>A 
 
 !>'. 
 .'*''
 
 Q)
 
 >?y
 
 ITALIAN 
 WOOD -EN GRAVING 
 
 IN THE 
 
 FIFTEENTH CENTURY
 
 Art 
 library 
 
 A 1 U(^H^ 
 
 Preface 
 
 The book now offered to the consideration of English readers 
 has developed out of a series of articles jvhich appeared oi^iginally 
 in the '^Jahrbuch der K. Preussischeji Kunstsammlungen" , and 
 iifere afterwards published in a separate issue of a hundred copies. 
 The grojving interest in all branches of old Italian art among 
 English readers on both sides of the Atlantic, has induced me 
 to revise and ifnprove the substance of those articles, and to 
 publish it in an English form. The text is not only corrected, 
 but is also considerably enlarged; and the number of illustrations 
 is proportionately augmented. Tlie work may therefore be regar- 
 ded as in some degree a new one. For the attainment of this result, 
 I have to express mj thanks to Mr. Bermard Qiiaritch, whose ready- 
 co-operation was a stimulus to the exertion of preparing my la- 
 bours for the press; and to another friendly collaborator whose 
 aid was cordially afforded in the task of converting the book 
 from a German into an English one. 
 
 THE AUTHOR. 
 
 Berlin; March, i 
 
 124i^828
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Page 
 
 Fable of the Hydra and the Frogs. From Tuppo's iEsop, Naples, 1485 . 17 
 St. Jacopone and the Madonna. From the Laudi of Jacopone da Todi, 
 
 Florence, 149 1 23 
 
 The Saviour in the Mandorla. From the Monte Santo di Dio, Florence, 1491 27 
 
 The Physician. From the Giuoco degli Scacchi, Florence, 1493 .... 29 
 The Virgin, with the Child and the little St. John. Reduced facsimile from 
 
 the leaf in the Kunsthalle at Hamburg 37 
 
 Woodcut from the title-page of Savonarola's Semplicita della Vita Christiana, 
 
 Florence, 1496 42 
 
 Christ and the Samaritan Woman. From the Epistole et Evangelii, 
 
 Florence, 1495 43 
 
 The Presentation in the Temple. From the Epistole et Evangelii ... 44 
 
 Retreat of the three Nymphs. From the Quadriregio, Florence, 1508 . . 48 
 
 The Lovers. From the Quadriregio 49 
 
 Scene from the Rappresentazione of St. Apollonia 51 
 
 From the Rappresentazione of Agnolo Hebreo 52 
 
 From the Novella la Viola 53 
 
 Woodcut from Valturio de Re Militari, Verona, 1472 58 
 
 Fable of the Daw, from the ^sop of Verona, 1479 ^ 
 
 Fable of the Ass and the Lapdog, from the same iEsop 61 
 
 Head of a man. From the Repetitio tit. de heredibus, of Johannes Crispus, 
 
 1490, Venice 69 
 
 View of Florence. From the Supplementum Chronicarum, i486, Venice . 72 
 
 View of Florence. From the Supplementum Chronicarum, 1490, Venice . 73 
 
 View of Rome. From the Supplementum Chronicarum, 1490, Venice . . 74 
 
 Allegorical figure. From the Decrctalia, 1481, Venice 76 
 
 Triumph of Chastity. From the Petrarca, 1488, Venice ~~
 
 X 
 
 Page 
 
 Fable of the Fly and the Ant. From the Esopo vulgare, 1487, Venice . 80 
 
 Scourging of Christ. From the Devote Meditationi, 1489, Venice. ... 81 
 
 Two Vignette designs, from the Italian Bible of Malermi, 141(0, Venice . 84 
 
 Two other Vignettes, from the same Bible 85 
 
 Design to the eighth canto of the Inferno. From the Dante, March 1491, 
 
 Venice 86 
 
 Design to the eighth canto of the Inferno. From the Dante, November 1491, 
 
 Venice 87 
 
 The author presenting his book. From Masuccio's Novellino, 1492, Venice 91 
 
 Scene from the Terence of 1497, Venice 92 
 
 Theseus and the Minotaur. From the Plutarch, 1491, Venice 95 
 
 The Mouse and the Frog. From the ;Esop, 1491, Venice 97 
 
 The Triumph of Fame. From the Petrarca, 1492, Venice 101 
 
 San Lorenzo Justiniano. Doctrina della vita monastica, 1494, Venice . . 105 
 
 Apollo and Marsyas. From the Ovidio, 1497, Venice 107 
 
 Woodcut from the Missale Romanum, 1509, Venice 117 
 
 Woodcut from the Poliphilo of 1499, Venice 121 
 
 Another woodcut, from the same 123 
 
 Printer's mark of Tacuino de Tridino, 1306, Venice 127 
 
 Portrait of Paulus Florentinus. Breviarium juris canonici, Milan, 1479 . 137 
 
 Triumph of Time. From the Petrarca, 1494, Milan 139 
 
 St. Jerome. From Vivaldus de veritate contricionis, 1493, Saluzzo . . . 145 
 Portrait of Louis II, Marquis of Saluzzo. From Vivaldus, Opus Regale, 
 
 1507, Saluzzo 149 
 
 Portrait of Ercole d'Este I. From the funeral oration by F. Niger, Ferrara, 
 
 1505 '55 
 
 Cassandra Fideli. From Bergomensis de claris Mulieribus, 1497, Ferrara 136 
 
 Paula Gonzaga. From the same work 157 
 
 Madonna and Child. Fragment of a woodcut in the Berlin Print-room . 159 
 
 Miracle of St. Martha. In the collection of Baron Edmond de Rothschild 163 
 
 Ecce Homo. Milanese woodcut, 13 th century 167 
 
 Christ bearing the Cross. Milanese woodcut, 13th century 171 
 
 St. Jerome the Hermit. Woodcut by I. B. . . . 173
 
 XI 
 
 Page 
 
 Section, full-size, of a unique large woodcut view of Florence (separate 
 
 Pl<^i^) 32— 33 
 
 Reduced facsimile of the entire woodcut (separate plate) 32 — 33 
 
 The Man stricken with Plague. From Ketham's Fasciculo de Medicina, 
 
 1493, Venice (separate plate) 96 — 97 
 
 Istoria Romana. Large woodcut by Jacob of Strassburg (separate plate) 1 12 — 1 13 
 Portion of a large view of Venice, believed to be by Jacopo de Barbari 
 
 (separate plate) 128 — 129 
 
 Conversion of Mary Magdalen, from the Tesauro Spirituale, 1499, 
 
 Milan (separate plate) 144 — 143 
 
 The Madonna with the infant Saviour. From a woodcut in the Berlin 
 
 Print-room (separate plate) 164 — 165 
 
 Portrait of a beardless man. From a Milanese woodcut in the Berlin 
 
 Print-room (Phototype) 170 — 171
 
 INDEX 
 
 OF 
 
 NAMES, BOOKS AND PRINTS 
 
 Actseon's Metamorphosis, woodcut, 
 
 LB. 177. 
 jEsop's Fables, early impressions in 
 
 various countries. 45. 
 — , Accio Zucco, 1479, Verona. 59. 
 
 , facsimiles from. Go, 61. 
 
 , 1485, Naples. 14. 
 
 , 1487, Venice. 79, 98. 
 
 ■ — , facsimile from. 80. 
 
 , 1491, Venice. 98. 
 
 , 1493, Aquila. 16. 
 
 , Florence, 1495. 45. 
 
 , 1498, Milan. 144. 
 
 — , life of, translated byTuppo, 1491-92, 
 
 Venice. 98. 
 Agnolo Hebreo, rappresentazione. 52. 
 Aldine press at Venice. 82. 
 — , Poliphilo. 122. 
 
 Alfragani Astronomia, 1493, Ferrara. 153. 
 AltdorfFer (Albrecht). 82. 
 Aluise (Gioanni) e compagni, printers 
 
 in 1479 at Verona. 59. 
 — , see Johannes ex Verona. 
 A.M. monogram. 177. 
 Ancona (Aless. d') Rappresentazioni. 54. 
 — , Origini del Teatro. 54. 
 Antonio di Monza. 5. 
 Apollonia, Rappresentazione. 51. 
 Apollo and Daphne, by I. B. 174. 
 Apuleii Herbarium, Rome. 12. 
 Aquila di Napoli — printing at. 16. 
 Arbor Consanguinitatis — in Crispus. 
 
 69, 100. 
 
 Ardizoni fSimone di) artist at Mantua 
 
 and Verona. 108. 
 Ariosto, Orlando, 15C6, Venice. 109. 
 Arrigoni's Loretto woodcut. 160. 
 Ars Moriendi, the German blockbook. 40. 
 
 — of Caprahica, printed at Florence. 41. 
 
 — of Savonarola. 39. 
 AudifFredi, Editiones Italicae. 24. 
 
 13 (b) artist's mark. 125, 132, 135. 
 — , Dante, 1491, Venice. 88. 
 — , Livio, 1493, Venice. 93. 
 
 — Terence, 1497, Venice. 92. 
 Baldini fBaccio). 19, 20, 99. 
 Ballatette del magn. Lorenzo, etc. 50. 
 Barbari (Jacopo de) artist at Venice. 1 26. 
 — , identical with J.Walch. 56, 1 12, 126. 
 — , in the Netherlands. 128. 
 
 — , View of Venice. 129, 166. 
 
 — , summoned to Nuremberg. 128,130. 
 
 — , Battle of Men and Satyrs. 131. 
 
 — , Triumph of Cupid with the money- 
 bag. 131. 
 
 — , Poliphilo. 133. 
 
 — , Malermi Bible. 133. 
 
 — , Ovid of 1497. 135. 
 
 — , Ketham. 135. 
 
 Barberiis (Philippus de) Opuscula. 12,13. 
 
 Barberino (Jacop) identical with Jacopo 
 de Barbari or Jacob Walch. 128. 
 
 Bartsch, Peintre-Graveur. 35. 
 
 — , Kupferstichsammlung in Wien. 131. 
 
 — , Maitre au Caducee. 134.
 
 XIV 
 
 Battle of Men and Satyrs, woodcut. 131. 
 Beaufort (Andreas Gallus) printer at 
 
 Ferrara. 153. 
 Beham (Hans Sebald). 82. 
 Belcari (Fee) Rappresentazioni. 51. 
 Bellini (the elder). 08. 
 — , (Gentile) designs. 57, 103, 104, loG. 
 — , Poliphilo ascribed to. 125. 
 Benalis (Bernardinus de) printer at 
 
 Venice. 70, 79, 83, 88. 
 Bergomensis, Supplementum Chroni- 
 
 carum, 1483, Venice. 70. 
 
 , 1485, Brescia. 70. 
 
 , i486, Venice. 32, 70. 
 
 , 1490. 32, 71. 
 
 — , de Claris Mulieribus, Ferrara, 1497. 
 
 '53- 
 Berlin Print -room — Italian single 
 
 woodcuts in. 158- -174. 
 Berlinghicri, Geographia. 21. 
 Bcsicken (Joannes) printer at Rome. 13. 
 Bettini (Antonio) Monte Santo. 19, 25. 
 Bible — Cologne German version, 1480. 
 
 85. 
 — , Koburger's Nuremberg, 1483. 85. 
 
 — Biblia Hehraica, 1488, Soncino. 15. 
 
 — Italian version of Malermi, 1490, 
 Venice. 83, 125. 
 
 , facsimiles from. 84, 85. 
 
 bMo mark. 125, 127. 
 
 Boccaccio, Decameron, frequently 
 
 printed at Venice and Florence. 46. 
 — , 1492, Venice, Gregorius. 90. 
 — , Philocopo, 1472, Florence. 26. 
 Bonaventura (St.) Meditationes. 83. 
 — , Devote Meditazioni, 1489, Venice. 82. 
 
 , facsimile from. 81. 
 
 — , Tesauro Spirituale, 1499. 143, 169. 
 Bonino de Bonini, printer at Brescia, 
 
 Venice, etc. 87. 
 Bonsignore (Giovanni di). loG. 
 Border ornamentation in Venetian 
 
 books. 94. 
 Botticello (Sandro) designs. 29, 35, 54. 
 
 Botticello (Sandro) Dante illustrations. 
 
 20, 88. 
 
 — , Poliphilo ascribed to. 125. 
 Brant (Sebastian) editor of Terence. 93. 
 Brebiani (G.) — see Pacifko. 137. 
 Breydenbach, Peregrinationes, 148G, 
 
 Mentz. 33. 
 Brief drucker and Briefmaler. 2, 10, iGi. 
 Brothers of Common Life. i. 
 Brunet, Manuel du Libraire. 42, 49. 
 Bucentoro, Venetian woodcut. 1G6. 
 Buckinck (Arnold) printer at Rome. 
 
 21, 7G. 
 
 Buonaccorsi (Francesco di Dino) printer 
 
 at Florence. 24, 39, 45. 
 Burgkmair (Hans). 70. 
 
 v^alandri (Philippus) de Arithmetica, 
 
 1 49 1, Florence. 28. 
 Campe, Reliquien. 130. 
 Campo Santo frescoes. 25. 
 Canzone per andar in Maschera (before 
 
 1500), Florence. 50. 
 Capranica (Domen.) Arte del ben Mo- 
 
 rire. 41. 
 Carnerio (Agostino) printer at Ferrara. 
 
 63- 
 
 Carpi (Ugo da) improver of chiaroscuro. 
 G9, 13G. 
 
 Castellano de Castellani (Pierozo). 51. 
 
 Castilioneus (Zanotus) printer at Milan. 
 151. 
 
 Cavalca (Dom.) Spechio di Croce. 24. 
 
 Cennini (Bernardo) printer at F'lorence. 
 19. 
 
 Cesariano (Cesare) artist at Como or 
 Milan. 151. 
 
 Cessoli — see Jacopo. 
 
 Chiaroscuro printing, (yj^ 68, 136. 
 
 Chiromantia, 148 1, Rome. 12. 
 
 Christ bearing the Cross, Milanese wood- 
 cut. 169. 
 
 — , facsimile. 171. 
 
 — , Crucifixion. 165, 177.
 
 XV 
 
 Christ and the Samaritan woman — a 
 Florentine woodcut, facsimile. 43. 
 
 Christopher (St.) woodcut in Missale 
 Cartusiense. 154. 
 
 Cicero, Subiaco, 1465. 4. 
 
 — , Epistola; ad familiares, 1469, Venice, 
 
 63. 
 
 Cicogna, Iscrizioni Veneziane. 129. 
 
 Circis (Jac. de) printer at Saluzzo. 147. 
 
 Claudin (A.) Imprimerie a Albi. 22. 
 
 Clement VII (Giuliano de Medici). 65. 
 
 Co de Ca (Matheo di) of Parma, printer 
 at Venice. 82, 83, 88. 
 
 Colomb de Batines, Rappresent. 54. 
 
 Colonna orColumna (Francesco) author 
 of Poliphilo. 120. 
 
 Conegliano (Cima da). 118. 
 
 Conuntiis (Petri de) Regule florum 
 Musices. 49. 
 
 Cousin (Jean), French artist. 124. 
 
 Cranach (Lucas). 70. 
 
 Crasso (Leonardo) editor of the Poli- 
 philo. 122. 
 
 Cremonese (Pietro) printer at Venice. 
 
 89. 99- 
 Crucifixion — Italian woodcut in Berlin 
 
 Print-room. 165. 
 
 — woodcut by I. B. 177. 
 
 L/ante, Divina Commedia, illustrated 
 by Botticelli, MS. 20. 
 
 — , frequently printed, 46. 
 
 , 1481, Florence, 19, 87. 
 
 , 1487, Brescia. 87. 
 
 , 1 49 1, Venice. 88. 
 
 — , facsimiles from. 86, 87. 
 
 David, woodcut by I. B. 177. 
 
 Deathbed Scenes, Florentine wood- 
 cuts. 40, 41. 
 
 Delaborde, Gravure en Italic. 35, 90, 1 14. 
 
 Designers' marks. 119, 120. 
 
 Devote Meditazioni — see Bonaventura. 
 
 Dibdin, Biblioth. Spencer. 41. 
 
 Dresden Royal Collection, woodcuts 
 
 in. 115. 
 Diirer (Albert). 3. 
 — , designs copied at Venice. 56. 
 — , Journal in the Netherlands. 126. 
 — , Proportionslehre. 128. 
 — , Letter to Pirkheimer. 130. 
 
 bcce Homo, Milanese woodcut. 170. 
 
 — , facsimile. 167. 
 
 Engravers' marks. 119, 120. 
 
 — see AM, b, bMo, F, ia, IB, LV. 
 
 Esopo — see yEsop. 
 
 Epistole et Evangelii, 1495, Florence. 43. 
 
 — , other editions. 45. 
 
 Ercole d'Este I, portrait. 155. 
 
 r monogram, Livio volgare, 1493, 
 
 Venice. 92. 
 Fasciculus Temporum — see Rolewink. 
 Feliciano (Felice). 62. 
 Felix Antiquarius. 62. 
 Ferettus (Nic.) de structura compos., 
 
 1495, Forli. 96. 
 Ferrara, books with woodcuts printed 
 
 there. 1S3. 
 Ferraro da Viglevano (J. P.) Spechio 
 
 di Anima, Milan, 1498. 142, 151. 
 Ferza de' Villani. 50, 55. 
 Fiorillo (J. D.) on the Poliphilo. 122. 
 Fisher (Richard) art collection. 43. 
 — , Catalogue. 43. 
 — , on Zoan Andrea. loS. 
 Florence, printing at. 19. 
 — , large woodcut view (about 1487 — 8). 
 
 30, 34- 
 — , View in the Supplementum Chroni- 
 
 carum. 32, 72, 73. 
 
 , in the Nuremberg Chronicle. 33. 
 
 , facsimiles of woodcuts. 72, 73. 
 
 Florentine school of Woodengraving. 
 
 18-55. 
 Foresti — see Bergomensis.
 
 XVI 
 
 Forii — engraving in a book printed 
 
 there. q6. 
 Fossi, Biblioth. Magliabechiana. 26. 28, 
 
 82. 
 Francesco di Dino, printer at Naples. iG. 
 — , see Buonaccorsi. 
 Frezzi (Feder.) Quatriregio, 1508, 
 
 Florence. 47. 
 — , facsimiles of woodcuts. 48, 49. 
 Fust and Schoffer. 5, 68. 
 
 Cjafori i,Fr.), Musices Theoria, 1480, 
 
 Naples. 16. 
 — , Theorica Musical, Milan, 1492. 141. 
 — , Practica Musicae, Milan, 1496. 142. 
 — de Harmonia, 15 13, Milan. 148. 
 Galichon, Gazette des Beaux Arts. 174. 
 Gamba, Testi di Lingua. 50. 
 Garbo (Raffaelino del). 36. 
 Gazette des Beaux Arts. 83. 
 Genoa, View in Suppl. Chronicarum. 7 1 . 
 German printers and engravers in North 
 
 Italy. 56. 
 German single -leaf woodcuts (early). 
 
 157, 161. 
 Gherardo the miniaturist. 5. 
 Ghirlandajo's school. 13. 
 Gianstephano di Carlo di Pavia, printer 
 
 at Florence. 50. 
 Giasone e Medea, 1563, Florence. 50. 
 Giovanni da Maganza, printer at Flo- 
 rence. 25, 26, 39, 41, 43. 
 Giunta (Lucantonio) publisher at Venice. 
 
 83, 93, 106. 
 Gonzaga (Cardinal Francesco). 13. 
 Govi (Gilb.), Atti dei Lincei. 75. 
 Graces (the three) woodcut, I. B. 177. 
 Gregorii IX. Decretalia, printed by 
 
 Jenson. O4. 
 Gregorius de Gregoriis and his brother, 
 
 printers at Venice. 90, 99, 104. 
 Griininger (J.) printer at Strassburg. 93. 
 Gruyer, lUustr. de Savonarola. 28, 39, 42. 
 Guadagnino — see Zoan Andrea. 
 
 Hahn (Ulrichl printer at Rome. 9. 
 Hamburg Museum, Italian woodcuts in. 
 
 3^ 37^ '70- 
 
 Hamman (Johann) dictus Herzog, 
 printer at Venice. 68, 119. 
 
 Hartmann on Jacopo de Barbari. 134. 
 
 Hartzen — see Cicogna. 129. 
 
 Herodotus, Latine, 1494, Venice. 104. 
 
 Hieronymus (S.) Epistole, Ferrara, 1497. 
 154. 
 
 — , Opera, 1497 — 98, Venice 104. 
 
 — , woodcuts of — see Jerome (St.) 
 
 Himmel (Peter) German printer at Flo- 
 rence. 41. 
 
 Hippolita, Duchess of Calabria. 01. 
 
 Hippolito, printer at Florence. 26. 
 
 Hippolytus Sarcophagus. 113. 
 
 Holbein (Hans) the younger. 82. 
 
 Horaj etc. printed at Venice. 116. 
 
 Huth (Henry) Library catalogue. 48. 
 
 Hyginus, printed at Ferrara. 63. 
 
 — , 1482, Venice. 6j. 
 
 Hypnerotomachia Poliphili — see Poli- 
 philo. 
 
 1. A. (ia) monogram, iii, 119. 
 
 I. B., engraver's mark. 173. 
 
 — , works by him. 174. 
 
 Ilg (Albert) on the Poliphilo. 122. 
 
 Innamoramento di Gianfiore e Philo- 
 mena. 50. 
 
 Innocentii Decretalia, 1481, Venice. 79. 
 
 Isolanis (Isidorus de) de Imp. milit. 
 Ecclesie, Milan, 15 17. 151. 
 
 Istoria Romana, woodcut, 1503, Venice. 
 1 12. 
 
 Italian woodcuts (early) for wall -deco- 
 ration. 161. 
 
 Jacob (Meister) — see Barbari. 
 
 Jacob of Strassburg. 56, in, 119. 
 
 — , Triumph of Caesar. 112. 
 
 — , Istoria Romana. 112. 
 
 — , Madonna and Two Saints. 1 14, 169.
 
 XVII 
 
 Jacobus Argentoratensis — see Jacob 
 
 of Strassburg. 
 Jacopo de Cessoli , Scacchi , 1493, 
 
 Florence. 28, 50. 
 — ■ — , facsimile from. 29. 
 Jacopone (S.) Laudi, 1491, Florence. 24. 
 — , Picture of. 23. 
 Jenson (Nicolas) printer at Venice. 5, 
 
 10, 63. 
 — , inventor of Venetian Gothic type. 
 
 64. 
 Jerome (St.) Opera, 1497 — 8, Venice. 
 
 104. 
 — , Epistole, 1497, Ferrara. 154. 
 — , in the wilderness, woodcut. 1 14. 
 
 , woodcut, early Florentine. 36. 
 
 , woodcut by I. B. 177. 
 
 , facsimile of 175. 
 
 • , in Vivaldus, Saluzzo, 1503. 147. 
 
 Johannes de Francfordia, wood-engra- 
 ver. 34, 56. 
 Johannes Nicolai ex Verona, printer of 
 
 the 1472 Valturio. 57. 
 — , probably identical with Giovanni 
 
 Aluise. 59. 
 Joannes Seligenstadensis, printer at 
 
 Venice. 64, 79. 
 John of Speyer — see Spira. 
 John (St.) — Italian woodcut in Berlin 
 
 Print- room. 165. 
 Justiniano (St. Lorenzo) Vita Monastica, 
 
 1494, Venice. 104. 
 
 , facsimile from. 105. 
 
 — , portrait by Gentile Bellini. 104. 
 
 Rerver (Jacques) printer at Paris. 124. 
 
 Ketham (J.) Fasciculus de Medicina, 
 1491, Venice. q9. 
 
 — , Fascicule, 1493, Venice. 100. 
 
 Klein (Johann) German printer at Flo- 
 rence. 41. 
 
 Klemm (Heinrich) collector. 4. 
 
 Koburger (Anton) printer of Schedel's 
 Chronicle. 32, 70, 83. 
 
 Kolb (Anton) of Nuremberg. 129, 130. 
 Koloff on Zoan Andrea. 108. 
 Kunne I'Albertj printer at Memmingen. 
 .38. 
 
 Lactantius, Subiaco, 1465. 4, 9. 
 Lancilotto (Tom.) Chronicle. 174. 
 Landino (Cristoforo) Dante Comment. 
 
 19. 
 Last Supper — Italian woodcut, in 
 
 Berlin Print -room. 166. 
 Laudi — see Jacopone. 24. 
 Lavagna (Filippo di) printer at Milan. 
 
 137, 138- 
 Legendario di Santi Padri, 1497, Milan. 
 
 142. 
 Le Signerre, printer at Milan. 142, 
 
 148, 169. 
 — , at Saluzzo. 144, 147, 148, 169. 
 Lignamine (J. P. de) printer at Rome. 
 
 12. 
 Lippi (Filippino). 25, 28. 
 Liturgical Literature printed at Venice. 
 
 116. 
 Livio volgare, 1493, Venice. 92. 
 Livres d'Heures (French). 116. 
 Lorenz (Nicolaus) — see Nicolo di 
 
 Lorenzo. 
 Loretto, woodcut for pilgrims. 160. 
 Loslein (Peter) partner of Ratdolt at 
 
 Venice. 66. 
 Louis II Marquis of Saluzzo. 147. 
 — , portrait. 148, 149- 
 Luca (Simon de) printer at Rome. 11. 
 Lucas of Leyden. 136. 
 Lucre (Simon de) publisher at Venice. 
 
 92. 
 L.V. monogram in Quatriregio. 48. 
 Lyra (Nicolaus de) Postilla, 1498, Venice. 
 
 83- 
 
 Madonna — Italian woodcut -engra- 
 ver's proof — in Berlin Print-room.
 
 win 
 
 Madonna, woodcut by Barbari. 134. 
 
 — , (the Sitting) of Montagna. 1 14, 169. 
 
 — , and two Angels — Italian woodcut 
 in Berlin Print -room. 165. 
 
 — , and Angels — Mr. Mitchell's large 
 woodcut. 158, 165. 
 
 — , and Child, with St. John, Florentine 
 woodcut, at Hamburg, with facsi- 
 mile. 36, 37. 
 
 — , and Child, woodcuts in Berlin 
 Print -room. 162, 165. 
 
 — , facsimiles. 159, 165. 
 
 — , and Saints — Arrigoni woodcut. 
 162. 
 
 — — , fragment in Berlin Print- room. 
 
 162. 
 — , and the two Saints, woodcuts. 1 14, 
 
 115. 
 Maffei (Scip.) Verona illustrata. 59. 
 Malatesta (Sigismondo) of Rimini. 58. 
 Magliabecchiana. 26, 28, 54. 
 Malermi (Nicola de) Bible translator. 83. 
 Mantegazza (Phil.) printer at Milan. 141. 
 Mantegna (Andrea^. 108, 109, 1 12. 
 — , designs. 57, 164. 
 — , school of design. 113. 
 — , Poliphilo ascribed to. 124. 
 Manutius — see Aldine press. 
 Marcantonio. 136. 
 Marguerite of Austria (Archduchess), 
 
 12G. 
 Maria del Orto (Santa) Church of. 104. 
 Martha (St.) and the Dragon — Milanese 
 
 woodcut. 1 69. 
 
 — facsimile, from the Rothschild 
 example. 163. 
 
 Master E. S., 1466. 15. 
 
 Masuccio, Novellino, 1492, Venice. 90. 
 
 , facsimile from. 91. 
 
 Matheo da Parma — see Co de Ca. 
 Matthias Moravus, printer at Naples. 1 5. 
 Mayr (Sigismund) printer at Rome. 13. 
 Medesanus (Hieronymus) printer at 
 Forli. 96. 
 
 Medici Lorenzo il magnifico) 50, 51. 
 
 — , Giuliano. 50, 63. 
 
 Meleager and Atalanta, woodcut, I. B. 
 
 Mercury and Caduceus-device of Rat- 
 dolt, (i-], 68. 
 
 , of Jacob Walch. 68. 
 
 Merlo (B.) printing office for woodcuts 
 at Verona. 115, 161. 
 
 Milan — introduction of Typography. 
 
 '37- 
 — , woodcuts. 75, 137 — 152. 
 
 early single leaves. \C)U — 173. 
 
 woodcuts, 1500 — 1520. 151. 
 
 Milanese Depictore, poem on Rome. 75. 
 Mirabilia Roniie. 1 1. 
 Miroir de la Vie Humaine. 118. 
 Miscomini (Ant.) printer at Florence. 
 
 28, 39. 
 Missale Chartusiense, Ferrara, 1503. 
 
 154. 
 — , Romanum, Venice, 1509. 118. 
 — , facsimile. 1 17. 
 
 Mitchell (William) Art collection. 158. 
 Monograms on German woodcuts. 1 19. 
 — , Italian woodcuts. 119. 
 — , i a — Ovid, 1497. 106. 
 
 , referred to Jacobus, in. 
 
 — , Z. A. 106 — 1 1 1. 
 
 — see Engraver's marks, 
 
 Montagna (Benedetto). 113, 114, 125, 
 
 136, 169, 177. 
 Montagnana (Petrus de). 103. 
 Monte Cassino library. 75. 
 Monteferrato (Manfredo de) printer at 
 
 Venice. 98. 
 Monte Santo di Dio, with prints. 19. 
 — , woodcuts, 1491, Florence. 25, 26. 
 
 , facsimile from. 27. 
 
 Montibus (Joh. Crispus de) Rep. tit. de 
 
 Heredibus, 1490, Venice. 68. 
 — , facsimile from. 69. 
 Morgante Maggiore — see Pulci. 
 — , Piccolo, 1535, Florence. 46.
 
 xrx 
 
 Morgiani (Lorenzo) printer at Florence. 
 
 26, 43. 
 Morte (La) — a woodcut in the Arte 
 
 del ben Morire. 40. 
 Miiller (Johann) of Konigsberg — see 
 
 Regiomontanus. 
 Museo Correr at Venice. 133. 
 Mysteries or Miracle Plays. 50. 
 
 Naples — printing at. 14. 
 
 Naumann's Archiv. 134. 
 
 Neudorffer. 128. 
 
 Niccola Pisano. 113. 
 
 Nicolo di Lorenzo Tedesco, printer at 
 
 Florence. 19, 21, 87. 
 Niger ; Pesc. Franc; Pullata Concio. 1 54. 
 Novella di duo Preti. 50. 
 — , piacevole chiamata la Viola. 53. 
 Nuremberg Chronicle — see Schedel. 
 Numeister (Johann) printer. 11, 22. 
 
 Ochsenbrunner (Th.) Priscorum He- 
 
 roum Stemm. 13. 
 Opera nuova contemplativa. 109. 
 Ottley, Facsimiles. 109. 
 Outline engraving in North Italy. 56. 
 — , perfected in Venice. 57. 
 Ovid, Metamorphoseos volgare, 1497, 
 
 Venice. 106, 135. 
 
 , facsimile from. 107. 
 
 , later editions. 106. 
 
 r achel (Leonard) printer at Milan. 138. 
 Pacifico di Novara, Summula. 137. 
 Pacini (Piero) da Pescia, printer at 
 
 Florence. 45, 47, 50. 
 Passavant, Peintre - Graveur. 34, in, 
 
 174- 
 
 Pastis (Matteo de) medallist and de- 
 signer. 58. 
 
 PaulusFlorentinus, Breviar. juris canon. 
 138. 
 
 Petrarca, Triumphi, 1488, Venice. 79. 
 
 , facsimile from. 77. 
 
 , 1491 — 92, Venice. 99. 
 
 , facsimile from. loi. 
 
 , Milan 1494. 141. 
 
 , facsimile Triumph of Time. 139. 
 
 , Venice, 1491 - 141- 
 
 — , Libro degli Huomini famosi, 1476, 
 
 Verona. 62. 
 Petri (Johann) of Mentz. 25, 26, 39, 
 
 41, 43- 
 Pictor (Bernardus) partner of Raldolt 
 
 at Venice. 66. 
 
 Pisa ( Pietro da) printer at Florence. 
 26. 
 
 Pisano (Vittore) drawings. 58, G2. 
 
 Pisis (Barthol. de; Opus de conf. vit« 
 b. Francisci, Mediolani, 15 13. 151. 
 
 Pistoja Domenico da) printer at Flo- 
 rence. 2G. 
 
 Pistole, Lezzioni et Vangelii — see 
 Epistole. 45. 
 
 Planck (Stephan) printer at Rome. 11. 
 
 Planetenbuch, 14G8, blockbook. 68. 
 
 Plutarch, 1491, Venice. 94. 
 
 — , facsimile from. 95. 
 
 Poliphilo, Venice, 1499. 120. 
 
 , 1545- 124- 
 
 — , in French. " 124. 
 
 Politian, la Giostra, 1313, Florence. 50. 
 
 — , Ballatette. 50. 
 
 PoUaiuolo (Antonio) artist and engraver. 
 
 35, 96, 112. 
 Ponticus (Gotardus) printer at Milan. 
 
 144, 151. 
 Porto ^Gio. Battista del) artist. 147, 173. 
 Portrait of a beardless Man, Milanese 
 
 woodcut. 170. 
 Presentation in the Temple, Florentine 
 
 woodcut, facsimile. 44. 
 Psalterium, Magunt. 1437. 3, 68. 
 Ptolemy (Latin) 1478, Rome. 10, 21, 76. 
 Pulci (Luigi) Morgante, 1 300, Florence. 
 
 46.
 
 XX 
 
 C^iadragesimale, Milan, 1479. '37- 
 
 Quadriregio — see Frezzi 
 
 Quaritch, publisher at London. 1 1 8, 1 53. 
 
 Kaflfaelle — Poliphilo ascribed to. 125. 
 
 Ragazzo (Giovanni) printer at Venice. 
 83, 94. 
 
 Rappresentazioni, with woodcuts, prin- 
 ted at Florence. 50. 
 
 Rappresent. — Agnolo Hebreo, facsi- 
 mile. 52. 
 
 — , Giasone e Medea, 1563. 50. 
 
 — , Gianfiore e Filomena, 1556. 50. 
 
 — , Raphaelo, a Florentine woodcut. 36. 
 
 — , del Re superbo, 1568. 50. 
 
 — , Santa Apollonia (facsimile). 51. 
 
 — , Colomb de Batines. 54. 
 
 — , Aless. d'Ancona. 54. 
 
 Ratdolt (Erhard) printer at Venice. 
 66, 147. 
 
 — , used polychrome woodcuts. 6j. 
 
 Regiomontanus. Calendarium, 1476, 
 Venice. 66. 
 
 Reinhard (Marcus) printer at Lyons. 
 118. 
 
 Reuwich (Erhard) ofUtrecht, painter. 33. 
 
 Riccardiana library. 45. 
 
 Ricio (Bernardino) de Novara, printer 
 at Venice. 79. 
 
 Riesinger (Sixtus) printer. 11, 14. 
 
 Rivoli (le Due de) papers on art. 83, 89. 
 
 Robert (Prof. Dr. C.) on the Istoria 
 Romana. 112. 
 
 Rolewink (Werner) Fasciculus Tem- 
 porum, 1480, Venice. 6y. 
 
 Roman type, invention of 4. 
 
 Rome — printing at. 9. 
 
 — , View of — in Supplementum Chro- 
 nicarum i486 and 1490. 71, 73, 75. 
 
 — , Facsimile from 1490 edition. 74. 
 
 -, in Schedel's Chronicle. 73, 74, y^. 
 
 , painting in Mantua Museum. 
 
 74, 76- 
 
 Rome — conjecture of a lost copper- 
 plate view before 1490. 76. 
 
 Rossi (G. B. de) Piante di Roma. 73. 
 
 Rosso (Giovanni) printer at Venice. 106. 
 
 Rossi (Lorenzo) printer at Ferrara. 153. 
 
 Rothschild (Baron Edmond) Art col- 
 lection. 112, 163, 166. 
 
 Rothscholtz, Insignia bibliopolarum. 
 .38. 
 
 Rovere (Card. Franc, della). 12. 
 
 Rubeis — see Rossi. 
 
 Rusconi (Solanzio) Mantuan artist. 74. 
 
 Oabadino, Settanta Novelle. 91, 136. 
 
 Sabioneta (Gerardus a) Compilatio 
 Astron. Ferrara, 1493. iS3- 
 
 Sacrobosco (Joh. de) Sphaera Mundi, 
 1490, Venice. 98. 
 
 Salomon (Bernard) of Lyons. 82. 
 
 Saluzzo press. 144, 147, 148. 
 
 San Lorenzo di Ripoli, monastic press. 
 26. 
 
 Savonarola, Sermons and Tracts. 2, 39. 
 
 , printed at Florence. 28, 39. 
 
 — , Tractato dell' Humilita, 1493, Flo- 
 rence. 28. 
 
 — , Arte del ben Morire, Florence. 39. 
 
 — , Semplicita della vita Christiana, 1496, 
 Florence, woodcut facsimile. 42. 
 
 Schedel, Liber Cronicarum, 1493, 
 Nuremberg. 32, 70. 
 
 Schoeffer (Peter) printer at Mentz. 5, 
 33, C8. 
 
 Schongauer (Martin). 16, 92. 
 
 Scinzenzeler (Ulr. ) printer at Milan. 
 138, 142. 
 
 Seidlitz (Dr. von) on Venetian Prayer- 
 books. 118. 
 
 Seligenstadt — see .loannes. 
 
 Signorelli (Luca) painter. 48. 
 
 Silber (Eucharius) printer at Rome. 1 1. 
 
 Solario (Andrea). 169, 173. 
 
 Somachis (Sixtus de) printer at Saluzzo 
 147.
 
 XXI 
 
 Specchio di Anima — see Ferraro. 
 Spira (Johann and Vindelin de) printers 
 
 at Venice. 5, 63. 
 Suardis (Lazarus de) printer at Venice. 
 
 92. 
 Supplementum Chronicarum — see 
 
 Bergomensis. 
 Sustreno (Manfredo de) printer at 
 
 Venice. 98. 
 Sweynheim and Pannartz. 4, g, 10, j6. 
 
 1 acuino de Tridino (Jo.) printer at 
 
 Venice. 126. 
 Terentii Comoediae, 1493, Lyons. 92. 
 
 , 1497, Venice. 92. 
 
 , 1498, Strassburg. 93. 
 
 — ■ — , facsimile from Venice edition. 92. 
 Tesauro Spirituale, 1499. 142, 169. 
 Thausing's work on Diirer. 130. 
 Theseus and the Minotaur — 1491 
 
 Plutarch. 95. 
 — ■, 1495 Ferettus. 96. 
 Thode (Prof.) on the Malermi wood- 
 cuts. 85. 
 Tobias and Raphael, a Florentine 
 
 woodcut. 35. 
 Torquemada — see Turrecremata. 
 Trechsel (J.) printer at Lyons. 92. 
 Triumph of Caesar, woodcut, 1504. 
 
 112, 114. 
 Tuppo (Francesco) printer at Naples. 
 
 14, 98. 
 Turrecremata, Meditationes 1467, 
 
 Rome. 9. 
 — , 1479, Mentz or Foligno. 22. 
 
 Vadagnino — see Zoan Andrea. 
 Valdarfer (Christopher) printer at 
 
 Venice. 63. 
 Valturius de Re militari, 1472, Verona. 
 
 57- 
 — , facsimile from. 58. 
 — , in Italian, 1483, Verona. 59. 
 
 Valvassori — see Zoan Andrea. 
 
 Van Eycks. 3. 
 
 Vavassore (Zoan Andrea) atelier at 
 Venice. 108 — 10, 158, 163, 171. 
 
 — , (Florio) printer at Venice. 109. 
 
 Vendriani, Race, de Pittori Modenesi. 
 174. 
 
 Venice, Senate's decree against impor- 
 tation of printed pictures, 1441. 
 56, 158. 
 
 Venice — early printers. 63. 
 
 — , engraving on wood. 62. 
 
 — , first book with woodcuts. 66. 
 
 — , illustrated books printed at. 46. 
 
 — , woodcut View of. 129, 156. 
 
 , in Breydenbach. 33, 72. 
 
 , in Nuremberg Chronicle. 33. 
 
 , in Supplementum Chronicarum. 
 
 71, 72. 
 
 , in Fasciculus Temporum. 71. 
 
 Vercellese (Zuan) printer at Venice. 92. 
 
 Verona, first book printed there. 57. 
 
 — , View of — in Supplem. Chroni- 
 carum. 72. 
 
 — , woodcut published by B. Merlo. 1 1 5. 
 
 Veronese school of wood-engraving. 57. 
 
 Vicentino (Ludovico; calligrapher. 65. 
 
 Viola (la) novella. 53. 
 
 Vienna Hofbibliothek. 46. 
 
 Views of cities — Supplementum 
 Chronicarum. 32, 70. 
 
 — , Nuremberg Chronicle. 33, 73. 
 
 — , Breydenbach's Reise. 33, 72. 
 
 — , Fasciculus Temporum. 71. 
 
 — , Venice. 129, 166. 
 
 Vignette woodcuts at Venice. 82. 
 
 Vigo, Gesta beatae Veronica, Mediol. 
 1518. 151. 
 
 Vinci (Lionardo da\ 57. 
 
 — , influence on Milanese wood -en- 
 graving. 151. 
 
 Vindelin of Speyer — see Spira. 
 
 Violi (Lorenzo) editor of Savonarola. 
 39-
 
 X\II 
 
 Viri;in and S. Jacopone. 23. 
 N'itruvius, Como, 1521. 151. 
 X'ivaldus (Jo. Lud.) Aurcum Opus, Sa- 
 
 luzzo, 1503. 147. 
 — , Opus Regale, Saluzzo, 1507. 14S. 
 Voragine — see Legendario. 142. 
 Vulcan forging the arms of vEneas, 
 
 I. B. 177, 178. 
 
 W alch (Georg) printer at Venice. 128. 
 — , (Jacob) artist at Venice, Nuremberg 
 
 and the Netherlands. 56, 112, 126. 
 — , see also Barbari. 
 — , (N.) artist at Nuremberg. 128. 
 Weale, Catalogus Missalium. 118. 
 Wolgemuth. 3. 
 Wood-engraving at Venice before 1441. 
 
 158. 
 
 yVylography (Italian) — Opera nuova. 
 108. 
 
 Youth, Death, and Decay, an early 
 
 Florentine woodcut. 36. 
 Yriarte, Venise. 104. 
 
 Z,. A. monogram, iii, 117, 120. 
 Zamorensis (Rod.) Speculum vitai. 1 18. 
 Zani, Materiali. 171. 
 Zani da Portese, printer at Venice. 91. 
 Zaroto (Antonio) printer at Milan. 141. 
 Ziletus (Innocens) printer at Verona. 
 
 62. 
 Zoan Andrea. 8. 108, 158, 1G5, 171. 
 — , Koloff. loS. 
 
 — , R. Fisher's Introduction. 108. 
 — , circumstances of his life. 108. 
 — , Passion (Opera nuova blockbook) 
 
 109. 
 — , Apocalypse after Durer. 109, 1 10. 
 — , Map of Italy. 109. 
 — , Passion (a large print). 109. 
 — , View of Siege of Rhodes. 1 10. 
 — , View of Padua, iio. 
 Zucchetta (Bern.) printer at Florence. 
 
 49- 
 Zucco (Accio) Summa Campanea, 
 translator of the Latin .(Esop into 
 Italian. 45, 59, 79, 98, 144.
 
 ITALIAN WOOD-ENGRAVING 
 
 IN THE 
 
 FIFTEENTH CENTURY 
 
 ^Q he art of engraving, during the fifteenth and sixteenth 
 centuries, occupied in Italy a very different position 
 j.^N from that which it held on this side of the Alps. 
 ^^<^^When Typography was invented, about the middle 
 of the former century. Wood -engraving had long been practised 
 in Germany as a method of multiplying bible -pictures for the 
 people. Its application was not confined to sacred subjects only; 
 incidents of every- day life were illustrated likewise, and a ready 
 vehicle was furnished for the dissemination of lampoon and cari- 
 cature. In this art, which had become so familiar to the popular 
 mind, and which was indeed one of the chief means of conveying 
 religious instruction to the multitude, the new craft of book-printing 
 found a useful helpmate. 
 
 The maxim that "pictures are the books of the illiterate" is 
 one that we find repeated in many varying forms of expression 
 by the preachers and theologians of Germany and the Low Coun- 
 tries. Amongst "the Brothers of Common Life", at Agnetenberg 
 near Zwolle, the production of such pictures or prints of scriptural 
 subjects, was the chief aim of their missionary zeal for the spread 
 of Christian knowledge. The coloured woodcuts so dear to the 
 people of the North, became in the end one of the most potent 
 agencies of the movement for Reform, and were, even in the 
 second half of the sixteenth century, recognised as such by the 
 leaders of the Protestant cause.
 
 LATH ORIGIN OF POl'ULAR PRINTS 
 
 In Italy, on the contrary, there were apparently no popular 
 woodcuts in the earlier part of the fifteenth century; and the cheap 
 pictures of saints, clumsily incised, badh printed, and coarsely 
 coloured, which were sold in large numbers at all the fairs and 
 church -doors in Germany, had no currency in the peninsula. 
 Not till about the year 1500 do we fmd that there existed any 
 such class or corporation as the Briefdrucker and Briefmaler ' of 
 German\-, with whom the manufacture of popular prints was a 
 regular business. Even after that date the trade was of essentially 
 diiVerent character in each country. Italy cannot claim to have 
 produced a single example of Xylography in the fifteenth century; 
 indeed we know altogether of but one Italian book of the kind, 
 which appeared at Venice in the early part of the sixteenth. It 
 is curious to contrast this state of things with the extensive circu- 
 lation in Germany and the Netherlands of various blockbooks, 
 which, in their many editions, formed an almost complete course of 
 popular literature, and were already very considerable in number 
 before the date of Gutenberg's invention. 
 
 The cause of this remarkable fact in the history of progress, 
 was assuredly something more than the deficiency among Italians 
 of a technical knowledge of wood -engraving. The true reason is 
 rather that the grand frescoes of their painters had familiarised them 
 with bolder and more vivid conceptions of the sacred story than 
 those to which the Northern mind was accustomed; and also that 
 the pious sentiment which prompted the desire of the German to 
 decorate his home with a saint's picture, had no existence in Italy. 
 Here, likewise, the strong religious movement which awoke in 
 Germany before the Reformation, and which led to the increased 
 multiplication of such pictures, was w^iolly unknown. When 
 however a kindred spiritual enthusiasm seized upon the minds 
 of the Italian populace, — as, for instance, when Savonarola was 
 preaching in Florence during the last decade of the fifteenth 
 century, — the same artistic method of illustration came at once 
 into existence, lending effectual aid to the exhortations of the 
 preacher. Decorated with woodcuts, the printed sermons of the 
 
 ' Card -printers, card -painters.
 
 THE RIVALRY BETWEEN PRINTING AND CALLIGRAPHY 3 
 
 Ferrarese monk spread rapidly among the people, in thousands 
 of copies, and in numberless editions. 
 
 The production of separate prints was not, in Italy, a manu- 
 facture pursued in accordance with a regular and permanent de- 
 mand, but rather an exceptional operation intended to supply a 
 special need at particular occasions. Even the few examples which 
 remain are manifestly the work of able artists, deficient sometimes 
 it may be in technical skill; and evince for the most part a dis- 
 tinct relation to the contemporary developments of the art of 
 Painting. On the other hand, there is a decided absence in Italy 
 of great masters like Wolgemuth and Durer, who treated wood- 
 engraving as an essential portion of their artistic function. 
 
 At the time when printing w^as introduced into Italy, the art 
 of the calligrapher and book-miniator had reached mature per- 
 fection; and it still continued to flourish for a long time, in spite 
 of the ever growing and developing activity of the press. But, 
 even in the very nature of its application and use, the illumina- 
 tion of manuscripts in Italy was different from that which pre- 
 vailed in Germany. While, in the North, the drawings in manu- 
 scripts were especially intended to serve as pictorial aids to the 
 interpretation and elucidation of the text, or at least to gratify the 
 innocent delight of the people in rude pictures slightly dashed with 
 colour; in Italy on the contrary, they were destined to satisfy the 
 requirements of a cultivated, frequently a highly refined, taste. It 
 is true indeed that many manuscripts executed in the Low Coun- 
 tries, and even in Upper- Germany, were adorned with miniatures 
 of admirable delicacy and finish; but these were intended for per- 
 sonages of w^ealth and distinction. Side by side with them, we 
 find that an enormous manufacture of coarsely illustrated manu- 
 scripts on paper, of low value, was prevalent in Germany towards 
 the close of the Middle Ages. While therefore it w^as relatively 
 easy for Typography to assume at once its rightful place in the 
 latter country, in the peninsula it was otherwise. The Italian 
 printers had to sustain the rivalry of the splendidly illuminated 
 manuscripts, which they could only overcome by strenuous en- 
 deavours to embellish the pages of their books with equally 
 attractive decorations. The general characteristic difference be-
 
 4 INVENTION OF ROMAN TYPE BY FOREIGN PRINTERS 
 
 twccn German and Italian illustrative work, might be defined by 
 stating that it was developed in Germany from a mere love of 
 pictures, as a sort of dramatic commentary upon the text which 
 thcv accompanied; and in Italy from the desire for beautifying 
 books, as well as everything else, with decorative graces. In Ger- 
 many, the proper function of book -illustration was instruction; in 
 Italy, ornament. 
 
 We know how strong and decided was the aversion expressed 
 b\' many men who clung to the good old ways, against the books 
 c'//L' si faiuio in forma. The mechanical crudcness of such prin- 
 ted volumes, all so rigorously uniform, seemed repulsive by con- 
 trast with the vellum manuscripts, written in fine and slender Ro- 
 man letters, and displaying in their graceful miniatures the charm of 
 refined and individualised art-work. It was certainly impossible 
 for the mere typographer to attain at once to the beauty of writ- 
 ten books. The one advantage which his productions could claim 
 over those of the calligrapher, was their cheapness — a merit which 
 was the constant, but also the only, theme dwelt upon b\' the eulo- 
 gists of printing. Nevertheless, the irresistible power of the new 
 invention soon made such way that the struggle against taste and 
 old custom was maintained with ease by the typographers; while, 
 on the part of the hand- workers, the visible decline of their art 
 was deplored with hopeless resignation. 
 
 The very skill and artistic ability of the Italian book-copyists 
 reacted with an extremely favorable influence upon the develop- 
 ment of printing. The foreign craftsmen who settled in Italy, 
 studied above all things to meet and satisfy the requirements of 
 book-buyers. They made no attempt to transplant southwards 
 their homely Gothic letters, but devised a round Latin type as 
 nearly akin as possible to the customary character of Italian manu- 
 scripts. In the first extant book printed at Subiaco — the Lac- 
 tantius of i4<")5' — Sweynheim and Pannartz began their typo- 
 
 ' The claim made by the late Mr. Klemm of Dresden to have the first 
 place given to the Subiaco Cicero, and only the second to the Lactantius, has 
 not been borne out by investigation. The inscription on which he relied does 
 not appear to be genuine.
 
 EARLY [>ERFECTION IN TYPOGRAPHY 5 
 
 graphical career with a fount of Roman letters. It betraj^s indeed 
 some slight admixture of Gothic form, but no such tendency is 
 observable in the purely Roman types used at Venice by the 
 brothers Johann and Windelin of Speyer in i4()9-i470. In the 
 latter year Nicolas Jenson began to produce books at Venice 
 with a type of matchless beauty, in which the Roman characters 
 may be said to have attained their classical perfection; unequalled 
 even by the most renowned masters of typography who have 
 followed him. 
 
 One of the most striking and curious phenomena in the 
 history of modern Painting, a circumstance which excites our 
 wonder in the works of the Van Eycks — namely, the consum- 
 mate technical skill displayed by the first great masters and never 
 achieved in equal measure by any of their successors, — is also 
 remarkable in the history of Printing. The Psalter produced by 
 Fust and Schoeffer in 1457 is a typographical monument well- 
 nigh unique in its magnificence and perfection, which has since 
 remained unexcelled in or out of Germany. A similar fact is 
 observable in Italy, where, after the days of Jenson, there was not 
 only no technical advance in the art of printing, but on the con- 
 trary a gradual decay in taste and elegance. It is no less true in 
 all branches of art, that men of original ideas who have carefully 
 worked them out in the light of patient personal experience, and 
 thus succeeded in the invention and practice of new methods, 
 always stamp their efforts with a seal of genuine perfection; while 
 those who come later and simply carry out a system established 
 by their predecessors, never rise to the same standard. 
 
 Arduous as it was already for the Italian printers to attempt 
 to vie, by means of type and press, with the work of the calli- 
 graphers, they could have no hope whatever of producing from 
 their own resources anything to be compared with the splendour 
 of the miniatures painted by such men as Antonio di Monza or 
 Gherardo. It was only by a slow and tedious growth that wood- 
 engraving could attain to the power of artistic expression; and 
 even when that stage had been reached, the application of the 
 art to the adornment of books would necessarily be carried out 
 upon principles quite ditVerent from those which guided the mi-
 
 6 THREE EARLY SCHOOLS OF ITALLVN WOOD- ENGRAVING 
 
 niaturist. As soon, however, as its intrinsic value was recognised, 
 the Italian designers and wood -engravers developed a st3'le of their 
 own, which was, at least during the lilteenth century, essentially 
 unlike that of the Germans. 
 
 If we survey the productions of wood -engraving in Italy in 
 the fifteenth century, we hnd three groups of more or less distinc- 
 tive character. That which is numerically the smallest, comprises 
 the illustrations which issued from the early printing-presses in 
 Rome or Naples, executed by or for the German craftsmen who 
 introduced typography. A second group, no le.ss clearly defined, 
 is formed by woodcuts of P'lorentine origin which appeared du- 
 ring the short period between 1490 and 1508, marked by a certain 
 grace and charm peculiarly their own. The third group, the lar- 
 gest and most varied in its range, is constituted by the works 
 of artists in Northern Italy. This group derived its characteristic 
 type from the inHuence of the Venetian and the Mantegnesque 
 school of painting; and its practice, especially in Venice, developed 
 a high degree of technical and artistic excellence. That consum- 
 mation was assured, but not enlirel}^ achieved, within the limits 
 of the Quattrocento period, and it is in the sixteenth century that 
 we find the matured perfection of Venetian wood -engraving. The 
 subject of the present treatise is however confined to the Quattro- 
 cento phases of the art, and we shall not deal with its later ac- 
 complishment. 
 
 The diiferent groups above referred to were contemporaneous 
 in their growth, but we must for the sake of clearness review 
 them separately and take each one by itself. 
 
 The connexion between the art of wood-engraving in Italy 
 and the labours of the contemporary schools of painting, can be 
 traced only in the larger and more prominent features of each; 
 the peculiar characteristics of the painter's work are very seldom 
 visible in that of the man who produced woodcuts. Metal- 
 engravings are distinguished from the latter, in exhibiting a clearer 
 and more immediate relation to the local type of pictorial art. 
 
 Here a pertinent question arises — who were the designers 
 of the woodcuts, and to what class of artists did they belong? 
 It is not to be resolved by any information we po.ssess, or any
 
 THE DESIGNERS OF WOODCUTS 
 
 indication afforded by the works themselves. The great masters 
 and leaders of Painting had apparently as little to do with the 
 drawing of designs for woodcuts as with the execution of miniatures 
 in manuscripts. Monograms or marks that can be interpreted 
 with certainty are of the very rarest occurrence, and it is hardly 
 possible in a single instance to discover a particular designer's 
 hand in the woodcuts themselves. Like the miniatures in manu- 
 scripts, the wood -engravings of the fifteenth century are for the 
 most part anonymous works. We are aware that book-illumination 
 was practised by a distinct class of artists devoted exclusively or 
 chiefly to that branch of decoration; and we may plausibly con- 
 jecture that the vocation of the wood-engraver was similarly 
 specialised. In each we find a certain average standard of merit, 
 and a certain affinit}^ in the relation which they severally exhibit to 
 the contemporary development of the art of Painting. 
 
 Many of the woodcut- designers have a distinctly individualised 
 stj'le of their own, and we can frequently trace their activity 
 through a lengthened period in the books published at any one 
 given place during successive years. Those men seem to have 
 been professionally, or almost professionally, engaged in the pro- 
 duction of drawings for the wood -engraver. We find them at 
 work in Florence between 1490 and 1508, and during a longer 
 space of time in Venice. Side by side with engravings of the 
 kind produced by those professional designers, we meet also with 
 works of a different character which usually make their appearance 
 once only, or at least never twice in the same form. These were 
 probably designed by artists who undertook an occasional com- 
 mission from one particular printer. Such was certainly the case 
 with the few single-leaf woodcuts of Italian origin which have come 
 down to us from the fifteenth century, — nearly all anonymous, 
 as already stated. It is conceivable, and by no means unlikely, 
 that many of the miniaturists whose regular profession had been 
 extinguished by the printing-press, may have applied their talent 
 to the production of designs for the woodblock. 
 
 In forming a judgment upon the artistic value of woodcuts, 
 we must remember that they are of complex origin, and cannot 
 be regarded as the work of their designer alone. In the case of
 
 8 DIVISION OF LABOUR BETWEEN DESIGNER AND ENGRAVER 
 
 paintings, and even of metal-engravings, it is ditVerent; but of 
 woodcuts it should be observed that the craftsman who cuts the 
 drawing upon the block is almost equally responsible with the 
 designer for the quality of the result. During the initial stages of 
 the art, a single person may have combined the two functions, 
 executing as well as creating the design; but it was assuredly not 
 long before a division of the labour was effected. The process 
 of designing and drawing a composition is so utterly dissimilar 
 from that of cutting it out upon the woodblock, that no one hand 
 would have continued to unite them for any length of time. 
 Each operation required a wholly ditferent kind of technical skill; 
 and as soon as the demand for production became enlarged, the 
 separation of designer and wood-engraver into two distinct classes 
 took place as a matter of course. By this arrangement, all the 
 details of the execution were left to the mechanical craftsman, 
 even in those instances in which the artist drew his sketch at 
 once upon the block. The disparity in education and arti.stic 
 training between the designer and the workman whose dexterity 
 in the use of the knife was his only merit, was usually very great, 
 and of course almost always to the disadvantage of the latter. It 
 cannot be doubted that many woodcuts which we look upon as 
 poor and commonplace work, were rendered from excellent designs, 
 but spoiled by the ineptitude of the engraver. We should not 
 forget that the blockcutter enjoyed at that time a much greater 
 independence in relation to the designer than is the case now- 
 adays; and that he often modified the character of the illustration, 
 without scruple, and in accordance with his own ideas. It would 
 indeed have been inconsistent with the spirit of that age for an 
 artist or art-workman to reproduce exactly all the unimportant 
 features of his model. Designs by men of widely difl'erent charac- 
 teristics were frequently made to assume a general artistic resem- 
 blance, under the levelling influence of the woodcutter's hand; 
 and the busy ateliers which turned out large quantities of wood- 
 cuts, produced among their workmen such a uniformity of style 
 that we find, for instance, Zoan Andrea's studio in Venice stam- 
 ping its own peculiar impress upon the productions of a whole 
 school and epoch of art.
 
 THE FIRST ITALIAN BOOK WITH WOODCUTS 9 
 
 Sweynheim and Pannartz, the prototypographers of Italy, 
 in the Subiaco Lactantius of 1465, made use of wood -engraving 
 for the purpose of decorating the first page with an ornamental 
 border. It is a simple linear design shewing white interlacements 
 on a black ground; and was evidently borrowed from a media^'val 
 manuscript. 
 
 Of the employment of woodcuts for pictorial illustration, the 
 earliest instance known to us is found in a book published at 
 Rome in 1467 — the Meditationes of Cardinal Torquemada 
 (then usually styled "de Turrecremata'''). It was printed by Ulrich 
 Hahn, a German, who describes himself as a citizen of Vienna, 
 born at Ingolstadt (ex Ingo/stat, ciris Viennensis). He had esta- 
 blished his press at Rome in 1467, and the first fruit of his labour 
 was the "Meditationes". 
 
 Thirty three of the numerous woodcuts in that volume occupy 
 each half a page of small folio size; one of them fills an entire 
 page. Some lines of introductory matter inform us that the illu- 
 strations — compositions of subjects from the Old and New Testa- 
 ment — were intended to be reproductions of certain frescoes 
 (now no longer in existence) which had been painted b}^ order 
 of the Cardinal on the walls of some portion of the church of 
 Santa Maria sopra Minerva-. The true nature of the connexion 
 between the frescoes and the woodcuts must remain unknown to 
 us; but there is, for certain, little or no trace in the latter of any 
 styXe. distinctive of the local and contemporary school of painting. 
 The manner of their execution is thoroughly Germanic. In their 
 coarse outlines, and the angular and awkward rendering of the 
 faces, they evince the utter incapabilit}^ of the engraver to deal 
 with the finer elements of the design; and in this respect Hahn's 
 woodcuts are precisely similar to the early illustrative elVorts of 
 
 • The intitulation runs thus — "Meditationes reverendissimi patris domini 
 Johannis de Turrecremata . . . posite et depicte de ipsius mandate in ecclesie 
 ambitu Sancte marie de minerva Rome". 
 
 2 Hain, No. 15722. Here, as in subsequent instances, the reference is made 
 to Hain's Rcpertoriiim Bibliographicum, Stuttgart 1826-28, 4 volumes 8vo; in 
 which the full and correct titles of the works cited will be found.
 
 10 ULRICH HAHN AND EARLY ROMAN WOODCUTS 
 
 Sorg and Bacmler at Augsburg. There can be little doubt that 
 those lines were drawn b}' German hands; probably Ulrich Hahn 
 himself was the engraver. 
 
 We know as a fact that the early printers were under the 
 necessity of constructing and preparing for themselves all the appa- 
 ratus required in the exercise of their craft; it could hardl}^, indeed, 
 be otherwise, so long as the art was a new one. Even the cut- 
 ting and casting of the t3^pes were portion of their own functions. 
 In Germany, of course, the aid of the guild of Briefdrucker and 
 Briefmaler might have been procured for the purpose of illustra- 
 ting books with woodcuts; — not so in Italy, where the practice 
 of wood-engraving seenis to have had no existence, or at least not 
 to have been employed, before the introduction of printing. 
 Sweynheim and Pannartz, as the first t3^pographers in Italy, were 
 naturally, before they began to work the press, obliged to devise 
 and create their types. Those which they needed, being of Latin 
 form, were not procurable from the North where only the Ger- 
 man Gothic was then in vogue. That Sweynheim understood the 
 use of the graver and its application, we have irrefragable proof 
 in the Ptolemy of 1478, the engraved maps in which were begun, 
 if not finished, by him. We are also assured, on good authority, 
 that Nicolas Jenson was a coin -engraver in the French ro3'al mint 
 before he became a typographer. Even Ulrich Hahn, although 
 far inferior to those two men in skill and abilit}^, must have in- 
 vented the types which he used, before he began to print the 
 "Meditationes". The preparation of the woodcuts with which it 
 is illustrated, must also have been a part of his labour. It is quite 
 certain that he could not find in Rome any one competent to exe- 
 cute such work; and the onl)^ possible alternative is, that he might 
 have brought with him from Germany some journeyman acquain- 
 ted with wood -engraving. A circumstance which appears to for- 
 tify the conjecture that he was himself the artist of the "Medita- 
 tiones'', is the fact that no other book illustrated with woodcuts 
 issued from his press. We may infer that he was unable, from 
 the growth of his business and the increased demands upon his 
 resources, to spare sufficient time for the practice of an art so te- 
 dious and laborious as that of wood-engraving. In any case, the
 
 ROMAN BOOKS ILLUSTRATED WITH WOODCUTS I I 
 
 woodcuts of the Torquemada were the products of German work- 
 manship transplanted to ItaUan soil. 
 
 The spirit of Italian taste by which the early German xypo- 
 graphers in Italy were led to form their letters on Latin models, 
 is also visible in the composition of the woodcuts engraved by 
 them, however imperceptible to the workmen themselves. If we 
 compare the Turrecremata illustrations with German engravings 
 of the same kind, and representing a similar stage of artistic deve- 
 lopment, we must recognise in Ulrich Hahn's work, notwithstan- 
 ding its coarse and tasteless execution, the merit of a definite and 
 well-balanced composition. To this extent, at least, the models 
 which he followed seem to have favorably influenced his la- 
 bours, even if the woodcuts be, as they appear, nothing more 
 than detached motifs from the frescoes which they profess to 
 reproduce. 
 
 The engravings of the first edition of the "Meditationes'' re- 
 appear in the second and third likewise; the one published by 
 Ulrich Hahn in 1473 in combination with his partner Simon de 
 Luca, the other in 1478 by himself alone. In 1479, an edition 
 of the same work, with a totally different set of woodcuts, was 
 produced at Foligno by Johann Numeister. To these we shall 
 recur in the sequel. 
 
 It would not seem that the wood-engravers in Rome con- 
 trived very soon to rise above the low level of their primitive 
 mechanical art. Several editions were published there between 
 1470 and 1480, and even later, of the Mirabilia Romj.% a little 
 guide-book for pilgrims wishing to visit the holy places of the 
 city. The cuts in it are rude and coarse, but suitably adapted 
 to the popular chapbook in which they occur. Stephan Planck, 
 Eucharius Silber, and others, printed the "Mirabilia" in succession; 
 and there is one edition, probably produced in Germanv, which 
 is wholly xylographic. They are all devoid of artistic merit. 
 
 In the year 1 48 1, two new German printers, Sixtus ^ and 
 Gregorius, made their appearance in Rome, and produced books 
 
 ^ Sixtus Riessinger, who had given up his press in Naples, and remained 
 for two or three years in Rome on his journey homeward to Germany.
 
 12 ROMAN BOOKS II.I.USTRATKD \\1 IH WOODCUTS 
 
 with woodcuts; but these imitators of Ulrich Hahn developed no 
 higher technical skill than their precursor. The Chiromantia, 
 which thev published in that year, resembles a number of other 
 fifteenth -century books on the same topic, in its many woodcuts 
 exhibiting the various forms of the palm of the hand; but these 
 stiir and conventional diagrams do not belong to our subject. We 
 mav however conjecture that the presence of those two Germans, 
 technicall}^ acquainted with the process of the art, and competent 
 to lend their aid to book-illustration, had something to do with the 
 fact that certain volumes thus adorned were brought out in Rome 
 between 14S1 and 1483. 
 
 Amongst the chief promoters of the new art of Typography, 
 was Joannes Philippus de Lignamine, a physician who had achie- 
 ved distinction in various branches of literature, and one of the 
 most intimate friends of Cardinal Francesco della Rovere (afterwards 
 Pope Sixtus IV). He set up a press in Rome, and worked at it 
 himself, rather as an enthusiastic dilettante than for the purpose 
 of gain. His own words are — "sumsi laborem hujusmodi et in- 
 dustriam non illaudabilem apud me neque apud posteros inutilem 
 ut mea opera atque ingenio libri elegant^es imprimerentur '.' Be- 
 sides directing his efforts to the procurement of a handsomer and 
 more tasteful Latin type than had yet been employed in Rome, 
 Lignamine also conceived the idea of sending out his books 
 — mostly of small size and extent — decorated with woodcuts. 
 It must be avowed that his success in this line was not very 
 great. A small quarto volume which he published in 1481, con- 
 taining the opuscula of Philippus de Barberiis"-', exhibits twenty 
 four figures of prophets and sibyls, each occupying a full page. 
 Although angular in manner, and coarse in their outlines, they 
 were evidently designed by an Italian artist of no mean ability. 
 Inferior even to those productions are the woodcuts of plants which 
 we find in the Herbarium Apuleii Platonici (also printed by Lig- 
 namine),^ and which, on account of their thick lines, have been 
 
 ' Preface to Opuscula Philippi de Barberiis. Cf. Audifredi, Specimina edi- 
 tionum Romanarum Soec. XV, p. 112. 
 - Hain, No. 2455. 
 ^ Hain, No. 1322.
 
 ROMAN BOOKS II,LUSTR<VTED WITH WOODCUTS I3 
 
 regarded as metal- engravings.^ The book is undated, but the 
 period of its publication is revealed by the dedication to Cardinal 
 Francesco Gonzaga, who died in 1483. Lignamine does not ap- 
 pear to have been satisfied with the poor result of those attempts 
 to beautify his books with woodcuts. In another edition, dateless 
 but manifestly later than that of 1481, of the Opiiscula Philippi de 
 Barberiis, he contrived to secure the services of engravers possessing 
 a far superior degree of skill.- Here we find the figures of pro- 
 phets and sibyls well drawn, well proportioned, and framed within 
 architectonic borders in the fully developed style of the Renaissance. 
 The character of the work leads us to ascribe these designs to 
 some artist of the school of Ghirlandajo. 
 
 The latest woodcut-book produced at Rome during the period 
 of which we are treating is the Pviscorum Heroum Stcmmata, a 
 small work by Thomas Ochsenbrunner, a German monk.^ It 
 dates from 1494, and is a sort of compendious Roman history 
 arranged in short biographies of the chief men of each succes^^vc 
 epoch. The pages are decorated with borders, daintily drawn 
 and finely executed, in which figures of animals are placed amid 
 intertwining wreaths and foliage, with scrolls bearing inscriptions, 
 — all in pure Gothic manner; and each separate biography is 
 preceded by a fanciful portrait of its hero, arrayed in mediaeval 
 knightly costume. The work is so thoroughly Gothic in style, and 
 bears the stamp of German art so unmistakeably, that, if the evi- 
 dence of the colophon were absent, we should not have hesitated 
 to assign the book to a Mentz or Strassburg press, rather than a 
 Roman one. Not only the author, but the printers also (Johannes 
 Besicken and Sigismund Mayr) were German; and it was un- 
 doubtedly by immigrated artists of the same race that the illustra- 
 tions were designed and engraved. 
 
 Before we turn our attention from the sporadic and occasional 
 practice of wood -engraving in Rome, to its more developed cul- 
 
 1 Cf. Weigel, Die Anfange der Druckerkunst, I, No. 63. Lippmann, Die 
 Anfiinge der Formschneidekunst (in the Rcpertorium fur Kunstwisscnschaft, I, 
 p. 230). 
 
 - Hain, No. 2453. 
 
 •^ Hain, No. 1 1 934.
 
 14 WOOD -ENGRAVING IN NAI'LESI lUlM'O S JESOP 
 
 tivation in the cities of Northern ltal\', we must take cognizance 
 of a curious and isolated phase of Italo-Teutonic art which meets 
 us in Naples between 14S0 and i4<jo. 
 
 Francesco Puppo, a jurist remarkable for his extreme literary 
 activity — the official '"•Regis Ferdinandi scriba" as he describes 
 himself — took a leading part in the promotion of the art of prin- 
 ting in Naples. When, in 14S1, Sixtus Riessinger quitted that 
 city, — in which he had exercised the profession of typographer 
 for ten years, — Tuppo seems to have taken up his business and 
 carried it on more extensivel}^ He is no wiiere indicated as an 
 actual working printer, and his position corresponded pi-obablv 
 with that held nowadays by the head of a printing- firm. Of the 
 productions of his press, only one is interesting in connexion with 
 the subject now in hand. This is an edition of the so-called 
 Fables of yEsop, which he published in 14^5.' His version of 
 these fables is, as he himself describes it in the colophon, "ma- 
 terno sermone fidelissima'', but it is accompanied b\' a quantity 
 of ditVusc moral and political disquisitions. The work is a line 
 example of typography, printed in folio size and adorned with 
 eighty seven large woodcuts, of which twenty three illustrate the 
 preliminary life of the fabulist, and the other sixty four are given 
 to the apologues. These engravings are marked by strong indivi- 
 duality of treatment. The figures, especially those of the animals, are 
 powerfully drawn, their attitudes and movements lifelike; and the 
 human heads are massive, with a striking and energetic express- 
 iveness in the features. The outlines are firm and sharp; there 
 is considerable mastery of perspective in the disposition and the 
 graded shading of the backgrounds. We find, in the general aspect 
 of these Aesop woodcuts, something which reminds us of the 
 earliest productions of copper- engraving in (iermany. Ever}'^ one 
 of the designs is surrounded by a rich border composed of sepa- 
 rate pieces of frame-work which are frequently repeated in various 
 combinations. The upper portion in each is an arch filled in 
 with ornamental details in white upon a black ground, somewhat 
 Saracenic in style, and enclosing representations of the triumphs 
 
 ' Main, No. 353.
 
 WOOD-ENGRAVING IN NAPLES! TUPPO S ^SOP I 5 
 
 of Hercules executed with remarkable power. The first leaf of the 
 part comprising the fables is decorated with a border of that kind, 
 occupying the full size of the page, in which figures of angels appear 
 floating within festoons of intertwining foliage.^ 
 
 The peculiar foreign look of those illustrations, and especially 
 of the decorative borders, appears to result from the mixture of 
 diverse artistic elements. The miniatures of an old illuminated 
 manuscript, probably one of Sicilian origin, may have furnished 
 a model adapted and worked out in their own fashion b}^ Ger- 
 man designers and wood-engravers then resident in Naples. There 
 is no affinity whatever between the iEsop illustrations and the 
 woodcuts which appear in any other Italian book of that period. 
 Their execution reminds us rather of the Strassburg school of 
 wood-engraving; while a certain coarseness in the rendering of 
 the faces, and the peculiar waviness of outline which marks 
 the drawing of the bodies and limbs, especially in the designs of 
 the Life of ^Esop, recall the German school of copper-engraving 
 which is usually treated as a single group under the name of the 
 master "E. S. 1466". Technically considered, those woodcuts hold 
 a position of commanding importance amongst the works of their 
 epoch. The lines are clear and firm, and there is no trace of the 
 uncouthness which usually disfigured wood -engraving before the 
 last decade of the fifteenth century. 
 
 From the illustrations in Tuppo's iEsop, only one conclusion 
 can be deduced; namely, that they are the work of a German artist 
 who had had some training in the Strassburg school. This is all 
 the more likely, as there was no lack in Naples at that time of 
 German workmen connected with typograph^^ In the period be- 
 tween 1475 and 1491, Matthias of Olmutz (Matthias Moravus de 
 Olomuntz) was busily occupied in that city as a printer of skill 
 and eminence. He made use of a new and elegant fount of plain 
 Roman letters for setting up his books, but we observe that he 
 frequently embellished them with decorative initials. Many biblio- 
 
 ^ This ornamental border is likewise found in the Hebrew Bible printed 
 by or for the Soncino editors at Naples in 1488. A facsimile of it is given by 
 Mr. R. Fisher in "A Catalogue of Engravings etc." London, 1879. Svo.
 
 1 6 WOOD-ENGRAVING IN NAPLKS: TUPPO's .ESOP 
 
 graphcrs have assumed that Tuppo's ^Esop was a product of the 
 press of Matthias Moravus. According to a conjecture, of which we 
 merely take notice here without desiring to attach an}^ weight to 
 it, Matthias may have been in some way related to his country- 
 man, the engraver Wenzel of Olmutz, — a man whose work 
 shows distinct traces of Schongauer's intluence; and had perhaps 
 acquired his artistic training in the same school. We lack however 
 all the necessary groundwork of ascertained fiicts on which to base 
 an assumption of that sort; for we do not even know whether 
 Matthias was actually the printer of Tuppo's J^sop. That he was 
 engaged in the pursuit of his art in Naples at the time of its ap- 
 pearance is all that we can avouch with certainty. 
 
 Tuppo's iEsop seems to have won some popularity as an il- 
 lustrated book. We may at least infer so much from the fact 
 that a reprint appeared at Aquila (di Napoli) in 1493', with wood- 
 cuts which are full-sized copies of those in the original. They 
 are carefull}' done and evince some technical skill and experience, 
 chiefly in the border-work; but, of the fine sharp touch that 
 marks the original designs, there is little trace. 
 
 The yEsop is, indeed, not the lirst Neapolitan book with wood- 
 cuts. An edition had appeared in 1480, in that city, of the "Musices 
 Theoria'' of Francesco Gafori;- — printed by Francesco di Dino, a 
 Florentine — in which, on the reverse of folio 18, there is a 
 woodcut representing the mythological invention of Music, by a 
 design of five men striking upon an anvil. The block was cut by 
 an unskilful hand, in outlines with a slight hatching at the edges 
 to indicate shading; and the appearance of the woodcut, in so far 
 as its coarseness can be said to betray any style of art whatever, 
 is that of very bad German work. 
 
 ' I Iain, 333. IVinted by "Eusanius de Stella, civis Aquilanus", as he 
 styles himself in the colophon. 
 * Hain, 7404.
 
 WOOD -ENGRAVING IN NAPLES: TUPPO S ^SOP 
 
 17 
 
 From Tuppo's Aesop, Naples 14S5. The fable of the Hydra and the frogs.
 
 l8 WOOD -ENGRAVING IN FLORKNCE 
 
 From the year I4()0 onwards, the art of wood -engraving 
 acquired a fresh and special development in Florence. The number 
 of its productions is indeed small, and we have no reason to 
 suppose that their excellence is due to an immediate connexion 
 with any of the great painters then flourishing in the city on the 
 Arno. So far as our knowledge extends, those masters never 
 furnished designs to the block-cutter; but the potent influence of 
 the Florentine school was deeply felt in all branches of contem- 
 porarv art. To its inspiration we may attribute the growth of an 
 independent style amongst the wood-engravers, and the production 
 by them of a series of very charming works. 
 
 In their characteristic features, the Florentine woodcuts are 
 markedly distinct, not only from the works of the primitive Italo- 
 German artists which we have already considered, but also from 
 those of the Venetian and North -Italian group. Illustrations in 
 books form the major part of the class that we have now to 
 review, at least of the works w^hich w'e can with certainty ascribe 
 to a Florentine origin. They are, nearly always, small engravings 
 of the character of vignettes, in which the design, boldly and 
 flrmly cut, is usually in outline, with dense masses of shadow 
 obtained principally by leaving portions of the surface of the block 
 untouched so as yield broad depths of blackness in the impression. 
 In these dark parts, the details of the ground and the distance are 
 cut out in white, in the st}de of the dotted prints (Schrotblatter, 
 gravures en maniere criblce) — a technical method by which an 
 extremely powerful effect can be produced. Nowhere else than in 
 Florence do we find that such a mode of treatment was adopted; 
 and the conclusion to be drawn from that fact indicates the 
 existence of a Florentine atelier to which the process peculiarly 
 belonged and out of which it found no wider acceptance. The 
 comparative fewness of the Florentine woodcuts renders it probable 
 that only a small number of workshops were engaged in their 
 production. Until about i4()i there must have been a deficienc}^ 
 of artists capable of performing such work according to the idea 
 and the taste of the publishers; notwithstanding that the need of 
 furnishing books with illustrations was undoubtedly experienced 
 before that time.
 
 COPPER -ENGRAVING IN FLORENCE 1 9 
 
 The art of Printing was introduced at Florence in 147 1 by 
 Bernardo Cennini, a metal-worker, who had previously been 
 Ghiberti's assistant. Considerably more than a hundred books 
 ( — the exact number of the dated ones known to us is no) were 
 produced in. the period between that year and 1490; but none of 
 them seems to have been illustrated with woodcuts. The evident 
 reason is that no one was acquainted with the practice of the art; 
 for, in the occasional instances of book -illustration at Florence 
 during that time, we find that recourse was had to the difficult 
 and tedious process of engraving copper- plates and then working 
 them separately on the sheets of letter-press as soon as these were 
 prepared by the typographer. It was then, as it is to-day, a com- 
 plicated business, requiring that each sheet should pass twice 
 through the press, in the two distinct operations of plate and 
 type -printing. The engravings in the Monte Santo di Dio, the 
 first Florentine book in which illustrations appear, were thus 
 produced. It was printed in 1477 by a German, Nicolaus Lorenz, 
 who styled himself variously as Nicolo Tedesco or Nicolo di 
 Lorenzo. In the colophon of another book from his press, he is 
 described as having been born within the diocese of Breslau 
 ("Impressum est hoc opus per me Nicholam Dit^ecesis Vratis- 
 laviensis''). The "Monte Santo di Dio"^ contains three copper- 
 engravings printed within the text; two of them being so large in 
 size as to cover each a full page. They have been ascribed to 
 Baccio Baldini. A few years later, Nicolaus Lorenz set about the 
 accomplishment of a much greater undertaking of similar kind; 
 namely, an edition of Dante's Dirina Commcdia, with the com- 
 mentary of Cristoforo Landino, to be illustrated with copper-plate 
 engravings. This work, completed and published in 148 1 in a 
 large folio volume, was intended to comprise as many engravings 
 as there were cantos in the poem; and, in the setting of the t}-pe, 
 a space was left open for that purpose at the beginning of each 
 of the hundred sections. The engraver did not however proceed 
 beyond the eighteenth canto of the Inferno. 
 
 ' Hain, 1276. It is a work of mystic and allegorical character, written by 
 Antonio Bettini da Siena, Bishop of Foligno, who died in 1478.
 
 20 THK BOITICELLI DANTE 
 
 Those eighteen engravings have been assigned to Sandro 
 Botticelli and Raccio Baldini, on the faith of two passages in 
 \'asari; one in his life of Marc' Antonio (Vasari, Sansoni Edition, V, 
 p. •iiqb), the other in his account of Botticelli (ibid. Ill, p. 317). 
 With reference to Baldini, he remarks that "everything which he 
 did was designed and drawn by Botticelli''. The recent recovery 
 of a grand illuminated manuscript of the Divina Commedia, con- 
 taining the drawings from Botticelli's own hand, with which he 
 illustrated the poem of the great Florentine, has enlightened us 
 with regard to the true connexion between those designs and the 
 engravings in the 1481 edition. ( — The manuscript is now, as 
 every one know^s, in the Berlin Museum, having been acquired 
 from the Duke of Hamilton's collection; but eight of the drawings 
 which originally formed portion of it have lately been discovered 
 in the library of the Vatican. — ) The eighteen engravings in 
 the 1481 Dante are now ascertained, by the infallible text of com- 
 parison, to be reduced copies, or rather brief transcripts, from 
 Botticelli's designs. The man who produced them was a somewhat 
 indifferent artist, who exerted his rather dull ingenuity in selecting 
 from Botticelli's rich compositions the main or leading action in 
 each, and compressing them into pictures of minute size. He had 
 moreover but little skill in drawing; and his lack of technical power 
 in the use of the graver is plainly apparent. There is scarcely 
 any trace in his engravings of the artistic qualities of the models 
 which he followed. The shortcomings of his work become dis- 
 tasteful to us on comparing them with Botticelli's creations; and 
 they seem to have been no less unsatisfactory to the original 
 printer and publisher. Of the entire hundred plates which were 
 contemplated, only the first eighteen of the Inferno were completed, 
 and even these were not inserted in all the copies offered for sale. 
 Most of the copies of the 1481 Dante which have come down to 
 us, contain only the first and third of the eighteen engravings; and 
 several have none at all. Even the special copy printed on vellum, 
 which Landino presented to the Signoria of Florence, has not a 
 single one of those plates. With regard to the engraver, Baccio 
 Baldini, of whom Vasari speaks, we are completely ignorant of 
 his career. No information on the subject has been discovered
 
 THE FLORENCE DANTE OF 1 48 1 21 
 
 down to the present time; and there is not a trace of any one 
 bearing that name, among the engravers and goldsmiths of 
 whom we find record in the Florentine archives of the fifteenth 
 century. 
 
 The workmen of that time must have experienced no little 
 difficulty in setting the copper-plates and printing them in their 
 places, in the way in which it was done in the Monte Santo and 
 the Dante. The requisite spaces were of course duly left blank 
 by the compositor, but the copper- plate printer did not always 
 succeed in working the engraving exactly in its proper position. 
 In the Dante as well as in the Monte Santo, the impressions are 
 for the most part so much out of line as to lean sideways, 
 giving an awkward and ugly appearance to the pages which they 
 were intended to beautify. 
 
 A point of special interest in the matter which we are now 
 discussing, is the circumstance that the first Florentine books prin- 
 ted with illustrations, issued from the press of a foreigner, a Ger- 
 man, as we have already seen. The same man, Nicolaus Lorenz, 
 published, about the year 1480, another large work — Berlinghieri's 
 Sette Giornate della Geographia — containing many maps cleverly 
 engraved on copper. When it is remembered that Konrad Sweyn- 
 heim and Arnold Buckinck had, only two years before, produced the 
 first illustrated edition of Ptolemy's Geography (Rome, 1478) with 
 maps designed and engraved by themselves; the logical conclusion 
 that follows from the combination of those facts is irresistible. 
 We must infer that German workmen, if not absolutely the first 
 introducers of engraving on metal and wood (as they probably 
 were) exercised at least a most important influence upon its early 
 developement in Italy. 
 
 The Dante of 148 1 remained for a long time the latest example 
 of a work illustrated with copper -engravings in its text. The 
 difficulties which attended such a mode of decoration were enough 
 to deter the printers from any similar attempt; and it would seem 
 as though the very notion of producing illustrated books was 
 completely abandoned in Florence for a considerable time. It 
 was not till ten years later that such works began to make their 
 reappearance in that city; but the process then employed was that
 
 22 NUMEISTER S TURRECRF.MATA 
 
 of wood -engraving, a method of illustration more in harmony 
 with the principle of typography. The results of this new depar- 
 ture were those characteristic Florentine woodcuts, of which, as 
 a class, we have already sketched the general artistic features. 
 
 In this place it is appropriate to mention a work of unique 
 kind, half- Italian and half- German, to which reference has been 
 made on a previous page. We allude to the woodcuts which appea- 
 red in the edition of Turrecremata's Meditalioncs printed by 
 Johann Numeister in i47(j. Originally an assistant of Gutenberg 
 at Mentz, Numeister had become an independent printer, with a 
 somewhat unsettled career. From 1470 to 1472 he was at work 
 at Foligno; in 1479-80 he was again in Mentz; from 1480 to 1484 
 he had a press at Albi in Languedoc; and he was finally one of 
 the many printers of Lyons. It was till recentl}^ supposed that 
 Numeister's Turrecremata was a product of his Foligno press; but 
 M. Claudin's investigations ^ have shown that belief to be erroneous 
 and proved that the book was printed at Mentz. - 
 
 The illustrations in Numeister s edition are freely copied from 
 the woodcuts in the volume which Ulrich Hahn had printed at Rome, 
 but landscape-backgrounds, which were entirely absent in Hahn's 
 designs, are added wherever suitable. The execution is clumsy; 
 the small figures with their disproportioned heads are coarsely and 
 unskilfully drawn. The method of treatment is however interesting 
 for its peculiarities, which remind us at once of the style of the 
 so-called "dotted -prints" (Schrotblatter). Nevertheless, there runs 
 through all the series of Numeister's illustrations, a certain strain 
 or manner which is distinctly un- Germanic; and w^e may notice 
 that in the Florentine woodcuts, ten years later, a somewhat si- 
 milar peculiarity is observable. It is not improbable that Numeister 
 had already prepared his Turrecremata for the press before he 
 quitted Foligno, and that the blocks were cut there under direct 
 Italian influence, but not worked for publication until he reached 
 
 ^ Claudin (A.) Origines de I'lmprimerie a Albi. Les peregrinations de 
 J. Numeister. Paris, 1880. 8vo. 
 
 2 The words of the colophon are as follows "Contemplacoes . . per .lohannem 
 de Turrecremata.. impresse p. iohannem numeister clcricum maguniinu anno 
 dni Millesimoquadringeniesimoseptuagcsimonono . ."
 
 EARLY FLORENTINE WOODCUTS 
 
 23 
 
 St. Jacoponc kneeling before the Madonna. From the Uudi of Jacopone da Todi. Florence, 1491-
 
 24 FLORENTINE WOODCUTS IN I4()0 
 
 Mcntz. The same woodcuts reappear in another issue of the 
 book, printed by him at Albi. 
 
 Wood -engravings were apparently never used in Florentine 
 books before the year 1400. There are two works bearing that 
 date known to us, each containing a single illustration. One of 
 these is the first edition of the Laiidi of Jacopone da Todi,' a 
 mystic of the order of St. Francis, who is chielly renowned as 
 the author of the Stabat luatcr. To him also are assigned the best 
 of the /audi, those hymns in which the religious poetry of the 
 thirteenth century found its highest expression; but he did not 
 write everything that bears his name, which has become, as it 
 were, a personification of a number of unknown authors. 
 
 On the reverse of the eighth leaf there is a woodcut in outline, 
 finely drawn and executed; in which the beatified monk Jacopone 
 is represented on his knees, crowned with ra3's of glory, and 
 praying to the Virgin who, seated within a mandorla,- and sur- 
 rounded by cherubim, leans towards him from above. It is an 
 exquisite picture, full of the same delicate charm as distinguishes 
 the fine silver-point drawings of the Florentine school at that 
 period; and exhibiting such an individuahsed character in its 
 design that we are involuntarily prompted to enquire the name 
 of the artist. The printer was Francesco Buonaccorsi, whose 
 name as a typographer or publisher frequently recurs between 
 i486 and 1496; but none other of his books is akin to this. 
 
 The second of the two works above referred to is an edition 
 of Domenico Gavalca's Specchio di C?'oce, printed by Francesco 
 di Dino.^ It contains on the reverse of the first leaf a woodcut 
 of the Crucifixion, shaded with slight hatchings. It is well and 
 carefully executed, but bears no comparison with the beautiful 
 engraving in the Laiidi. 
 
 The distinguishing qualities of Florentine wood -engraving, 
 with its powerful effects of light and shade, arc found in their full 
 
 ' Hain, 9355. 
 
 2 A halo of almond shape that encircles the entire figure. 
 
 ^ Specimen hist. crit. Editionum Italicarum Saec. XV. Romae, 1794. 4'°- 
 p. 320: Domenico Cavalca Pisanus. Spechio di Croce. Impreso in Firenze 
 per Franciescho di Dino di Jacapo Fiorentino. 1490. 41°-
 
 FLORENTINE WOODCUTS IN 1 49 1 25 
 
 dcvelopement in the illustrations produced in that city from the 
 year 1491 onwards. An edition of Bettini's Monte Santo di Dio 
 published in that year, furnishes the earliest example of that mode 
 of artistic treatment, so far as our research has been able to 
 ascertain. We have already spoken of the first edition of the 
 same work, in dealing with the books published at Florence 
 containing copper-plate illustrations The new edition of i4()i' 
 exhibits the same designs as its fore-runner, but executed on 
 wood, instead of metal. There are three of them. One is an 
 allegorical picture of the Ladder to Heaven; the second is a figure 
 of Christ in the "mandorla"; each of these being full -page size. 
 The third is a smaller woodcut representing hell in the manner 
 which had become customary, in imitation of the fresco in the 
 Campo Santo at Pisa. Although the copper-plates of the first edition 
 furnished the models from which these woodcuts were executed, 
 they are by no means slavish copies of their originals, but on the 
 contrary display a freedom and delicac}^ of treatment peculiar to 
 themselves. The best qualities of Florentine technique arc shown 
 in these woodcuts; for example, in the truly tender and noble 
 figure of Christ on the first leaf, and the admirable rendering of 
 expression in the faces of the little cherubim. The effect is 
 powerful, harmonious, and full of grace. The forms, and the 
 general character of the design, are strongly suggestive of Filippino 
 Lippi's influence upon the style of Florentine art. 
 
 Many of the details make it probable that the printer of 
 the book, Johannes Petri of Mentz, — under his Italianised 
 name of "Giovanni Thodesco da Maganza", — was directly con- 
 nected with the production of the woodcuts. We do not allude 
 to the composition or the drawing of these illustrations, but 
 merely to the executive skill with which the blocks were cut. 
 Johannes Petri was one of the earliest group of typographers who 
 settled in Florence. After the not very eftcctual attempt of Ber- 
 nardo Cennini to introduce printing into that city in 147 1, — of 
 which we have spoken in a former paragraph — Petri made his 
 
 ' Hain, 1277. Colophon: Impressa nella inclita cipta di Firenze per Ser 
 Lorenzo di Morgiani et Giouanni Thodesco da Maganza. 1491. folio.
 
 26 JOHANNES PETRI OF MENTZ 
 
 appearance in the following year, and established a new press, but 
 with little more success apparently than his precursor. He published^ 
 an edition of Boccaccio's Philocopo in 1472; but from that date 
 onward we hear no more about him as a printer until 141)1. He 
 then reappears as in partnership with a certain Lorenzo Mor- 
 giani; and the Monte Santo of which we have been speaking 
 bears their united names. It is difficult to account for the lapse 
 of those nineteen years. Can it be that Johann Petri's typogra- 
 phical activity was continuous, and that all the books produced by 
 him during that period ^ have been utterly lost? Or w^as it that 
 some ditVercnt branch of industr}' absorbed his attention? We 
 have no information beyond the fact that he worked as a die- 
 sinker, or rather type-cutter, for other printers. In 1474, the mo- 
 nastic press of San Lorenzo at Ripoli was instituted by two bro- 
 thers of the order, Domenico da Pistoja and Pietro da Pisa. For 
 the purpose of working it, they associated with themselves firstly 
 Hippolito, a man otherwise unknown as a printer; and secondly, 
 in 1476, Johannes of Mentz. This connexion lasted but a short 
 while. In 1478, the monks bought from Johannes the matrices for 
 a fount of Roman type with all the appurtenances ("madri della 
 Lettera antica colle majuscole et sue breviature per prezzo di dieci 
 fiorini d'oro larghi." — Fossi, Bibliotheca Magliabech., I, introduc- 
 tion). In his double capacity of printer and type -cutter, Johannes 
 Petri was undoubtedly utilising the industrial skill which he had 
 acquired in Germany. Nor can his abilit}^ have been limited to 
 the exercise of those two functions. A workman who at that 
 period was competent to execute the very difficult operation of 
 punch -cutting, must surely have been acquainted with wood- 
 engraving, an art so closely akin to the other, and so extensively 
 practised in his native country. From the dexterity which enabled 
 him to produce matrices of the lettera antica, a form of t3'pe 
 wnth which he could have obtained no familiarity in Germany, 
 WT can readily judge that he would also have been capable of 
 
 ' The only book which might with any probabiHty be ascribed to his 
 press at that time, is an undated edition of Petrarch's Trinmphi. See Bernard, 
 Histoire de I'lmprimerie, II, p. 241.
 
 FLORENTINE WOODCUTS IN 1 49 1 
 
 27 
 
 From the Monte Santo di bio. Florence, i.jgi.
 
 28 ILORKNTIXE WOODCUTS AFTI'R I49I 
 
 accomodating his skill as a woodcutter to the stylistic requirements 
 of Italian designers. If Johannes Petri were indeed the engraver of 
 the woodcuts in the Monte Santo of 1491, we should be justified 
 in assigning to him the credit of having contributed in a most 
 important degree to the dcvelopement of Florentine wood-engrav- 
 ing. In the existing state of our knowledge, however, we can 
 neither verify the fact nor assume the probability of the conclusion: 
 their possible truth is all that we seek to indicate. 
 
 A second book with woodcuts was published by Petri in 
 1401. It is a small manual of Arithmetic, dedicated, strangely 
 enough, to no less a person than Giuliano dei Medici. ' Ornamental 
 borders, and minute illustrations representing all kinds of trades 
 and occupations, with figures of animals and monsters, decorate 
 the pages of this little volume. 
 
 Johann Petri's endeavours to produce illustrated books were 
 soon emulated by another Florentine wood-engraver, Antonio 
 Miscomini. From his fertile press issued many of those innume- 
 rable editions of Savonarola's tracts and sermons, which came out 
 incessantly during the time when the fame of the inspired monk 
 was yet unbroken, and all Florence rang with his praise. We can 
 trace the activity of Miscomini's presses in a series of works dated 
 from 1481 to 1495; but there is no evidence that he printed any 
 illustrated book before 1493, ^^ which year an edition of Savona- 
 rola's Tractato dell Umilita- was published by him. The first leaf 
 of this treatise exhibits an outline woodcut of great excellence, 
 representing the half-length figure of the Saviour, standing in the 
 sepulchre and supported by two angels. The style of the design 
 is strongly suggestive of Filippino Lippi.^ 
 
 Miscomini's most important work was an edition of the cele- 
 brated book of Jacopo de Cessoli on the Game of Chess; which he 
 
 ^ Philippi Calandri de Arithmetica Opusculum ad Julianum Medicem . . . 
 Impresso nella excelsa cipta di Firenze per Lorenzo di Morgiani et Giovanni 
 Thcdesco da Maganza. 
 
 '^ Tractato dell humilita co(m)posto p(er) frate Hieronymo da Ferrara . . . 
 Colophon: Impresso in Plrenze per Antonio Miscomini. Adi ultimo di giugno 
 1492. 4tf>- — Fossi, Biblioth. Magliabechiana, p. 545. 
 
 ^ Reproduced in Gruyer, les Illustrations des ecrits de Jerome Savonarola. 
 Paris, 1879 4to- p. 51.
 
 FLORENTINE WOODCUTS AFTER 1 49 1 
 
 29 
 
 published in an Italian version. The original treatise had enjoyed 
 a wide popularity during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. It 
 is an essay on the moral virtues, in which the different pieces used 
 in the game of chess, according to their degrees of rank and the 
 rules by which they move, are made to symbolise the various 
 conditions of life, and to illustrate the powers and duties of every 
 class of society. ' 
 
 The woodcut on the title-page represents a king, before whom 
 two players are seated at a chess -table, surrounded by a group 
 
 ^^K3^B^^^gggggg^gaBil 
 
 THE PHYSICIAN 
 From the Giuoco degli Scacchi of Jacopo de Cessoli. Florence, 1493. 
 
 of observers. There is a youthful slenderness in the figures which 
 seems to reveal the characteristics of Sandro Botticelli's manner. 
 This is less apparent in the other woodcuts of the book, although 
 their execution is by no means inferior to that of the title -illustra- 
 tion. They represent the various classes of mankind. We give 
 
 1 Jacobus de Cessolis: Libro di Giuocho di Scacchi intitolato de costumi 
 deglhuomini et degli offitii de nobili . . . Impresso in Firenze per Maestro An- 
 tonio Miscomini, 1493. 4^0. Hain, 4900.
 
 30 1,.\RGK WOODCUT VIKW OF FLORliNCE 
 
 here a facsimile reproduction of "the Physician", as an example 
 of the original and ingenious manner in which the unknown 
 artist contrived to make the wood-block yield the etfect of 
 colour. 
 
 From the striking artistic and technical excellence which ap- 
 pears in the woodcuts executed at Florence in and after i4()o, for 
 the illustration of books, we are led to the conviction that works 
 so perfect of their kind could not have been the earliest examples 
 of the Florentine school of wood -engraving. That school must 
 have had an anterior existence, throwing its history back to a date 
 previous by some 3'ears at least; and in such a primary stage, 
 its labour, if not bestow'ed on the illustration of books, was un- 
 doubtedly devoted to the production of single prints, until the time 
 arrived when the typographers began to claim the service of the 
 block -cutters. The correctness of our assumption is justified b}' 
 the discovery of a large and remarkable woodcut view of the city 
 of Florence, which, as we shall see, was engraved between 1486 
 and 1490. The dimensions of this print are such as would be, 
 even in our own da^^s, of the rarest occurrence. It is composed 
 of seven separate pieces, which, united, form a sheet, 585 milli- 
 metres in height, and 1315 millimetres in the length of its engraved 
 surface. 
 
 The design is a sort of middle term between a bird's eye- 
 view and a plan, taken from an ideal perspective. The spectator's 
 stand-point is in the Southwest, in front of the old city-walls; 
 somewhere on the left bank of the Arno, between the former 
 Porta San Friano and the existing gate of San Pier Gattolini. 
 At this point, in the front of the picture, and close to an imaginary 
 line of rocks, a man, with a drawing-board on his knees, is sitting, 
 garbed in the costume of the time. Beneath his feet stretches 
 out the old Santo-Spirito quarter of the cit}^, and behind it rises 
 the Palazzo Pitti, dilfering considerably from its present form, 
 and showing a horizontal row of only seven windows. Opposite 
 lie the districts on the right bank of the Arno, with the Duomo, 
 the facade of which is supported by pilasters. The Strozzi 
 palace is as yet non-existent. The chain of hills around Florence 
 forms the back-ground, and in the corner on the left we get a
 
 LARGE WOODCUT VIEW OF FLORENCE 3 1 
 
 glimpse of the Duomo and the monastery of Fiesole, on the 
 heights. In the middle view, the Arno is flowing towards the left; 
 and a weir upon it, near the front, is in course of being built 
 or repaired. A boat with men in it is moving across the river; 
 and other figures variously engaged give animation to the landscape. 
 In the sky overhead there is a scroll bearing the word "Fioren-{a\ 
 
 In its technical treatment, this enormous engraving exhibits 
 a close correspondence in many ways to the Florentine woodcuts 
 of the epoch which we have been considering. The general effect 
 is very powerful; the shading is indicated by very fine and close 
 parallel strokes without any hatchings; and the wall -spaces are 
 dotted with points or with very short lines arranged as points. 
 This is quite in the st}de of the Florentine book -illustrations. The 
 hills and the plan of the ground are marked by rolling undulations. 
 The whole disposition of the picture is such as to shew that the 
 artists, however skilful, were not yet expert enough in the treatment 
 of such large designs. We give here an exact reproduction of 
 the right-hand corner portion of the print, and also a reduced 
 facsimile of the entire sheet. The only extant copy known to us 
 of this elaborate and extensive engraving is now in the Berlin 
 Print-room. It is not a very excellent impression, and seems to have 
 been worked at a more recent date than the original issue of the 
 woodcut, but not later than the sixteenth century. 
 
 We cannot dwell here upon the importance of this print in 
 relation to the topographical and architectural history of Florence. 
 A discussion on the subject from that point of view would probably 
 be fruitful in its results, and might enable us to narrow the limits 
 of the period to which its composition should be assigned; — at 
 least to form a truer conjecture of the date than can be looked 
 for here. That it must be placed earlier than the close of the 
 fifteenth century, is proved beyond a doubt by the absence of the 
 Palazzo Strozzi. Indeed that fact alone should suffice as evidence 
 that the design preceded the year 1489, in which the construction 
 of the palace was begun, since we observe in the print that its 
 site was still occupied by other houses, the demolition of which 
 must have taken place before the new building could have been 
 laid out. It might on the other hand be considered likely that
 
 3'2 DATE OF TH1-: LARGE VIEW OF FLORENCE 
 
 the palace was already in course of construction, but had not yet 
 risen within the line of sight above the tops of the intervening 
 houses, and was therefore unnoted by the designer. Ikit this 
 theorv is precluded by a circumstance which furnishes an even 
 stronger reason for concluding that our view of Florence was 
 drawn before i4()o. There appeared at Venice in i486 a sort of 
 universal Chronicle, with the title of Siipplcmenliim Chronicarum, 
 of which we shall speak more particularly in the sequel. Amongst 
 the numerous woodcut illustrations in this book, there are found 
 many views of towns and localities, drawn in most instances 
 from the designer's imagination, but including also some sketches 
 from reality. In the i48() edition to which we are alluding, Florence 
 is represented by a conventional woodcut which does duty on 
 another page for Bologna; but in a newer edition produced in 
 1490, there is substituted for it a small but correct illustration 
 of the actual Florence, giving its position on the Arno and the 
 situation of the cathedral, in a way which leaves much to be 
 desired, but which is in the main a faithful representation of 
 the city. On examining this woodcut attentively, we cannot but 
 conclude that the man who designed it had before his eyes a 
 copy of the large View of Florence which is described above. 
 Thus, while, in i486, the publisher of the Supplementum had no 
 correct delineation of that city to comprise amongst his illustrations, 
 he certainly was in possession of such a delineation — without 
 doubt, our large sheet — when preparing the edition of 1490. 
 From these circumstances, the deduction is easy and obvious, 
 that our plan was engraved in the interval between the two editions 
 of the Supplementum, that is from i486 to 1490. 
 
 Soon afterwards our view of Florence was copied for a second 
 time; in the well known Chronicle compiled by Hartmann Schedel, 
 the Nuremberg physician and humanist, and printed in that city in 
 1493. T^he copy in the Nuremberg Chronicle is considerably larger 
 than the one in the Supplementum. It fills two open pages of 
 the book, which, as nearly every one knows, is of large folio size. 
 In the Latin edition those two pages arc the reverse of folio 86 
 and the obverse of 87; the German edition is not different. The 
 view, as given in SchedeFs chronicle, is a sort of compendium
 
 FROM THH !.. 
 
 OF FLORENCIi
 
 VIEW OF FLORENCE
 
 VIEWS OF ITALIAN CITIES 
 
 33 
 
 of the Florentine original. ^ Everything in it is much coarser, a 
 crowd of details are omitted, several arbitrary changes are introduced, 
 the entire work has become slipshod and superficial; but a com- 
 parison of the two prints allows no doubt of their connexion. 
 They are both taken from the same point of view, the principal 
 groups of buildings are alike in each, the boat is seen crossing 
 the Arno at the same place and in the same direction, but in the 
 Nuremberg woodcut the engraver has, for his own convenience, 
 reduced its three occupants to one. Even in technical method, the 
 illustration in Schedel's book seems to have caught the character 
 of the Florentine print. 
 
 The view of Florence is one of the most fairly correct of those 
 pictures of towns which appear in the Nuremberg Chronicle; and 
 in this respect is comparable only with that of Venice. For their 
 plan of the latter city, it is manifestly evident that the Nuremberg 
 illustrators made use of the large woodcut in Breydenbach's 
 Reise nach Jerusalem, which represents the Riva degli Schiavoni 
 and the Piazzetta at Venice. Just as our unique large print was 
 the best existing view of Florence, so was the engraving in 
 Breydenbach the best representation of the cit}^ of St. Mark. 
 Bre^^denbach's book^ was printed for the first time in i486 at 
 Mentz, b}^ or for the painter "Erhard Reuwich of Utrecht", in its 
 Latin original; and man}^ editions and translations appeared before 
 the close of the century, in German, Dutch, French, and Spanish, 
 The woodcuts of the first edition are masterpieces of design and 
 execution. According to a statement made in the text, Erhard 
 Reuwich, "the Utrecht painter" of whom we know nothing except 
 from this book, was the artist whose hand created those ad- 
 mirable works. He would also seem to have been the printer, 
 but there is some reason for supposing that the t}'pographical 
 labour was performed at SchoetTer's press. But we must here 
 relinquish an}' further consideration of Bre3^denbach's interesting 
 book, on its own account; as our investigation is merely concerned 
 with its view of Venice and the relation between that picture and 
 our large Florentine illustration. 
 
 1 Hain, 3956.
 
 34 VlliWS OF ITALIAN CITIES 
 
 Reuwich's view of Venice is older, as we may at once as- 
 sume without hesitation, than the plan of Florence. The latter 
 could scarcely have come into existence before i486, and even if 
 begun so soon, must have occupied a considerable time in its 
 accomplishment. However excellent the \'cnice engraving in the 
 Brevdenbach mav be, it is assuredly by no means such an 
 elaborate and finished work of landscape delineation as the 
 "Fiorenza". 
 
 The "Venice'', as well as the other woodcuts in Breydenbach's 
 book, is an oblong panoramic view, giving the most important 
 and characteristic features of the prospect in outline. The "Flo- 
 rence'' of our unknown artist is, on the contrary, conceived with 
 much greater freedom and boldness, and it exhibits a complete 
 master}' of perspective, so that all the objects within the scope of 
 a bird's-eye view are brought out upon the plan in their due pro- 
 portion with regard to the assumed position of the designer. In 
 technical ability, in distinctness and clearness of drawing, and in 
 the skilful execution of the manual part, Rcuwich was decidedly 
 superior to the Florentine artist; and the Breydenbach woodcuts 
 take a high place even among the best performances of the 
 fifteenth century, by virtue of their truth to nature and their 
 finished technical excellence. Nevertheless, in the "Fiorenza" we 
 have, perhaps, the very first example of an engraved bird's-eye view, 
 exhibiting the whole plan of a city with comprehensive fulness. 
 
 The sketcher in the foreground is no doubt the designer's 
 actual portrait; but it is not likely that we shall ever be able to 
 identify him. 
 
 It is significant, when we turn our attention upon the subject 
 of the connexion between German art- workmen and the develop- 
 ment of Italian wood -engraving, that, of all the artists who pro- 
 duced woodcuts in the Florentine manner, only one name has 
 survived, and that one is unquestionably German — Johannes de 
 Francfordia. It is to be presumed that he w^orked in Florence, 
 to judge from the style, w^hich is wholly Florentine, of a large 
 woodcut bearing his name, now in the British Museum (Passa- 
 vant, I, p. 132). It represents a fierce fight between naked men 
 in a wood. The composition is a tolerably faithful copy of an
 
 EARLY FLORENTINE WORK, JOHANX OF FRANKFURT 35 
 
 engraving on copper b}^ Antonio Pollaiuolo (Bartsch, No. 2). Tlie 
 subject of the design is not very clear. It is intended probably 
 to represent a combat of gladiators, or something of similar cha- 
 racter; and may have been chosen by Pollaiuolo in order that he 
 might indulge his taste for modelling the nude form in violent 
 action and strained attitudes. In the copy signed by Johannes de 
 Francfordia, the characteristic design is fairly well imitated, while 
 at the same time the efl'ect of the engraved work has been modi- 
 fied to suit the requirements of the woodblock. Masses of simple 
 strokes, without any hatching, give solid relief to the forms which 
 are drawn in strong outlines. The deep blackness of the ground 
 is also a marked feature of the Florentine st}4e. This work is 
 the only one by Johannes de Francfordia of which we have any 
 certain knowledge. He may have produced others; but whether they 
 are now totally lost, or lie unrecognised among the anonymous 
 woodcuts of the time, it is impossible for us to ascertain. Crowds 
 of his fellow-countrymen, art- workers like himself, were then 
 trooping over the Alps to find employment in Italian ateliers; and 
 we shall find them chiefly settled in the towns of North Italy 
 when we come to that branch of our subject. 
 
 Amongst the illustrations issued in single leaves or broad- 
 sheets, which show by the simplicity and coarseness of their exe- 
 cution, that they belong to the earliest stage of Florentine wood- 
 engraving, we may here mention the following pieces. — 
 
 Young Tobias carrying the fish, and accompanied by the angel 
 Raphael; — a leaf of very primitive character, in the Paris Cabinet 
 d'Estampes.^ The composition is very similar to that of some pic- 
 tures in which the same scene is represented, which two Floren- 
 tine masters of the fifteenth century have left to us. One is the 
 painting in the Turin Galler}'', ascribed to the school of Antonio 
 Pollaiuolo; and two others are compositions b}^ Sandro Botticelli, 
 at Turin, and in the Florence Accademia. In the figure -types, it 
 perhaps more nearly resenibles the Botticellis. The two angels 
 who appear on the right and left of the principal figure in all the 
 
 ^ Reproduced in Delaborde (H.^ La Gravure en Italic avant Marc-Antoine. 
 Paris, p. 207. 
 
 3*
 
 •^() VARIOUS 1 ARl.Y FI.ORI-N riNF. WOODCUTS 
 
 three paintings, are omitted in the woodcut. — A small reproduc- 
 tion or imitation of this engraving is frequently found in Floren- 
 tine printed books; as, for example, in the vignette on the title- 
 page of the "Rappresentationc de langiolo Raphaelo/' 
 
 There is also a "St. Jerome in the Desert'' in the Paris Ca- 
 binet, of early -Florentine origin, which is remarkable for the large 
 scale of its execution. 
 
 The IkMiin print-room possesses a Madonna, executed in a 
 style of great simplicity, and belonging likewise to the earlier period 
 of Florentine w^ood- engraving. Its colouring and bad state of 
 preservation do not permit us to give a facsimile of this inter- 
 esting cut. 
 
 In the same collection there is a very charming little print 
 which represents an infant lying asleep, his head supported by a 
 human skull, — a favorite emblem of Youth, Death, and the In- 
 stability of Life. In the mode of manipulation we discover the 
 special characteristics of the Florentine school of wood -engraving 
 during the last decade of the fifteenth century. 
 
 Of somewhat later date is a large woodcut (371 millimetres in 
 height by 252 in breadth), preserved, with many other treasures of 
 Italian engraving in the fifteenth century, in the Kunsthalle at Ham- 
 burg. It represents the Madonna, with the Infant Saviour, and the 
 child St. John; and, although executed simply in outline, appears to 
 be of unquestionable Florentine origin in or about the year 1500. 
 We give it here in a reduced facsimile, as being a rare example 
 of its kind. The indecision of style, and the timidity of concep- 
 tion, which we observe in the design of this fine print, remind us 
 of Raffaellino del Garbo's manner. 
 
 If we consider that no special attention has hitherto been paid 
 to the primitive woodcuts of Italy, whether by students of art- 
 historv, or by collectors and public institutions, and that their true 
 value is but rarely recognised, — we shall cease to wonder at the 
 comparative fewness of the existing specimens. The interest which 
 is felt in Italian copper -engravings of the fifteenth century, and 
 even in the wood-engravings of the sixteenth, has not been ex- 
 tended to the woodcuts of the former century, owing to the in- 
 significant appearance which most of them present at first sight,
 
 The Virgin, with the infant Saviour and the child St. John. Single print. In the Knnsthalle at Hamburg. 
 
 Reduced I'acsimile.
 
 THE ILLUSTRATED SAVONAROLA LITERATURE 39 
 
 and to the poor preservation in which they are usually found. 
 Yet the existence of such a work as the large view of Florence 
 shews that the art of wood -engraving in that city had attained to 
 a considerable degree of developement about the year 1490; and 
 there must have been, as the other surviving examples attest, a 
 steady production of single prints going on at that time. We 
 possess documentary evidence of the activity and skill of the Flo- 
 rentine workshops, in an extensive series of illustrated works, and 
 an innumerable quantity of small chapbooks and other popular 
 pieces containing woodcuts, which appeared collaterally with those 
 single prints. Mention has already been made of the illustrated 
 tracts and sermons of Savonarola. Most of these are undated, 
 and bear no indication either of the printer's name, or of the 
 place of impression; but they exhibit so unmistakeably the charac- 
 teristics of Florentine art, that no doubt can remain as to their 
 origin. Some were certainly printed by Johannes Petri, several 
 by Miscomini, and many others issued from the flourishing press 
 of Francesco di Dino. This is ascertainable by means of the 
 woodblocks which those printers used repeatedly in different 
 books bearing their imprints, without much regard to appro- 
 priateness.' 
 
 The first place among those illustrated editions of the Savo- 
 narola tracts, belongs probably to his Arte del ben morire, a ser- 
 mon preached on All -Souls' Day in 1496.'- The discourse was, 
 as the title announces, taken down at the actual moment of its 
 delivery, by Lorenzo Violi, the editor and publisher of many of 
 Savonarola's sermons; and although there are three editions, not 
 one of which is marked with a date or a place, there can scarcely 
 be a doubt that they were all printed in Florence about the same 
 time, very soon after the occasion they refer to. On the title-page 
 
 1 The monograph by Gustave Gruyer already cited, gives a list ot the 
 illustrations which appeared in the various editions of Savonarola's pieces; dis- 
 cussing them chiefly in relation to their religious or spiritual significance. 
 
 2 Predica dell Arte del ben morire facta dal Reuerendo Patre Frate Hie- 
 ronymo da Ferrara a di 11 di Novembre M.CCCCLXXXXVI racolta da Ser 
 Lorezo Violi da la uiua uoce del p'edicto Padre metre ch' predicaua . . . At end: 
 Laus. Deo. 41°-
 
 40 THE ILLUSTRATED SAVONAROLA LITERATURE 
 
 of the edition which we have cited, there is a woodcut represen- 
 ting Death in a female form of terrific aspect, armed with a scythe, 
 and flying through the air; evidently suggested by the tigure of 
 Death in the Campo Santo at Pisa. The ground beneath her is 
 strewn with corpses. 
 
 The second illustration exhibits a youth, close to whom stands 
 Death, pointing with one hand to the hell that lies below, and 
 with the other to the gathering hosts of heaven. It is a work of 
 the most genuine Florentine type, executed with remarkable deli- 
 cacy and power. Not less charming is the third picture, in which 
 a man is seen lying on his deathbed in a chamber of large pro- 
 portions, grand in its severe simplicity. A monk is offering con- 
 solation to the djing man, w^hile his relatives are standing or 
 kneeling around. Death, watching his prey, is at the foot of the 
 bed; and three demon-shapes are waiting at the other end. But 
 the Virgin hovers above the scene and takes to herself the depar- 
 ting soul which rises in the form of an infant. This composition 
 is the only one which has, in its details, any suggestion of the 
 designs that were so widely known in Germany and the Nether- 
 lands, of the popular Ars Morieiidi of the North. But the Floren- 
 tine woodcut is no more an imitation of the pictures in that book, 
 than Savonarola's sermon is, beyond its mere intitulation, akin to 
 the ascetic medieval treatise known as the Ars Moriendi. The 
 Teutonic "Art of Dying'' deals with the conflict between the oppo- 
 sing powers of Heaven and Hell, the machinations of the devils 
 to secure their victim, his stedfast resistance to their temptations, 
 and the final interposition of the angels to save him in the moment 
 of death. Savonarola's treatise, on the contrary, is chiefly an 
 admonition counselling men how to live in order that they may 
 die happily. There is a similar contrast between the tw^o types 
 of illustration. The picture of the dying man's bedchamber is a 
 composition breathing all the dignified tranquillity of the Floren- 
 tine Renaissance, while in the designs of the Northern book no 
 other end was aimed at than to fill the minds of sinners with 
 dread and terror. 
 
 Although Savonarola's sermon was so different in its tendencv 
 from the old Ars Moriendi, the latter treatise with its horrible
 
 THE ILLUSTRATED SAVONAROLA LITERATURE 4I 
 
 illustrations was probably the moving cause which inspired him, 
 directly or indirectly, with the idea of his Arte del ben morire. 
 During the second half of the fifteenth century, several editions 
 were published in Italy of a work by Domenico di Capranica, 
 Cardinal of Fermo (deceased in 1458); in which the trials and 
 consolations of the dying were treated in a fashion quite similar 
 to that of the German or Dutch blockbook. We are acquainted 
 with two illustrated editions of Capranica's Ars Moriendi, the 
 engravings in which are direct imitations of the German woodcuts. 
 One of those books bears the date of 1490, and was apparently 
 printed in Florence, although the place is not indicated. It was 
 brought out by two German printers, and is especially remarkable 
 for the plain statement, made in its colophon, that the woodcuts 
 were actually reproduced or recomposed from old (German) prints. 
 The words are — "Stampado fu questa Operetta con li figuri 
 accomodati per lohannem clein e Piero himmel de Alemania".^ 
 
 The second illustrated edition of Capranica's work is undoub- 
 tedly a Florentine production, probably from Johannes Petri's press. - 
 Most of the thirty four woodcuts in this little tract are tolerably 
 free imitations of the German Ars Moriendi; but there are a few 
 which exhibit the Florentine type both in conception and in 
 technical execution. Amongst the latter there is one which is 
 evidently an immediate copy from the Savonarola tract mentioned 
 above. We allude to the design of "Death and the Young man'\ 
 which is here reproduced in a style markedly inferior to that of 
 its original. There is more originalit}' in the picture of the deathbed 
 scene, which is wholly recomposed in an independent manner, 
 and executed with much skill. The phj^sician and a female figure 
 are standing at the foot of the bed, on which a young man is 
 
 1 The only known copy of the edition is at Alihorp. See Dibdin, Bibl. 
 Spenc. IV, p. 443. 
 
 ■■* Delia Arte del ben morire cioe i Gratia di Dio. Compilato . . per . . 
 Cardinale di fermo neglianni del nostro Signore MCCCCLII. At the end: 
 Finito ellibro del ben morire tutto storiato Deo Gratias. The only known copy, 
 now in the Fisher collection, in London (Catalogue, 28) is identical with that 
 described by Dibdin (Bibliographical Decameron, I, p. 140^ as being in the Rice 
 collection.
 
 42 
 
 THE ILLUSTRATKD SAVONAROLA LITERATURE 
 
 lying, while Death with his scythe is outside the chamber -door, 
 knocking for admittance.^ 
 
 It is not our purpose to enumerate all the Florentine editions 
 of Savonarola's opuscula in which there are illustrations. Gruyer's 
 book to which reference has already been made, can be consulted 
 with advantage notwithstanding his deplorable omission of biblio- 
 graphical particulars. A very useful, but far from complete, list 
 
 Woodcut on the title-page of Savonarola's Libro della Simplicita della Vita Christiana. 
 
 Firenze, 1496. 
 
 is given by Brunet (Manuel du Lih^aire et dc f Amateur de Livres, 
 fifth edition, Vol. V, columns 158-173). 
 
 Most of the Florentine productions already noticed are works 
 of small size and with but few woodcuts. We now encounter, 
 
 ^ Reproductions of these engravings are found in Gruyer, pp. 79, 82. The 
 same illustrations appear also in an edition of Savonarola's Ars Moriendi, different 
 from the one mentioned above — another proof of the difficulty of tracing such 
 designs to their true origin , by reason of the complications arising from the 
 frequent and diverse use of the blocks, and the custom of making copies; par-
 
 FLORENTINE BOOKS WITH WOODCUTS 
 
 43 
 
 in the years between 1495 and 1501, a succession of books 
 illustrated on a large scale, each containing a long series of wood- 
 cuts appropriated to its subject. Besides Florence, only Venice 
 could then produce works of such pretention; certainly not any 
 other of the Italian cities in which printing flourished. The Epistole 
 et Evangelii, printed in 1495 by Lorenzo di Morgiani in partnership 
 with Johannes of Mentz, ^ contains some two hundred woodcuts, 
 many of which had however already appeared in the printed 
 
 Christ with the Samaritan woman at the well. From the Epistole et Evangelii, Florence, 1495. 
 
 tracts of Savonarola, and, in so far as they are of older date than 
 the Epistole, are only re-worked in this volume. But a very large 
 proportion of the entire number is formed by engravings specially 
 designed and cut for the book. The inequalit}^ of execution, and 
 
 ticularly as all the editions referred to are of excessive rarity, and cannot be 
 collated and examined together in any one place. Therefore, no thorough study 
 of the subject can be made, until we possess such a number of reproductions of 
 the early woodcuts as will place our knowledge in respect to them on something 
 like the same basis as our acquaintance with drawings through facsimiles. 
 
 ' The only known copy of this edition (which seems to be the first) is in 
 the collection of Mr. Richard Fisher, in London. See his catalogue, p. 27.
 
 44 
 
 FLORENTINK ILLUS rRATKD BOOKS : i:i'ISTOLK KT EVANGl'.I.II 
 
 the irregularity of the dimensions, which strike us in these various 
 illustrations, betoken the diversit}' of their origin. Many are exe- 
 cuted with the utmost delicacy; and yield, in the graceful com- 
 position of their designs, an admirable reflection of the contem- 
 porary art of painting in P'lorence. The title is surrounded by a 
 large woodcut border tilling the whole extent of the folio page; 
 in which, a rich ornamental pattern of festoon- work, with figures 
 of dolphins in the spaces, encloses a circlet bearing representations 
 
 ^^^^^^^^^^m^^3smi 
 
 E^2^S^^ 
 
 EE2£2v32HE3:.3ES8f5' 
 
 The presentation in the temple. From the Epistole et Evangelii. Florence, 1498. 
 
 of the apostles Peter and Paul. The essential principle of the 
 Florentine method of wood-engraving, which consists in the use 
 of large masses of black on the surface of the print, is applied 
 in this instance with such finished skill as to produce a very 
 powerful decorative elVect. 
 
 This edition of the Epistles and Gospels, so thoroughly Flo- 
 rentine in its character, appears to have been a favorite book 
 among the people, from the fact that many editions were called 
 for, not only in the fifteenth, but also in the sixteenth century;
 
 FLORENTINE ILLUSTRATED f500KS: .l-ISOP OF I495 45 
 
 notwithstanding that the mode of illustration had ceased to be in 
 vogue, and that the repeated use of the woodblocks rendered the 
 later impressions worthless. The latest edition, so far as we have 
 had ocular evidence, was issued in the year 1578.' 
 
 A book which enjoyed immense popularity during the four- 
 teenth and fifteenth centuries, namely the collection of fables usually 
 ascribed to ^Esop, was brought out by several typographers in the 
 early days of the press; with illustrations distinctive, in each in- 
 stance, of the local type of art. Such was the case in Germany, 
 F^rance, the Netherlands, England, and Italy. At the time of which 
 we are speaking, Florence produced one of those editions, the 
 text having been rendered into Italian metrical form by Accio 
 Zucco, usually known as Accio Summa Campanea.- 
 
 In the drawing of the animal-figures we do not find the spirit 
 and the quaint humour which German and also North-Italian artists 
 often contrived to infuse into their illustrations of -Esop. The 
 designs are painfully exact attempts to delineate the story in the 
 text, and betray the workmanship of a mechanical hand; the cutting 
 of the block is also very poorly done. It is true that these w^ood- 
 cuts exhibit some genuine features of the Florentine type; but 
 the power to produce pictures dashed with the rough realistic vi- 
 vidness which alone can render such illustrations tolerable, was far 
 beyond the artist's cunning. However, the art of wood-engraving 
 at Florence was, on the whole, amply successful in supplying 
 the demand for illustrations of popular fiction and poetry, at the 
 epoch of which we are now speaking. The growth of poetic and 
 romantic literature in Italy was followed up by the illustrators in a 
 
 ^ Pistole, Lezzioni, et Vangelii . . tradotti . . dal . . Francesco de Cattani. 
 Firenze, 1578. fol. 
 
 2 The only copy known to me of this edition undescribed by any biblio- 
 grapher) is in the Riccardiana (Stima della Bibl. Rice, p. 6o\ It wants the 
 beginning; folio a 11 begins thus — »Io mandero per tutto..^; many gaps are found 
 in the middle of the book. At the end: Impresso in Firenze per Ser Francesco 
 Bonaccorsi ad instantia di Ser Piero Pacini Anno Domini M.CCCC.LXXXXV. 
 Adi XVII di Septembre. 4to. Under the subscription, the publisher's mark of 
 Piero Pacini (da Pescia). The fragmentary copy of the Riccardiana contains 44 
 woodcuts in the fables, executed in the Florentine manner, and each averaging 
 87 millimetres in height by loc) in breadth,
 
 46 FI.ORHN riNK IIJ.USTRA THD HOOKS : MORGANTE 
 
 continuous production of editions ornamented with woodcuts; the 
 designs frequently ahernating, page for page, with the text. Besides 
 this contemporary literature, new editions of the old authors, 
 especially of Dante and Boccaccio, were constantly appearing, 
 illustrated often with hundreds of engravings. In Venice, of 
 course, the greater portion of this mass of illustrated publications 
 came into being; but Florence took a very considerable share in 
 its production. 
 
 It is curious that the Florentine woodcut books seem to have 
 had a much more limited circulation than similar works published 
 elsewhere. The editions may have been comparatively small, and 
 the bookselling trade was probably less systematic and active in 
 Florence, than the corresponding organisation at Venice which 
 despatched books to all parts of the civilised world. These cir- 
 cumstances must be taken into account when we seek to under- 
 stand why it is, that the early illustrated books of Florence have 
 become bibliographical rarities of the highest order; many of them, 
 indeed, surviving only in unique copies. 
 
 The Movfrante Magiriore of Ludovico Pulci appeared in 1500 
 at Florence, in an edition decorated with more than two hundred 
 woodcuts'. The interminable narrative spun out in this metrical 
 romance of chivalry furnished the illustrator with rich material for 
 his designs. They are conceived in a spirit of pedantic earnestness, 
 and follow the incidents of the text closely; notwithstanding that 
 the reader is often inclined to doubt Pulci's seriousness, and to 
 suspect that these long-winded descriptions of impossible adventures 
 
 ' Pulci Ludovico) Morgante Maggiore. Folio A recto: "Morgante Mag- 
 giore", beneath which is a woodcut representing the giant Morgante engaged 
 in conversation with a stout man supposed to be Roland. Below the woodcut, 
 the text of the poem begins — "In principio era il uerbo", etc. At the end: 
 "finito illibro chiamato Morgate maggiore Composto per Luigi Pulci Impresso 
 in Fireze nel Anno. M.CCCCC. adi XXII di Gennaio". Folio. The only copy 
 known to me is in the Vienna Hofbibliothek. The woodcuts in it, 220 in 
 number, average 8 centimetres in height by i i in breadth. — Seven of the 
 smaller cuts reappear in an edition of the Morgante Piccolo, published in 1535. 
 Fol. I recto: "Morgante Margutte", beneath which is the woodcut from the 
 title of the Maggiore. At end: "Stampato ad Instantia di Maestre Francesco 
 di Giouanni Benuenuto Nel 1535. (Florence) 4to. 14 leaves. The Morgante 
 Piccolo is a kind of abstract from the larger poem.
 
 FLORENTINE ILLUSTRATED BOOKS : THE QUADRIREGIO 47 
 
 achieved by Roland the knight and Morgante the Giant, were in- 
 tended as a burlesque upon the ballads in which the street-singers 
 of Florence delighted the populace with the old stories of Charle- 
 magne and his paladins. 
 
 The woodcuts are marked by many various modes of treat- 
 ment. It would appear that several different hands were engaged 
 in their production; but they all exhibit the regular Florentine 
 type of wood-engraving. In the earlier part of the work, they are 
 very carefully drawn, and finished with extreme minuteness; but 
 those which succeed are of inferior workmanship, frequently be- 
 traying haste and slovenliness. We have seen in the miniatures 
 of illuminated manuscripts, a similar deterioration of artistic quality 
 take place as the work approached its termination. It is as though 
 the artist, and the patron whose commission he was executing — 
 in the present instance, it was the printer — rarely contrived to 
 maintain the enthusiasm and the indifference to expense, which 
 are necessary to carry out such an undertaking to its end on a 
 scale commensurate with the initial plan. 
 
 Akin to the above mentioned edition of the Morgante, but 
 displaying in its illustrations a more even and uniform style from 
 beginning to end, is the Qiiadriregio of Federigo Frezzi, published 
 in 1508'. This book is now almost equally rare with the Morgante. 
 It is a weak imitation of Dante's great poem, and was written 
 before 1416, in which year Frezzi, then Bishop of Foligno, died. 
 The poet wanders through the "four realms", of Love (il mondo), 
 of Satan (Tinferno), of Vice (il purgatorio), and of Virtue (il para- 
 diso). The engravings are fairly successful works of illustrative 
 art, and generally superior to those of the Morgante. A somewhat 
 monotonous effect is produced by the constant repetition of the 
 
 ^ Folio A I recto: Quatriregio interza rima uolgare che tracta di quatro 
 Reami | cioe del Reame temporale mondano di questo mondo ' nel quale Lauctore 
 rimane inganato dallo Idio del | lamore quatro uolte. Depoi tracta del Rea \ me 
 di Plutone Re dellinferno. Et del | Purgatorio et terzo Reame & | del Paradiso 
 cioe del Reame | della uirtu che e el Quarto. | Fol. A i verso: io Sono. Fol. A 2 
 recto: Incomincia el Libro intitolato Quatriregio... di Messer Fedrigo . . . 
 Vescovo della cipta di Fuligno. Fol. R (•^) recto: Finisce ellibro decto el Qua- 
 triregio . . . Impresso in Fireze adi XXVI. di Luglio. M.D.VIII. Ad petitione 
 di Ser Piero Pacini di Poscia. R (•,>' verso bhnk. 102 leaves, folio.
 
 4^ 
 
 ri.ORKNTINE II.LUSTRATKh BOOKS! IHK (^UADRIKKGIO 
 
 figure of the poet, who appears in ahnost all the woodcuts in some 
 phase of his peregrination. The composition and the design of 
 many of these pictures are full of grace and charm; the engraver's 
 work is altogether excellent. In the slender but well-proportioned 
 figures, in their attitudes and movements, we distinctly recognise 
 the characteristics of the Florentine school, and the style of Botti- 
 celli. The general >.]uality of the work may be estimated from the 
 
 I'luni llio Qiiadrircgio of Fodcrigo I'rczzi. Florence, if,oS. 
 
 accompanying facsimiles; one of which is taken from an illustration 
 in the "realm of Love'' (libro I, cap. 2), the other from a^scene 
 in the "realm of Virtue" (lib. Ill, cap. 2) where the author en- 
 counters three nvmphs who Hce from him in terror. 
 
 On one of the woodcuts in the Qiicidriref^no there is a mono- 
 gram in which the letters L and V are combined. The compiler 
 of the catalogue of Mr. Huth's library is of opinion that Luca 
 Signorelli (Luca di Kgidio di Ventura Signorelli) is indicated by 
 those letters. There are indeed some remote resemblances to the
 
 FLORENTINE ILLUSTRATED BOOKS! THE QUADRIREGIO 
 
 49 
 
 work of that master, in certain details of the figures and the 
 draperies; but we discern so little trace of his special peculiarities 
 in the designs of the Qiiadriregio, that the artist who drew them 
 cannot even be asserted to have belonged to Signorelli's school. 
 As for the monogram, it does not in any wa}^ justify the inference 
 which has been drawn from it, since we know that Signorelli, 
 whenever he marked his works, used the signature of "Lucas 
 Cortonensis'' and not "Venturi'\ 
 
 From the Quadriregio of Federigo Frezzi. Florence, 1508. 
 
 The Qiiadriregio was probably the last work of importance 
 in which the older school of Florentine wood-engraving displayed 
 its qualities at their highest point of excellence. In the Regiile 
 fhrum musices of Petrus de Conuntiis', there is a quarto -sized 
 woodcut still exhibiting the manner of that school, but weak and 
 worthless in design as well as in treatment. 
 
 1 Printed by Bernardino Zuchetta (Brunet, I, column 1551).
 
 50 FLORKNTINE ILLUSTRATED BOOKS! RAPPRKSIiNTAZlONI 
 
 Besides the large sets of illustrations to which we have called 
 attention, Florence produced a vast number of scattered wood- 
 cuts in the ephemeral literature of pamphlets and tracts, often 
 consisting of but a few pages. Such pieces, usually printed without 
 a date, have sometimes a woodcut on every page; sometimes one 
 at the beginning and another at the end. We have already spoken 
 of one of the chief groups of this kind, — namely, the treatises 
 of Savonarola. Other writings of similar character, occasional 
 poems, secular or devout, and popular ballads, were often decorated 
 with charming woodcuts. Most of the productions to which we 
 are adverting here, belong to the period immediately before and 
 immediately after the year 1500'. Amongst them, the numerous 
 Rappj-eseiitayioui , of which so many editions were printed at 
 Florence at that time, yield an exceptionally rich and delightful 
 harvest for our gathering.- 
 
 The religious drama, the Sacra Rappj^esenta'^ioiie (corrcfipondmg 
 to the French m)-sti'rc and the Fnglish "miracle-play") acquired 
 
 ' We may specify here the titles of a few of the chief works in profane 
 poetical literature, above referred to in general terms. — Politiano (Angelo). 
 "La Giostra di Giuliano de Medici e la fabula di Orpheo . ." Under this in- 
 titulation is a woodcut representing a knight on horseback ( — It had been 
 previously used in the Giuoco degli Scacchi of 1493). At end: "Stampato in 
 Firenze per Gianstephano di Carlo di Pauia astaza (sic) di ser Pietro Pacini da 
 Pescia questo di XV. Dottobre M.D.XIII." 30 leaves, 4to. Some of the illustrations 
 are of high excellence, and appear to belong to the period between 1490 and 
 I soo. They may have been cut for an earlier edition of the "Giostra", but 
 none such is known. — "Canzone per andar in maschera per Carnesciale fatte 
 per piu persone" (Florence, before 1500). 410. (Gamba, Testi di Lingua, 216). 
 With a beautiful woodcut, representing a musical performance by maskers. — 
 "Ballatette del Magnirtco Lorenzo de Medici, di MesserAgnolo Politiano" (Florence, 
 about 1500). 4to. (Gamba, 262). With a woodcut of dancing girls on the title. 
 — "La Ferza de' Villani" ("A Scourge for Peasants"; Florence, a little after 1500). 
 4to. 6 leaves. With two excellent woodcuts. — "La nouella de' duo preti et 
 un clerico inamorati duna donna". Without indication of place or date (Florence, 
 about 1 500'. 4to. With two humorous woodcuts, finely designed. 
 
 - Some of these which belong by their dates to a later period, such as 
 "La Rappresentatione del Re Superbo. In Fiorenza Apprcsso alia Badia. 
 M.DLXVIII;" "La Historia di Giasone et Medea, In Fiorenza el Anno i5'j3;" 
 "Storia dell Infelice Innamoramento di Gianfiore e Filomena. Stampata in 
 Firenze nel M.D.LVI Del mese di Nouembre," — contain woodcuts, evidently 
 from blocks which had been engraved in the earlier time referred to in the text, 
 after designs by one of the anonymous artists of whom we have been treating.
 
 FLORENTINE ILLUSTRATED BOOKS : RAPPRESENTAZIONI 
 
 51 
 
 a special developcment in Florence; attaining its full maturity 
 about the middle of the fifteenth century. The performance of 
 such pieces was then looked upon as an indispensable portion of 
 the public celebrations. All the narratives of the Old and New 
 Testament, all the stories in the legends of the Saints, were made 
 available for treatment in the Rappresenla-^ioni. Few of the men 
 to whose pious zeal and poetic ardour the literature of the Italian 
 drama is indebted for those works, are now known by name; but 
 
 mMMi M ME^^^^^^^SSM^S^^ 
 
 BE£^a2Si£3aH[?':i3iI^ElI£IlI£IIE[^^ 
 
 From the Rappresentatione di S. Apollonia X'irgine et Martire. 
 
 many of the plays are marked by real literar}' power. Among 
 the more considerable authors who can be identified, such as 
 Feo Belcari and Pierozo Castellano de' Castellani, we find Lorenzo 
 the Magnificent himself. Towards the end of the fifteenth century, 
 profane subjects began to make their way into the circle previously 
 devoted to religious story; and scenes dramatised from classical 
 mytholog}^ became increasingh' attractive. 
 
 That the popular interest in the Rappreseuta-iojii extended 
 beyond their performance on the stage, we have a proof in the 
 
 4*
 
 =.2 
 
 FLORKNTINK II.LUSTRATKlt BOOKS: KAI'PRKSENTAZIONI 
 
 numerous editions which were printed. A large proportion of 
 the extant pieces may never have been produced upon the boards. 
 The contemporary impressions which were published at P'lorence, 
 are of the usual shape and size of chapbooks; that is, in thin 
 quarto brochu?\'s, generally containing one woodcut at the beginning 
 and another at the end. They are seldom decorated with more 
 than a verv small number of such illustrations. The artist chose 
 his subject from the text with care and judgment, so as to obtain 
 
 ^^^:^:^:;^'^.':^:.%:x^^^^;?r^^^^E 
 
 From the Rappresentatione di Agnolo Hebreo. 
 
 a picture suited for artistic display, and lending itself to vigorous 
 and animated treatment. The engravings are frequently worked 
 out with exquisite delicacy. It is not improbable that these com- 
 positions embody to some extent reminiscences of the actual scenic 
 performance; and that the acted Rappreseiitationi may have exer- 
 cised a manifold influence upon the plastic arts, — just as the 
 typical figures, which appear in the Bible -pictures of the North, 
 were demonstrably adapted from the histrionic presentment of 
 characters in miracle -plays. More than once, perhaps, painters
 
 FLORENTINK ILLUSTRATFI) BOOKS : NOVKLLE 
 
 53 
 
 have caught ideas from theatrical situations, and borrowed from 
 the drama subjects for their allegorical and mythological compo- 
 sitions. Much that we today find difficult to understand in their 
 pictures, has perhaps its undiscovered source and signification in 
 one or other of the Rappresenta-{ioni. 
 
 Uniform in outward appearance and in the style of their 
 illustrations, with the Rappresentaiioni , are the Novelle and Poe- 
 metti, two kindred species of popular literature. We give here 
 
 From the Nouella piacevole chiamata la Viola. 
 
 a facsimile of the title -woodcut of an edition of the "Nouella 
 piaceuole chiamata la Viola". ^ This engraving is especially 
 remarkable for its fine and graceful treatment, and for the deli- 
 cate suavity of its well-proportioned figures. The hand of the 
 
 1 Nuella piaceuole chiamata la Viola, Nella quale si uede una bellissima 
 burla fatta da una Donna chiamata Viola, a tre Giouani suoi inamorati, con 
 due Sonetti, & una Canzona a ballo aggiunti nuouamente nella fine. La quale 
 nouella e molto diletteuole & da ridere. Nuouamente Stampata. Without 
 indication of place and date. Only one woodcut.
 
 54 POPULARITY OF FLORENTINE ILLUSTRATED BOOKS 
 
 artist who drew it is recognisable in many of the best illustrations 
 in a number of books belonging to the class of F^lorentine popular 
 literature. 
 
 We cannot here enumerate all the illustrated editions of the 
 Rappy^esenta\iom , nor even only the best of them. Their wood- 
 cuts are, as a rule, in the ordinary form of the Florentine vignettes 
 of 141)0-1500, and Botticelli's manner is clearly apparent in many 
 of them. But several different styles are tolerably discernible 
 throughout, a circumstance which points to the conclusion that 
 many artists, or, as is more probable, two or three different 
 workshops for block -engraving, were occupied in the production 
 of those illustrations.^ 
 
 So long as the old woodblocks held out, under the frequent 
 and continual republication of the chapbooks in which they were 
 used, and so long as the impressions retained at least the general 
 features of the design, no matter how shadowy and blurred, — 
 they were worked and re -worked until completely worn away. 
 A mode of illustration, once grown into popular favour and become 
 typical, remains in use long after the period in which the pictures 
 had their origin. In Florence, as everywhere else, we find that 
 popular art was genuinely conservative of older forms. Still down 
 to the end of the sixteenth century, and sometimes even in the 
 seventeenth, those woodcuts re -appeared constantly in the chap- 
 books. When, at last, an old block was no longer workable, it 
 was replaced by a new one as nearl}^ as possible like the former, 
 but naturally, as a mere copy, inferior to its original. This process 
 went on through a succession of copies, till in the end the design 
 lost all its primitive qualities, and degenerated into coarse and 
 inartistic ugliness. Examples are not lacking of such replication, 
 extending sometimes to the number of four or five successive 
 
 ^ The Magliabecchiana in Florence, and the British Museum, possess rich 
 collections of the various editions of the Kappresentaponi. For the bibliography 
 of the subject, see Colomb de Batines: BibHografia delle antiche Rappresen- 
 tazioni ItaUane sacre e profane . . Stampate nei Secoli XV. e XVI. Firenze, 
 1852. 8vo. — Ancona (Aless. d'): Sacre Rappresentationi di Secoli XIV. XV. e 
 XVI. Firenze, 1872. 3 vols. 8vo. — Ancona: Origini del Teatro in Italia. 
 Firenze, 1877. 2 vols. Svo.
 
 EXTINCTION OF THE FLORENTINE SCHOOL 55 
 
 copies. We might instance the numerous editions of the Fer\a 
 de' Villani, and many other works. Often in the sixteenth-century 
 editions of the old popular ballads, all kinds of woodcuts are 
 mixed up together; good examples of the best period, poor copies 
 of old engravings, and coarse impressions from blocks newly cut. 
 In those late reprints of the chapbooks with their old illustrations, 
 to which we have been alluding, the spirit of the Florentine Quat- 
 trocento Hved on to a time when, for the rest of the world, that 
 form of art had become a mere historical tradition. But soon 
 after the beginning of the sixteenth century, the graphic arts no 
 longer found in Florence a home for their free exercise and cul- 
 tivation. That honour now belonged to Venice. The production 
 of woodcuts and of illustrated books become so completely con- 
 centrated there, that the further developement of Italian wood- 
 engraving lay henceforward exclusively under the influence of the 
 Venetian school. Only some sporadic examples of the art appeared 
 occasionally in Florence; rarely rising above the level of mecha- 
 nical mediocrity. The short space between 1490 and 15 10 seems 
 to have comprised the sole period in which Florence possessed 
 ateliers of wood-engraving, animated by the specific qualities of 
 the Florentine school, and capable of giving them genuine artistic 
 expression. 
 
 In our preceding account of the series of Florentine woodcuts, 
 — the second of a number of groups into which we have divided 
 the products of Italian wood-engraving in the fifteenth century, — 
 we dealt with a school which, after having developed a remarkable 
 individuality wholly unconnected with the practice of the art in 
 the rest of Italy, flourished for a little while and then suddenly 
 faded away, leaving no trace behind. The North -Italian group, 
 to which we now turn our attention, enjoyed a more vigorous 
 and protracted life, and was extraordinarily fertile, especially in 
 Venice. In that city, wood-engraving pursued its progress in a 
 close parallel of relationship to the contemporary school of Painting,
 
 ^6 THE VENETIAN AND NOR 11 1 IIAMAN SCHOOL 
 
 and grew to be a distinct and flourishing branch of the Fine Arts. 
 By means of large production and an extensive traffic, woodcuts 
 became, in Venice and partly in other towns of North Italy, almost 
 as truly popularised as in Germany. The art was applied to the 
 creation of a vast number of separate prints, of both sacred and 
 profane character, and to the illustration of printed books, in equal 
 measure. Smaller local schools of wood-engraving arose and existed 
 side by side with that of Venice. 
 
 It cannot be doubted that the developement of the art in 
 North Italy owed much to German influence. Even in the earlier 
 half of the fifteenth century, German prints were introduced as 
 articles of commerce into Venice. Of this fact we have a proof 
 in the decree issued by the Signoria in 1441, forbidding the im- 
 portation of German playing-cards. When printing made its wa}^ 
 into the peninsula, great numbers of German typographers set up 
 presses in the cities of Northern Italy; and we may assume, 
 although we have but little positive information on the matter, 
 that the working printers were accompanied from Germany by 
 journeymen wood-engravers. Names such as Johannes de Franc- 
 fordia, Jacobus of Strassburg, Jacob Walch, betoken plainly the 
 origin of the men who bore them. Soon after the appearance 
 at Nuremberg of Durer\s engraved works, on wood and copper, 
 they were reproduced in copies at Venice and elsewhere. We 
 must however, by no means, regard wood -engraving in North 
 Italy as an offshoot of the German school. As soon as the tech- 
 nique of the new art had been mastered by the Italian designers 
 and block-cutters, they entered upon its practice with independent 
 energy, and stamped their work with a distinctive national style. 
 Even the German engravers in Italy, — we may to some degree 
 instance those mentioned above — fell almost completely into the 
 fashion of the country they laboured in. Imitations of foreign 
 models are much more rarely found amongst Italian woodcuts 
 than amongst Italian copper-engravings. 
 
 A characteristic feature of North Italian wood -engraving, in 
 the period with which we are now concerned, is the design in 
 pure outline, unmarked by any attempt to exhibit the pla}^ of light 
 and shadow. This mode of treatment was so highly cultivated
 
 THE VERONA VALTURIO OF 1 472 57 
 
 in Venice, that it sometimes attained to a perfection, in wiiich 
 it would be difficult to say whether the designer's hand had been 
 more exquisite or the engraver's skill more finished. 
 
 The outline-manner remained prevalent till the early years 
 of the sixteenth century, when the love of colour which animated 
 the later school of painting at Venice, began to affect the practice 
 of wood -engraving likewise, and brought about a new st^ie of 
 treatment. The effort to produce effects of breadth and distance 
 on the flat surface of the woodblock soon led to the abandonment 
 of the older method. Its fine sharp lines were only suited to 
 small dimensions and delicate work, such as the designs of Bellini 
 and Mantegna required. 
 
 The earliest North -Italian woodcuts to which a date is attached, 
 were executed in that pure outline -st}^'le. They are the illustrations 
 which appeared in Valturio's book De re militari, which was 
 printed at Verona in 1472, and which was the first fruit of the 
 press in that cit}'. The printer "Johannes", lays emphasis, in the 
 colophon, on the fact that he was the first typographer of his 
 native cit}^^ He had ample reason to look upon his work with 
 pride. It is a masterpiece of printing; its Roman types, harmonious 
 if not absolutely correct in form, are impressed with beautiful 
 regularity upon paper of magnificent strength and thickness; and 
 the woodcuts which adorn the pages are not the least of its merits. 
 
 The cuts are for the most part mere professional delineations of 
 military engines; but the designs are so clear, and the lines drawn 
 with such a bold and firm hand, that they strongly remind us of 
 Lionardo's masterly sketches of similar objects. There is equallv 
 high quality in the occasional human figures of warriors in armour 
 and the like, and in the figures of the animals pulling the waggons 
 and chariots. The engraver's work, also, is of such perfect execution 
 that the original drawing can have lost nothing of its merit in his 
 hands. The difficulties with which the old S3^stem of cutting the 
 block lengthwise had to contend, in the reproduction of simple 
 
 1 Valturio "(Roberto): De Re Militari. At the end: Johannes ex uerona 
 oriundus: Nicolai cyrugie medici fihus. Artis impressorie magister hunc de re 
 militari librum elegantissimum litteris et tiguratis signis sua in patria primus 
 impressit. An. MCGCCLXXII. Folio. ^Hain, 13847;.
 
 58 
 
 THE VKRONA VAI.TURIO OF 1 47: 
 
 Straight lines, seem to have had no existence for the artists who 
 worked on the ^'altu^io. The Hnes fall everywhere exactl}' into 
 their true perspective; the corners form correct angles sharply and 
 clearly drawn. When we reflect upon the position which the 
 technique of wood -engraving occupied in all countries about the 
 year 1472, we must recognise perforce that this book is one of 
 
 From Valturio, de Re Militari. Verona, 1472 
 
 the most noteworthy productions of an age astonishingly fertile in 
 new inventions. 
 
 Roberto Valturio was the military instructor of Sigismondo 
 Malatesta of Rimini, the prince to whom his work de Re Militari 
 is dedicated; but it was not till eight years after his master's death 
 (in 1464) that the book was printed. 
 
 The medallist Matteo de Pastis, like Vittore Pisano at an 
 earlier date, was much employed at the art-loving court of Rimini;
 
 EARLY WOOD -ENGRAVING IN VERONA 59 
 
 and it v^'as therefore not unnatural to ascribe to him the designs 
 in Valturio's Art of War, particularly as their dravv^ing is quite in 
 accordance with the style of a medal -engraver, who is accustomed 
 to accentuate his figures by strong and sharp outlines. There is 
 no authentic information to shew that Matteo de Pastis was actually 
 the author of those woodcuts. It is assumed as a fact by Maffei in 
 his Ve7^o?ia illustrata; but he adduces no authority for the statement. 
 
 Valturio's work played an important part in the military lite- 
 rature of the age; leading the way to a number of new editions, 
 adaptations, and translations. In Verona itself, in 1483, but not 
 in the same printing-house as the original, the work was brought 
 out tigain, with very inferior woodcuts, in two simultaneous issues, 
 Latin and Italian (Hain, 15848-49). The cuts are much more 
 coarsely executed, but are for the most part free copies of the 
 originals, drawn with a better knowledge of pictorial effect. 
 
 In an iEsop printed at Verona in 1479, we find woodcuts 
 closely akin to those of the first Valturio^ The text of the fables 
 is the popular metrical version by Accio Zucco, referred to on a 
 preceding page. As a production of typography, this work is far 
 behind the luxurious elegance of the Valturio; its illustrations also 
 are not quite equal to those in the former book. Chiefly in plain 
 rough outline, relieved occasionally by heavy masses of black shade, 
 they have nevertheless the spirit and charm of drawings; and, while 
 quite devoid of rudeness or negligence, there is frequently an in- 
 tentional sketchiness in these designs which harmonises with the 
 light and lively humour of the composition. The forms and move- 
 ments of the animals, even the expression in their looks, are pour- 
 trayed with a sure touch, in a few telling strokes. There must 
 have been extraordinary merit in the designs from which so much 
 spirit and vivacity have been preserved in transmission through the 
 woodblock. 
 
 Of the special characteristics of the Veronese school, hardlv 
 any distinct feature can be traced, even in the delineation of the 
 
 ' Zucco (Accio) Fabulae iEsopi. Folio i recto: (S) Api chio son Esopo 
 
 Da Gioanni aluise e da compagni sui | con diligentia bene impresso fui. 
 Folio 2 recto: Accii Zuchi Summa Campaneae Veroncnsis ... in Aesopi Fabulas 
 Interpretatio . . . etc.
 
 6o 
 
 FAUI.V WOOD-KNGRAVINT. IN VI RONA 
 
 human figure; but the affinity which we have mentioned as exi- 
 sting between the \'alturio and the .Esop woodcuts is obvious 
 and undeniable. It is especially shown in the manner in \\hich 
 horses and oxen are designed in the .-Esop (Fables XXXII and XL), 
 
 m^m^m^i^o^ m=^m-^m<)m 
 
 4-m<ym'^'- 
 
 ,ii^=.-C_ 
 
 
 From the Aesop. \'erona, 1 479. The Fable of the Daw in borrowed feathers. 
 
 in which they arc precisely similar to the animals drawing the 
 war- chariots in the Valturio. That the illustrations in both works 
 emanated from the one hand, is very likely; especially as the two 
 books appear to have been printed at the same press. The t}^pes 
 in the .Esop are identical with those of the Valturio; but, as might
 
 EARLY WOOD -ENGRAVING IN VERONA 
 
 6i 
 
 be expected after seven years' usage, they are worn and blunt and 
 blurred in the former. We need scarcely hesitate so assume that 
 "Johannes ex Verona'', who printed the Valturio, was the same 
 personage as "Giovanni Alvise" who produced the ^i^sop. 
 
 
 From the Aesop. \'erona, 1479. The Fable of the Ass and tlie lapdog. 
 
 If it were Matteo dc Pastis who made the drawings for the 
 Art of War, it was likewise he who illustrated the Fable -book. 
 The designs in the latter have a plastic clearness and sharpness 
 which are not unworthy of a medallist's art. Unfortunately, we 
 are as yet unacquainted with the existence of any authentic original
 
 62 INTRODUCTION OF OUTLINE -ENGRAVING AT VENICE 
 
 drawing by Mattco, which alone would enable us to form a 
 judgment on the subject. If any such drawings are extant, they 
 are buried and undistinguishable now in the mass of anonymous 
 Quattrocento work; but we need not despair of some fortunate 
 accident which may some day enlighten our research. It was long 
 before the world discovered Vittore Pisano's hand; yet we can 
 now recognise several hundreds of his drawings, of which the 
 Louvre alone possesses a large volume -full. 
 
 A certain family-likeness appears occasionally betw^een the 
 animal- figures of Vittore Pisano, and those in the woodcuts of 
 the Veronese .£sop. Whoever was the designer of the latter 
 illustrations, he must have been an artist of no inconsiderable rank. 
 We reproduce herein facsimile two of the woodcuts in the ^sop. 
 
 Besides the designs in the Valturio and the 1479 /Esop, we 
 do not know an}^ wood-engravings of the fifteenth century w^hich 
 can be referred w'ith certainty to Veronese origin'. Separate prints, 
 published at the beginning of the sixteenth century, shew that the 
 art was not disused in Verona, but v^'as making some progress 
 under the influence of the local school of painting. 
 
 The further developement, however, of the particular style of 
 woodcut art which made its appearance in the Valturio and the 
 1479 iEsop, took place, not at Verona, but in Venice. Few as 
 those primitive Veronese productions are, they possess, beyond 
 their own intrinsic worth, a special importance in having served 
 probably as the models followed by the wood-engravers of Venice. 
 The method of outline-drawing — one, which is so characteristic 
 of the Venetian school, and w^hich was subsequently carried to such 
 perfection in its new home, — seems to have been immediately 
 derived from the example of the illustrations published at Verona 
 between 1472 and 1479. ^"-^^ ^^ '^'^^ ^^^^ before the wood- 
 
 ' In the book — "II Libro degli Huomini famosi copillato per lo Inclito 
 Poeta Miser Francisco Petrarca" ... At the end: "Antiquarius istud acre Felix 
 Impressit: fuit Innocens Ziletus Adiutor sociusque" . . . Verona, 1476. Folio. — 
 there is, at the heading of each chapter, a simple ornament of frieze - work, 
 with an empty space in the midst destined to receive a painted portrait. The 
 printer of the work, "Felix Antiquarius", was Felice Feliciano, who undertook 
 so many things, and who in this volume made his one typographical essay.
 
 THE EARLY PRINTERS OF VENICE 63 
 
 engravers in Venice w^ere able to produce work that could be 
 compared with the spirited and genial art of Verona. The last 
 decade of the century had been reached before their efforts 
 exhibited anything like the freedom and elegance of the Veronese 
 designs. 
 
 In Venice, as in the rest of Italy, there seems to have been 
 no profession or guild of wood-engravers before the last quarter 
 of the fifteenth century, nor even any body of metal-engravers, to 
 whom the printers could, at need, address themselves (as at Florence 
 and Milan) for the purpose of procuring illustrations; in case they 
 felt disinclined to fellow the example of Agostino Carnerio at Fer- 
 rara, who left blank spaces in his edition of Hyginus to be filled 
 in with pictures by hand. 
 
 "Primus in Adriaca formis impressit aenis 
 Urbe libros Spira genitus de stirpc lohannes" 
 — thus proudly runs the colophon of the first book printed in 
 Venice by John of Speyer, namely Cicero's Epistolae ad familiares. 
 It appeared in 1469, and in the same year "Magister lohannes'' 
 obtained from the senate a privilege giving him five years' mono- 
 poly of the new craft, and forbidding all others to print books in 
 Venice, or to sell in that city books printed elsewhere. He derived 
 small benefit from this valuable concession; for he died almost 
 immediately. From that moment an unbroken succession of foreign 
 typographers began to flow into Venice, and the printing-trade 
 was soon carried to its highest state of developement. First after 
 John of Speyer came his brother Wendelin, then Christopher 
 Valdarfer, and next the Frenchman Nicolas Jenson. 
 
 Jenson had been an engraver of coin-dies for the mint, before 
 he turned his attention to the new^ business of typography; and 
 it was probably his experience in the former vocation which ren- 
 dered him so capable in the art of type-cutting. His founts of Roman 
 letters not only emulated those of John and AA^cndelin of Speyer, 
 but easily surpassed them in regularity and beauty. They are indeed 
 masterpieces of typographical achievement, permanent models for 
 imitation, which have remained unequalled down to the present 
 day. It is therefore all the more remarkable that a new fashion 
 arose in Venice in 1475, by which the aniica or Roman type,
 
 64 .ienson's iNTRonucriox of a nkw gotiih; type 
 
 based upon ancient classical forms, although it had prevailed during 
 the ten \'ears since the introduction of printing, was rejected, and 
 a sort of Gothic letter, usually stvled iJiodo'iia, ov foiiua niodcnia, 
 was adopted with sudden and enthusiastic favour. These characters, 
 although regarded as new, were in reality nothing more than an 
 adaptation of the forms of ordinary book-writing in the fourteenth 
 century. The only novelty consisted in the tasteful selection of a 
 uniform and harmonious t}'pe, in the rounding of the edges, and 
 the avoidance of the spikiness and angularity which marked French 
 and Burgundian calligraphy in the fifteenth century. 
 
 Jenson is looked upon as the inventor of the Venetian-Gothic, 
 but this is only correct in so far as he adapted and improved 
 existing letter-forms, a task upon which his skill had been exercised 
 previously in Germany, as it was now in Italy. He may have 
 availed himself to some extent of the large, rounded, monumental 
 characters, in which it had been customary, since the end of the 
 fourteenth century, to write the text of the Antiphonaries and other 
 choral-books used in the Italian churches. 
 
 It was said by one of his contemporaries that the types of 
 Nicolas Jenson were plainer, clearer, and more suited to aged e^'es, 
 than the old classical letter-forms ("apertiores, clarioresque et seni- 
 libus oculis commodiores"). Printers who used the Gothic character 
 were in the habit of recommending their books, expressly on ac- 
 count of the attractiveness of the letters ("jucundissimo litterarum 
 charactere"). Of Johann of Seligenstadt, it was asserted by the 
 author of one of the books which he printed in Gothic, at Venice, 
 that the divine elegance of his types gave him an eas}' preeminence 
 over all other typographers ("divo imprimendi charactere facile 
 superat omnes''). 
 
 The Gothic type was capable of containing more matter in a 
 given space, than the Roman. It was, as we should now describe 
 it, more "compact''. This was the reason which Jenson himself 
 alleged, for printing Gregory IX's Decretalia in that mode. ("Quia 
 fortasse fuere nonnulli qui libcntcr et volunt ct cupiunt in breviori 
 volumine ac charactere parvo hoc opus habere et tenere".) But 
 if outward and practical reasons had their share in bringing 
 about the adoption of the Gothic type, they were not alone sufh-
 
 ORNAMENTAL CAPABILITIES OF THE VENETIAN GOTHIC 65 
 
 cient, and we may conjecture tliat some kind of reaction against 
 the classical tendencies of the Renaissance -movement lent its aid 
 to the new fashion amongst the printers. At least, this was not 
 improbably the case at Venice. It is, of course, a matter for dis- 
 cussion whether we should regard the change of fashion in typo- 
 graphy as an isolated phenomenon, or as really betokening a 
 temporary revulsion against the antique spirit of the time. 
 
 The Gothicising movement is of no little interest in the dis- 
 cussion of our subject; as it served to promote wood -engraving. 
 The moderna types are not only in themselves of a somewhat 
 ornate character; but also combine with decorative initials, orna- 
 mental borders, vignettes, and prints, infinitely better than the 
 severe antiqua, or Roman type which is unsuited to accessory 
 embellishment. Even the calligraphers, and the still surviving book- 
 scribes, were affected by the same sentiment. They made use of 
 the moderna characters chiefly in those manuscripts which it was 
 intended to beautify with miniatures. A remarkable example of 
 the kind is to be found in the BerUn Museum Print-room, in the 
 magnificent Missal written for Giulio de' Medici (afterwards Pope 
 Clement VII.) by the renowned calligrapher Ludovico Vicentino, 
 and finished in 1520. 
 
 Little use was made of woodcuts for the ornamentation of 
 books, at Venice, during the ten years which followed the intro- 
 duction of printing in 1469. It was reserved for the miniator to 
 decorate single copies of books with painted initials, borders, and 
 other embellishments, according to the taste of the buyer and the 
 price of the copy. Although mere printed volumes were not so 
 carefully and sumptuously adorned as the vellum manuscripts, at 
 least the first page was beautified with a rich border, in which 
 the escutcheon of the purchaser was occasionally inserted. In the 
 books of Jenson and other early printers, the chapter-initials were 
 usually added by handwork, and painted red and blue. It was 
 more rarely that the whole volume was decorated with miniatures. 
 
 Although the men who performed work of this kind for the 
 printers could hardly have belonged to the better class of such 
 artists; yet it furnished a desirable source of income to the minia- 
 turists, at a time when the new art was undermining their very 
 
 5
 
 66 VENETIAN ILLUSTRATED BOOKS : RATDOLl's PRESS 
 
 existence. The lurther developement of wood-engraving completely 
 superseded before long all the demand for their labour; especially 
 since it was not the custom in Italy, — as it was in Germany 
 during the tiftcenth century and even later, — to colour the wood- 
 cuts in books. 
 
 The first printer in Venice who made use of wood-engraving 
 as an accessory of typography was Erhard Ratdolt of Augsburg. 
 He carried on his business in that city, between 147(3 and 1480, 
 with the help of two assistants, or partners — "Bernardus Pictor 
 Augustaneus" and Peter Loslein of Langenzan (Langenzenn in 
 Bavaria); and afterwards alone, from 1480 to 148G. In the latter 
 year, he returned to his native city, and flourished there as one 
 of the best masters of his craft till 15 16. 
 
 As a printer, even during his career at Venice, Ratdolt is a 
 representative of the German -Gothic school, of which we have 
 spoken in the earlier part of this treatise. 
 
 The first dated book which issued from his press is likewise 
 the first Venetian impression containing woodcut ornamentation 
 (if we exclude the mere printer\s-mark which Jenson made use of). 
 It is an edition, published in 1476, of the Calendar of Regiomon- 
 tanus (Johannes Muller of Konigsberg), a work frequently printed 
 in that age. The first page exhibits a charming decorative design 
 of wreathing foliage growing out of two vases, conceived in the 
 Italian manner, and finely executed in simple outline. Further on, 
 in the text, there are some very neat mathematical diagrams. Next 
 to the Valturio illustrations, these are, without doubt, technically 
 the best woodcuts of the time. An able draughtsman, and an 
 engraver of no less expertness, must have combined to produce 
 such a result. The man who cut the block was possibly one of 
 the Germans whom Ratdolt took with him to Venice. 
 
 In Ratdolfs workshop, there was evidently a strong tendency 
 to the use of woodcuts, notwithstanding the circumstance that 
 the class of books peculiar to his press — mathematical and astro- 
 nomical treatises, and the current scholastic divinity — yielded 
 few opportunities for artistic decoration. He was therefore limited, 
 in the display of his resources, to the creation of decorative initials 
 and border-ornaments; but this alone was sufficient to stamp him
 
 VENETIAN ILLUSTRATED BOOKS I RATDOLT's PRESS 67 
 
 as the actual founder of the system of book -illustration which 
 became so popular and so highly-cultivated in Venice. The border- 
 work, which sometimes runs down one side of the page only, and 
 sometimes frames it on both sides, is usually a white pattern on 
 a black ground. Occasionally we notice that his ornamental designs 
 were directly copied from the pages of mediaeval manuscripts, and 
 are not without some infusion of that Oriental style which is often 
 seen in Venetian art. 
 
 There is another group of books printed by Ratdolt, in which 
 the illustrations are mean and worthless, completely Germanic in 
 style, and nowise different from the common woodcuts produced 
 in Augsburg at the same time. This is particularly the case with 
 what he published after 1480, and may be instanced in his Fasci- 
 culus Temporum of that year (Hain, 6928) and his Hyginus of 1482 
 (Hain, 9062). 
 
 The first of those two books was published in more than 
 twenty different editions at various places, before 1500. It is a 
 compendious universal Chronicle, arranged in the form of Annals, 
 by the Carthusian monk, Werner Rolewink; and was usually 
 illustrated with small conventional woodcuts of the most noteworthy 
 events and places, as a help to the reader's memory. In all the 
 editions, these cuts are very much aUke and wholly inartistic. 
 Ratdolt's Venetian impression differs in no way from the rest; and 
 his work in the astronomical poem of Hyginus is equally bad. 
 
 From 1480 to the end of his career, Ratdolt's name appears 
 alone in the colophons of his books. It is perhaps to the disso- 
 lution of partnership with Bernhard Pictor and Peter Loslein, that 
 we should ascribe the artistic deterioration of his press. 
 
 Ratdolt made use of polychrome woodcuts (that is, impressions 
 in various colours in a single illustration, obtained by working 
 two or more woodblocks) earlier than any other printer throughout 
 Italy. In some of his astronomical publications, the figures are 
 printed in two colours, and his own t}'^pographical device is usually 
 impressed in red and black. This is a shield bearing the effigy 
 of Mercury, standing upright with the caduceus in his hand. The 
 nude figure clutching the twisted snakes is only to be identified 
 with the antique god, after a comparison with the contemporary
 
 68 EAKLV COLOUR- I'KIM INC., CHIAROSCURO 
 
 German designs representing the planets, — as, for instance, the 
 Mercury in the block-book Planelenbitdi of 14()<S. 
 
 The Mercury and caduceus device was also used by a man 
 who worked at ^\'^ice as painter, copper-engraver, designer of 
 woodcuts (and perhaps also wood-engraver); namely, Jacob Walch, 
 or Jacopo de' Barbari — of whom we shall have to treat further 
 on. Can it be that he was in some way connected with Ratdolt, 
 and that he adopted the printer's Mercury -mark, when the latter 
 had given up his establishment in Venice? Such a conjecture 
 would not be at variance with the chronolog}^, but we do not seek 
 to suggest here anything beyond its mere possibility. 
 
 About the time of which wo. have been speaking, or soon 
 afterwards, other Venetian presses followed Ratdolt's example in 
 the practice of printing in various colours; and the first place after 
 him belongs to Johann Hamman, "dictus Herzog", of Landau. In 
 a work on the degrees of consanguinity, published by him in i4()o', 
 we find a large genealogical tree which occupies two folio pages, 
 and which is represented, like the well-known tree of Jesse, as 
 growing out of a recumbent human figure. The man's form, and 
 especially his head, are drawn with much vigour; and the entire 
 picture, notwithstanding the uncongenial nature of the subject, is 
 executed with no small artistic taste. The figure is printed in 
 brow^n ink, the leaves in green, and the inscriptions in red.- 
 
 In those, and other similar essays which appeared about that 
 time, the essential principle of colour-printing — chiaroscuro'^ — 
 is found fully embodied. The further developement of the tech- 
 nique, which took place in Germany and Italy at the beginning 
 
 ^ Montibus (Johannes Crispus de) . Repetitio tit. institutionum de here- 
 dibus . . . etc. At the end: Impressum Venetiis impensis atque diligentiori cure 
 Johannis hamman de Landoia Alemani dicti Herzog. 1490. F'olio. (Hain, 1 1607.) 
 
 ■'' The sheet on which the foregoing description is based is preserved in 
 the Berlin Print-room. In a different copy which I have seen for sale, the tree 
 was printed entirely in black. 
 
 ^ In the 1457 Psalter of Fust and Schoeffer, the large initials are printed 
 very skilfully in two colours, red and blue; but the process used was quite un- 
 connected with that of the real c/2/aro56-wro. The peculiarity of the latter method 
 is, that the various colours are impressed from different woodblocks in succession, 
 and the sheet must therefore pass through the press as many times as there are 
 colours to produce. In the colour-printing used by Fust and Schoeffer, both
 
 EARLY COLOUR -PRINTIXG, CHLVROSCURO 
 
 69 
 
 of the sixteenth century, was probably in close relation to those 
 earlier attempts, and would therefore need to be looked upon as 
 the culminating perfection of a process, the essential features of 
 which had long been known. 
 
 The invention of chiaroscuro is ascribed by tradition to Ugo 
 da Carpi, a wood-engraver who was at work in Venice about the 
 
 From the Crispus de Montibus "Repetitio etc." Venice, 1490. 
 
 beginning of the sixteenth century. This is probably true, in so 
 far as he may have introduced further developements in the practice 
 of colour-printing with several blocks, which still survived in A^enice; 
 
 of the colours were stamped at once in a single impression. The different blocks 
 required for each initial were separately tinted with their proper colours, and 
 then locked together in their places in the form. The method by which the 
 Psalter was executed merely allowed of the impression of the different colours 
 side by side, but not of their mingling or partial overlaying; and would ne\er, 
 by itself, have led to the artistic chiaroscuro.
 
 70 THE SUPPLEMENTUM CHRONICARUM OF RERGOMENSIS 
 
 especially after the production of coloured woodcuts by Burgkmair 
 and Cranach, in Germany, had given fresh stimulus to a more 
 artistic cultivation of that method. 
 
 Just as the Nuremberg Chronicle of the humanist Hartmann 
 Schedel, published in 1493, ^l^orded to wood-engraving the earliest 
 opportunity of displaying its multifarious capabilities, and as the 
 elevation of this craft to the standard of a fine art in Nuremberg may 
 be said to date from the production of that grand achievement of 
 Koburger's press; so, in Venice likewise, a general Chronicle was 
 the first work of magnitude in which woodcuts were applied to 
 the illustration of secular historical literature. 
 
 The Latin Chronicle of Johannes Philippus Foresti, an Augusti- 
 nian monk from Bergamo, usually named "Bergomensis", (born in 
 1434) was first published with woodcuts in 148(5 (Hain, 2807); two 
 editions, not illustrated, having already appeared, one at Venice in 
 1483 (Hain, 2805) and the other, a sort of reissue, at Brescia 
 in 1485 (Hain, 2806). 
 
 The book is a meritorious compilation, intended to serve for 
 the correction and completion of all previous historical works, and 
 was therefore named by its author Suppkincntum Chronicanmi. 
 He spent no little labour in making it authentic, and we find that 
 each successive edition received alterations and improvements from 
 his hand. The same studious care was extended to the illustra- 
 tions. The printer was Bernardino de Benalis, a Bergamese like 
 the author, and of high repute for the activity of his press. 
 
 Like Schedel's Chronicle — of which indeed it was the im- 
 mediate prototype, — the Supplementwn contains views of the chief 
 cities of the world, with some biblical pictures from the Old Testa- 
 ment at the beginning. These, in the edition of i486, are marked 
 by a fairly good quality of design, but the execution is poor and 
 clumsy. In later editions, better cuts were substituted. The views 
 of cities, which, at their first appearance, were utterly inartistic, 
 were similarly much improved in successive issues. They possess, 
 for us, a very particular interest, from the circumstance that some 
 of them were manifestly copied from separate prints, like the view 
 of Florence which we have already described; and also because
 
 WOODCUT VIEWS IN THE SUPPLEMENTUM CHRONICARUM 7 1 
 
 they confirm the probability that many such pictures of various 
 Italian cities were in existence before 1500. 
 
 For the most part, however, the views in the Siipplementum 
 are mere fancy sketches; or perhaps it were more correct to say 
 that they are merely conventional symbols, placed at the chapter- 
 headings for the purpose of arousing the attention of the reader, 
 and equivalent to some such phrase as "Lo! here we speak of 
 a remarkable city". The design is usually nothing more than a 
 couple of towers, surrounded by a wall, or set upon a sea-shore; 
 and frequently, as in the Nuremberg Chronicle, a single wood- 
 block is made to serve for the picture of several different towns. 
 
 The views of Venice and of Genoa, in the Siipplementum of 
 i486, form exceptions to the preceding rule. That of Genoa is 
 larger and better than the others, and in the disposition of the 
 harbour and the plan of the city that lies behind, we detect an 
 amount of fidelity to nature that cannot be denied. Curious to 
 say, the same woodcut is used to represent Rome, a few pages 
 afterwards! Venice is exhibited in a thoroughly primitive view 
 of the ducal palace, in which the two columns on the Piazzetta, 
 bearing the lion of St. Mark and the statue of St. George, are placed 
 erroneously to the right, instead of to the left, of the palace. This 
 striking blunder arose from the fact that the woodcut in question, 
 although it represents the chief glory of Venetian architecture, and 
 was engraved in Venice itself, was neither drawn from nature, nor 
 even from recollection; but was merely copied in counterpart from 
 a small and poor design in the Fasciculus Temporum of 1481 
 (Venice, Ratdolt). It is a curious and significant example of the 
 way in which the old illustrators did their work. 
 
 Much superior are the woodcuts in the edition oi the Supple- 
 mentum printed in 1490, which was next in succession to that of 
 i486. In the interval, the author had rewritten a good deal of his 
 text, and he now brought the narrative down to date; not failing, 
 at the same time, to make use of the better and more abundant 
 material for its artistic illustration, which was at his command. 
 
 It is not, by any means, to be supposed that artists were 
 specially commissioned to design views of cities for the Chronicle. 
 Circumstantial work of that kind would not have been in harmony
 
 72 
 
 VIEWS OF TOWNS IN TIIF. SUPPLF.MF.NTUM 
 
 with the custom of the illustrators. Direct transcripts from nature 
 were not in their way of business; everything was done in the 
 conventional style of the workshop. Even when their originals 
 lay so close to them as, for instance, the Doge's palace, they took 
 in preference a defective woodcut of it as their model; in fact, 
 they would use nothing but ready-made material. 
 
 To show the relation between the views of Florence which 
 appear in the 1480 and 1490 editions of the Supplementum ^ we 
 
 The view of Florence in the •'Supplementum Chronicarum" of i486. 
 
 give, on this and the opposite page, facsimiles of the small wood- 
 cuts representing Florence in both of those editions. This will 
 make the matter clearer. 
 
 Venice is represented, in the issue of 1490, with perfect cor- 
 rectness, and on a relatively large scale, b}^ a well-executed view 
 of the Doge's palace and the Piazzetta. For this, the original was, 
 according to our judgment, found in the large panoramic prospect 
 which appeared in the Peregrinationes of Bernhard von Breydenbach, 
 published at Mentz in i486. 
 
 In the chapter on Verona, there was substituted, for the fancy 
 sketch of the 148G Supplementum , a new and superior design, in
 
 EARLY WOODCUT VIEWS OF ROME 
 
 73 
 
 which the amphitheatre, and the situation of the buildings around 
 it, are correctly delineated. Of the original of this view we have 
 at present no knowledge. 
 
 Especially remarkable is the view of Rome, which made its 
 appearance for the first time in the edition of 1490. In that of 
 148(3, as already mentioned, a repetition of the Genoa woodcut 
 was made to serve for Rome; but in 1490, a design was used 
 which conveyed an actual copy from nature. The woodcut of 
 
 The view of Florence in the "Supplemcntum Chronicarum" from 1490. 
 
 Rome in the 1490 edition, is, it ma}^ be observed, the oldest view 
 of that city, within our knowledge. 
 
 In De' Rossi's large work on the plans and views of Rome, 
 the above mentioned design of 1490 is not alluded to: it seems 
 to have escaped the author's notice.^ 
 
 The woodcut in Hartman Schedcl's Chronicle is cited by De' 
 Rossi as the earliest pictorial representation of the city. According 
 to his opinion, it was derived from an older design which has not 
 indeed survived, but of which a later copy, in the form of a large 
 
 ' Rossi (G. B. de) Piante icnografiche e prospettive di Roma anteriori al 
 sccolo XVI. Roma, 1879. 4^0 and Folio.
 
 74 
 
 MANTUAN PAINTING OF A VI KW OF ROMF 
 
 tempera painting, is preserved in the Mantua Museum. This is a 
 panorama, over two metres in length, and about one metre in 
 height; and appears, from a partly defaced inscription upon it, to 
 be the work of Solanzio Rusconi, an unknown Mantuan artist. Of 
 
 The view of Rome in the "Supplementum Chronicarum" of 1490. 
 
 the date of the painting, we only know that it cannot have been 
 executed before 1534, as it exhibits the statues of SS. Peter and 
 Paul, which were erected in that year on the parapet of the bridge 
 of Sanf Angelo, on the left bank of the river. The view in the 
 Nuremberg Chronicle shows the bridge in its older state, with two
 
 EARLY WOODCUT VIRWS OF ROME 75 
 
 small cupolated buildings on the spot which was afterwards occu- 
 pied by the statues. It is similarly given in the woodcut of the 
 Supplementiim. 
 
 De' Rossi inclines apparently to the opinion that the Mantuan 
 picture was copied from an older design, and that the introduction 
 of the change which had been effected in the meanwhile with 
 regard to the bridge, is due to the copyist; while the artists of 
 the Nuremberg Chronicle took the earlier picture for their model, 
 or, to speak more correctly, selected a portion of the original pano- 
 rama. Thus, the Nuremberg woodcut exhibits only the district 
 which extends from the Porta del Popolo to the Colosseum, while 
 Rusconi's picture gives the entire space comprised within the walls 
 of the city, and portion of the Campagna beyond them. The de- 
 signer of the original is supposed b}^ De' Rossi to have been iden- 
 tical with the man who, under the pseudonym of "Prospettivo 
 Milanese Depictore", composed in the fifteenth century a poem 
 upon Rome.' 
 
 The illustration in the Nuremberg Chronicle, and that in the 
 Supplementiim, contain precisely the same portion of the cit}^, and 
 are taken from the same point of view. It appears certain that 
 they were copied from an identical original. The diff'erence in 
 details is of no essential importance, considering the loose and 
 careless manner in which those cuts were executed, and however 
 unlike they may seem in their general aspect. The existence of the 
 print in the Supplementiim serves to fix the date of the lost original 
 design as earlier than 1490. We may however conjecture that 
 it was no painting which furnished that original. The model which 
 was followed in the Nuremberg and the Supplementiim illustrations, 
 must assuredly have been a woodcut, or a copper-engraving, since 
 works of painting are usually unique, and the dozen or so of book- 
 
 1 The only known copy of the early undated edition of this poem, is in 
 the Monte Cassino library. — See Govi (Gilberto^ Atti della Reale Accademia 
 de' Lincei, Tom. 3, Serie II, 1876. 410- — From its type, it appears to have been 
 printed at Milan, and was, in any case, a fifteenth century production. There 
 is a woodcut at the beginning, of a naked human figure, drawing, with a com- 
 pass, geometrical diagrams upon the earth, with a background formed by edifices 
 of classical architecture. It is in outline, well designed and fairly well executed; 
 and is also suggestive of Milanese origin. ^Reproduced by Govi).
 
 76 
 
 F.ARl.Y WOODCUT VIFWS OI' ROMF. 
 
 illustrators connected with the two Chronicles, would scarcely have 
 busied themselves with any other material than what was easily 
 attainable and easily manageable. Such a prospect of Rome, engraved 
 either on copper or on wood, and presumably somewhat akin to the 
 
 view of Florence described above, in 
 its st3'le and general correctness, would 
 probably have embraced no larger ex- 
 tent of the city's plan than is given in 
 the two Chronicles. The perfect agree- 
 ment between these would thus be ac- 
 counted for. Moreover, the picture at 
 Mantua may have been only an enlarged 
 later copy, or an amplification, of the 
 print representing a portion of the city. 
 If it be allowable to carry the 
 hypothesis further, we might infer, 
 from the numerous line details of the 
 view in the Suppkmcnium, and even 
 from the character of the cut in the 
 Nuremberg Chronicle, that the original 
 which they both followed, was, not 
 a woodcut, but a copper -engraving. 
 When we call to mind the masterly 
 execution of the engraved maps pub- 
 lished by Conrad Sweynheim and Ar- 
 nold Buckinck, in the Latin Ptolem}^ 
 of 1478, there can be little doubt that 
 Rome at that time possessed artists 
 thoroughly capable of producing a 
 view of the city. It is possible that a copy of the old print still 
 survives, by a lucky accident, in some neglected corner, and may 
 yet be discovered and recognised. As the Siippkmentum of 148(3 
 does not contain the genuine view of Rome which was inserted 
 in the edition of 1490, we have fair reason to assume that the 
 missing original (in this case as in that of the Florence illustration) 
 was designed some time between those years. 
 
 From the "Decretals". Venice, 1481.
 
 The Triumph of Chastity from the Petrarch of V'enicL-, i^^j.
 
 WOOD-ENGRiWING IN VENICE BEFORE I49O 79 
 
 One of the earliest examples of pure outline illustration in the 
 Veronese style, is found as a decorative accessory, where one 
 w^ould hardly expect anything of the kind, in the edition of Pope 
 Innocent's Decretals, published at Venice in 1481. It is a sumptuous 
 volume, printed by Johann of Seligenstadt in the modenia tj^pe 
 which Jenson had invented (Hain, 9192). In the registrwn which 
 precedes the text, the typographer has inserted, for no visible reason, 
 an allegorical figure bearing a lily in her hand; which we reproduce 
 here as a specimen of Venetian outline work in its initial stage. 
 
 Of similar kind are the six illustrations in the Triiimphi of 
 Petrarch, printed in 1488 by Bernardino (Ricio) de Novara (Hain, 
 12770). They were evidently designed by an artist of ability; and 
 there is no little skill in the manner in which they are accomo- 
 dated to the narrow folio size of the book. The allegorical chariots, 
 and the figures surrounding them, appear to be moving forward, 
 obliquely, from the back-ground towards the right of the spectator, 
 in natural and well-grouped pageantry. In its technical execution, 
 however, the engraving is somewhat deficient in smoothness and 
 finish; and we may conjecture that those cuts were imperfect 
 reproductions of beautiful designs. The pictures are enclosed within 
 ornamental borderings, conceived with much taste, and brought 
 out in white upon a black- ground. 
 
 Somewhat different from the Petrarch illustrations, and from 
 the usual style of Venetian work, are the woodcuts which we find 
 in an ^Esop, published in 1487 by Bernardo de Benalis — apparently 
 the first illustrated work produced by that printer. The only extant 
 copy known to us, now in the Berlin print-room, is deficient of 
 the first leaf; but is complete in its text, which is the metrical 
 version of Accio Zuccho.^ It is a small quarto volume, containing 
 sixty one woodcuts, which are free adaptations of the compositions 
 in the Veronese ^Esop. The Venetian designer, however, frequently 
 borrowed from his original nothing more than the general motive of 
 the subjects, and in other respects followed his own independent fancy. 
 
 ^ The colophon (on the obverse of foUo m iii) runs thus: — "Impressum 
 uenetiis per Bernardinum de Benalis Bergomensem anno domini MCCCCLXXXVIj 
 die XX. Nouembriss." Folio m (g) verso: Reg. Folio vi (4): finis. Folio m v 
 blank.
 
 8o 
 
 \\(k)|)-j:nc,raving in vemce before 1490 
 
 The style of engraving is, to a large extent, cramped and angular; 
 and the entire appearance of the work is that of a genuine chap-book. 
 
 From the Aesop. Venice, 1487. The fable of the lly and the ant. 
 
 Down to the close of the second last decade of the fifteenth 
 century, — so far at least as may be judged from the illustrations 
 in dated books — wood-engraving in Venice seems to have been
 
 VENETIAN WOODCUTS AFTER I49O 
 
 81 
 
 practised as an occasional mode of decoration only, not as a branch 
 of S3'stematic industrial art. PVom about 1489-00 onwards, it 
 began to assume for the first time a definite character, and to 
 take the attributes of a regular school, having its own distinct 
 growth and individuality. The workshops had now acquired all 
 the experience and technical skill which were necessary for success, 
 and they drew to their service a number of practised designers. 
 
 From the Devote Meditazioni. Venice, 14S9. 
 
 who knew how to enrich the limited expressiveness of the wood- 
 block with something of the style and spirit of Venetian painting. 
 This happy combination of talent soon led to a large and varied 
 production of woodcuts. 
 
 It is worthy of remark, that the special beauty of typograph}', 
 which consists in the elegance and regularity of the types, and 
 in the perfect clearness of impression, no longer maintained the 
 standard of excellence which had been established, twenty years 
 earlier, by the first printers of Venice. In its place, we find the 
 eilbrts of the typographers directed chietiy to the adornment of 
 
 6
 
 (S2 vi:ni: 1 IAN woodcuts aitkr i4»)o: vignettes 
 
 their books with borders, initial- letters, and woodcuts; while the 
 letter- press was more and more neglected, and lost all its former 
 quality. The only worthy successor to Jenson, and to John and 
 Windelin of Speyer, the only one at least who sought to render 
 his books typographically excellent by means of finely -cut type, 
 symmetrical composition, and careful press -work, was Aldus 
 iManutius. His career as a printer began about i4()3. 
 
 Of the vast number of books illustrated with woodcuts, 
 which the Venetian presses produced in the short space of time 
 between 1400 and 1500, we can here mention but a few. 
 
 Two ditferent kinds of illustration may be distinguished. The 
 one embraces small vignettes, inserted within the text, and intended 
 originally (as we believe), to serve as reminders or signals for the 
 guidance of the reader. The other consists of large woodcuts, 
 demanding attention for their own merits, and fultilling the special 
 purpose of artistic decoration. 
 
 The fashion of illustrating books with a great number of 
 woodcuts, frequently of extremely small dimensions, appears to 
 have originated in Venice; and there is a group of Venetian works 
 which are signalised in that way. Vignette-illustration was adopted 
 in Germany from the practice of the Venetians; and was cultivated 
 with success bv the younger Holbein, by Hans Sebald Beham, 
 and by Albrecht AltdorlVer. At a later date it was completely 
 monopolised in Lyons, by Bernard Salomon and his imitators. 
 The Venetian artists were the fore-runners, and perhaps even the 
 direct models, of the "little masters'' of Germany and France. 
 
 The series of those vignette -illustrations was opened by a 
 small book, published in i4'S(), and intitled Devote Medita-^ioni 
 sopra la Passione del N. S.^ It is a small quarto volume, deco- 
 rated with eleven woodcuts, clearly and sharply designed, and cut 
 upon the block WTth considerable freedom and finish. They 
 
 • ''Devote Meditazione sopra la Passione del nostro Signore cavate & fundate 
 originalmente sopra sancto Bonaventura cardinale del ordine minore sopra 
 Nicola de Lira etiamdio sopra altri dottori & predicatori approvati, stampato 
 in Venetia per Matheo di codcca da Parma nel MCCCGLXXXIX a di XXVI 1 di 
 februario." The printer was "Mattheo di co de ca", that is, Matteo di Capo 
 di Casa, of Parma. (See Fossi, Catalogus II, column 180.)
 
 VENETIAN WOODCUT VIGNETTES I DEVOTE MEDITAZIONI 83 
 
 represent successive scenes in the history of the Passion, and are 
 quite Venetian in style, and in the manner of their composition. 
 The reproduction which we give here, of one of the woodcuts, 
 will enable the reader to form an idea of the particular mode in 
 which the originals are treated. The text was a very popular 
 abridgment of the Meditationes of St. Bonaventure. The same 
 woodblocks were used in a re -issue of the book, printed in the 
 following 3'ear (14(10); and also, according to the Due de Rivoli, 
 in six other successive editions, down to 1494, four of which 
 appeared in the course of the year 1402.^ 
 
 In a different edition of the Meditaiioni , which bears no date, 
 but was printed by Bernardino Benali, in partnership with Matteo 
 di Parma, about [490, we find new illustrations of somewhat larger 
 dimensions, borrowed, as compositions, directly from the 1489 wood- 
 cuts, of which they are copies, more or less free; but without the 
 regularity and harmony which mark the drawing of the originals.- 
 
 There was also pubHshed in 1489, an edition of Nicolaus de 
 Lyra's Postilla, which contains thirt}^ eight small vignettes of 
 biblical subjects, apparently by the same artists as the contem- 
 poraneous cuts in the Medita-{ioni. The Postilla was the immediate 
 precursor of a work which must be described as one of the most 
 important, and most richly illustrated, of the Venetian vignette- 
 books. We refer to the first edition of the Italian Bible of Nicola de 
 Malermi,^ printed in i4()0 by Giovanni Ragazzo for the publishing 
 house of Lucantonio da Giunta (Hain, 315^). It is illustrated 
 throughout with small woodcuts, chiefiy intended, no doubt, to 
 assist the reader's memory in retaining the scriptural names, and 
 to enable him to find an}^ desired passage without difficulty. 
 This was a matter of no small convenience and usefulness in a 
 vernacular Bible, destined wholly for the uninstructed classes of 
 
 1 <i A propos d'un livre a figures Venitien de la fin du XVe Siecle » — 
 Gazette des Beaux -Arts, Paris, 1886. 
 
 - See the Due de Rivoli's paper, cited above. We are unable to agree with 
 this writer's opinion that the imitations in the undated edition, printed by 
 Benali and Matteo, are of higher artistic quality than the woodcuts in the 
 original edition of 1480. 
 
 ^ A monk of San Michele at Murano, born about 1430. A ditfurent Italian 
 Bible had alreadv been printed, at Venice in 1471. 
 
 6*
 
 ^4 
 
 VENKTIAN WOODCUT VIGNETTES : IHK MALKRMI BIBLE 
 
 the people. In spite of the narrow hmits to wliich his etlorts 
 were confined, the designer succeeded in producing a series of 
 pictures full of charm and grace. It is true that the engraver 
 failed, in several instances, to give an adequate rendering of the 
 
 °P^ii5iJ6^I 
 
 From the Malermi Bible. Venice, 1.490. Judith, Cap. X. 
 
 undoubtedly delicate art of the drawings; especially when dealing 
 with the faces of the figures. These were so fine and minute as 
 to baftie his skill, and the expression is frequently lost or perverted. 
 
 From the Malermi Bible. Maccabees, I, Cap. X. 
 
 Many of the cuts are stiif and angular, bad and good examples 
 are found in alternation; but, on the whole, we must regard the 
 execution of the engravings as a decided technical success. 
 
 Several of the illustrations are marked with a small "b'' — a 
 signature which (so far as we know at present) appears here
 
 VENETIAN WOODCUT VIGNETTES ! THE MALERMI BIBLE 55 
 
 for the first time, and which is to be met, again and again after- 
 wards, during more than a century from the date of the Malermi 
 Bible, upon outline -woodcuts produced in Venice. 
 
 Professor Thode ^ was the first writer who drew attention 
 
 From the Malermi Bible. Hosea, Cap. I. 
 
 to the circumstance that the woodcuts of the Malermi Bible are 
 copies of those in the Cologne German Bible of 1480. The Cologne 
 woodblocks were, as every one knows, used again in Koburger's 
 
 From the Malermi Bible, Psalm XCVU. 
 
 Nuremberg Bible of 1483. There can be no doubt that the Italian 
 artist had the German woodcuts before him, when he was drawing 
 the illustrations of the Malermi Bible. He copied them indeed, 
 but with the greatest freedom; reducing the dimensions and 
 
 1 Jahrbuch der Preiiss. Kimsts.vwnlungeu, Vol. Ill, p. 117.
 
 86 
 
 VENETIAN WOODCUTS VIGNKTTKS: THF. MAI.ERMI BIBLE 
 
 altering the positions, making groups where there had been isolated 
 figures, dividing groups into their separate elements, changing 
 the costumes in accordance with Italian fashion. In short, he 
 simply used the Cologne illustrations as a convenient groundwork 
 lor his own designs, adopting certainly nothing be^'ond the pictorial 
 subject of each. Nor did he allow the narrow and commonplace 
 character of those Gothic models to alTcct his own artistic fancy; 
 as we can easily judge from the freedom and elegance of his 
 
 
 
 From the Dante. 
 Venice, itgi, March -Edition; Inferno VIII. 
 
 work. Moreover, by far the larger proportion of these compositions 
 was entirely new, since there are onl}' a hundred and ten illu.strations 
 in the Cologne Bible ( — a hundred and seven in Koburger's 
 Bible — ); while the Malermi Bible, if we include a few repetitions, 
 contains three hundred and eighty three. And it is precisely 
 amongst the new ones, that we find the most charming and 
 graceful compositions of the entire series. — Nineteen of the 
 Malermi woodcuts were adapted, with more or less variation, from 
 the Postilla of Nicolaus de Lyra, above referred to. 
 
 Like the illuminated Bible- manuscripts of the miniaturists, 
 the Malermi Bible includes, at the beginning, an illustration of full-
 
 VENETIAN WOODCUT VIGNETTES! THE MALERMI BIBLE 
 
 87 
 
 page size, representing the seven da3's of the Creation. It is framed 
 within a prett}^ Renaissance border of architectonic ornament. The 
 border is frequently met with in later works from Venetian presses; 
 the vignettes themselves appear in other editions of the Bible, in 
 1492 and 1494 (Hain, 3157, 3158), and afterwards. 
 
 The attempt to produce an illustrated edition of Dante's 
 Divina Commedia, was first made, as we have already observed, 
 
 From the Dante. 
 Venice, 1491, November- Edition; Inferno N'lII. 
 
 by the Florentine printer, Nicolaus Lorenz, in 1481; but it was 
 not a fortunate essay, as he did not succeed in procuring the 
 designs for the entire poem. xMore successful in the result, but 
 with smaller claim to artistic excellence, was a similar project, 
 undertaken by Bonino de' Bonini, a printer who set up presses 
 in various towns of Northern Italy, migrating in turns from one 
 to the other. He achieved his purpose, and published an illustrated 
 Dante at Brescia in 1487, in folio, w^ith woodcuts of full-page size 
 (Hain, 5948). The cuts arc mere mechanical work, ill designed
 
 88 VKNKTIAN WOODCUT VIGXETTKS: DAXTK OF I4()I 
 
 and badlv engraved. The )ourncyman who executed them, followed 
 the designs of the Florentine edition of 1481, so far as the latter 
 extcnded, that is, down to the nineteenth canto of the Inferno; 
 for the remainder, his own plentiful lack of taste and skill supplied 
 the models. 
 
 In i4C)i, a new illustrated edition of the Divina Commedia 
 was published at Venice by the two partners, Bernardino Benali 
 and Matteo da Parma. The woodcuts were in the form of small 
 vignettes, one at the beginning of each canto. It is not unlikely 
 that they were based upon good designs, but the tiny figures lost 
 in the execution whatever merit they had possessed, and are 
 deformed by clumsy angularities. The engraver had evidently not 
 been trained to work within such narrow limits. The argument 
 of each canto is certainly indicated by the illustrations; but nothing 
 more than this could be expected under such restrictions of space. 
 Of artistic power, there is naturall}^ no manifestation whatever. 
 Above the heads of the principal figures, the initials of their names 
 were added, for the sake of identification. In this edition, likewise, 
 the vignettes of the first twenty one cantos of the Inferno are, to 
 some extent, reproductions of the prints in the Florentine Dante 
 of 1481, and thus, indirectly, of Botticelli's drawings. Many of the 
 vignettes bear the mark "b". 
 
 If we consider the qualit}^ of the woodcuts in those two books, 
 namely, the Brescian Dante of 1487 and the Venetian Dante of 
 1 49 1, we find it difficult to understand how the book-buyers could 
 have -been contented to accept such a kind of illustration, at a time 
 when the taste for fine art had reached its highest developement; 
 and why the printers should have ventured to insert in their book.s, 
 engravings of such a mean character, assuredly not calculated to 
 satisfy, in any respect, the mere popular desire for pictures and 
 decoration. There can, however, be little doubt, that the same 
 reason which we have already suggested as the motive for illustrating 
 the "Biblia volgarizata", obtained here also. The cuts in the Dante 
 appear to have been intended simply as landmarks for the reader, 
 to guide him in the search for special lines or passages, and to 
 fix in his memory the leading actions of the poem. If we take 
 up any such illustrated Dante, and glance through it, we can con-
 
 VENETIAN WOODCUT VIGNETTES I THE DANTES OF 1 49 1 89 
 
 vince ourselves that the inserted woodcuts fulfil that purpose 
 remarkably well, and keep us far better acquainted with our 
 bearings, than any marginal notes, or running headlines, could do 
 it. Thus, in the opinion of the present writer, the illustrations 
 scattered through the Dantes, and other old books of similar kind, 
 represent a dominant practical object, in view of which all artistic 
 considerations were of comparatively minor importance. Pictorial 
 representation was, at that time, highly esteemed as a means of 
 imparting information; and this function of graphic an, still used 
 and recognised in the fifteenth century, only fell into oblivion, with 
 the change of ideas, at a later period. 
 
 The history of the Venetian editions of Dante teaches us how 
 readily the printers of the fifteenth centur}^ snatched at opportunities 
 of publishing anything which promised to become a lucrative 
 speculation. The edition undertaken by Benali and Matteo da 
 Parma, which, according to its colophon, was completed on the 
 3rd of March 1491, was followed, eight months later, by a reprint 
 similarly illustrated, published by Pietro Cremonese, with the date 
 of 27 November, 1491. The illustrations of the latter are somewhat 
 better executed than the wretched woodcuts of the former, but 
 the compositions in both are identical. It would seem, indeed, 
 that the vignettes in each were drawn by the same man; but that 
 he took a little more pains in designing the cuts for the later edition, 
 and selected a cleverer and more practised workman to perform 
 the engraving. At the beginning of the Inferno in Pietro Cremo- 
 nese's edition, there is a fine large woodcut of full-page size. The 
 "b" monogram is not found in the illustrations of that edition. 
 
 The opinion of the Due de Rivoli (Gazette des Beaux- Arts, 
 1886, p. 26) that the Dante of November 1491 was antecedent to 
 that of March 3 in that year, is erroneous. It is based on 
 the assumption that the 3'ear began with Easter, in the Middle- 
 Ages; which is true, indeed, as regards France, but not as regards 
 Venice, where the first day of the civil year was March i. There 
 is, besides, nothing une.xampled in the fact that a later edition may 
 be copied from an earlier one, and yet be e.ssentially improved in 
 the execution of its artistic adornment. Similar instances meet us 
 in the various Venetian editions of the illustrated ^sop.
 
 go VENETIAN VVOOnCUT VIGNETTES : THE NOVEI.LE 
 
 Vignette-woodcuts, like those of the Dantcs and of the Malermi 
 Bible, came immediately into vogue, and were largely used in other 
 books published at \'cnice. Translations from the classics, editions of 
 Boccaccio, and various collections of stories, are found illustrated thus. 
 
 A certain similarity of style in the treatment and conception 
 of many of those little woodcuts, seems to indicate that a large 
 portion of the designs for such vignettes must be ascribed to a 
 single artist; — the man who sometimes marked his work with 
 the "b" signature, and who was evidently one of the most active 
 illustrators employed by the Venetian printers. In the various 
 books in which his designs are found, and frequently also in ditVerent 
 vignettes in a single book, we notice that the execution of the 
 engravings is of very irregular quality. They are sometimes line 
 and of great excellence; but more often, the wood-engraver handled 
 his knife with awkward inexpertness, and transmuted the Howing 
 lines of the drawing into stilT and ungraceful angularities. 
 
 A large design within an ornamental border usually adorned 
 the first page, and was executed, in most instances, with particular 
 care. The practice of the miniaturists had been analogous, in the 
 decoration of manuscripts. 
 
 We will now proceed to notice in detail a few of the books 
 illustrated with vignette-woodcuts.' 
 
 The Decameron, or Ceulo Novelle, of Boccaccio, printed in i4()2 
 by Gregorius de Gregoriis, contains a woodcut for every story. 
 The designs are well and minutely drawn, and prettily composed; 
 but somewhat hard and dry in execution. The woodcut on the title, 
 which represents the gay company of the Decameron assembled in 
 the garden, is a graceful picture of high life in Venice in the fifteenth 
 century (Henri Delaborde, Gravure en Italie, Paris, 188-2, p. 227). 
 
 The same printer, Gregorius, published, contemporaneously 
 with his Boccaccio, an edition of theNovellino ofMasuccioSalernitano 
 
 ' It is perhaps not necessary to remind the reader that our purpose in 
 this work is simply to take a general survey of Italian Wood-engraving in the 
 fifteenth century, and that our enumeration of the books and prints which 
 concern the subject, is intended to be by no means very extensive. The 
 bibliography of earlv printing is still too imperfect to render such an under- 
 taking feasible.
 
 VENETIAN WOODCUT VIGNETTES : THE NOVELLE 
 
 91 
 
 The vignettes which it contains are quite similar to those in the 
 Boccaccio. The annexed reproduction is taken from a woodcut 
 on the title of the book, which is iramed within an architectonic 
 border, and gives a picture of the author presenting his work to 
 Hippolyta, Duchess of Calabria. 
 
 I'rom Massuccio's "Novellino". Venice, 1492. The author presenting his book to the Duchess 
 
 Hippolyta of Calabria. 
 
 A companion-volume to the two preceding works of Boccaccio 
 and Masuccio, is found in the "Settanta Novelle'' of Sabadino 
 degli Arienti, printed likewise in Venice, by Zani da Portese, in 
 1503. The illustrations are similar to those in the other two books, 
 but not quite of equal merit; the impressions, and the disposition 
 of the figures, are less successful. 
 
 Translations of the ancient classics, illustrated with vignettes, 
 ("volgarc historiate'') were published in numerous successive edi-
 
 92 
 
 VENETIAN WOODCUT VIGMniJ.s: TERENCE OF I4O7 
 
 tions, until the woodblocks were completely worn out. This con- 
 tinual repetition proves the great popularity of such a mode ol 
 classical reading. The "Deche di Tito Livio volgare historiate'' 
 were printed for the first time by Giovanni of Vercelli (Zuan 
 Vercellese) in 1493, ^^^ ^^^ publishing-house of Lucantonio da 
 Giunta (Hain, 10149) Several of the vignettes bear the well known 
 signature "b", while others exhibit a mark which appears here for 
 the first time, and resembles a small F. The cuts are not quite 
 so good as some in the Malermi Bible. 
 
 From the Terence of \'enice, 1497. Hecyra Act IV. 
 
 The comedies of Terence were printed in 1497 ^'y Lazarus 
 de Suardis for Simon de Luere (Hain, 15429) 
 
 There were published, before 1300, some five illustrated edi- 
 tions of Terence, which appeared at various places in Germany 
 and France. The woodcuts in these books form an attractive and 
 interesting group, from the double point of view, of art and of 
 culture, amongst the illustrated works of the fifteenth century. 
 So far back as 1493, ^"^ edition had been printed b}^ Trechsel 
 in Lyons (Hain, 15424), the illustrations of which may claim to 
 rank among the best examples of their kind which the time had 
 produced. They were evidently designed by a man of talent, 
 belonging actually to the French school, but influenced probably 
 by the works of Martin Schongauer, or the Dutch artists. The
 
 VENETIAN WOODCUT VIGNETTES : TERENCE OF 1407 f)3 
 
 figures are coarse, but the attitudes and the faces are full of ex- 
 pression. The groups are extreme^ animated and life-like; all 
 scenic accessories are omitted, except the drop-curtain in front 
 of which the action takes place. The technical execution is unu- 
 sually good, the blocks having been cut with a bold and vigorous 
 hand. In 1498, Gruningcr in Strassburg published an edition of 
 Terence, the text of which had been critically revised by Sebastian 
 Brant. This scholar is supposed to have also suggested the sub- 
 jects and the compositions of the woodcuts. Compared with those 
 in the L3'ons book, the illustrations of the Strassburg Terence are 
 childish and clumsy work. 
 
 The Terence printed at Lyons in 1493, ^^^ ^^^ prototype 
 from which the cuts in the Venetian edition, four years later, 
 were directly copied; just as the Cologne Bible had furnished the 
 immediate model for the illustrations of the Malermi Bible. In 
 the Terence, no less than in the latter book, the Venetian artist 
 simply borrowed the subjects and the compositions from his pre- 
 cursor. The drawing, the execution, and the st}4e of costume, 
 were wholly remodelled according to the taste of Venetian art. 
 In the originals, however, there is a characteristic strength and 
 decision, which is missing in the Venetian work, charming and 
 delicate as it is in many instances. 
 
 Two admirable outline -woodcuts, each occupying a full page, 
 are found at the beginning of the book. The first represents 
 Terence in the act of lecturing, at a kind of professorial desk, 
 with Donatus, Accursius, and others of the chief Latinist gram- 
 marians, grouped around him. — The motif of this picture recurs 
 frequently in the title -woodcuts of other books of the same period, 
 exhibiting the authors as either lecturing to their pupils, or working 
 at their own desks; and miniatures of similar character had also 
 been customary in the illuminated manuscripts. — The second 
 of the two large woodcuts is a view of the antique theatre, or 
 rather of the auditorium as seen from the stage. We need not 
 be surprised to observe that the audience consists of persons, 
 such as might have been met with in the streets of Venice in the 
 fifteenth century; and that the actors, whom we see from behind, 
 wear a sort of costume usuallv appropriated to fools and jesters.
 
 94 VENETIAN ILLUSTRATED BOOKS! BORDER DECORATIONS 
 
 Although there is no mark, either upon the two large pictures, 
 or the vignettes, in the Venetian Terence, we are inclined, never- 
 theless, to ascribe those designs to the artist who usually signed 
 his work with a "b". 
 
 We observe occasionally, even in large woodcuts, that delicate, 
 but rather attenuated, style of treatment, the line-drawn lines of 
 which are characteristic of Venetian vignettes. It is noticeable 
 especially in the border- ornamentation, with which the initial 
 pages of books, and of their principal sections, are decorated. 
 Such borders were often used by the printers, even in works 
 which contained no further artistic addition, or which, at the 
 utniost, had but one or two woodcuts illustrating some special 
 incident of the text. Some of the woodblocks fiom which the 
 borders wx're printed, seem to have been in a continual state of 
 migration. Thev appeared in many ditlerent books from the one 
 press, and were transferred occasionally to other printing-houses 
 as well; frequently remaining in use for ten and sometimes 
 twent}'^ years. 
 
 The marginal decoration, of which we have been speaking, 
 usually takes the form of architectural columns or pilasters, light 
 and graceful in structure, and richly embellished with friezes, 
 ornaments, shields, and trophies. The lirst employment of this 
 mode of decorative frame -work seems to have been nearly con- 
 temporaneous with that of the vignettes, to which it is closely 
 akin in style. This remark is appositely illustrated in the Malermi 
 Bible, and elsewhere. One of the earliest, and yet most charming, 
 examples of the kind, is found in the Plutarch printed, in 1491, 
 by Giovanni Ragazzo di Monteferrato (Hain, 13 129). On a pedi- 
 ment, enclosing in the middle an empty escutcheon (intended to 
 be filled with the armorial bearing of the owner), naked horsemen 
 are blowing trumpets, and satyrs playing musical instruments. 
 Outside the base of the pilasters, which are adorned with antique 
 cameos containing busts, tritons are seen rearing trophies aloft 
 upon long and slender poles. An ornamental frieze fills the 
 entablature, which is surmounted by an arch similarly decorated; 
 and on the cornices, right and left, the Roman eagle perches. 
 From above, graceful festoons hang down to meet the trophies:
 
 VENETIAN ILLUSTRATED BOOKS : BORDER DECORATIONS 
 
 95 
 
 grotesque shields occupy the lower corners, and a pair of dol- 
 phins support the empt}^ escutcheon. 
 
 The type of this decorative border recurs frequentl}^ elsewhere, 
 with suitable modifications. The mode of adornment stands always 
 
 
 Tlieseus and tlie Minotaur from the •'Plutarch". Venice 1491. 
 
 in distinct relation to the contents of the work thus embellished; 
 that is, of course, the work for which it was originally intended, 
 and in which it was used for the first time. As, however, the 
 printers were in the habit of utilising, for a number of other 
 books of their stock, an}' wood-block from which they had once
 
 q6 VliM-niAN ILLUSIKAIl I) liOOKS: I'l.UTARCH Ol" 1491 
 
 taken an impression, without regard to its circunistantial fitness, — 
 illustrations of mythological subjects and Christian symbolism were 
 brought together for the adornment of works to the text of which 
 they were in no wise suitable. 
 
 Within the enclosing border of the first page, it was usual to 
 find another design representing figures. In the Plutarch, a very 
 fine woodcut occupies about half of the space within the border 
 frame -work. This exhibits a picture of the combat between The- 
 seus and the Minotaur, admirably designed and executed. It is 
 quite in the manner of the unknown artist who designed the 
 vignettes of the Malermi Bible, and is evidenfiy from his hand. 
 Indeed, it ranks among the best of his productions. The attitudes 
 of the two combatants, and the conception of the subject, remind 
 us to some extent of the work of Antonio Pollajuolo, in his known 
 copper- engravings. 
 
 The ultimate destiny of this cut furnishes an example of the 
 curious migrations of wood-blocks from one printing-press to 
 another; and shows how unsafe it would sometimes be to reason 
 as to the origin of such an engraving, from the imprint of the 
 book in w^hich it happened to be found. The "Theseus and 
 Minotaur" of the Plutarch of 1491, meets us again at Forli in 
 1495, at the end of a little book ("Nicolaus Ferettus, De structura 
 compositionis ... ad componendas epistolas'') printed by Hiero- 
 nymo Mcdesano, "Parmensis". There is no imaginable connexion 
 between the illustration and the text of the treatise; and it is 
 therefore evident that the printer used it merely for the purpose 
 of giving to the last leaf of his work a more elegant appearance. 
 If we had been ignorant of the \'enetian origin of the woodblock, 
 we should readily have assumed that it was cut at Forli.* 
 
 A broader and coarser style of wood -engraving in outline, 
 suitable for decorating books of larger size, arose contempora- 
 neousl}^, and nourished concurrently, with the fashion of vignette- 
 illustration. The transition to that method may be observed in 
 
 ' On the first leaf of the above cited opuscule of Ferettus, we find the 
 popular design of the Professor lecturing from his chair, surrounded by his 
 students, executed in a free outline woodcut, probably also of Venetian origin.
 
 J
 
 VENETIAN ILLUSTRATED BOOKS : THE JESOP OF 1 49 1 
 
 97 
 
 
 The Mouse and the Frog. Fable IV. From the Aesop, of Venice, 1491.
 
 gS VENirriAX u.LusTKA HI) liooKs: TiiK .Ksor- OF 1491 
 
 a woodcut, displaying great vigour of style, which adorns the title- 
 page of an edition of the "Sphera Mundi" of Johannes de Sacro 
 Busco (Hain, 14113), produced in 1 490 by an unknown printer for 
 the publishing-house (''mandato et expensis") of Ottaviano Scoto. 
 It represents Astronomy, enthroned between Urania and Ptolemy; 
 and is not unworthy to have been executed after some design of 
 the elder Bellini. The figure of Ptolemy is crowned, as was 
 customary in the Middle Ages, when the astronomer of Pelusium 
 was supposed to have been one of the Greek kings of Egypt. 
 
 If, in this print, we find that the engraving of the block still 
 betrays angularities and a want of firmness in the lines, we can 
 point nevertheless to more finished and uniform work in some 
 outline -woodcuts which appeared in an Aesop printed in 1491. 
 The book is a small quarto volume, charmingly illustrated; the 
 designs being redrawn and improved from those in the Venice 
 Aesop of 1487. There is so much artistic freedom in the treat- 
 ment of the cuts, that they are fully entitled to be regarded as 
 new and independent compositions. The animal -figures are full 
 of spirit, and are sketched with great boldness and precision; 
 a more delicate grace marks the drawing of the human figures. 
 Tasteful borders, composed of separate pieces frequently repeated 
 in various combinations, serve as frames to the pictures. The 
 ensravins is executed in fine outlines. This little book seems to 
 have become very popular, as it passed through a series of re- 
 issues and new editions, continued till after the year 1500.^ 
 
 A remarkable departure from the fashion of outline -engraving 
 so much in vogue at that time in Venice, is to be observed in 
 
 1 The book seems to have been issued at first without the customary Life 
 of Aesop at the beginning. In one copy of the edition of 1491, the "Vita Esopi" 
 is dated 1492. This supposed biography, which follows Tuppo's version, has 
 the following colophon. — "Impressum Venetiis per Manfredum de Monteferato 
 de Sustreno de benellis MCCCCLXXXXII die XXVI Martii regnante domino 
 Augustino Barbadico inclito Venetiarum principe." This is followed by the 
 Fables, as a second part, with the heading: "Acci Zucchi ... in Aesopi fabulas 
 interpretatio ..." etc. At the end: "Impressum Venetiis per Manfredum . . . de 
 Sustreno MCCCCLXXXXI a di ultimo Zenaro", followed by "Tavola dele pre- 
 dette tabule." Other editions with the same woodcuts appeared in 1492, 1493, 
 1497, etc.
 
 VENETIAN ILLUSTRATED BOOKS: PETRARCH OF I4()I 99 
 
 the six woodcuts of the "Triumphi", which appeared in an edition 
 of Petrarch printed in 1491 by Piero Cremonese "detto Veronese". 
 These illustrations, executed in folio dimensions, are shaded by 
 means of narrow layers of simple lines, in a manner which serves 
 to give the work an isolated position among the Italian woodcuts 
 of the fifteenth century. When we look more closely into the 
 artistic method of the performance, we discover the reason of 
 the peculiar aspect which strikes us in those cuts. They are 
 copies of copper -engravings, and were imitated from the old 
 Florentine plates ascribed to Baldini, of which the British Museum 
 now possesses the magnificent set bought by Mr. Quaritch at the 
 sale of the Sunderland library. The Venetian wood -engraver 
 retained the principal forms and motifs of the original compo- 
 sitions, while altering several of the figures, and giving them 
 somewhat of a Venetian character. But in transferring to the 
 woodblock the technical st}4e of the copper- plate, he failed to 
 achieve anything like the delicacy of his model. 
 
 Those woodcuts not only give us assurance that the copper- 
 engravings were in existence before 1492, but also attest that the 
 plates had already been considerably re -touched. There are in- 
 deed some details which enable us to conclude, without hesitation, 
 that it was from the third state of the plates,^ completely re-touched 
 and renovated, that the wood-engraver made his copies. 
 
 In a work, the text of which, according to our modern notions, 
 would have afforded the least possible opportunity for artistic em- 
 bellishment, — namely, a medical hand-book produced in Venice — 
 we meet with some outline wood -engravings designed and executed 
 in a style of the highest technical perfection. Johannes Ketham, 
 a German physician, resident in Italy, compiled his "Fasciculus 
 de Medicina" from the various works on that subject which 
 were then most in vogue. The book was first printed in 1491, in 
 Latin, by the brothers Johannes and Gregorius "de Forlivio", or, 
 as they also used to style themselves, "de Gregoriis"; in a thin 
 folio volume of larger size than usual (Hain, 9774). This first 
 edition contains only a few anatomical or surgical woodcuts, such 
 
 ' F. Lippmann, Jjhrbiich der Prcuss. Kunstsanwil., V, p. 148. 
 
 7*
 
 lOO VENETIAN ILLUSTHAIED HOOKS I lASClCUl.O Dli MKUICINA, 14(13 
 
 as a conventional human figure having all the portions of the body 
 marked, at which the operation of blood-letting should be per- 
 formed at certain times; a similar figure exhibiting all the most 
 ordinary forms of bodily injuries; and others of a like nature. 
 Notwithstanding the dry scientific purpose which is apparent, and 
 the uncongenial character of the accessories, there is in those 
 designs so much energy and strength, so much of antique severity 
 in the modelling, that they wear an unmistakeable air of grandeur. 
 We are tempted, by a certain affinity between the figure in the 
 "Arbor Consanguinitatis", (see Crispus page 69 of the present 
 treatise) and those in the first edition of Ketham, to ascribe the 
 artistic illustration of both volumes to a single hand. The execution 
 of the outline-work in the latter, is thin and angular. 
 
 Two years later, that is, in 1493, an Italian translation of 
 Ketham's hand-book was produced by the same printers, in a 
 new and more richly decorated form. ^ The opportunity afforded 
 by the issue of this version, to enlarge the number of illustrations, 
 was not neglected by the printers. New and more elaborate figures 
 were substituted for the old ones; and some free original com- 
 positions were added. 
 
 If, nowadays, we find it difficult to understand why, in a 
 purely medical treatise, such illustrations were inserted, as that of 
 the lecturing phj^sician, or that of the physician in conference 
 with his colleagues, and the like; we must, in order to realise the 
 motive, endeavour to place ourselves in the position of the artist's 
 contemporaries. It was difficult for men of average education and 
 intellect, at that time, to conceive abstract ideas by the process of 
 mere logical deduction; and they welcomed therefore the graphic 
 aid which translated the word into visible form. The pictures 
 were germane to the subject, they were in no sense superfluous, 
 and neither by the publisher who procured them, nor by the artist 
 who executed his commission, were they regarded as a display 
 
 1 [Ketham (Johannes)] "Incomincia el dignissimo Fascicule de Medicina in 
 Volgare ..." At the end: "... qui finisce el fascicule di Medicina Vulgarizato 
 per Sebastiano Manlio Romano e stampito per Zuane e Gregorio di Grcgorii 
 nel 1493. V Februario in Venexia." Folio. (Unknown to Hain.) See Ghoulant, 
 Geschichte und Bibliographic der anatomischen Abbildung. 1852. 8^0.
 
 v<^-. ^^^ c^^ 
 
 (^ 
 
 The Triumph of Fame; from llie Petiarcli, of Venice, i lyz.
 
 VENETIAN ILLUSTRATED BOOKS.* FASCICULO DE MEDICINA, 1 493 1 03 
 
 of decorative luxury. The woodcut of the lecturing physician 
 served to betoken the earnest scientific purpose of the text, and 
 fixed this assurance in the mind of the purchaser more clearly and 
 impressively than any printed statement could have done it. Con- 
 sidered in this light, the artistic illustration of Ketham's book u'ill 
 no longer strike us as being the mere childlike indulgence in useless 
 adornment, which, at first sight, it might appear to be. Along 
 with the purely professional designs, adopted or adapted from those 
 in the original edition, we find in the Italian version of 1493, four 
 new woodcuts, each of them filling a folio page. In the first, we 
 see the phj^sician, Petrus de Montagnana, lecturing from his 
 rostrum: beneath him sit an old man, and a woman with a child, 
 who represent the patients. The second exhibits a pillared hall, 
 with a consultation of physicians; and the third represents the 
 dissection of a dead body, with a doctor lecturing from his chair 
 above, and a number of students standing below, witnessing the 
 operation. In the fourth, a man sick with the plague is seen lying 
 on a bed, surrounded by several persons; amongst them, two 
 assistants bearing censers for fumigation. 
 
 The design is undoubtedly by an artist nearly related to Gentile 
 BeUini. The figures are from twelve to fifteen centimetres in 
 height, and — especially the heads — drawn with much skill. 
 There is a statuesque ease in the arrangement of the compositions, 
 which gives them an appearance of relief, and harmonises ad- 
 mirably with the simple and firm outline -drawing. The scenes 
 which exhibit the dying plague -patient, and the consultation of 
 doctors, have a touch of that solemn gravity which Venetian art 
 knew so well how to infuse into the pictorial representation of 
 important incidents. 
 
 Ketham's book passed through several editions before 1500. 
 The fine woodcut of the scene of dissection had disappeared before 
 1495, ^^ perhaps the block was no longer capable of service, as 
 it was replaced by an inferior copy; and finally, in the edition 
 of 1500, many of the cuts are defective in consequence of the 
 wearing or breaking away of the lower portion of the blocks. ^ 
 
 ' See the description of the various editions in Choulant's work.
 
 I04 VENETIAN ILLUSTRATED BOOKS PRINTED BY G. DE GREGORIIS 
 
 The brothers De Grcgoriis, who published Ketham's Fasciculo, 
 appear to have devoted particular attention to the production of 
 woodcuts; to judge from the number and variety of the works of 
 their press, which display artistic embellishment. A Latin trans- 
 lation of Herodotus (Hain, 8472) brought out by them in 1494, 
 has its first page adorned with a magnificent woodcut border, 
 consisting of rich pilaster- forms, printed in white relief on a black 
 ground. Beneath, there is a picturesque illustration, engraved in 
 strong simple outlines, the subject of which is not recognisable, 
 and may perhaps represent a misconception of some antique com- 
 positions. In the upper corner, beside the initial letter, Herodotus 
 is seen sitting at a table, while Apollo places a laurel crown upon 
 his head. 
 
 This is probably the most splendid of all the examples of 
 decorative art applied to books at that period. In the unsurpassed 
 elegance of its architectural construction, and the fllawless perfection 
 with which the wood-engraver rendered the design, it can be 
 compared with nothing but the finest specimens of inlaid work. 
 The etlect produced by this beautiful woodcut, with its simple 
 elements of white and black, is such as to bring it into successful 
 rivalry with the most brilliant miniature illumination. We find 
 the same border used again (but without the figures of Herodotus 
 and Apollo) in an edition of St. Jerome's works printed in 1497-98 
 (Hain, 8581); in which, however, the mythological tableau in the 
 lower portion seems rather inappropriate to the book (Vol. II, 
 folio AA2 recto).' 
 
 There is an interesting woodcut in the Doctrina della Vita 
 monastica of Beato Laurenzo Justiniano, 1494 (without the printer's 
 name, but probably printed by the brothers De Gregoriis). It 
 represents a saintly monk moving forward to the church, and raising 
 his left hand in the act of bestowing a blessing, with an acolyte 
 bearing a cross in front. The monk's figure is entirely borrowed 
 from a picture, painted in 14(56 by Gentile Bellini for the church 
 of S. Maria del Orto. The painting is executed in tempera upon 
 canvas, and is a portrait of Saint Lorenzo Justiniano (the author 
 
 ^ A reproduction of this border will be found in Yriarte, "Venice", p. 192.
 
 VENETIAN ILLUSTRATED BOOKS : JUSTINIANO S VITA MOXASTICA lOO 
 
 From St. Lorenzo Justiniano: "Doctrina della Vita Monastica". Venice, 1494. 
 
 of the Doctrina) surrounded by several other figures. Those 
 accessory groups, as well as the halo with which the painter had 
 crowned his monk, were omitted b}'^ the wood-engraver; but he 
 has completel}^ retained the characteristics of the principal figure,
 
 10(3 VENETIAN ILLUSTRATED HOOKS : OVID OF 14()7 
 
 even to the very physical type of the head.' This is one of the 
 few instances in which we are enabled to trace the relation between 
 a woodcut of the period under consideration, and an undoubtedly 
 contemporary painting. 
 
 The Metamorphoses of Ovid, or rather the Italian version of 
 that work made by Giovanni di Bonsignore of Citta di Castello, was 
 printed for the first time, in 1497, by Giovanni Rosso at Venice, 
 for the publishing-house of Lucantonio Giunta (Hain, 1216G). It 
 is a small folio volume, illustrated with fift^-^-nine woodcuts, of 
 which an idea ma}^ be obtained from the facsimile given here. 
 The compositions are definite and well-arranged, the figures care- 
 fully drawn in the manner of Bellini's school; but the execution 
 is stiff and dry, and betrays the hand of the mere professional 
 illustrator. The engraver was unable, or too careless, to reproduce 
 exactly the lines of his excellent models, and it is plain that the 
 details of the block-work are often much less delicate than the 
 drawing of the originals.^ 
 
 The mode of treatment varies considerably; the execution of 
 the outline engraving being at times performed with thorough 
 technical completeness, while in other instances the cuts appear 
 to be merely imitations of a broad pen and ink drawing. In 
 some, we discover a st}4e resembling the Florentine manner, in 
 the use of heavy masses of shadow broken by white lights. On 
 the whole, those illustrations form a fine and attractive work, not- 
 withstanding the want of care with which the blocks were printed 
 in the first, and still more in the later editions. 
 
 Most of the woodcuts are marked with the monogram ict, in 
 Gothic characters; in a few it is printed in Roman capitals. 
 
 This monogram has usually been confounded with the "Z. A". 
 signature which occurs on Italian prints of the fifteenth century; 
 
 ' See the engraving of Gentile Bellini's painting in the Zeitschrift fiir 
 bildende Kunst, Vol. XIII, p. 342. 
 
 - The blocks of the 1497 Ovid were used again in various later Venetian 
 editions of the same work, the last time being, so far as we know, in 1517. 
 Side by side with them, there appeared other editions with copies of those cuts, 
 but the imitations do not bear the ia monogram. There are besides, some other 
 editions, in which the true 1497 cuts are found mixed with impressions of the 
 copies; one, for example, in 1509.
 
 VENETIAN ILLUSTRATED BOOKS: OVID OF 1 497 
 
 107 
 
 •^^H^-^f-^ , 
 
 <>X5>-<:^— >-^>-gH^:::^^0->!
 
 I08 VKNF/riAN woodcuts: ZOAN ANDREA VAVASSORF. 
 
 and both of them are referred to Zoan Andrea Vavassore, "detto 
 Guadagnino^'. The uncertainty and confusion which prevail with 
 regard to the artist, or artists, concealed under those initials, have 
 been nowise diminished by Kololfs article on "Zoan Andrea", in 
 Meyer's Kunstlerlexikon. In Mr. Fisher's "Introduction to a Cata- 
 logue of the early Italian prints in the British Museum", all the 
 existing items of information concerning Zoan Andrea are diligently 
 collected, and marshalled in review.' But the riddle is still unread, 
 the name and the monograms remain for us a puzzle, and the 
 mystery of that manifold artistic phenomenon cannot be solved in 
 the present essay. 
 
 So much as we know with regard to the personality of Zoan 
 Andrea, is limited to the following particulars. At a time, of which 
 we cannot fix the exact date, he was in Mantua, implicated in a 
 dispute between Simone di Ardizoni, a painter and copper-engraver, 
 and Andrea Mantegna. From the documentary evidence on the 
 subject, or rather from the sole existing fragment now preserved 
 in the Gonzaga archives,- we learn that Zoan Andrea had been 
 previously resident in Verona, along with Ardizoni, from whom 
 he received assistance in his business. Of his extant works, we 
 possess no certain knowledge beyond the fact that, about 1500, a 
 wood-engraver, or, to speak more correctl}^, a publisher of woodcuts, 
 was flourishing at Venice; man}?^ of whose published pieces bear 
 the name of "Giovanni Andrea Valvassori detto Guadagnino'', or 
 "Joanne Andrea di Vavassori detto Vadagnino".^ 
 
 The first of those two forms appears on a set of woodcuts 
 representing the Passion, and produced in book-shape, with some 
 lines of text at the bottom of each illustration. As this text is not 
 typographical, but an integral portion of the engraving on the blocks, 
 the work is a real "blockbook'\ the only one of Italian origin known 
 to us. It is not, of course, the primitive production of an unde- 
 veloped art, like the blockbooks of Germany and the Netherlands, 
 but an ordinary example of popular chapbook- manufacture, and 
 
 ' London, 1886. 8vo. pp. 201 — 215. 
 
 '^ K. Brun, in the Zcitschrift fiir bildende Kunst, XI, p. 54. 
 
 ^ "Zoan" is the Venetian form of the Italian "Giovanni".
 
 VENETIAN woodcuts: ZOAN ANDREA VAVASSORE 1 09 
 
 should not be regarded as anything else. The title of the little 
 volume is Opera nuova contemplativa ; its date is 1516. 
 
 The compositions are partly rude imitations of Diirer's designs, 
 partly after Mantegna; many of them are wretchedly executed, 
 several others are somewhat better; but even those which are 
 relatively the best can lay no claim to artistic merit. Here, possibly, 
 Vavassore may have been at once the engraver, the printer, and 
 the publisher, of the work that bears his name. We have no data 
 with regard to the foundation of his establishment in Venice; it 
 was probably towards the close of the last decade of the fifteenth 
 century. He published the Opera nuova in 1316; in 1531, his 
 name appeared as that of a printer, in partnership with his brother 
 Florio, on a book containing instructions how to compose love- 
 letters.' But, as late as 1566, we find the name of "Giovanni 
 Andrea Valvassori" on an illustrated edition of the Orlando Furioso, 
 produced at Venice.- If this printer were identical with the 
 engraver Zoan Andrea, the varied career of the latter, as an artist 
 and a printer, must have been protracted to the incredible period 
 of seventy years. 
 
 The Berlin Print- room possesses a wood -engraving of the 
 largest oblong folio size, representing the history of the Passion 
 in a number of separate scenes, divided from one another by 
 borders of architectonic and landscape ornament. A much earlier 
 Italian print had already treated the same subjects in a similar 
 fashion (Ottley, Facsimiles, plate 22). 
 
 On the woodcut in the Berlin Print- room, a tablet in the 
 centre of the leaf bears the inscription. "In Venetia per Zuan 
 Andrea Vadagnino di Vauasor '.^ The conception and treatment 
 of the figures are indicative of an artist who belonged essentially 
 to Mantegna's school, but who, like many other woodcut-designers, 
 — in this respect, true successors of the niiniature -painters — 
 borrowed hints and motifs at random, from various schools of art. 
 
 ' Fisher, p. 207. 
 
 2 Fisher, p. 208; Brunet, Manuel, I, 435. 
 
 ^ The name of Vavassore appears also on a woodcut map of Italy, and 
 that of "Zoan Andrea" on a leaf in a series of woodcut copies of Diirer's 
 Apocalypse. (Passavant, le Peintre-Graveur, VI, p. 87.)
 
 IIO VHNKTIAN WOODCUTS I ZOAN ANDRKA VAVASSORE 
 
 The execution is rather mechanical, although far superior to that 
 of the Opera nuova. The mode of engraving betokens individuality. 
 As in the prints of Mantegna and his school, the outlines are 
 boldly drawn, and the elTect of relief is obtained by parallel slan- 
 ting lines, unhatched, which are thick and heavy in the shadows, 
 but diminish into fine strokes in the lights. 
 
 The Berlin Print-room possesses likewise another woodcut 
 by Zoan Andrea, 51 centimetres in height and 72 in breadth. It 
 is a view of the city of Rhodes, with the armies of the besiegers and 
 the defenders; executed coarsely, in a st3'le of primitive rudeness. 
 At the top of the engraving, there is an inscription — "Stampato 
 in \'enctia per Vadagino di Vavassori Nel MCCCCCXXir\ A 
 similarly treated view of Padua is to be seen in the Hofbibliothek 
 at Vienna. 
 
 Many Venetian woodcuts, whether illustrations in books or 
 separate engravings on single -leaves, are similar in st}de to the 
 signed works of Zoan Andrea. The mark Z.A., which appears 
 on several of them, leaves no doubt as to their origin in his atelier. 
 It is indeed to an atelier, or work-shop employing many hands, 
 and not to any individual artist, — as was already rightly con- 
 jectured by Ottley, — that we should assign the use of those 
 signatures. The artistic quality of the works bearing either the 
 mark or the name of Zoan Andrea, varies so widely between two 
 extremes, some being well and carefully executed, others of the 
 very coarsest kind; that only an establishment in which many 
 workmen of different degrees of skill and talent were occupied, 
 could have produced results so heterogeneous. Even the best of 
 those woodcuts do not reach the level of fine artistic excellence, 
 but at most display simply the average mediocrity of all productions 
 which are manufactured, and therefore essentially tasteless. The 
 copies of Diirer's Apocalypse, which Zoan Andrea brought out at 
 the same time as the Opera nuova, in 15 16, are also very significant 
 of his mode of operation. Some very able artists combined in 
 the illustration of this tiny booklet, and drew pictures which are 
 free imitations of Diirer's designs. The very first page is a good 
 reproduction of "St. John's vision of the seven Candlesticks", as 
 pourtrayed by that creative genius. It is followed immediately by
 
 VENETIAN woodcuts: ZOAN ANDREA VAVASSORK HI 
 
 a number of poor mechanical copies of other originals, with here 
 and there an occasional example of superior kind. Zoan Andrea 
 was, without doubt, a skilful engraver on copper, although he may 
 not 'have possessed any special talent for his art, or any ambition 
 to develop an individual character in his work. Even in his 
 workshop, he carried on the practice of copper-engraving, more 
 extensively perhaps in the earlier, than in the later portion of his 
 career. The Italian prints which bear the mark of Z.A. were 
 executed, we may conjecture, partly by himself, and partly by his 
 assistants. Most of these plates are copies after Durer, Mantegna, 
 and others; those which we are unable to refer to any certain 
 models have a mechanical and commonplace appearance, with no 
 trace of original character. Everything seems to harmonise with 
 the assumption that the monogram Z.A. was simply the mark used 
 to indicate a particular workshop, which not only was employed 
 by the book-printers, but also laboured to enrich its own stock, 
 and to supply the market with cheap woodcuts and engravings. 
 This is probably the most rational way to account for the other- 
 wise incomprehensible fructiveness of Zoan Andrea, in the twin 
 departments of copper and wood engraving. 
 
 It is customary to refer to Zoan Andrea the monogram in 
 which appears in the 1497 Ovid and elsewhere, — without, as it 
 seems to us, sufficient reason. That mark does not consist of two 
 initials, but, in all probability, of the first two letters of a single 
 name. If it had been intended to express two initials, we may 
 feel tolerably certain that the I and the a would have been divided 
 by points, or clearly separated from each other by a space. That 
 mode of division is observable in every instance of the use of 
 Z.A., whilst its absence in the other monogram may be explained 
 from the manner in which we see inscriptions on woodcuts represen- 
 ting St. James, in this form — S. lA. (that is, Sanctiis Jacobus. 
 See Meyer, Kunstlerlexikon, I, p. 70(3; Passavant, V, p. 83, 
 no. 46). With such an indication before us, we may venture 
 to assume that the ta monogram belongs to some artist named 
 
 Jacobus. 
 
 Two masters who bore that name, were, at the period of 
 which we are writing, actively engaged at Venice in making designs
 
 112 VKNiniAN woodcuts: JACOB OF STRASSHURG 
 
 for woodcuts; — Jacob of Strassburg, and Jacopo de' Barbari 
 (Walch). Let us first turn our attention upon the former. 
 
 In the year 1504, there was published at Venice, a large wood- 
 cut, in the style of a friez.e, representing the Triumph of Cxsar, 
 in a series of twelve leaves. The composition is not very inter- 
 esting in itself, and it lacks proportion and harmony; but the 
 separate figures are powerfully drawn, and the whole w^ork, although 
 not marked by any special artistic genius, evinces the training and 
 labour of a practised hand. In the technique of the engraving, 
 we observe an imitation of the mode of treatment adopted by 
 Mantegna and his school, in the execution of copper- prints. — 
 Indeed, even the styXo. of the design might be said to stamp 
 the Triumph of Caesar as a production of that school. — According 
 to Passavant (Peintre-Graveur, I, p. 133) the first of the twelve 
 leaves bears this inscription: "Manibus propriis hoc preclarum 
 opus in lucem prodire fecit Jacobus Argentoratensis germanus 
 architypus solertissimus. Anno virginei partus M. D. III. Idibus 
 februarii sub hemisphaero Veneto finem imposuif . There is no 
 such inscription on the copy in the Berlin Print- room, in which 
 w^c find, instead, merely a few lines of letter- press relative to the 
 subject of the illustration. We cannot decide here whether the 
 Berlin copy, exhibiting as it does admirable impressions, is of an 
 earlier or a later state than the one in which the inscription was 
 found; but we should be inclined to think it earlier. 
 
 A second work, manifestly by the same artist, is a large leaf 
 with an allegorical subject ( — Passavant thinks it satyrical;) having 
 an inscription, "Istoria Romana", in the upper left-hand corner. 
 On the right, we see the remnant of a tree which has been cut 
 dow'n; to the bole a label is affixed, bearing the signature "Opus 
 Jacobi", while a compass lies on the flat upper-surface of the trunk. 
 A description of the composition is rendered unnecessar}^ by the 
 accompanying reduced facsimile.' The original is 29 centimetres 
 in height by 39 in breadth.'^ 
 
 * Taken from the copy in tlie collection of Baron Edmond Rothschild 
 at Paris. 
 
 ^ Professor Dr. C. Robert in Berlin has written some very learned and 
 acute observations on the subject of the woodcut described above. Their
 
 ISTORIAROMANA 
 
 ALLEGORY 
 
 WOODCUT UY JACOB OF STRASSBURG 
 
 RKUUCED PACSIMILF.
 
 VENETIAN woodcuts: JACOB OF STRASSBURG I I -:> 
 
 The technical execution of the "Istoria Romana" is cxtremel}' 
 successful; the intended effect of high plastic relief being completely 
 realised. This is not so evident in our facsimile; the great reduction 
 of size w^hich was necessary here,, being incompatible with any 
 adequate expression of the broad and powerful treatment which 
 marks the original. The artist who made the design must have 
 been an immediate follower of Mantegna, if it were not indeed 
 the master himself whose hand drew the sketch from which the 
 woodcut was elaborated. In spite of the indication on the cartel- 
 lina, we cannot assign to the "Jacobus" of the inscription, any 
 other part in this work than that of the mere engraver, nor to the 
 word "opus" any other sense than belongs to the mechanical labour 
 
 substance is extracted here. — The Jacobus woodcut reproduces the sculptures 
 on a Hippolytus sarcophagus of the type best known from the Pisan and Capuan 
 examples. That of Pisa contains the bones of Beatrice, the mother of the 
 Countess Matilda of Tuscany, who died in 1072; and it is now preserved in 
 the interior of the Campo Santo. Niccola Pisano frequently used it to model 
 from; and in the Renaissance it was well known and admired. Lasinio has 
 reproduced it (tav. LXXIII). The other sarcophagus is in the crypt of the 
 cathedral at Capua. Gerhard has given an illustration of it (Ant. Bildw. XXVI). 
 It is almost certain that one of those two monuments furnished Jacobus 
 with his model. In almost all respects, the design in the woodcut more nearly 
 resembles the Capuan sarcophagus; and if we exclude a single particular in 
 which it comes closer to that of Pisa, we might account for the several modi- 
 fications by supposing that Jacobus drew at second-hand from an intermediate 
 sketch which he did not wholly comprehend. The illustration on the sarco- 
 phagus and in the woodcut, is a combination of scenes from the story of 
 Hippolytus and Phaedra, but it is probable either that Jacobus, in imitating his 
 original, amplified and varied it so as to express his own idea of the myth, or 
 else that he simply utilised the old design to represent some different subject 
 in his mind, drawn from Roman mythology. The title "Istoria Romana" 
 suggests the correctness of the latter view. He seems also to have intended 
 to attach a symbolical sense to the mythological figures; so that in Phaedra, 
 sented beneath the laurel tree, we may recognize perhaps Virtue; in Hippolytus, 
 standing before her, with the caduceus in his hand, Prudence; in the bearded 
 man on his left hand. Justice; in the second figure of Hippolytus, as a mounted 
 and armed warrior. Fortitude; in the female by his side who is about to put 
 a bit in the horse's mouth. Temperance. The figure on the pedestal, with the 
 Janus head in her right hand, and the initials S. P. Q, R. beneath her feet, is 
 evidently an impersonation of Rome. The dragon in front of the mounted 
 Hippolytus, and the two figures behind Phaedra, probably symbolise the evil 
 influences in opposition to the cardinal virtues. The pidti, or naked children, 
 are Cupids; the woman's bust at the top of the laurel tree represents Daphne. 
 
 8
 
 1 14 vi:m II AN wooncurs: jacoij of strassburg 
 
 on the wood-block. The very circumstance that the inscription 
 appears on the fragment of a tree left standing by the woodcutter's 
 axe, and the accompanying pair of compasses, may serve as testi- 
 mony in support of our opinion; since we can only consider them 
 as a sort of engraver's mark, added by himself. 
 
 F'.ven if we allow that no sharply marked distinction was made 
 at that time between the man who created a composition, and the 
 ai'tisan \\ho reproduced it b\' a multipKing process, or in other 
 words between the artist and the engraver; it seems nevertheless 
 that we have to regard Jacob of Strassburg as chiefly excelling 
 in the latter function. Besides the Triumph of Ccesar, and the 
 Istoria Romana, there is a third woodcut bearing his name; and 
 in this last, we find a striking instance of his position as an 
 engraver, in clear contra-distinction to that of a designer. 
 
 The work in question is a magnificent woodcut in the Paris 
 Cabinet. It is a sheet, 53'/., centimetres high by 38 broad, im- 
 pressed from two blocks, and represents the Madonna enthroned 
 in a niche framed within richly ornamental pilasters. On the steps 
 of the dais, right and left, appear St. Roch and St. Sebastian. In 
 the upper corners, there are two tablets with inscriptions; in the 
 one on the left, we read "Benedictus Pinxif', in that on the right, 
 "Jacobus Fecif. The architectural portions and the background 
 of the throne are decorated in an extremel}'^ rich and tasteful 
 manner, and exhibit small separate pictures of the Passion.' 
 
 The words "Benedictus pinxit'', and the style of the design 
 and composition, are unquestionably to be referred to Benedetto 
 Montagna. That master, who had made several essays in copper- 
 engraving, and attained a considerable measure of skill in the use 
 of the burin — as in .S7. Jerome in the Landscape (Bartsch, 14) 
 and the silting Madonna (Bartsch, ()) — here entered into the lists 
 as a designer for woodcuts. The types of the heads, full and 
 round, which are noticeable in his copper-prints, appear again in 
 the woodcut, and the method of drawing the lines which indicate 
 relief is similar to that which we observe in his work executed 
 with the graver. It was his practice, — differing from that of the 
 
 * A reduced facsimile is given by Delaborde, La Gravure en Italie, p. 231.
 
 VKNETIAN woodcuts: JACOB OF STRASSBURG II5 
 
 Paduan and Milanese school — to model with curved lines which 
 adjusted themselves to the sinuosities and flexions of the figure. 
 He had gained a masterly freedom of hand in the use of this 
 method, from the study and imitation of early work on copper 
 by Durer and other German artists. 
 
 The large woodcut of the Madoima with the two Saints shows 
 us how the blockcutter was able to adapt himself to the manner 
 of the design before him. Instead of Mantegna's mode of linear 
 shading, we find here a system of cross-hatching used to bring 
 the forms into relief. The skill displayed by Jacob in his mani- 
 pulation of the wood-block, is not less excellent in this production 
 than in the Istoria Romana. The execution is broad, free, and 
 firm; displaying a comprehensive mastery of the entire plan, and 
 admirably suited to the large scale of the performance; but it is 
 based on a totally different st}de of design from that of the Istoria. 
 
 In the private collection of the King of Saxony, at Dresden, 
 there is an old woodcut freely copied from the Madonna of 
 Montagna and Jacob of Strassburg. It is perhaps nearly contem- 
 poraneous with its original. The composition here is simplified 
 and contracted, and the rich architectural accessories partl}'^ omitted; 
 but the relative position of the Madonna, the Child, and the two 
 Saints, is the same, except that St. Sebastian is on the right and 
 St. Roch on the left, in the Dresden woodcut. Beneath, on the 
 steps of the throne, a new tableau is added, exhibiting the Infant 
 Saviour drawn in triumph and surrounded bv angels. The name 
 of the printer, or publisher, appears on the lower margin — "In 
 Verona per Bartolomeo Merlo". The Dresden copy is in old 
 colouring. 
 
 The three woodcuts described above, furnish us with the 
 only certain information that we possess, in regard to the labours 
 of Jacob of Strassburg. The question previously enounced, as 
 to whether the monogram xtx is to be interpreted "Jacobus", is 
 not indeed solved by the existence of those signed works, but it 
 is, we may hope, drawn somewhat nearer to solution. 
 
 From the year 1497, when it appeared for the first time in 
 the Ovid, down to about 1520, that mark recurs several times, 
 chiefly on the illustrations in books of an ascetic and spiritual
 
 lit) VINKIIAN woodcuts: ll.I.US TRATKl) PRAYERBOOKS 
 
 character. These were usually printed at Venice, and decorated 
 with pictures, borders, and ornamental initials. The publication 
 of illustrated Breviaries, Offices, and Missals, was extensively carried 
 on in that city, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, just as 
 the kindred production of illustrated Hoiw, or Lwres d'Heiires, 
 formed a special branch of typographical industry in Paris, at the 
 same time. Although the Venetian books were much less numerous 
 than the interminable series of the Parisian Hoi\i\ they constitute 
 nevertheless a very large section of the literature of illustrated 
 pravcrbooks. The pictorial designs, and the ornamental borders 
 in which the pages of text are framed, are ver}^ skilfully disposed, 
 and stand out in etfective relief from the handsome red and black 
 letterpress of the text. The printers seem t(^ have striven, by 
 every attainable excellence of ornamental typography, to rival and 
 supplant the still existent, but fast disappearing, productions of the 
 miniaturists. 
 
 Notwithstanding its studied elegance, this kind of typographical 
 ornamentation is, from the standpoint of art-history, less attractive 
 and less important than we might have anticipated. There is, in 
 the splendour of the illustration, an expression w^hich betrays the 
 vulgarity of manufactured work; — in which respect also, we find 
 a parallel between the Venetian liturgical books and the French 
 Livres dHcitres. We soon acquire the conviction that those 
 illustrations were, as a general rule, executed by artists who, 
 although well trained in the practice of their craft, were yet of a 
 meaner sort, and simply accustomed to the mechanical reproduction 
 of certain conventional models. Hence the frequent iteration 
 throughout each volume of the same decorative borders, — a fact 
 which tends not a little to render the effect monotonous, — and 
 the repetition of identical woodcuts in various books, and in 
 various editions of a single book. The publishing-house of Luc- 
 antonio da Giunta was especially active in the production of such 
 books; those which appeared during the few years immediatel}^ 
 following 1500, being relatively the best. Their artistic quality, 
 except in a few instances, decreased with the growth of the century, 
 in a constantl}' augmenting ratio. But the issue of new impressions, 
 and of copies and imitations, from the old woodblocks, led to the
 
 VENETIAN woodcuts: ILLUSTRATED PRAYERBOOKS 
 
 I I 
 
 conservation of the old Venetian and Mantegnesque st}'le of treat- 
 ment, far into the sixteenth century, — a curious phenomenon 
 which is also to be remarked elsewhere in connexion with the 
 printing of illustrated books. 
 
 A great many of the woodcuts in those Venetian liturgical 
 books were produced, as is shown by the Z. A. signature which 
 
 
 HISVTIN QyOBVMIAIH l B£NEC VMPLACV1T 
 
 
 From the "Missale Roraanum". Venice, 1509. 
 
 frequently occurs, in the workshop of Zoan Andrea. There is an 
 occasional appearance among them of a fresher style of execution, 
 but it soon dies out, nearly all bearing the stamp of tame and 
 monotonous mediocrity, and deserving to be considered rather 
 as commercial, than artistic, performances.' 
 
 1 Into the merits of this group of Venetian illustrated prayerbooks we can 
 proceed no further, as they nearly all belong to the sixteenth century, and thus lie 
 outside the scope of our present investigation. Considering the rarity of copies,
 
 Il8 VENETIAN WOOFU:ir|s: THE MARK I A 
 
 In one of the handsomest books of this kind, a MIssale 
 Romaniim which appeared in various successive editions at A'enice, 
 after isoo, there arc numerous woodcuts which bear the mark i a. 
 Another magniticent example is the Czech, or Bohemian, Bible, 
 printed in the same city in the year 1500 "in F.dibus Petri 
 Lichtenstein Colonicnsis Germani'\ 
 
 The drawing and composition of the figures must be referred 
 to an able artist of the school of Cima da Conegliano; and the 
 w^ork of the engraver is done with great care and skill. These 
 woodcuts are very different, in all respects, from those which bear 
 the same monogram in the 1497 O^'i*^^ but the complete similarity 
 of the signatures in each of the books, cannot be explained 
 otherwise than b)^ assuming that all the woodcuts so marked were 
 
 as well as the multiplicity of the various editions, the enumeration of a few 
 isolated titles here would have been of little service. Brunei has done something 
 towards a record of such books, in the notices given by him under "Breviarium", 
 "Missale", '-Officium"; but the only attempt to form a complete bibliography 
 of the Missals is Mr. W. H. J. Weale's excellent "Catalogus Missalium Ritus 
 Latini. Londini, B. Quaritch, 1886". 8vo. The same painstaking scholar promises 
 to give the "Breviaria" before long. 
 
 In an article on the devotional books of the fifteenth century (Jahrbuch 
 der k. Preuss. Kunstsammlungen, VI, p. 36 etc.) Dr. von Seidlitz asserts that 
 the Venetian printers, before the end of that century, had already begun to 
 produce imitations of the F"rench Livres d'Heiires. One of the books which he 
 describes as Venetian, and adduces in support of his opinion, is a small volume, 
 intitled Hore nostre domine secundum usum ccclesie roniane, but without any 
 indication of the place and date of its production. It has however, on the 
 title-page, a device containing the initials M. R. accompanied by the lion of 
 St. Mark, which is sufficient evidence that the book was printed by Marcus 
 Reinhard of Strassburg, and issued from the press which he had established at 
 Lyons in or before the year 1491. By the figure of the lion of St. Mark, which 
 signifies nothing more than a play upon Reinhard's Christian name, Dr. von 
 Seidlitz was probably misled to suppose that he had an Italian book before 
 him. His error is all the more singular, as the woodcuts are of undeniably 
 German style and origin, and resemble the illustrations in the Miroir de la vie 
 humaine (translated from the celebrated Speculum of Rodericus Zamorensis) 
 which was published by Reinhard, in partnership with Nicolaus Philippi, at 
 Lyons in 1492. As for the second prayer-book described by Dr. von Seidlitz, 
 and printed by Johann Hamman "dictus Herzog" at Venice in 1493 (or rather 
 1498), it is said to contain illustrations and ornamental borders in slight outlines; 
 but I have never seen it, and am therefore unable to form an opinion as to 
 whether it should be considered an imitation of the French Heures.
 
 VENETIAN woodcuts: THE MARK I A I ig 
 
 the work of one and the same engraver. The diversity in st}'le 
 and execution simply shows that the monogram has no reference 
 to the designer, and is merely the mark of the craftsman who 
 cut the blocks, and who worked from different drawings at dif- 
 ferent times. 
 
 Amongst the monograms and artists' marks which are found 
 upon woodcuts, two kinds of signatures have to be distinguished; 
 namely that of the designer, and that of the engraver. On the 
 works of Durer and Cranach, for example, the block- cutter is 
 completely ignored, while, on the contrary, in a certain late group 
 of German woodcuts, it was frequently his custom to place his 
 own monogram beside that of the designer, and to indicate his 
 craft by the addition of a small knife. In Italy, at the time with 
 which we are dealing here, such double marks were never used; 
 and we can only endeavour, by indirect approaches, to reach the 
 solution of the question whether a solitary signature on a woodcut 
 is that of the designer, or of the engraver. 
 
 It may be assumed that the mark belongs to the engraver, if 
 it be found on a series of works which differ among themselves 
 in all the characteristics of design. In such cases, the drawings 
 may have been prepared by various hands, but they were all cut 
 upon the wood by the one man whose monogram they bear. A 
 monogram or signature of this kind is what may be termed "an 
 engraver's mark". 
 
 From the circumstantial evidence which they furnish, with 
 regard to the varieties of style and design, it is tolerably clear that 
 the woodcuts bearing the signature ict fall into the preceding 
 category, and that those letters are the engraver's mark. There is 
 a possibilit}^ or rather a probabilit}^, that they are an abridgment 
 of the word lacobuSy and refer to the man whose name occurs in 
 that form on the Istoria Romaua, and who, on the Triumph of 
 Ccvsar, describes himself as Jacobus Afgentoratensis (Jacob of 
 Strassburg). 
 
 If this theory be correct in fact, it enables us at least to 
 establish the existence and the name of an artist connected with 
 early Venetian wood -engraving, and consequently to show that 
 his mark, ia (meaning Jacobus), must; be distinguished from the
 
 120 VKNETIAN WOODCUTS: I'OI.II'IIII.I HVI'NKRO lOMACHIA 
 
 Z. A. of Zoan Andrea, with which it has hitherto been crroneoush^ 
 confounded. There is nothing adverse to this view in the fact 
 that certain illustrated books comprise woodcuts by each of the 
 two men; as is the case, for instance, in the Apocalypse printed 
 by Alexandro Paganino in i^i'S some of the cuts in which are 
 marked in, and some Z. A. The publisher naturally employed 
 various engravers for his work, which is a reproduction of Diirer's 
 designs. 
 
 If an engraver's mark is to be recognised, as we have stated, 
 by its appearance on a number of woodcuts unlike each other in 
 style and drawing, we have now, on the other hand, to inquire 
 whether there may be found, among the Italian woodcuts of the 
 fifteenth century, any such thing as a "designer's mark'', analogous 
 to the monograms of Durer and Cranach in Germany, and indi- 
 cating the artist who drew the picture, as distinguished from the 
 craftsman who cut the block. It will not be denied that the 
 composer, creator, or designer, was frequently, during the course 
 of his career, whether from choice or necessity, led to entrust his 
 drawings to more than one engraver for translation to the wood- 
 block. We have positive knowledge that the fact was such in 
 Diirer's case, notwithstanding the uniformity, within certain limits, 
 of the work thus done for him. The characteristic style of a 
 woodcut is entirely derived from the designer, the quality of the 
 performance varies according to the greater or lesser ability of the 
 engraver. Hence, if we find one and the same mark upon a series 
 of woodcuts which differ considerably from each other in point 
 of executive skill, but exhibit essential affinities of st)'le and drawing, 
 we must regard it as a designer's mark. Venetian wood-engraving 
 in the fifteenth century furnishes a conspicuous opportunity for 
 applying this theory. We are now referring to the master from 
 whom we have the woodcuts of the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili. 
 
 That remarkable book, the subject of so much discussion, 
 was written by Francesco Columna or Colonna (born about 1433), 
 who afterwards became a Dominican monk, and died in the 
 monastery of San Giovanni e San Paolo at Venice about 1327. 
 It is a visionary and allegorical romance, based, according to the 
 old but not perhaps contemporary statement, upon an actual love-
 
 VENETIAN woodcuts: POLH'HILI hvpnerotomachia 
 
 12 1
 
 122 VENKTIAX WOODCUTS: I'OLll'HILl HVI'NKROTOMAClllA 
 
 passage between the author and a lady, said to have been named 
 "Ippolita". The hopes of the lover having been shattered by 
 Ippolita\s entrance into a convent, he sought to immortalise his 
 passion in a mystical romance. Under the name of "Polia", the 
 lady plays in this singular fiction a part similar to that of Dante's 
 Beatrice, and guides the author through a dream-land, in which 
 his appellation is '"Poliphilo'', signifying Folia's lover. 
 
 Even the exordium of the book is borrowed from the Divina 
 Commedia. The narrator wanders through a wood, is overcome 
 by weariness and falls asleep, and then has a dream. His vision 
 is the Hj'p)ieroto)?iacJua, that is. The Struggle of Dreaming Love. 
 
 The imaginary land through which Poliphilo and Polia wander, 
 is the region of Classic Art, such as it seemed to be to the minds 
 of the fifteenth century. It is the architecture of antiquity which 
 forms the chief attraction of their quest. 
 
 Francesco Colonna wrote the Hjynevotomachia in 1467. The 
 first edition, produced by Aldus in 1499, ^^ ^^e object of our 
 present consideration. It was given to the press by Leonardo 
 Crasso, a Veronese jurist, and dedicated to Guido, Duke of Urbino. 
 The manuscript from which this edition was printed was probably 
 imperfect, but since Aldus Manutius considered it worthy to bear 
 his name, and to come forth in ail the splendour of his choicest 
 typography, we may conjecture that this confused and rambling 
 story enjoyed a certain measure of favour amongst the lovers of 
 classical antiquity who surrounded the great printer.' 
 
 The numerous woodcuts of the Aldine edition mark the 
 highest point of developement reached by the art of wood- 
 engraving at Venice, in the fifteenth century. It is true that the 
 artist who designed those illustrations was not in every instance 
 capable of translating into adequate pictorial form, the ideas 
 presented by the author. Some one greater than he would have 
 
 ^ The disquisition on the Poliphilo which is found in the "Kleine Schriften" 
 of Johann Dominicus Fiorillo (Gottingen, 1803; Vol.1, p. 153) is still the best 
 of its kind. Albert Ilg's comprehensive essay "Ueber den kunsthistorischen 
 Wert der Hypnerotomachia Poliphili" (Wien, 1872. 8vo.), would perhaps have 
 been more excellent, if the writer had been acquainted with the work of his 
 precursor Fiorillo.
 
 VENETIAN woodcuts: POLIPHILI HVPNF.ROTOMACHIA 
 
 123
 
 124 VF.NETIAN WOODCUTs: l>OLIPHII.I HVI'NEROTOMACHIA 
 
 been needed, to grasp, and render with full mastery, the sug- 
 gestions of the story. He lacked the necessary vividness of imagi- 
 nation, and the power of independent conception: and the chief 
 element of weakness in his compositions sprang froni his pain- 
 fullv anxious endeavours to reproduce the letter of the text. For 
 all that, he succeeded in creating a series of the most delightful 
 and charming pictures, delicately designed, and thoroughly ful- 
 filling the conditions of outline-work. The lines are sharp, and 
 well balanced; the contours are modelled with extreme care and 
 purity, as well from the inner as from the outer edges of the heavy 
 strokes. The intention of the designer was admirably seconded 
 by the engraver, w^hose work is carried out with masterl}' effect. 
 A few cuts are of poorer quality, and were cither more carelessly 
 executed, or perhaps are due to an inferior hand. 
 
 The clear and simple style of the illustrations harmonises 
 perfectly with the elegant Roman type of the text; and the book 
 is indisputably one of the most beautiful that have ever issued 
 from the press. 
 
 A description of the subjects will not be considered necessary 
 here, especially as the Hypnerotomachia is by no means a rare 
 book. It was reprinted in 1345, at the Aldine press, of which 
 Paulus Manutius was then the responsible head; with the same 
 w^oodcuts and t\'pe as the original edition, but without most of 
 the decorative initials. The second edition is greatly inferior in 
 beaut}' to that of i4()C), by reason of unskilful workmanship in 
 printing the blocks, and the consequent production of pale and 
 poor impressions. A free translation of the text, in French, 
 was published by Jacques Kerver, at Paris, in three editions, 
 dated 154(3, 1554, and 1561; and appeared again in i()00. The 
 illustrations in the French "Poliphile'' are free copies of the 
 Italian woodcuts, and many of them exhibit the charming ele- 
 gance which distinguished the art of Lyons in the sixteenth 
 century. They are ascribed to Jean Cousin by Firmin-Didot in 
 his essa}^ upon that artist. 
 
 The question as to who was the creator of the woodcuts in 
 the Venetian Hypnerotomachia, has been frequently propounded, 
 and discussed with great variety of opinion. To Mantegna, "Bellini"
 
 VENETIAN woodcuts: POI.ll'HlLl HYPNEROTOMACHIA 1 25 
 
 (Which of the artists of that name?), Botticelli, and even to Raffaelle, 
 they have been ascribed in succession. 
 
 Of all those old conjectures, the assignment to "Bellini" comes 
 nearest to the truth, in so far as it is an undoubted fact that the 
 Poliphilo master belongs to the Bellini school. The other suppo- 
 sitions hardl}^ require any serious refutation. The Venetian origin 
 of the book, and the signature "b'' which appears on two of the 
 cuts near the beginning, seem to make for "Bellini". A notion 
 which occasionall)' cropped up formed}^, that Sandro Botticelli 
 sketched the designs of the Poliphilo, was also based upon that 
 letter b. 
 
 We have already drawn attention to the mark "b" found 
 upon Venetian vignettes, and it has been seen that the series of 
 illustrated books in which it appears, begins with the Malermi 
 Bible of i4<)i. If we compare the woodcuts in that Bible, those 
 in the Terence of 1497, — in short, the illustrations of the "b" 
 group, — with those of the Poliphilo, it will be found that the 
 same principle of design, in clear fine outlines, with or without 
 slight edge-shading, prevails in them all. Moreover, they all exhibit 
 the same type, as regards composition, and the same style of 
 drawing the human form. The artist seems to have striven to 
 render his groupings as simple as possible, disposing them in such 
 a way as to avoid the overlaying of the contours, and to produce 
 a certain aspect of calm and ceremonious dignity in the arrangement 
 of the figures. At the same time, the effect of life and movement 
 is ably realised, although there is something of weakness and 
 indecision in the drawing of the forms, in spite of the care with 
 which their action is indicated. 
 
 In the Malermi Bible, and in the other books of the "b" group, 
 we have observed a lack of uniform quality in the engraving of 
 the various vignettes; as for the illustrations in the Hypneroto- 
 machia, the excellence of their technical treatment raises them 
 above all similar productions of the \'enetian wood-engravers. 
 
 We must not omit to state that a monogram, which partly 
 resembles the "b", but combines with it an "M" and a superscribed 
 "o", appeared upon a Venetian woodcut shortly after the year 1500. 
 This cut represents John the Baptist, and was used as a printer's
 
 I2<) VKNETIAN WOODCUTS I .lACOPO DK BARIiARl 
 
 mark by the typographer Johannes Tacuino dc Tridino. It evi- 
 dently conveys a punning alUision to his baptismal name, and was 
 employed for the lirst time (to our knowledge) on B. Brugnoli\s 
 edition of "Tullii de Officiis, Amicitia, Senectute. Paradoxa ejus- 
 dcm", in i50() (Folio). 
 
 It was, assuredly, not the master of the Poliphilo from whom 
 Tacuino obtained the sketch for his woodcut mark; Benedetto 
 xMontagna, whom we have already seen in the capacity of a 
 designer for the woodblock, was probably the owner of the bMo 
 monogram. The harsh figure of the Baptist is more nearly related 
 to the drawing of Montagna and the Veronese school, than to the 
 soft refinement of the master who used the simple b. 
 
 The affinity of style between the various woodcuts of the b 
 group, enables us to affirm that the b is not an engravers, but a 
 designer's mark, the signature in fact of the artist who created all 
 those illustrations. 
 
 In looking around for an artist, whose work and whose name 
 would harmonise with that signature and the woodcuts which bear 
 it, we light upon Jacopo de' Barbari. That he lived in Venice 
 about that time is a recognised fact, and we have certain testimony 
 that he was occupied in connexion with engraving, both on wood 
 and copper. Modern research has already cleared awa}' all doubt 
 that the two names, "Jacopo de' Barbari", and "Jakob Walch", 
 which are found in the writings of his contemporaries, refer to 
 one and the same individual. 
 
 It is frequently supposed that "Walch" was a surname given 
 to the artist by Germans, and equivalent in meaning to "Wiilsch" 
 or "Walscher", a word which signifies Gaul, Italian, or in a wider 
 sense, foreigner.' At the same time, it is also generally accepted 
 that "de' Barbari" or "de Barbaris" was not his proper family- 
 name. Durer calls him "Jacob Walch". In the Journal of his 
 tour to the Netherlands, he states, with regard to his visit to the 
 Archduchess Marguerite of Austria at Brussels, that — "There 
 
 1 It was applied by the Germanic conquerors of England in the fifth 
 century to the Britons, and has remained the designation of the modern people 
 of Cambria.
 
 VENETIAN woodcuts: JACOPO DE BARBARI 
 
 127 
 
 saw I other good things of Johann Jacob Walch. I asked my 
 lady after master Jacob's little book, but she said she had bestowed 
 it on her painter." Here, Walch appears as a regular family 
 name. If Dtirer had nieant to imply the Foreigner, or the Italian, 
 he would probably have called him "Jacob der Walch". Moreover, 
 
 w^ifcW^j^li^SJ^^ 
 
 Tacuino de Tridino in \'enice. 
 
 it seems to me quite unproven that "Walch" was ever used to 
 mean "Italian". The form of the word in that sense, with Dtirer, 
 was "Wahle", as we see from the Journal Just referred to — "I 
 also drew the portrait of the hook-nosed Wahle (Italian) named 
 Opitius." 
 
 Wd find in ^'enice, between 1479 and 1482, a German printer 
 who describes himself in the colophons of the books produced
 
 128 VKNKTIAN VVOOIX.U IS: JACOPO Dk' liARHARI 
 
 by Ilim, as Gcorg ^^'alch. At Nuremberg, in i4-i.'2, a certain 
 "N. Walch" is mentioned as a resident artist, engaged in working 
 at the paintings in the town-hall. 
 
 There is surelv a remarkable coincidence in the fact that 
 two bearers ol" the name of Walch should have been found in 
 Venice about the same time — that is, the printer (ieorg, and 
 our Barbari-A\'alch. If \^'alch were merely a surname, or nick- 
 name, meaning Italian, how is it that Germans could have borne 
 it in Italv? Wc may at least conjecture that Walch -Barbari was 
 of German origin, and had only altered his name to Barbari at 
 some more recent date. In Durer\s unprinted preface to his 
 Proportiojislehre, he speaks of Jacobus as "a good and pleasing 
 master, Venetian by birth"; and the anouvmus of Morelli and 
 Geldenhauer mentions him in similar fashion as "Jacobo Barberino 
 Veneziano". Wo. can scarcelv therefore retain any doubt as to 
 the artist having been born at A'enice. The familv-name of Walch 
 may have fallen into oblivion afterwards, and it is to be noticed 
 that NeudorlTer (A. D. 154')) speaks of him already as "Jacob, named 
 Walch, a painter''. 
 
 From some recently discovered records of the time, we learn 
 that Barbari had left A'enice, in or before 1500, to enter into the 
 service of the Emperor Maximilian, as "Illuminator". It is not 
 ascertained what the labours were which his imperial patron com- 
 missioned him to perform at Nuremberg, but we know that he 
 remained in that city till 1504. He is next found in the Nether- 
 lands, engaged with Mabusc in the decoration of the castle of 
 Zuytborch, for Count Philip, the natural son of Philip Duke of 
 Burgundy. In i50(), he was "V^alet de chambre ct pcintre attache 
 a la princesse", in the service of the Archduchess Marguerite, 
 Regent of the Netherlands, a place which he seems to have retained 
 until his death in i3i<). 
 
 To his Teutonic extraction wc may probably attribute the 
 intermediate position between German and Italian art which was 
 held by Barbari -Walch, and also his manifold connexion with 
 Germany. The most rational presumption is, that he was born 
 at Venice of German parents named Walch. From the very 
 outset of his career, he seems to have been more familiar with
 
 ENT OF THE LARGE VIEW OP VENICE. 
 REDUCED FACSIMILE
 
 VENETIAN woodcuts: JACOPO DE BARBARI 1 29 
 
 the practice of engraving, both on copper and wood, than most 
 of his Venetian contemporaries. 
 
 We are firmly persuaded, almost to the extent of conviction, 
 that it was our Jacopo who produced one of the largest and most 
 remarkable woodcuts that have ever been executed. This is a 
 view of Venice, completed in the year 1500. 
 
 A panorama, quite two metres in breadth, and more than a 
 metre and a half in height, it is a masterpiece of coup-d'oeil and 
 clearness of arrangement; and, considering the novelty of such a 
 circumstance at that time, noteworthy in the highest degree for 
 the correctness of perspective. The design is a middle term 
 between a plan of horizontal projection and a bird's-eye prospect 
 from an imaginary point of view. Not one of the many, and 
 often very comprehensive, pictures of the same kind, in which, 
 during the course of the sixteenth centur}'^, most of the chief cities 
 and towns of Europe were pourtrayed, excels or even equals this 
 view of Venice in its perfect achievement. 
 
 The labour occupied three years. Anton Kolb of Nuremberg, 
 the merchant at whose expense it was executed, petitioned the 
 Signoria of Venice to be allowed to sell the woodcut everywhere, 
 without tax or duty, at three ducats for each copy. He was guilty 
 of no exaggeration in basing his request upon the incredible diffi- 
 culties which he had had to overcome in order to obtain a correct 
 design; by reason of the vast comprehensiveness of the work, 
 the unprecedented size of the sheets of paper, the novelt}' of the 
 artistic method applied to producing impressions from blocks of 
 such dimensions, and the labour of setting all the parts evenly 
 together — matters which the public would hardly understand 
 how to estimate justly (. . . le qual cose forse non essendo per 
 suo valor stimate dal zente'). 
 
 Beyond the numerals indicating the date (1500), no mark or 
 monogram is found upon the woodcut; for we cannot assume 
 that the caduceus held aloft by Mercury as he is seen flying 
 through the air, in the upper portion of the view, is intended for 
 
 ^ Harzen, from Cicogna's work "Delle Iscrizioni Veneziane". Venice, 
 1824-43. 4to. 
 
 9
 
 130 GREAT VIEW OF VENICE! JACOPO DE BARBARI 
 
 the artist's mark, even though it is true that Barbari used it as 
 such in his copper-engravings. 
 
 There is no testimony, or direct intimation of an}' kind, 
 avaikible to prove that Jacopo was the author of the view of 
 Venice. We have nothing documentary to cite except the words 
 in Diirer's letter to Pirkheimer (Campe, ReHquien, p. 32) — 
 "Antoni Kolb swore an oath there hved no better painter on 
 earth than Jacob''. It has besides been recently discovered that 
 Kolb and Barbari were summoned together to Nuremberg, for 
 the service of the Emperor.^ 
 
 The historical basis on which rests the ascription of the large 
 view of Venice to Barbari, is nothing more than the above men- 
 tioned instances of a connexion between him and Kolb, and the 
 presumption that he was the "Meister Jacob" so enthusiasticall}' 
 eulogized by that publisher. However readily these items of cir- 
 cumstantial evidence may lead to the conclusion drawn from them, 
 they would certainly be insufficient to establish Barbari's authorship 
 of the view in question, if the figures of Neptune and Mercury 
 on the woodcut did not furnish unmistakeable testimony of the 
 fact, in the manner in which they are designed. 
 
 Those mythological representations exhibit the mode of drawing 
 the human frame which may be remarked in Barbari's copper- 
 prints and paintings; namely, the effeminate and boneless figures, 
 and his peculiarly vague anatomical notions with regard to the 
 colligation of the limbs. The delineation of bodily form is, for 
 all that, fairly accurate; but it evinces no more than the mere 
 study of externals. We note a remarkable contrast to these and 
 to other examples of his figure-drawing, in the powerfully energetic 
 heads which represent the eight winds, blowing with distended 
 cheeks in the sky above the city in our woodcut. From these 
 and similar manifestations of his quality, it would hardly have 
 been anticipated that Barbari possessed sufficient force of character 
 
 ' See the documents cited by Thausing in his work on Durer. Kolb was 
 probably wanted for the purpose of utilising, in the work which the Emperor 
 desired to be performed, the great practical experience gained by him, during 
 the production of the View of Venice, in the art of printing blocks of large size.
 
 VENETIAN woodcuts: JACOPO DE BARBARI I3I 
 
 and artistic temperament, to worlv out the interminable architectural 
 and perspective details of the colossal Vediita, with so much 
 clearness and sharpness of design. Two other large woodcuts, 
 described for the first time by Bartsch' and ascribed by him to 
 Barbari, exhibit so plainly the style of his drawing that they may, 
 without hesitation, be regarded as the work of his hand. A fully 
 detailed account of them is given by Bartsch, and also by Passa- 
 vant (Peintre Graveur, III, p. 141). The one, which is of nearly 
 rectangular form, 39 centimetres high by 49V., in breadth, represents 
 a battle in a hilly landscape, between naked men and a host of 
 satyrs. The other is larger (127 centimetres in length by 29 in 
 height) and is executed as a frieze decoration. It is combined 
 from the impression of three separate blocks, and exhibits a sort 
 of triumphal procession, in which Cupid, holding a moneybag in 
 his arms, is sitting in a car drawn by sirens, and surrounded by 
 a number of other personages and allegorical figures. 
 
 On the first of those two woodcuts, we observe a man holding 
 a trident with a label containing the letters Q. R. F. E. V. This 
 inscription is read by Bartsch as signifying "quod recte factum 
 esse videtur''; but whether he is correct or not must remain a 
 moot question. On the larger woodcut, the same initials are 
 repeated; but, in addition, we find men bearing a tablet containing 
 the words "Virtus excelsa cupidinem ere regnantem domat". 
 
 The latter engraving belongs decidedly to the cycle of alle- 
 gorical Triumphi, formed by those recompositions and conti- 
 nuations of the Triumphs of Petrarch which, in the fifteenth 
 and sixteenth centuries, furnished artists with favorite material 
 for the exercise of their powers. Some day perhaps, we may be 
 enabled to trace the literary source of this, and of other com- 
 positions of the same kind which still remain unelucidated. There 
 is a possibility that the fight between men and satyrs was intended 
 to symbolise the struggle between Virtue and Vice, but the matter 
 remains as yet incapable of demonstration. 
 
 From the artistic point of view, those two woodcuts do not 
 occupy so high a place as the prospect of Venice. The drawing 
 
 1 Die Kupferstichsammlung der K. K. Hofbibliothek in Wien. Vienna. 
 1854. 8vo. Nos. 366, 367. 
 
 9*
 
 I '^2 VENETIAN WOODCUTS: JACOPO DE BAR15AR1 
 
 of the figures and the scenery is more slovenly, less tinished, 
 and meaner in performance. In the landscape, especially in 
 the background, the German intluence reveals itself even more 
 than in other works by Barbari. The technical work of the 
 wood-engraver is decidedly less delicate, less sharp and clear, 
 and evidently by hands inferior in skill to those which executed 
 the large View. 
 
 Reviewing the appearance of those large woodcuts, which 
 seem far more like the learned concoction of a scholar's brain, 
 than the independent conception of an artist's genius, we feel 
 impelled to inquire the reason which induced Barbari to design 
 them. Thev were portion, perhaps, of the labours undertaken 
 by him for Maximilian during the years 1501 — 1504, in which he 
 was actively employed as the Emperor's "Illuminator" at Nurem- 
 berg; and they may have formed the opening tableaux of the 
 series of Triumphs and Pageants, in devising which, as we know, 
 that sovereign and his circle of friends, literary and artistic, spent 
 so much time and ingenuity. 
 
 If the inference from the b initial which is found on two of 
 the Poliphilo cuts, leads us immediately to consider Barbari as 
 the owner of that signature; on the other hand, when we com- 
 pare the illustrations in that book with the large woodcuts men- 
 tioned above, we are struck by the extraordinary paucity of such 
 points of resemblance as might indicate their common origin. 
 The separate woodcuts, by their large dimensions and isolation 
 of character, furnish, it is true, anything but a favorable basis of 
 comparison with the small designs of the book, linked as these 
 are by a current of successive and interdependent ideas. In the 
 view of Venice, everything was drawn scrupulously from nature, 
 in order to satisfy the critical eyes of the inhabitants, who knew 
 their cit}' well. Every means which the art of wood -engraving 
 then afforded, was utilised, we may even say refined upon, so as 
 to give chromatic effect to the picture. The distribution of light 
 and shadow is powerfully marked, and even the sheets of water 
 are divided into distinct spaces of darkness and lustre. The 
 figures of Mercury and Neptune, as well as the heads representing 
 the Winds, are likewise shaded thus, and the bodies and limbs
 
 VENETIAN woodcuts: JACOPO De' BARBARI 1 33 
 
 are modelled in relief by masses of fine strokes and hatchings, in 
 the style of copper-engraving.' 
 
 The two large allegorical woodcuts are, from their size, no 
 less unsuitable than the View, to be set in comparison with the 
 relatively small designs of the Poliphilo. In them, likewise, the 
 technical method of execution on the block, seems to indicate 
 that they belong to a different period of the artist's career, from 
 that in which the Poliphilo illustrations of 1499 and the View 
 of 1500, were produced. 
 
 Finally, it should not be forgotten that the master of the 
 Hypnerotomachia, whoever he was, had been trained in the 
 practice of that st}4e of book- illustration which was in prevalent 
 use at Venice, and naturally performed his work in the regular 
 fashion of outline - drawing, with all its customary methods of 
 treatment. A man of such versatile artistic temperament as we 
 may reasonably assume that Barbari was endowed with, would 
 have found little difficulty in adapting himself to the most varied 
 conditions, and would have been able to work, now in one st\^le, 
 then in another. He could not have had the tact and originalit}^, 
 T^hich — on the assumption that he was indeed the master "b" 
 of the Malermi Bible and the Poliphilo, — he undoubtedly pos- 
 sessed, if he had failed to perceive that the outline-manner would 
 not be suitable for the large View. Moreover, the view of Florence, 
 then ten years old, must have lain before him as an example, 
 and an indication of the mode in which such work ought to be 
 performed. 
 
 The differences of technical treatment, in the Venice view, 
 and the Poliphilo illustrations, are so great, that the marks of 
 
 1 The close fidelity to nature shown in the view of Venice, may be realised 
 even at the present time. In the first issue of the woodcut, the tower of 
 St. Mark is cut short with a blunt round roof. This was the temporary covering 
 constructed when the old spire had been destroyed by lightning in 1498. The 
 second issue of the engraving exhibits the high stone roof which was built 
 between 151 1 and 1514, and which is still in existence. The date of 1 500, which 
 had appeared on the original impression, was suppressed in the second issue. 
 The blocks were worked again, subsequently, but in these latest impressions 
 the publisher re-established the old low roof, in order to give his copies the 
 fraudulent semblance of original proofs. The blocks have not perished, but 
 are still preserved, although sadly worm-eaten, in the Museo Correr at Venice.
 
 1^4 VENETIAN woodcuts: jacopo de barbari 
 
 affinity between those two works, although certainly not absent, 
 disappear entirely before the numerous dissimilitudes. But this 
 is only at first sight; closer examination will discover traces of a 
 certain essential relationship. 
 
 The manner in which cloud-forms are drawn, in the Hypne- 
 rotomachia, for example, in the woodcuts on folio E6 and Ey, is 
 conspicuously similar to the mode of delineating the clouds which 
 surround Mercury, and the Winds, on the View of Venice. In 
 both places, they are round, rolling, shapes, wholly unshaded, and 
 formed by bold strokes with peculiar indentations. Cloud -forms, 
 exactly of this sort, will hardly be met with anywhere else. The 
 treatment of shading, upon smooth wall-surfaces, is also very niuch 
 alike in both works. 
 
 Even between Barbari's copper- prints and the woodcuts of 
 the Hypnerotomachia, very few analogies can be discovered. 
 
 Hartmann was the first to observe that the copper- prints of 
 Barbari belong probably to a later phase of the artist's work; and 
 that their appearance should perhaps be dated during the period 
 of his residence in the Netherlands (Naumann, Archiv). The 
 critic deduced his opinion from the watermarks of the paper on 
 which the impressions of the prints were usually struck oif. This 
 reasoning is not conclusive as to the time at which those engravings 
 were designed or even incised upon the copper, since Barbari 
 would certainly have taken with him, on removing to the Nether- 
 lands, whatever plates he had prepared. Thus, most of the im- 
 pressions which have come down to us may have been taken in 
 the Low Countries, even irrespectively of the thin and delicate 
 style of engraving, suggesting, as it does, the influence of Lucas 
 van Leyden, and the manner of the dilettante engravers of the 
 Netherlands who belonged to the school of Mabuse. The purely 
 Italian mode of handling the graver is seen in but a few of Bar- 
 bari's plates; the Madonna (Bartsch, Le Mait. au Caducee, VII, 
 p. 519, Nr. 6) shews it to some extent. 
 
 Whatever the fact may have been, it is undeniable that the 
 Poliphilo woodcuts are drawn with far more ability, and are much 
 more Bellinesque, than Barbari's copper-prints; but there is, at 
 the same time, a considerable analogy of style between them in
 
 VENETIAN woodcuts: JACOPO DE BARBARI 1 35 
 
 the delineation of heads. In both, we observe the same strong 
 development of the occiput, the same type of features, and the 
 same peculiar form of the nose, springing large and broad directly 
 from the forehead. 
 
 Undoubtedly, all the details alleged here would not, of them- 
 selves, suffice to identify Barbari with the master of the Poliphilo. 
 For that proof, more cogent reasons would be required than the 
 mere adducement of occasional resemblances of treatment. 
 
 The master "b" of the Hypnerotomachia cannot be judged 
 from that work only. He was also the creator of a considerable 
 series of illustrations, all of which do not perhaps bear his signa- 
 ture. The woodcuts of the 1497 Ovid are so thoroughly akin to 
 those of the Poliphilo, in their drawing and composition, and in 
 the attitudes and motions of the figures, that there can be little 
 hesitation about assigning them to the same artist's hand. On 
 the other hand, the circumstance that those Ovid cuts bear a 
 different monogram, — one which we have endeavored to assign 
 to Jacob of Strassburg — and, more especially, the particular 
 position occupied by this second "Jacobus" in reference to early 
 Venetian wood -engraving, combine to increase the difficult}^ of 
 elucidating the problem which lies before us. 
 
 In the Ovid we observe now and then, — in the single figures 
 in the fourth book, for instance — a somewhat closer affinit}^ of 
 manner, than in the Poliphilo, to the authenticated paintings and 
 copper- prints of Barbari; but most of the Ovid woodcuts harmo- 
 nise as little as those of the Hypnerotomachia with the recognised 
 type of that artist's work. 
 
 If the master "b" was, as we believe, the designer of the 
 Ovid pictures, he was likewise, in all probability, the artist who 
 drew the cuts for the Ketham of 1493. The latter illustrations are, 
 as regards the qualit}^ of design, and the technical execution, at 
 least equal to those of the Poliphilo. The larger scale of the 
 drawing conduced to the achievement of a more complete success 
 with the heads of the figures, and in other details; but, apart 
 from such diversities as these, which merely grew out of the 
 mode of delineation, we discover in the Ketham compositions, 
 the same motives of position and attitude as in the Poliphilo, and
 
 136 VENETIAN woodcuts: JACOPO De' HARHARI 
 
 a thoroughly similar style of conception. In the Ketham, however, 
 we find a much closer suggestion of the manner of Gentile Bellini, 
 than of Barbari's. 
 
 In spite of all this, we cannot resist the notion that the most 
 eminent designer of A'cnctian woodcuts between 1490 and 1500, 
 was no other than the illuminator, Jacopo de' Barbari. We know 
 that he quitted \^enice in the latter year. It was just about the 
 same time that the method of outline-engraving, and the cognate 
 style of drawing, which till then had been characteristic of Venetian 
 woodcuts, fell into disuse. The last illustrative work of that kind, 
 at least the latest which is known to us, appeared in the above- 
 mentioned edition of the Settanta Novelle of Sabadino dcgli Arienti, 
 in 1504. After that date, there was no further production of cuts 
 like those of the Malermi Bible and the Hypnerotomachia. 
 
 From a man of Barbari's peculiar disposition, sudden and 
 unexpected changes of style might naturally have been expected. 
 Other artists, who combined the practice of painting and of illu- 
 mination in equal measure, or who were preeminentl}^ masters 
 of both copper and W'Ood engraving, have before now exhibited 
 signal instances of radical alteration in their characteristics. Marc- 
 antonio Raimondi, Benedetto Montagna, and Lucas of Leyden 
 are cases in point. 
 
 After Barbari's departure, about the commencement of the 
 sixteenth century, Venetian wood -engraving seems to have sunk 
 into a kind of stagnation. The only movement was in the con- 
 tinued production of the ordinary illustrations for books of devotion, 
 which was still carried on in the workshops of Vavassore and 
 other men of the same class; until Ugo da Carpi made his appear- 
 ance and gave the art an entirel}^ new developement, based upon 
 the principles which guided the profession of Painting.
 
 MILANESE WOODCUTS BEFORE 1 492 
 
 51 
 
 T3^pography was introduced into Milan by Filippo di Lavagna, 
 in 1469. Ten 3'ears later, there issued from his press a book illu- 
 strated with copper- engravings, a small religous tract called the 
 Summula di pacific a Conscientia by Fra Pacific o di No vara. ' 
 
 From the Quadragesimale. Milan, 1479. 
 The Author's Portrait. 
 
 Of the three engravings in the Summula, only one possesses 
 any artistic interest. It represents the virtues of the Madonna, 
 
 1 The only copy known is in the Ambrosian hbrary at Milan. Folio a i : 
 lesumaria. El Titulo (E) 1 nome de Christo . . . comencia el prologo in la 
 Sequente opereta dicta Sumula ho uero sumeta de pacifica conscientia . . . 
 Folio D8 verso: Pacifici Nouarensis . . . per G. Brebiani in impressione recog- 
 nitum et Philippum de Lauagnia Mediolanensis impressum . . . opusculum . . . 
 9". Kalendas Apriles en (sic) uigilia Dominice Incarnationis expletum est 
 Anno 1479 . . . 4to.
 
 138 MILANHSK WOOnCUTS BI-IORE 1 4()2 
 
 symbolised as a fourfold crown; with the Annunciation in smaller 
 tigures above it. The execution of the print in fine hatched work 
 is clear and firm; but, beyond the general characteristics of the 
 Italian art of the period, there is so little distinctive trace of any 
 particular school, that we cannot be sure whether it was indeed 
 a native product of Milanese talent, or was merely a plate procured 
 elsewhere for the use of the printer. From the circumstance that 
 Lavagna illustrated his press-work with copper-prints, we might 
 assume that wood -engraving was still in its infancy, at Milan. It 
 was not quite unknown and unpractised, for all that, since Leo- 
 nard Pachet and Ulrich Scinzenceller printed in the same year 
 (i47()), in that city, the Breriariiiin loliiis jiwis canonici of Paulus 
 Florentinus, which contains a small outline woodcut of much 
 excellence, representing the author at work, within an architectural 
 border. • This fancy -portrait is drawn with extreme taste and 
 delicacy, but, although evidently a genuine Milanese performance, 
 it was probably nothing more than the isolated and incidental 
 essay of a clever artist; for, the use of woodcut illustrations, to 
 any considerable extent, is not found to have come into fashion 
 at Milan for several years after that date, in fact, not till after the 
 beginning of the last decade of the century. Even then, the art 
 was of a totally dilTcrent character from that which marks the small 
 woodcut of 1479. 
 
 From about the year 1492 onwards, the practice of illustrating 
 books with woodcuts was regularly pursued at Milan; and the 
 same was the case with regard to the typographical productions 
 of other towns that lay within the influence of Milanese art. A 
 relatively small school of Milanese wood-engraving came then into 
 existence, and began a career of continuous activit}^, producing 
 not only work for the printers, but also single detached prints. 
 It developed indeed a specific character, marked out with some 
 
 ' The initials M • P. F. O. S. S., under the picture, signify Magister Paulus 
 Florentinus ordinis Sancti spiritus. This woodblock seems to have had some 
 strange adventures; as we find it seven years later in an edition of the same 
 work printed in i486 at Memmingen in Germany by Albert Kune. Rothscholtzius 
 reproduces this little woodcut in his Insignia Bibliopolarum, taking it erroneusly 
 for the mark of the Memmingen printer.
 
 The Triumph of Time. From the Petrarch of Milan, Zaroto, 1494.
 
 MILANESE WOODCUTS AFTER 1 492 I4I 
 
 distinctness, but never rose to the large comprehensiveness of the 
 Venetian school, or to the peculiar greatness of the Florentine 
 which formed in itself a cycle of artistic culture. 
 
 The few large illustrations in Franchini Gafori's Theorica 
 Musicce, printed in 1492 by Mantegazza ( — "Philippus Mantegatius'' 
 is the form used by himself — ) are very coarse and primitive. 
 Far better, and of considerable interest from various points of 
 view, are the six folio -sized Triumji which appear in the Petrarch 
 printed in 1494, at Milan, by Antonio Zaroto of Parma. The 
 engravings of the Florentine edition furnished the compositions 
 for Zaroto's book, as for others; but there is a remarkable connexion 
 between the cuts in the Milanese volume, and those in the Venetian 
 Petrarch mentioned above (p. 94). The first two Triumphi of 
 the former — the Triumph of Love and the Triumph of Chastity — 
 were imitated from the corresponding illustrations in the latter; 
 but the other four, namely, the Triumphs of Death, Fame, Time, 
 and Christ, were copied directly, and with tolerable accuracy of 
 reproduction, from the Florentine copper- prints. It is evident 
 that these four were not drawn by the same hand as the former 
 two. The designer surpassed his Florentine model in a certain 
 energ}^ which marks the composition, but he was very far indeed 
 from attaining to the delicacy of execution observable in the copper- 
 engraving. He succeeded, however, in rendering all the details of 
 the original happily enough in his rough woodcut style. His 
 four pictures are framed within borders of appropriate character; 
 different from those which enclose the first two Triumphi, and 
 which, like the cuts within them, were borrowed from the 
 Venice edition. 
 
 The curious circumstance of two different sets of engravings, 
 — copper- prints, and woodcuts — having been taken by the 
 illustrator of Zaroto's Petrarch as the patterns for his own work, 
 may be explained by conjecturing that the set of copperplates 
 only fell into his hands, after he had finished the cutting of his 
 first two blocks in imitation of the woodcut models; or else, that 
 he possessed no more than four of the Florentine prints, and was 
 obliged to have recourse to the Venetian woodcuts of 149 1 to 
 obtain the designs of his first two pictures.
 
 142 MILANKSK WOODCUTS AITKR I 4()2 
 
 A further progress of the art in Milan was evinced in the 
 editio priucL'ps of Franchini Gafori's Practica Musicw, printed in 
 i4()(> by Guillaume Le Signerre of Rouen (Guillcrmus Signerrc 
 Rothomagensis). It is a small folio volume, with a woodcut on the 
 title-page representing the nine Muses and an allegorised picture 
 of the harmony of the spheres. Two of the leaves of text have 
 ornamental borders; one of which (folio a redo) illustrates the 
 Power of Music, in a design of Amphion (compelling the walls 
 to rise round Thebes), Arion, and Orpheus; and the other (folio 
 c c recto) exhibits Gaforio giving instruction to his pupils. The 
 style of drawing in those cuts is decidedly quite Milanese; their 
 technical execution, in its thin and linical appearance, resembles 
 early Venetian work. The blocks may have been cut by work- 
 men from Venice; — in which way, probably, Milan derived a 
 portion of her artistic growth from that city. 
 
 A similar note of Venetian influence upon Milanese technique 
 is seen in the vignette woodcuts which decorate the Legendario 
 di Santi padri historiado vulgar, printed by Ulrich Scinzenzeler 
 at Milan in 1497. ' The illustrations, some of them very charmingly 
 composed, were evidently designed by a Milanese artist, who took 
 the cuts of the Malermi Bible, and other books of the same kind, 
 for his models, and imitated them very happily. 
 
 F'rom the press of Guillaume Le Signerre, who had printed 
 the 1496 Gafori, there issued in 1498, a work in which the text 
 seems almost lost in the multitude of the illustrations. This is a 
 religious picture-book, intitled the Specchio di Anima, to which, 
 in the number of its decorative woodcuts, there hardl}^ exists a 
 rival, in the Italian publications of the fifteenth century. On the 
 forty four leaves of which it consists, there are sevent}' eight cuts, 
 each occupying the full size of a large quarto page.- 
 
 1 Folio a I : irititulation, Legendario di Santi istoriado vulgar. At the end: 
 Finisse legende de Sancti composte per el . . . frate lacopo de Voragine . . . 
 traducte in lingua vulgar per . . . nicholao de manerbi veneto . . . stampate in 
 Milano per Magistro Vlderico Scinzenzeler MCCCCLXXXXVII. 4to. From 
 the copy in the Vienna Hofbibliothek. 
 
 2 Ferraro (loh. Petro de Vigevano) Specchio di Anima. Folio i recto: 
 II Nome di Questo Libro e In Litato (sic) Specchio di Anima. Folio 1 verso:
 
 MILANESE WOODCUTS AFTER 1 492 1 43 
 
 Nine leaves at the beginning are given to tlie story of Adam 
 and Eve; the life and death of Christ are depicted in the remainder. 
 The designs are vigorously executed in coarse thick outlines, with 
 scarcely any touch of shading. The figures are animated and easy; 
 but the expression is frequently surcharged. On the whole, the 
 illustrations of the Spechio seem to be the work of a second-rate 
 artist, who w^as however endowed with original conceptions; but 
 his style is a medley of antiquated forms and newer elements. 
 He was a Milanese, and belonged to the school of Donato Montor- 
 fano or some other painter of similar kind. It is not impossible 
 that he had been a miniaturist of manuscripts. We have no 
 direct evidence of any connexion between the illuminators and 
 the wood-engravers, but many circumstances indicate its likelihood; 
 especially, the peculiar mingling of various st3'les which may be 
 remarked no less in the miniatures of the close of the fifteenth 
 century, than in the woodcuts of the same period. 
 
 The technical execution of the woodcuts in the Spechio is 
 cramped, and indeed, to some extent, clumsy. The heads and 
 faces, particularly, are disfigured almost to the verge of caricature; 
 and it seems as though various hands, of different degrees of skill, 
 were engaged in the cutting of the blocks. These workmen can 
 scarcely have been from Venice, as there is no suggestion of the 
 Venetian manner in their work. Le Signerre may have employed 
 only Milanese craftsmen in the production of his illustrated books. 
 
 A large proportion of the woodcuts of the Spechio had a new 
 application in the following year, 1499, when they were inserted by 
 Le Signerre in a different book. This was the Tesauro Spiritiiale, 
 a volume which is now equally rare with the Spechio. It is un- 
 mentioned by the professional bibliographers, and the onl}' copy 
 known to us is preserved in the Berlin Print- room. ^ 
 
 Al . . . domino Ludovico Mari Spor . . . Folio 6 verso: hoc opus lingue ytalice 
 traductum fuit per deuotu Ludouicum besalu Hispanic feliciter scripsit anno . . . 
 1498. Folio 44 verso: Impressum Mediolani per Guillermos le Signerre fratres 
 Rothomagenses MCCCCLXXXXVIII di XXIII martii. Impensis Johanis de 
 bifignadis de Vigleuano. Laus deo Amen. With the printer's mark of the 
 Signerres. From the copy in the Ambrosian library at Milan. 
 
 ' The title is xylographic and runs thus: — Tesauro Spirituale: | cum le 
 epistole et j euangelii histori j ate: cum le meditatione de sancto Bonaventura.
 
 144 MILANESE WOODCUTS AFTl-R 1492 
 
 In additions to the cuts borrowed iVom the SpecJiio, the 
 Tl'sjid-o contains a number ol' new ones which are not by the 
 same hand as the others. They are liner, and mark a clear ad- 
 vance in the Icnowledgc of design; while it is evident that the 
 execution of the block -cutting was entrusted to workmen more 
 skilled than those who had laboured on the Spechio. The technical 
 treatment of the new cuts is also dillerent, in so far as they 
 exhibit a particular method of shading with slanting parallel lines, 
 tending to harmonise the general elfect. The figures are smaller 
 than in the Spechio, and disposed with greater ease and more 
 mastery of composition. The designs are enclosed within orna- 
 mental borders, worked in white upon a black ground. The border 
 is omitted in the facsimile which we give of one of the newer 
 illustrations from the Tesauro. 
 
 At Milan, as well as elsewhere, we hnd an edition of iEsop 
 among the earliest illustrated books produced by the printers. 
 Le Signerre published one in 1498, containing Accio Zucco's text, 
 with woodcuts which are copies of those in the Venice ^Esop of 
 1492, and by no means ill done. The designs in the preliminary 
 life of iEsop, are independent creations, and not without elegance. 
 They were evidently drawn by the same hand as the better cuts 
 of the Tesauro. But the blockcutter's work in the ^Esop is irre- 
 gular, and to some extent defective.' 
 
 In the same year 1498, the Signerres transferred their press 
 to Saluzzo. Louis II, Marquis of Saluzzo, a prince remarkable 
 for his learning and his love of classical antiquity, had founded 
 an academy there, in which he occasionally read erudite disser- 
 tations of his own. He had endeavored to introduce printing into 
 
 Verso: Alo . . . domino Lodouico Maria Sphor . . . Duca de Milano . . . lo. Petro 
 Ferraro da Viglcuano .... At the end: Impressum Mediolani per Guilermos le 
 Signerre fratres Rothomagenses. MCCCCLXXXXVIII. die XVIIII. Martii. Impen- 
 sis lohannis de bitignandis de Vigleuano. 410. With the printers's mark of 
 Signerre. Sign. a-m. 73 leaves. 63 woodcuts of full -page size. 
 
 ' Aesopus. Folio i recto: Le fabule de Esopo vulgare e latine Historiade. 
 Folio I verso: Accii Zuchi . . in Aesopii fabulas interpretatio ... At the end of 
 the Life: Impressum mediolani p Guillermos le Signerre fratres Rothomagenses . . . 
 (1498) . . . die quidecimo mensis septembri. Impensis Gotardi de ponte. 4to. 
 An imperfect copy in the Ambrosian library.
 
 THE CONVERSON OF MARY MAGDALEN 
 FROM THE -TESAURO SPrRn UALE". OF JOH. PETR. FERRARO DA VIGl.FVANO. Ml 
 AFTER IHE ONLY KNOWN CORY, IN THE ROYAL PRINl-ROOM AT
 
 St. Jerome. From Vivaldus: "De Veritate Contricionis", Saluzzo, Le Signerre, 1503.
 
 WOOD - ENGRAVING AT SALUZZO I G. LE SIGNERRE 1 47 
 
 his little capital long before. The Turinese printer, Giovanni Fabri, 
 took up his abode in Saluzzo in 1479, but only for a short while. 
 Martino della Valle, another printer from Turin, followed Fabri 
 in 1481; and in 1498, the brothers Le Signerre, as we have said, 
 took up their residence there. ^ 
 
 Two books which issued from the press of Saluzzo are 
 decorated with woodcuts of unusual excellence. They are both 
 works of one author, the Dominican monk Giovanni Ludovico 
 Vivaldo, who was the Marquis's trusty councillor. 
 
 The first of the two works, a theological treatise on contrition, 
 was printed in 1503, by the order of the Marquis, and at his 
 expense, according to the statement in the colophon. It is also 
 dedicated to him.- 
 
 At the beginning of the book, there is an excellent woodcut 
 representing St. Jerome as an anchorite. By its design, as well 
 as by the method of its engraving, this fine illustration is seen to 
 belong to the Milanese school, notwithstanding some suggestions 
 of Veronese influence, particularly in the ornamental border, which 
 is very rich and elegant. The engraving is done with great care, 
 although the lines are simple and bold; and the effect produced 
 is one of concentrated power. In its treatment, this woodcut 
 reminds us of the prints which are usually ascribed to "Battista 
 del Porto" of Modena, and to which we shall make further 
 reference in the sequel. 
 
 Some years later, — in 1507, — Vivaldus published the second 
 book alluded to above. It is superior even to the other, in the 
 beauty of its woodcut adornment; and was printed by Jacobus 
 de Circis and Sixtus de Somachis at the press which they worked, 
 for a short time, at Saluzzo. The title of the book is Opus Regale'^ 
 
 1 Litta's statement (Famiglie celebri) that Erhard Ratdolt was printing at 
 Saluzzo in 1495, is based upon some misconception. Ratdolt had quitted Italy 
 long before that date, and was then actively employed in typography at Nuremberg. 
 
 2 Vivaldus (Jo. Lud.) Folio i recto: Aureum Opus de Veritate Contricionis 
 in quo mirifica documenta eterne Salutis aperiuntur. Fol. 160 verso: Preclarum 
 Opus de Veritate contricionis Salutijs impressum mandato ac espensis Ilustrissimi 
 ac Clementissimi principis Ludovici Marchionis Salutiar ac Viceregis Neapolitani 
 Meritissimi p. Guillermu et Guillermum le Signerre fratres Rothomagenses 
 Anno Salutis 1503 die primo Julij Feliciter. — With the printers' mark. 
 
 10'
 
 148 WOOD -ENGRAVING AT SALUZZO! G. I.K SIGNERRE 
 
 its text is a series of politico-philosophical essays, preceded by a 
 letter of condolence addressed to Marguerite de Foix, the widow 
 of the Marquis whose death had taken place in 1504. 
 
 The prince's portrait is prefixed to the epistle. It shows us, 
 in profile, and looking towards the right, a fine intellectual head, 
 which stands out in strong relief from a background of dense 
 shadow. The expression of the face, which is somewhat ascetic 
 and melancholy, harmonises with the inscription beneath it, — 
 the words of Job (IX, 25) "Dies mei velociores fuerunt cursore; 
 fugerunt, et non viderunt bonum". The design and the engraving 
 alike are of exquisite perfection. The portrait was evidently drawn 
 by a master of the Milanese school; the block-cutter s performance 
 is also Milanese in character. The principle of delineation apparent 
 in the accessory ornament, and the technical manner in which it 
 is worked out, remind us of the woodcuts in the illustrated books 
 produced at Milan by the brothers Le Signerre. The other two 
 fullpage cuts in the Opus Regale are of similar artistic character. 
 One of them, prefixed to a "tractatus de laudibus trium liliorum", 
 is a picture of St. Louis kneeling at prayer, with a seraph who 
 bears his crown, hovering above him; while the Madonna with 
 the Infant Jesus appears within a halo of glory. The second 
 represents St. Thomas attended in his cell by two angels. These 
 two illustrations are executed with the utmost delicacy in regular 
 outline-style; and the type of Milanese art is clearly expres.sed in 
 them as in the first woodcut. It must remain doubtful whether 
 the cuts in the two works of Vivaldus are to be regarded as essays 
 of an independent artistic movement at Saluzzo, or as examples 
 of design and workmanship from another source — Milanese 
 perhaps — obtained for the use of Saluzzan t3^pographers. 
 Probability tells for the latter assumption, especially as the en- 
 gravings in the Opus Regale, and the De j^eritate contricionis are 
 the only specimens known to us of woodcut-illustration in books 
 printed at Saluzzo.' 
 
 ' Gafori's work "de Harmonia musicorum instrumentorum", printed at 
 Milan in 15 13, contains some verses (quoted in Le Roux de Lincy's Recherches 
 sur Grolier) which show that Guillaume Le Signerre of Rouen was the engraver 
 (figurarum celator) of the woodcuts in that volume.
 
 Portrait of Louis II, Marquis of Saluzzo. From Vivaldus "Opus Regale". Saluzzo, 1507.
 
 WOOD -ENGRAVING AT MILAN DOWN TO 1 52 I I5I 
 
 The quattrocento st}4e of wood-engraving survived at Milan 
 till the years of the sixteenth century were running their course; 
 — much longer indeed than in Venice. The Milanese school, 
 the first dated productions of which made their appearance about 
 1492, seems to have enjoyed a continuous existence down to 1520, 
 and to have long conserved at least a portion of its distinctive 
 characteristics. The survival of the old system is, for example, 
 evinced in the title-woodcut of the Opus do. conjirmatione vite b. 
 Fy^ancisci, published in 151 3. It represents St. Francis bearing 
 the cross which he has taken from the shoulders of the Saviour; 
 while he follows in the footsteps of his divine Master. In this 
 cut we note all the forms of Milanese wood-engraving in the 
 fifteenth century; little modified, except that the figures are slightly 
 more rounded and less harsh. ^ 
 
 It was not till a relatively late period, that the woodcuts in 
 dated books began to show indications of Lionardo da Vinci's 
 influence upon art. A design of the Birth of the Saviour, very 
 Lionardesque in style, is found in the De Imperio militantis 
 Ecclesie of Isidorus de Isolanis, printed in 1517. The engraver's 
 work is highly effective, with its broad black masses of shadow, 
 approximating to the method of Florentine technique. Others of 
 the illustrations in that book are marked by the same kind of 
 treatment as the early Milanese examples in the Spechto di Ajiima; 
 but they may have been printed from older blocks already used 
 in some work now unknown to us. 
 
 In the group of Milanese woodcuts of what may be called 
 the Lionardesque school, we must include the prett}^ outline- 
 engravings which appear in a little book, printed in 1518, on 
 the Miracles of St. Vei~07iica;^ and finally the illustrations in the 
 "Vitruvius" of Cesare Cesariano, which was published in 1521 
 at Como, but is to be regarded as a genuine Milanese production. 
 
 1 Bartolomeo de Pisis, Opus de confirmatione vite beati Francisci ad vita 
 Due. Ihs. Christi . . . At the end: Impressum Mediolani in edibus Zanoti 
 Castilionei, 1513. 4'°- 
 
 2 Veronica Vigo, Inexplicabilis Mysterii gesta Beate Veronicse Virginis 
 praeclarissimi Monasterii Sanctae Marthae urbis Mediolani. At the end: Apud 
 Gotardum Ponticum . . . 15 18. Die III. Aprilis. 4^0-
 
 1^2 WOOD - ENGRAVING IN NORTH ITALY: FERRARA 
 
 The Strongly marked Lionardesque manner, in combination 
 with fine and vigorous drawing, which we observe in a number 
 of the cuts of the V'itruvius, give a special value to the book. 
 It is the latest work of Italian wood-engraving in which the 
 quattrocento method is still seen in its full vitality. The execution 
 is somewhat irregular, which was probably caused by Cesariano's 
 abandonment of his labour while the book was passing through 
 the press, so that the printer was obliged to have recourse to 
 other hands to finish it. 
 
 Amongst the best of the Vitruvius illustrations (which are 
 nearly all excellent) we may discriminate several which appear to 
 have been transferred to the wood from Lionardo's own drawings; 
 especially in that section of the work which relates to the pro- 
 portions of the human frame. But even in the architectural and 
 structural designs, Cesariano seems to have striven to reproduce 
 the clearness and the strong accentuation of form which are 
 distinctive qualities of Lionardo's art. 
 
 So far as we are in a position to judge, from the woodcuts 
 in printed books, it would appear that wood-engraving found no 
 special demand for its cultivation anywhere in North Italy, outside 
 of Venice and Milan. In those cities alone, a large number of 
 illustrated books issued from the press; and it was only in them 
 that the engravers' workshops developed their productiveness in 
 any traceable real connexion with the local schools of Painting. 
 Many printers in other towns experienced occasionally the need 
 of giving decorative embellishment to their publications, but they 
 caused the work to be done for them elsewhere, or at the most, 
 obtained the blocks from abroad, with the pictures traced upon 
 them, and handed them to native mechanics for the mere process 
 of cutting. Thus we find some books published at Ferrara which 
 are apparently quite Venetian in the character of their illustrations, 
 and others which are no less Florentine in the same way.
 
 FERRARESE WOODCUTS: BERGOMENSIS DE MULIERIBUS 1 53 
 
 A purely Venetian type is seen in the beautiful outline design 
 which decorates the translation of Farghani's Astronomy, printed by 
 Andreas Gallus at Ferrara in 1493 (Gerardus a Sabioneta, Compi- 
 latio Astronomica Mahometi Alfragani etc. Hain, 822). 
 
 A mixed character, partly Florentine and partly Venetian, 
 appears in the technical treatment of the cuts which are found 
 in the De pluribus clans sekctisque Mulieribiis, of Philippus 
 Bergomensis. This work, the most magnificent production of 
 the Ferrarese press, was published in 1497 by Laurentius de 
 Rubeis at Ferrara; but the large decorative border bears the 
 
 date of 1493.^ 
 
 The illustrations in the work of Bergomensis are imaginary 
 portraits of famous women; a series beginning with Eve, continued 
 through the most noteworthy female figures of the Bible, of heathen 
 mythology, and of classical antiquity, and concluding with the 
 writer's contemporaries. They are original and charming designs, 
 displaying a rich abundance of variety in conception, costume, 
 and accessories. Occasionally, a cut is repeated and made to serve 
 for the likeness of more than one heroine; but that is a matter 
 of little consequence. 
 
 The small portraits, although quite uniform in point of excel- 
 lence throughout the book, seem to be the work of various hands. 
 In one set, we may recognise the composition, drawing, and 
 execution of the Venetian school; in another, a distinct evidence 
 of relationship to Ferrarese art. Those of the latter kind exhibit, 
 in the treatment of the blocks, a method somewhat nearer to that 
 of the Florentine than to that of the Venetian engravers, in the 
 use of heavy masses of black. The two facsimiles which we give 
 here from the work of Bergomensis will illustrate this difference. 
 The portrait of "Cassandra Fideli'' is a specimen of the Venetian 
 group; that of "Paula Gonzaga'' exemplifies the Florentine. In 
 the large woodcut which fills the title-page, and represents the 
 
 1 A copy has been described as having the date of 1493 in its colophon, 
 but we are uncertain of the genuineness of the leaf on which that claim is 
 founded. See Quaritch's Catalogue 350, 1883; No. 14352 in the large Catalogue 
 of 1881-87, 6 vols. imp. 8vo. — The book, there stated to be unique, is now in 
 the Fine Art Museum of Boston, U. S.
 
 154 FERRARESE WOODCU IS BETWEEN 1 497 AND 1 c,0':; 
 
 author submitting his book to Beatrice of Aragon, we see the 
 Ferrarese art of design blending with the technique of Florentine 
 engraving. 
 
 The little outline vignettes in an Italian edition of St. Jerome's 
 Epistles (also printed b}' Lorenzo de Rossi at Ferrara in 14Q7 — 
 Hain, 8566) are quite Venetian in character. They resemble the 
 inferior sort of the similar illustrations which were produced at 
 Venice; and it is not improbable that they were designed and 
 executed in that city. 
 
 Another example of Ferrarese w^ork, of considerable charm, 
 is seen in a small quarto tract containing the funeral oration pro- 
 nounced at the obsequies of Ercole d'Este I. It was published by 
 Pescennius Franciscus Niger soon after the prince's death. On 
 the title-page, in a border which is executed in the Venetian out- 
 line-style, w^e find a medallion portrait of Ercole I, and, on the 
 last leaf, the figure of a poet, who is writing, while his lute hangs 
 on the branch of a tree beside him.^ 
 
 The title-page of a Missale, printed in 1503 at the Carthusian 
 press of Ferrara, contains a woodcut of St. Christopher, designed 
 1^ with great sharpness and precision, and engraved in a delicate but 
 powerful style. ^ This and the preceding instances seem to furnish 
 us wuth clear proof of the influence exercised by the local school 
 of Art upon the practice of wood-engraving at Ferrara. We may 
 reasonably suppose that a large proportion of such w^ork in that 
 cit}^ consisted of single leaves or broad sheets, now lost, beyond 
 all hope of recovery. 
 
 Mention has already been made of a Venetian engraved w^ood- 
 block being carried away to another place (Forli) for impression 
 there. In that case verification w'as ea.sy; it is more difficult in many 
 other instances in which, at insignificant and remote towns, we 
 light upon woodcuts of which we are morally certain that they 
 
 ' Title: PuUata Nigri contio in • D • Herculis • Inferias • D • M • — It is dated 
 at the end of the preface in a peculiar manner: Ex ferrario municipio caledis 
 piacularibus: (March i ?) a recociliata diuinitate uolumine qnto: Supra millesim: 
 et quingentenum. — Ercole I died on the 25 January 1505. The pamphlet 
 consists of twelve leaves, 410- 
 
 2 Title: Missale secundum ordinem carthusiensium. Colophon: . . . Im- 
 pressum in Monasterio Chartusie Ferrarie . . . MCCCCCiii die x. Aprilis. Folio.
 
 WOODCUTS PUBLISHED IN VARIOUS TOWNS OF NORTH ITALY 1 35 
 
 were executed in Venice. These are mostly single pictures; hardly 
 ever sets of illustrations. Books are occasionally found, decorated 
 with one, or two, seldom more, of such cuts, and bearing imprints 
 of Bologna, Siena, Modena, Ferrara, and other places; without 
 however inducing any notion that wood -engraving was practised 
 to any large extent in those towns in the fifteenth century. 
 
 Portrait of Ercole d'Este I. 
 
 From the funeral oration by Pesc. Franc. Niger. 
 
 Ferrara, 1505. 
 
 Those occasional and scattered productions have but a sub- 
 ordinate and slender value as facts in the history of Art; uncon- 
 nected as they are with the local t}'pe of the places in which they 
 were printed, and hopeless as it w^ould be to ascertain their real 
 origin exactly. They are besides, for the most part, works of an 
 inferior sort, a detailed enumeration of which would add no 
 essential touches to our picture of Italian wood -engraving in the 
 fifteenth century. 
 
 Of the single -leaf cuts, of North Italian origin, which have 
 survived from the fifteenth century, there are no dated specimens.
 
 156 
 
 RARITY OF SINGLE -LEAF WOODCUTS 
 
 and but few which indicate the place of impression. Their posi- 
 tion in art -history can only therefore be defined conjecturally. 
 From the examples at present known to us, we are drawn to 
 conclude that a large popular production of woodcuts, in loose 
 leaves and broadsheets, dealing with profane as well as sacred 
 subjects, existed contemporaneously with the illustration of printed 
 books, in North Italy. It was not, of course, so extensive as in 
 Germany, and the traffic was confined to a few places only. We 
 
 Portrait of Cassandra Fideii. 
 From Bergomensis, De Claris Mulieribus. Ferrara 1497. 
 
 have far better and readier sources of information concerning 
 Italian copper-engraving in the fifteenth century, than about the 
 contemporary practice of wood -engraving. The copper- prints 
 that have been preserved are much more numerous than the 
 woodcuts; which is not to be wondered at, since they were con- 
 nected with the names of famous masters, and thus acquired, at 
 a very early date, the reputation of articles of value. 
 
 With woodcuts, on the contrary, a circumstance tending to 
 their depreciation was the division of labour between the artistic 
 designer and the essentially mechanical block-cutter. The product
 
 RARIIY OF SINGLE- Lr:AF WOODCUTS 
 
 157 
 
 was regarded as really the work of the latter, and hence the general 
 opinion arose that wood -engraving was a meaner species of art. 
 The special chroniclers of the fine arts deemed it beneath their 
 attention to treat upon the subject. As illustrations in books, 
 numbers of cuts have been preserved, not from any recognition 
 of their w^orth, but simply because their position in printed volumes 
 saved them from destruction; while of the single leaves or broad 
 sheets of the early period, which were little prized at the time of 
 
 Portrait of Paula Gonzaga. 
 From Bergomensis, De Claris Mvilieribus. Ferrara, 1497. 
 
 their production and regarded with contempt afterwards, nearly 
 every example has perished. 
 
 It was the habit of the people in Germany to fasten pictures 
 of saints inside the covers of books and on the inner surface of 
 the lids of clothes-trunks; and that practice has been the means 
 of preserving for us almost every specimen or fragment now 
 existing of the primitive single-leaf woodcuts of German and Dutch 
 origin. There was no such custom in Italy; hence the extraordi- 
 nary difficulty of finding Italian woodcuts of the earliest period. 
 It is true that the Italians were no less assiduous than the Germans
 
 158 EXTANT I KAGMKNIS OF SINGLE-LEAF WOODCUTS 
 
 in pasting pictures of saints upon the doors and walls of their 
 dwellings, but almost ever3'thing of that kind has naturally disap- 
 peared in both countries. 
 
 The Berlin Print- room possesses a number of fragments of 
 Italian woodcuts, some of them of ver}^ early date, which, at the 
 demolition of an old house in Bassano, were rescued from the 
 walls of one of the rooms. A large woodcut of the Madonna 
 surrounded by angels, which was set above the framework of the 
 door in the same room, is now in the collection of Mr. William 
 Mitchell, in London. Other leaves or fragments of similar kind 
 exist sparsely in various places; all displaying marks of having 
 been used in the same way originall}^ With exception of the 
 Berlin Print- room, which is relatively the richest in relics of that 
 sort, the public collections of Europe possess but few examples 
 of the primitive essays of Italian wood-engraving. 
 
 Out of those scanty remains, we can form but a poor and 
 defective idea of the art as applied to the production of single-leaf 
 pictures in the fifteenth century. 
 
 We are ignorant of the extent to which wood-engraving was 
 practised in Italy before the introduction of Printing. With regard 
 to Venice only, it may be inferred, from the decree of the Senate, 
 dated 11. October 1441, forbidding the importation of "printed 
 pictures", that the art was in use there, in its application to various 
 industries, at that period, and must consequently have been culti- 
 vated for some considerable time. The prohibition was expressly 
 intended for the protection of the native "printers of cards and 
 pictures" (and stuff-printers) against foreign (undoubtedly German) 
 rivalry; and was based upon the alleged reason of the decay of 
 the printing-trade at Venice brought about by the introduction 
 from abroad of great quantities of playing-cards, and of coloured 
 and printed pictures.^ 
 
 ' The preamble of the decree runs as follows: Conciosia che I'arte, et 
 mestier delle carte, e figure stampide, che se fano in Venesia e vegnudo a total 
 Deffaction e questo sia per la gran quantita de carte da zugar, e fegure depente 
 stampide, le qual vien fate de fuora de Venetia . . . etc. — Bottari, Lcttere sulla 
 Pittura etc. V, p. 483.
 
 Fragment of an early N'enetian woodcut. 
 
 Original in the R. Print -room Berlin. 
 
 Reduced facsimile.
 
 COLOURED WOODCUTS FOR WALL -DECORATION l6l 
 
 We hear nothing of any printers or manufacturers throughout 
 the rest of Italy, whose trade was akin to that of the German 
 Brief driicker. That there was absolutely nothing of the kind, it 
 would, however, be too much to assume. It is only through the 
 survival of works dating from the close of the fifteenth centur}^, 
 that we become aware of the existence at that time of printing- 
 offices engaged in the production of woodcuts; such as the atelier 
 of Zoan Andrea Vavassore at Venice and that of Bartolomeo 
 Merlo at Verona. 
 
 It was the practice, in Italy no less than in Germany and in 
 the Low Countries, to colour the single-leaf woodcuts which fur- 
 nished the people with familiar pictures of the Virgin and the 
 Saints. The brush-work was a mere daubing, chiefly of red and 
 blue, on the more ordinary sort of those prints; but there are, 
 particularly in the collection of the Berlin Cabinet, some examples 
 of a superior style of colouring, used evidently for a better class 
 of purchasers. In these, the costumes of the figures were painted 
 in deep and vivid colours, the predominant hue being a red, made 
 brilliant by an admixture of gum; while the heads and flesh- 
 portions were more delicately, but no less opaquely, tinted. In 
 some rare instances, the appearance of a genuine picture was 
 realised, and it would seem as though the aim had been to 
 produce the effect of a true, if somewhat coarse, fresco -painting. 
 This inference harmonises with what has already been said as to 
 the custom of decorating the walls of rooms with woodcuts. 
 
 That such was the main purpose to which Italian single-leaf 
 
 woodcuts were intended to be applied, is probably the reason of 
 
 their prevalent great size; the usual dimension being that of a 
 
 large folio sheet. In Germany, the ordinary shape of most of the 
 
 popular woodcuts was small folio, or quarto, or even less; but 
 
 these sizes seem to have been rarely used in Italy, where, even 
 
 at the earliest dates, compositions were not unknown which covered 
 
 the surface of several united sheets of paper. In the sixteenth 
 
 century, the grandiose conceptions of the former time were still 
 
 maintained by the Italian wood-engravers, but new and dilTerent 
 
 means, and a more developed method, were employed to produce 
 
 the same breadth of effect. 
 
 II
 
 l()2 VARIOUS SINGLi:-LEAF WOODCUTS, NORTH - ITALIAN 
 
 As no single-leaf woodcut of primitive character has hitherto 
 been discovered, bearing any indication of the time and place of 
 its execution, we lack the ncccssar}' basis of fact on which to 
 construct a classification of the existing specimens. Nothing but 
 conjecture on the subject is left us. The character of several of 
 those earlv Italian woodcuts confirms the opinion, iounded on 
 the prohibitive decree of 1441, that A'enice was already, in the 
 fifteenth century, a chief manufacturing centre of the trade in 
 popular pictures. The Venetian type predominates distinctly in 
 the majority of surviving examples. 
 
 The Berlin Print- room possesses several specimens of those 
 popular Italian woodcuts, extremely simple in their mode of 
 execution, and, to all appearance, productions of an early date. 
 The fragment of a Madonna, surrounded by Saints, betrays the 
 Venetian-Gothic style in the architectural forms of the niche and 
 its border. The design is cut in strong and heavy lines. Of 
 similar character, and bearing a resemblance to the more primitive 
 German wood-engravings in the manner in which the block was 
 cut, is a print destined for the use of the pilgrims to the shrine 
 of Loretto, and bearing a xylographic inscription of several lines, 
 — which was, in 1884, in the hands of Arrigoni at Milan.' 
 
 There is a curious blending of elements in a woodcut of the 
 Madonna and Child (more than half life-size) now in the Berlin 
 Print-room. The conception and the mode of treatment are 
 Germanic, while the artistic style is North-Italian. It is either an 
 imitation of German work; or else the blockcutter (and designer?) 
 was a German settled in Italy. - 
 
 A purer Italian type, and a dexterous manipulation of the block, 
 characterise another Madonna picture, similar to the preceding, but 
 smaller, and only preserved in a fragmentary shape. It is coloured, 
 and the painting of the Virgin's face, especially, is done with great 
 care. — A reduced facsimile is given here. 
 
 * A reproduction was given in a description of the leaf published by the 
 owner. 
 
 2 We are unfortunately precluded from giving a facsimile of this interesting 
 broadsheet, as the necessary reduction of size would have rendered it impossible 
 to bring out the special characteristics of the engraving adequately.
 
 Tlic miracle of St. Martlui. 
 
 Woodcut of tlie Milanese School in the collection of Baron Kdmond de Rothschild. 
 
 Reduced Facsimile.
 
 
 FRAGMENT OF , 
 
 ADONNA WITH THE INFANT SAVrOUK 
 VOODCUT IN THE ROYAL PBINTROOM AT BERLIN 
 SIZE OF THE ORIGINAL
 
 VARIOUS EARLY SINGLE -LEAF WOODCUTS 165 
 
 In immediate natural succession to those two Madonnas of 
 the Berlin Print-room, Mr. MitcheU's large Madonna with Angels 
 and Saints, mentioned above, should take rank here. It is less 
 delicate in the details of the engraving, but remarkable by reason 
 of the rich composition, and the large dimensions of the work. 
 
 Sometimes the background of the picture is a mass of black, 
 with a white pattern showing through it; upon which the coloured 
 figures seem to stand out in bold relief. The effect is similar to 
 that of the dotted or stippled prints, an imitation of which was 
 perhaps intended. Of this kind is the Madonna JvitJi two Angels, 
 a quarto leaf in the Berlin Print-room. 
 
 A small folio leaf, also in the Berlin collection, representing 
 the Criicifxion, with the Virgin and St. John, is one of the rare 
 pieces in which we can trace a clear relationship (in some degree) 
 to a distinct school of Painting. The overstrained action of the 
 figures in this woodcut, the forced and extravagant play of emotion 
 in the features, were evidently derived from a composition by 
 Carlo Crivelli, or one of the followers of that master. 
 
 One of the single woodcuts in the Berlin Print -room, is 
 executed in the outline style familiar to us in the illustrated Venetian 
 books which were printed between 1480 and 1490. It represents 
 St. John standing amid the pillars of a temple, with the twelve 
 Candlesticks of the Apocalypse displayed right and left of him. 
 
 Another Madonna in the Berlin Print-room, — a fragment of 
 an engraver's proof taken off on the blank reverse of a piece of 
 printed paper — seems to belong rather to the school of Padua 
 or of Vicenza, although the manner in which the outline design 
 is cut upon the block is quite Venetian. We give a facsimile of 
 this woodcut in the size of the original. There is a second similar 
 fragment in the same collection, but of more archaic appearance; 
 which is, likewise, curiously enough, an engraver's proof. 
 
 Zoan Andrea Vavassore's workshop, of which we have already 
 made repeated mention, seems to have developed its full activity 
 in the pursuit of wood-engraving at Venice, about the year 1300; 
 and to have carried on, especially, a large manufacture of single- 
 leaf woodcuts. Of the signed productions of that printing-office, 
 few examples are known to us; but these are marked by pecu-
 
 |()() SINGLK-I.KAr WOODCUTS, VKNKTIAN ANH MlI.ANKSi: 
 
 liaritics sufficiently characteristic to enable us to recognise a con- 
 siderable number of unsigned ones. In addition to the woodcuts 
 bearing the signature of Vavassore, which have been mentioned 
 on a former page of the present treatise, the Berlin Print -room 
 possesses, along with a number of others evidently emanating from 
 his atelier, a fragment of a Last Supper^ of large folio size, and a 
 series of woodcuts in narrow folio, representing Christ and the 
 Apostles in single figures, 33 centimetres high. Even in these, the 
 peculiar style of design, coarsely Mantegnesque, which distinguishes 
 Vavassore, is strongly predominant; as well as his usual mode 
 of cutting the block, with slanting parallel lines to indicate the 
 shading. 
 
 There is, in the British Museum collection, a unique cop)^ in 
 perfect preservation, of a wood-print of the Bucenloro (the Venetian 
 ducal galley). This interesting cut was produced in the Vavassore 
 work-shop, and represents the gorgeous vessel moving along the 
 waters of a narrow canal, surrounded by a crowd of gondolas. 
 A large number of spectators appear on the banks. The Bucentoro 
 itself occupies more than half the leaf (which is about 120 centi- 
 metres in length, and 50 in height). The block -cutter's work is 
 rather coarse, but it is carefully executed. 
 
 In order to complete our sketch of the laborious activity of 
 the Venetian wood-engravers, at that period, in the production of 
 broadsheets and single prints, it is necessary here to refer the 
 reader to the descriptions, already given in various parts of this 
 dissertation, of such pieces as the woodcuts of Jacob of Strassburg, 
 and the large view of Venice b}' Barbari-V^'^alch. 
 
 There seems to have been, likewise, at Milan and among 
 artists of the Milanese school, as already mentioned, a certain 
 tendency to the production of single-leaf woodcuts. The number 
 of such works was probably not small. Some of the extant pieces 
 display a finished excellence, which proves that the designers were 
 perfectly acquainted with the technical conditions of their art, and 
 that the block cutters were amply trained to reproduce the drawings 
 correctly. 
 
 A large folio leaf, in the collection of Baron Edmond de Roth- 
 schild at Paris, exhibits an immediate relationship to the woodcut
 
 Ecce Homo. 
 
 Woodcut, Milanese School, X\' Century. 
 
 Reduced facsimile.
 
 SLNGLE-LEAF WOODCUTS OF MILANESE ORIGIN 1 69 
 
 illustrations in books printed by the brothers Le Signerre. It repre- 
 sents St. Martha sprinkling consecrated water over a dragon which, 
 being thus rendered helpless, is easily dispatched by a man with an 
 axe. It is a woodcut of great technical power, executed in the st}ie 
 of the Spechio of 1498, and the Tesauro of 1499, resembling them in 
 the peculiar combination of Milanese and Veronese characteristics. 
 The rich and tasteful border reminds us, in its drawing and com- 
 position, of the similar decoration around the cut of St. Jerome 
 which we described when mentioning the De veritate cojitricionis, 
 printed by Le Signerre at Saluzzo in 1 503 ; and of which we have 
 given a facsimile. The groups of angels and spiritual beings, with 
 the instruments of the Passion, which occupy the upper and 
 lower margins of the St. Martha woodcut are free copies of those 
 in the border of the Sitting Madonna, by Benedetto Montagna 
 and Jacob of Strassburg, described on a former page. 
 
 The Berlin Print-room possesses some woodcuts of the elder 
 Milanese school, of special importance for the consideration of 
 the group which we are now reviewing. One of those cuts, a 
 large folio leaf, represents the half figure of the Saviour, of nearly 
 life-size. He is bearing the cross, with His head bowed down, 
 and an expression of pain upon His face, which is turned to the 
 left. The figure is drawn with extreme simplicity, with but a 
 few strokes, in firm sharp lines. It is hardly more than an out- 
 line design, with the merest possible touch of inner shading. 
 Only the hair of the head, and the wood of the cross, exhibit 
 much indication of detail, thereby forming a strong contrast to 
 the rest of the picture. We are reminded of the characteristic 
 qualities of Andrea Solario\s work, by the clear-cut drawing 
 of the face, which has perhaps an excessive sharpness of line, 
 resembling copper-plate engraving. If we had fuller knowledge 
 of the relations subsisting at that time between artists and block- 
 cutters, and of the precise manner in which the division of their 
 compound labour was arranged, we should be enabled to classify 
 more correctly such woodcuts as this. As it is, the question here 
 as elsewhere must be left unsolved, whether we have to do with 
 a woodcut by the master himself ( — in this instance probably 
 Andrea Solario — ) that is, with one for which he drew the design
 
 lyo ,sint,i.i>i.i:af woodcuts of mii.a\i:.sf. origin 
 
 upon the block, and prepared it completely for the knife of the 
 journeyman; or whether the cut is to be considered as the 
 technical reproduction by a wood-engraver of a drawing not ori- 
 ginally intended as a model for engraving. 
 
 A pendant to the above print is found in a half figure Ecce 
 Homo, of which there arc, in the Berlin Print-room and in the 
 Hamburg Museum, late impressions, taken evidently from the 
 block when it was already in a worn and damaged state. The 
 cut is of about the same dimensions as the Christ bearuifr the 
 Cross, and shews the figure of the Saviour as seen in full face, 
 the mouth distorted with agon}', the teeth visible, and the reed 
 in His fettered hands. The Sun and Moon appear above His 
 head. According to the manner of conception and of drawing, as 
 well as from the technical method of the engraving, this leaf must 
 undoubtedly be assigned to the same artist, and the same work- 
 shop, as the Christ bearing the Cross. 
 
 Amongst the fifteenth-century woodcuts of the Milanese school, 
 there is, in the Berlin collection, a very remarkable portrait of a 
 beardless man. The line head, round and ample in its forms, 
 is turned in full profile towards the left, while from under the 
 small tight toque that he wears, long tresses of hair stream out 
 in rich profusion. The design of the contour is executed in 
 white upon a black ground. At first sight, this woodcut (which 
 we reproduce in a full-size photographic facsimile) resembles a 
 drawing washed in sepia. The hair, as well as the inner shading 
 of the head and face, is delicately worked in a faint blackish tint, 
 which serves to render complete the illusion that we have a free- 
 hand drawing, and not a woodcut, before us. A careful investi- 
 gation with a powerful microscope has given us assurance, that 
 in those parts, as well as in the rest of the picture, the pigment 
 is nothing more than the ordinary printers' ink, rolled on in the 
 usual manner, and worked into the paper by the press. The 
 contours of the head and face, with their soft and swelling lines, 
 so true to life, were cut upon the block with incomparable free- 
 dom and delicac}^ Not inferior in exquisite taste and skill is the 
 work of the printer who produced an impression so clear and 
 sharp. The greyish tones of the inner shading were printed from
 
 ITALIAN WOOnCUT, FIFTEENTH CENTURY 
 ORIGINAL IN THE BERLIN ROYAL PRINT-ROOM
 
 Christ carrying tiie Cross. 
 
 Woodcut, Milanese Scliool, XV Century. 
 
 Ivcduccd facsimile.
 
 SINGLE-LEAF WOODCUTS OF MILANESE ORIGIN 1 73 
 
 the same block as the deep blackness of the background, and at 
 the same time; not in the chiaroscuro method of a double process, 
 with two blocks. The artist probably obtained the effect to which 
 we have alluded, by a peculiar treatment of the block; lowering 
 the more prominent parts, scraping and roughening others, so as 
 to soften the impression of the ink upon the paper, and make it 
 seem like a washing in half- tints. The whole work has the ap- 
 pearance of an experiment, performed in order to test the possi- 
 biht)' of reproducing, by a woodcut, the characteristics of a tinted 
 drawing; in which, if such was indeed the object, the artist achieved 
 a marvellous and inimitable success. The process was not, 
 how^ever, capable of serving for more than a few impressions, 
 and must soon have been abandoned as unfitted for practical 
 purposes. In our facsimile, the technical qualities of the wood- 
 cut are to be rather divined than observed; particularly as the 
 flaws in the paper are exaggerated by the photographic process, 
 and, in the result, blend annoyingly with the details of the 
 design. — There is no signature or monogram to indicate the 
 author of this rare piece, which, in its w^ay, is unique. We 
 are reminded of Andrea Solario by the masterly precision of the 
 contour- drawing, and the soft expression of the features. The 
 possibility that this woodcut was an artistic essay of that master, 
 seems all the likelier from the fact that the two woodcuts already 
 mentioned as of the Milanese school, are suggestive of Solario's 
 
 style. 
 
 A workshop for prints and woodcuts, similar to that of Zoan 
 Andrea Vavassore, was in active operation about the beginning 
 of the sixteenth century, and used as its mark the initials I. B. 
 with the figure of a bird. 
 
 This mark, which appears upon a series of copper and wood 
 engravings, is interpreted by Zani as the signature of Giovanni 
 Battista del Porto, presumably a xModenese artist. ^ He promised 
 to give the grounds of his conclusion, in the third volume of his 
 great work; but that volume never came into existence, and we 
 remain unacquainted equally with the material upon which he 
 
 1 Materiali etc., p. 134.
 
 174 WOODCUTS AND PRINTS ASCRIBED TO GIO. BATT. DEI. PORTO 
 
 meant to base his assertion, and the process of reasoning which 
 led him to adopt such a reading. It may indeed have been nothing 
 more than the assumption of a probabiHt}', for his words do not 
 carry any consciousness of certitude. Giovanni Battista del Porto 
 is mentioned by Vendriani ^ as "a world-renowned copper-engraver, 
 who transmitted his fame to posterity through a great number of 
 works'', and the writer ends by saying that ''all this is taken from 
 Lancilotto in his Chronicles". In Tommasino Lancilotto's Chronicle, 
 however, there is nothing but a scanty mention of the family of 
 the Porti, three of its members being cited as distinguished gold- 
 smiths, while there is no allusion at all to our Giovan Battista. 
 The meaning of the monogram in question remains therefore 
 quite problematic. 
 
 However the case may stand, with regard to his name and 
 place of abode, we are sufficicnlK' assuied, from his works, of the 
 particular rank to be assigned to the artist whose monogram was 
 "I. B." The fourteen copper-engravings from his hand, of which 
 we have certain knowledge, are by no means uniform in their 
 execution. Generally speaking, he handled the graver with tolerable 
 skill, approximating rather to the German, than to the Italian, 
 technical method; and had evidently been trained in the study of 
 Diirer's early engravings. His works are not marked by any 
 qualities of the finer sort, and his compositions look as though 
 the}' were, in the main, borrowed from others. His subjects were 
 chielly mythological and classical, with backgrounds somewhat in 
 Durer's manner, and details adopted from the prints of that artist. 
 The period to which we must refer the labours of I. B. is marked 
 by one of his plates, representing a monstrous birth of twins 
 which took place at Rome in 1503. 
 
 The eight woodcuts which bear the same mark, of I. B. with 
 the bird, resemble collectively the set of copper-prints. There is 
 one in the Berlin Print-room, a single leaf of narrow small folio 
 si/e, which should be grouped with th(jse which Galichon and 
 Passavant have described. It represents Apollo and Daphne, and, 
 
 ' Raccolta de Pittori Modenesi etc. p. 45. — See Galichon, in the Gazette 
 des Beaux-Arts, IV, p. 265, where a catalogue is given of the artist's works on 
 copper and wood.
 
 St. Jerome. 
 
 Woodcut attributed to Giovanni Battista del Porto. 
 
 (A section from the left side of the design).
 
 WOODCUTS ASCRIBED TO GIO. BATTISTA DEL PORTO 1 77 
 
 although it bears no signature, exhibits such a likeness to some of 
 the cuts on which the I. B. appears, that we cannot hesitate to 
 include it among his works. A particularly close affinity is obser- 
 vable between this unmarked leaf, and the Vulcan forging the 
 arms of jEneas (Galichon, 8). 
 
 In the woodcuts of the master I. B. there is even less uniformity 
 of character than in the prints. There are wide diversities among 
 them, not only in the style of drawing, but in the method of 
 cutting the blocks. 
 
 One group of those cuts is distinguished by the delicate and 
 careful treatment of the latest period of Quattrocento art; with the 
 sharply accentuated drawing, and the simple mode of shading 
 with parallel strokes, which we have remarked in other works of 
 that time. 
 
 The best example of the group is a woodcut of St. Jerome in 
 the wilderness (Galichon, 3). The excessive emaciation of the 
 sainf s figure, and the richness of the landscape around him, remind 
 us, to some extent, of the copper-print by Benedetto Montagna, 
 in which the same subject is treated. The second mark which 
 appears on the woodcut, a little to the right of the "I. B.", and 
 which seems to be a monogram combined of "A" and "M", is 
 only found in a single other instance on work from I. B.'s hand; 
 — namely, on the woodcut of the Three Graces (Galichon, 6). 
 
 The figure of the youthful David (Galichon, i) is charming, 
 though severe, with a Florentine gracefulness of attitude. The 
 whole of this composition betrays a mixture of the Veronese 
 manner and of other elements, the artistic origin of which can 
 hardly be determined. The engraver's work shows more breadth 
 of execution than in the St. Jerome, but without any loss of vigour 
 and decision. Similar qualities mark the woodcut of The Three 
 Graces (Galichon, 6). 
 
 Of the Meleager and Atalanta (Galichon, 7) it may be assumed 
 that the design was based upon a composition by some artist of 
 the school of Soddoma. This is the largest of all the I. B. wood- 
 cuts, broadly and coarsely but very effectively, rendered on the 
 block. The Transformation of Actceon (Galichon, 4) is of similar 
 kind. In the Crucifixion (Galichon, 2), a design crowded with
 
 lyo WOODCUTS ASCRIBKD TO GIO. B.VTTISTA DEL PORTO 
 
 figures, we observe a totally dillerent character of work, which 
 distinguishes it from all the cuts described above. It is composed 
 of Venetian and Mantegnesque motifs, and is drawn for the most 
 part in pure outline. The last to be mentioned is the Vulcan 
 fori^ing the arms of ^iineas (Galichon, 8) in w^hich the design is 
 weak, and of the late-Florentine style; while the technical execution 
 is mean and undecided, betraying the hand of a mere journeyman. 
 
 So great is the variety of st}Me and technique, in the different 
 woodcuts of the so-called Battista del Porto, that it is impossible 
 to consider them all as having emanated from the same hand, 
 or as being works of a single artist. A man capable of producing 
 them all, and endowed, to such an unexampled degree, with the 
 power of changing his manner, and of working now in one style, 
 and now in another, at will, would have been, for his time, a 
 prodigy indeed. We are inclined rather to believe that the mark 
 of I. B. with the bird, was used by an atelier in which both kinds 
 of engraving were practised; that this workshop was situated in 
 Mantua, and that it may perhaps have been directed by a man 
 named Giovanni Battista del Porto. In that way, as it seems to 
 us, a satisfactory explanation will be found for this and many 
 similar phenomena in the history of old Italian Copper and Wood- 
 engraving. 
 
 The close of the fifteenth century marks a distinct epoch in 
 the history of Italian art. It is in no conventional way, but in 
 strict accordance with realities, that we speak of the Quattrocento 
 and the Cinquecento as two several periods in Art-history. Each 
 of them has its own special characteristics, and the transition from 
 one to the other synchronises almost exactly with the change of 
 the century. The cycle which began with the year 1501, brought 
 in its immediate train a thorough alteration of style, and introduced 
 a new element into Italian wood -engraving. We have had occasion, 
 in the course of our present essay, to glance sometimes beyond 
 the limit of the fifteenth centur}^, for the purpose of noticing works 
 which, by their style and origin, belonged rather to that century 
 than to the sixteenth, although dated in the latter. It is however 
 undeniable that the woodcuts of the fifteenth century form an 
 artistic group by themselves, and should be treated as a distinct
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF THE ART IX THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 
 
 179 
 
 phase in the history of Art. Their characteristics are, decision 
 and sharpness in the design, delicacy in the execution; in short, 
 the st}^le of treatment which produced, within narrow limits, and 
 as book- illustrations, those graceful and attractive pictures which 
 w^e have endeavoured to describe. 
 
 In the sixteenth centur}^, the artistic significance of the wood- 
 cuts used for book -adornment, ceased to exist, or else retired into 
 the back-ground. Students of chiaroscuro, and pupils of the 
 school of Titian, appropriated the art to themselves, and practised 
 it on a plan of large pictorial treatment, with broad and striking 
 effects. In its new phase, it seems to have become completely 
 sundered from the older fashion which we have striven to 
 review. Venice continued to retain her foremost place as the 
 chief seat of its cultivation, until, towards the close of the seven- 
 teenth century. Wood -engraving lost all its claim to rank as one 
 of the arts of design.
 
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