process of which marvels were spoken: "The 3rd of October, 1458, the
-King having learned that Messire Guthenberg, living at Mayence, in the
-country of Germany, a dexterous man in carving and making letters with a
-punch, had brought to light the invention of printing by punches and
-types, desirous of inquiring into such a treasure, the King has
-commanded the generals of his mints to nominate persons well instructed
-in the said cutting and to send them secretly to the said place to
-inform themselves of the said mode and invention, to understand and
-learn the art of them, in order to satisfy the said Lord King; and it
-was undertaken by Nicholas Jenson, who took the said journey to bring
-intelligence of the said art and of the execution of it in the said
-kingdom, which first has made known the said art of impression to the
-said kingdom of France" (Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal, Hf 467, pp. 410,
-411).
-
-Nicholas Jenson on his return met with a cool reception from Louis XI.,
-who did not continue the works of his father. It may be supposed that
-this coolness was the cause of his expatriating himself and retiring to
-a place where his industry could be better exercised. Ten years after
-the above mission we find him established at Venice, his art of engraver
-of letters joined to that of printer. His Eusebius, translated by
-Trapezuntius, and his Justinian, were composed in 1470 with such
-marvellous and clear types that from that day the best typographers have
-imitated his founts. In spite of its success, he did not confine himself
-to these letters, but he made use also of Gothic, in which he printed
-by preference pious books.
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 9.--Imprint of Nicholas Jenson to a Justinian,
-printed in 1470 at Venice. This type has prevailed up to now.]
-
-In spite of the attempts of Jenson in the name of the King of
-France--that is, if these attempts ever took place in the manner
-indicated above--the invention was not known to have commended itself to
-the powerful university of Paris. In general, and especially for the
-introduction of innovations in that learned body, it was necessary to
-fight, to strike without much chance of success, save in case of having
-acquaintance in the place. We have seen John Fust, obliged suddenly to
-retake the road to Germany, in a fair way to find himself taxed with
-sorcery, not an inconsiderable matter. For others the sale of
-unauthorised books had had most unhappy consequences unless the
-Parliament intervened. So ten years had passed since the journey of
-Jenson, and ten or twelve since the first manifestations of typography
-at Mayence, without the diabolical discovery finding admittance to the
-Sorbonne. A still more extraordinary thing, a Cologne printer issued
-about 1472 a small folio in Gothic type, thirty-one long lines to a
-page, which was a work written in French. The _Histoires de Troyes_ of
-Raoul Le Fevre, chaplain of the dukes of Burgundy, first found a
-publisher in Germany, and soon after another in England, before a single
-press was definitely installed at Paris.
-
-As we have said of Peter Schoeffer, numerous German students were in the
-university, where they pursued their studies, and frequently remained
-later as masters. It has been found that in 1458 a former student of
-Leipzig named John Heinlein, a native of Stein, in the diocese of Spire,
-entered as regent of the college of Burgundy, from whence he passed to
-the Sorbonne in 1462, the year of the troubles in Mayence. After the
-manner of latinising names so common at that time, he called himself
-Lapidanus, from the name of his native place, which means Stone in
-German. Heinlein met in Paris a Savoyard, William Fichet, born in 1433
-at Petit Bornand, who became an associate of the Sorbonne about 1461,
-and finally rector in 1468. These two men were great friends, and their
-particular instincts attracted them to men of elevated studies. They
-divined at once the enormous help printing would bring to their work.
-Besides, it grieved them to see through the whole of France, especially
-in Touraine, German colporteurs carrying on their trade under cover of
-other commerce, a practice from which the most grave inconveniences
-might result. It occurred to them that to prevent fraud they would
-themselves create a printing establishment; but if they deliberated on
-it, it must have been in secret, for the registers of the Sorbonne are
-silent on their enterprise. If Fichet conceived the idea, it may be
-believed that, from his German origin, Heinlein put it into execution.
-M. Philippe thinks that he was formerly at Basle. In all probability it
-was from that city he tried to obtain his workmen. In 1468 six years had
-elapsed since the craftsmen were dispersed and fled from Mayence. At all
-events, it was from Basle that Ulrich Gering, Michael Freyburger, and
-Martin Krantz, printers recommended to the two Sorbonnists, departed,
-and in due course arrived in Paris. Of these three men, who were the
-first to establish a printing office on the French side of the Rhine,
-Ulrich Gering was a student as well as a printer, so was Freyburger,
-originally of Colmar. Krantz was a letter-founder, and the only real
-workman of the three companions.
-
-We have often regretted with regard to these men, as also to Gutenberg,
-Fust, and Schoeffer, that no really authentic portrait has transmitted
-their features to us. Every one will recall the fur cap and loose
-pantaloons of the mediocre statue at Mayence, but there is really no
-portrait of Gutenberg. As to Gering, M. Philippe, in his _Histoire de
-l'Origine de l'Imprimerie à Paris_, publishes a grotesque figure muffled
-in the ruff of the sixteenth century, after a picture preserved at
-Lucerne, but for which much cannot be said. Lacaille, in his _Histoire
-de l'Imprimerie_, gives a full-length portrait of Gering, said to be
-taken from a painting in the College Montagu.
-
-The workshop of the three Germans was set up within the walls of the
-Sorbonne--_in ædibus Sorbonnicis_--in 1469. There they set to work at
-once, their printing establishment consisting simply of a room, none too
-light, a table, a press, and formes. Krantz doubtless struck the types
-chosen by the Sorbonnists, for there were then in use two sorts of
-letters: German Gothic and Roman. They kept to the Roman, as being more
-round and clear; and as soon as they obtained matrices and cast their
-type, they entered on their task with ardour.
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 10.--"Letters" of Gasparin of Bergamo. First page of
-the first book printed at Paris, in 1470.]
-
-The tendencies of Fichet and Heinlein were not towards transcendent
-theology, but rather towards the literature of the ancients and
-contemporary rhetorical works. Besides, it may be said, considering that
-men are far from perfect, Fichet counted on making the authorised
-presses serve his own purpose. We find him publishing a treatise on
-rhetoric in quarto in 1471; meantime he supervised the work confided to
-his artists. They commenced with a large volume of "Letters" of Gasparin
-of Bergamo, which was set up in quarto with the Roman type, the form of
-which had been accepted. At the end of the work, the impression of
-which cost much time--possibly a year--the three printers placed a
-quatrain in Latin distichs, which is at once a statement of identity and
-a promise for the future.
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 11.--Colophon in distichs in the "Letters" of
-Gasparin of Bergamo, first book printed at Paris, at the office of the
-Sorbonne.]
-
-If we try to apportion to each of the three printers his share in the
-making of the book, it may be supposed that the intellectual part of the
-composition and the correction fell to Freyburger and Gering, while the
-heavier work of founding, placing in formes, and press work fell to
-Krantz. This essay, satisfactory as it appeared, was far from
-perfection. The first Parisian printers had multiplied abbreviations and
-irregular contractions, and enormous difficulties and inevitable faults
-ensued. Further, either they had more than one punch, or the leaden
-matrix was deformed, for the characters frequently differ. At the same
-time, we must commend them for having used the _æ_ and _[oe]_, which
-were uniformly written _e_ in the manuscripts, thus giving rise to
-errors without number. Their punctuation was the comma, semicolon, and
-full stop.
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 12.--_Rhetorique_ of Fichet, printed at Paris in
-1471. The marginal ornaments are drawn by hand.]
-
-Fichet and Heinlein had become the modest librarians of the Sorbonne,
-and this new employment gave them greater facilities for surveillance.
-The printing office did not remain inactive. It issued successively the
-"Orthography" of Gasparin of Bergamo, the "Letters" of Phalaris, two
-books of Æneas Sylvius, the "Conspiracy of Catiline" of Sallust, the
-"Epitome of Titus Livius" of Florus, and finally the "Rhetorics" of
-William Fichet, which, if we may credit a letter addressed to Bessarion,
-was finished in 1471. Following came the "Letters" of Bessarion, the
-_Elegantia Latinæ Linguæ_ of Valla, the first folio volume from the
-Sorbonne presses; and others, thirteen volumes in 1470-71 and seventeen
-in 1472.
-
-At the end of 1472 the workshop was somewhat broken up, Fichet having
-left for Rome and Heinlein preaching in Germany. The three printers had
-shown by their works that they were in earnest; besides, they had from
-the first gratuitously distributed copies among the nobles, who, being
-accustomed to pay highly for manuscripts, did not fail to note the
-difference. The associates then resolved to quit the Sorbonne and create
-an establishment for themselves; their patrons being no longer there to
-sustain them in case of failure, and in giving up their presses and
-types it may be judged that they were not without anxiety on that point.
-
-Their oldest dated book, the _Manipulus Curatorum_ of Montrochet, was
-also the first that they printed in their new quarters, at the sign of
-the "Golden Sun" in the Rue St. Jacques. They remained united up to the
-year 1477, when Gering alone printed at the "Golden Sun," but he
-obtained associates, George Mainyal in 1480 and Berthold Rembold in
-1494, who lived with him in the Rue de la Sorbonne, where he established
-himself on leaving the Rue St. Jacques. Ulrich Gering died on the 23rd
-of August, 1510, after a half-century of work.
-
-The movement inaugurated by the Sorbonne was promptly followed. German
-workmen opened their shops nearly everywhere in France; then the French
-themselves scattered. At Lyons in 1472 a Frenchman was established, the
-same at Angers, Caen, Metz, Troyes, Besançon, and Salins. But in the
-central provinces we find Henry Mayer at Toulouse, John Neumeister at
-Albi; in the east Metlinger at Dijon; and Michael Wensler, of Basle, at
-Macon, among others, about 1493.
-
-We have now arrived at an epoch of greater efforts. The Lyons printers
-used ornamental letters, from which were developed engravings in the
-Book. Since the block books illustration had been neglected, as the
-means were wanting to distribute the plates here and there in the forme;
-Schoeffer still employed initial letters in wood very like vignettes.
-John Fust was now dead, but Peter Schoeffer continued to print without
-intermission.
-
-If we search for the precise epoch in which illustration appeared in the
-history of the Book, we shall perhaps have to go back to the time of
-Albert Pfister, printer of Bamberg, who issued in 1461 an edition of the
-"Fables of Ulrich Bohner" with a hundred and one figures on wood. This
-may be said to be the unconscious combination of xylography with
-typography, a kind of transformation of old elements to new things
-without other importance; art had no place in this adaptation.
-
-Up to this time Germany had not, in its school of painters or
-miniaturists, men capable of giving a personal impulse to ornament. In
-the German editions of the block books the influence of Van Eyck had
-made itself felt very sensibly, and the Flemish had preserved their
-supremacy on this point; on the other hand, the German printers who went
-to seek their fortune in Italy fell into the middle of a circle
-admirably prepared to receive them and to communicate their ideas to
-them. It is believed that the first book printed in Italy with woodcuts
-in the text and with an ascertained date is the work of a German
-established at Rome, Ulrich Hahn, in 1467. An account in the _Annuaire
-du Bibliophile_, which, being without citation of authority, we quote
-for what it is worth, relates that Ulrich Hahn was established as a
-printer at Vienna about 1462, but was driven thence by the publication
-of a pamphlet against the burgomaster of the city, and was attracted to
-Rome by Torquemada, who confided to him the impression of his work the
-_Meditationes_. Hahn was an engraver, as were also most of his
-_confrères_ at that time--that is, he cut in relief designs to be
-intercalated in the text--and Passavant relates that the designs of the
-_Meditationes_ were from compositions of Fra Angelico, who died in 1455.
-Be that as it may, the book, the printing of which was finished on St.
-Sylvester's Day, 1467, is the first known with engravings, and only
-three copies of it exist: one at Vienna, one at Nuremberg, and one in
-Lord Spencer's library; it is composed in Gothic type in folio.
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 13.--Wood engraving of Matteo Pasti for Valturius'
-_De Re Militari_: Verona, 1472.]
-
-Illustration found a true artist at Verona, Matteo Pasti, who furnished
-designs for a volume on military art by Valturius, printed in Roman
-characters in folio, at the expense of John of Verona, and dedicated to
-Sigismond Pandolfi. Pasti's eighty-two figures are simple outlines, and
-we here reproduce one of the principal--an archer shooting at a butt.
-Published in 1472, the volume of Valturius followed soon after the
-_Meditationes_, but the engravings enable us to see how the Italian
-process, consisting mostly of lines without shadows, differed from the
-Dutch and German. One thing to be remarked here is the purity of the
-design, in spite of the roughness of the engraving; we see in these
-figures Italian art at its height, despite the somewhat coarse
-translation of the wood-cutter.
-
-At Venice the German inventors had reaped their harvest. At the end of
-the fifteenth century, fifty years after the invention of typography,
-the printing offices and booksellers' shops were counted by hundreds. It
-was in this city that for the first time a title with frontispiece
-carrying indication of the contents, the place, the date, and the name
-of the printer, was given to the Book. We give here this ornamental
-title, placed before a _Calendario_ of John de Monteregio, printed by
-Pictor, Loslein, and Ratdolt in 1476, folio.
-
-The German Erhardt Ratdolt was probably the promoter of these
-innovations. He soon afterwards published the first geometrical book
-with figures, the "Elements of Euclid," 1482, folio; in the same year he
-produced the _Poeticon Astronomicum_ of Hyginus, previously printed at
-Ferrara, with illustrations on wood of excellent design, but laboriously
-and unskilfully engraved. Yet the art of the Book could not remain
-mediocre in this city, where the artists were creating marvels. John of
-Spire and afterwards Nicholas Jenson, the emigrant from France, of whom
-we have spoken above, had created, after Italian manuscripts, that Roman
-letter, the primitive type of which has come down to our time very
-little retouched. At the death of Jenson in 1481, his materials passed
-into the hands of Andrew d'Asola, called Andrea Torresani, who did not
-allow the good traditions of his master to die, and who produced among
-others a book bearing signatures, catchwords, and paging ("Letters of
-St. Jerome," 1488). Torresani was the father-in-law of Aldus Manutius,
-who was to be for ever illustrious in the art of printing at Venice, and
-raised his art to the highest perfection.
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 14.--Title-page of the _Calendario_, first
-ornamental title known. Printed in 1476 at Venice.]
-
-But if decoration by means of relief blocks found a favourable reception
-in Italy and, above all, a group of artists capable of carrying it to
-success, there were at the same time other experiments conceived in a
-different way. The discovery of Maso Finiguerra gave to the art a new
-process of reproduction, and printing presses had now to render possible
-and practicable the working of engraved plates. In order to make that
-which follows comprehensible, we enter into a few technical details, the
-whole subject having been so admirably and fully treated by MM.
-Delaborde and Duplessis.
-
-In the engraved wood block, as in the printing type, it is a projection
-in the wood or metal which, being inked and passed under a press, leaves
-on paper its lines in black. Naturally then the intercalation of an
-engraving of this kind in typographical composition is made without
-difficulty, and the impression of both is taken at once. On the other
-hand, a line engraving is obtained from incised lines on a plate of
-copper; that is, an instrument called a burin traces the lines, which
-are filled with greasy ink. These incised lines only are inked. The
-surface of the plate is cleaned off to avoid smudging. The sheet of
-paper destined for the impression has then to be made very pliable, so
-that at the striking of the press it runs, so to speak, to find the ink
-in the lines and hold it. It is therefore impossible to take a text from
-relief characters at the same time as an engraved plate.
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 15.--Engraving on metal by Baccio Baldini for _El
-Monte Santo di Dio_, in 1477.]
-
-However, this kind of reproduction, which, contrary to that from
-wood, allowed of half-tints or toning down, attracted in good time
-the workers at the Book. It appeared to them possible to reconcile
-the two printings by the successive passage of the same sheet of
-paper through the press, to receive at first the impression from the
-type and afterwards to find the ink deposited in the incisions in the
-copper. The first manifestation of this new method of illustration was
-made at Florence, the home of line engraving, by Nicholas di Lorenzo
-in 1477, for the work of Antonio Bettini, of Siena, called _El Monte
-Santo di Dio_. Here the artists were never known. Common opinion has
-it that Baccio Baldini borrowed from Sandro Botticelli the subjects of
-his plates. Italian engraving always seeks its source in Pollajuolo,
-Botticelli, and Baldini. It is not the simple work of a niellist,
-but it had not yet reached perfection either in the work or in the
-impression; the illustrations of the _Monte Santo_ are proof of this,
-as are also those of the _Dante_, by Baldini, in 1481, for the same
-Nicholas di Lorenzo. From this we reproduce the Misers.
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 16.--Metal engraving by Baccio Baldini from the
-Dante of 1481.]
-
-At this epoch engravings from the burin were taken with a pale ink, the
-composition of which is very different from the fine black ink of
-Schoeffer as well as of the old Italian printers. And besides in most
-cases the proofs were obtained with the _frotton_, like the ancient
-block books, an eminently defective process. The press was not yet well
-adapted to the delicate work of line engraving, and the workmen, who did
-not apply the plates until after the text was printed, preferred not to
-risk the loss of their sheets by the use of inappropriate presses.
-These, with the insignificant attempts made by the Germans in 1479,[A]
-are the beginnings of the process of line engraving in the ornamentation
-of the Book. In fact, the process failed to take its due position for
-want of a more convenient mode of working. Relief engraving had got
-ahead; with it the sheets used for the impression did not require
-working more than once to register the figures with the text; in a word,
-the labour was not so great. A century had to pass before line engraving
-completely dethroned the vignette on wood, a century in which the latter
-attained its height, and showed what able artisans could make of a
-process apparently the least flexible.
-
-[Footnote A: _Breviarium ecclesie Herbipolensis_: Et. Dold., 1479,
-folio, copper plate engravings.]
-
-
-Not to leave Italy, which had the honour of making the book with
-engraved illustrations known to the world, we pass by some years,
-during which Arnold Bucking gave at Rome a _Cosmographia_ of Ptolemy,
-1478, with incised plates, which is the first printed atlas that was
-produced, whilst as regards ordinary publications there appeared in all
-parts classical and Italian works, such as Cicero, Virgil, Tacitus,
-Pliny, Eusebius, among the ancients, and Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio,
-etc., among moderns. Among the editions of Dante, we may cite that of
-Peter of Cremona, dated 18th November, 1491, with one engraving to
-each canto, of which the earlier are after Botticelli, and perhaps
-drawn by him directly on the wood. Passavant believes these figures
-to be cut in relief in the metal. On some of the plates there is a
-signature, a Gothic b, the signification of which leaves a free
-field for conjecture, and perhaps for error. Copies of this book with
-the complete series of twenty plates are extremely rare; one in the
-Hamilton Palace Library sold in May, 1884, for £380; the Royal Library
-of Berlin recently agreed to pay £1,200 for a proof set of the plates.
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 17.--Plate from the _Hypnerotomachia Poliphili_,
-printed by Aldus Manutius, in 1499.]
-
-As we shall see later apropos of German vignettes of the same period,
-the characteristic of Italian engraving was sobriety, the complete
-absence of useless work and the great simplicity of the human figure.
-This special manner will be found in the famous edition of the
-_Hypnerotomachia Poliphili_ of Francis Colonna, printed in 1499 by
-Aldus, copied sixty years later by a French printer, and lately
-reproduced in reduced size.
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 18.--Plate from Bonino de Bonini's Dante, at
-Brescia, in 1487.]
-
-The Italian illustrators, whether they were working in wood, or, as some
-writers have it, in metal, adroitly brought their figures forward by
-contrasting some rudimentary work in the persons with the more
-accentuated and often stippled ground, which formed a dark background.
-This was also the ordinary process in their ornaments, among the most
-interesting of which are the borders of the plates to an edition of
-Dante by Bonino de Bonini, Brescia, 1487, of which a specimen is here
-reproduced.
-
-If we return from Italy, which then took the lead, to Germany, a school
-of _Formschneiders_ is found about the year 1470 at Augsburg, whose
-secluded workshops were of no benefit to the booksellers. These
-ill-advised artisans went still further. Apparently furious to see
-printing so widely spread as to render their bad woodcuts difficult to
-get rid of, they united in a body to interdict Gunther Zainer and
-Schüssler from putting engravings into their books. They must
-nevertheless have come to an ultimate arrangement, for Zainer printed in
-1477 a book on chess by Jacopo da Cessole, with vignettes. He was one of
-the few German printers who employed Roman characters in place of the
-Gothic of Peter Schoeffer. At Cologne in 1474 Arnold Ther Hoernen
-published a work entitled _Fasciculus Temporum_, with small
-illustrations engraved on wood. A Bible without date contains most
-interesting illustrations. As to the celebrated _Todtentantz_, or "Dance
-of Death," published about 1485, it contains forty-one relief plates of
-the most ordinary kind, the same as in the "Chronicle of Cologne" of
-1499, of which the figures, though less German, less distorted, are
-worth little compared with those of the Nuremberg books, more German,
-but more artistic.
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 19.--The creation of woman, plate from the
-_Schatzbehalter_, engraved after Michael Wolgemuth.]
-
-At Nuremberg, Antony Koburger, called by Badius the prince of
-booksellers, directed an immense establishment, employing more than a
-hundred workmen, without counting smaller houses at Basle and Lyons.
-Koburger was a capable and a fortunate man. He had at first put forth a
-Bible very indifferently illustrated with the cuts of the Cologne Bible,
-but he had before him something better than copying others. Michael
-Wohlgemuth, born at Nuremberg in 1434, was then in the full vigour of
-his talent. To his school the young Albert Dürer came to study; and as
-he was able to draw on wood as well as to engrave on copper and paint on
-panel, Koburger was attracted to him, and engaged him to make a set of
-illustrations for a book. The projected work was the _Schatzbehalter_, a
-sort of ascetic compilation, without interest, without arrangement.
-Michael Wohlgemuth set to work; and, thanks to the ability of his
-engravers, of whom William Pleydenwurff was probably one, Koburger was
-able to put the book on sale in the course of 1491 in three hundred and
-fifty-two folios of two columns. Without being perfection, the designs
-of Wohlgemuth, very German, very striking, present the vigour and merit
-of the future school of Nuremberg. The figure is no longer a simple
-line, in the manner of the block books, but a combination of interlaced
-cuttings, intended to imitate colour. Those representing the creation of
-Eve and the daughter of Jephthah are here reproduced. In the search for
-harmony between the text and engravings of this curious work, we shall
-find grace and gaiety laid aside, on the other hand a freedom and
-boldness that interest and permit us to appreciate at their value the
-Nuremberg artists and Koburger, the printer. In fact, the German artists
-are more individual, each one taken by himself, than the Italian
-illustrators could be, condemned as they were to the hierarchical
-commonplace and to a certain form of idealism into which the art of
-Italy entered little by little. The German painters, naturalists and
-believers, presented their heroes in the image of that robust nature
-that was before their eyes. It was in this rude and unpolished spirit
-that Michael Wohlgemuth decorated the _Schatzbehalter_; he also composed
-the designs for the "Nuremberg Chronicle" of Dr. Hartman Schedel,
-printed by Koburger in 1493.
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 20.--The daughter of Jephthah, plate taken from the
-_Schatzbehalter_, engraved after Michael Wolgemuth.]
-
-With Dürer, at the latter end of the fifteenth century, the Book was no
-more than a pretext for engravings. Thausing, his biographer, says that
-the great artist felt the necessity of designing an Apocalypse at Rome
-at the time that Luther was premeditating his religious revolution in
-face of the worldly splendours of the pontifical court. The
-"Apocalypse," published in 1511 in Latin, with Gothic characters, was an
-album of fifteen large wood engravings. The Four Horsemen is the best of
-these plates, and the boldest; but in this gross fancy, in these poor
-halting old hacks, the fantastic and grand idea which the artist meant
-to convey can hardly be seen. It may be said the genius of Dürer was
-little adapted to vignettes, however large they were, and did not easily
-lend itself to the exigencies of a spun-out subject. The title of his
-"Apocalypse" is of its kind a curious example of German genius, but, in
-spite of its vigour, it does not please like an Italian headpiece or
-like a French or Flemish frontispiece. The other works of Dürer
-published in the fifteenth century, "The Life of the Virgin" and "The
-Passion," were also sets of prints that received a text in the sixteenth
-century.
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 21.--Title of the "Apocalypse," by Albert Dürer,
-printed in 1498. First edition, without text.]
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 22.--Title of Sebastian Brandt's "Ship of Fools,"
-printed in 1497 at Basle by Bergman de Olpe.]
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 23.--The _Bibliomaniac_. Engraving from the "Ship of
-Fools."]
-
-For the rest of his illustrations Dürer belongs to the sixteenth
-century, and we shall have occasion to recur to his works. At present it
-remains to speak of a curious work printed at Basle by Bergman de Olpe
-in 1497, which appears to be the first comic conception of fifteenth
-century artists: the _Navis Stultifera_, or "Ship of Fools," of
-Sebastian Brandt. This work of the school of Basle lacks neither
-originality nor vigour. At the time when it was published its success
-was immense, from the strange tricks of its clowns, with fools' caps,
-with which every page was adorned. Alas! the best things fall under the
-satire of these jesters, even the Book and the lover of books, if we may
-judge by the sarcasms against useless publications volleyed by the
-personage here reproduced. "I have the first place among fools.... I
-possess heaps of volumes that I rarely open. If I read them, I forget
-them, and I am no wiser." Brunet sees in these humorous caricatures more
-art than is really to be found in them. Their value is owing more to
-their spirit and humour than to any other artistic merit. Even the
-engraving is singularly fitted to the subject, with its peculiar
-cutting, somewhat executed in hairlines. The designer was certainly not
-a Holbein, but he is no longer the primitive artisan of the first German
-plates, and his freedom is not displeasing.
-
-We have before spoken, apropos of engraving by the burin in Italy, of
-the small share of Germany in the essay at illustration by that means,
-and we do not see a real and serious attempt in the two little coats of
-arms in copper plate in the _Missale Herbipolense_, printed in 1479.
-
-The Flemish had not taken any great flights in the midst of this almost
-European movement. The school of Burgundy, whose influence was felt in
-all the surrounding countries, had lost its authority in consequence of
-the progress realized at Mayence. Without doubt the great Flemish
-artists were there, but they were honoured painters, and their
-inclination did not descend to seeking the booksellers beyond making
-them offers of service. Besides, the first of these, officially
-established in Flanders, were two Germans, John of Westphalia and John
-Veldener, of Cologne, who established themselves in the university of
-Louvain in 1473, three years after the first Paris printers. John of
-Westphalia, who took his own portrait for his mark, edited the
-_Fasciculus Temporum_, a book which had enormous success in the
-fifteenth century.
-
-At Haarlem, in spite of the block books attributed to Laurent Coster,
-illustration was backward. About 1485, a Dutch translation of the
-_Malheurs de Troye_ of Le Fevre was put on sale. This French book was
-published at Cologne before France possessed the smallest typographical
-workshop. At Bruges Colard Mansion illuminated the cuts of his
-_Metamorphoses_ of Ovid in 1484. Simple engraving appeared to him far
-remote from manuscripts of which the vogue had not yet passed away. At
-Zwoll Peter van Os, the publisher, cut up and used the xylographic
-plates of the _Biblia Pauperum_, while the master _à la navette_, John
-of Cologne, an artist in the best sense of the word, was ornamenting
-certain popular publications with his designs. At Utrecht Veldener came
-from Louvain to establish a workshop. He published for the second time a
-_Fasciculus_ in 1480; he created a style of decoration with flowers and
-leaves, which shortly after developed into the trade of
-_Rahmenschneiders_. Antwerp had attracted Gerard de Leeu from Gouda, and
-he produced the romance of _Belle Vienne_. Schiedam had an inventive
-engraver who illustrated an edition of the _Chevalier Delibéré_ of
-Oliver de la Marche, in folio, with Gothic letters, after 1483, as we
-read in the colophon:--
-
-  "Cet traittié fut parfait l'an mil
-  Quatre cens quatre vings et trois
-  Ainsi que sur la fin d'avril
-  Que l'yver est en son exil,
-  Et que l'esté fait ses explois.
-  Au bien soit pris en tous endrois
-  De ceulx à qui il est offert
-  Par celui qui _Tant a souffert_,
-
-  La Marche."
-
-The French language, bright and harmonious, thus found hospitality in
-other countries. For many examples of French books published abroad, we
-cannot cite one German work printed in France. Spreading from the north
-to the south, typography had from 1490 its two principal centres at
-Paris and Lyons. After the success of the three Germans at the Sorbonne,
-events took their own course. In 1474 Peter Cæsaris and John Stol, two
-students who had been instructed by Gering and Krantz, founded the
-second establishment in Paris, at the sign of the "Soufflet Vert;" and
-they printed classical works. Ten years later appeared Antony Vérard,
-Simon Vostre, and Pigouchet, the first of whom gave to French
-bookselling an impulse that it has not since lost; but before them
-Pasquier-Bonhomme published his _Grandes Chroniques_ in 1476, three
-volumes folio, the oldest in date of books printed at Paris in French.
-
-The French school of illustration was at its most flourishing point at
-the end of the fifteenth century, but solely in miniature and
-ornamentation by the pencil. The charming figures of the manuscripts had
-at this time a Flemish and naturalistic tendency. The most celebrated
-of the great artists in manuscripts, John Foucquet, could not deny the
-source of his talent nor the influence of the Van Eyck school, yet the
-touch remained distinctly personal. He had travelled, and was not
-confined to the art circles of a single city, as were so many of the
-earliest painters of Flanders. He had gone through Italy, and from
-thence he transported architectural subjects for his curious designs in
-the _Heures_ of Etienne Chevalier, now at Frankfort; a precious fragment
-of it is preserved in the National Library of Paris. Side by side with
-this undoubted master, whose works are happily known, lived a more
-modest artist: John Perréal, called John of Paris, painter to Charles
-VIII., Louis XII., and Anne of Brittany.
-
-In joining with these two masters, to serve as a transition between
-Foucquet and Perréal, John Bourdichon, designer to the kings of France
-from Louis XI. to Francis I., we obtain already a not despicable
-assemblage of living forces. Without doubt these men were not comparable
-either with the admirable school of Flanders, or the Germans of
-Nuremberg, or the masters of Italy; but, moderate as we may deem their
-merit, they did their tasks day by day, painting miniatures, colouring
-coats of arms, rendering to the kings, their masters, all the little
-duties of devoted servants without conceit, and preparing, according to
-their means, the great artistic movement in France of the seventeenth
-century. That these men, leaving the brush for the pencil, devoted
-themselves to design figures on wood, is undeniable. It is said that one
-of them followed Charles VIII. to the Italian wars, and probably
-sketched the battles of the campaign as they took place. Now in the
-books published at this epoch in France we meet with vignettes which so
-very nearly approach miniatures, that we can easily recognise in them
-French taste and finish. Such are, for example, the illustrations of the
-_Mer des Histoires_, printed by Le Rouge in 1488, where suppleness of
-design is blended in some parts with extraordinary dexterity in
-engraving. Nevertheless, others leave something to be desired; they maim
-the best subjects by their unskilful line and their awkwardness of
-handling. Were not these engravers on wood printers themselves: the
-Commins, Guyot Marchants, Pierre Lecarrons, Jean Trepperels, and others?
-We are tempted to see in certain shapeless work the hasty and light
-labour of an artisan hurried in its execution. As mentioned above, the
-part taken by the booksellers in the making of the plates does not make
-our supposition in itself appear inadmissible.
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 24.--Mark of Philip Pigouchet, French printer and
-wood engraver of the fifteenth century.]
-
-Printing had been established about twenty years in Paris when Philip
-Pigouchet, printer and engraver on wood, began to exercise his trade for
-himself or on account of other publishers. Formerly bookseller in the
-University, he transported his presses to the Rue de la Harpe, and took
-for his mark the curious figure here reproduced. At this moment a
-veritable merchant, Simon Vostre, conceived the idea of putting forth
-Books of Hours, until then disdained in France, and of publishing them
-in fine editions with figures, borders, ornaments, large separate
-plates, and all the resources of typography. The trials made at Venice
-and Naples between 1473 and 1476 warranted the enterprise. Entering
-into partnership with Pigouchet, the two were able on the 17th of April,
-1488, to place on sale the _Heures à l'Usaige de Rome_, octavo, with
-varied ornaments and figures. The operation having succeeded beyond
-their hopes, thanks to the combination of the subjects of the borders,
-subjects that could be turned and re-turned in all ways so as to obtain
-the greatest variety, Simon Vostre reapplied himself to the work, and
-ordered new cuts to augment the number of his decorations. Passavant's
-idea is commonly received that the engraving was in relief on metal; the
-line in it is very fine, the background stippled, and the borders
-without scratches. Wood could not have resisted the force of the press;
-the reliefs would have been crushed, the borders rubbed and broken. In
-all the successive editions hard work and wear are not remarked, and we
-are forced to admit the use of a harder material than the pear or
-box-wood of ordinary blocks.
-
-According to his wants, Simon Vostre designed new series of ornaments.
-Among them were histories of the saints, Biblical figures, even
-caricatures against Churchmen, after the manner of the old sculptors,
-who thought that sin was rendered more horrible in the garb of a monk.
-Then there were the Dance of Death and sibyls, allying sacred with
-profane, even the trades, all forming a medley of little figures in the
-margins, in the borders, nestled among acanthus leaves, distorted men,
-fantastic animals, and saints piously praying. The Middle Ages live
-again in these bright and charming books, French in their style, imbued
-with good sense and perfect toleration.
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 25.--Border in four separate blocks in the _Heures à
-l'Usaige de Rome_, by Pigouchet, for Simon Vostre, in 1488. Small
-figures from the "Dance of Death."]
-
-The Book rose under Simon Vostre and Philip Pigouchet to the culminating
-point of ornamentation. Here design and engraving improve and sustain
-each other. It is not only the stippled backgrounds of the borders that
-please the eye. And who was this unknown designer, this painter of bold
-conceptions, whose work is complete in little nothings? However, the
-large full-page figures have not always an originality of their own, nor
-the French touch of the borders. Thus that of the Passion here
-reproduced is inspired line for line by the German, Martin Schongauer.
-Are we to suppose, that duplicates of blocks passed between France and
-Germany, or was a copy made by a French designer? It is difficult to
-say. Still the coincidence is not common to all the missals of the great
-Parisian bookseller. The Death of the Virgin here reproduced is an
-evident proof of it. It forms part of the 1488 book, and is a truly
-French work.
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 26.--Plate copied from Schongauer's Carrying of the
-Cross, taken from the _Heures_ of Simon Vostre.]
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 27.--The Death of the Virgin, plate taken from the
-_Heures_ of Simon Vostre, printed in 1488. The border is separate.]
-
-It may be said that from the artistic association of Philip Pigouchet
-and Simon Vostre was born the art of illustration of the Book in France;
-they worked together for eighteen years, in steady collaboration, and,
-as far as we know, without a cloud. At Vostre's commencement in 1488 he
-lived in the Rue Neuve Notre Dame, at the sign of "St. Jean
-l'Evangeliste;" and in 1520 he was still there, having published more
-than three hundred editions of the Missal, according to the use of the
-several cities.
-
-Contemporary with Simon Vostre, another publisher was giving a singular
-impulse to the Book by his extreme energy, true taste, and the aid of
-first-class artists. Antony Verard, the most illustrious of the old
-French booksellers, was a writer, printer, illuminator, and dealer. Born
-in the second half of the fifteenth century, he established himself in
-Paris on the Pont Notre Dame, both sides of which were then covered with
-shops, and about 1485 commenced his fine editions with a "Decameron" in
-French by Laurent de Premierfait. M. Renouvier remarks in his notice of
-Verard that his first books were not good, the plates were often
-unskilful, and were probably borrowed or bought from others; this may be
-very well understood in a beginner whose modest resources did not permit
-bold enterprises; the figures were in most cases groundworks for
-miniatures, outlines and sketches rather than vignettes.
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 28.--Border of the _Grandes Heures_ of Antony
-Verard: Paris, 1498 (?).]
-
-Antony Verard was accustomed to take a certain number of fine copies on
-vellum or paper of each book published by him, in which authorised
-painters added miniatures and ornaments. It is curious now to find what
-the cost to one of the great lords of the court of Charles VIII. was of
-one of these special copies in all the details of its impression, and we
-find it in a document published by M. Senemaud in a provincial journal
-(_Bulletin de la Société Archéologique de la Charente_, 1859, part 2, p.
-91), which enables us at the same time to penetrate into a printing
-office of a great French publisher of the fifteenth century. According
-to this document, Verard did not disdain to put his own hand to the
-work, even to carrying the book to the house of his patron if he were a
-man of consequence. It is an account of Charles de Valois-Angoulême,
-father of Francis I. He was then living at Cognac; and he ordered Verard
-to print separately for him on vellum the romance of Tristan, the "Book
-of Consolation" of Boetius, the _Ordinaire du Chrétien_, and _Heures en
-François_, each with illuminations and binding. In the detail of
-expenses Verard omits nothing. He reckons the parchment at three sous
-four deniers the sheet, the painted and illuminated figures at one écu
-the large and five sols the small. We give here the outline of one of
-the plates of the Tristan, ordered by the Duc d'Angoulême, reduced by
-two-thirds, and from it it may be judged that the profession of the
-illuminator, even for the time, was by no means brilliant. The binding
-was in dark-coloured velvet, with two clasps with the arms of the Duke,
-which cost sixty sous each. The work finished, Verard took the route for
-Cognac, carrying the precious volumes. He was allowed twenty livres for
-carriage; and this brings the total to 207 livres 10 sous, equivalent to
-£200 to £240 of present money.
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 29.--Plate from the Tristan published by Antony
-Verard, a copy of which was illuminated for Charles of Angoulême.]
-
-Verard had preceded Simon Vostre in the publication of books of hours,
-but his first volume dated 1487 was not successful for the want of
-borders and frontispieces. At the most he had introduced figures
-intended for illumination, which, as well as the vignettes, were cut in
-wood. In 1488, the same year that Simon Vostre commenced his
-publications, Verard put forth, by "command of the King our lord," the
-book called the _Grandes Heures_, which is in quarto, Gothic letter,
-without paging, twenty lines to the full page. This _Grandes Heures_
-contained fourteen engravings, large borders in four compartments,
-smaller subjects and initials rubricated by hand. He also published more
-than two hundred editions between 1487 and 1513, and among them the
-_Mystère de la Passion_, with eighty figures; the _Grandes Chroniques_,
-in three folio volumes, printed by John Maurand; the _Bataille Judaïque_
-of Flavius Josephus; the _Legende Dorée_ of Voragine, all books for
-which he called to his aid rubricators, illuminators, and miniaturists.
-From the first he had two shops where he put his productions on sale:
-one on the Pont Notre Dame, the other at the Palace of Justice, "au
-premier pilier devant la chapelle où l'on chante la messe de
-messeigneurs les présidents." From 1499, when the Pont Notre Dame was
-burned, Verard transported his books to the Carrefour St. Severin. At
-his death in 1513 he was living in the Rue Neuve Notre Dame, "devant
-Nostre-Dame de Paris."
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 30.--Page of the _Grandes Heures_ of Antony Verard:
-Paris, fifteenth century.]
-
-Besides Verard, Vostre, and Pigouchet, many others will be found who
-imitated them in the publication of books of hours. The first was John
-du Pré, who published a Paris missal in 1481, and who was at once
-printer and bookseller. Like Pigouchet, Du Pré printed books of hours on
-account of provincial publishers, without dreaming of the competition he
-was creating for himself. The encroachments of the publishers upon one
-another, the friendly exchanges, the loans of plates and type, form one
-of the most curious parts of the study of the Book. Thielman Kerver, a
-German, also began to put forth books of hours in 1497 in Paris,
-ornamenting them with borders and figures on wood, and modelling his
-work completely upon that of Simon Vostre. But after having imitated
-him, he was associated with him in the publication and sale of the Paris
-Missal; the competition of these men was evidently an honest one, or the
-sale of pious works was sufficient to maintain all engaged in it.
-Established on the Pont St. Michel, at the sign of the "Unicorn," he
-sold his stock to Gilles Remacle about the beginning of the sixteenth
-century.
-
-Thielman Kerver in his own works shows himself as the rival of Simon
-Vostre. The Hardouins, who followed the same profession, do not appear
-to have attained the success of their predecessors; and, excepting in
-the _Heures à l'Usage de Rome_, published in 1503 by Gilles Hardouin on
-the Pont au Change, at the sign of the "Rose," they servilely imitated
-them. There was also among the disciples of Vostre William Eustache,
-bookseller to the King, "tenant la boutique dedans la grant salle du
-palais du costé de messeigneurs les présidens, ou sur les grans degrés
-du costé de la conciergerie à l'ymage St. Jean levangeliste." Eustache
-made use of the work of Pigouchet and Kerver, not to mention the
-printers of the end of the fifteenth century.
-
-We have named the principal, the fortunate ones; but what becomes of the
-crowd of other publishers whose hopes vanished before the success of
-Vostre and Verard? There were Denis Meslier, with his quarto _Heures de
-Bourges_, and Vincent Commin, bookseller of the Rue Neuve Notre Dame,
-who thus appealed to his customers:--
-
-  "Qui veult en avoir? On en treuve
-  A tres grand marché et bon pris
-  A la Rose, dans la rue Neuve
-  De Nostre-Dame de Paris."
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 31.--Plate from a book of hours of Simon Vostre,
-representing the massacre of the Innocents.]
-
-There were also Robin Chaillot, Laurent Philippe, and a hundred others
-whose names have died with them or are only preserved on the torn pages
-of their works.
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 32.--Dance of Death, said to be by Verard. The Pope
-and the Emperor.]
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 33.--Dance of Death of Guyot Marchant in 1486. The
-Pope and the Emperor.]
-
-But if books of this kind found vogue and a large sale at this epoch,
-the dealers did not keep to pious publications only. By a singular
-mixture of the sacred and the profane, the bookmen put on sale on their
-stalls the "Decameron" of Boccaccio as well as the "Hours of the
-Immaculate Virgin," and the purchasers thought fit to make the
-acquaintance of the one as well as the other. Besides, the end of the
-fifteenth century had its literary preferences, its alluring titles, its
-attractive frontispieces. At the commencement of the present century
-double titles--"Atala; or, The Child of Mystery;" "Waverley; or, Sixty
-Years Since"--were common, although now out of fashion. Since then came
-books of travels--_Voyages au Pays des Milliards_, etc. In the fifteenth
-century, and even since the fourteenth, a series of titles was in public
-favour. There was first the _Débats_, or "Dialogues:" _Débat de la Dame
-et de l'Escuyer_, Paris, 1490, folio; "Dialogue of Dives and Pauper,"
-London, Richard Pynson, 1493; and many other eccentric titles. There
-came also thousands of _complaintes_, a kind of lay in verse or prose;
-_blasons_, light pieces describing this or that thing; _doctrinals_,
-that had nothing to do with doctrine. And among the most approved
-subjects, between the piety of some and the gaiety of others, the Dances
-of Death established themselves firmly, showing, according to the
-hierarchy of classes then prevalent, Death taking the great ones of the
-earth, torturing equally pope, emperor, constable, or minstrel,
-grimacing before youth, majesty, and love. Long before printing
-appeared, the Dances of Death took the lead; they were some consolation
-for the wretched against their powerful masters, the revenge of the
-rabble against the king; they may be seen painted, sculptured,
-illuminated, when engraving was not there to multiply their use; they
-may be seen largely displayed on walls, sombre, frightful, at Dresden,
-Leipzig, Erfurt, Berne, Lucerne, Rouen, Amiens, and Chaise-Dieu. It was
-the great human equality, attempted first by the French, then by the
-inimitable Holbein.
-
-We can imagine the impression these bitter ironies made on the oppressed
-and disdained lower classes. The first "Dance of Death" was produced by
-Guyot Marchant in 1485, in ten leaves and seventeen engravings, in
-folio, with Gothic characters. Marchant describes himself as "demeurant
-en Champ Gaillart à Paris le vingt-huitiesme jour de septembre mil
-quatre cent quatre-vingtz et cinq." The book must have gone off rapidly,
-for it was republished in the following year, with additions and new
-engravings. French illustration was already moving forward, as may be
-judged by the reproductions here given from the folio edition of 1486.
-Pope and emperor, glory and power, are led and plagued by Death, hideous
-Death, with open body and frightful grin.
-
-We could wish that the tendencies and processes of what may be called
-the second generation of printers were well understood. In a few years
-they surmounted the difficulties of their art, and made the Book a model
-of elegance and simplicity. The smallest details were cared for, and
-things apparently the most insignificant were studied and rendered
-practical. Speaking of titles, an enormous progress was here made in the
-publications of the end of the century. In Italy the subjects of
-decoration ordinarily formed a framework for the front page, wherein
-were included useful indications. The most ancient specimen of this kind
-has already been referred to. A model of this species is the "St.
-Jerome," published at Ferrara by Lorenzo Rossi, of Valenza, in 1497,
-folio; the title, much adorned, is in Gothic letters; the engraved
-initial is very adroitly left in outline, so as not to burden or break
-the text.
-
-In Germany there was already the appearance of bad taste and
-prodigality, the letters crossing each other, the Gothic type covered
-with bizarre appendices, the titles intricate; later they became
-illegible even for the Germans.
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 34.--Typographical mark of Thielman Kerver.]
-
-In France the first page gave the most circumstantial indications of the
-contents of the work, the name and abode of the printer and bookseller.
-Often these titles were ornamented with movable frameworks, printed in
-Gothic, sometimes in two colours, which necessitated two printings, one
-for the black and one for the red ink. The mark of the printer or
-publisher generally appeared, and it was nearly always a charming work.
-These French marks were all more or less treated heraldically; that is
-to say, the initials occupy a shield, sustained by supporters and cut
-with extreme care. The first was that of Fust and Schoeffer at Mayence,
-of admirable simplicity and grace. In France this early specimen of the
-trade mark took with Simon Vostre and Verard the shape of delicate
-illustrations, finely designed and carefully engraved; but the custom of
-allusive marks did not prevail, as we shall have occasion to see, until
-the sixteenth century. The mark of Pigouchet has already been given;
-that of Thielman Kerver is conceived in the same principles of taste and
-art. The sign of his house being the "Unicorn," Kerver took as
-supporters to his shield two unicorns _affrontées_.
-
-In these colophons are found philosophic aphorisms, satirical remarks,
-marvels of poetry. A certain bookseller paid court to the powerful
-university, which dispensed glory and riches to the poor tradesmen by
-buying many books. Andrew Bocard engraved on his mark this flattery as a
-border:--
-
-  "Honneur au Roy et à la court,
-  Salut à l'université
-  Dont nostre bien procède et sourt.
-  Dieu gart de Paris la cité!"
-
-The Germans introduced into their colophons some vainglorious notices.
-Arnold Ther Hoernen, already mentioned, who printed the _Theutonista_ at
-Cologne in 1477, boasted in it of having corrected it all with his own
-hands. Jean Treschel, established at Lyons in 1493, proclaims himself a
-German, because the Germans were the inventors of an art that he himself
-possessed to an eminent degree. He prided himself on being what we may
-call a skilled typographer; "virum hujus artis solertissimum," he writes
-without false modesty. At times, in the colophons of his books, he
-attempted Latin verse, the Sapphic verse of Horace, of a playful turn,
-to say that his work was perfected in 1494.
-
-  "Arte et expensis vigilique cura
-  Treschel explevit opus hoc Joannes,
-  Mille quingentos ubi Christus annos
-            Sex minus egit.
-
-  Jamque Lugduni juvenes, senesque,
-  Martias nonas celebres agebant
-  Magna Reginæ quia prepotenti
-            Festa parabant."
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 35.--Frontispiece to Terence, published by Treschel
-at Lyons in 1493. The author writing his book.]
-
-The portrait is another element of illustration, the figure of the
-author prefixed to his work. It had already been a custom in the
-manuscripts to paint on the first leaf of the work the likeness of him
-who composed it, frequently in the act of presenting his book to some
-noble patron; and in this way is often preserved the only known portrait
-of either patron or author. Printing and engraving rendered these
-effigies more common, the portraits of one often served for another, and
-the booksellers used them without very much scruple. As we shall see
-later, this became in the sixteenth century a means of illustrating a
-book plainly, but only at the time when the portrait, drawn or painted,
-commenced to be more widely used. Previously the _clichés_ of which we
-speak went everywhere, from the Italians to the French, from Æsop to
-Accursius; these uncertain physiognomies began with the manuscript
-romances of chivalry, from whence they were servilely copied in
-typography. From the first the Italians mixed the ancient and the
-modern. Thus in a _Breviarium_, printed in 1478, there is an engraved
-portrait of Paul Florentin. On the same principle, the portrait of
-Burchiello, an early Italian poet, was later reproduced in England as a
-likeness of William Caxton.
-
-In France the author is often represented writing, and it was so up to
-the middle of the sixteenth century. In an edition of _Des Cas des
-Nobles Hommes_, by Jean Dupré, in 1483, Boccaccio is represented seated,
-having before him his French translator, Laurent de Premierfait. This
-plate is one of the oldest representations of authors in French books.
-In the _Roman de la Rose_, first edition of Paris and Lyons, in folio,
-probably published by William Leroy about 1485, William de Lorris, the
-author, is shown in his bed:--
-
-  "Une nuyt comme je songeoye,
-  Et de fait dormir me convient,
-  En dormant un songe m'advint...."
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 36.--Woodcut from Caxton's "Game and Playe of the
-Chesse."]
-
-There is also a portrait of Alain Chartier in his _Faits_, printed in
-1489. In the Terence of Treschel, of Lyons, in 1493, we see a grammarian
-of the fifteenth century in a furnished room of the time occupied in
-writing at a desk; this is Guy Jouvenal, of Mans, the author of the
-commentary.
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 37.--The Knight, a woodcut from Caxton's "Game and
-Playe of the Chesse."]
-
-While this good work was progressing so nobly in France, Italy, and
-Germany, the typographers of England were by no means idle, although the
-illustration of the Book in the fifteenth century was not there so
-forward. William Caxton had produced over sixty works, the colophons of
-many of them revealing much of the personal life and character of the
-first English printer. Some of them were ornamented with woodcuts; we
-reproduce two from the "Game and Playe of the Chesse," printed in folio,
-about 1476. The first represents a king and another person playing at
-chess; the smaller cut is a representation of the knight, who is thus
-described in Caxton's own words: "The knyght ought to be maad al armed
-upon an hors in suche wise that he have an helme on his heed and a spere
-in his right hond, and coverid with his shelde, a swerde and a mace on
-his left syde, clad with an halberke and plates tofore his breste, legge
-harnoys on his legges, spores on his heelis, on hys handes hys
-gauntelettes, hys hors wel broken and taught, and apte to bataylle, and
-coveryd with hys armes." The other Caxton block which we reproduce is a
-representation of music from the "Mirrour of the World," a thin folio
-volume of one hundred leaves printed in 1481, with thirty-eight
-woodcuts. These specimens will serve to show the rudimentary character
-of English wood engraving in the fifteenth century. No authentic
-portrait of Caxton is known, and the one that is generally accepted is
-really a portrait of an Italian poet, Burchiello, taken from an octavo
-edition of his work on Tuscan poetry, printed 1554; this was copied by
-Faithorne for Sir Hans Sloane as the portrait of Caxton, and was
-reproduced by Ames in his "Typographical Antiquities," 1749. Lewis
-prefixed the portrait here given to his "Life of Mayster Willyam
-Caxton," 1737, which is a copy of Faithorne's drawing with some
-alterations. John Lettou and William Machlinia issued various statutes
-and other legal works.
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 38.--Music, a woodcut from Caxton's "Mirrour of the
-World."]
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 39.--William Caxton, from Rev. J. Lewis' "Life."]
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 40.--Mark of Wynken de Worde.]
-
-Wynken de Worde continued printing up to 1534, and issued over four
-hundred works. He used no less than nine different marks, all of them
-bearing Caxton's initials, evidencing the regard of the pupil for his
-master; the mark which we reproduce is one of rare occurrence. Richard
-Pynson began in 1493, and continued well into the sixteenth century, and
-was one of the first of the "privileged" printers, authorised to issue
-the legal and parliamentary publications. One of the marks used by him
-is here reproduced. Julian Notary began in 1498. The only style of
-illustration used by any of these early printers was the woodcut, and of
-this there was very little beyond the title-page and printer's mark. The
-artistic form of the Book originated on the Continent, but England was
-not slow to adopt it and fashion it to her own ends.
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 41.--Mark of Richard Pynson.]
-
-Thus was printing spread abroad, carrying with it to the countries where
-it was established the rules of an unchangeable principle; but,
-according to its surroundings, it was so transformed in a few years that
-its origin was no longer recognised. It was light in Italy, heavy in
-Germany, gay in France. Painting, of which it was accidentally the
-issue, returned to it under the form of illustration a short time after
-its first and fruitful essays. The Gothic character, generally used in
-Germany, continued in France with the Vostres, the Verards, and others
-up to the middle of the sixteenth century, although the first artisans
-before this used Roman type; it was also the prevailing type used in
-English books. In Italy it was Jenson, a Frenchman, who gave to the
-matrix the alphabet preserved to the present time; and it was the
-Venetians and Florentines who learned before all others the art of
-judicious ornamentation of the Book. The French came very near
-perfection, thanks to their printers and booksellers, at the end of the
-century; and the Germans found illustrious artists to scatter their
-compositions in their large, heavy works.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER III.
-
-1500 TO 1600.
-
-     French epics and the Renaissance--Venice and Aldus
-     Manutius--Italian illustrators--The Germans: _Theuerdanck_,
-     Schäufelein--The Book in other countries--French books at the
-     beginning of the century, before the accession of Francis
-     I.--Geoffroy Tory and his works--Francis I. and the Book--Robert
-     Estienne--Lyons a centre of bookselling; Holbein's Dances of
-     Death--School of Basle--Alciati's emblems and the illustrated books
-     of the middle of the century--The school of Fontainebleau and its
-     influence--Solomon Bernard--Cornelis de la Haye and the
-     _Promptuaire_--John Cousin--Copper plate engraving and metal
-     plates--Woériot--The portrait in the Book of the sixteenth
-     century--How a book was illustrated on wood at the end of the
-     century--Influence of Plantin on the Book; his school of
-     engravers--General considerations--Progress in England--Coverdale's
-     Bible--English printers and their work--Engraved plates in English
-     books
-
-
-Our simple division into chapters will be understood without difficulty
-as not corresponding exactly with the most momentous epochs in the
-history of the Book in France and abroad. Doubtless it would be easy for
-France alone to find some limits and to furnish scholastic formulæ by
-which contemporary publishers might be grouped. But in order to present,
-as in a synoptical table, an essential and abridged sketch of the Book
-in all European countries, it appeared to us more convenient to begin
-with the confused and tangled notions by centuries and to unfold in our
-review the characteristic facts of each country conjointly. Moreover,
-after the sixteenth century neither Italy nor Germany could compare with
-France, which, less fortunate, perhaps, at the beginning than her
-neighbours, surpassed them in all the pride of her genius.
-
-The commencement of the sixteenth century found the French army in
-Italy, under the command of Louis XII. Marching from glory to glory, the
-French successively saw Pisa, Capua, and Naples, and that which has
-since been called the Renaissance displayed itself little by little to
-the conquerors. At Venice was living Aldus Pius Manutius, then the
-greatest printer of the entire world. Aldus was proprietor of the
-celebrated printing office of Nicholas Jenson, through his
-father-in-law, Andrea Torresani, of Asola, who acquired it on the death
-of the French printer; and he had in a few years reached a position in
-which he was without a rival. We have seen that he composed, at the end
-of the fifteenth century, the admirable volume _Hypnerotomachia_, the
-renown of which became universal. Aldus was fifty-two years of age,
-having been born in 1447; and his learning was increased by daily
-intercourse with learned Italians, among them the celebrated Pico de la
-Mirandola. His establishment at Venice in 1488 had for its object the
-creation of a chair in Greek, in which language he was well instructed
-from his youth. Occupied with the idea of issuing editions of the
-principal Greek writers, which up to then remained in manuscript, he
-engaged himself in the formation of a printing office. He first
-published the _Herone et Leandro_ of Musæus in 1494, quarto, in a Greek
-character apparently designed by him, and perhaps engraved by Francisco
-da Bologna; then the Greek grammar of Constantine Lascaris, with the
-date of 1494; and the works of Aristotle in five folio volumes. At the
-time of the Italian wars Aldus was making a revolution in typography, by
-producing more practical sizes and finer characters, which would permit
-a volume of the smallest height to contain the matter of a folio printed
-with large type. Legend says that the new letters were copied exactly
-from the handwriting of Petrarch, inclining like all cursive writing;
-the name of _Italic_ was given to this character, which was also called
-_Aldine_, from its inventor. It was engraved by Francisco da Bologna.
-Aldus published in octavo size, with this kind of letter, an edition of
-Virgil in 1501, then a Horace, a Juvenal, a Martial, and a Petrarch in
-the same year. The following year, 1502, he gave an edition of the
-_Terze Rime_ of Dante, and for the first time took as his typographical
-mark an anchor encircled by a dolphin.[A]
-
-[Footnote A: Tory in his _Champfleury_ explains thus the mark of Aldus
-and his device, which was in Greek the "Make haste slowly" of Boileau:
-"The anchor signifies tardiness, and the dolphin haste, which is to say
-that in his business he was moderate."]
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 42.--The anchor and dolphin, mark of Aldus Manutius,
-after the original in the _Terze Rime_ of 1502, where it appears for the
-first time.]
-
-His marriage with the daughter of Andrea Torresani, of Asola, brought
-together into his possession two printing houses. The burden became too
-heavy for Manutius to think henceforth of publishing by himself.
-Besides, the wars did not allow him any repose, of which he bitterly
-complained in his prefaces. He attracted learned Greek scholars, who
-supervised, each one in his specialty, the works in progress, and
-founded a society, an Aldine academy, in which the greatest names of the
-epoch were united. Aldus conveys the perfect idea of a great printer of
-those times, doing honour to celebrated men, in spite of business
-preoccupations and of the annoyance caused by the war. It is said that
-Erasmus, passing through Venice, called on him, and not making himself
-known, was badly received by the powerful printer. All at once, at the
-name of the distinguished visitor, Aldus, overwhelmed for an instant,
-rose in great haste and showed him how highly he appreciated men of
-letters.
-
-The war finished by ruining this state of affairs. In 1505 Aldus quitted
-Venice to travel, and on his return found it poorer than when he went
-away. Andrea d'Asola, his father-in-law, came to his aid; but the great
-printer had received his death-blow; and in spite of the activity which
-he brought to the new establishment, he further declined until 1515,
-when he expired, leaving an inextricable confusion to his son Paul.
-
-He had early abandoned illustration for the scientific and useful
-in his publications; besides, the size of book chosen by him did
-not admit of plates; but other publishers employed artists in the
-ornamentation of the Book. Lucantonio Giunta, the most celebrated among
-them, was printer and engraver, a striking example of the affinity
-of the two trades from their origin. In 1508 Lucantonio Zonta, as he
-then spelt his name, published a Roman breviary in large quarto, with
-twelve engravings in the Lombardo-Venetian manner, signed "L. A.," in
-very good style. The same artist-publisher cut a portrait of Virgil for
-an edition of that poet about 1515. Furthermore, Giunta did not alone
-illustrate the book from his own office. Other designers lent him their
-assistance. We find evidence of this in the Bible printed by him in
-1519 in small octavo.
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 43.--Mark of Lucantonio Giunta, of Venice.]
-
-The most meritorious of the artists of Venice at this time was John
-Andrea, known as Guadagnino. He designed the vignettes for Florus's
-epitome of Livy, printed at Venice for Melchior Sessa and Peter of
-Ravenna (1520, folio); in 1516 he copied the plates of Dürer's
-_Apocalypse_ for that of Alexander Paganini, of Venice. A Venetian work
-which signalised the beginning of the sixteenth century was the _Trionfo
-di Fortuna_ of Sigismond Fanti, of Ferrara, printed by Agostino da
-Portese in 1527.
-
-Venice was the home of Titian, and at the present time the great artist
-was at the height of his glory. In 1518 two brothers, Nicholas and
-Dominic dal Gesù, published a translation of the celebrated "Golden
-Legend" of Voragine. The plates which were added to the work were
-manifestly inspired by the school of the Venetian master. Unhappily the
-engravers have not always equalled the genius of the drawings.
-
-To resume, the city of Venice was, at the beginning of the sixteenth
-century, one of the most prolific in publishers and artists of talent.
-Since the first establishments of the Germans, typography had
-successively employed in Venice Nicholas Jenson, a Frenchman, inventor
-of the Roman character; Erhard Ratdolt, the first to employ illustration
-there; and Aldus Manutius, scholar and printer, whose progress in
-printing elevated that art to the highest rank among human discoveries;
-there were also remarkable engravers and draughtsmen, among others
-Guadagnino and Giunta, besides the anonymous masters of the school of
-Titian. The part of Venice in the movement, then, was great, but it may
-be explained by the riches of its citizens, the extent of its commerce,
-and the genius it possessed.
-
-If we now return from Venice to the north, to Milan, the school of
-Leonardo da Vinci will make itself apparent in the Book. In order of
-date we will mention the _Mysterii Gesta Beatæ Veronicæ Virginis_,
-published by Gotardo de Ponte 1518, small quarto, with figures in the
-style of Luini, and Vitruvius in Italian by Cesariano. On the testimony
-of the author, the wood engravings in a book of Fra Luca Pacioli, _De
-Divina Proportione_, are attributed to Leonardo da Vinci. M. Delaborde
-does not believe this, but M. Passavant does.
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 44.--Title of the _Theuerdanck_. The flourishes of
-the letters are printed.]
-
-In Germany, Nuremberg continued, with Albert Dürer and the artists of
-his school, to furnish book illustrations at the beginning of the
-century. The master reprinted his valuable engravings of the "Life of
-the Virgin" in 1511, and also the "Apocalypse." But after him the art
-commenced to decline; a hundred years later nothing remained of the
-honour and glory gained by Germany in the commencement. Among the most
-interesting of the Nuremberg publications is a chivalric poem by
-Melchior Pfinzfing, composed for the marriage of Maximilian and Mary of
-Burgundy. As M. Delaborde in his _Débuts de I'Imprimerie_ well remarks,
-this is not a book destined for sale by a bookseller; it is a work of
-art destined by an emperor for his friends, and he saw that it was an
-unapproachable work.
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 45.--Plate taken from the _Theuerdanck_,
-representing Maximilian and Mary of Burgundy. Engraved on wood after
-Schäufelein.]
-
-Bold strokes, majestic letters, intertwined ornaments, are here
-multiplied. Three persons worked upon it for five years; these were,
-Peutinger says, Hans Leonard Schäufelein, the painter, Jost Necker, the
-engraver, and Schönsperger, the printer of Augsburg, who quitted his
-native city for Nuremberg. When they were able to take a proof,
-craftsmen were unwilling to believe it to be a book composed in movable
-characters; they were sure, on the contrary, that it was a true
-xylograph, cut in wood; and, in fact, from the title here reproduced,
-the error was excusable. This work, which is now called the
-_Theuerdanck_, from the name of the hero of the romance, is ornamented
-with a number of wood engravings, numbered by Arabic figures. We
-reproduce one of the last plates, in which Theuerdanck--Maximilian--is
-introduced to the Queen--Mary of Burgundy. The designs of Schäufelein
-recall very nearly the work of Albert Dürer, his master; but, as we said
-of him, these works, heavy and dull, although very clever, do not always
-suit as vignettes. Again, our criticism does not extend so much to the
-_Theuerdanck_, whose letters, excessively ornamented and much flattened,
-furnish a framework more suitable for the engravings than would a more
-slender character, which would be completely overshadowed by the German
-plate.
-
-When we have mentioned the _Passional Christi_ of Lucas Cranach,
-published by J. Grünenberg at Wittemberg in 1521--twenty-six mediocre
-wood engravings--we shall have cited the most important of the
-interesting and rare volumes published in Germany at the commencement of
-the sixteenth century.
-
-The Netherlands, Spain, and England were working, but without great
-success. In the Low Countries Plantin and his gigantic enterprises may
-be recalled. In Spain the taste had not yet developed itself; and
-although the drawing of illustrations may be careful enough, the
-wood-cutting is pitiable. We will mention the Seneca of Toledo in 1510,
-and the "Chronicle of Aragon" in 1523. Of England we will speak later.
-
-In France, on the contrary, we find an enormous commerce in books at the
-commencement of the sixteenth century. All the publishers mentioned in
-the preceding chapter were still living, and they were feeling the
-effects of the French conquests in Italy. The dithyrambic literature
-then inaugurated, and which had its origin under Louis XII., exercised a
-bad influence equally upon the printers and decorators of the Book.
-Doubtless the composition of the text and engravings was done hastily,
-for the great people did not like to wait for this kind of history. _Le
-Vergier d'Honneur_, written by Octavian de St. Gelais and Andry de la
-Vigne, was thus published about the end of the fifteenth century and
-ornamented with hasty vignettes, probably at the expense of Antoine
-Verard. Upon the accession to the throne of Louis XII., Claude de
-Seyssel, his master of council, composed _Les Louenges du Roy Louis
-XII._, and soon after translated it from Latin into French for the same
-Verard, who printed it in 1508.
-
-The taste for historical works induced the publishers to produce _La Mer
-des Histoires_, which had already been published in the fifteenth
-century; Thielman Kerver put forth the "Compendium" of Robert Gaguin in
-1500 on account of Durand Gerlier and John Petit. The French version of
-this work was given in 1514 by Galliot du Pré, with vignettes, and
-afterwards under the name of _Mirouer Historial_, by Renaud Chaudière in
-1520, by Nyverd, and others; the same with the _Rozier Historial_, with
-figures, in 1522 and 1528. Among the most popular works was the
-_Illustrations de la Gaule et Singularitez de Troye_, by John le Maire
-de Belges, printed in Paris and ornamented. In 1512 it was published by
-Geoffroy de Marnef, in 1515 by John and Gilbert de Marnef, by Regnault,
-by Philip le Noir, and others, always in the Gothic characters which
-prevailed in France at the beginning of the sixteenth century.
-
-We give from the curious book of John le Maire an interesting woodcut
-representing Queen Anne of Brittany as Juno, in which we can without
-much difficulty see a remarkable sketch by a Bourdichon or a Perréal.
-The truly French style of this figure leaves no doubt as to its origin.
-At the same time, it may possibly have been inspired by the Virgin of a
-German master, say one of 1466, judging from the accessories, and even
-from the pose. This engraving will be found in the edition of 1512 of
-Gilbert de Marnef, in Gothic letter, quarto. On the reverse are the arms
-and device of John le Maire de Belges.
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 46.--Vignette taken from the _Illustrations de la
-Gaule et Singularitez de Troye_. Queen Anne of Brittany as Juno.]
-
-The time that elapsed from the death of Louis XI. until the accession of
-Francis I.--that is to say, from 1483 to 1515--was, to employ an old
-expression, the golden age of French printing and illustration. Under
-Charles VIII. and Louis XII. the designers on wood were not yet affected
-by the neighbouring schools; neither the accentuated Italian influence
-nor the German processes had reached them; they did in their own way
-that which came to them, and they did it in their own fashion and habit,
-without foreign influence. Further, the kings did not ignore them, and
-Louis XII. preserved to the printers of the university all their rights
-and privileges in a magniloquent ordinance, in which the art of
-typography was extolled in the highest terms. It restores to them all
-the advantages that they had lost. It recites, "In consideration of the
-great benefit that has come to our kingdom by means of the art and
-science of printing, the invention of which seems more Divine than
-human, which, thanks to God, has been invented and found in our time by
-the help and industry of booksellers, by which our holy Catholic faith
-has been greatly augmented and strengthened, justice better understood
-and administered, and Divine service more honourably and diligently
-made, said, and celebrated, ... by means of which our kingdom precedes
-all others," etc., etc. (Blois, 9th April, 1513). Certainly Louis made
-the best of himself and his kingdom in this preamble, but it must be
-recognised that France already held a predominant rank in the new
-industry, and that beyond the Italians she had no fear of serious
-rivalry. The school of ornamentists made constant progress. Before the
-books of hours, the booksellers contented themselves with miserable
-blocks, placed side by side, forming a framework of good and bad
-together; but after Simon Vostre, Verard, and the others they were
-singularly refined. The borders, at least in the books of hours, had
-become the principal part of the book; they had in them flowers,
-architectural, complicated, and simple subjects, all of perfect taste
-and extreme elegance; and, as we have observed in the representation of
-Anne of Brittany in the _Illustrations de la Gaule_, the figure subjects
-were no longer mechanical, commonplace, and tiresome blocks, but, on the
-contrary, more often works specially designed and engraved by artists of
-merit.
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 47.--Title of the _Entree d'Eléonore d'Autriche a
-Paris_, by Guillaume Bochetel. Printed by Geoffroy Tory in May, 1531,
-quarto.]
-
-Geoffroy Tory, born at Bourges in 1480, continued after Vostre and
-Verard the onward march of illustration of the Book. He was a sort of
-encyclopædist, who knew and foresaw everything, but with a singularly
-subtler and finer genius than his predecessors. There is now very little
-doubt that at first Tory was an engraver and printer. Moreover, he
-published with Jean Petit one of his first volumes, the geography of
-Pomponius Mela, printed by Gilles de Gourmont in 1507. Tory was then an
-erudite and diffusive commentator. Later he published a book with poor
-engravings (_Valerii Probi Grammatici Opusculum_, 1510), waiting until
-his good star should place him on the right road. He had for his mark,
-say the bibliographers, the cross of Lorraine [Symbol: double cross],
-small enough to be lost in the ornamentation of his plates. Really this
-sign is found in Tory's mark--the "Pot Cassé"--the broken jar--and also
-sometimes in the letter G, which was his ordinary signature. This
-opinion, which we will not try to contradict in a popular work like
-this, appears to us to err, as others used this mark, as may be judged
-from the essentially different touches of engravings bearing the cross
-of Lorraine, and particularly those of Woériot in the middle of the
-century.
-
-If M. A. Bernard[A] may be credited, Geoffroy Tory cultivated all the
-sciences with equal success. For our purpose, suffice it to recognise
-his right to one of the first places in the art of decoration of books
-of hours. Doubtless his travels in Italy had contributed to modify his
-taste and to detach him a little from the sober and simple manner that
-then characterised French engraving; but he nevertheless preserved the
-indelible traces of the origin of his art, in the same way as some
-people cannot correct their provincial accent. The _Heures de la
-Vierge_, which he designed, and which he had engraved about 1520, on
-account of Simon de Colines, is marvellously surrounded by ornaments,
-until then unknown in France; at the same time, and in spite of other
-tendencies, it is purely a French work, and the specimen given here is a
-convincing proof.
-
-[Footnote A: _Geoffroy Tory, Peintre et Graveur, Premier Imprimeur
-Royal, Réformateur de l'Orthographe et de la Typographie_: Paris, 1857,
-8vo.]
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 48.--Full page of the _Heures_ of Simon de Colines,
-by Tory.]
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 49.--_Heures_ of Geoffroy Tory. The Circumcision.]
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 50.--_Heures_ of Simon de Colines, with the mark of
-the Cross of Lorraine.]
-
-Geoffroy Tory composed a curious book, as poetic as learned, in which he
-studied at once the form of the letter from the typographic and the
-emblematic point of view, and also the French orthography of the time.
-He tells us himself that he was brought to commence this book on the
-fête-day of the kings, 1523, when, after a frugal repast, he was, he
-says, "dreaming on my bed and revolving my memory, thinking of a
-thousand little fancies, serious and mirthful, among which I thought of
-some antique letters that I had made for Monseigneur the treasurer for
-war, Master Jehan Grolier, councillor and secretary of our lord the
-King, amateur of fine letters and of all learned personages." Tory
-called his book _Champfleury, auquel est contenu l'art et science de la
-deue proportion des lettres ... selon le corps et le visage humain_, and
-he published it himself in small folio, putting upon it the sign of
-Gilles de Gourmont, in 1529.
-
-At heart Tory had been fascinated by the theories of Dürer on the
-proportions of the human body; and he says, "The noble German painter
-Albert Dürer is greatly to be praised that he has so well brought to
-light his art of painting in designing geometrical forms, the ramparts
-of war, and the proportions of the human body." He wished to indicate
-the true measure of letters to his contemporaries, "the number of points
-and turns of the compass that each one requires." The most amusing part
-of this curious treatise is his short academical preface, where, under a
-playful form, the great publisher studies the orthography of his time,
-and exclaims against the forgers of new words, the Latinisers of the
-language, "the skimmers of Latin, jesters and gibberers, ... who mock
-not only their shadows, but themselves." The entire passage was copied
-by Rabelais, nearly literally, and it indicates that its author was
-possessed of good sense, which, unhappily, all his contemporaries were
-not.
-
-For the technical part, he added to his theories a number of designs of
-geometrical letters, but he was carried away, after the fashion of the
-time, by Greek and Roman models, perhaps a little further than he meant,
-losing himself in the midst of idle dissertations. To these geometrical
-engravings he added small and charming figures, said to be by Jean
-Perréal, as well as emblematical letters of the nature of the Y which is
-here given, with explanatory text and commentary. To him this Y had two
-branches: one of virtue and one of vice; that of virtue shows palms,
-crowns, a sceptre, and a book; that of vice birches, a gallows, and
-fire.
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 51.--Emblematical letter Y, taken from the
-_Champfleury_ of Geoffroy Tory.]
-
-With the importance that cannot be denied to his works, Geoffroy Tory
-founded a school; and it was from his workshop that the plates came for
-the book of Paulus Jovius on the dukes of Milan, published by Robert
-Estienne in 1549, quarto. The portraits of the dukes in this work have
-been attributed to Tory himself, but he died in 1533, and there is not
-the least indication that he engraved these sixteen portraits with his
-own hand sixteen years before their publication. Besides, our doubts as
-to the cross of Lorraine being the exclusive signature of Tory, as has
-been believed, lead us to think it the collective mark of a workshop,
-as we meet it on works long after the death of the master. As a proof,
-the mark is found on the engravings of _L'Entrée du Roi à Paris_ in
-1549, which cannot be taken as a posthumous work of Tory, for these
-engravings had their origin at a certain and special date. But in spite
-of the absence of the monogram, the admirable block from the Diodorus
-Siculus of Antoine Macault might, from its design and engraving, be
-considered as by Tory himself. Holbein, who, about the same time,
-designed a somewhat similar scene, the King of France seated on a
-throne receiving poison from the hands of Death, never did anything
-better. Within the scanty proportions of the design, all the figures
-are portraits. Duprat, Montmorency and the three sons of the King may
-be recognised; Macault, on the left, is reading his translation to a
-circle of nobles and men of letters. This admirable page is one of the
-truest and most skilful of the monuments of French engraving; it is
-equal to the best inventions of Holbein, and it marks the culminating
-point of the illustration of the Book before the exaggerations of the
-school of Fontainebleau. Geoffroy Tory was not the publisher. The
-Diodorus Siculus, doubtless prepared two or three years before, was not
-published until 1535, in quarto, with his ordinary mark of the "Pot
-Cassé."
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 52.--Macault reading to Francis I. his translation
-of Diodorus Siculus. Wood engraving attributed to Tory.]
-
-We have now arrived through him at the reign of Francis I., who was
-called the father of letters, and who for various reasons favoured the
-arts. Doubtless grand paintings and the decoration of the royal palaces
-interested him more than vignettes in books and the efforts of printers;
-but, at the same time, books occupied him. He studied much, and in his
-travels accumulated many volumes. An account in the French National
-Archives shows that Claude Chappuis, his librarian, packed entire cases,
-which were sent to Dauphiné at the time of the wars of Piedmont, the
-carriage costing twenty livres tournois. Francis had, moreover,
-following sudden impulses, curious fits of wantonness and mischief. It
-was perceived a little later that the doctrines of Luther were
-propagated by the Book; and the Sorbonne was up in arms, on the pretence
-of imposing its own expurgated text of the Bible on the publishers and
-tolerating no other. Theodore Beza, enemy of the Sorbonnists, said with
-regard to this (we translate the antique French literally), "Our great
-doctors with cherubic visage have forbidden men to see the Holy Bible in
-vulgar language, of which every one has knowledge, because, they say,
-the desire of knowing everything engenders nothing but error, fear, and
-care. _Arguo sic_, if they so, for its abuse, wish to take away this
-book, it is clear also that it is their duty to put away the wine with
-which each of them makes himself drunk."
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 53.--Robert Estienne, after the engraving in the
-_Chronologie Collée_.]
-
-This piece is only cited to show to what lengths matters had gone,
-thanks to printing. It is very certain that all the pamphlets, placards,
-and other horrors published to raise religious warfare, did not aid in
-the progress of the Book. The King was not always disinterested on the
-technical question; books merited encouragement, at least as much as
-castigation, and besides, as time passed, they gradually transformed men
-and ideas. In spite of apparent severities, was not the King himself a
-little touched by contact with the new religion, like his sister
-Marguerite, or his sister-in-law, Renée of Ferrara? However that may be,
-he twice showed himself a resolute partisan of the celebrated Robert
-Estienne, son-in-law and associate of Simon de Colines, whose works in
-point of erudition and typography assumed day by day more importance.
-Robert Estienne had the great honour of being chosen from all his
-contemporaries by King Francis as the royal printer. This prince had
-ordered to be engraved for him by Claude Garamond, after the design of
-Ange Vergèce, the first cutter of matrices of his time, a special Greek
-character in three sizes, which was used in 1544 to compose the
-"Ecclesiastical History" of Eusebius. These are the famous royal
-types--_typi regii_--as Estienne did not fail to indicate on the
-title-pages of his works. It has been said since that Francis I. founded
-the Royal Printing House, but the truth is that Estienne kept these
-characters in his own office for use in the royal editions; they may now
-be seen in the Imprimerie Nationale at Paris.
-
-Robert Estienne married the daughter of Josse Badius, of Asch--Badius
-Ascencianus, one of the first Parisian typographers of the time. We
-reproduce the mark of Badius, representing the interior of a printing
-house, and shall return in a special chapter to the functions of these
-workshops. Meantime it appears proper to present to the reader a
-printing office of the time of Robert Estienne and Geoffroy Tory.
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 54.--Printing office of Josse Badius at the
-commencement of the sixteenth century.]
-
-Robert Estienne does not appear to have concerned himself much about the
-decoration of the Book. The purity of the text and the characters were
-essentials with him, erudition, and not art. He published many works in
-Latin and Greek, among them the _Thesaurus_, a great Latin dictionary
-published in 1532, also a Bible, with notes by Vatable, revised by Leon
-de Juda. From that came trouble. Leon de Juda was a partisan of Zwingli;
-the Sorbonne accused the Bible of leaning towards the Huguenots;
-Francis I. took the part of Estienne, but when that prince died Estienne
-fled to Geneva, where he was accused of having imported the royal types.
-The truth was that he simply imported the matrices.
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 55.--Portrait of Nicholas Bourbon. Wood engraving of
-the commencement of the sixteenth century.]
-
-At this time everything served for the decoration of the Book:
-portraits, blazons, topographical plates, costumes, and emblems. Small
-portraits engraved on wood usually ornamented the works of the poets,
-like that of Nicholas Bourbon, for example, marvel of truth and skill.
-The blocks of frontispieces in the folios were multiplied; large initial
-letters, ingeniously engraved and stippled, like that at the
-commencement of this chapter, were used. Jacques Kerver reproduced in
-1545 for himself, and with plates made for him, the famous _Songe de
-Poliphile_, published by Aldus in 1499. The widow of the publisher Denis
-Janot, Jeanne de Marnef, published one of the most delightful books of
-the time, _L'Amour de Cupidon et de Psyche_ of Apuleius, with delicious
-figures in wood after Italian engravings. Many more could be named in
-the extraordinary profusion of charming books.
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 56.--King and Death. Vignette from the "Dance of
-Death" by Holbein.]
-
-Without entering into detail, something must be said of Lyons, then a
-most extensive and prosperous centre of bookselling. Lyons had the
-signal honour of publishing first in France the celebrated cuts of the
-"Dance of Death" of Holbein, the Basle painter. Doubtless Treschel, the
-printer, was not the first, as a copy of a German edition is known,
-because in the Lyons edition the cuts are worn and broken. However, the
-Cabinet d'Estampes of Paris has some of the figures of the Dance with a
-German text, probably printed by Froben at Basle. Treschel's title was
-_Les Simulachres et Historiées Faces de la Mort autant elegamment
-pourtraictes que artificiellement imaginées_, and the volume in quarto
-was printed by Frelon. The _Icones veteris testamenti_, which preceded
-the publication of the "Dance of Death," had also been printed at Basle
-before Lyons.
-
-With Holbein, as with Geoffroy Tory, we arrive at the zenith of
-illustration and marvellous skill of the engraver. If we were to
-institute comparisons, it was Hans Lutzelburger who cut the blocks after
-the designs of the Basle master, but, contrary to what generally
-happens, the translator reaches almost to the height of his model; the
-line is perfection itself, it is precise and intelligent, simple, and,
-above all, explicit. If the work of Lutzelburger be admitted, it must
-also be admitted that Holbein designed his cuts before 1526, date of the
-death of the Basle engraver; but it was precisely before 1526 that
-Holbein lived in Basle, and it was after he had travelled. We will add
-nothing to the universal praise of the book of Treschel, of Lyons;
-everything has been written of Holbein, and repetitions are unnecessary.
-We would ask the reader to compare the Francis I. of Tory and the King
-in Holbein's "Dance of Death;" there is a certain family resemblance
-between the two cuts, which is a singular honour for Tory.
-
-At the commencement of the century Basle had a school of
-_Formschneiders_ working for export. Besides the numerous products used
-at Lyons, it had also a trade in wood blocks, which, having been used,
-were afterwards sold. Among these exchanges of engravings were many
-plates of Brandt's "Ship of Fools," sold in 1520 to Galliot du Pré,
-publisher, of Paris, who used them in the _Eloge de la Folie_ of
-Erasmus.
-
-The reign of Francis I. saw a great advance in the national art of
-illustration. The arrival at the court of Italian artists of the
-decadence, such as Rosso and Primaticcio, produced a revolution in
-taste. The exaggerated slightness of the figures brought by these
-artists from beyond the Alps was considered as of supreme distinction;
-in their twisted draperies and mannered poses was seen a precious beauty
-that tempted the ready intelligence of the court of France. The simple
-and ingenuous figures of the old French artists were ranked among the
-refuse of another age, and their compositions were regarded with
-contempt, and deemed antique.
-
-The rage for emblems and for allegories and mythological figures
-generally was well suited to these eccentric and bizarre inventions.
-From another side, an entire class of artists or artisans, book
-illustrators first, then enamellers and jewellers, made use of these
-Italian models, with which the King encumbered his galleries, and which,
-at great expense, covered the walls of Fontainebleau. One can understand
-what these skilful men made of such a movement and of so thoughtless an
-infatuation. The publishers saw the demand, and composed works of which
-the sale was assured by the subjects that they furnished to other
-designers. This explains the quantity of Alciati's "Emblems" and Ovid's
-"Metamorphoses" published at Lyons and Paris, and copied and recopied a
-hundred times by the art industries of the time. Without it the enormous
-success of mediocre productions, as the "Emblems," for example, in which
-the meaning of the enigma or rebus cannot always be seized, is ill
-understood. It was Alciati who made this literature the fashion. He was
-a sort of Epicurean and miserly jurisconsult, who had as many lords and
-masters on earth, as the kings and princes who liked to bid against each
-other to engage him. He had quitted Italy, seduced by the offers of
-Francis I., but when Sforza paid him a larger sum, he returned, giving
-as reason for his vacillation that the sun had to travel the earth and
-warm it by its rays; this was an emblematic answer, for his emblems had
-all the coarse, sceptical humour which not a few had then already
-discovered. At most these philosophical aphorisms, if we take them
-seriously, have their droll side in that their author often practised
-the reverse of his teaching. A miser, he abuses the avaricious; flying
-his country for the love of gain, he blames those to whom "a better
-condition is offered by strangers." Yet he is sometimes logical and
-consistent, as when he assures us that "poverty hinders the success of
-intelligence," and when, finally, lover of good cheer, he died of
-indigestion in 1550.
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 57.--Page of the "Metamorphoses" of Ovid, by Petit
-Bernard. Edition of 1564.]
-
-His book of "Emblems" had a vogue that lasted until the seventeenth
-century, and repetitions were infinitely multiplied: at Paris by Wechel
-in 1534; at Lyons by Hans de Tornes, of Suabia, one of the greatest
-Lyons publishers; by Roville, also one of the first Lyons publishers,
-and by Bonhomme; at Venice by the Alduses; in fact, everywhere,
-translated into French, Spanish, and Italian.
-
-Bernard Salomon, called _le Petit Bernard_, born at Lyons, was one of
-the designers of the school of Fontainebleau--that is to say, of the
-Franco-Italian school of which we have spoken above--who furnished many
-of the engravings for books printed at Lyons. He illustrated the edition
-of Alciati's "Emblems" published by Bonhomme in 1560; and designed
-skilful little plates, which, with the text, were surrounded by a border
-from the workshop of Geoffroy Tory, for Ovid's "Metamorphoses,"
-published by Hans de Tornes in 1564. Bernard had all the defects and all
-the qualities of those of his time, from John Cousin to the least of
-them; he was a Primaticcio on a small scale, but agreeably so. His
-designs for the New Testament were also very careful, but in them more
-than elsewhere the manner and the affectation of the school of
-Fontainebleau are apparent.
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 58.--Portraits of Madeleine, Queen of Scotland, and
-of Marguerite, Duchess of Savoy, after the originals of Cornelis of
-Lyons.]
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 59.--Portraits of Francis, dauphin, and of Charles,
-Duke of Angoûleme, after the originals of Cornelis of Lyons. Woodcuts
-taken from Roville's _Promptuaire des Médailles_.]
-
-The workshops of the second city of France, we see, had at this time
-attained considerable importance; but before the books of which we shall
-speak, Roville published two anonymous books, one _L'Entrée du Roi Henri
-II. à Lyon_, in 1549, ornamented with very graceful woodcuts, the other
-the _Promptuaire des Médailles_, comprising a series of charming
-portraits under the pretence of reproductions from the antique. The
-designs of the _Entrée_ are often attributed to John Cousin, as it is a
-rule with certain amateurs to give a known name to a work; but it must
-be remembered that Lyons then had celebrated artists, Petit-Bernard,
-alluded to above, and Cornelis de la Haye, of whom we have more to say;
-and it is not necessary to go to Paris or to Rome to find the author of
-these illustrations.
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 60.--Captain of foot from the _Entree de Henri II. à
-Lyon_ (1549).]
-
-Cornelis de la Haye was a painter who executed nearly the same work as
-Francis Clouet in Paris, portraits on panel, in a clear and harmonious
-tone, then much the fashion. During a journey of the King, he had, if
-Brantôme may be credited, portrayed the entire court, keeping the
-sketches for himself. Ten or fifteen years after, Catherine de Medicis,
-passing through Lyons, saw these portraits and highly praised them,
-recognising the old costumes, astonished at the courtiers of the day,
-whom she had never seen in such dress. This artist is now known, thanks
-to various works that have been found, among others two portraits of the
-sons of Francis I., preserved by Gaignières, who attributed them
-resolutely to Cornelis, doubtless on the faith of inscriptions that have
-disappeared. Both of them were engraved on wood at Lyons and published
-in Roville's book the _Promptuaire des Médailles_, mentioned above,
-with small differences of detail altogether insignificant. It is not
-impossible then that Cornelis designed these portraits, and that they
-were drawn on wood after the cabinet models spoken of by Brantôme. The
-delicate figures of the _Promptuaire_ are the work of a master; and the
-differences mentioned are those of the artist, not of the copyist, who
-would not be permitted to change anything. It is the first time, we
-believe, that these comparisons have been made; they will perhaps help
-the learned Lyonnais to pierce the mystery, but in any case our
-suppositions are more honourable to Cornelis de la Haye than the fancies
-of Robert Dumesnil (_Peintre-graveur Français_, tome vi., p. 343). To
-judge by the four little medallions here reproduced, the art of
-engraving on wood was rarely more skilful than in these portraits. It
-would not be astonishing if a man like Cornelis had designed the figures
-of the _Entrée de Henri II._ In any case, why should we choose John
-Cousin instead of Petit-Bernard? At this time, we know, the kings
-carried in their suite their ordinary painters; but we do not know that
-John Cousin followed the court to Lyons in 1549. He did not hold an
-official position, like Clouet.
-
-This artist produced well-authenticated works; one of them is signed,
-and leaves no doubt: the _Livre de Perspective de Jehan Cousin Senonois,
-Maistre Painctre_, published in 1560 by Jean le Royer, printer to the
-King for mathematics. This profession of printer for mathematics had its
-difficulties of engraving, for Le Royer tells us in his preface that he
-had himself finished the plates commenced by Albin Olivier. In another
-practical treatise, entitled _Livre de Portraiture_, published in 1593,
-John Cousin is styled _peintre géometrien_. It is beyond doubt that this
-master produced for many works figures and ornaments, but what were the
-books? The manner was then to repeat the engraved borders of titles, the
-_passe-partout_, in the centre of which the text was printed. Cousin
-designed many of these title-pages on wood; that of the _Livre de
-Portraiture_ affords a curious element of comparison; but he was not by
-any means the inventor. In 1555 was sold at Antwerp a book printed from
-engraved plates after John Vriedman, by Gerard Juif, which is simply a
-collection of engravings for title-pages for the use of publishers.
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 61.--Title of John Cousin's _Livre de Portraiture_,
-published in 1593 by Le Clerc. (The spot on the title is in the
-original, preserved among the prints of the Bibliothèque Nationale.)]
-
-It is about this time that metal plates may be seen in conjunction with
-wood engraving in the illustration of the Book, and the best artists
-attached their names to important publications of this kind. We have
-explained in a former chapter in what this process is least convenient
-in the impression of a book. In fact, two successive printings, that of
-the plates and that of the text, were additional trouble and a frequent
-cause of errors; but wood-cutting was somewhat abandoned in the middle
-of the sixteenth century, especially for separate plates, and engraved
-plates took a considerable importance under different artistic
-influences. The first was the facility of engraving a metal plate
-compared to the difficulty of cutting a wood block. It thus naturally
-happened that the artists of the burin wished to employ their art in
-illustration, and taste was soon drawn to the new process.
-
-In France the first volume of this kind was printed in 1488 by Topie de
-Pymont in folio: the _Pérégrinations en Terre Sainte_ of Bernard de
-Breydenbach, with figures on engraved plates copied from the Mayence
-edition of 1486. Since this manner was abandoned until about 1550, as
-much for the reasons given above as for others, we only meet with a
-stray plate now and again, which remains as a bait, and relates to
-nothing. Under the reign of Henri II. the smallness of the volumes did
-not always admit of wood engravings, and the artists in metal found a
-footing among illustrators; they made attempts, such as that of the
-_Histoire de Jason_ of Réné Boivin in 1563, which came out under
-Charles IX. in a charming volume of engraved plates by P. Woériot.
-
-The "Emblems" of Georgette de Montenay were also in the burlesque style
-of Alciati, but they had an advantage, as the author assures us:--
-
-  "Alciat fist des emblèmes exquis,
-  Lesquels, voyant de plusieurs requis,
-  Désir me prist de commencer les miens,
-  Lesquels je croy estre premiers chrestiens."
-
-This orthodoxy does not make them more intelligible, but the engravings
-of Woériot, unskilful as they are, import an element of interest which
-surpasses the rest. It was always at Lyons, the rival and often the
-master of Paris in typography, that the author printed his work.
-
-By the privilege dated 1566, five years before publication, we see that
-it is permitted to Peter Woériot, engraver of the Duke of Lorraine, to
-portray, engrave, and cut in copper the said figures called emblems for
-the time and term of five years (18th October, 1566). Peter Woériot
-sometimes signed his prints with the small Lorraine cross adopted by
-Geoffroy Tory's workshop, as may be seen in our engraving.
-
-Copper plate engraving had by this time established itself, and the
-works that were so illustrated spread themselves. Du Cerceau published
-his admirable collection of _Plus Beaux Bastiments de France_ in folio
-1576-79, which had numerous plans and views of the royal and princely
-castles. Thevet put forth his _Cosmographie Universelle_ and his _Hommes
-Illustres_, the latter adorned with skilfully engraved portraits. In
-Paris the publishers Mamert Patisson, who married the widow of Robert
-Estienne and took his mark, Adrien le Roy, and Robert Ballard, published
-the celebrated _Ballet Comique de la Royne Faict aux Nopces de Monsieur
-le Duc de Joyeuse_, composed by Balthasar de Beaujoyeux, valet de
-chambre to Henri III.; and in this book, in which were put hasty
-etchings, the King displayed all his immodesty and depravity. The Book
-has often had the unconscious mission of transmitting to posterity the
-unworthiness of its author or of its heroes. From this time the Book has
-left its golden age to enter into the boastings of courtiers and
-political abstractions.
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 62.--Engraving by P. Woériot for Georgette de
-Montenay's _Emblèmes_.]
-
-Among the publications opposed to the Government of the time, the two
-associates James Tortorel and John Perrissin, of Lyons, had published a
-celebrated collection of plates on the religious wars that stained the
-reign of Charles IX. with blood. At first engraved on metal, these
-plates were worn out, and were gradually replaced by others engraved on
-wood, on which several artists worked, among them James le Challeux and
-also John de Gourmont, one of the most celebrated wood-cutters of the
-sixteenth century. This was a work composed of single leaves in folio
-size, which had an extraordinary sale among the religious people of the
-time.
-
-At the same time, illustration on wood did not stand still. The
-portraits of authors diffused by the pencil of Clouet and his school
-were commonly put at the head of their works. We cannot say whether
-Clouet himself designed the portraits of Tiraqueau and of Taillemont in
-1553; of Du Billon, the author of the _Fort Inexpugnable_, in 1555;
-Papon and Ambroise Paré in 1561; Grevin, Ramus, and others; but the
-precision of these physiognomies recalls the peculiar manner of the
-French artists of the sixteenth century. The "Poems" of Ronsard in 1586
-contains a series of very clever portraits, among them that of Muret,
-his commentator, one of the most perfect of its kind. Christopher de
-Savigny, author of the _Tableaux Accomplis de Tous les Arts Liberaux_,
-published by John and Francis de Gourmont in 1587, is represented at
-full length in the frontispiece of his work, offering the book to the
-Duc de Nevers, to whom it is dedicated. This plate in folio, probably
-engraved by John de Gourmont, is the best finished that we have seen.
-The work of Savigny, forgotten as it may be now, had a great reputation
-in its own time; and Bacon took from it the idea of his "Advancement of
-Learning."
-
-Speaking of the Duc de Nevers, it will not be without interest to our
-readers to mention here a manuscript found by us in the Bibliothèque
-Nationale, which enables us to give an account of the work then
-necessary for the publication of an illustrated book. In 1577 the Duke
-arranged for the impression of an apologetic book, of which no trace
-remains; and his _intendant_ writes a long letter to him on the subject
-of composition and bindings. It was necessary that the work should be
-produced quickly, bound and gilt, for presents. The _intendant_ thinks
-calf will be the most expeditious covering. "It would be much the best
-to use black or red calf, ... well gilt above, and not vellum, which is
-a thin parchment that quickly shrinks." The statements of this man of
-business show that five proofs of each sheet were taken for
-typographical correction, and that twelve full days were wanted for the
-binding. The most interesting part of this memoir is that which treats
-of the engraving on wood of the portrait. The plate was designed by an
-artist who had afterwards gone away; it was not satisfactory, but the
-ornaments would pass. The _intendant_ proposes to "fix a little piece of
-wood in the block that could be drawn upon." Here we see correction by
-elimination. The pear-wood on which the original figure was engraved was
-to be cut out, and a square of boxwood substituted, "forasmuch as in
-this task the pear-wood, which is the successful, well-cut block, is the
-wood that is harder."
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 63.--Portrait of Christopher Plantin, printer of
-Antwerp. Engraved by Wierix.]
-
-The portrait of the Duchesse de Nevers was better, yet the pear-wood had
-given way under the work. "That of Madame is more passable.
-Nevertheless, there is still something to say to one eye. The wood
-cannot carry the subtlety of the line." Here, in a few clear and
-explicit lines by a man of the time, we see the economy of a publication
-of the sixteenth century, at a time when wood engraving was declining,
-to give place to engraving on metal, which was soon to reign supreme,
-through the most important book house of the century: the Plantins of
-Antwerp.
-
-Christopher Plantin, like Jenson, came originally from Tours. After
-having learned his art with Macé at Caen, he went to Paris, from which
-the wars soon drove him. He left for the Low Countries, and there Philip
-II. nominated him as chief printer--"architypographus." Established at
-Antwerp in 1555, he surrounded himself, as had the Estiennes and
-Alduses, with most of the learned and literary men of his time, among
-them Justus Lipsius, to whom Balzac attributed the Latin prefaces signed
-by Plantin. It is certain that he was neither an Estienne nor an Aldus.
-His artistic probity caused him to submit the proofs of his works to
-strangers, with promise of recompense for faults indicated; the
-Estiennes employed the same system. Plantin, not to be behind any of his
-contemporaries in typographical perfection, brought from France the
-celebrated type-founder William Lebé, and charged him to furnish a
-special fount.[A] Under the orders of Philip II., he printed the
-celebrated Polyglot Bible, in eight folio volumes, absolutely perfect in
-its execution; unfortunately the Spanish Government, having advanced
-funds in the course of publication, prosecuted him with the utmost
-rigour to obtain repayment. This very nearly shut up his printing house,
-but he took courage and overcame his difficulties, until he became, in
-1589, the year of his death, the principal publisher of Flanders. His
-mark was a hand holding a compass, with the motto "Labore et
-constantia."
-
-[Footnote A: In the Bibliothèque Nationale is a copy of an octavo _Album
-de Caractères_, in which Lebé has written, "This gloss, made in Paris
-(1574) by me, is my fourteenth letter, and the text is made on the
-pattern of the preceding one for size, but of a better art; and from
-this was printed the great Bible of Antwerp by Plantin, to whom I sold a
-fount" (folio 6). On folio 20 he wrote, "I do not know whence came this
-small Hebrew that I received from Plantin to make a smaller one for him.
-He sent me this half-sheet, and I have not seen at Venice another
-part."]
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 64.--Plantin's mark.]
-
-Plantin died at the age of seventy-four, leaving a prosperous business
-to be divided between his three daughters. His first house at Antwerp
-employed seventeen presses even at the time when he was in trouble, and
-he had branches at Paris and Leyden, of less consequence. His second
-daughter married Moretus, and to him descended the Antwerp workshop; he
-and his descendants continued the printing house until recently; the
-house of the great printer and publisher is now a typographical museum.
-The Plantin printing office--"Officina Plantiniana"--was as well managed
-by its descendants as by himself. The fashion of engraving in metal
-spread itself before the death of the head of the house, and his
-successors continued it. The principal engravers with the burin of the
-Low Countries were employed by them: Wierix, Galle, Pass, Mallery, Van
-Sichern; it was a real school of illustration, that created by degrees a
-precious and sustained style, not without influence on the artists of
-that epoch. It was from this particular manner that came Thomas de Leu
-and Leonard Gaultier in France; and from Antwerp came those small
-religious figures that have lasted to our time in their incomprehensible
-mysticism.
-
-The title-pages of the Plantin printing office inaugurated the
-_passe-partout_ engraved by the burin, overloaded and complicated, of
-which the seventeenth century took advantage. To tell the truth, these
-elaborate displays, blackened by ink, do not accord well with the
-titles; and there is a long distance between this decadence and the
-books ornamented with wood blocks by the Italians and French of the
-commencement of the century. Exception must be made in favour of Rubens,
-who designed many of these titles. The heavy and squat architecture of
-the time was least of all appropriate to these decorations, which wanted
-grace. It passed from Plantin into France through the engravers; it went
-to Rome with Martin de Vos and John Sadeler; it imposed itself
-everywhere; and from that day to this it has not ceased. At the time of
-which we write it had taken its flight in France, and spread itself in
-Europe with extraordinary success. Engraving in relief, holding its
-own until then, gave way little by little before this invasion. When
-Henri IV. mounted the throne wood engraving had finished its upward
-movement, it still remained in the _canards_, or popular pieces sold at
-low prices, but it is easy to see what these hasty vignettes are worth.
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 65.--Frontispiece of a book from Plantin's printing
-office. Metal engraving.]
-
-We have now seen the history of the Book and its decoration in the
-sixteenth century in France: at first French epics in Italy, books of
-hours, romances of chivalry; then about 1550, with the reign of Henri
-II., the religious pamphlets commenced, bookselling spread itself; the
-strife between illustrations on metal plates and those in relief assumed
-shape, it continued under Henri III., and terminated abruptly by the
-victory of the first at the extreme end of the century. With political
-passions, printing had become a weapon of warfare, which it will never
-cease to be. They knew in the sixteenth century what perfidious
-accusations or excessive praises were worth. The Book followed the fate
-of its author. If the writer was burned, so was his book. Witness the
-_Christianismi Restitutio_ of the Catholic Servetus, printed at Vienne,
-in Dauphiné, and consigned to the flames with its author at Geneva in
-1553. A single copy was saved from the fire, and is now preserved in the
-Bibliothèque Nationale; it is the identical copy annotated by Colladon,
-the accuser of the unhappy Servetus, and still bears traces of fire on
-its leaves.
-
-Typography and the illustration of the Book in England in the sixteenth
-century did not make the same progress as in France and Italy. Much good
-work was done, but it was mostly with foreign material. Type was
-obtained from French and Dutch founders, and most of the woodcuts had
-the same origin. In the early part of the century most of the
-publications were translations of popular foreign books, such as
-Voragine's "Golden Legend," Caxton's translations of Cicero, Boetius,
-etc. Too many restrictions and privileges obtained to encourage or allow
-of the establishment of an English school, which was to come later with
-the spread of wealth and education. Books were mostly printed in Gothic
-type, or "black letter," and the woodcuts were of the coarsest kind. An
-exception was the beautiful Prayer-book of John Day, 1578, known as
-Queen Elizabeth's Prayer-book, from the fine portrait of the Queen,
-which we reproduce, on the previous page; but in this the woodcuts were
-designed by Albert Dürer and Hans Holbein. Pynson was the first to use
-Roman type in England, in the _Oratio in pace nuperrimâ_, 1518, quarto;
-and the first English Bible in Roman type was printed at Edinburgh in
-1576. It is thought that until about 1600 printers were their own
-type-founders, as no record exists of founding as a separate trade until
-that time.
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 66.--Portrait of Queen Elizabeth from the "Book of
-Christian Praiers," printed by John Day, 1578.]
-
-The greatest achievement of the sixteenth century in England was the
-printing of the first English Bible, in Coverdale's translation, in
-1535, folio, but even this was printed abroad, the latest investigation
-giving it to Van Meteren at Antwerp. The woodcuts in it are by Hans
-Sebald Beham; we reproduce one representing Cain killing Abel. Tyndall
-had previously printed abroad an English New Testament. Another
-importation was Brandt's "Shyp of Folys," printed by Pynson, 1509, and
-John Cawood, 1570, the woodcuts in both being copied from the originals
-before referred to.
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 67.--Woodcut from Coverdale's Bible, 1535. Cain
-killing Abel.]
-
-Folio was the size usually adopted, and in this size the series of
-chronicles appeared: Arnold, printed abroad in 1502; Fabian, in 1516;
-Froissart, by Pynson, in two volumes, 1523-5; Harding, by Grafton, 1543;
-Hall, by the same, 1548; Holinshed, in two volumes, 1577. In the same
-size Chaucer was first given to the world entire by T. Godfrey in 1532,
-and many times reprinted, and Sir Thomas More in 1557. Polemical and
-religious treatises were mostly printed in quarto, as were the poets:
-Spenser's _Faerie Queene_, in 1590; Langland's _Pierce Plowman_, in
-1550; and Sidney's _Arcadia_, in 1590. Plays were also printed in
-quarto, in which shape at the end of the century some of Shakespeare's
-single plays were issued.
-
-From the great perfection to which the liturgies, or books of hours, had
-been brought by Vostre, Verard, and others in France, it is not perhaps
-extraordinary that the service books for English use should have been
-mostly printed abroad. Those for Salisbury and York were produced at
-Paris, Rouen, and Antwerp. A Salisbury Primer in English was printed by
-John Kyngston and Henry Sutton in 1557, and Wynken de Worde printed a
-York Manual in 1509. The first English Common Prayer Book, known as
-Edward VI.'s, was printed by Grafton in 1549, who also printed in 1545
-Henry VIII.'s Primer in Latin and English. Edward's book is curious as
-having on the last page a royal order as to the price at which it was to
-be sold: "No maner of persone shall sell the present Booke vnbounde
-aboue the price of two shillynges and two pence. And bound in Forell for
-ii_s._ x_d._, and not aboue. And the same bound in Shepes Lether for
-iii_s._ iii_d._, and not aboue. And the same bounde in paste or in
-boordes, in Calues Lether, not aboue the price of iiii_s._ the pece."
-Cranmer's Catechism was printed by Nicholas Hill in 1548, with
-twenty-nine woodcuts by Hans Holbein, one of which we reproduce,
-representing Christ casting out devils.
-
-Translations from the classics were popular, and in the second half of
-the century arose that passion for voyage and travel which has so
-largely contributed to the wealth and extension of England. This was
-begun by Eden's translation of Peter Martyr's "Decades of the New World;
-or, West India," London, 1555, quarto, followed by Hakluyt's "Principall
-Navigations, Voyages, and Discoveries," 1589, folio. Many accounts of
-single voyages and discoveries were issued, and the taste thus created
-culminated in the establishment of the East India Company in the last
-year of the century.
-
-The first specimen of copper plate engraving for books in England is a
-frontispiece to Galen's _De Temperamentis_, printed at Cambridge 1521,
-and the number of books containing copper plates engraved before 1600 is
-extremely limited, the most notable being portraits of Queen Elizabeth,
-Lord Leicester, and Lord Burleigh in Archbishop Parker's Bible of 1568;
-Saxton's Atlas, 1579, the first atlas in England; Harrington's
-translation of Ariosto, 1591, with forty-seven engraved plates.
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 68.--Woodcut by Hans Holbein from Cranmer's
-Catechism, 1548.]
-
-The first printer at Cambridge was John Siberch, 1521. Peter of Treves
-established himself at Southwark in 1514. Among his productions is a
-Higden's _Polychronicon_, 1527, folio. John Oswen printed at Ipswich
-1538, and among the English towns in which printers established
-themselves in the century were York, Canterbury, Tavistock, Norwich, and
-Worcester.
-
-The establishment of the Reformed Church, and the diffusion of education
-among the people which followed, created an original English school of
-literature in the sixteenth century, and this gave employment and great
-impetus to typography in England, so that by the time we reach the end
-of the century we find a great improvement in the art of the Book, to be
-carried to still greater perfection in the next.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER IV.
-
-1600 TO 1700.
-
-     Tendencies of the regency of Marie de Medicis--Thomas de Leu and
-     Leonard Gaultier--J. Picart and Claude Mellan--Lyons and J. de
-     Fornazeris--The Book at the beginning of the seventeenth century in
-     Germany, Italy, and Holland--Crispin Pass in France--The Elzevirs
-     and their work in Holland--Sebastian Cramoisy and the Imprimerie
-     Royale--Illustration with Callot, Della Bella, and Abraham
-     Bosse--The publishers and the Hotel de Rambouillet--The reign of
-     Louis XIV., Antoine Vitré syndic at his accession--His works and
-     mortifications; the polyglot Bible of Le Jay--Art and illustrators
-     of the grand century--Sébastien Leclerc, Lepautre, and
-     Chauveau--Leclerc preparing the illustration and decoration of the
-     Book for the eighteenth century--The Book in England in the
-     seventeenth century.
-
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 69.--Letter engraved by A. Bosse.]
-
-Now we have arrived at a critical epoch, in which the science of the old
-printers transformed itself gradually into commerce, in which taste lost
-itself under the influence of religious architecture. The title of the
-Book represents the portico of a cathedral, with columns, mitred saints,
-and crosses, of little decorative aspect. Figures on copper plates
-replaced the foliage and arabesques of the older booksellers. Through
-the Plantins and their imitators, the architectural passion was far
-spread. It inundated France, ran through Germany and Italy, and reigned
-pre-eminent in Holland. Literary taste also underwent change; manners
-were no longer those of the sixteenth century: bold, free, and gay; from
-the religious wars a certain hypocrisy arose; bombast replaced the
-natural; the gods were preparing, as a contemporary said, to receive
-Louis and his spirit.
-
-It is not that artists were wanting at the opening of the seventeenth
-century who could, in giving scope to their talent, show themselves
-worthy successors of those who went before them. Unhappily the
-booksellers no longer had a loose rein; they had the rope, for they were
-hung or burned at the least infraction of political or religious
-propriety. Yet the reign of Henri IV. was relatively an easier period
-for the artisans of the Book, in which they were less confined to the
-strict terms of excessive regulations; but after this prince severity
-increased, and during the year 1626 a new law was promulgated punishing
-with death the printers or distributers of prohibited books. Doubtless
-the books that were thus secretly sold, and prohibited in defence of
-good manners, were neither _chefs-d'oeuvre_ of typography nor art. The
-author threw off the indecencies by which he hoped to make profit and
-fame, regardless of type or illustration. But during the regency of
-Marie de Medicis, it was not only the authors of a bad standard that
-were in danger of being hung; the printer or seller of the pamphlet or
-book of a reputed heterodox author was also hung, and it became
-difficult to steer safely among the prohibitions. Enormous numbers of
-works were made with frontispieces decorated with colonnades and mitred
-saints, and bearing high-sounding titles of sound orthodoxy. A somewhat
-gross mysticism, from the office of Plantin, formed the most solid stock
-of every respectable dealer.
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 70.--Title of the _Metanealogie_, engraved by
-Leonard Gaultier.]
-
-Under Henri IV. and the minority of Louis XIII., two French illustrators
-received from the school of Antwerp their inspiration for the ornament
-of the Book. Thomas de Leu, probably from Flanders, was allied with the
-old Parisian painter and engraver of celebrated portraits, Antoine
-Caron, in furnishing the engraved plates for the _Images de Plate
-Peinture des Deux Philostrates, Sophistes Grecs_, Paris, Claude
-Cramoisy, 1609, folio; and Leonard Gaultier, his contemporary,
-collaborated with Jaspar Isaac and other artists in the Book. Leonard
-Gaultier contributed most to spread in France the Plantinian style, and
-his somewhat cold but characteristic talent suited this art more than
-that of any one else then could. He was an engraver of portraits, now
-rare and valuable, in the style of Wierix or Thomas de Leu; but, at the
-demand of publishers and booksellers, he composed other plates, at first
-historical figures representing the royal family and the nobles for the
-publisher Leclerc, in a simple and true manner; he also designed pious
-figures, recording a miracle or representing the ceremonies of a jubilee
-and other devotional things. But he made his great success in the
-composition of frontispieces to theological and pious works, printed for
-nearly all the booksellers. Leonard Gaultier had a fashion of his own
-with pilasters and Grecian columns, under which he boldly placed entire
-councils of cardinals and bishops; witness the heading of the
-_Bibliotheca Veterum Patrum_, into which he crowded nearly forty
-figures. He united also with a certain grace the sacred and the profane,
-placing among ideal saints the sinning fine ladies of the time, with
-their large collarettes and jewels falling on naked breasts. The work of
-Andrew Valladier, chaplain of the King, entitled _Métanéalogie Sacrée_,
-published by Peter Chevallier in 1609, was adorned with a title of this
-particular kind, in which Gaultier had no rival, and which preserves the
-precision of Flemish masters in the detail of ornaments of the toilet.
-
-He was one of the first to work for Sebastian Cramoisy, printer and
-publisher, who had established his shop in the Rue St. Jacques at the
-sign of the "Stork." We shall have occasion to speak of him later in
-connection with the Royal Printing House, of which he was the first
-director; he is mentioned now because in 1611 Leonard Gaultier engraved
-for him the frontispiece of _L'Aigle Français_, a collection of sermons
-by Thomas Girault. The publisher used the same plate in 1618 for the
-sermons of Raymond de Hézèque.
-
-Besides the publications of Sebastian Cramoisy and Chevallier, Leonard
-Gaultier adorned also those of Nicholas Buon and many other publishers
-of the time in Paris and Lyons. With such a profusion of works emanating
-from a single artist, without reckoning those which were produced in
-great quantity by men of less note, wood engraving was dead. At most it
-dared to put a wood block of a printer's mark on a title; more
-ordinarily this mark was not alone sufficient, and showed the disdain in
-which taste then held wood-cutting. Thus goes fashion, heedless of the
-most elementary rules of art. To put type within an engraved title, or
-to ornament a printed text with engravings, is a heresy of principle
-that was established in the eighteenth century, by the strength of its
-cleverness and talent. But at the beginning of the seventeenth, in spite
-of Leonard Gaultier or Thomas de Leu, these overloaded titles,
-overpowering the opening of the Book, offend the eye by their excessive
-blackness, and incontestably make us regret the admirable frontispiece
-on wood of the preceding century.
-
-This is all the ornament, properly so called, of the reign of Louis
-XIII. Leonard Gaultier composed also small vignettes for an edition of
-Homer, but they are mediocre and unskilful, and it must be said that
-there were others following the same path. John Picart made a
-frontispiece with architecture and figures for the _Histoire de la
-Maison de Châtillon-sur-Marne_ for account of Sebastian Cramoisy. A cold
-and hard artist he was, the rival of Gaultier, and one of the most
-employed of the vignette engravers of Paris. There was also Jaspar
-Isaac, a mediocre craftsman, but who could design clever titles, among
-them that of the continuation of the _Annales_ of Baronius for the
-publisher Denis de la Noue. Then Claude Mellan, whose great and clever
-talent did not disdain second-rate works, in which he gave free play to
-his burin. It must be said, however, that his bold touch did not well
-accommodate itself to reduced spaces, and that he was not working in the
-field necessary to his inventive powers. We mention his portrait of
-Louis XIV. at the head of the _Code Louis XIV._; the title of the
-_Perfection du Chrestien_, in which is included a portrait of Cardinal
-Richelieu, A. Vitré, 1647, folio; that of the _Instruction du Dauphin_
-for Cramoisy, 1640; that of the works of St. Bernard for the Royal
-Printing House; and, perhaps the best of all, the _Poésies_ of Pope
-Urban VIII., of which we here give a copy.
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 71.--Title engraved by Claude Mellan for Urban
-VIII.'s _Poésies_, printed at the Royal Printing House, in 1642.]
-
-Lyons did not remain far behind in the movement, but how changed from
-its great reputation of the sixteenth century! J. de Fornazeris engraved
-the frontispieces to Justus Lipsius, published by Horace Cardon in 1613.
-Peter Favre and Audran imitated them. C. Audran designed for Claude
-Landry the _Theologia Naturalis_ of Theophilus Reynaud, and the
-bookseller Picquet ordered from him the title for the _Annales Minorum_
-in 1628. Everywhere taste was modelled on the works of the capital, to
-name only the principal centres, Rouen, Rheims, Sens, down to Venes, a
-small town of Tarn, where William de Nautonnier published in 1603 his
-curious book _Mécométrie_, whose frontispiece was bordered by views of
-cities, with an equestrian portrait of King Henry.
-
-And if we pass to Germany, we find Mayence with mediocre engravings for
-titles according to the formula and process used elsewhere, the title of
-the _Droit Civil_ of Aymar Vailius, that of the works of St. Bonaventura
-in 1609 for the bookseller Antoine Hiérat, and that of the _Viridarium
-Virtutûm_, rather cleverly treated by the burin in 1610. What a period
-had passed since Gutenberg, Fust, and Schoeffer! There was still one
-Yves Schoeffer at Mayence, but only the name lived; nothing more
-remained of the old printers of the other century. It was the same at
-Bamberg, Cologne, Nuremberg, and Basle, in all the cities that made the
-honour of typography and the Book in former times. Cologne was neither
-better nor worse favoured than others. The booksellers Boetzer, Kinck,
-and De Binghy had passable engravings for their titles; and the
-Commentaries of Salmeron may be mentioned, with portraits from the
-German originals of the fifteenth century. At Nuremberg there was a
-curious specimen treating of natural history by Basil Besler, in which
-the artist gives the interior of a zoological cabinet of the time; but
-the blocks and the typography of the city of Koburger are wanting. Basle
-held its own later in relief engraving. Meantime there was a mediocre
-set of the Dance of Death on copper, published by Miegen, 1621.
-
-At Jena and Frankfort-on-the-Main were prosperous printing houses, but
-engravings and ornamentation were neglected. Frankfort employed the
-frontispiece in the _Traité du Commerce_ of Sigismond Scaccia, published
-by Zuner in 1648; it was divided into compartments, in which the Bourse,
-the Exchange, and the port of the city were represented.
-
-It is scarcely necessary to mention the Italian cities which followed
-the movement. Venice from the middle of the sixteenth century had used
-engraved frontispieces, among which was that of Domenic Zenoi for the
-_Portraits des Hommes Illustres_ of Nicholas Valegio. In the same city
-James Piccini worked for account of Sgava in 1648, but he was equally at
-the service of Roman publishers, for whom he designed a number of
-titles. Along with him Frederic Greuter adorned the publications of
-Alexander Zanetti, not without talent, but without individuality.
-Bologna, Brescia, Florence, and Naples, had no original sentiment; they
-followed indifferently the manner of the day.
-
-In Holland, artists were rather numerous. The family of the Passes
-designed vignettes for books, and engraved frontispieces, admirably
-studied and composed. The clear and truly personal style of their works
-places their illustrations in the first rank among those of their time.
-They had, at the same time, the genius that created and the intelligent
-burin that faithfully translated an idea. They imagined with art the
-scenes that they depicted without at all copying their predecessors.
-From 1599, the date of the publication of the _Hortus Deliciarum_, one
-of their best works, up to about 1623, they were in Holland, at Arnheim
-and at Amsterdam. In 1623 we find one of them, the most celebrated,
-Crispin the younger, designing figures for the _Manège Royal_ of
-Pluvinel, published by Angelier in Paris, and for another edition, with
-folding plates, in 1624 for William Lenoir, at the sign of the "White
-Rose Crowned." This magnificent work, in which the King, Louis XIII., is
-represented receiving lessons from the rider Pluvinel, had a third and
-more complete reimpression in 1625 with another publisher, Michael
-Nivelle. Here we see the Dutch accredited in France, in Paris, in the
-city then the most ready to understand and pay for the works of eminent
-artists. In 1624 Gombauld published an _Endymion_--Boileau later
-associated Gombauld with other poets to declare him a maker of pitiable
-sonnets--Nicholas Buon, the bookseller named above, undertook the
-publication, and employed Pass, Leonard Gaultier, and J. Picart to
-furnish plates in octavo size. Heavy and black as were these vignettes,
-they do not the less make a good appearance in the edition of the
-forgotten poet; and it is due to truth to recognise how much Pass was
-above his collaborators. The following year, 1625, he engraved the
-_Dionysiaques_ of Nonus, for Robert Fouet, and the _Roman des Romans_ of
-Du Verdier, comprising more than ten engravings, in a very free and bold
-manner. The _Berger Extravagant_ and the _Académie de l'Espée_ came in
-1628, among numerous others.
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 72.--Title of Pluvinel's _Manège Royal_, engraved by
-Crispin Pass in 1624.]
-
-To speak truly, Crispin Pass did not devote himself entirely to Parisian
-publishers; he always preserved interests in Flanders so as to return
-there from time to time; but he did not find in his own country the
-ready and assured sales of Paris. Still the city of Leyden had then one
-of the most renowned workshops of typography; the Elzevirs had commenced
-to make a good place for themselves among the printers of Europe by the
-extreme correctness of their editions, the distinctness of their work,
-and their marvellous art in the taste and economy of the Book. In
-reality, the sizes and characters of their books were very small, but if
-the smallness of the page did not allow room for vignette or ornament,
-they bore a certain practical elegance that was not without charm. The
-origin of the printing house was due to Louis Elzevir, who published in
-1592 an edition of Eutropius at Leyden. He left sons, who associated
-themselves together, and founded a house which was unrivalled.
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 73.--Title of the _Imitation_ of the Elzevirs.]
-
-Bonaventure Elzevir, grandson of Louis, was the most illustrious of this
-family, so remarkably devoted to its art. He took Abraham as partner,
-and together they put forth those little Latin classics in duodecimo of
-which the value is now so great. Among others, Pliny issued from their
-presses in the year 1635, in three volumes, Virgil in 1636, and Cicero
-in 1642. To-day amateurs, above all those afflicted with bibliomania,
-hunt for unbound Elzevirs, because they have full margins. From about
-1633 to 1639 these volumes were composed of paper of rather small size,
-making a page of a hundred and thirty to a hundred and thirty-three
-millimetres; from 1639 onwards the paper was larger, and the page from
-about a hundred and thirty-five to a hundred and thirty-seven. One must
-be a book-lover to understand the interest attaching to these figures,
-and employ his entire activity in the discovery of these undiscoverable
-books, which are concealed as soon as they are met with.
-
-One of the most esteemed of their works is the _De Imitatione_ of Thomas
-à Kempis, printed by John and Daniel Elzevir about 1653, and known as
-the edition without date. But as the association of John and Daniel is
-known to have lasted from 1652 to 1654, the date 1653 appears to be very
-plausible. We reproduce the entire title of this typographical _bijou_,
-which merited a cleverer engraver.
-
-The rarest of all the numerous Elzevirs, possibly by reason of the
-popularity of its subject, is the _Pastissier François_, Louis and
-Daniel Elzevir, Amsterdam, 1655, of which M. Morgand had an uncut copy,
-measuring a hundred and forty-three millimetres, in 1878. The Benzon
-copy sold in 1875 for three thousand two hundred and fifty-five francs.
-
-It is to be remarked that the Elzevirs frequently avoided dating or even
-signing their books, for reasons easy to comprehend. Publishing numerous
-works, they were afraid of compromising themselves in the eyes of the
-powerful, and they let them go forth without any trade mark. These
-artists in typography were, besides, the most prudent and subtle of men.
-Working at a time when bookselling had become an acknowledged commerce,
-and a trade requiring all the skill and resources of others, they wisely
-availed themselves of these, gathering for themselves honour and profit
-without having done more than seize their opportunity. Employing the
-characters of Claude Garamond, of James Sanlecques, and the papers of
-Angoulême, M. Didot thence claims them as French publishers.
-
-In France the Elzevirs had no rivals; but a fashion was introduced from
-the end of the sixteenth century of associating together publishers in
-the production of important and costly books. There were, among others,
-the company of the "Grand Navire" in 1610, of the "Source" in 1622, and
-of the "Soleil" in 1629. In 1631 several publishers united and founded a
-second company of the "Grand Navire." These were the two Cramoisys,
-Sebastian and Gabriel, Denis Béchet, John Branchu, Denis Moreau, Claude
-Sonnius, and Denis Thierry. The associates took a ship as their mark,
-but without putting their names on the masts, as the original company of
-the "Grand Navire" had done. They published, at common expense and
-divided profits, great works, of which each one of them had the right of
-sale, but of course reserving to themselves the right to publish such
-others as they pleased. Sebastian Cramoisy passes as the chief, the
-moral director of another company, formed to publish the Fathers of the
-Church, with the royal types, a company affiliated to the "Grand Navire"
-and signed in 1638 by Denis Moreau, Gille Morel, Stephen Richer, Claude
-Sonnius, and Gabriel Cramoisy. But as regards their personal works, if
-they had neither the perfection nor the aspect of those of Froben,
-Aldus, the Estiennes, or even of Plantin, they at least surpassed the
-French books of the time. Formerly syndic of the Corporation in 1602,
-twenty-nine years before the constitution of the "Grand Navire,"
-Cramoisy was besides sheriff of Paris, and he exercised his trade in a
-shop in the Rue St. Jacques which had been that of Father Nivelle, the
-_doyen_ of booksellers, who died in 1603 at the age of eighty years.
-
-The position of Cramoisy made it natural for Cardinal de Richelieu to
-fix his eyes on him for the direction of the Royal Printing House. This
-establishment, founded by the King in 1640, was installed within the
-Louvre, in a long series of rooms which formed a workshop without rival
-in the world. Sublet des Noyers was named superintendent, Trichet du
-Fresne corrector; and under this triple direction the presses commenced
-to work. The first book was the _Imitation de Jésus-Christ_, dated 1640,
-folio, a fine book enough, but not to be compared to the Elzevir
-editions. The types used in this book are attributed to Claude Garamond,
-founder of the sixteenth century, to whom are due the Greek types of
-Francis I. With the Royal Printing House, as often happens with State
-enterprises, the cost was great, and the return nothing. Only a few
-years after its foundation it had swallowed up nearly 400,000 livres, a
-very heavy sum for a badly balanced treasury; it had produced sixty or
-seventy volumes of moderate value; and after Cramoisy the management was
-so little in earnest that it turned the workshops into a stable, called
-"the little stable of the King," at the commencement of the eighteenth
-century.
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 74.--Plate taken from the _Lumière du Cloistre_.
-Copper plate by Callot.]
-
-To return to the artists of the Book under Louis XIII. and Cardinal
-Richelieu, we must go back a little, before the foundation of the Royal
-Printing House, and we shall find the French school of illustration at a
-time when Callot was giving it a vigorous lift and trying to do away
-with its affected and hard style. It must be acknowledged that Callot
-was not a vignettist, a special designer; his art aimed higher, and
-ordinarily succeeded better; yet he did not disdain frontispieces, and
-made them for the _Coustumier de Lorraine_, the _Harpalice_ of
-Bracciolini, and for a crowd of others of which the enumeration would be
-tedious. Certain of his works passed into Italy, where they raised a
-little the debased level of the Book. Then he adorned several works with
-etchings, among them the _Lumière du Cloistre_, published by Francis
-Langlois 1646. It was one of the symbolic and sententious works with
-which the public taste is never satiated, and a kind of guide for the
-priest. At the bottom of the little etching here given, representing
-birds falling from a tree, we read,--
-
-  "Ses petits hors du nid le courbeau jette en bas,
-  Lorsque par leur blancheur ils lui sont dissemblables.
-  Le bon prélat de mesme au cloistre n'admet pas
-  Ceux qui n'ont rien d'esgal à ses moeurs vénérables."
-
-Callot also made another set of emblems on the life of the Virgin Mary,
-and published in 1620 a series of prints in quarto for the tragedy of
-_Soliman_ of Bonarelli, for the account of Cecconnelli. France imposed
-herself on fallen Italy, she got her works dispersed there, and if an
-engraver arose there, he did not disdain to consecrate himself to
-France. Witness Della Bella, who went from Italy to France, where he was
-taken under the protection of Cardinal Richelieu. It was about the time
-of the establishment of the Royal Printing House, and it was expected
-that employment would be found at once for him.
-
-Callot was the model chosen by the young Italian artist, and this choice
-might have been less happy. Della Bella took from his master the
-philosophic vein, the drollery of design, which he exercised at first in
-humorous frontispieces, among others that of Scarron's works, where nine
-fish-women, taking the place of the Muses, dance around the poet. But he
-passed from gay and pleasant to severe, and made large pages of
-architecture for serious titles. In 1649 he designed the plates for the
-large and undigested volume of Valdor on Louis XIII., published by
-Antoine Estienne at the Royal Printing House. His success was not there;
-Della Bella was a painter of groups, of ornaments, of subjects somewhat
-heavy and overdrawn, but which, after numerous transformations, opened a
-new way to the vignettists of the eighteenth century.
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 75.--Title of the _Manière Universelle_, by
-Desargues, in 1643, by Abraham Bosse.]
-
-With Abraham Bosse the decoration of the Book took a considerable
-extension. Numerous and charming ornamented letters, heads of pages, and
-tailpieces appear. There are few artists that have done so much as he
-for graceful illustration and harmony between the vignette and the
-printed page. His prodigious fecundity made him attempt every style; and
-after the gaieties of the print in which he laughed with his
-contemporaries, he adopted a grave air to trace more severe subjects on
-copper. However, the book entitled _La Manière Universelle_, by
-Desargues, with numerous geometrical figures and an agreeable
-frontispiece, bearing the dedication to the Seigneur de Noyers,
-superintendent of the Royal Printing House, was a critical work, in
-which Bosse, under a serious standard, did not spare an enemy. We do not
-bear ill-will to the artist, however, for the following year he
-published fourteen plates for the Suetonius printed at the Louvre.
-
-He successively designed plates for the _Histoire de St. Louis_,
-numerous vignettes for pious books, figures for the _Pucelle_ of
-Chapelain and for the _Larcins de la Fortune_. He was always himself,
-refined and ingenious, whether in the most barren or the most
-complicated subjects.
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 76.--Print by Abraham Bosse representing the
-booksellers of the Palace under Louis XIII.]
-
-He has left us in a celebrated print a representation of a bookseller's
-shop of his time. It is for us an interesting page, in which is shown
-simply and rather naïvely the picturesque side of these stores, with the
-dealer and his wife selling new works to their customers. The shop is
-compact, and very much like the open-air stalls of to-day; posting-bills
-above the shelves indicate the "new books;" and if the inscriptions
-given by Bosse be credited, the Palace dealer offered his books with
-singular eclecticism: Boccaccio, Aretin, the _Astrée_ of D'Urfé, the
-Bible, and Machiavelli. In the hands of the woman is seen the romance
-_Marianne_:
-
-  "Icy les cavaliers les plus adventureux
-  En lisant les romans s'animent à combattre;
-  Et de leur passion les amants langoureux
-  Flattent les mouvements par des vers de théâtre,"
-
-says the text of Bosse. What was commonly done then is still done,
-shopping and rummaging the stalls, and those of the Palace were
-attractive.
-
-If we credit Sauval, the great number of booksellers, in the middle of
-the century, was due to the wits of the Hotel de Rambouillet. The
-passion for novelty, for recent works, had produced that quantity of
-publishers, he says, that we have seen on the Pont Neuf, and that we
-still see to-day at the Palace and the University, but of which the
-number is so multiplied in all these places that in the Palace they
-count more than other dealers; and as to the neighbourhood of the
-University, they are obliged, in order to lodge the rest, to extend the
-ancient bounds from St. Yves to the river (Sauval, _Antiquités de
-Paris_, viii., 354).
-
-In fact, each year saw an increase in the number of publishers in
-corporation, with syndicate and adjuncts. Under the reign of Louis
-XIII., the single year 1610 had fifty to take rank, and among them
-Antoine Vitré, who was to become the most illustrious of his
-contemporaries. But, as there were no more than six printers, it may be
-inferred that all the rest were booksellers, in the true sense of the
-word, of those who encumbered afterwards the great _salle_ of which
-Sauval speaks. Antoine Vitré was syndic in May, 1643, on the accession
-of Louis XIV. He had four adjuncts. With him the Book marked the solemn
-style that the commencement of the century had given to it. Royal
-printer for the Oriental languages from 1621, he undertook a Syriac
-work, the first that was attempted in Paris. The project of a Polyglot
-Bible gave him the idea of acquiring for the King the Oriental
-manuscripts and matrices of Savary de Brèves. The King left to him the
-care of negotiating the business, but did not reimburse him without
-numerous difficulties, in the midst of which the printer was made to
-lose the means of conveniently continuing his trade. The advocate Le Jay
-charging himself with the enormous expenses necessitated by the Polyglot
-Bible, it was composed in the hope that Cardinal Richelieu would pay the
-cost. He was willing to do so, but required that his name should figure
-on the book; and as Le Jay, an independent man, formally opposed it,
-Vitré met with ill-will from the Minister, which increased from day to
-day. In 1645 the impression was finished, but Le Jay was ruined, and if
-we admire the paper, the type, and the extraordinary size of the nine
-volumes of the Polyglot Bible, we find in it so many faults, errors, and
-misprints that it has fallen to nearly nothing, hardly being worth its
-binding. There were terrible mortifications in the business, and Vitré
-had to submit to them more than any one. Nevertheless he did not let his
-presses stand still, and he published successively Arabic, Turkish, and
-Persian works. His action against the Savary heirs, as representing the
-King, in the acquisition mentioned above, continued also after the
-impression of the Bible, and hindered his progress. He struggled on; and
-the assembly of clergy, of which he was the printer, sought to help him
-out of his difficulties. The matter being once terminated, the Cardinal
-being dead, and Vitré having been named by Colbert director of the Royal
-Printing House in place of Cramoisy, he died in his turn, and was later
-accused of having destroyed the types and matrices of the Polyglot
-Bible, so that they should not be used after him. This fable, long
-accredited, has since been ascertained to be false, for the punches and
-matrices passed to the Royal Library, thence to the Royal Printing
-House, reorganised in 1691.
-
-Antoine Vitré, in spite of his misfortunes, was a great personage. He
-was painted by Champagne and engraved by Morin, as was Richelieu
-himself. The portrait was reproduced in the book of M. Delaborde, _La
-Gravure_ (p. 189). Such was the man whom we meet at the beginning of the
-reign of Louis XIV. as syndic of booksellers; and it was by no means a
-sinecure, a canonry giving honour and profit, quite the other way. With
-the Draconian rules on the subject, the syndic assumed a heavy burden
-towards the King, as well as towards his kinsmen. Religious quarrels
-envenomed questions, and the revocation of the Edict of Nantes was to
-have for its immediate corollary new and more severe royal ordinances.
-
-The reign of Louis XIV. saw the zenith of engraving with the burin, but
-not that of printing or illustration. Doubtless it would be puerile to
-pretend that typography had not made any material progress; it had done
-so in engraving and in composition; work was done more quickly, because
-the presses had been made more perfect. But the wise harmony of the old
-printers, their sure taste, even in their old irregular blocks, was no
-longer there to form a graceful and charming whole, which is to modern
-precision as a picture by Van Eyck is to a chromo-lithograph. Under
-Louis XIV., titles became regular, following, as we have said above, and
-modelling themselves on, the affected and peruked people who read them.
-All art entered on this path of sublimity and grandeur. The painter Le
-Brun is the highest exponent of this false Olympus, where an heroic pose
-became necessary for the most humble movements. Made popular by
-engraving by Pesne, Audran, Poilly, Edelinck, and a hundred others, this
-tendency overran everything: art and industry, painting and tapestry,
-illustration and typography itself. All was grand, in reverse of other
-times, when all was small and mean. The embellishments of the Book were
-full of gods in perukes and goddesses in armour, Louis XIV. as Apollo,
-as the sun illuminating the world. "Nec pluribus impar" was not the
-device of one man; it was the mighty and glorious cry of a whole people,
-from great to small, from the sublime painter to the modest printer.
-
-Ordinarily these exaggerations are not useful to the arts. Here they
-were. But, for the matter that specially occupies us, it does not appear
-that the Book was much advanced. It approached a marvellous epoch of a
-delicate and graceful art; but it did not find its form; it dragged
-painfully after the Plantinian works, heavily throwing its etchings and
-burins in the middle of texts, gross and in bad taste. Yet taste in
-literature had an onward tendency; Molière and La Fontaine produced on
-their contemporaries the effect that in our day the naturalists have
-produced on the romanticists; but this was not for long. Majesty
-recovered its rights with Bossuet, Boileau, and the others.
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 77.--Tailpiece of Sébastien Leclerc for the
-_Promenade de St. Germain_.]
-
-Sébastien Leclerc was one of the rare artists of the end of the
-seventeenth century who dreamed of the vignette in the midst of this
-invasion of pompous commonplace. Successor of Callot in manner, induced
-by the publishers, he began this style with a romance of La Calprenède,
-and continued with the _Promenade de St. Germain_ of Louis le Laboureur,
-bailie of Montmorency, of whom Boileau said such curious things. This is
-one of the rarest books of Leclerc, and we reproduce one of the pages,
-with a charming tailpiece, which comes very near those of the eighteenth
-century. There was, moreover, a charm in this ingenious designer; he
-adorned the works of his contemporaries with graceful vignettes and
-decorations full of suppleness. It may be believed, besides, that he did
-not remain behind his _confrères_ in figure composition or allegorical
-and Divine emblems. His art did not throw off the errors of the existing
-school; he was content not to copy any one and to make his works truly
-his own. Such were, for example, the vignettes of the _Histoire de
-Turenne_, where the heads of the chapters, the ornamented letters, and
-the tailpieces, harmoniously agree, and make the book, a little heavy in
-impression, a most agreeable work. Leclerc then found himself ready to
-design vignettes for the works of Racine for the publisher, Claude
-Barbin, another name frequently encountered in Boileau. The title of
-Vol. ii. merits attention.
-
-The same year of this last publication, 1676, Sébastien Leclerc
-illustrated the "Metamorphoses" of Ovid for Benserade, the engraving of
-which cost the King more than 10,000 livres. Thus adorned, the book had
-not a bad appearance, but a satirist of the time, Hardin very probably,
-made on it this quatrain:--
-
-  "Mais quant à moi j'en trouve tout fort beau:
-  Papier, dorure, images, caractère,
-  Hormis les vers qu'il fallait laisser faire
-                  A La Fontaine."
-
-It may be imagined what an engraver could produce working from 1650 and
-dying in 1715, that is, a life of work the longest that could be hoped
-for. Leclerc was the absolute contemporary of the King. He died, like
-him, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, leaving work widely
-scattered among books, funeral orations, and placards. After the example
-of Callot and Bosse, he did not disdain satire. One of his prettiest
-vignettes served to illustrate some pamphlet of Richesource against the
-journalists of his time; it represents a dandy of about 1679 offering
-his gazette.
-
-By the side of this unrivalled antagonist it is permitted to place
-Lepautre, twenty years older than Leclerc, but whose studies had been
-principally on architecture. In the moments that he left his special
-work he devoted himself to frontispieces and vignettes; nevertheless,
-although he had before him the charming designs of Leclerc, he confined
-himself to a cold and hard manner, keeping, besides, as much as possible
-to titles, in which his particular talent could find scope. He designed
-also the Chartreux Missal of 1679, the _Gallia Christiana_ after Marot,
-the _Dioptrique Oculaire_ of P. Chérubin, engraved by Edelinck, and a
-thousand other works of small repute.
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 78.--Small figure of Sébastien Leclerc for
-Richesource's pamphlet.]
-
-Very different was Francis Chauveau, who, without having the delicacy of
-Sébastien Leclerc or his art of arrangement, treated at least with grace
-little figures and illustrations. Certainly there is an enormous
-distance between these correct and commonplace engraved plates and the
-delightful wood engravings of the time of Geoffroy Tory, for example.
-But, be their worth what it may, they suited very well; and even with
-Molière they did not make such a bad figure. Chauveau was associated
-with many of the works of Leclerc, who caused him often to be less
-heavy, inasmuch as Leclerc corrected in engraving many of his
-compositions. It was so with Molière, and still more with Racine in the
-plate of the _Plaideurs_, in which Chauveau revealed himself a precursor
-of the eighteenth century. Unhappily he did not always follow this
-manner. Successively, and with various luck, he illustrated _Alaric_,
-_Andromaque_, and the "Metamorphoses" of Ovid for Benserade, with
-Leclerc; the _Pucelle_ of Chapelain, and the _Tragédies_ of Racine, to
-which Le Brun did not disdain to put his hand.
-
-In short, the connecting link between the beginning of the seventeenth
-and that of the eighteenth century in the development of illustration is
-Sébastien Leclerc. He had known the artists of the first period; he was
-to see at his death appear one of the precursors of the vignettists of
-the following century, Claude Gillot. Thanks to him, overburdened titles
-and unskilful vignettes underwent a gradual transformation. In the
-delicacy and tenuity of his designs may be seen the dominant note of the
-eighteenth century, coquetry, and Choffard is divined. He was nearly the
-only one who did not fall into the exaggerations of the engravers of the
-time; he kept beside them without touching them, and preciously
-preserved his own well-accentuated personality. By the smallness and
-slenderness of his figures, Leclerc recalls somewhat the school of
-Fontainebleau; but he is above all the reflection of Callot, a Lorrainer
-like himself.
-
-In Holland, a Frenchman, Bernard Picart, son of Stephen and pupil of
-Leclerc, was making a great name as an illustrator. He established
-himself as a print-seller at Amsterdam at the sign of "L'Etoile," and
-successively designed vignettes for many works, among others the
-Boileau of 1718. His vignettes and tailpieces, without possessing either
-the spirit of Leclerc or the grace of the eighteenth century, express an
-ingenious and inventive art that had broken with the strained traditions
-of preceding epochs.
-
-From these two artists the decoration of the Book rapidly advanced. The
-form is found, and charming designers are not wanting to apply it.
-
-The troubled state of England during the greater part of the seventeenth
-century no doubt accounts for the fact that the art of the Book made but
-very little progress. Theological controversies, the persecutions by the
-Puritans, and, above all, the great civil war and its antecedents and
-results, gave rise to a flood of publications of an ephemeral kind,
-which from their nature were hurriedly produced; and there was little
-room for pure literature and art. In the early part of the century,
-under the influence which Elizabeth left, and which James fostered, some
-important works were issued, with finely engraved illustrations; but
-wood engraving declined further and further, until it was artistically
-dead, to be revived in the next century. The works of the numerous poets
-and dramatists were printed in quarto, and collected editions of them in
-folio. Thus were issued the works of Shakespeare, first collected by
-Jaggard and Blount, 1623, folio, with an engraved portrait by Droeshout,
-the faithfulness of which was vouched in an opposite page of verse
-signed by Ben Jonson. "Don Quixote" first appeared in an English dress
-in 1612-20, published by E. Blount in quarto; and Jaggard, Blount's
-partner in the Shakespeare, published Boccaccio's "Decameron," in two
-volumes folio, 1620. Among other notable works of the early part of the
-century were Drayton's "Polyolbion," 1613; Chapman's Homer, 1611-15,
-folio, three volumes; Lord Bacon, whose essays and other single
-publications appeared in the seventeenth, to be collected as his "Works"
-in the next century; and William Prynne, whose _Histrio Mastrix_, 1633,
-so offended Charles I. by its references to the Queen and the court
-ladies, that the author had to undergo a severe and degrading
-punishment. Many of these works were illustrated with meritorious
-engravings on steel and copper by W. Hollar, P. Lombart, W. Marshall,
-Hole, W. Pass, W. Faithorne, and R. Vaughan. So that here were all the
-materials for the foundation of an English school, to be cruelly broken
-up shortly afterwards by the distractions of civil warfare.
-
-In 1611 Robert Barker first printed the Authorised Version of the Holy
-Bible, which has been more often reprinted than any other book, and
-which exists to this day as the great standard of the English language.
-
-The taste for books of travel which arose in the last century was
-largely increased by the voyages and discoveries of the English in North
-America and the subsequent Puritan exodus there. These early accounts of
-Virginia and New England, many of which are tracts of a few leaves only,
-now command fabulous prices. The great collection of voyages under the
-name of "Purchas: his Pilgrimes," was printed in five folio volumes,
-1625-6, while De Bry, Hulsius, and Linschoten were enriching the world
-with their collections of travels, printed in Germany and Holland. All
-of these works were adorned with finely engraved plates, those to
-"Purchas" being engraved by Elstrack, and, besides, it had a famous map
-of the world, engraved by Hondius.
-
-The controversial spirit engendered by the religious quarrels of the
-century and by the great civil war gave incessant work to the printers;
-and the many tracts and pamphlets thus produced were frequently
-illustrated by rude and coarse woodcuts, of no value from an artistic
-point of view, but curious from the indications they afford of the
-costumes and manners of the time.
-
-The first edition of Walton's "Angler" was printed by R. Marriott in
-1653, 16mo, with plates in the text, engraved on steel by Lombart.
-Butler's "Hudibras" appeared in 1663-78, and Milton's "Paradise Lost" in
-1667, quarto. Fuller's "Worthies of England" was printed 1662, folio. We
-have roughly mentioned the principal English books of the century, and
-next approach the revival of literature and art in the eighteenth
-century.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER V.
-
-THE BOOK IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.
-
-     The regency--Publishers at the beginning of the eighteenth
-     century--Illustrators in France; Gillot--The school of Watteau and
-     Boucher--Cars--The younger Cochin; his principal works in
-     vignettes--French art in England; Gravelot--Eisen--Choffard--The
-     _Baisers_ of Dorat; the _Contes_ of La Fontaine--the publisher
-     Cazin and the special literature of the eighteenth century--The
-     younger Moreau and his illustrations--The Revolution--The school of
-     David--Duplessis-Bertaux--The Book in Germany; Chodowiecki--In
-     England; Boydell and French artists--Caslon and
-     Baskerville--English books with illustrations--Wood engraving in
-     the eighteenth century; the Papillons--Printing offices in the
-     eighteenth century.
-
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 79.--Letter by Cochin for the _Mémoires d'
-Artillerie_ of Suvirey de St. Remy.]
-
-Like experience has shown us in our time, but in another manner, the
-beginning of the eighteenth century produced, in the manners and tastes
-of the French, an unconscious but tenacious reaction. It seemed as if
-the conceptions of romanticism had lasted long enough, and that the
-cycle of Middle Age chevaliers had passed away, and that a return to
-what is called nature was effected in literature and art. At the death
-of Louis XIV., Olympus and its gods, majestic poses and suns, had become
-wearisome. By a little half-open door, gaiety escaped from its prison
-and fled. For the Book that door was the hand of Sébastien Leclerc.
-
-The ancient school was replaced. Constrained during three quarters of a
-century, French manners began to be joyous under the regency of the Duc
-d'Orleans. If the representatives of another age still lived, if Rigaud
-always painted his portraits in peruke, there were new-comers, enlivened
-by the new fashions, less solemn and more bewitching. Le Brun was then
-far in the past, and as amusing to the ladies of the regency as are now
-to us the fashions of the Second Empire.
-
-The Book, after its manner, followed the movement, and gradually found
-the elements of its decoration in the tendencies of the day. Small sizes
-were multiplied, types showed elegance, and vignettes became more and
-more agreeable and intellectual. Amateurs had their _ex-libris_
-engraved. The smallest pamphlets were covered with ornamental letters,
-vignettes, and tailpieces, already very clever. Costume also, in its
-shorter and lighter form, gave to designers a means of agreeably
-composing a page of illustration and disseminating fancy in the figures.
-These revolutions worked themselves simply from day to day, as taste
-became more pronounced and exacting.
-
-The commerce of the Book was still extending from the end of the
-preceding century; and if the number of printers was limited and
-arrested by certain somewhat hard laws, production in Paris was
-enormous. Among regulations that weighed most heavily on publishers
-figured the obligation put upon them by the ordinance of 1713 to
-deposit eight copies of illustrated books. In 1725 the King issued other
-regulations to affirm the rights of the university against the
-corporation, forcing the masters to assist in a body at the processions
-of the Sorbonne and to offer on the Day of the Purification a candle to
-the rector. In spite of this ordinance, more religious than useful to
-commerce, the fashion of vignettes increased. The principal shops were
-searched, as they are still, for novelties; the Rue St. Jacques and the
-Quai des Augustins, where they were grouped, were resorted to. The most
-important booksellers in 1727 were Coignard, the Barbous--who essayed
-afterwards, with Lengley Dufresnoy, to copy the Elzevirs,--Cavalier,
-Robustel, Fournier, Ballard, and D'Houry. Of the two last, D'Houry
-printed the calendars, and Ballard had the privilege for music. Another,
-Leonord, published the books of the Dauphin. At these and other
-publishers', recent works were examined, those who did not buy gave
-their advice and took ideas, and so fashion slowly formed itself. It was
-thus that Houdart de la Motte published with G. Dupuis in 1719 a
-collection of fables, with illustrations of Claude Gillot, which was the
-talk at the booksellers'.
-
-In this book all was original: the author, who had had, five years
-before, the eccentric idea of translating the Iliad without knowing a
-word of Greek; the text, a kind of imitation of La Fontaine, without
-salt or savour; the size, quarto, admirably printed by Dupuis, in the
-Rue St. Jacques, with plates by Coypel, Massé, and, above all, the
-charming vignettes of Gillot, the most pleasing and clever of all his
-collaborators, a sort of Callot fallen into the eighteenth century, and
-who ought to take the first place by birthright. Gillot has been
-called, not without reason, "the last pagan of the Renaissance;" and
-this pagan had the honour to give us Watteau.
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 80.--Vignette by Gillot for the _Chien et le Chat_,
-fable by Houdart de la Motte, in 1719.]
-
-The Count de Caylus tells the story. Gillot had quitted the pencil for
-the etching needle on seeing the work of his pupil. He had no reason to
-complain; his pictures were of no value, and his prints gave other
-artists the idea of imitating them. The whole French school of the
-eighteenth century may have had its origin in this forgotten book,
-illustrated by the master of Watteau. In fact, in the manner of the
-little etching here given we may easily perceive the coquetry and
-affectation that were later the dominant tone of vignettes. For, it may
-well be said, the graceful, feminine, and arch manner of which we speak
-was, above all, conventional and false. In opposition to the designers
-and engravers of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth century,
-who reproduced naturally scenes of daily life in ideal conceptions, it
-came, through the moral education of the artists, that they put forth
-the ideal in the most ordinary things of life. Shepherds were no longer
-the gross, rustic peasants that we find in primitive Flemish paintings
-or in the "Hours" of Simon Vostre; they were coxcombs, pomaded and
-adorned with ribbons, playing the bagpipes, and making love to the
-shepherdesses of the court.
-
-At first it was Watteau who influenced all the engravers in the pretty
-and the smart; Boucher did the rest; and fatally the Book followed, and
-followed impetuously, surpassing, if possible, the painted works. If the
-severe poses, the grave touch, of the preceding century are no longer
-found, they often go a little far in the contrary sense. It may be well
-said here that the arts are ordinarily the result of the manners of an
-epoch. The system of Law was not without influence on the entire
-eighteenth century, by the terrible manner in which he upset fortunes,
-awoke appetites, gave rein to aspirations hitherto held in check. Claude
-Gillot, the designer, was one of the first victims of the Scotch banker;
-he lost his fortune on the Exchange; but who may say what his artistic
-ambition dreamed of in the midst of all these disorders? One thing is
-certain: that Watteau, his pupil, broke off very short with the style of
-the seventeenth century.
-
-Laurent Cars was the engraver who multiplied the compositions of
-Boucher, and made them the fashion. He engraved also, after the painter
-of shepherds and nymphs, illustrations to Molière, the most agreeable
-that there are for style and spirit. In engraving certain works of
-Lemoyne, Cars did not completely desert the ancient school. He appears
-at the beginning of the eighteenth century as if divided between two
-manners each equally possible to him.
-
-The work of these engravers was almost exclusively in etching, biting
-with acid a copper plate covered with varnish, on which the drawing was
-made by means of a point. This process, always previously used for
-sketches, served also for finishing vignettes, which up to then had been
-finished by the burin. The suppleness of the work was greater, and the
-artist remained more himself than he could be with the stiff cutting
-instrument of the seventeenth century.
-
-The sizes of books had not yet all come to octavo or duodecimo. The
-works of Molière published by Prault in 1734 in six volumes quarto,
-under the direction of Marc Antoine Joly, give the idea of an important
-work, not at all of theatrical pieces. To tell the truth, these somewhat
-exaggerated dimensions allow artists more room for illustration; later,
-when smaller forms predominated, text and engravings were so compressed
-that they were not always clear and readable to every eye; but the
-quarto was not graceful, it was not in harmony with the finikin, the
-pastoral pieces, then presented, and it had to disappear as a current
-size in illustrated publications.
-
-The class of artisans employed on the Book is not identical in the
-eighteenth century with that of printers and publishers. In the
-beginning, as we have seen, the cutters of wood blocks and the printers
-were often the same people, preparing their characters or their blocks,
-and afterwards putting them under the press. Large printing offices had
-very quickly changed that. Each particular work had its special workman.
-Typography had its type-founders, compositors, forwarders, inkers, and
-pressmen. In the eighteenth century this was complicated by designers,
-engravers, plate-printers, and these different professions occupied
-themselves on the Book in manipulating the sheets in their turn. In the
-midst of this crowd, the designers and engravers, esteemed as was their
-collaboration, were not the most honoured. Their homes often reflected
-the effect of their life as clever artists, quick to spend the money
-earned during the week; and we shall have occasion to name some of the
-more miserable among them.
-
-The booksellers, on the contrary, had become great personages. In the
-preceding chapter we have seen Cramoisy and Vitré, to name only them,
-acquire the greatest honours, the latter painted by Philip de Champagne,
-with many others lords of the court. In the eighteenth century there
-were Brunet, Ballard, Mariette, Chardon, Didot, and a host of others,
-during the time of Watteau, Boucher, and Cars, of which we shall shortly
-speak; and these several publishers had houses of their own, and
-furnished shops and printing offices with the best apparatus. Saved from
-falling into negligences by royal regulations on printing, they composed
-with admirable characters, on paper of the first order, imperishable
-works; and, usual consequence of their high situation, they paid the
-artists badly charged with their work. It would be long and tedious to
-enter into this matter in detail. They made progress by slow degrees,
-and in good time they marvellously united copper plate engraving to
-printed text, so marvellously, that in comparing their works to the wood
-blocks of the sixteenth century, it may be asked which of the two styles
-is superior in elegance and good taste.
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 81.--Vignette for _Daphnis et Chloe_ by Cochin, for
-Coustelier's edition.]
-
-One of the ancestors of this group of vignettists was the younger
-Cochin, who had engraved the plate of the monks in the fables of
-Houdart, illustrated by Gillot. Cochin, in spite of his passion for
-allegory and his very marked taste for affectation, gave, it may be
-said, with the designer-engraver St. Aubin, an enormous impulse to the
-art of adorning books. From the beginning of his career he worked for
-the publishers, composing frontispieces, ornamented letters, and
-tailpieces, or transferring to copper the drawings of others. Singular
-type of artist, besides, educated, well brought up, epicurean and
-spendthrift, friend of great lords, and protected by Madame de
-Pompadour. When he travelled in Italy with her young brother Abel
-Poisson, Cochin did everything, was ready at the least request,
-inventing curious menus, giving representations of fêtes, and yet
-finding the time to decorate books and design vignettes profusely.
-
-He worked chiefly for Jombert, a sort of learned bookseller, King's
-printer for the artillery, who dates from July, 1736. Jombert was
-visited by painters. He gave little private soirées, which Cochin
-attended, and where he daily made numerous friends. It was in this
-house, of so special a character, and, it may be said, so little
-artistic at first sight, that Cochin invented his best frontispieces,
-among them that of the _Calcul Différentiel_, that of the _Astronomie
-Physique_, and the plates of the _Méthode de Dessin_, after Boucher. He
-was one of the first to produce engraved titles, with which the
-publisher Prault ornamented his dainty volumes, and which were imitated,
-up to the end of the eighteenth century, by all the illustrators who
-followed. In that to the works of Madame Deshoulières the letter itself
-is engraved. Since then the open letter has been copied in typography.
-These vignettes were used many times by publishers, sometimes simply
-effacing the inscription, sometimes reproducing the original design by
-a different artist. The boy with the swan had decorated in 1744 a
-"Jerusalem Delivered" in Italian, by the same publisher, Prault; it was
-then engraved by Aveline. Fessard engraved the second plate, which is
-here reproduced.
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 82.--Title-page engraved by Fessard after Cochin for
-the works of Madame Deshoulières, 1747.]
-
-Nearly all the frontispieces of the Book with vignettes of the
-eighteenth century preserve this arrangement: an ornamented and draped
-border, with garlands of roses, symbols, and cupids, in the middle the
-title, in red and black, composed in open letter, often a scroll with
-the address of the publisher, but rarely a mark. It was the time of
-little winged cupids, goddesses, and gods. The goddesses were the
-favourites of the kings, Madame de Pompadour or the princesses, but
-rarely the virtuous Marie Leczinska, too homely and too much ignored to
-tempt the artists; the kings or the princes were the gods.
-
-After Jombert, Prault, and Coustellier, Cochin worked for François
-Didot, syndic of the printers, for whom he prepared a set of
-illustrations to Molière. Unfortunately Didot died in 1757, and the
-project fell with him. Of the work of Cochin there only remains the set
-of _Tartufe_ etchings in octavo.
-
-In the vortex into which he was plunged, he successively illustrated the
-works of Rousseau, published at Brussels, quarto; those of Boileau,
-published by David and Durand, octavo; and Henault's "History of
-France," in the same size, with numerous vignettes. One of these should
-be noted in a book treating of printing; it is that in which Cochin
-pretends to show to his contemporaries the interior of a workshop in
-1470. Without doubt the sketch of this print was taken in one of the
-houses frequented by him--at Jombert's, Didot's, or David and
-Durand's--for that room in which compositors are working and printed
-sheets drying was not an invention of Cochin, and served to reproduce a
-printing office of the eighteenth century.
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 83.--Vignette taken from P. Corneille's _Théâtre_,
-by Gravelot.]
-
-With Cochin soon worked a number of designers and aqua-fortists, too
-prudent to lose the opportunity. The fashion arrived for books
-beribboned, festooned, and flowered. Hubert François Gravelot had
-carried to London this style of new works, which he knew how to
-decorate, in his manner, better than any one, with letters, figures, and
-tailpieces. He did not engrave much himself, leaving this work to lesser
-artists, and contenting himself with subtle invention and graceful
-subjects. With Eisen, Cochin, and Moreau, he is the French artist in the
-sense of the time, free, bold, and ingenious, but perhaps a little out
-of place in England. He published his plates to the "Decameron" in 1757,
-one of the most curious of his sets of plates, and a hundred various
-vignettes. On his return to France he designed the _Théâtre_ of P.
-Corneille, from which the _Galerie de Palais_ is here reproduced, on
-account of the illustration of bookselling which it gives. In 1764 the
-large _salon_ of the Palace was still, as in the time of Abraham Bosse,
-a place where shops were fitted up and the new books discussed. Side by
-side with the dressmakers and merchants of every category, the
-bookseller offers to his customer the recent products of Parisian
-presses. Certain works were sold under cover and not shown; there is
-here something to pique the curiosity of unoccupied young men who
-strolled about and prolonged their stay in the galleries.
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 84.--Border designed by Choffard in 1758.]
-
-Eisen has a simplicity, a good taste, and a special and singularly
-perfect economy of artistic effect combined with typography. It appears
-hard that the designer had no consultative voice in the choice of
-impression and disposition of the Book. The union of the two forces,
-the vignette and the composition, is so close that it may be believed
-one was made for the other, neither venturing to assert itself. In the
-pretty and elaborate inventions of the artists reigned a lackadaisical
-affectation that was delightfully becoming; the rock-work, which it
-still had, suited admirably the borders of the first page. The _Lettres
-d'une Peruvienne_ has a very agreeable title, but little different, on
-the whole, from that of Madame Deshoulières, by Cochin. It is the same
-with the _Lettres Turques_, published at Amsterdam in 1750, and
-generally in all the frontispieces signed by him. As to the other
-decorations of the Book, there were also a number of ingenious artists,
-confusing cupids and flowers, imposing blazons, delighting in playing
-with accumulated difficulties. Under this assuredly involuntary but real
-direction, publications attained proportions of luxury and coquetry
-until then unknown. The volume of _Baisers_ of Dorat would not have
-lived but for Eisen and the delightful fancies with which he adorned it.
-
-At the same time, we find Choffard, another designer and etcher of much
-repute, and sought after by the booksellers. Under his pencil the
-vignette became a _chef-d'oeuvre_, the tailpiece was a delightful
-compound of judicious and sportive ornament, the taste for which grew
-more and more. From delicate foliage are suspended roses, shepherds'
-pipes, lyres, and zithers. With the zephyrs scrolls or ribbons float,
-carried by winged cupids. The initial letters are real pictures, of such
-fineness and precision that the difficulties of their reproduction
-prevent us from putting them before the reader.
-
-When the _fermiers généraux_, those great amateur financiers of the last
-century, conceived the idea of an edition of the _Contes_ of La Fontaine
-at their expense, their eyes naturally fell upon the artists best
-prepared to illustrate the inimitable fancies of the great poet, Eisen
-and Choffard. The first had for his task the composition of the plates,
-Choffard the general decoration. Ficquet was added for the portrait of
-the _bonhomme_ La Fontaine--Ficquet, whose specialty in this _genre_ was
-dazzling in its delicacy and spirit; Diderot wrote a short introduction;
-the composition was confided to a printer of the first order, and it was
-put on sale by Barbou.
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 85.--Vignette by Eisen for the Quiproquo in the
-Contes of La Fontaine, in the edition of the fermiers généraux.]
-
-It is not a book to be recommended from a moral point of view, but the
-typographical art, joined to that of designers and engravers, never
-obtained a more complete success: the size in octavo, the impression
-clear, united with the dimensions of the plates in a harmonious
-elegance, well calculated to please the three rich personages and the
-joyous amateurs to whom the _Contes_ address themselves. True, Eisen has
-dressed the greater part of the characters in the costume of his time,
-which is a little hurtful to one's feelings to-day; it may be imagined,
-however, that it was La Fontaine who was mistaken, so that these
-delicate, risky tales appear to be created for the seigneurs of the time
-of Louis XV.
-
-All the special literature sought for then by rich people had not the
-value of the _Contes_. There was at Rheims a person, who has to-day
-become the _mode_, as he was in the time of Louis XVI., who sold under
-cover a quantity of licentious books of the better kind, adorned with
-figures by Eisen, Marillier, or Cochin; this was Cazin, an artist in his
-way, but whose good name suffered under a scandalous trial. An order of
-the Council of State in 1764 enjoined him to cease his trade in the
-Place Royale at Rheims, where he sold his particular merchandise. It
-appears that the sentence was not without appeal, for we find Cazin at
-Paris about 1785. He was one of those who were ruined by the Revolution,
-after he had popularised the editions known as _Petits Formats_, printed
-by Valade, of Paris.
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 86.--Card of the publisher Prault, uncle by marriage
-of Moreau le Jeune.]
-
-We have come to the most beautiful illustrated books of the eighteenth
-century, and to the illustrious artists of whom we shall speak in good
-time should be added the younger Moreau and St. Aubin, the former nephew
-by marriage of the publisher Prault, and therefrom a decorator of the
-Book, the other thrown by Gravelot into full work, and rapidly becoming
-the most subtle and adroit of the etchers of the time. Moreau did not
-wait long after his marriage before setting to work. He began with
-ornaments destined for the _Histoire de France_ of President Henault;
-then he composed, in his own personal manner, titles and tailpieces for
-his uncle. In the Book he is the propagator of garlands of roses, which
-he grouped with an ideal grace; he twined them in the borders of his
-frontispieces, and put them judiciously in his tailpieces. He excelled
-in inventing subjects referring to the text which were not commonplace
-ornaments suitable for anything. The tailpiece on p. 202, taken from the
-works of Molière, brings forcibly to mind the _Médecin malgre Lui_, with
-its wood-cutter unmercifully beaten with sticks and muffled in a
-scientific robe. It is the same with other illustrations, that cannot
-be displaced from the position assigned to them by the artist without
-disappointment.
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 87.--Tailpiece from the _Médecin malgre Lui_, by
-Moreau le Jeune.]
-
-The year 1773, which saw the publication by De Bret of the works of
-Molière, may perhaps be considered as that in which the French Book of
-the eighteenth century reached its culminating point. M. de Laborde,
-first valet de chambre of the King and governor of the Louvre, published
-with De Lormel, printer to the Academy of Music, his celebrated
-collection of _Chansons_, dedicated to the young Dauphiness Marie
-Antoinette, and partly illustrated by the younger Moreau. The work is
-exquisite, of powerful yet simple grace. The sentimental note of the
-century was struck in it, the insipid love of shepherdesses there
-tenderly sighed, and the designer has delightfully rendered this arch
-side of the pastoral song.
-
-Our task does not permit us to linger over the works of this prodigious
-and charming artist, but we must mention his inimitable plates to J. J.
-Rousseau, the finest and most agreeable of his compositions and
-vignettes, also his _chef-d'oeuvre_, the _Histoire du Costume_.
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 88.--Vignette of the "Pardon Obtenu," designed by
-Moreau le Jeune, for Laborde's _Chansons_, in 1773.]
-
-As evidencing the activity of French artists of the Book in the
-eighteenth century, we cite the number of works illustrated by the
-respective artists enumerated in the last edition of M. H. Cohen's
-valuable _Guide de l'Amateur de Livres à Gravures du XVIII^e
-Siècle_:--
-
-  Aliamet, 34.
-  Audran, 16.
-  Aveline, 33.
-  Baquoy, 87.
-  Basan, 9.
-  Binet, 48.
-  Borel, 29.
-  Boucher, 47.
-  Bovinet, 34.
-  Cars, 13.
-  Chedel, 21.
-  Chenu, 18.
-  Choffard, 50.
-  Cochin, 143.
-  Coypel, 24.
-  Dambrun, 77.
-  Delaunay, N., 95.
-  Delignon, 50.
-  Delvaux, 66.
-  Duclos, 49.
-  Duflos, 56.
-  Dunker, 15.
-  Duplessis-Bertaux, 22.
-  Eisen, 135.
-  Elluin, 14.
-  Fessard, E., 69.
-  Ficquet, 14.
-  Flipart, 24.
-  Fokke, 14.
-  Folkema, 17.
-  Fragonard, 10.
-  Freudeberg, 7.
-  Gaucher, 55.
-  Ghendt, 78.
-  Godefroy, 29.
-  Gravelot, 86.
-  Grignion, 13.
-  Gutenberg, 20.
-  Halbou, 58.
-  Helman, 22.
-  Ingouf, 18.
-  Langlois, 18.
-  Le Barbier, 54.
-  Le Bas, 39.
-  Lebran, 21.
-  Leclerc, 11.
-  Legrand, 45.
-  Lemire, 77.
-  Lempereur, 68.
-  Leveau, 31.
-  Longueil, 97.
-  Marillier, 116.
-  Martinet, 27.
-  Masquelier, 42.
-  Massard, 40.
-  Monnet, 67.
-  Monsiau, 22.
-  Moreau, 138.
-  Née, 48.
-  Pasquier, 18.
-  Patas, 65.
-  Pauquet, 23.
-  Petit, 23.
-  Picart, 62.
-  Ponce, 65.
-  Prévost, 40.
-  Prud'hon, 14.
-  Queverdo, 54.
-  Rigaud, 18.
-  Roger, 17.
-  Romanet, 26.
-  Rousseau, 24.
-  St. Aubin, 70.
-  Scotin, 27.
-  Sève, 29.
-  Simonet, 83.
-  Tardieu, 64.
-  Tilliard, 15.
-  Trière, 39.
-
-Doubtless some of these ascriptions are for frontispieces only, but as a
-list of the principal book illustrators of the time, and as showing the
-measure of their popularity, this table is of much interest.
-
-With the Revolution the decline of the Book arrives, as that of all the
-arts. Moreau, friend of David, had become affected by the new ideas and
-the burlesque renaissance of Greek and Roman art. He made his apology on
-the altar of the gods, and engraved portraits on wood to punish himself
-for having painted the elegancies of fallen tyrants. At this game,
-nerve, as well as suppleness, was lost; and if he had had only the
-artistic knack of the Revolution, his daughter, married to Charles
-Vernet, could not have written of him, "That which can be most admired
-is, at the same time, the fecundity and flexibility of Moreau's talent,
-that marvellous facility of conceiving a picturesque scene and disposing
-it in an interesting and truthful manner in the least extended space."
-This was true before, but after?
-
-In spite of his passion for the ideas and men of the Revolution, Moreau
-found himself at the end of his resources. Renouard, the publisher,
-received him as he had received St. Aubin, to whom he advanced sum
-after sum to prevent him dying of hunger. Like most of his
-contemporaries, Moreau, pressed by want, "took, quitted, and retook the
-cuirass and the hair-shirt." He had drawn for everybody: for Louis XVI.,
-for the Republic, for Napoleon I.
-
-The worst of it is that after his designs for Ovid, Molière, and
-Rousseau, dating from the reign of Louis XVI., he should have done them
-again in 1804, 1806, and 1808. The difference was great, even probably
-for his publishers, Renouard and Dupréel. It does not appear that the
-pontiff of the new school, David, knew of his distress; and Moreau
-succumbed in 1814 to a cancerous scirrhus of the right arm, forgotten
-and in the greatest misery.
-
-We have passed a little quickly to the end of the century because it is
-of no importance to name each of the publishers and artists, but only to
-sketch briefly their tastes or their manner. We have not dwelt long on
-the engravers so called, because of their number; but their dexterity
-remains proverbial; they handled etching with extreme suppleness, and
-often interpreted the drawings of illustrators in remitting them to the
-needle. Many of these, not to say all, made use themselves of the
-etching needle, St. Aubin for example, who knew how to give to the work
-of others his personal mark and distinction.
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 89.--Title designed by Moreau le Jeune in 1769 for
-the publisher Prault.]
-
-The Revolution passed over some among those that it ruined, and, as
-stated above, they followed the movement, and lost themselves in the
-school of David. It was Duplessis-Bertaux who, after having furnished to
-Cazin, the publisher, vignettes for his _Recueil des Meilleurs Contes
-en Vers_, 1778, and many other books, after having worked for Didot,
-devoted himself to patriotic engraving and to the reproduction of scenes
-of the Revolution. When he published his _Tableaux Historiques_, in
-three volumes folio, adorned with nearly two hundred large plates, it
-was under the Consulate, that is to say far from the time when the work
-was begun. Renouvier assures us, with his exclusive disdain for the
-eighteenth century, that Duplessis-Bertaux was a mystifier, and that his
-scenes of the Revolution were a hoax, "in the kind of spirit in vogue
-under the Directory." The truth is that the artist, in place of being a
-cheerful Callot, as might be thought from his manner of engraving, so
-like that of the Lorraine artist, was imbued with the emphatic and
-exaggerated impressions of the first Republic, its _sans-culottes_ in
-the poses of the Sabines and its _tricoteuses_ apeing Penelope.
-
-The immense artistic advance made in France in the eighteenth century in
-the manufacture and illustration of the Book made itself felt throughout
-Europe. In Germany, Chodowiecki, born at Dantzic of a family of
-apothecaries, developed his talent from ornamenting the boxes of his
-father, and from 1758 to 1794 he designed numerous plates for books and
-almanacs, a little heavy in engraving, but singularly clever in
-composition. There were a few others also designing, and Kilian,
-Folkema, and Ridinger produced some fine engravings, but the Book did
-not make so much progress in Germany as in France and England.
-
-In England a vast improvement was manifested. Fine types were cast by
-Baskerville and Caslon; printing machines were perfected. The
-illustration of books by engraved plates was in the first half of the
-century almost entirely done by foreigners, but an English school was
-arising, which attained perfection in the latter half of the eighteenth
-and first half of the nineteenth century. Wood engraving also, which,
-with the exception of blocks for head and tailpieces, had become almost
-a lost art, was revived by Bewick, to become later one of the chief
-adornments of the Book.
-
-Before 1716 English printers obtained their best founts of type from
-Holland, but the establishment of the Caslon foundry rendered them
-independent. William Caslon, the first great English type-founder, was
-born 1692, and died 1766. The foundry still exists, pre-eminent in the
-beauty of its characters. Baskerville established a foundry about 1750,
-and printed at Birmingham with his own types a number of extremely
-beautiful books. The impetus given to fine printing by these two men
-rapidly spread itself, and laid the foundation of the perfection which
-English book-making reached.
-
-As mentioned above, Gravelot illustrated many English books in the early
-part of the century. He designed a set of plates to Shakespeare in 12mo,
-1740, and another in quarto, 1744, besides numerous frontispieces and
-other plates in all kinds of books. Among other foreigners who engraved
-for English publishers were Grignion, Kip, Van der Gucht, Houbraken, and
-Bartolozzi. Bartolozzi, who was very prolific in the production of
-engraved plates, may perhaps be called the founder of that great English
-school of engraving which arose with the establishment of the Royal
-Academy in 1769 and the encouragement given by Alderman Boydell.
-Houbraken and Vertue engraved a set of fine portraits in folio for
-Rapin's "History of England," 1736; William Hogarth designed plates for
-Butler's "Hudibras," 1744; and among other curiosities of English
-engraving before 1750 were Sturt's edition of the Common Prayer,
-entirely engraved on copper plates, 1717, and an edition of Horace
-entirely engraved by Pine, 1733. That the taste for illustrated books
-soon grew to be great is evidenced by the publication of such expensive
-works as Boydell's edition of Shakespeare, in nine volumes folio,
-commenced in 1791, and adorned with a hundred plates from pictures
-specially commissioned by the spirited publisher; Claude's _Liber
-Veritatis_, with three hundred engravings by Richard Earlom 1777, Sir
-Robert Strange's engravings of fifty historical prints about 1750,
-collections of views in Great Britain by Kip, Buck, and Boydell;
-Holbein's "Collection of Portraits" 1792, a hundred and fifty plates to
-Shakespeare engraved by S. and E. Harding 1793, all of which cost great
-sums to produce, and greatly contributed to the elevation of public
-taste. Among the artists of the latter half of the century who
-contributed to the decoration of the Book are Thomas Stothard, whose
-very beautiful designs, extending into the next century, excelled those
-of all his contemporaries in their grace and spirit; Robert Smirke, best
-known by his plates for Shakespeare, "Don Quixote," and "Gil Blas;"
-Burney; and Richard Westall. It may be said generally that the English
-books of the eighteenth century were of a more solid character than the
-French, although English art, especially in the decoration of the Book,
-owes much to French initiation. It is curious to read now the opinion of
-a contemporary French engraver on English art. Choffard, in the preface
-to Basan's _Dictionnaire_ 1767, wrote, "They" (the English), "having
-been supported by some foreign talent, are trying to create talent among
-themselves; but they have not seized the flame of genius that vivifies
-all art in France."
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 90.--Tailpiece engraved on wood by John Baptist
-Papillon (before 1766).]
-
-However, what had become of engraving by cutting in reverse, the figure
-in relief, from which printing could be done? It had, we may think,
-nearly disappeared in the midst of the continued invasion of the burin
-and etching. It only appeared from time to time in head and tailpieces,
-remaining purely typographical and lost in other decorations. There were
-always wood engravers, not very clever, capable only of working simple
-lines without charm. One of them resolved to resuscitate the art, and
-made various attempts about the end of the reign of Louis XIV. and
-beginning of that of Louis XV. He was named John Papillon, and was born
-at St. Quentin in 1661. His experiments did not go beyond a book of
-prayers, with thirty-six figures in relief after Sébastien Leclerc. His
-son, John Baptist, succeeded him, and continued to engrave without
-ceasing subjects of ornament, letters, often tailpieces, of a good style
-upon the whole, and taking an excellent place in an elaborate book.
-Unfortunately, grace had fled; the processes that the practitioners
-exhibited one after the other were lost; and the Papillons
-reconstituted, we may say, a vanished art. John Baptist also published
-in 1766 a theoretical treatise on wood engraving, abounding in
-historical errors, but in which something to learn may be found if taken
-with discernment. He says in his preface, "Now that excellent work is
-done on copper, wood engraving is neglected, and the use lost of
-designing and cutting the shadows of the pencil on the wood block; most
-of those who work in it have neither design nor taste, and only follow
-their own ideas; it is not astonishing that only very mediocre pieces
-come from their hands, to say nothing stronger; the profound ignorance
-of nearly all who meddle with it contrives more and more to destroy the
-beauties of this art in which many people find neither pleasure nor
-grace. To obviate all this, if it be possible to me, I have undertaken
-to give my precepts and observations to those who wish to apply
-themselves to my engraving."
-
-It was probably the essays of Papillon that provoked curious experiments
-on the part of other wood engravers. Duplat, at the beginning of this
-century, proposed to prepare a relief on stone, and as this would be
-broken under pressure, he invented a mould; that is to say, he took a
-leaden matrix from the stone cutting, and ran a resistant metal into
-this mould, thus obtaining a relief similar to the stone. Renouard, the
-publisher, made the trials; and the younger Moreau made the designs.
-Moreau become an essayer of processes in 1811! One of the plates of La
-Fontaine's _Fables_, published by Renouard in 1812, in two volumes,
-12mo, is here reproduced.
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 91.--Experiment in engraving in relief by Moreau le
-Jeune for Renouard's edition of La Fontaine's _Fables_.]
-
-It appears, however, that the publisher was thwarted by bad printing.
-The printers of Didot or Mame, much as they consecrated all their care
-to it, did not yet know perfect workmanship; they put the most intense
-blacks into fine sheets. The great publishers trusted that better days
-would leave to more clever men the task of perfecting the invention.
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 92.--Portrait of Thomas Bewick.]
-
-Wood engraving owes its revival and almost perfection in England to
-Thomas Bewick, who published his first work in 1770, his "General
-History of Quadrupeds" 1790, and his "Birds" 1797. In these works he not
-only depicted his subjects with the most scrupulous fidelity, but in the
-tailpieces of the several chapters he drew the most quaint, humorous,
-and faithful representations of country life. He, with his brother, John
-Bewick, and their pupils, among whom was Luke Clennell, had an influence
-upon English art and the decoration of the Book in England which exists
-to our day. Not alone with us, for he may be said to have repaid the
-debt which we owed to France for her illustrated books of the eighteenth
-century by stimulating the art of wood engraving, which was practised by
-Tony Johannot and the other illustrators of the nineteenth century.
-
-To return to the eighteenth century, with which this chapter is
-specially occupied, we have said that the Royal Printing House, after
-various fortunes, still existed; and in 1788 it worked, for better or
-for worse, at the Louvre. According to the budget of that year, it cost
-the King 90,000 livres, of which the director had 1,400.
-
-There were, on the other hand, a certain number of official printing
-offices, that of war, for example, which was devoted entirely to the
-work of the Ministry. It was situated at Versailles, and was created in
-1768. It is told of Louis XV. that, being one day in this workshop, he
-found a pair of spectacles, left as if in inadvertence on a printed
-sheet. As his sight was weakening, he took the spectacles and looked
-through them. The sheet was a hyperbolical eulogium composed, as if at
-random, by the director Bertier, in honour of the King. Louis XV.,
-having read the dithyramb, replaced the spectacles, and quietly said,
-"They are too strong; they make objects too large."
-
-Who would believe that at the end of the century of Voltaire and
-Rousseau a craftsman would be found desirous of leading back the
-typographical art to its cradle, and of making xylographs again, under
-the name of polytypes? A German was the original who conceived the plan.
-He obtained an order of council for the establishment of his presses in
-1785, but the same council suppressed them 1st November, 1787. His
-process was to substitute for movable characters a plate of fixed
-letters, and probably engraved.
-
-Another eccentricity of typography at the end of the century was the
-introduction of "logography" by John Walter, the proprietor and printer
-of the _Times_ newspaper, which consisted in casting whole the words in
-most common use, in place of separate letters. The system had soon to be
-abandoned, but the early numbers of the _Times_, which was started
-January 1st, 1785, were printed on it.
-
-In the eighteenth century there was a printing establishment for each of
-the constituted bodies; the King, the Queen, the princes, each had their
-own. The royal lottery occupied a special printing house.
-
-The young inmates of the blind asylum worked under the direction of M.
-Clousier, royal printer. Louis XVI. authorised the celebrated Haüy,
-their master, to allow them to print; and in 1786 they composed an essay
-on the education of the blind. Pierre François Didot was in 1785 printer
-to the Prince, afterwards Louis XVIII.; and he published the _Aventures
-de Télémaque_, in two quarto volumes, from this special printing office.
-
-The English colonies in North America early established printing there,
-their first book, the "Book of Psalms," known as the Bay Psalm Book,
-being dated 1640. By the middle of the eighteenth century literature
-held a strong position in the colonies, the greater part of it being, as
-might be expected, English; but the revolution and subsequent
-establishment of the United States created a national American
-literature, which has flourished to this day. Among the printers of
-North America in the eighteenth century, the most famous was the
-celebrated philosopher Dr. Benjamin Franklin, who served his
-apprenticeship to the printing press in London. He returned to America
-in 1726, and worked as a printer with his brother at Philadelphia.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER VI.
-
-THE BOOK IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
-
-     The Didots and their improvements--The folio Racine--The school of
-     Didot--Fine publications in England and Germany--Literature and art
-     of the Restoration--Romanticism--Wood engraving--Bewick's pupils,
-     Clennell, etc.--The illustrators of romances--The generation of
-     1840--The Book in our days in Europe and America.
-
-
-Political imitators had not been found for the French Revolution in all
-the neighbouring countries of Europe, but its Greco-Roman art
-established itself, and by degrees was introduced into the studios of
-painters and the printing offices. Prud'hon, Gerard, Girodet, and later
-Desenne, without counting the younger Moreau and his contemporaries of
-the older regime, rallied to the new study, forming a school of
-illustrators and vignettists with which the publishers could resolutely
-advance. England followed suit with Flaxman, West, Fuseli, Barry, and a
-crowd of others. Among the publishers the powerful family of the Didots
-took first rank, and its members, at once type-founders, printers,
-booksellers, and _savants_ of the first order, were the best fitted to
-direct an artistic and literary movement. When Napoleon crowned himself
-emperor of the French, the elders of the family had already brought
-about a number of perfections and discoveries in their profession by
-which their workshops had profited. François Ambroise, who died in the
-year of the Empire, had given an exact proportion to types, a free and
-elegant turn, but perhaps too regular and precise to be agreeable. He
-had also invented a press called the _presse à un coup_, in which the
-impression was taken by a single pull instead of being produced by a
-series of successive strikings. His brother, Pierre François, spoken of
-in the preceding chapter, was a type-founder and paper-maker at Essones,
-and counted among his official titles "printer to the Comte de
-Provence," as François Ambroise was to the Comte d'Artois.
-
-Of these two branches equally faithful to typography, Pierre Didot, son
-of François Ambroise, became the head on the death of his father. Born
-in 1760, he had studied his art with passion, and had merited the
-installation of his workshops in the Louvre, where he published a
-celebrated collection known as the Louvre editions, the
-_chef-d'oeuvre_ of which was the works of Racine. The splendid
-execution of this book, in three large folio volumes, was a true
-typographical revolution. Never in any country had scrupulous perfection
-of detail been joined to so masterly a knowledge of disposition and form
-of characters. The great artists of the Davidian school had the honour
-of seeing their drawings reproduced as illustrations, and those named
-above designed the fifty-seven plates with which the edition was
-adorned. Pierre Didot displayed a great affectation in only printing two
-hundred and fifty copies of his irreproachable and marvellous work, of
-which a hundred had proofs of the plates before letters. Published by
-subscription, the ordinary edition was issued at 1,200 francs, and with
-proofs 1,800 francs.
-
-To these superb works Firmin Didot, his brother, added ingenious
-discoveries. Struck with certain difficulties of printing as well as of
-correction, he imagined the welding together of the types of a forme,
-when once obtained without faults, so as to avoid the trouble of new
-composition. This process, useless for books of small number, had a
-capital importance in the case of reimpressions of popular and
-successful works. He named this method stereotype, and from 1799 he
-published a Racine in 18mo by this method; but the originality of the
-method, which he was the first to call stereotype, ended with its name,
-for the process had already been discovered by William Ged, a goldsmith
-of Edinburgh, in 1725, the first book produced in this manner being an
-edition of Sallust, printed in 1744, 8vo, "non typis mobilibus ut vulgo
-fieri solet, sed tabellis seu laminis fusis, excudebat."
-
-This admirably directed house, we may indeed say this school of
-typography, formed with Renouard, Claye, Rignoux, and others, the
-greater number of the French publishers of the middle of the century.
-When the Czar Alexander went to Paris, he wished to do honour to the
-greatest French practitioners in the science of printing, in the persons
-of the brothers Pierre and Firmin Didot. But these were not the only
-ones. The sons of Pierre François, Henri and Pierre François II.--the
-latter specially applied himself to paper-making, under the name of
-Didot St. Leger--followed in the footsteps of their father and uncle.
-Pierre François made at Essones an excellent paper, which he brought to
-the perfection of making it in endless rolls, such as are made to-day
-for rotary machines. Bernardin de St. Pierre retired to Essones about
-the end of the last century, and there married the daughter of Pierre
-François II. It is a curious coincidence that the same village contained
-at once the man whose works at the beginning of the century had so
-extraordinary a success and the great family of printers who had given
-definitive impetus to typographical work. It was in this tranquil circle
-that the author of "Paul and Virginia," at the age of sixty, sought
-repose; that the publication of his book was resolved upon with all the
-luxury due to its success, with admirable type and with plates by
-Prud'hon and others. He added to it the _Chaumière Indienne_, written in
-1790, on the eve of the Terror, which is one of the most delicate novels
-of the time.
-
-The homely and sweet literature of Bernardin de St. Pierre, the heroic
-inventions of Girodet, Gerard, and Chaudet in the Greek or Roman style,
-the clever but severe typography of the Didots--such is the composition
-of the Book at the beginning of the century, and also its avowed
-tendency and good taste. Under Louis XV. the nymphs carried panniers;
-Polyeucte had peruke and sword. It would be unbecoming not to give Juno
-or Venus the head-dress adopted in paintings and vignettes. At the time
-which now occupies us fashion in clothing directed designers also. The
-hair of goddesses was _à la Titus_; the waist was under the arms; golden
-circles were on the brow. Simple mortals walked naked on the roads,
-with plumed casques and superb shields. There were heroes putting forth
-their disproportioned arms, others raising their eyes to heaven in
-impossible attitudes. Such were all the vignettes, from Girodet to the
-humblest, the last, the most forgotten.
-
-It happens, by an oddity of which the cause is vainly sought, that this
-classic and revolutionary school of David identifies itself so well with
-the Napoleonic epoch, then with the people of the Restoration, that it
-seems expressly made for them. At the same time, under Louis XVIII. and
-Charles X. the Romans and Greeks had not the bold carriage of their
-early days; they became more citizenised, and assumed the air of the
-national guards of the kingdom of which later an excessive use was made.
-
-England also had a splendid series of publishers and printers. From
-Boydell, Harding, the Murrays, Fisher; from Bulmer, Bensley, Strahan,
-the Whittinghams, and Hansard, to our day, there has been an unbroken
-and constantly increasing line of clever, practical men, adorning the
-professions to which they devoted their energies, often realising that
-fortune which properly directed energies command. In the first half of
-the century a vast number of splendidly printed books were issued,
-ornamented in the most lavish manner with beautiful illustrations,
-engraved on steel or copper plates, and with delicate woodcuts. Book
-illustration in England may be said now to have reached perfection. When
-the banker-poet Samuel Rogers wished to bring out an illustrated edition
-of his works, he employed the two most capable artists of the time,
-Thomas Stothard and J. M. W. Turner; and they produced an admirable
-series of designs, which were exquisitely engraved by Finden, Goodall,
-and Pye. The work was printed by T. Davidson, in two volumes, octavo:
-the "Italy" in 1830 and the "Poems" in 1834; these two volumes, from the
-perfect harmony of the typography and illustration and their combined
-beauty, may be referred to as the perfection of book-making. A very
-charming series of volumes is found in the "Annuals," "Keepsakes,"
-"Amulets," and similar annual publications, illustrated with beautiful
-steel plates by the best engravers. The splendidly printed and
-illustrated bibliographical works of Dr. T. F. Dibdin may also be
-mentioned. They extend to several volumes, and were printed by Bulmer
-and his successors Nicoll and T. Bensley, illustrated by engraved plates
-and woodcuts by F. C. Lewis and others. H. G. Bohn, besides the fine
-series known as "Bohn's Libraries," numbering over six hundred volumes,
-in every branch of literature, art, and science, published many finely
-illustrated books, and as a bookseller had the largest stock of his day.
-Charles Knight did marvels in popularising literature in his day.
-William Pickering published a long series of very beautiful books, and
-in conjunction with Charles Whittingham, printer, of the far-famed
-Chiswick Press, revived the Aldine or old-faced types; one of the most
-beautiful of his publications was Sir Harris Nicolas's edition of
-Walton's "Angler," in two volumes, imperial octavo, with a very fine set
-of steel plates, designed by Stothard and engraved by Augustus Fox and
-W. J. Cooke, besides engraved vignettes and representations of fish
-drawn by Inskipp.
-
-In Germany perhaps the most remarkable achievement of the century is the
-extraordinary series of volumes of English authors, now (1887) numbering
-2,500, issued by Baron Tauchnitz, of Leipzig, which, although eminently
-popular in their character, are well and tastefully printed. Among the
-most notable of the printing and publishing houses of Germany, many of
-them combining the two trades, are J. G. Cotta, dating from 1640;
-Breitkopf and Härtel, dating from 1719; Justus Perthes, founded 1796; T.
-O. Weigel, 1797; F. A. Brockhaus, 1805; B. G. Teubner, 1811; W.
-Drugulin, 1829; J. J. Weber, 1834, etc. Germany has advanced with
-England and France in fine typography and illustration in their several
-kinds. The modern school of book illustration in Germany undoubtedly has
-its origin in the influence given to it by the designs of the artist
-Adolph Menzel, amongst which a series of two hundred illustrations to
-the works of Frederick the Great, engraved on wood by the Vogels,
-Unzelman and Müller, show him to be one of the most powerful and
-accurate draughtsmen of the century.
-
-To return to France, a new literature arose that was to react against
-the Greek full of Gallicisms; but the movement, in reversing the ancient
-state of things, in wishing to replace antiquity by the Middle Ages, old
-Romans by old French, completely changed the physiognomy of the Book.
-The engraved vignette and the copper plate of the seventeenth and
-eighteenth centuries were to lose their supremacy and to give way to
-etching and wood engraving, also a revival of the Middle Ages.
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 93.--Wood engraving by Clennell after West, for the
-diploma of the Highland Society.]
-
-It is not sufficiently known that wood engraving, after the unfortunate
-attempts of Papillon in France, was restored in England by Thomas
-Bewick, who founded a school, of which, at the commencement of our
-century, Clennell and the brothers Thompson were members. One of the
-Thompsons went to France about the middle of the Restoration, doubtless
-with the hope of profiting by his art, and he offered to the Print
-Department of the National Library the diploma of the Highland Society,
-a large folio wood block, very adroit and very curiously cut, after the
-drawing of the celebrated Benjamin West, and copied from Clennell's
-original block of the same subject. M. Duchesne, then Keeper of the
-Prints, speaks of this last process as of an apparition: "This print
-makes apparent the long-neglected and often reappearing art of wood
-engraving, which, though it could never equal copper engraving,
-nevertheless merits the attention of amateurs when a capable hand is
-exercised upon it." It was, we see, a curiosity then, this relief
-cutting, of which the resurrection was to give an enormous impulse to
-the Book from the facilities of printing and the economies realised by
-the possibility of intercalation in periodicals. In fact, metal printing
-necessitated so much trouble, more for engraving than for the
-impression. With wood blocks surrounded by type the ordinary press
-sufficed. The _Magasin Pittoresque_, which was commenced in 1833, and
-the success of which from the first was very great, was born of these
-new combinations. Before it the _Messager Boiteux_ of Strasbourg and
-other popular almanacs progressed very well with their illustrations on
-wood. A kind of firm of engravers, at the head of which were Best and
-Andrew, undertook the illustrations of the _Magasin Pittoresque_. In a
-few years progress was immense, other publications came into existence,
-and a definitive return was made to the vignette in relief. The French
-illustrated paper preceded our _Illustrated London News_ by nine years.
-
-Lavish use was now made of wood engraving, which had thus been suddenly
-revived in the very midst of the new romantic effervescence, amid a war
-of books, which, in order to please, had above all to captivate the eye,
-reacting at once against the spirit and the art of the Restoration.
-Never before had artists to such an extent taken active part in a purely
-literary warfare. All the fantastic tendencies of young France were
-embodied in the lame and halting lines of the time and similar wretched
-doggerel. Doubtless the leaders of the school did not go quite so far,
-and their reputation even suffered from such theories; but, as always
-happens in such cases, the disciples outstripped their masters.
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 94.--Vignette by Devéria for the _Fiancé de la
-Tombe_.]
-
-The brothers Johannot were the first to join in the fray, under the flag
-of the poets and others of the romantic school, such as Victor Hugo, De
-Vigny, Paul Lacroix, George Sand, and Devéria, most ruthless of
-illustrators. The last-named had designed vignettes on wood, of all
-others, for Baour-Lormian, that is to say for the foe of the new ideas,
-at once the interpreter of Ossian and the bourgeois bard, full of fire
-and fury against everything in turn. The _Légendes, Ballades, et
-Fabliaux_, illustrated by Devéria in 1829, although a sort of compromise
-with the lovesick swains of mediæval times, did not escape the shafts of
-ridicule.
-
-In the midst of this movement the Book became democratic; it was printed
-on sugar-paper for reading-rooms and scullery maids. The generation of
-romancists diffused its paper-covered works, printing a thousand copies
-and selling five hundred with great difficulty. Poets publishing five
-hundred were happy with a sale of two hundred and fifty. Unheard-of
-titles were then needed to catch the eye, ridiculous and ghastly
-frontispieces to tickle the fancy of the riffraff. Paul Lacroix called
-himself the "Bibliophile Jacob," and invented surprising headpieces and
-foolish designs. And then, as in the fifteenth century, as in the old
-times, certain signs become popular with the reading public. In the
-place of the Doctrinals, Complaints, and Disputes, so common in the
-titles of those epochs, new fancies spring up and have their day.
-Eccentric devices recommend romantic trash, in which the assassin's
-dagger, blood, and the horrors of the tomb have replaced the insipid
-fantasies of the fallen regime. Pétrus Borel, the werewolf, a sort of
-historic ghoul prowling about the graveyards, enjoyed a monopoly, as it
-were, of the ghastly titles and contents of this charnel-house
-literature; it was for his _Champavert_, published in 1833, that Gigoux
-composed a kind of Bluebeard surrounded by female skeletons, that opened
-the eyes of publishers to his value as a vignettist.
-
-Although he threw himself soul and body into the romantic movement, the
-young artist did not alone design subjects called "abracadabrants,"
-following the neologism of the time, any more than the booksellers only
-published romances. An attempt was made, by publishing them in parts, to
-still further popularise the old writers at all harmonising with the
-current taste. The publisher Paulin thus issued the _Gil Blas_ of Le
-Sage, with illustrations in the text by the younger Gigoux, of which the
-best was hoped. The history of this celebrated enterprise has been
-written by the artist himself in the curious _Causeries_ published
-recently by him, fifty years after his work on Gil Blas; and this
-interesting view of an epoch already far distant gives us in a few words
-the ordinary economy of these popular impressions in parts.
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 95.--Vignette by John Gigoux for _Gil Blas_.]
-
-It appears that Paulin, publisher in the Rue de Seine, not being very
-well off, had associated himself with a man of business named Dubochet,
-who had before made an enormous fortune with gas. The two represented
-fifteen thousand to twenty thousand francs, and they ordered a hundred
-drawings on wood from the young artist. He set to work with precaution,
-for Dubochet was hard to please, without knowing much about the
-business, and fined the engravers for the least faults. Gigoux set
-himself to give his compositions in simple line, without complicated
-shadows, so as to allow the wood-cutters to preserve a free outline. It
-was nearly the same thing as the process of the old artists of the
-fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, of Vostre and Holbein: true engraving
-in relief. The success of the first sheets was extraordinary; new
-vignettes were ordered from Gigoux; in place of a hundred they wanted
-three hundred, then four hundred; then at the end of the work they
-counted six hundred at least. Money filled the chests of the firm, but
-when the artist claimed a small share of the benefits, they laughed in
-his face.
-
-Properly speaking, it was the first serious attempt at illustration by
-the recovered method of engraving in relief, but it was not the only
-one. Curmer, the publisher of the Rue Richelieu, prepared a Bible in
-1835 and several other volumes, among which were the "Paul and Virginia"
-and the _Chaumière Indienne_ of Bernardin de St. Pierre. He had also
-collected around him a circle of artists that included Wattier, Devéria,
-and Meissonier, who was the most perfect and correct of the designers on
-wood. Meissonier designed very soberly, without effects of light, little
-scenes admirably cut by an engraver named Lavoignat, a master in the
-largest sense of the word. Curmer wrote in 1835 in the preface to one of
-his books, "We hope we have raised a monument to wood engraving. It is
-easy to judge of the resources presented by this art. We are compelled
-to have recourse to England to accomplish our work. Peace to willing
-publishers!"
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 96.--Vignette by Daumier for the _Cholera à Paris_.]
-
-Curmer acknowledges the importance of English specialists in this new
-process for vignettes, and the willing publishers were not wanting; they
-came from all parts. He himself did not stop on the way; he continued
-his work on a large scale; and Charles Blanc was able to say of him
-later, as well as of Furne, "He desired to illustrate books for
-everybody, as the great booksellers of the last century had illustrated
-their rare editions for a small number of privileged persons." But he
-did not always confine himself to wood engraving; he also employed
-etching and lithography. These, requiring separate printing, did not
-make intercalation with the text any easier than engraving with the
-burin; but they served to illustrate periodicals, the _Charivari_ and
-_L'Artiste_, as well as some books, where they replaced the engraved
-plates of the preceding century. At the same time, the latter process
-was not altogether neglected; about 1840 it was revived, and steel was
-used in place of copper, as it better resisted repeated impressions. The
-publisher Furne, while he employed wood engraving, adorned with separate
-plates on steel his better publications. For him worked Raffet, one of
-the romanticists enamoured of the Napoleonic epic, which he had
-popularised, with Charlet and Bellangé, by the pencil, wood, and
-lithography. Raffet had transferred upon wood, as if in play, the three
-hundred and fifty-one vignettes of the _Histoire de Napoléon_, by De
-Norvins, which would to-day suffice for the glory and reputation of many
-artists. In fact, the analytical and inductive spirit of the artist led
-him to leave nothing to the chances of inspiration and commonplace of
-illustration. He laboriously reconstituted, fragment by fragment, the
-physiognomy of the "old army;" and imbued with the perfect science of
-detail, he allowed his pencil full play in bold and luminous inventions,
-where may be seen again, with their peculiar appearance, the heroes of
-other days, the soldiers of the Rhine and Italy, of Austerlitz and
-Waterloo.
-
-A truly lively period was that of 1840, a living and unthinking
-generation. By the side of those great artists of whom we have spoken,
-and who will be more admired some day, there were the fantasists Traviès
-and Daumier, who adorned the illustrated journals with innumerable
-sketches, and Grandville and Gavarni, one caricaturing animals in a
-celebrated book, _Les Animaux Peints par Eux-mêmes_, which is more than
-a _chef-d'oeuvre_; the other coolly studying the vices and faults of
-his time, with the precision of an anatomist, in _Les Anglais Peints par
-Eux-mêmes_ of Labedollière, in the _Diable à Paris_, without counting a
-thousand other works which his penetrating imagination produced.
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 97.--Vignette by Gavarni for _Paris Marié_.]
-
-Presently photography came, which was to reverse completely the
-conditions of illustration of the Book by the numerous means of
-reproduction to which it gave birth. Then wood engraving entered on a
-new phase, a complete transformation of its ordinary terms, under the
-influence of Gustave Doré. Little by little it had been attempted to
-render in relief that which engraved plates only had hitherto done.
-Black, half-tints, lowered tones, were tried where formerly a simple
-line, bold and spirited, signified everything. The house of Hachette,
-founded by one of the normal teachers of the liberal movement, at the
-beginning of the century, was, together with Lahure, the promoter of
-relief so inclusive and practical. The numerous periodicals of these
-publishers spread the taste afar. England, for its part, entered on the
-road, followed by America and Germany. To-day wood engravings have
-reached perfection, finesse, and suppleness; but they are not, properly
-speaking, engravings on wood.
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 98.--Balzac writing his _Contes Drôlatiques_.
-Vignette by Gustave Doré.]
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 99.--Wood block by Bewick, from his "Fables," 1818.
-The fox and the goat.]
-
-We have seen that French publishers were largely indebted to English
-wood engravers for their blocks. The school that was established by
-Bewick and his pupils made enormous progress. From the "Fables,"
-published in 1818, we reproduce an illustration as also a specimen from
-the second volume of the "British Birds." Luke Clennell was one of the
-most distinguished of Bewick's pupils; and he made some excellent
-blocks, among them the illustrations to an edition of Rogers's "Poems"
-(1812), engraved from pen-and-ink drawings by Thomas Stothard. It was
-Stothard's opinion that wood engraving best reproduced pen-and-ink
-drawings. Other pupils of Bewick were J. Jackson, John Thompson, who
-engraved Harvey's beautiful illustrations to Milton and Henderson's
-"History of Wines," S. Williams, Orrin Smith, Robert Branston, and C.
-Nesbit. The most prolific and perhaps the most popular book-illustrator
-of the century in England, was George Cruikshank, who engraved most of
-his own designs on wood, steel, or with the etching needle; the
-catalogue of his works by Mr. G. W. Reid, formerly keeper of the Prints
-in the British Museum, occupies three quarto volumes. The designs of
-"Phiz," as H. K. Browne called himself, largely contributed to the
-popularity of the works of Charles Dickens; and the mere mention of
-Richard Doyle and John Leech will recall the palmy days of _Punch_,
-although both of these artists did excellent work in book illustration.
-From the days of the Bewicks to the present wood engraving has formed
-the most widely used means of illustration in England and the United
-States. Its adaptability to the printing machine renders it admirably
-suited to the production of books in large numbers and at low expense.
-Without it we could not have our _Graphics_ and _Illustrated News_, nor
-the floods of cheap but splendidly illustrated magazines which are
-appearing on both sides of the Atlantic. True, many of these blocks are
-due to the "processes" which photography has made available, but they
-are nevertheless the outcome of wood engraving. We cannot leave this
-subject without mentioning the admirable "Treatise on Wood Engraving,"
-by W. A. Chatto, with numerous illustrations, published originally by H.
-G. Bohn in 1839 and since reprinted.
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 100.--Wood block from Bewick's "British Birds." The
-common duck.]
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 101.--Wood engraving by Clennell, after Stothard,
-for Rogers's Poems, 1812.]
-
-In our days the great Paris publishers have returned to the books of the
-eighteenth century, ornamented with vignettes on copper; many of them
-purely and simply imitate by photographic processes the pretty editions
-of Eisen and Moreau, but they do not merit the name which they bear. As
-to those whose specialty is handsome books with figures by contemporary
-artists, those who always are in the front, as the Mames, Quantins,
-Hachettes, Plons, Jouausts, of France; the Longmans, Murrays,
-Macmillans, Kegan Pauls, Cassells, and Chattos of England; the Harpers,
-Scribners, Lippincotts, and Houghtons of the United States, they are to
-us what the ancients of whom we have spoken were to their
-contemporaries. Now the processes of illustration are without number:
-wood, metal, heliogravure, phototype, and others. And if the mechanical
-means, if the heliogravures, have at present the importance claimed,
-they by no means add to the intrinsic value of wood engravings, but to
-the rapidity and economy of their manufacture. The Book, the true Book,
-has nothing to do with all these inventions, and may well confine itself
-to the burin or the relief block.
-
-But as regards the Book, properly so called, it never was the object of
-more excessive care or of more unfortunate precipitation. It may be
-remarked that works least destined to live in the libraries, those
-thousands of lame pamphlets on questions of small provincial erudition
-or the cap-and-sword romances, are ordinarily the best and most
-carefully printed, in opposition to other more important works composed
-in heads of nails and on worn-out paper. There are in reading-rooms a
-good number of pamphlets that will not be found in fifty years, and will
-be worth their weight in banknotes, even if dirty and tattered, on
-account of their intrinsic value.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER VII.
-
-TYPES, IMPRESSION, PAPER, INK.
-
-
-After this summary, and necessarily very compressed, sketch of the
-general history of the Book, it will not be without importance to place
-some technical information before the reader, to explain as clearly as
-possible the function of the presses, the practical side of typography,
-from the engraving of the character and the founding of types up to the
-binding, taking by the way composition, impression, and collation. Many
-of these operations have been already sketched in the preceding part of
-our work; we have spoken of engraving of the punch, of impression, of
-the thousand details that constitute the typographic art, and the
-knowledge of which is so little diffused. We return to it now, with more
-method, on the different subjects, and shall try to point out the
-principal features.
-
-We have seen in our first chapter what patient researches the discovery
-necessitated for the Mayence printers in the founding of the character
-in matrix. True, the punch and the matrix had existed from time
-immemorial for coins and seals. To engrave in relief a punch of
-material hard enough to strike a resisting metal, and to run into the
-space obtained by this blow a melted alloy, which took at its extremity
-the same form as the punch had given, is, in a few words, the whole
-economy of the process. For the engraving of the punches a sort of burin
-of tempered steel was used, which scooped out the part intended to
-remain white in the letter.
-
-From the beginning the printers themselves engraved their own
-characters. The most ancient, whose constant preoccupation was the
-imitation of manuscript, copied the Gothic letter of ordinary writing.
-Soon afterwards, Jenson, the French refugee at Venice, designed a round
-letter, like that of Sweynheim and Pannartz, the Roman publishers, in
-1467; and his type, absolutely perfect, is used to this day.
-
-In France the introducers of the invention in Paris also imitated the
-Roman, but multiplied abbreviations until they became tedious. We can
-imagine what the engraving of a character could be where so few letters
-stood alone, where lines abridged the nasals; the words _pro_, _pre_,
-figured as in manuscripts; the sign 9 signified _cum_ or _con_ in Latin
-or French words, without reckoning a thousand other rigorous usages.
-This truly perplexing profusion of signs as well as the want of
-precision and clearness in the letter enables us now to recognise the
-first Parisian _incunabula_.[A]
-
-[Footnote A: See above, figs. 10, 11, 12.]
-
-The first English printers used Gothic or black letter. Caxton brought
-his first fount from Cologne, but that which he made afterwards for
-himself was of the same character. Wynkyn de Worde, Pynson, and their
-successors used the same style; and for official publications and Bibles
-the black letter was used up to the seventeenth century.
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 102.--Type-founder in the middle of the sixteenth
-century. Engraving by Jost Amman.]
-
-But the art of the founder-engraver was destined to specialise itself.
-There were artisans in this branch, and among them in France, in the
-fifteenth century, Simon de Collines, who engraved good Roman characters
-about 1480. Later was Claude Garamond, of Paris, who died about 1561, a
-pupil of Geoffroy Tory, the most celebrated of all of them; Tory
-definitely proscribed the Gothic character, of which Vostre and Verard
-had made constant use. Garamond worked in this way, producing with
-microscopical precision new letters, among others those of Robert
-Estienne, the most marvellous and the most distinct. It was he who was
-charged by Francis I. to form the celebrated royal Greek types. He
-assisted in getting up the _Champfleury_ of Geoffroy Tory.
-
-On his death William Lebé succeeded him, and inherited his punches. Lebé
-engraved by preference Hebrew characters, of which he made a specialty.
-His travels to Rome and Venice had given him a singular value in his
-art; and when he died about the end of the century, he was incontestably
-the first cutter of Oriental characters in the whole world. Philip II.
-of Spain had begged him to engrave the letters of the Bible of which
-Plantin had undertaken the impression, and Francis I. had charged him to
-make types for the Estiennes.
-
-At the commencement of the seventeenth century we find James Sanlecque,
-pupil of Lebé, and his son. During this period several women succeeded
-their husbands as type-founders. In the eighteenth century Philip
-Grandjean, an artist who was royal printer to Louis XIV., was keeper of
-the foundry afterwards united, in 1725, to the Royal Printing House;
-Fournier succeeded the Lebés, then P. S. Fournier the younger, who
-engraved with great success. In our days we have seen above the Didots
-themselves working their punches; and one of them, Henri, founded
-microscopical characters for a La Rochefoucauld about the middle of the
-nineteenth century.
-
-We have referred to English type-founders of the eighteenth century in
-Chapter V.
-
-The type, or character used in printing, is a composition of lead and
-pure antimony, which, melted, form a resisting and at the same time
-supple mixture. Lead alone would be crushed, and the first printers
-often suffered in making their experiments. The proportion of the
-mixture is four of lead to one of antimony.
-
-The matrix is combined in such manner that the _eye_--that is to say,
-the part of the character intended to produce the impression--and also
-the shank intended to hold the letter are cast together.
-
-The letters, once founded according to their different forms, are
-afterwards disposed in boxes with compartments, or "cases." These cases
-serve to classify the character by letters, italics, capitals, lower
-case, punctuations, accents, etc.
-
-As we have said, the relation of letters among themselves in the
-composition of a language is called the "fount." For example, it is
-certain that the Italian employs the letter _a_ more than _b_, the
-letter _a_ appearing in nearly every word; a compositor to compose in
-this language should therefore have more of _a_ than of _b_. The
-relation between these two letters and all the others is the "fount." In
-French the proportion of a fount is about 5,000 _a_ for 800 _b_, 3,000
-_c_, 3,000 _d_, 11,000 _e_, etc. The fount varies with the languages. In
-English the proportion is 8,500 _a_ to 1,600 _b_, 3,000 _c_, 4,400 _d_,
-etc.
-
-Before 1789 there were in all twenty different "bodies" of letters that
-bore fantastic names. The "Parisienne" was the smallest size, and the
-"Grosse Nonpareille" the largest. In the sixteenth century a character
-called "Civilité" was invented. It sought to imitate fine cursive
-writing. In the last century this idea was reproduced, and the "Bâtarde
-Coulée," which did not have great success, was made. In English types,
-Joseph Moxon in 1669 had eleven sizes; Caslon in 1734 had thirty-eight.
-
-[Illustration: Specimen of imposition]
-
-When a printer wishes to compose a work, he first decides in which body
-he will print it. His choice made, he places in the compositors'
-"cases"--that is, in the boxes placed before each one of his
-workmen--the chosen character, with its italics, capitals, signs, etc.
-Then he gives them the "copy," that is to say the manuscript of the
-author to be reproduced. The compositors take a "galley" according to
-the size of the book; and, letter by letter, by running their fingers
-through the different cases, they place side by side the words
-laboriously composed, and necessarily presenting their reverse, so that
-they will show their proper face when printed.
-
-The composition terminated, the process of "imposition" takes place.
-This is the disposition by pages in an iron chase, in such manner that
-the sheet of paper shall be printed on both sides, the pages exactly
-following one another.
-
-It will be seen by the specimen on the preceding page that if the two
-sheets be brought together, page 2 of II. will fall exactly opposite
-page 1 of I, page 7 opposite page 8, and so on. Nothing is easier than
-this combination for folio, quarto, or octavo sizes, but as the smaller
-sizes are multiplied even to 128mo, tables are necessary to prevent
-error.
-
-The imposition is completed by building up the composition in a chase by
-means of pieces of metal called "furniture," which regulate the margins.
-When the whole is in proper place, it is squeezed up and adjusted by
-means of sunk reglets. The chase may now be placed under the press
-without fear of the characters falling out or getting mixed.
-
-A pressman takes a "proof" after having rubbed the relief of the
-characters with ink, and on this proof are corrected the author's or
-compositor's faults by indications in the margin by understood signs. By
-this amended proof the compositor amends his faults one by one: leaves
-out superfluous characters, puts turned characters straight, spaces or
-draws closer the lines, etc.
-
-The corrections finished, the time has come to print. In the time of
-Geoffroy Tory this operation was made as we shall explain; it was the
-same before and the same after. Two pressmen have tempered with water
-the tympan, or more elastic part of the carriage, against which will be
-directed in good time the blow from the type; they have also damped the
-paper intended for the impression, so that it may retain the greasy ink
-with which the characters are charged; then the formes are washed before
-putting them under the press.
-
-In the figure which we reproduce, which dates from about 1530, we see
-the workshop of Jodocus Badius, of Asch, father-in-law of two celebrated
-printers, Vascosan and Robert Estienne. The press rolls--that is to say,
-the formes--have been placed in the "carriage," or movable chase, which,
-coming forward, receives the sheet of paper and the ink, and returns
-under the press to receive the blow of the "bar." In the room, lighted
-by two windows, the compositors work. In front one works at the bar,
-while his comrade distributes the ink on the "balls." These balls are
-leather pads, on which the greasy ink, made of lampblack and oil, is
-spread, to more easily rub the forme after each blow. Ordinarily the
-inker had two functions: he prepared the ink, distributed it, and kept
-his eye on the printed sheets to correct faults, blots, and difference
-of tint. Here the workman is simply occupied by the balls. Printed
-sheets and prepared paper are on a table by the side of the press. This
-press is composed of the rolling chase, the tympan, and the "frisket," a
-smaller tympan, which work against one another. The tympan, we have said
-above, receives directly the blow. And it was so for nearly four
-centuries; the mechanical means of our days have a little changed the
-work, but the principle is always the same.
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 103.--Mark of Jodocus Badius of Asch, representing
-the interior of a printing office about 1535. Engraving _à la croix de
-Lorraine_.]
-
-Towards the end of the sixteenth century, a press cost about a hundred
-and twenty-seven crowns, with its diverse utensils, as may be seen in an
-unpublished piece analysed by Dr. Giraudet, of Tours, in a very
-interesting pamphlet: _Une Association d'Imprimeurs et de Libraires de
-Paris Réfugiés à Tours au XVI^e Siècle_. The workshop of Jamet Métayer,
-of Tours, cost a rent of eighty-three crowns--about twenty pounds of
-current money.
-
-Workmen were then paid by the "day;" and it came to be one of the
-expressions then so much used in manual labour, corresponding to the sum
-of the least work of a good workman. M. Ladevèze, printer, thought that
-the "day" represented the work of about twenty thousand Roman or Cicero
-letters employed by a compositor.
-
-With us the "day" of compositors and pressmen is differently calculated.
-The latter have to take a certain number of sheets.
-
-The sheet, composition and press work, cost nearly seven crowns, or
-nearly two pounds. Jamet Métayer paid twenty crowns for four sheets in
-Italics; he demanded three months for the work.
-
-The primitive presses were wooden screw presses, and they so remained
-until the beginning of this century, when Lord Stanhope, a celebrated
-electrician, author, and politician, perfected them and gave his name to
-a new machine. His improvement consisted in that the bar was no longer
-fixed to the vice, but to a cylinder outside. A counter-weight brought
-back the platen at each blow. Pierre Didot had previously made metal
-platens. In 1820 the use of the Stanhope press commenced in France.
-
-England had, besides, taken a preponderating place in typographical
-invention. The printer of the _Times_, John Walter, at the beginning of
-the nineteenth century, seeking to publish his journal quicker,
-associated himself with craftsmen who constructed mechanical presses for
-him. The Didots lost no time, and themselves made improvements.
-
-In 1848, the presses of the _Constitutionnel_, thanks to the application
-of steam, produced twenty thousand papers an hour. In our time there are
-machines that print only on one side, as well as double machines,
-printing both sides at once. The rotary machines, with endless paper,
-take thirty-five thousand impressions an hour. In the newspaper machines
-of Marinoni, the great inventor, the paper is unrolled, printed, cut,
-and folded without leaving the machine, and falls into a place from
-which it is taken ready for the subscriber. The latest perfection of the
-printing press is the Walter press and the rotary machine of R. Hoe and
-Co., of New York, extensively used throughout the world. The elaborate
-book has little to do with these marvellous processes, although in its
-turn it largely benefits by the improvement of the printing machine.
-
-It is apart from our purpose to speak at length on the manufacture of
-paper. It is certain that it was well made before the invention of
-printing, for most of the accounts of the fifteenth century are written
-on linen paper, very resisting and well sized. Later on rags were used
-in this manufacture; and here, in a few words, is how paper was made in
-the mould, or "hand-made" before the invention of machinery for the
-purpose:--
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 104.--Paper-making. Workman engaged on the tub with
-the frame of wires. Engraving by Jost Amman.]
-
-The rags, having been thoroughly cleansed, were put into vats, where
-they were worked up under a beating press until they were reduced to
-pulp. This pulp was thrown into hot water and stirred until the mixture
-was uniformly made. Then a mould of fine wire cloth, fixed upon a wooden
-frame, and having a "deckle" to determine the size of the sheet, was
-taken; in the middle of this frame was disposed, also in brass wire, a
-factory mark, intended to appear in white in the sheet of paper, and
-called the "water mark." This mould was dipped into the vat of pulp and
-drawn out again. After gently shaking it to and fro in a horizontal
-position, the fibres of the pulp became so connected as to form one
-uniform fabric; and the water escaped through the wires. The deckle was
-then removed from the mould, and the sheet of paper turned off upon a
-felt, in a pile with many others, a felt intervening between each sheet,
-and the whole subjected to great pressure, in order to absorb the
-superfluous water. After being dried and pressed without the felts, the
-sheets were dipped into a tub of size and again pressed to remove
-surplus size. This primitive method of paper-making is represented in
-fig. 104, and the same principle is still in use for the production of
-hand-made paper. Machinery has effected many improvements and economies
-in the production of woven paper.
-
-China and Japan have their special paper manufacture. In Japan the
-material employed is the bark of the _morus papifera sativa_.
-
-[Illustration: Balance used by Jenson, at Venice.]
-
-According to their fineness, size, and weight, papers have received
-different names, proceeding from the water mark.
-
-Faust at Mayence used paper marked with a bull's head. Jenson at Venice
-used a balance of which the form varied. This latter came from a mill
-which furnished Vicenza, Perugia, and Rome. Jenson used, besides a
-crown, a cardinal's hat.
-
-The bull's head underwent transformations, it had stars and roses, and
-was special to Germany, and it may sometimes be found in Italy.
-
-The wires and bridges served to determine the size of a book. Looking at
-a folio leaf against the light, the wires will be seen to be
-horizontal, and the bridges vertical. In quarto they will be reversed,
-the paper having been folded in four instead of in two. The bridges
-become horizontal. They return to the vertical in octavo, and so on.
-
-As for ink, it was from the beginning a composition of lampblack and oil
-of different quality and nature, mixed with resin to obtain a greater
-and quicker dryness. Ink for engravings was more carefully made. For
-coloured inks various powders are mixed with the oil and resin, and a
-title in red and black has to go through the press twice: once for the
-red and once for the black.
-
-From the above it can be understood that illustrations in relief can
-easily be introduced into the composition, whether in combination with
-text or in separate pages. Another question presents itself: Did the old
-printers employ casting, or did they print directly from the wood block
-itself? In other words, the block having been cut, did they make with it
-a mould into which melted metal could be poured to obtain a more
-resistant relief? The fact is difficult to elucidate. It appears to-day
-that Simon Vostre, Verard, and others printed relief engravings on
-metal, but were they cut directly or obtained by casting, as they are
-now? It cannot be determined yet.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER VIII.
-
-BOOKBINDING.
-
-     The binding of the first printed books--Ancient German
-     bindings--Binding in the time of Louis XII.--Italian
-     bindings--Aldus--Maioli--Grolier--Francis I.--Henri II. and Diane
-     de Poitiers--Catherine de Medicis--Henri III.--The Eves--The
-     "fanfares"--Louis XIII.--Le Gascon--Florimond Badier--Louis
-     XIV.--Morocco leathers--Cramoisy--The bindings of the time of Louis
-     XIV.--The regency--Pasdeloup--The
-     Deromes--Dubuisson--Thouvenin--Lesné--The nineteenth
-     century--English binders--Roger Payne--Francis Bedford.
-
-
-Leading the reader now towards the final perfection of the Book:
-printing, which had stirred up and reversed so many things, created, so
-to speak, the art of binding. Previously the binder was simply a workman
-sewing together the leaves of a manuscript, with no science or device
-but to clasp the whole together solidly with cord and string. As luxury
-increased the old binder was no longer thought of. On the wooden boards
-which closed the Book, jewellers encrusted their wares, lavishing ivory
-and precious stones to the taste of the amateur or the bookseller.
-Generally these works covered books of precious miniatures, the
-_Horoe_, or manuscripts that were deemed worthy of such magnificent
-clothing, rarely copies without importance. Printing at once disordered
-the tribe of copyists as well as the binders did jewellers. The demand
-increasing, rich bindings were soon abandoned, and each bookseller
-applied himself to the work, or at least covered in his own house books
-intended for sale. The fashion was not then to expose for sale, as now,
-unbound books. Purchasers wanted an article easy to handle, and which
-they were not obliged to return for ulterior embellishment.
-
-So to the public were presented the works laboriously composed by
-Gutenberg, Schoeffer, and Fust, somewhat after the manner of
-manuscripts, which they pretended to imitate, with their solid wooden
-boards covered with pig or calfskin. At the four corners, copper nails,
-with large heads, prevented rubbing against the shelves of the bookcase,
-for at that time books were ranged on their sides, and not as they are
-to-day. We must return to the bibliomaniac of the "Ship of Fools" to get
-an idea of these depositories; before him may be seen ranged on a desk
-large folios, with nails on their sides, in the shelves, so defying the
-dust, in place of being placed upright on their edges, which rendered
-them liable to spots and stains. (See fig. 23.)
-
-Unhappily the wooden sides had in themselves a germ of destruction, the
-worm, capable first of reducing the sides to powder and then ravaging
-the body of the work, the ligatures and cords. Certain preparations
-destroy the insect, but the precaution often has no effect, and it is
-thus that the disappearance of volumes formerly so abundant, but almost
-impossible to find now, may be explained.
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 105.--Bookbinder's shop in the sixteenth century.
-Engraving by Jost Amman.]
-
-From the beginning the operations of the binder were what they still
-are, except for improvements. They consist in the collation of the
-sheets of a book, folding them, beating them to bring them together and
-give them cohesion, and sewing them, first together, then on the cords
-or strings, which form the five or six bands seen on the backs.
-Primitively these cords were united to the wooden boards, and over both
-was placed a resistant skin, on which from relief or metal engravings
-were struck the most pleasing decorative subjects. Pigskin, white and
-fine, lent itself, especially among the Germans, to these fine
-editions; and although they were issued in great number, the wooden
-boards have not permitted them all to exist in our time.
-
-The most ancient that we are able to cite are German works of the time
-of Louis XI.; they are very strong and coarse. The cords in them form an
-enormous and massive projection. The inside of the board was often
-without lining of paper or stuff. In the case of fine editions a sombre
-velvet was sometimes used, such as Verard used to bind the books of the
-father of Francis I., as we have before said.
-
-Art did not enter into these works of preservation until about the end
-of the fifteenth century, with arms and emblems. At the beginning of the
-sixteenth century, some bindings were ornamented for Louis XII. and the
-Queen, Anne de Bretagne; but not more than five or six specimens remain.
-They are of coarse aspect. The workman who tooled the binding here
-reproduced from the curious example of M. Dutuit, of Rouen, has thrown
-his subjects one upon another. Arms, porcupines, ermines, are treated so
-as to be confusing, and form a medley that is not pleasing. In recalling
-the delightful borders of Vostre and Pigouchet, contemporaries of this
-mediocre work, it is astonishing to see the degree of inferiority
-reached by a profession that should be inspired by graceful subjects of
-decoration.
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 106.--Binding for Louis XII. Collection of M.
-Dutuit, of Rouen.]
-
-It happened that France again found in Italy masters capable of
-revealing secrets of composition and arrangement to enable her to strike
-out a new road. The Italian wars would not have had these artistic
-results if it had not been for the enormous sums that they swallowed up.
-The curious part of the enterprise was that a war treasurer, a
-financier, employed by the French kings in these expeditions, through
-his relations of taste and friendship with the Alduses of Venice,
-brought to France the love of sumptuous bindings, of editions superbly
-clothed. He was named Jean Grolier, that bibliophile of the sixteenth
-century, who was, above all others, even King Francis, the first to
-appreciate the art of binding. It is not too much to say art, for if
-better had not been done before, it may safely be said that nothing
-better has been done since; and the books of Grolier remain as the most
-perfect and most admirable types of this kind of decoration.
-
-Born of an Italian family established at Lyons, where most of his
-relatives did a great business, Jean Grolier had the good fortune to
-succeed his father, Stephen Grolier, treasurer of the Duke of Milan. He
-became in his turn Minister of Finances, and was called to accompany the
-kings in their expeditions in Italy. The situation of the treasurers
-during these campaigns was important; they handled the pence levied with
-great trouble in the cities of France "for making war." Many abused
-their trust, and were punished, and among others the Lallemants, whom
-documents show us to have been in connection with Grolier, and who
-suffered, with Semblançay, the most terrible trials of the time.
-
-Italian art gave then a free course in the decoration of books. Of the
-interior we have spoken in our first chapters on the wood engravings;
-for the exterior, the cover of the volume, foliage, golden flowers
-worked with a hot iron, and polychromatic compartments obtained by
-coloured pastes were multiplied. Thus was produced on the outside that
-which it was not sought to obtain on the inside, the variation of tints
-so select among the Italians, and so forsaken since the invention of
-printing. In the midst of these literary men was a lover of books and
-fine connoisseur who, not content with choosing the best editions, such
-as those of Ferrara, Venice, and Basle, bound them superbly, with
-compartments of admirable tone, and had his name and device inscribed on
-the sides in the fashion of the time. He was named Thomas Maioli, and
-following the custom of the amateurs of the time, he offered the
-enjoyment of his library to his friends. "Tho. Maioli et amicorum," he
-inscribed, as did later Grolier, as also did others, but he somewhat
-modified the enthusiasm of his friendship by a sceptical device,
-"Ingratis servire nephas," which might very well be the cry of the owner
-of books betrayed by his borrowers.
-
-Maioli did not alone use these devices; he had also a macaronic phrase
-of which the sense is not very clear: "Inimici mei mea michi, non me
-michi." He also sometimes used his monogram, which was composed of all
-the letters of his name.
-
-The relations of Grolier with this unknown and mysterious bibliophile,
-whose name is not always found outside his volumes, are not doubtful.
-Brunet possessed a volume that had belonged to Maioli and had passed
-through the hands of Grolier. What better proof could be wished of the
-communion of ideas and tastes between the two collectors?
-
-But these amateurs were not alone. Beside them were princes and great
-lords, lay and ecclesiastic. From the commencement of the sixteenth
-century bookbinding had received an enormous impulse from the tastes and
-the predilections for these lofty fancies. And it cannot be ascribed to
-the simple skill of the workmen experimenting in that line. In the
-century that saw Italian artists occupied in making designs for mounted
-plates and painting beautiful ladies, the courtesans of Venice could not
-be alarmed at finding them painting models for bindings, with
-compartments of varied tone and style. Maioli affected white on a dark
-background, that is to say on a background of dark leather. He made
-scrolls of foliage in white or clear paste with a very happy effect.
-
-This was the time when Grolier travelled in Italy, in the suite of the
-French, and when he began his collections. He had adopted as his
-heraldic emblem the gooseberry bush, which in French came very near to
-his name--_groseillier_; and his motto was "Nec herba nec arbor"
-("Neither tree nor herb"), explicative of the moderation of his wealth.
-He was soon in connection with the Alduses, and through them with the
-principal learned men and binders of the time, for it was not in the
-offices of the Manutiuses that could be found workmen, like those of the
-Chamber of Accounts in France, obliged to swear that they did not know
-how to read. The master was not hindered by details of difference of
-language, and it followed that his workmen understood Greek and Latin,
-for he often gave them instruction in those languages. How far off these
-erudite and conscientious workmen appear to-day!
-
-Following the fashion, Grolier put his name on the upper side of his
-books--"Jo. Grolierii et amicorum"--in gold letters, and on the other
-side a pious motto, the sense of which was a hope often uttered by the
-financiers of the sixteenth century, imprisoned and hung every instant:
-"Portio mea, Domine, sit in terra viventium." Generally all the Grolier
-books which came from the Alduses have the name on the upper side and
-the motto on the other side; the title was placed above the name, and
-often disposed in rows. Some large volumes had the cover ornamented with
-an architectural design, like the Jamblichus of the Libri collection,
-which had on the front the façade of a temple, with the title in rows on
-the door. This volume was printed by Aldus in 1516, and probably
-decorated by him for the account of the great French amateur.
-
-Jean Grolier is said to have himself designed some of the subjects of
-his ornaments, and their perfection indicates an active and enlightened
-supervision. On his return to France, where he had a house near the
-Porte de Bucy, he was put in relation with Geoffroy Tory, the artist
-best fitted to understand him, and who was at once painter, engraver,
-printer, and binder. It was there that, in the leisure of his financial
-functions, between two projects of revictualling the forts of Outre
-Seine and Yonne, Grolier invented combinations, sought interlacings, and
-laid out foliage. Tory himself teaches us these works in combination. He
-invented antique letters for Grolier, he tells us in his _Champfleury_.
-It was for him, too, that he interwove so finely his compartments for
-binding, and that he reproduced the delightful ornaments of his books of
-hours in golden scrolls.
-
-As we have said, Grolier placed his titles on the sides of his books on
-account of the arrangement of the works on the shelves of the library
-where they were laid. For this reason also the back was neglected, and
-no ornament used upon it; thick and heavy with its projecting bands,
-without decoration between the bands, this part of the bound volume was
-a kind of waste in a splendidly cultivated garden. The profusion of
-books brought about a revolution. There was no longer room to place on
-their sides the innumerable books that were produced; they were then
-placed on their edges, as now, and the back also was decorated. For this
-the bands were made to disappear, and replaced by decorative subjects in
-compartments like the sides. Then with Grolier the bands reappeared, and
-the title was placed between them, as it still is.
-
-The books of Grolier have been divided, according to their production,
-in four or five principal classes, in which they may always be placed.
-First were the works ornamented in compartments, gilt, with scrolls in
-full gold; then the same with the scrolls _azurés_, that is to say
-equally gilt, but having parallel lines like the _azure_ of heraldry.
-Following comes the school of Geoffroy Tory, with gilt compartments in
-the style of the great French decorator; last the polychromatic
-bindings, in which, by the aid of colour or mastic, the alternating
-tones are mixed. Grolier also had some mosaic bindings, composed of
-little pieces of leather connected by incrustation or paste, pure
-Italian bindings; but these were not numerous, especially if compared
-with those conceived in the manner of Geoffroy Tory.
-
-One of these latter works is here reproduced from one of the beautiful
-books in the collection of M. Dutuit. This copy has the back flat, and
-the interlacings of the decoration are most complicated and clever.
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 107.--Binding for Grolier in the collection of M.
-Dutuit.]
-
-Grolier got his Levant moroccos through the dealers of Venice, to make
-sure of the material he employed.
-
-Born in 1479, the Treasurer-general of Outre Seine lived until 1565. In
-1563 an original manuscript shows him much occupied with finance at over
-eighty-four years of age; but his passion for bindings had cooled down,
-for few books signed with his name are found the manufacture of which
-could descend to the son of Henri II. After great trials, after having
-seen Semblançay suffer at Montfaucon, John Lallemand beheaded, and
-himself having come nearly to losing life and fortune at one blow,
-Grolier passed away quietly in his house, having collected most of the
-fine books of the time and many curious medals. Christopher de Thou, his
-friend and _confrère_ in the love of books, had saved his reputation
-before the Parliament of Paris. After his death his library was
-transported to the Hotel de Vic, and from there dispersed in 1675, a
-hundred years after.
-
-Thus from Italian art came French binding, still remaining original. The
-kings did not fail to follow the movement, and even to anticipate it,
-thanks to the means at their disposal. We have seen Francis I. at work
-with the energy of an artisan at least; but Geoffroy Tory was his
-principal inspirer, and who knows but that he was the chief operative
-for the prince, as for the great financier?
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 108.--Binding for Francis I., with the arms of
-France and the salamander.]
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 109.--Mark of Guyot Marchant, printer and
-bookbinder. He published the _Danse Macabre_ of 1485.]
-
-We have said that Louis XII. knew nothing of fine bindings. During his
-travels in Italy he had received presentation copies of magnificently
-covered books, and among others that of _Faustus Andrelinus_, that was
-bound in calf in honour of the King. He, who was so little expert in
-fine arts, purchased the entire library of the Sire de la Gruthuse,
-and substituted his own emblems for those of the high and mighty lord.
-Francis I., with innate sentiment for masterpieces and the powerful
-protection he had given them, did not allow the experiments of Grolier
-to pass unnoticed. The King did not desire to be behind the treasurer,
-and the workmen were put to the task. He adopted the salamander, which
-emblem he used on his castles and furniture and the liveries of his
-people; he lavished it also on the sides of his books. On the side the
-"F" is often seen crowned, then the emblem of France and the collar of
-St. Michael. In the binding of which a facsimile is here given, Geoffroy
-Tory has singularly inspired the gilder, if he did not himself make the
-design. For it must not be thought that this work is done at a single
-blow by means of an engraved plate or a block. On the contrary, every
-line is impressed by the hot tool that the workman applies by hand to
-the gold laid on in advance, making it, so to speak, enter into the skin
-or morocco. There is the art; blocks serve only for commercial bindings,
-quickly impressed and intended for ordinary purchasers.
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 110.--Binding for Henri II., with the "H" and
-crescents.]
-
-Under the reign of Francis I. the binders were the booksellers, as
-Verard and Vostre were. The King was ordinarily served by a publisher
-named Pierre Roffet, and he frequently figures in accounts that have
-been preserved. Roffet not only bound, but it appears that he rebound
-books to patterns which the King desired. Philip Lenoir and Guyot
-Marchant were also royal workmen. The latter, whose mark is here
-reproduced, frequently added to it the saints Crispin and Crispinian,
-patrons of the leather-dressers, who prepared the leather for the
-binder.
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 111.--Binding for Henri II. (Mazarine Library)]
-
-The discoveries of Grolier did not allow the binders much time to be
-idle. Thousands of volumes were then destroyed to make the boards for
-sides. From this many discoveries are made in our days by pulling to
-pieces sixteenth century work, unknown playing cards, and early printed
-works. To mention only one example, twenty leaves of the "Perspective"
-of Viator were discovered in the National Library of Paris. The board
-thus formed was covered indifferently with sheepskin, parchment, calf,
-morocco, or goatskin; the books were sewn on raised or sunk bands,
-according to the owner's taste; the edges were gilt, sometimes
-gauffered, and designs often impressed upon them to match those of the
-sides. In large folios wooden boards were still used, more solid, and
-protected from rubbing by nails in relief. But the inside of the cover
-was as yet only covered with paper. Leather linings were very uncommon.
-
-The reign of Henri II. increased yet more the importance of bindings; it
-was the time when Grolier collected, and clever artists came from all
-parts. Geoffroy Tory had given the best models for letters and
-interlacings. The Queen, Catherine, derived from her parents the taste
-for decoration in gold and colours, and patronised the artists called by
-her from the court of Florence; and the favourite, Diane de Poitiers,
-Duchess of Valentinois, rivalled her in luxury and expenditure. Henri
-II. in the decoration of his castles, as well as his books, introduced
-equivocal emblems, of which the signification may be doubtful, but those
-of his mistress may be recognised, not those of the legitimate Queen. He
-interlaced two reversed "D's" by an "H," in the form shown in the border
-on the preceding page. Strictly speaking, we ought to see there two
-"C's" back to back; but as we find the "D" on all the bindings
-displaying the arms of Diana, there can be no doubt, and Queen Catherine
-doubted less than anybody. Other emblems of Diana are to be found in the
-arcs and crescents that are plentifully displayed. The library of Diana
-was large, owing to the King not hesitating to take valuable books from
-the public collections for her. Two centuries after her death it was
-dispersed, and the greater part of the books belonging to the national
-collections were restored on the deaths of those who then purchased
-them. Hence the largest number of the bindings of Henri II. and Diana of
-Poitiers will be found in the National Library of Paris.
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 112.--Italian binding for Catherine de Medicis, with
-the initials "C. C."]
-
-Queen Catherine also had special patterns with a monogram identical with
-the double "D" mentioned above, but the branches of the "C" were a
-little longer than the branches of the "H;" she also used a "K" on the
-sides of her books. The specimen which we reproduce is a purely Italian
-work.
-
-From kings and queens the fashion passed to the great lords, it having
-come to the kings and queens from a private individual. The Constable
-Anne de Montmorency adorned his bindings with a cross and spread
-eagle. Among the amateurs of binding of the sixteenth, seventeenth,
-and eighteenth centuries using distinctive marks, we may mention
-Philip Desportes, the poet, who used two [phi] enlaced, as did also
-Superintendent Fouquet in the seventeenth century. The brothers Dupuy
-adopted the double [delta], arranged as a star. Colbert had a curled
-snake (_coluber_ for Colbert!), the Gondis two masses of arms, Madame
-de Pompadour three towers, etc. Fouquet beside the [phi] used a
-squirrel on some of his bindings.
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 113.--Binding with the arms of Mansfeldt, with
-_azure_ scroll work, from the Didot collection.]
-
-In Germany, Count Mansfeldt adopted the ornamental style with arms, of
-which a specimen is here given; and Marc Laurin de Watervliet also
-decorated and dedicated his books to his friends, using the motto
-"Virtus in arduo." Among the lords of the French courts who favoured
-polychromatic ornament and bold compositions were the young Valois,
-Louis de Sainte Maure, Marquis of Nesle, and Henri de Guise, called
-"Le balafré." Charles IX. had his emblems and devices, the double "C"
-crowned the legend "Pietate et justitia," but his brother, Henri III.,
-loved the decoration of books more than he did. The passion of the King
-for miniatures which he cut out of books is known; this passion for
-golden things he repeated on bindings, for which he chose special
-designs. Henri III. was an amateur of dances of death; he visited
-cemeteries, attended funerals, and took a death's-head for his emblem.
-This emblem was not his invention; long before him Marot had addressed
-an epigram to a lady in which he brought love and death into close
-conjunction. However that may be, the King chose skeletons and
-penitents' tears to ornament his books. He also tolerated diamonds,
-although he absolutely prohibited them in the clothing of ladies or
-fixed the number _pro rata_ with the rank of the authorised person.
-There was in this prince a singular mixture of taste and artistic
-acuteness by the side of a mania or hallucination which was reflected on
-the most intimate objects of his apparel or of his furniture. Thus if we
-find, at the end of the sixteenth century, a death's-head on the sides
-or the back of a volume, the binding is of the period of Henri III.
-
-The binders of his time are known by the mention that is made of them in
-the royal accounts; the Eves were the most celebrated among all of them.
-Nicholas Eve was charged with the binding of the Statutes of the Order
-of St. Esprit, with which the King gratified his friends. Mention of
-this work is found in the Clairambault manuscripts, where we read, "To
-Nicholas Eve, washer and binder of books and bookseller to the King,
-forty-seven and a half escus for washing, gilding, and squaring the
-edges of forty-two books of statutes and ordinances of the Order, bound
-and covered with orange Levant morocco, enriched on one side with the
-arms of the King, fully gilt, and on the other of France and Poland,
-with monograms at the four corners, and the rest flames, with orange and
-blue ribbons," etc.
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 114.--Sixteenth century binding, called _à la
-fanfare_. In the Dutuit collection.]
-
-Louise de Lorraine, wife of Henri III., counted for little in the life
-of her husband; nevertheless she had a certain number of books decorated
-with their united escutcheons.
-
-The bindings attributed to Eve were decorated all over the sides and
-back with interlacing patterns of geometrical character, the spaces
-between the parallel lines and in the middle of the figures left at
-first quite blank, but afterwards filled in with palm branches and
-wreaths of foliage; to these delicate and elaborate yet brilliant
-toolings have been given the name of bindings _à la fanfare_. This
-designation requires explanation, and is a good example of the grotesque
-style adopted by modern amateurs in their appellations.
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 115.--Le Gascon binding.]
-
-The fine work of that time prepared for the coming in the seventeenth
-century--about 1620--of the works of Le Gascon, or at least for the
-artist with whom in our days are connected the works of the reign of
-Louis XIII. Under Henri IV. the fleur-de-lys occupied most of the covers
-of the royal books, from vellum to Levant morocco; works in this class
-had nothing very remarkable. The first years of Louis XIII. revealed a
-new process, inspired by the Eves. Le Gascon embroidered delightfully on
-the fanfare ornaments; showing the fibres of the leaves, he made a new
-kind of ornament, consisting of minute gold dots elaborated into lines
-and curves of singular brilliancy and elegance. Of this style, called
-_pointillé_, we give a specimen from the collection of M. Dutuit. The
-fashion had arrived all at once; lace, banished from clothing by severe
-edicts, found a refuge on the covering of books.
-
-The times were hard then for binders; they were constrained to live in
-the university and to employ only its workmen. A binder was never his
-own gilder; he employed the _gaufreurs_ of shoe-leather, more expert and
-bolder, to gild his leather. Among these artisans was one named
-Pigorreau, whom the edict found living in the midst of publishers and
-working for them; he was compelled to choose either to remain bootmaker
-or become bookseller; he chose the latter, against the syndics of the
-trade, against every one, and he made enemies for himself. He revenged
-himself by turning the masters into ridicule in a placard.
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 116.--Le Gascon binding for Cardinal Mazarin.]
-
-Le Gascon was probably the assumed name of an artist in this style. The
-_Guirlande de Julie_, worked by him for Mademoiselle de Rambouillet,
-gave him great honour in the special circle of this little literary
-court. It was the fashion then for poor authors to put a fine covering
-on their works and to offer them to the great for their own profit.
-Tallement des Reaux notably signalises the poet Laserre, who displayed
-his luxury in irreproachable bindings. And then the farmers of the
-revenue, successors of Grolier in financial trusts, formed libraries for
-pure fashion, never opening the volumes covered for them in sumptuous
-attire. If we may believe Sauval, author of the _Antiquités de Paris_,
-they went further, and on covers without books inscribed imaginary
-titles and fantastic squibs to mislead their visitors. The bookcase
-being carefully closed, it was difficult to discover the imposition.
-Sauval writes, "In place of books, they are content with covers of
-Levant morocco, on the backs of which, in gold letters, are inscribed
-the names of the most celebrated authors. A binder of the university
-assured me that not long since he and his _confrères_ had made them for
-a single financier to the amount of 10,000 crowns!"
-
-The works of Le Gascon will be found more among great personages than
-with the so-called collectors, which gives value to their grace and
-charm. The King's brother Gaston possessed them, then Mazarin, an
-example from whose library is here reproduced. On this binding Le Gascon
-worked gilt compartments and elaborate arabesques; in the middle of the
-sides are the arms of the Cardinal and his pretentious device: "Arma
-Julii ornant Franciam!"--"The arms of Jules the ornament of France!" In
-spite of the profusion of subjects, nothing could better please the eye
-or indicate a man of taste.
-
-But if Le Gascon be a legendary personage, he had an imitator or rival,
-very near to him, named Florimond Badier, whose works had at least the
-advantage of being signed. At the bottom of the inside cover of an
-inlaid morocco binding in the National Library at Paris is the
-inscription "Florimond Badier fec., inv." The analogy between this work
-and those known as Le Gascon's is palpable; inside and outside, the
-cover is stippled with small tools (_au petit fer_) in the same manner.
-Florimond Badier was not appointed bookseller until 1645, and so could
-not have composed earlier bindings attributed to Le Gascon, but this
-resemblance of style evidences the existence of a Parisian school, the
-adepts of which copied one another, as they do nowadays.
-
-The work was soon simplified; pallets and wheel-shaped tools were
-invented to produce that which was improperly called _dentelle_; this
-mechanical work was done by a wheel-shaped tool, previously heated, on
-gold in sized leaves, on which it impressed its projections.
-
-With Louis XIV. the passion for gilding increased. Charming festoons
-were designed, but they were soon abused, and inundated the libraries.
-On the sides were seen rising suns, arms, and golden garlands. Cramoisy
-directed the royal bindings, the King having devoted large sums to the
-purchase of Levant leathers. In 1666 the Director of Works ordered red
-moroccos; in 1667 he received twenty-two dozen skins, amounting, with
-the expenses of transport, to 1,020 livres tournois. Successive supplies
-were made, and were used for the royal library, sixty-nine dozen in
-1667, forty-six dozen in 1668, and three hundred and thirty-three dozen
-in 1670, costing the King more than 12,000 livres. On these admirably
-dressed skins, which, in spite of incessant use, still remain now as in
-their first days, the King caused to be applied, according to the size,
-tools of borders, having in the middle the arms of France, with the
-collar of St. Esprit.
-
-Among the binders mentioned in the very useful work of M. J. J. Guiffrey
-on the expenditure of Louis XIV., we find Gilles Dubois, who died before
-1670; Levasseur, binder of Huet, Bishop of Avranches; La Tour, Mérins or
-Mérius, who died before 1676; and also Ruette, the reputed inventor of
-marbled paper for fly-leaves of books: to him the bindings of the
-Chancellor de Séguier, with their ornament of the golden fleece, and of
-Madame de Séguier, are attributed. It was probably these men who
-decorated the books of the brothers Dupuy, Fouquet, and Colbert,
-marvellous works of solidity, if not always of elegance, which have
-resisted all assaults. Unhappily, in many instances the mechanical
-_dentelle_ overburdened the work, and gave it a commonplace regularity.
-In the Condé, Colbert, and perhaps even Madame de Longueville's
-collections, there are many specimens of this kind with two or three
-filleted borders.
-
-We have come to an epoch when the difficulties resulting from confusion
-between the booksellers' and binders' trades began to be understood. The
-revocation of the Edict of Nantes had implicitly prepared a crowd of
-measures and rules in all branches of national industry. It was a good
-occasion to prevent the artisans of binding unduly parading themselves
-as booksellers and selling merchandise of which they understood nothing;
-Louis XIV. interfered, and separated the two communities. The binders
-then became the _relieurs-doreurs_ of books; they had their own
-organisation, but remained subject to the university; the heads of the
-fraternity were called the "guards." The principal arrangements of the
-regulation of 1749 were: the members of the corporation had the sole
-right to bind books, from the elegant volume to registers of blank
-paper. Five years of apprenticeship and three of companionship were
-necessary to obtain the brevet of freedom and to hold a shop. Moreover,
-it was indispensable to read and write. One regulation ordained that
-the workman should be "able to bind and ornament ordinary books or
-others, to render them perfect and entire, to sew the sheets at most two
-together with thread and real bands, with joints of parchment, and not
-paper, and in case of infraction the said books were to be remade at the
-expense of the offender, who was besides condemned to a penalty of
-thirty livres for each volume." Their establishment was confined to the
-quarter from the Rue St. André des Arts to the Place Maubert; they
-regulated the sale of calfskin and of tools; in a word, they were
-surrounded by precautions by which the production remained always under
-the supervision of the masters and completely satisfied the client. This
-calculating policy was, in fact, a close imitation of the royal
-ordinance of 1686.
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 117.--Mosaic binding of the eighteenth century for
-the _Spaccio de la Bestia Trionfante_.]
-
-The mosaic bindings used from the end of the reign of Louis XIV. were an
-application of pared leathers of colours different from the background,
-pasted on to the side. The binders of the regency composed a great
-number, attributed now to Pasdeloup, as all the crayons of the sixteenth
-century are called Clouets, and all the panels on wood Holbeins. It is
-not that there was great originality in these works, or a particular
-art; more often the workman did no more than transcribe Le Gascon or Eve
-or the older binders, and accommodated the processes of these artists to
-the fashion of his time. In this style we may cite the _Spaccio de la
-Bestia Trionfante_, printed at Paris 1584, for which the binder designed
-a cover of doubtful taste and, above all, an undeniable want of
-proportion. The tendency was then to flowers occupying three-fourths
-of the page, to compartments too large, to open pomegranates, like the
-_Spaccio_ here reproduced. If Pasdeloup had discovered these mediocre
-combinations, he could not be proclaimed the regenerator of a fallen
-art. The bastard style of these works may be compared to their mosaics,
-constructed of pieces; it is a little of everything, and together it is
-nothing. However, in the midst of the quantity of mediocre things, some
-pleasing decoration is from time to time met with; the design of a
-volume with the arms of the Regent and his wife, Mademoiselle de Blois,
-wants neither elegance nor taste; without being perfection, it has
-better proportion and balance.
-
-[Illustration: Fig. 118.--Mosaic binding of the eighteenth century, with
-the arms of the Regent. M. Morgand's collection.]
-
-We should, however, hesitate to give names to all these works. Besides
-Pasdeloup, there were the Deromes, abandoning a little the mosaics,
-devising flowers and _dentelles_ in combination, and no longer the
-simple products of the fillet. They formed a dynasty; and if the
-Pasdeloups were at least twelve, there were fourteen Deromes all
-booksellers and binders from the reign of Louis XIV. The most celebrated
-was James Anthony, who died in 1761.
-
-Peter Paul Dubuisson was not only a binder; he was a designer. He
-invented heraldic ornaments, and composed models of gilding tools, in
-which his contemporaries emulated him. He was intimate with the delicate
-vignettist Eisen, and the counsels of an artist of this value could not
-but be useful to him. It is an extraordinary thing that in this world of
-celebrated printers, amateur financiers, and notable painters and
-engravers, not a single man can be met to give a real impulse to the
-art of which we speak, and to prevent the dull continuance of
-experiments on the whole so poor. Doubtless the _dentelles_ of Derome
-had a certain air of gaiety, to which the books of the eighteenth
-century accommodated themselves perfectly; the tools of Dubuisson
-produce most pleasing designs; but the old, the great binders, had
-altogether disappeared.
-
-Besides, Derome massacred without pity the rarest works. He loved edges
-very regularly cut, and he did not fail to hew down margins opposed to
-his taste. He sawed books as well; that is to say, in place of sewing
-the sheets on to projecting bands, he made a groove in the back, in
-which the cord was embedded. The books have no resistance.
-
-To these celebrated names of French binders of the eighteenth century we
-may add Le Monnier, who worked for the Orleans princes; Tessier, his
-successor; Laferté, who decorated the small volumes of the Duc de la
-Vallière as Chamot covered the large ones; in 1766 Chamot was royal
-binder. There was also Pierre Engerrand, then Biziaux, an original, who
-worked for Madame de Pompadour and Beaumarchais. Boyet, or Boyer, worked
-(1670-80) in the style of Le Gascon, with the same minute tooling, but
-simpler in character. Duseuil put very elaborate and delicate tooling on
-his covers from about 1710 to 1720.
-
-The Revolution effaced many of the fine works which displayed the
-symbols "of a royalty justly detested," and Mercier wrote certain wicked
-little poems against binding. Lesné was the poet of bookbinding, and he
-invented the process of plain calf without boards. Certainly from
-Grolier to Lesné there were numerous changes, so numerous that, in
-spite of the nude calf, it may be said that the art was nearly dead. In
-our days it has a little recovered. Amateurs have found new names, and
-often artists, to patronise: Trautz-Bauzonnet, Capé, Duru, Lortic,
-Marius Michel, in France; Bedford, Rivière, Zaehnsdorf, Pratt, in
-England; Matthews, Bradstreet, Smith, in the United States; and many
-others. Unhappily, fortune does not permit every one to furnish his
-library luxuriously; the true connoisseur searches rather for Groliers,
-Eves, and Le Gascons, than concerns himself about modern workmanship.
-Whatever may be its value, it is only fit to clothe the works of the
-time. A book published by Lemerre and bound by Petit is in true
-character, but a fifteenth or sixteenth century book passed under the
-hands of Trautz-Bauzonnet himself will be very much like an ancient
-enamel in a modern frame newly gilt.
-
-Bookbinding in England has, with very few exceptions, never attained the
-artistic excellence reached in France. From the earliest times to the
-present day servile imitations of foreign work only are seen. The one
-purely original English binder is Roger Payne, who from about 1770
-worked for thirty or forty years in London, performing with his own
-hands every stage of the work, even to cutting his own tools. The result
-was good, solid work, with perfectly original and often very beautiful
-decoration, appropriate to the character of the work itself. His
-favourite style was drooping lines of leaf ornaments in the borders and
-geometrical patterns in small tools. After him came Charles Lewis, who
-was an artist in the true sense of the word, and, coming down to our own
-time, Francis Bedford, who, never pretending to originality, copied the
-best designs of the old French and Italian binders. His full calf books,
-with handsomely tooled backs, are models of solidity and taste; and his
-decorations on the sides of morocco-bound books are always in good
-taste, and often of great elegance. The binders of the present day,
-perhaps for lack of patronage, seem to have abandoned originality; and
-although much excellent work is done, it is no more than a copy of the
-Eves, Le Gascon, Derome, and the older artists.
-
-Parallel with the luxurious bindings with which we have been exclusively
-occupied, there has always been the commercial work, prepared in
-advance. Liturgical works, above all, are sold in this form. Books in
-the Grolier style or other grand personages were worked from a pattern
-engraved in relief, leaving nothing to the caprice of the artist, by
-being applied to the side by a press. This process is termed blocking.
-Germany made use of this process principally; also Vostre, Verard, and
-Tory employed the same means. Even the interlacings and the capricious
-arabesques of Grolier were imitated by means of a fixed plate, parts of
-which were finished by hand to make it appear a complete work of
-imagination and handicraft.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER IX.
-
-LIBRARIES.
-
-
-Art, science, and literature took refuge in convents before the
-invention of Printing, and libraries did not count many books. According
-to daily wants, the monastery scribes copied the treatises lent by
-neighbouring houses, and the collection was thus painfully made during
-many centuries. Two or three hundred works constituted ordinary
-collections; the powerful abbeys found in their staff the means of
-enriching their libraries, as we have said, but they were the privileged
-ones.
-
-Excepting kings and some princes, few people possessed a library. The
-great expense of transcription, the want of facility for procuring
-originals, and the enormous price of manuscripts left no hope to
-bibliophiles of moderate fortune. Typography, on the contrary, having
-multiplied books and put at relatively modest prices reproductions
-formerly inaccessible, private collections commenced. We have had
-occasion to speak before of Grolier and Maioli; they were the most
-illustrious, but not the only ones.
-
-At first a public library was an unknown thing. The richest and the most
-easily got together, that of the King of France, was private. Since
-John the Good in France the acquisitions were numerous, and Gutenberg's
-invention contributed to augment the stock of volumes everywhere.
-Charles VIII. and Louis XII. found or took in their expeditions in
-Italy, and were able to add to the original nucleus, many rare editions,
-especially from the Sforzas at Pavia, who had marvels without number.
-Brought together at Blois, under the care of John de Labarre, the royal
-library did not yet occupy a very large space, in spite of its increase.
-Under Charles V. the number of books was about a thousand; about 1500 or
-1510 they were nearly doubled, and the printed books did not number more
-than two hundred.
-
-So restricted, the royal library travelled with the other treasures of
-the Crown; Francis I. transported it from Blois to Fontainebleau, and
-even parts of it to the Italian wars, as related above. In its new
-quarters the royal collection, in spite of the successive accessions of
-the books of John d'Angoulême, grandfather of the King, and of those of
-the dukes of Orleans, counted but 1,781 manuscripts and a hundred and
-nine printed books on the shelves. The King, ambitious in literature no
-less than in arts, nominated an illustrious _savant_, Guillaume Budé, to
-the office of master of his library; and this qualification was
-maintained by his successors until the fall of the royal power.
-
-With Budé commenced the system of continuous acquisitions. The treasury
-was liberally opened to vendors of rarities. At this time the books,
-placed upon their sides, one upon another, gave no idea of a modern
-library, with its volumes ranged on end, having their titles between
-the bands of the back. In speaking of Grolier, we remarked that the
-sides of a binding alone had importance on account of their place on the
-shelves; it was the same with Francis I.
-
-Under Henri II. the Fontainebleau collection was somewhat pillaged for
-Diana of Poitiers, but, as a corrective for this dilapidation, the King
-adopted a measure, since preserved, which substituted for acquisitions a
-regular and uninterrupted supply; this was the contribution by
-publishers to the library of one bound copy on vellum of all the works
-printed under privilege. The ordinance was made in 1556; the successors
-of Henri II. had only this means of increasing the number of their
-volumes, with the exception that Charles IX. expended a large sum in the
-purchase of Grolier's collection of medals.
-
-Such was the working of the royal library for about a half-century, but
-the idea of making it public had not come. Diffused as was then the
-passion for books, it had not yet been democratised to the point of
-being understood by the people. Amateurs and lovers of reading formed
-special collections in their houses, at times rivalling that of the
-King. Then the fashion was no more to lay the books on their sides, but
-they were now ranged to allow room for new acquisitions. Henri IV., who
-had not his great-uncle's predilection for Fontainebleau, commanded the
-removal to Paris of the books buried in the castle. He added to them
-those of Catherine de Medicis coming from Marshal Strozzi; and as the
-college of Clermont had become vacant by the dispersion of the Jesuits,
-he lodged the library in 1599 in one of the rooms of that
-establishment, under the care of James Augustus de Thou, master of the
-library.
-
-We now see the royal collection brought to Paris, which it has never
-quitted; but before its definitive installation, before it was made
-public, it passed through a century, during which additions were made,
-purchases increased, and the number of manuscripts and printed books
-augmented in enormous proportions. Henri IV. desired to place it near
-the court, to avoid pillage and to have the chief librarian near to him.
-The return of the Jesuits in 1604 upset the first establishment a
-little; the college of Clermont was evacuated; the books were
-transported to the Cordeliers and distributed in rooms on the ground and
-first floors, whence the names of upper and lower libraries. There was a
-mass of volumes very little used, for the public did not enjoy them, and
-the King held them as his own; but the time was near when the collection
-was to take a very serious step under the influence of the brothers
-Dupuy in 1645, and afterwards of Jerome Bignon. Always shut up in the
-incommodious chambers of the Cordeliers, the library contained 5,259
-volumes, manuscript and printed, perhaps less than some private
-libraries; after the Dupuys it had at least 10,329 printed books.
-
-Mazarin was the first to comprehend the natural use of collections of
-books: publicity. His private library, placed before 1651 in his
-magnificent house in the Rue Richelieu, where later was definitively
-lodged the royal library, was opened to readers every Tuesday, from
-eight to eleven and two to five. Dispersed in 1651, at the fall of the
-Cardinal, it was later reconstituted, and in less than ten years
-afterwards the former minister was able to open it in its new quarters,
-the College of the Four Nations, where it is still.
-
-While the Mazarin library was administering liberally to the wants of
-the public, that of the King remained closely shut up in the rooms of
-the Cordeliers. Colbert, influenced by this state of things, offered two
-houses in the Rue Vivienne to the King, where the books could find a
-more convenient lodging, and allow room for increase. The removal was
-made in 1666. The royal collection for fifty-five years was lodged only
-a few steps from its final resting-place, the Hotel de Nevers. So was
-called at the end of the seventeenth century the splendid mansion of
-Mazarin, situated near the Porte de Richelieu, in the street of the same
-name, whence his books had been previously torn and sold to all the
-dealers. Divided into two parts at the death of the Cardinal in 1661,
-the palace fell, one part to the Duc de Mazarin, the other to the Duc de
-Nevers, his nephews. At first the King dreamed, under the advice of
-Louvais, of acquiring the land in the neighbourhood of the Rue Vivienne
-and of elevating a monument for his library, for the thought of putting
-the Hotel de Nevers to this use had not then occurred to him; but the
-Duc de Mazarin having alienated his part of the palace in favour of the
-Company of the Indies, Abbé Bignon, then royal librarian, perceived the
-part he could play from that fact.
-
-Thanks to the administration of Colbert and the liberalities of the
-King, the collection had been augmented threefold. At the time of the
-removal to the Rue Vivienne, Nicolas Clément worked at the classifying
-and cataloguing of 35,000 volumes. He distributed them into methodical
-classes, and devoted nine years--1675 to 1684--to his work. But this
-first unravelling was soon insufficient. Less than four years after, he
-commenced a new inventory in twenty-one volumes, which occupied thirty
-years, having been finished in the course of March, 1714. This time the
-numbers amounted to 43,000 printed volumes; his twenty-three principal
-divisions, containing all the letters of the alphabet, are very nearly
-preserved up to our day. In 1697 the question of publishing this
-enormous work was agitated, and on this point Clément had a curious
-correspondence with a learned Dane named Frederick Bostgaard; he also,
-in a celebrated pamphlet, _Idée d'une Nouvelle Manière de dresser le
-Catalogue d'une Bibliothèque_, indicated practical observations; he
-resolved this arduous question for important collections by difference
-of sizes; but his project was not executed, although favoured from the
-first by Abbé Bignon.
-
-As the collection was not available for workers, the work of Clément had
-only a relative importance. A councillor of the Prince of Waldeck, a
-German of the name of Nemeitz, who travelled in France in the beginning
-of the eighteenth century, having seen it in the houses of the Rue
-Vivienne, says that the library occupied then twenty-six rooms and
-contained 75,000 volumes in all; it was shown voluntarily to strangers,
-but not to the public. Nemeitz gives some other curious particulars as
-to the libraries of Paris (_Séjour à Paris:_ Leyde, 1727, 8vo).
-
-The bank of Law, that had been lodged for some time in the Hotel de
-Nevers, alienated by the heirs of Mazarin, soon disappeared with the
-ruin of his system. As we have said above, Bignon appreciated the
-importance of the neglected palace for commodiously lodging the royal
-collections. This was in 1721. The collection was about to be subdivided
-into four sections, or, as they were then called in the administrative
-style, four distinct departments: manuscripts, printed books, titles,
-and engraved plates. The master of the library pressed the Regent to
-profit by the occasion, to which he agreed. In the month of September
-the removal commenced, and from the Rue Vivienne, the royal library, the
-first in the world and the most valuable, as Naudé says, entered the
-former palace of the Cardinal, which it was never to quit again.
-
-We approach the epoch when this great scientific establishment was to
-quit its private character and to open its doors to the learned of all
-countries. In 1735 it was decided to print the catalogue of some
-divisions only: theology, canonical law, public law, and _belles
-lettres_. This resolution coincided precisely with the opening of the
-doors which took place in 1737, in which year appeared the first volume
-of the catalogue comprising the sacred Scriptures. At the end of the
-eighteenth century the royal library was finally established; the
-printed books then comprised about 200,000 volumes, and access was had
-by a staircase leading to six grand saloons, which were surrounded by
-galleries. From this moment the rooms became too small. At the
-Revolution the number of books had increased to 300,000, and projects of
-enlargement commenced, to be continued to our time; but, in spite of
-these proposals, the surface occupied by the library has remained the
-same since the time of Louis XV. Enlargements and alterations have been
-made year after year on the same ground without much new construction.
-But how the treasures have been augmented to this time! If the printed
-books at the Revolution represented a little more than 300,000 volumes,
-to-day they exceed two millions; the prints number two and a half
-millions; the medals, 100,000; the manuscripts, something over 90,000.
-
-If we have thus brought the summary history of the National Library of
-Paris to our days, it was to avoid mixing it with other matters. We have
-entered into such detail regarding it as is fitting for the most
-important library in the world. We now return to the seventeenth
-century.
-
-At the time when Henri IV. carried from Fontainebleau to Paris the
-nucleus of volumes that was to have so brilliant a destiny, the passion
-for books had singularly spread itself in France. We have already spoken
-of Mazarin; after him Cardinal Richelieu designed to open his private
-collection to the public, and in his will he manifested his clearly held
-intention. He went further in his last wishes: he prescribed the daily
-sweeping and dusting of the precious collection, and its augmentation by
-a thousand livres tournois each year. The great personages of the time
-were not behind; and Sauval says that in the seventeenth century there
-were 1,000 or 1,200 private libraries in Paris, numbering 1,700,000
-volumes.
-
-In the provinces there were few public libraries. The communities and
-learned Societies, the Jesuits and other religious houses, and the
-universities had collections At Orleans a library was opened for
-Germans, and the students of that country were able to work at their
-ease under the supervision of two librarians.
-
-At the end of the eighteenth century the number of libraries had
-increased in large proportions; the amateurs had made their influence
-felt. The Book was not sought only for what it contained, but also for
-its exterior clothing. Only the great libraries open to everybody
-remained eclectic, and provided a little of everything. Besides the
-royal library, there were in Paris a great number of other collections,
-which the revolutionary storm upset and often destroyed. That of St.
-Germain des Près was burnt in 1794. That of St. Geneviève, founded in
-1625, had benefited by celebrated donations, among others those of the
-cardinals De Berulle and De la Rochefoucauld; the Arsenal, created by
-the Marquis de Paulmy, was successively enriched by important
-acquisitions, among which was the collection of the Duc de la Vallière.
-These collections still exist, and are open to the public, as also are
-the National Library, the Mazarine, the Sorbonne, the Museum, the School
-of Fine Arts, the City of Paris, the Institute, the Louvre, and the
-several scientific faculties.
-
-The provinces have not been behind in the movement. Many of the great
-cities contain a considerable number of books easily accessible, among
-them the libraries of Bordeaux and Rouen, amounting to 150,000 volumes;
-Troyes and Besançon, 100,000, etc. Few important centres have less than
-20,000. These collections have been generally composed of those of the
-religious establishments, closed by the Revolution.
-
-In our time public libraries are augmented by the legal deposit, gifts
-of the State, legacies of private persons, and purchases. The legal
-deposit in France relates almost exclusively to the National Library,
-and proceeds from the measures taken by Henri II. in 1556. Each French
-printer has now to deposit a certain number of copies of the works that
-he issues, and these volumes go to swell the number of books in the Rue
-de Richelieu. At the rate of 30,000 a year, the time is easily
-anticipated and very near when the space will be found insufficient.
-Some measures will have to be taken.
-
-Germany, the cradle of printing, was not favoured in the beginning. It
-had, however, in the seventeenth century, in Wolfenbüttel, a little town
-in the duchy of Brunswick, a curious collection of books, in a detached
-building, of which the engraver Merian has preserved for us the
-physiognomy; it contained nearly 200,000 volumes, an enormous number for
-the time. The rather low rooms were shelved all round; in the middle
-were cases of the height of a man, also filled with books; the readers
-helped themselves, and were seated for working. The exterior of the
-building, without being sumptuous, was isolated and detached. In our
-time this collection includes the Bible, glass, and inkstand of Luther
-and his portrait by Lucas Cranach.
-
-Another curious library, dating from the beginning of the seventeenth
-century, is that of the city of Leyden. An engraving by Woudan shows its
-state in 1610, with its classifications and divisions. The books were
-ranged in cases provided with breast-high desks. The books were placed
-with the edges in front, and not as now, and were so attached that they
-could only be consulted in their place. Each body of shelving contained
-a series of authors: theology, philosophy, mathematics, history,
-medicine, law, and literature. The room, of square shape, was lighted by
-windows right and left. Between the bays were portraits, views of
-cities, and maps. On the right, in a shrine, was enclosed the legacy of
-Joseph Scaliger. Communication was less liberal than at Wolfenbüttel;
-the readers were obliged to take the books from the shelves themselves
-and read them standing before the desks.
-
-In England, the celebrated Oxford Library should be mentioned, augmented
-and restored in 1597 by Sir Thomas Bodley, ambassador of Queen
-Elizabeth. The generous overtures of this rich gentleman met with
-unanimous approbation. He offered to the library of the university the
-volumes collected by him during his travels on the Continent, whose
-value exceeded £10,000. The first stone of a new building was laid in
-1610, but from 1602 the collection was open to readers in a provisional
-locality. David Loggan, the engraver, has preserved for us interior
-views of the Bodleian of the seventeenth century. The rooms are disposed
-in the form of the letter H, with pavilions to east and west, united by
-a gallery. The books were and are still in the body of the library,
-placed against the walls, with tables and immovable seats. The volumes
-were not displaced; they were consulted in their own place. Each room
-had two floors, with access to the second by stairs.
-
-In London it was Hans Sloane who had the idea of founding a great
-collection by offering to the State for £20,000 his collection of
-books, which was valued at £50,000. Created in 1753 by an Act of
-Parliament, the British Museum, as it was named, was quickly augmented
-by many private libraries, among which was the library of printed books
-and manuscripts collected by the kings of England from Henry VII. to
-William III., which was added in the reign of George II. The very
-extensive and valuable library of George III., 250,000 volumes, was
-added by George IV. The Harleian collection added 7,500 volumes, and
-Robert Cotton his manuscripts. To-day the printed books amount to
-1,300,000, and are only surpassed by the National Library of France as
-well in number of books as in number of readers. This immense collection
-increases at a great rate, one source being the compulsory deposit of a
-copy of every new book in order to secure copyright. Donations and
-legacies are constantly being made, and an annual sum for purchases is
-voted by Parliament. Besides the copy deposited by publishers in the
-British Museum, the law of copyright compels the deposit of four other
-copies, which go to augment the collections of the Bodleian Library of
-Oxford, the University Library of Cambridge, and the libraries of
-Edinburgh and Dublin.
-
-If we search among the cities of Europe where establishments of this
-kind are most honoured, Berlin will take the third place with 900,000
-printed books and 20,000 manuscripts, preserved in the Imperial Library.
-The building, constructed between 1775 and 1780, owes its special form
-to Frederick II., who desired that it should take the form of a chest of
-drawers. On the façade an inscription in the Latin tongue, but
-conceived in German spirit, indicates that here is a spiritual
-refectory--_nutrimentum spiritus_. Following come Munich, with 800,000
-printed books; Vienna 400,000; Dresden, 300,000; then the universities:
-Leipzig, whose library, founded in 1409 and reorganised in 1830,
-contains 150,000 books and 2,000 manuscripts; Heidelberg; Göttingen,
-etc.
-
-In Italy, Florence keeps, in the National Library, 300,000 volumes,
-proceeding from various amateurs, and formed since 1860. The collection
-of the goldsmith Magliabecchi, that was open to readers since 1747, has
-been transported there. Besides this library, Florence possesses the
-celebrated Laurentian, created by Cosmo de Medicis in the middle of the
-fifteenth century, where are united more than 8,000 manuscripts of an
-incalculable value. Milan has at the Brera a collection of 200,000
-printed books and 50,000 medals, and at the Ambrosian, due to Cardinal
-Frederick Borromeo, 160,000 printed books and 8,000 manuscripts.
-
-Rome possesses a dozen collections and celebrated deposits. The Vatican,
-not numerous, is most choice; the importance of its manuscripts is known
-to the entire world, but only a part of the 50,000 printed books are
-catalogued. The Library of Victor Emmanuel, formerly of the Jesuits,
-amounts to about 66,000 volumes. At Venice the splendid monument called
-the Antiqua Libraria di St. Marco has changed its destination;
-constructed in the sixteenth century and commenced by Sansovino for a
-library, it is now a royal palace. This city has lost that which had
-made its glory, and its collections are very modest in our days.
-
-The magnificent educational establishments in the form of public
-libraries provided in the United States deserve special mention. Nearly
-every city has its public library, supported by a small tax; and many
-large libraries are wholly supported by private munificence. The first
-to be established was founded in 1732 by Benjamin Franklin in
-Philadelphia, and still exists as the Library Company; many important
-bequests have been made to it, the latest being £200,000 by Dr. Richard
-Rush. The library now numbers 150,000 volumes. The Congressional Library
-of Washington, besides its annual income from Government, receives by
-deposit for copyright a copy of every work published in the United
-States; it now has 565,000 volumes.
-
-The Astor Library and the Lenox Library of New York were both founded
-and endowed by the families whose name they bear; the former has 223,284
-volumes, the latter 25,000. The city of Chicago recently fell heir to
-the magnificent sum of over one million sterling for the establishment
-of a library of reference, and New York was benefited by the late Mr.
-Tilden to the extent of £800,000 for a public library.
-
-When we have named the libraries of St. Petersburg and Moscow for
-Russia, Stockholm for Sweden, and the Escurial for Spain, we shall have
-mentioned very hastily the most important establishments in the world.
-For more than four centuries the love of books has preserved and
-fortified itself, and increases each day. If we were to endeavour to
-approximately imagine the number of printed books diffused, we should
-be frightened at it. It is by miles that to-day are counted the shelves
-of the National Library or of the British Museum; and each year the
-production is accelerated, as is also the number of readers.
-
-
-THE END.
-
-
-
-
-INDEX.
-
-
-  Albi, first printer at, 47.
-
-  Alciati, books of emblems, 126.
-
-  Alding, Henry, printer in Sicily, 35.
-
-  Aldus Manutius, son-in-law of Torresani, 51;
-    printer in Venice, 99, 103, 128;
-    books for Grolier, 260.
-
-  America, North, printing in, 216.
-
-  Antwerp, early printing at, 67;
-    Plantin, 140.
-
-  _Ars Memorandi_, block book, 10.
-
-  _Ars Moriendi_, block book, 8.
-
-  Asola, Andrew d', successor of Jenson, 50.
-
-  Audran, C., engraver, 158.
-
-  Augsburg, _Formschneiders_ at, 58.
-
-
-  Badier, Florimond, bookbinder, 280.
-
-  Badius, Jodocus, printer in Paris, 122, 246.
-
-  Baldini, designs for early Italian books, 54.
-
-  Ballard, printer for music, 186.
-
-  Bamberg, early printing at, 25, 29.
-
-  Barcelona, first printer, 36.
-
-  Bartolozzi, engraver, 209.
-
-  Baskerville, printer of Birmingham, 208.
-
-  Basle, first printer, 36;
-    school of engraving, 125.
-
-  Beaujoyeux, Balthasar de, _Ballet Comique_, 136.
-
-  Bechtermuncze, Henry, pupil of Gutenberg, 25, 36.
-
-  Bedford, Francis, bookbinder, 288.
-
-  Belfort, Andrew, printer at Ferrara, 35.
-
-  Berlin, Imperial Library of, 301.
-
-  Bernard, _le petit_, designer, 128.
-
-  Bewick, Thomas, engraver, 209, 213, 225, 234.
-
-  Bible, Gutenberg's, 15, 20;
-    of 1462, the Mayence, 27;
-    first English, 146;
-    Authorised Version, 182;
-    the Polyglot, Plantin's, 141;
-    Richelieu's, 173.
-
-  _Biblia Pauperum_, block book, 8.
-
-  Bignon, Jerome, royal librarian, 293.
-
-  Binding, early, 253.
-
-  Biziaux, bookbinder, 287.
-
-  Blind Asylum, printers in 1786, 216.
-
-  Bocard, Andrew, printer in Paris, 88.
-
-  Bodleian Library, 300.
-
-  Bohn, H. G., publisher, 223.
-
-  Bologna, Francisco da, engraver of type, 100.
-
-  Bonhomme, printer in Lyons, 128.
-
-  Book, the, earliest forms of, 1, 6.
-
-  Books of Hours, 70, 112;
-    for English use, 147.
-
-  Booksellers of Paris, 170, 186, 190, 196.
-
-  Bosse, Abraham, engraver, 170.
-
-  Botticelli, plates to Dante, 55.
-
-  Boucher, designer, 188.
-
-  Bourdichon, John, artist, 69.
-
-  Boydell, Alderman, publisher, 210.
-
-  Boyet, bookbinder, 287.
-
-  Brandt's "Ship of Fools," 65.
-
-  British Museum, library, 301.
-
-  Brothers of Common Life, printers, 1468, 36.
-
-  Browne, H. K., book illustrator, 235.
-
-  Bruges, early printing at, 37, 67.
-
-  Buckinck, Arnold, printer at
-    Rome, printed the first atlas, 55.
-
-  Budé, Guillaume, royal librarian, 291.
-
-
-  Cæsaris, Peter, and John Stol, second Paris printers, 68.
-
-  Callot, engraver, 167.
-
-  Cambridge, first printing at, 149.
-
-  Cars, Laurent, engraver, 189.
-
-  Cases for type, 243.
-
-  Caslon, William, type-founder, 208.
-
-  Catherine de Medicis, bindings for, 270.
-
-  "Catholicon," the, of 1460, printed by Gutenberg, 23.
-
-  Caxton, William, first English printer, 37, 92, 240.
-
-  Cazin, publisher, 200.
-
-  Cerceau, _Bastiments de France_, 1576, 135.
-
-  Chaillot, Robin, publisher in Paris, 82.
-
-  Challeux, James le, wood engraver, 137.
-
-  Chamot, bookbinder, 287.
-
-  _Champfleury_, Geoffroy Tory's, 116, 261.
-
-  Characters, variety of, 243.
-
-  Charles VII. sends Jenson to Mayence, 38.
-
-  Charles VIII., royal library, 291.
-
-  Charles IX., bindings for, 274.
-
-  Charles of Angoulême, books specially printed for him, 78.
-
-  Chauveau, Francis, engraver, 179.
-
-  Chess, Caxton's book on, 92.
-
-  Chodowiecki, engraver, 208.
-
-  Choffard, engraver, 198, 211.
-
-  Clement V., _Constitutiones_, 1460, printed by Schoeffer, 26.
-
-  Clément, Nicholas, royal librarian, 294.
-
-  Clennell, Luke, wood engraver, 215, 225, 234.
-
-  Cochin the younger, engraver, 191.
-
-  Colbert, bindings for, 272, 282.
-
-  Collines, Simon de, type-founder, 241.
-
-  Cologne, first printer, 36.
-
-  "Cologne Chronicle," 58.
-
-  Colonna, Francis, Poliphilus of, 1499, 56;
-    in French, 1545, 123.
-
-  Colophons, use of, by early printers, 88.
-
-  Commin, Vincent, bookseller in Paris, 82.
-
-  Companies of printers in France, 165.
-
-  Copper plate engraving, 135;
-    in England, 149.
-
-  Coster, Laurent, alleged inventor of printing, 6, 30.
-
-  Cousin, John, designs for books, 132.
-
-  Cramoisy, Sebastian, printer of Paris, 155, 165;
-    director of bindings for Louis XIV., 281.
-
-  Cranach, Lucas, his _Passional Christi_, 106.
-
-  Cranmer's Catechism, 1548, 148.
-
-  Cruikshank, George, book illustrator, 235.
-
-  Curmer, publisher of Paris, 230.
-
-
-  Dances of death, 58, 72, 85, 124.
-
-  Dante, 1481, with engraved plates, 54;
-    1491, with Botticelli plates, 55;
-    1487, printed by Bonnini, 58.
-
-  Day, John, printer, 146.
-
-  Della Bella, engraver, 168.
-
-  Deromes, bookbinders, 286.
-
-  Desportes, Philip, bindings for, 272.
-
-  Devéria, engraver, 227.
-
-  Dibdin, T. F., bibliographical works, 223.
-
-  Didot, François, printer of Paris, 194.
-
-  Didot, Pierre F., printer of Paris, 216, 219.
-
-  Didot family, 218, 242.
-
-  Dijon, first printer at, 47.
-
-  Diodorus Siculus, Geoffroy Tory's edition, 118.
-
-  Donatus, the Latin syntax of, 4, 30.
-
-  Doré, Gustave, influence on illustration, 234.
-
-  Doyle, Richard, book illustrator, 235.
-
-  Dritzehen, Andrew, associate of Gutenberg, 13.
-
-  Dubois, Gilles, bookbinder, 281.
-
-  Dubuisson, Peter Paul, bookbinder, 286.
-
-  Duchesne on wood engraving, 225.
-
-  Duplat, relief engraving on stone, 213.
-
-  Duplessis-Bertaux, engraver, 206.
-
-  Du Pré, John, printer of Books of Hours, 80.
-
-  Dupuy brothers, bindings for, 272, 282;
-    royal librarians, 293.
-
-  Durand's _Rationale_, 1459, printed by Schoeffer, 26.
-
-  Dürer, Albert, pupil of Wohlgemuth, 60;
-    "Apocalypse," 62, 104;
-    influence on Geoffroy Tory, 116.
-
-  Duseuil, bookbinder, 287.
-
-
-  Eisen, engraver, 196.
-
-  Eltvil, first printer, 36.
-
-  Elzevirs, printers at Leyden, 162.
-
-  Emblems, books of, 126, 135.
-
-  England, bookbinding in, 288;
-    public libraries, 300.
-
-  English books, in the fifteenth century, 92;
-    in the sixteenth century, 144;
-    seventeenth century, 181;
-    eighteenth century, 208;
-    nineteenth century, 222, 234;
-    school of engraving eighteenth century, 209.
-
-  Engraved plates, first book with, 52;
-    in France, 134, 190.
-
-  Engravers, employed by Plantin, 142;
-    in relief, the first, 3.
-
-  Engraving, introduction of metal plates for, 32;
-    the process, 52;
-    in the Books of Hours, 71.
-
-  Erasmus, visit to Aldus, 101.
-
-  Estienne, Robert, printer in Paris, 121, 242.
-
-  Etching, process of, 189.
-
-  Eustache, William, printer of Books of Hours, 82.
-
-  Eve, Nicholas, bookbinder, 274.
-
-
-  Ferrara, first printer, 35.
-
-  Fichet, William, ascribes invention of printing to Gutenberg, 31.
-
-  Flemish, illustration, 66;
-    printers, early, 36, 106.
-
-  Florence, National Library of, 302.
-
-  Foligno, first printer, 35.
-
-  Fontainebleau school of engraving, 128.
-
-  Fornazeris, J. de, engraver, 158.
-
-  Foucquet, John, artist, 69.
-
-  Fount of type, 243.
-
-  Fouquet, Superintendent, bindings for, 272, 282.
-
-  Fournier, type-engraver, 242.
-
-  France, early printing in, 47.
-
-  Francis I., father of letters, 120;
-    bindings for, 266;
-    royal library, 291.
-
-  Frankfort, books of the seventeenth century, 159.
-
-  Franklin, Benjamin, printer at Philadelphia, 217;
-    founded first American public library, 303.
-
-  French book illustration, 68, 76, 106, 166, 203;
-    provinces, public libraries of, 298.
-
-  Fresne, Trichet du, corrector of Royal Printing House, 166.
-
-  Furne, publisher of Paris, 232.
-
-  Fust, John, 12 _et seq_.;
-    in partnership with Gutenberg, 15.
-
-
-  Garamond, Claude, type-founder, 121, 166, 241.
-
-  Gaultier, Leonard, engraver, 142, 154.
-
-  Gavarni, designer, 233.
-
-  Ged, William, inventor of stereotype, 220.
-
-  Gering, Freyburger, and Crantz, first printers in Paris, 41.
-
-  German books, in the seventeenth century, 158;
-    eighteenth century, 208;
-    nineteenth century, 224.
-
-  German public libraries, 299.
-
-  Gigoux, John, vignettist, 228.
-
-  Gillot, Claude, engraver, 180, 186.
-
-  Giunta, Lucantonio, printer at Venice, 102.
-
-  Gondi, bindings for, 272.
-
-  Gourmont, John de, wood engraver, 137.
-
-  Grandjean, Philip, royal printer, 242.
-
-  Grandville, designer, 233.
-
-  Gravelot, Hubert Francis, engraver, 196, 213.
-
-  Grolier, John, bindings for, 256.
-
-  Guadagnino, artist of Venice, 102.
-
-  Guise, Henri de, "Le Balafré," bindings for, 274.
-
-  Gutenberg, John, 12 _et seq_.;
-    at Mayence, 15;
-    death of, 29.
-
-
-  Haarlem, book illustration at, 67.
-
-  Hachette, publisher of Paris, 234.
-
-  Hagenbach, Peter, printer at Toledo, 36.
-
-  Hahn, Ulrich, printer at Rome, 35;
-    printed first illustrated book in Italy, 48.
-
-  Hardouins, printers of Books of Hours, 82.
-
-  Haye, Cornelis de la, painter, 130.
-
-  Heilmann, Andrew, associate of Gutenberg, 13.
-
-  Heinlein and Fichet introduce printing into Paris, 40.
-
-  Henri II., _Entrée à Lyon_, 1549, 130;
-    bindings for, 270;
-    royal library, 292.
-
-  Henri III., bindings for, 274.
-
-  Henri IV., royal library, 292.
-
-  Hoe printing machines, 249.
-
-  Holbein, "Dance of Death," 86, 124;
-    Cranmer's Catechism, 148.
-
-  Holland, artists in the seventeenth century, 160.
-
-
-  Illustrations, first, in books, 47;
-    in the sixteenth century, 123.
-
-  Imposition, process of, 245.
-
-  Ink, composition of, 252.
-
-  Ipswich, first printer, 149.
-
-  Isaac, Jasper, engraver, 156.
-
-  Italian, books in the seventeenth century, 159;
-    influence on French illustration, 125;
-    on bindings, 256.
-
-  Italic type introduced, 100.
-
-  Italy, public libraries of, 302.
-
-
-  Jenson, Nicholas, sent to Mayence to learn type-founding, 38;
-    printer at Venice, 38, 103.
-
-  Johannot brothers, engravers, 227.
-
-  John of Cologne, master _à la navette_, 67.
-
-  Jombert, printer of Paris, 192.
-
-  Junius, Hadrian, narrator of the Coster legend, 6, 12.
-
-
-  Kerver, Thielman, printer of Books of Hours, 80, 88.
-
-  Knight, Charles, publisher, 223.
-
-  Koburger, first printer at Nuremberg, 36, 60.
-
-  Koelhof, first printer to use signatures, 36.
-
-
-  Labarre, John de, royal librarian, 291.
-
-  Laborde, _Chansons_, 202.
-
-  Laferté, bookbinder, 287.
-
-  La Fontaine, the _Contes_, 198.
-
-  La Marche, Oliver de, his _Chevalier Delibéré_, 67.
-
-  Laserre, luxury in bindings for, 278.
-
-  La Tour, bookbinder, 281.
-
-  Lavoignat, wood engraver, 230.
-
-  Lebé, William, type-founder, 140, 242.
-
-  Le Brun, painter, 175.
-
-  Leclerc, Sébastien, engraver, 176.
-
-  Leech, John, book illustrator, 235.
-
-  Leeu, Gerard de, printer at Antwerp, 67.
-
-  Le Gascon bindings, 276.
-
-  Le Jay and the Polyglot Bible, 173.
-
-  Le Maire, John, _Illustrations de la Gaule_, 107.
-
-  Le Monnier, bookbinder, 287.
-
-  Lenoir, Philip, bindings for Francis I., 268.
-
-  Lepautre, engraver, 179.
-
-  Lesné, poet of bookbinding, 287.
-
-  Letters of Indulgence, the first printed, 17.
-
-  Lettou, John, early English printer, 95.
-
-  Leu, Thomas de, engraver, 142, 154.
-
-  Levasseur, bookbinder, 281.
-
-  Lewis, Charles, bookbinder, 288.
-
-  Leyden, the Elzevirs at, 162;
-    public library of, 299.
-
-  Libraries, 290.
-
-  Library, National, of Paris, 291.
-
-  Lipsius, Justus, employed by Plantin, 140.
-
-  Logography, invention of, 216.
-
-  Lorenzo, Nicholas di, printer of _El Monte Santo di Dio_, first book
-      with engraved plates, 52.
-
-  Loslein, Peter, printer at Venice, 35.
-
-  Louis XII., ordinance on printing, 108;
-    bindings for, 256, 264;
-    royal library, 291.
-
-  Louis XIV., bindings for, 281;
-    regulations for bookbinders, 282.
-
-  Louvain, printer in 1474, 37.
-
-  Lutzelburger, Hans, engraver of "Dance of Death," 125.
-
-  Lyons, first printing at, 47;
-    in the sixteenth century, 124;
-    seventeenth century, 158.
-
-
-  Machlinia, William, early English printer, 37, 95.
-
-  Macon, first printer at, 47.
-
-  _Magasin Pittoresque_, 226.
-
-  Mainyal, George, associate of Gering, 47.
-
-  Maioli, Thomas, bindings for, 259.
-
-  Mansfeldt, Count, bindings for, 272.
-
-  Mansion, Colard, printer at Bruges, 1473, 37.
-
-  Manuscripts, influence of printing upon, 34.
-
-  Manutius. See Aldus.
-
-  Marchant, Guyot, his "Dance of Death," 86;
-    bindings for Francis I., 268.
-
-  Marinoni printing press, 249.
-
-  Marnef, Geoffroy and Gilbert, French printers, 107.
-
-  Mayence, revolution at, in 1462, 27;
-    printing in the seventeenth century, 158.
-
-  Mayer, Henry, printer at Toulouse, 47.
-
-  Mazarin, Cardinal, bindings for, 280;
-    his library, 293.
-
-  Meissonier, designer on wood, 230.
-
-  Mellan, Claude, engraver, 156.
-
-  Menzel, Adolph, book illustrator, 224.
-
-  _Mer des Histoires_, 1488, 70, 107.
-
-  Mérius, bookbinder, 281.
-
-  Meslier, Denis, publisher in Paris, 82.
-
-  Metal plates used for illustration, 134.
-
-  Metlinger, printer at Dijon, 47.
-
-  Milan, printing in the sixteenth
-    century, 103;
-    public libraries of, 302.
-
-  Montenay, Georgette de, his emblems, 135.
-
-  Monteregio, _Calendario_, first book with title-page, 50.
-
-  Montmorency, Anne de, bindings for, 272.
-
-  Moreau the younger, engraver, 200.
-
-  Moretus, printer of Antwerp, 141.
-
-  Mosaic bindings, 284.
-
-  Motte, Houdart de la, his "Fables," 186.
-
-
-  Necker, Jost, engraver of the _Theuerdanck_, 105.
-
-  Neumeister, John, printer at Albi, 47.
-
-  Neumeister, John, printer at Foligno, 35.
-
-  Nevers, Duc de, book published in 1577, 138.
-
-  Notary, Julian, early English printer, 96.
-
-  Noyers, Sublet de, superintendent of Royal Printing House, 166.
-
-  Nuremberg, first printer, 36;
-    books of the sixteenth century, 104;
-    Chronicle, 1493, 62;
-    books of the seventeenth century, 159.
-
-
-  Orleans, public library at, 298.
-
-  Os, Peter van, his _Biblia Pauperum_, 67.
-
-  Oswen, John, first printer at Ipswich, 149.
-
-  Oxford, first printer, 37;
-    Bodleian Library, 300.
-
-
-  Palermo, first printer, 35.
-
-  Palmart, Lambert, printer at Valencia, 1477, 36.
-
-  Pannartz, Arnold, printer at Rome, 35.
-
-  Paper, manufacture of, 249.
-
-  Papillons, wood engravers, 212.
-
-  Paris, Fust's visit to, 27;
-    first book printed at, 42;
-    public libraries of, 298.
-
-  Pasdeloup, bookbinder, 284.
-
-  Pasquier-Bonhomme, printer in Paris, 68.
-
-  Pass family, engravers, 160.
-
-  Pasti, Matteo, designs for Valturius, 49.
-
-  Paulin, publisher of Paris, 228.
-
-  Payne, Roger, bookbinder, 288.
-
-  Perréal, John, artist, 69.
-
-  Pfinzfing, _Theuerdanck_, 104.
-
-  Pfister, Albert, printer of Bamberg, 25.
-
-  Philippe, Laurent, publisher in Paris, 82.
-
-  Photography, use in illustration, 233.
-
-  Picart, Bernard, engraver, 180.
-
-  Picart, John, engraver, 156.
-
-  Piccini, engraver, 159.
-
-  Pickering, William, publisher, 223.
-
-  Pictor, Bernard, printer of Venice, 35.
-
-  Pigouchet, Philip, printer of Paris, 68, 70.
-
-  Plantin, Christopher, printer of Antwerp, 140.
-
-  Pluvinel, _Manège Royal_, 160.
-
-  Poitiers, Diane de, bindings for, 270.
-
-  Poliphilus, printed by Aldus, 1499, 56;
-    by Kerver, 1545, 123.
-
-  Polytypes, invention of, 216.
-
-  Pompadour, Madame de, bindings for, 272.
-
-  Portraits as illustrations, 89, 123, 137.
-
-  Prault, publisher of Paris, 192.
-
-  Prayer-book, Queen Elizabeth's, 146;
-    Edward VI's., 148.
-
-  Presses, printing, 248.
-
-  Press work, process of, 246.
-
-  Printers' marks, 87.
-
-  Prohibitions on printers, 152, 185.
-
-  _Promptuaire des Médailles_, printed by Roville, 130.
-
-  Psalter of 1457, the first dated book, 23.
-
-  Ptolemy, 1478, first printed atlas, 55.
-
-  Pynson, Richard, early English printer, 37, 95, 146.
-
-
-  Racine, works, the Louvre edition, 219.
-
-  Raffet, wood engraver, 232.
-
-  Ratdolt, Erhardt, printer at Venice, 35;
-    printed first title-page, 50, 103.
-
-  Rembold, Berthold, associate of Gering, 47.
-
-  Richelieu, Cardinal, his library, 297.
-
-  Roffet, Peter, bindings for Francis I., 267.
-
-  Rogers, Samuel, his poetical works, 222.
-
-  Roman character, 38, 240.
-
-  Rome, first printers, 35;
-    public libraries of, 302.
-
-  Rood, Theod., first printer at Oxford, 37.
-
-  Roville, printer of Lyons, 128, 130.
-
-  Royal Printing House in Paris, 166, 215.
-
-  Royer, John le, printer for mathematics, 1560, 132.
-
-  Ruette, bookbinder, 282.
-
-  Rüppel, Berthold, first printer at Basle, 36.
-
-
-  St. Albans, first printer, 37.
-
-  St. Aubin, designer and engraver, 192, 200.
-
-  St. Pierre, Bernardin de, and the Didots, 221.
-
-  Salomon, Bernard, designer, 128.
-
-  Sanlecque, James, type-founder, 242.
-
-  Schäufelein, designs for the _Theuerdanck_, 105.
-
-  Schiedam, early printing at, 67.
-
-  Schoeffer, Peter, associate of Gutenberg and Fust, 16.
-
-  Schongauer, Martin, influence on French art, 72.
-
-  Schönsperger, printer of Augsburg, 105.
-
-  Séguier, bindings for, 282.
-
-  Siberch, John, first printer at Cambridge, 149.
-
-  Sicily, first printer, 35.
-
-  Sizes of books, 147, 189.
-
-  Sloane, Sir Hans, founder of the British Museum, 300.
-
-  Smirke, Robert, book illustrator, 210.
-
-  Southwark, first printer at, 149.
-
-  Spain, book illustration in, 106.
-
-  _Speculum Humanæ Salvationis_, 7.
-
-  Spindeler, Nicholas, printer at Barcelona, 36.
-
-  Spire, John and Vendelin of, printers at Venice, 35.
-
-  Spyes, Weigand, pupil of Gutenberg, 25.
-
-  Stanhope press, 248.
-
-  Steel plates for illustrations, 232.
-
-  Stereotype, invention of, 220.
-
-  Stothard, Thomas, book illustrator, 210, 222, 234.
-
-  Strasbourg, Gutenberg's retreat to, 13.
-
-  Sweynheim, Conrad, printer at Rome, 35.
-
-
-  _Tailleurs d'images_ of the Middle Ages, 3.
-
-  Tauchnitz, Baron, publisher of Leipzig, 224.
-
-  Tessier, bookbinder, 287.
-
-  Ther-Hoenen, Arnold, first printer using Arabic numerals for pages,
-      36, 58, 88.
-
-  _Theuerdanck_, printed at Nuremberg, 104.
-
-  Thevet, books with plates, 135.
-
-  Thompson brothers, wood engravers, 225.
-
-  Thou, James Augustus de, royal librarian, 293.
-
-  Titian, influence on book illustration, 103.
-
-  Title-page, the first, 50, 86;
-    illustrated, 133, 142.
-
-  Toledo, first printer, 36.
-
-  Tornes, Hans de, printer in Lyons, 128.
-
-  Torresani, Andrea, succeeded Jenson, 50.
-
-  Tortorel and Perrissin, plates on the religious wars, 137.
-
-  Tory, Geoffroy, printer and engraver, 110, 241, 261.
-
-  Toulouse, first printer, 47.
-
-  Travel, books of, 148, 182.
-
-  Treschel, John, printer at Lyons, 88, 124.
-
-  Treves, Peter of, first printer at Southwark, 149.
-
-  Trithemius, account of Peter Schoeffer, 16.
-
-  Turner, J. M. W., designs for Rogers' works, 222.
-
-  Type-founding, 239, 243.
-
-
-  United States, printing in, 216;
-    public libraries in, 302.
-
-  Utrecht, early printers at, 36, 67.
-
-
-  Valdarfer, Christopher, printer at Venice, 35.
-
-  Valencia, first printer, 36.
-
-  Valladier, Andrew, _Métanéologie_, 155.
-
-  Valturius, _De Re Militari_, 1472, 49.
-
-  Veldener, John, printer at Louvain, 67.
-
-  Venice, first printers, 35;
-    first title-page printed at, 50;
-    sixteenth century work, 102;
-    seventeenth century, 159;
-    libraries of, 302.
-
-  Verard, Antony, printer in Paris, 68, 76;
-    his Books of Hours, 78.
-
-  Versailles, printing office of the Minister for War, 215.
-
-  Vinci, Leonardo da, influence on book illustration, 103.
-
-  Vitré, Antoine, publisher of Paris, 172.
-
-  Voragine, "Golden Legend," Venice, 1518, 103.
-
-  Vostre, Simon, printer in Paris, 68;
-    his Books of Hours, 70.
-
-  Vyel, Andrew, printer at Palermo, 35.
-
-
-  Walchius, story of Fust's visit to Paris, 28.
-
-  Walter, John, printer of the _Times_, 216, 249.
-
-  Water marks in paper, 251.
-
-  Watervliet, Marc Laurin de, bindings for, 272.
-
-  Watteau, engraver, 187.
-
-  Wechel, printer in Paris, 128.
-
-  Wensler, Michael, printer at Macon, 47.
-
-  Westminster, Caxton first printer at, 37.
-
-  Westphalia, John of, printer at Louvain, 1474, 37, 67.
-
-  Whittingham, Charles, printer, 223.
-
-  Woériot, Peter, engraver of emblems, 135.
-
-  Wohlgemuth, Michael, designs for the _Schatzbehalter_, 60.
-
-  Wolfenbüttel, public library of, 299.
-
-  Woodcuts, first book printed with, 48.
-
-  Wood engraving, revival of, 209, 213, 230.
-
-  Wynken de Worde, early English printer, 37, 95.
-
-
-  Xylographs of the fifteenth century, 8.
-
-
-  Zainer, Gunther, printer at Augsburg, 58.
-
-  Zell, Ulrich, pupil of Gutenberg, 25, 30, 36.
-
-  Zwoll, book illustration at, 67.
-
-
-
-
-Transcriber's Note
-
-In this text version, symbols and Greek letters in the text are replaced
-by their name, enclosed in square brackets, e.g. [phi], [double cross].
-In addition, oe ligatures are replaced with the letters oe, and
-superscripts are introduced with the caret character, e.g. XVIII^e
-
-
-
-
-
-End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Printed Book, by Henri Bouchot
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