Chapter II: Progress of Wood Engraving (1)

Playing-Cards Printed from Wood-Blocks -- Early German
Wood-Engravers at Augsburg, Nuremberg, and Ulm -- Card-Makers and
Wood-Engravers in Venice in 1441 -- Figures of Saints Engraved on
Wood -- The St. Christopher, the Annunciation, and the St. Bridget
in the Collection of Earl Spencer, with Other Old Wood-Cuts
Described -- Block-Books -- The Apocalypse, the History of the
Virgin, and the Work Called Biblia Pauperum -- Speculum Salvationis
-- Figured Alphabet Formerly Belonging to Sir George Beaumont -- Ars
Memorandi, and Other Smaller Block-Books.

From the facts which have been produced in the preceding chapter, there cannot be a doubt that the principle on which wood engraving is founded,--that of taking impressions on paper or parchment, with ink, from prominent lines,--was known and practised in attesting documents in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Towards the end of the fourteenth, or about the beginning of the fifteenth century, there is reason to believe that this principle was adopted by the German card-makers for the purpose of marking the outlines of the figures on their cards, which they afterwards coloured by means of a stencil.[II-1]

[Footnote II-1: A stencil is a piece of pasteboard, or a thin
plate of metal, pierced with lines and figures, which are
communicated to paper, parchment, or linen, by passing a brush
charged with ink or colour over the stencil.]

The period at which the game of cards was first known in Europe, as well as the people by whom they were invented, has been very learnedly, though not very satisfactorily discussed. Bullet has claimed the invention for the French, and Heineken for the Germans; while other writers have maintained that the game was known in Italy earlier than in any other part of Europe, and that it was introduced from the East.

From a passage discovered by M. Van Praet, in an old manuscript copy of the romance of _Renard le Contrefait_, it appears that cards were known in France about 1340, although Bullet was of opinion that they were invented in that country about 1376. At whatever period the game was introduced, it appears to have been commonly known in France and Spain towards the latter part of the fourteenth century. John I., King of Castile, by an edict issued in 1387, prohibited the game of cards; and in 1397, the Provost of Paris, by an ordonnance, forbid all working people to play at tennis, bowls, dice, _cards_, or nine-pins, on working days. From a passage in the Chronicle of Petit-Jehan de Saintré, written previous to 1380, it would appear that the game of cards at that period was in disrepute. Saintré had been one of the pages of Charles V. of France; and on his being appointed, on account of his good conduct, to the situation of carver to the king, the squire who had charge of the pages, lectured some of them on the impropriety of their behaviour; such as playing at dice and cards, keeping bad company, and haunting taverns and cabarets, those not being the courses by which they might hope to arrive at the honourable post of “ecuyer tranchant,” to which their companion, Saintré, had been raised.

In an account-book of Charles Poupart, treasurer to Charles VI. of France, there is an entry, made about 1393, of “fifty-six sols of Paris, given to Jacquemin Gringonneur, painter, for three packs of cards, gilt and coloured, and of different sorts, for the diversion of his majesty.” From this passage the learned Jesuit Menestrier, who was not aware of cards being mentioned by any earlier writer, concluded that they were then invented by Gringonneur to amuse the king, who, in consequence of a _coup de soleil_, had been attacked with delirium, which had subsided into an almost continual depression of spirits. There, however, can be no doubt that cards were known in France at least fifty years before; though, from their being so seldom noticed previous to 1380, it appears likely that the game was but little played until after that period. Whether the figures on the cards supplied for the king’s amusement were drawn and coloured by the hand, or whether the outlines were impressed from wood-blocks, and coloured by means of a stencil, it is impossible to ascertain; though it has been conjectured that, from the smallness of the sum paid for them, they were of the latter description. That cards were cheap in 1397, however they might be manufactured, may be presumed from the fact of their being then in the hands of the working people.

To whatever nation the invention of cards is owing, it appears that the Germans were the first who practised card-making as a trade. In 1418 the name of a “Kartenmacher”--card-maker--occurs in the burgess-book of the city of Augsburg; and in an old rate-book of the city of Nuremburg, under the year 1433, we find “_Ell. Kartenmacherin_;” that is, Ell.--probably for Elizabeth--the card-maker. In the same book, under the year 1435, the name of “_Eliz. Kartenmacherin_,” probably the same person, is to be found; and in 1438 there occurs the name “Margret Kartenmalerin”--Margaret the card-painter. It thus appears that the earliest card-makers who are mentioned as living at Nuremberg were females; and it is worthy of note that the Germans seem to have called cards “_Karten_” before they gave them the name of “_Briefe_.” Heineken, however, considers that they were first known in Germany by the latter name; for, as he claimed the invention for his countrymen, he was unwilling to admit that the name should be borrowed either from Italy or France. He has not, however, produced anything like proof in support of his opinion, which is contradicted by the negative evidence of history.[II-2]

[Footnote II-2: Cards--_Carten_--are mentioned in a book of
bye-laws of Nuremberg, between 1380 and 1384. They are included in
a list of games at which the burghers might indulge themselves,
provided they ventured only small sums. “Awzgenommen rennen mit
Pferder, Schiessen mit Armbrusten, _Carten_, Schofzagel, Pretspil,
und Kugeln, umb einen pfenink zwen zu vier poten.” That is:
“always excepting horse-racing, shooting with cross-bows, _cards_,
shovel-board, tric-trac, and bowls, at which a man may bet from
twopence to a groat.”--C. G. Von Murr, Journal zur Kunstsgesch.
2 Theil, S. 99.]

The name _Briefe_, which the Germans give to cards, also signifies letters [epistolæ]. The meaning of the word, however, is rather more general than the French term _lettres_, or the Latin _epistolæ_ which he gives as its synonyms, for it is also applied in the sense in which we sometimes use the word “paper.” For instance, “_ein Brief Stecknadeln, ein Brief Tabak_,” are literally translated by the words “a _paper_ of pins, a _paper_ of tobacco;” in which sense the word “_Brief_” would, in Latin, be more correctly rendered by the term _charta_ than _epistola_. As it is in a similar sense--cognate with “paper,” as used in the two preceding examples--that “Briefe” is applied to cards, I am inclined to consider it as a translation of the Latin _chartaæ_, the Italian _carte_, or the French _cartes_, and hence to conclude that the invention of cards does not belong to the people of Germany, who appear to have received cards, both “name and thing,” from another nation, and after some time to have given them a name in their own language.

In the town-books of Nuremberg, the term _Formschneider_-- figure-cutter,--the name appropriated to engravers on wood, first occurs in 1449;[II-3] and as it is found in subsequent years mentioned in the same page with “Kartenmaler,” it seems reasonable to conclude that in 1449, and probably earlier, the business of the wood-engraver proper, and that of the card-maker, were distinct. The primary meaning of the word _form_ or _forma_ is almost precisely the same in most of the European languages. It has erroneously been explained, in its relation to wood engraving, as signifying a _mould_, whereas it simply means a shape or figure. The model of wood which the carpenter makes for the metal-founder is properly a _form_, and from it the latter prepares his mould in the sand. The word _form_, however, in course of time declined from its primary signification, and came to be used as expressive both of a model and a mould. The term _Formschneider_, which was originally used to distinguish the professed engraver of figures from the mere engraver and colourer of cards, is still used in Germany to denote what we term a wood-engraver.

[Footnote II-3: In the town-books of Nuremberg a Hans
_Formansneider_ occurs so early as 1397, which De Murr says is not
meant for “wood engraver,” but is to be read thus: _Hans Forman,
Schneider_; that is, “Ihon Forman, maister-fashionere,” or, in
modern phrase, “tailor.” The word “_Karter_” also occurs in the
same year, but it is meant for a carder, or wool-comber, and not
for a card-maker.--C. G. Von Murr, Journal, 2 Theil, S. 99.]

About the time that the term _Formschneider_ first occurs we find _Briefmalers_ mentioned, and at a later period _Briefdruckers_-- card-printers; and, though there evidently was a distinction between the two professions, yet we find that between 1470 and 1500 the _Briefmalers_ not only engraved figures occasionally, but also printed books. The _Formschneiders_ and the _Briefmalers_, however, continued to form but one guild or fellowship till long after the art of wood-engraving had made rapid strides towards perfection, under the superintendence of such masters as Durer, Burgmair, and Holbein, in the same manner as the barbers and surgeons in our own country continued to form but one company, though the “chirurgeon had long ceased to trim beards and cut hair, and the barber had given up bleeding and purging to devote himself more exclusively to the ornamental branch of his original profession.” “_Kartenmacher_ and _Kartenmaler_” says Von Murr, “or _Briefmaler_, as they were afterwards called [1473], were known in Germany eighty years previous to the invention of book-printing. The Kartenmacher was originally a Formschneider, though, after the practice of cutting figures of saints and of sacred subjects was introduced, a distinction began to be established between the two professions.”

The German card-makers of Augsburg, Nuremberg, and Ulm, it is stated, sent large quantities of cards into Italy; and it was probably against those foreign manufacturers that the fellowship of painters at Venice obtained an order in 1441 from the magistracy, declaring that no foreign manufactured cards, or printed coloured figures, should be brought into the city, under the penalty of forfeiting such articles, and of being fined xxx liv. xii soldi. This order was made in consequence of a petition presented by the Venetian painters, wherein they set forth that “the art and mystery of card-making and of printing figures, which were practised in Venice, had fallen into total decay through the great quantity of foreign playing-cards and coloured printed figures, which were brought into the city.”[II-4] It is hence evident that the art both of the German _Kartenmacher_ and of the _Formschneider_ was practised in Venice in 1441; and, as it is then mentioned as being in decay, it no doubt was practised there some time previously.

[Footnote II-4: “Conscioscia che l’arte e mestier delle carte &
figure stampide, che se fano in Venesia è vegnudo a total
deffaction, e questo sia per la gran quantità de carte a zugar,
e fegure depente stampide, le qual vien fate de fuora de Venezia.”
The curious document in which the above passage occurs was
discovered by Temanza, an Italian architect, in an old book of
rules and orders belonging to the company of Venetian painters.
His discovery, communicated in a letter to Count Algarotti,
appeared in the Lettere Pittoriche, tom. v. p. 320, et sequent.
and has since been quoted by every writer who has written upon the
subject.]

Heineken, in his “Neue Nachrichten,” gives an extract from a MS. chronicle of the city of Ulm, completed in 1474, to the following effect: “Playing-cards were sent _barrelwise_ [that is, in small casks] into Italy, Sicily, and also over sea, and exchanged for spices and other wares. From this we may judge of the number of card-makers who resided here.” The preceding passage occurs in the index, under the head, “Business of card-making.” Heineken also gives the passage in his “Idée Générale,” p. 245; but from the French translation, which he there gives, it appears that he had misunderstood the word “_leglenweiss_”-- barrelwise--which he renders “en ballots.” In his “Neue Nachrichten,” however, he inserts the explanation between parentheses, (“das ist, in kleinen Fässern”)--i. e. in small casks; which Mr. Singer renders “hogsheads,” and Mr. Ottley, though he gives the original in a note, “large bales.” The word “lägel,” a barrel, is obsolete in Germany, but its diminutive, “leglin,”--as if “lägelen”--is still used in Scotland for the name of the ewe-milker’s _kit_.

Some writers have been of opinion that the art of wood-engraving was derived from the practice of the ancient caligraphists and illuminators of manuscripts, who sometimes formed their large capital letters by means of a stencil or of a wooden stamp. That large capitals were formed in such a manner previous to the year 1400 there can be little doubt; and it has been thought that stencils and stamps were used not only for the formation of capital letters, but also for the impression of a whole volume. Ihre, in a dissertation on the Gospels of Ulphilas,[II-5] which are supposed to be as old as the fifth century, has asserted that the silver letters of the text on a purple ground were impressed by means of heated iron stamps. This, however, is denied by the learned compilers of the “Nouveau Traité de Diplomatique,” who had seen other volumes of a similar kind, the silver letters of which were evidently formed with a pen. A modern Italian author, D. Vincenzo Requeno, has published a tract[II-6] to prove that many supposed manuscripts from the tenth to the fourteenth century, instead of being written with a pen, were actually impressed by means of stamps. It is, however, extremely probable that he is mistaken; for if his pretended discoveries were true, this art of stamping must have been very generally practised; and if so, it surely would have been mentioned by some contemporary writers. Signor Requeno’s examination, I am inclined to suspect, has not been sufficiently precise; for he seems to have been too willing to find what he sought. In almost every collection that he examined, a pair of fine compasses being the test which he employed, he discovered voluminous works on vellum, hitherto supposed to be manuscript, but which according to his measurement were certainly executed by means of a stamp.

[Footnote II-5: This celebrated version, in the Mœso-Gothic
language, is preserved in the library of Upsal in Sweden.]

[Footnote II-6: Osservazioni sulla Chirotipografia, ossia Antica
Arte di Stampare a mano. Opera di D. Vincenzo Requeno. Roma 1810,
8vo.]

It has been conjectured that the art of wood-engraving was employed on sacred subjects, such as the figures of saints and holy persons, before it was applied to the multiplication of those “books of Satan,” playing-cards. It however is not unlikely that it was first employed in the manufacture of cards; and that the monks, availing themselves of the same principle, shortly afterwards employed the art of wood-engraving for the purpose of circulating the figures of saints; thus endeavouring to supply a remedy for the evil, and extracting from the serpent a cure for his bite.

Wood-cuts of sacred subjects were known to the common people of Suabia, and the adjacent districts, by the name of _Helgen_ or _Helglein_, a corruption of Heiligen, saints;--a word which in course of time they used to signify prints--_estampes_--generally.[II-7] In France the same kind of cuts, probably stencil-coloured, were called “dominos,”--the affinity of which name with the German Helgen is obvious. The word “domino” was subsequently used as a name for coloured or marbled paper generally, and the makers of such paper, as well as the engravers and colourers of wood-cuts, were called “dominotiers.”[II-8]

[Footnote II-7: Fuseli, at p. 85 of Ottley’s Inquiry; and
Breitkopf, Versuch d. Ursprungs der Spielkarten Zu erforschen,
2 Theil, S. 175.]

[Footnote II-8: Fournier, Dissertation sur l’Origine et les
Progrès de l’Art de Graver en Bois, p. 79; and Papillon, Traité de
la Gravure en Bois, tom. i. p. 20, and Supplement, p. 80.]

As might, _à priori_, be concluded, supposing the Germans to have been the first who applied wood-engraving to card-making, the earliest wood-cuts have been discovered, and in the greatest abundance, in that district where we first hear of the business of a card-maker and a wood-engraver. From a convent, situated within fifty miles of the city of Augsberg, where, in 1418, the first mention of a Kartenmacher occurs, has been obtained the earliest wood-cut known,--the St. Christopher, now in the possession of Earl Spencer, with the date 1423. That this was the first cut of the kind we have no reason to suppose; but though others executed in a similar manner are known, to not one of them, upon anything like probable grounds, can a higher degree of antiquity be assigned. From 1423, therefore, as from a known epoch, the practice of wood engraving, as applied to pictorial representations, may be dated.

The first person who published an account of this most interesting wood-cut was Heineken, who had inspected a greater number of old wood-cuts and block-books than any other person, and whose unwearied perseverance in searching after, and general accuracy in describing such early specimens of the art of wood-engraving, are beyond all praise. He found it pasted on the inside of the right-hand cover of a manuscript volume in the library of the convent of Buxheim, near Memmingen in Suabia. The manuscript, entitled LAUS VIRGINIS[II-9] and finished in 1417, was left to the convent by Anna, canoness of Buchaw, who was living in 1427; but who probably died previous to 1435. The above reduced copy conveys a pretty good idea of the composition and style of engraving of the original cut, which is of a folio size, being eleven and a quarter inches high, and eight inches and one-eighth wide.[II-10]

[Footnote II-9: “Liber iste, _Laus Virginis_ intitulatus, continet
Lectiones Matutinales accommodatas Officio B. V. Mariæ per
singulos anni dies,” &c. At the beginning of the volume is the
following memorandum: “Istum librum legavit domna Anna filia domni
Stephani baronis de Gundelfingen, canonica in Büchow Aule bte.
Marie v’ginis in Buchshaim ord’is Cartusieñ prope Memingen
Augusten. dyoc.”--Von Murr, Journal, 2 Theil, S. 104-105.]

[Footnote II-10: A fac-simile, of the size of the original, is
given in Von Murr’s Journal, vol. ii. p. 104, and in Ottley’s
Inquiry, vol. i. p. 90, both engraved on wood. There is an
imitation engraved on copper, in Jansen’s Essai sur l’Origine de
la Gravure, tom. i.]

The original affords a specimen of the combined talents of the Formschneider or wood-engraver, and the Briefmaler or card-colourer. The engraved portions, such as are here represented, have been taken off in dark colouring matter similar to printers’ ink, after which the impression appears to have been coloured by means of a stencil. As the back of the cut cannot be seen, in consequence of its being pasted on the cover of the volume, it cannot be ascertained with any degree of certainty whether the impression has been taken by means of a press, or _rubbed off_ from the block by means of a burnisher or rubber, in a manner similar to that in which wood-engravers of the present day take their proofs.

This cut is much better designed than the generality of those which we find in books typographically executed from 1462, the date of the Bamberg Fables, to 1493, when the often-cited Nuremberg Chronicle was printed. Amongst the many coarse cuts which “illustrate” the latter, and which are announced in the book itself[II-11] as having been “got up” under the superintendence of Michael Wolgemuth, Albert Durer’s master, and William Pleydenwurff, both “most skilful in the art of painting,” I cannot find a single subject which either for spirit or feeling can be compared to the St. Christopher. In fact, the figure of the saint, and that of the youthful Christ whom he bears on his shoulders, are, with the exception of the extremities, designed in such a style, that they would scarcely discredit Albert Durer himself.

[Footnote II-11: The following announcement appears in the
colophon of the Nuremberg Chronicle. “Ad intuitum autem et preces
providorum civium Sebaldi Schreyer et Sebastiani Romermaister hunc
librum Anthonius Koberger Nurembergiæ impressit. Adhibitis tamen
viris mathematicis pingendique arte peritissimis, Michaele
Wolgemut et Wilhelmo Pleydenwurff, quorum solerti accuratissimaque
animadversione tum civitatum tum illustrium virorum figuræ insertæ
sunt. Consummatum autem duodecima mensis Julii. Anno Salutis ñre
1493.”]

To the left of the engraving the artist has introduced, with a noble disregard of perspective,[II-12] what Bewick would have called a “bit of Nature.” In the foreground a figure is seen driving an ass loaded with a sack towards a water-mill; while by a steep path a figure, perhaps intended for the miller, is seen carrying a full sack from the back-door of the mill towards a cottage. To the right is seen a hermit--known by the bell over the entrance of his dwelling--holding a large lantern to direct St. Christopher as he crosses the stream. The two verses at the foot of the cut,

Cristofori faciem die quacunque tueris,
Illa nempe die morte mala non morieris,

may be translated as follows:

Each day that thou the likeness of St. Christopher shalt see,
That day no frightful form of death shall make an end of thee.

[Footnote II-12: As great a neglect of the rules of perspective
may be seen in several of the cuts in the famed edition of
Theurdanck, Nuremberg, 1517, which are supposed to have been
designed by Hans Burgmair, and engraved by Hans Schaufflein.]

They allude to a popular superstition, common at that period in all Catholic countries, which induced people to believe that the day on which they should see a figure or image of St. Christopher, they should not meet with a violent death, nor die without confession.[II-13] To this popular superstition Erasmus alludes in his “Praise of Folly;” and it is not unlikely, that to his faith in this article of belief, the squire, in Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales,” wore

“A Christofre on his brest, of silver shene.”

[Footnote II-13: See Brand’s Popular Antiquities, vol. i. pp.
359-364.--Bohn’s edition.]

The date “_Millesimo cccc^o xx^o tercio_”--1423--which is seen at the right-hand corner, at the foot of the impression, most undoubtedly designates the year in which the engraving was made.

The engraving, though coarse, is executed in a bold and free manner; and the folds of the drapery are marked in a style which would do credit to a proficient. The whole subject, though expressed by means of few lines, is not executed in the very simplest style of art. In the draperies a diminution and a thickening of the lines, where necessary to the effect, may be observed; and the shades are indicated by means of parallel lines both perpendicular, oblique, and curved, as may be seen in the saint’s robe and mantle. In many of the wood-cuts executed between 1462 and 1500, the figures are expressed, and the drapery indicated, by simple lines of one undeviating degree of thickness, without the slightest attempt at shading by means of parallel lines running in a direction different to those marking the folds of the drapery or the outlines of the figure. If mere rudeness of design, and simplicity in the mode of execution, were to be considered as the sole tests of antiquity in wood-engravings, upwards of a hundred, positively known to have been executed between 1470 and 1500, might be produced as affording intrinsic evidence of their having been executed at a period antecedent to the date of the St. Christopher.

In the Royal Library at Paris there is an impression of St. Christopher with the youthful Christ, which was supposed to be a duplicate of that in the possession of Earl Spencer. On comparing them, however, “it was quite evident,” says Dr. Dibdin, “at the first glance, as M. Du Chesne admitted, that they were impressions taken from _different blocks_. The question therefore was, after a good deal of pertinacious argument on both sides--which of the two impressions was the more ancient? Undoubtedly it was that of Lord Spencer.” At first Dr. Dibdin thought that the French impression was a copy of Earl Spencer’s, and that it might be as old as the year 1460; but, from a note added in the second edition of his tour, he seems to have received a new light. He there says: “The reasons upon which this conclusion [that the French cut was a copy of a later date] was founded, are stated at length in the preceding edition of this work: since which, I very strongly incline to the supposition that the Paris impression is a _proof_--of one of the _cheats_ of DE MURR.”[II-14]

[Footnote II-14: Bibliographical and Picturesque Tour, by the Rev.
T. F. Dibdin, D.D. p. 58, vol. ii. second edition, 1829. The De
Murr to whom Dr. Dibdin alludes, is C. G. Von Murr, editor of the
Journal of Arts and General Literature, published at Nuremberg in
1775 and subsequent years. Von Murr was the first who published,
in the second volume of his journal, a _fac-simile_, engraved on
wood by Sebast. Roland, of the Buxheim St. Christopher, from a
tracing sent to him by P. Krismer, the librarian of the convent.
Von Murr, in his Memorabilia of the City of Nuremberg, mentions
that Breitkopf had seen a duplicate impression of the Buxheim St.
Christopher in the possession of M. De Birkenstock at Vienna.]

On the inside of the first cover or “board” of the Laus Virginis, the volume which contains the St. Christopher, there is also pasted a wood engraving of the Annunciation, of a similar size to the above-named cut, and impressed on the same kind of paper. As they are both worked off in the same kind of dark-coloured ink, and as they evidently have been coloured in the same manner, by means of a stencil, there can be little doubt of their being executed about the same time. From the left-hand corner of the Annunciation the figure of the Almighty has been torn out. The Holy Ghost, who appears descending from the Father upon the Virgin in the material form of a dove, could not well be torn out without greatly disfiguring the cut. An idea may be formed of the original from the following reduced copy.

Respecting these cuts, which in all probability were engraved by some one of the Formschneiders of Augsburg, Ulm, or Nuremberg,[II-15] P. Krismer, who was librarian of the convent of Buxheim, and who showed the volume in which they are pasted to Heineken, writes to Von Murr to the following effect: “It will not be superfluous if I here point out a mark, by which, in my opinion, old wood engravings may with certainty be distinguished from those of a later period. It is this: In the oldest wood-cuts only do we perceive that the engraver [Formschneider] has frequently omitted certain parts, leaving them to be afterwards filled up by the card-colourer [Briefmaler]. In the St. Christopher there is no such deficiency, although there is in the other cut which is pasted on the inside of the fore covering of the same volume, and which, I doubt not, was executed at the same time as the former. It represents the salutation of the Virgin by the angel Gabriel, or, as it is also called, the Annunciation; and, from the omission of the colours, the upper part of the body of the kneeling Virgin appears naked, except where it is covered with her mantle. Her inner dress had been left to be added by the pencil of the card-colourer. In another wood-cut of the same kind, representing St. Jerome doing penance before a small crucifix placed on a hill, we see with surprise that the saint, together with the instruments of penance, which are lying near him, and a whole forest beside, are suspended in the air without anything to support them, as the whole of the ground had been left to be inserted with the pencil. Nothing of this kind is to be seen in more recent wood-cuts, when the art had made greater progress. What the early wood-engravers could not readily effect with the graver, they performed with the pencil,--for the most part in a very coarse and careless manner,--as they were at the same time both wood-engravers and card-colourers.”[II-16]

[Footnote II-15: There is every reason in the world to suppose
that this wood-cut was executed either in Nuremberg or Augsburg.
Buxheim is situated almost in the very heart of Suabia, the circle
in which we find the earliest wood engravers established. Buxheim
is about thirty English miles from Ulm, forty-four from Augsburg,
and one hundred and fifteen from Nuremberg. Von Murr does not
notice the pretensions of Ulm, which on his own grounds are
stronger than those of his native city, Nuremberg.]

[Footnote II-16: Von Murr, Journal, 2 Theil, S. 105, 106.]

Besides the St. Christopher and the Annunciation, there is another old wood-cut in the collection of Earl Spencer which appears to belong to the same period, and which has in all probability been engraved by a German artist, as all who can read the German inscription above the figure would reasonably infer. Before making any remarks on this engraving, I shall first lay before the reader a reduced copy.

The figure writing is that of St. Bridget of Sweden, who was born in 1302 and died in 1373. From the representation of the Virgin with the infant Christ in her arms we may suppose that the artist intended to show the pious widow writing an account of her visions or revelations, in which she was often favoured with the blessed Virgin’s appearance. The pilgrim’s hat, staff, and scrip may allude to her pilgrimage to Jerusalem, which she was induced to make in consequence of a vision. The letters S. P. Q. R. in a shield, are no doubt intended to denote the place, Rome, where she saw the vision, and where she died. The lion, the arms of Sweden, and the crown at her feet, are most likely intended to denote that she was a princess of the blood royal of that kingdom. The words above the figure of the saint are a brief invocation in the German language, “_O Brigita bit Got für uns!_” “O Bridget, pray to God for us!” At the foot of the desk at which St. Bridget is writing are the letters M. I. CHRS., an abbreviation probably of Mater Jesu Christi, or if German, Mutter Iesus Christus.[II-17]

[Footnote II-17: St. Bridget was a favourite saint in Germany,
where many religious establishments of the rule of St. Saviour,
introduced by her, were founded. A folio volume, containing the
life, revelations, and legends of St. Bridget, was published by
A. Koberger, Nuremberg, 1502, with the following title: “Das puch
der Himlischen offenbarung der Heiligen wittiben Birgitte von dem
Kunigreich Schweden.”]

From the appearance of the back of this cut, as if it had been rubbed smooth with a burnisher or rubber, there can be little doubt of the impression having been taken by means of friction. The colouring matter of the engraving is much lighter than in the St. Christopher and the Annunciation, and is like distemper or water-colour; while that of the latter cuts appears, as has been already observed, more like printer’s ink. It is coarsely coloured, and apparently by the hand, unassisted with the stencil. The face and hands are of a flesh colour. Her gown, as well as the pilgrim’s hat and scrip, are of a dark grey; her veil, which she wears hoodwise, is partly black and partly white; and the wimple which she wears round her neck is also white. The bench and desk, the pilgrim’s staff, the letters S. P. Q. R., the lion, the crown, and the nimbus surrounding the head of St. Bridget and that of the Virgin, are yellow. The ground is green, and the whole cut is surrounded with a border of a shining mulberry or lake colour.

Mr. Ottley, having at the very outset of his Inquiry adopted Papillon’s story of the Cunio, is compelled, for consistency’s sake, in the subsequent portion of his work, when speaking of early wood engravings such as the above, to consider them, not as the earliest known specimens of the art, but merely as wood engravings such as were produced upwards of a hundred and thirty years after the amiable and accomplished Cunio, a mere boy and a girl, had in Italy produced a set of wood engravings, one of which was so well composed that Le Brun might be suspected of having borrowed from it the design of one of his most complicated pictures. In his desire, in support of his theory, to refer the oldest wood-cuts to Italy, Mr. Ottley asks: “What if these two prints [the St. Christopher and the Annunciation] should prove to be, not the productions of Germany, but rather of Venice, or of some district of the territory then under the dominion of that republic?”

His principal reasons for the preceding conjecture, are the ancient use of the word _stampide_--“printed”--in the Venetian decree against the introduction of foreign playing-cards in 1441; and the resemblance which the Annunciation bears to the style of the early Italian schools. Now, with respect to the first of these reasons, it is founded on the assumption that both those impressions have been obtained by means of a press of some kind or other,--a fact which remains yet to be proved; for until the backs of both shall have been examined, and the mark of the burnisher or rubber found wanting, no person’s mere opinion, however confidently declared, can be decisive of the question. It also remains to be proved that the word _stampide_, which occurs in the Venetian decree, was employed there to signify “_printed with a press_.” For it is certain that the low Latin word _stampare_, with its cognates in the different languages of Europe, was used at that period to denote _impression_ generally. But even supposing that “_stampide_” signifies “printed” in the modern acceptation of the word, and that the two impressions in question were obtained by means of a press; the argument in favour of their being Italian would gain nothing, unless we assume that the _foreign_ printed cards and figures, which were forbid to be imported into Venice, were produced either within the territory of that state or in Italy; for the word _stampide_--“_printed_,” is applied to them as well as those manufactured within the city. Now we know that the German card-makers used to send great quantities of cards to Venice about the period when the decree was made, while we have no evidence of any Italian cities manufacturing cards for exportation in 1441; it is therefore most likely that if the Venetians were acquainted with the use of the press in taking impressions from wood-blocks, the Germans were so too, and for these more probable reasons, admitting the cuts in question to have been printed by means of a press:--First, the fact of those wood-cuts being discovered in Germany in the very district where we first hear of wood-engravers; and secondly, that if the Venetian wood-engravers were acquainted with the use of the press in taking impressions while the Germans were not, it is very unlikely that the latter would be able to undersell the Venetians in their own city. Until something like a probable reason shall be given for supposing the cuts in question to be productions “of Venice, or some other district of the territory then under the dominion of that republic,” I shall continue to believe that they were executed in the district in which they were discovered, and which has supplied to the collections of amateurs so many old wood engravings of a similar kind. No wood engravings executed in Italy, are known of a date earlier than those contained in the “Meditationes Johannis de Turre-cremata,” printed at Rome 1467,--and printed, be it observed, by a German, Ulrick Hahn. The circular wood engravings in the British Museum,[II-18] which Mr. Ottley says are indisputably Italian, and of the old dry taste of the fifteenth century, can scarcely be referred to an earlier period than 1500, and my own opinion is that they are not older than 1510. The manner in which they are engraved is that which we find prevalent in Italian wood-cuts executed between 1500 and 1520.

[Footnote II-18: Those cuts consist of illustrations of the New
Testament. There are ten of them, apparently a portion of a larger
series, in the British Museum; and they are marked in small
letters, a. b. c. d. e. f. g. h. i. k. n. That which is marked
g. also contains the words “Opus Jacobi.” In this cut a specimen
of cross-hatching may be observed, which was certainly very little
practised--if at all--in Italy, before 1500.]

With respect to the resemblance which the Annunciation bears to the style of the early Italian school,--I beg to observe that it equally resembles many of the productions of contemporary “schools” of England and France, as displayed in many of the drawings contained in old illuminated manuscripts. It would be no difficult matter to point out in many old German engravings attitudes at least as graceful as the Virgin’s; and as to her drapery, which is said to be “wholly unlike the angular sharpness, the stiffness and the flutter of the ancient German school,” I beg to observe that those peculiarities are not of so frequent occurrence in the works of German artists, whether sculptors, painters, or wood-engravers, who lived before 1450, as in the works of those who lived after that period. Angular sharpness and flutter in the draperies are not so characteristic of early German art generally, as of German art towards the end of the fifteenth, and in the early part of the sixteenth century.

Even the St. Bridget, which he considers to be of a date not later than the close of the fourteenth century,[II-19] Mr. Ottley, with a German inscription before his eyes, is inclined to give to an artist of the Low Countries; and he kindly directs the attention of Coster’s partisans to the shield of arms--probably intended for those of Sweden--at the right-hand corner of the cut. Meerman had discovered a seal, having in the centre a shield charged with a lion rampant--the bearing of the noble family of Brederode--a label of three points, and the mark of illegitimacy--a bend sinister, and surrounded by the inscription, “S[igillum] Lowrens Janssoen,” which with him was sufficient evidence of its being the identical seal of Laurence, the Coster or churchwarden of Harlem.[II-20]

[Footnote II-19: Mr. Ottley’s reason for considering this cut to
be so old is, that “after that period [1400] an artist, who was
capable of designing so good a figure, could scarcely have been so
grossly ignorant of every effect of linear perspective, as was
evidently the case with the author of the performance before
us.”--Inquiry, p. 87. Offences, however, scarcely less gross
against the rules of linear perspective, are to be found in the
wood-cuts in the Adventures of Sir Theurdank, 1517, many of which
contain figures superior to that of St. Bridget. Errors in
perspective are indeed frequent in the designs of many of the most
eminent of Albert Durer’s contemporaries, although in other
respects the figures may be correctly drawn, and the general
composition good.]

[Footnote II-20: An engraving of this seal is given in the first
volume of Meerman’s Origines Typographicæ.]

We thus perceive on what grounds the right of Germany to three of the oldest wood-cuts known is questioned; and upon what traits of resemblance they are ascribed to Italy and the Low Countries. By adopting Mr. Ottley’s mode of reasoning, it might be shown with equal probability that a very considerable number of early wood engravings--whether printed in books or separately--hitherto believed to be German, were really executed in Italy.

An old wood engraving of the martyrdom of St. Sebastian, of a quarto size, with a short prayer underneath, and the date 1437, apparently from the same block, was preserved in the monastery of St. Blaze, in the Black Forest on the confines of Suabia;[II-21] and another, with the date 1443 inserted in manuscript, was pasted in a volume belonging to the library of the monastery of Buxheim. The latter is thus described by Von Murr: “Through the kindness of the celebrated librarian, Krismer, whom I have so often mentioned, I am enabled to give an account of an illuminated wood-cut, which at the latest must have been engraved in 1443. It is pasted on the inside of the cover of a volume which contains ‘_Nicolai Dunkelspül_[II-22] Sermonum Partem Hyemalem.’ It is of quarto size, being seven and a half inches high, and five and a quarter wide, and is inclosed within a border of a single line. It is much soiled, as we perceive in the figures on cards which have been impressed by means of a rubber. The style in which it is executed is like that of no other wood-cut which I have ever seen. The cut itself represents three different subjects, the upper part of it being divided into two compartments, each three inches square, and separated from each other by means of a broad perpendicular line. In that to the right is seen St. Dorothy sitting in a garden, with the youthful Christ presenting flowers to her, of which she has her lap full. Before her stands a small hand-basket,--also full of flowers,--such as the ladies of Franconia and Suabia were accustomed to carry in former times. In the left compartment is seen St. Alexius, lying at the foot of a flight of steps, upon which a man is standing and emptying the contents of a pot upon the saint.[II-23] Between these compartments there appears in manuscript the date ‘_anno d’ni 1443_.’ Both the ink and the characters correspond with those of the volume. This date indicates the time when the writer had finished the book and got it bound, as is more clearly proved by a memorandum at the conclusion. In the year 1483, before it came into the possession of the monastery of Buxheim, it belonged to Brother Jacobus Matzenberger, of the order of the Holy Ghost, and curate of the church of the Virgin Mary in Memmingen. The whole of the lower part of the cut is occupied with Christ bearing his cross, at the moment that he meets with his mother, whom one of the executioners appears to be driving away. Simon of Cyrene is seen assisting Christ to carry the cross. The engraving is executed in a very coarse manner.”[II-24]

[Footnote II-21: Heineken, Neue Nachrichten von Künstlern und
Kunstsachen. Dresden und Leipzig, 1786, S. 143.]

[Footnote II-22: In the Table des Matières to Jansen’s Essai sur
l’Origine de la Gravure, Paris, 1808, we find “Dünkelspül
(Nicolas) graveur Allemand en 1443.” After this specimen of
accuracy, it is rather surprising that we do not find St. Alexius
referred to also as “un graveur Allemand.”]

[Footnote II-23: St. Alexius returning unknown to his father’s
house, as a poor pilgrim, was treated with great indignity by the
servants.]

[Footnote II-24: Von Murr, Journal, 2 Theil, S. 113-115.]

In the Royal Library at Paris there is an ancient wood-cut of St. Bernardin, who is represented on a terrace, the pavement of which consists of alternate squares of yellow, red, and green. In his right hand the saint holds something resembling the consecrated wafer or host, in the midst of which is inscribed the name of Christ; and in his left a kind of oblong casket, on which are the words “_Vide, lege, dulce nomen_.” Upon a scroll above the head of the saint is engraved the sentence, “_Ihesus semper sit in ore meo_,” and behind him, on a black label, is his name in yellow letters, “_Sanct’ Bernard’_.” The cut is surrounded by a border of foliage, with the emblems of the four Evangelists at the four corners, and at the foot are the five following lines, with the date, impressed from prominent lines:--

_O . splendor . pudicitie . zelator . paupertatis . a
mator. innocentie . cultor . virginitatis . lustra
cors . apientie . protector . veritatis . thro
num . fulgidum . eterne . majestatis . para
nobis . additum . divine . pietatis . amen. (1454)_

This rare cut was communicated to Jansen by M. Vanpraet, the well-known bibliographer and keeper of the Royal Library.[II-25]

[Footnote II-25: Jansen, Essai sur l’Origine de la Gravure, tom.
i. p. 237. Jansen’s own authority on subjects connected with wood
engraving is undeserving of attention. He is a mere compiler, who
scarcely appears to have been able to distinguish a wood-cut from
a copper-plate engraving.]

“Having visited in my last tour,” says Heineken, after describing the St. Christopher, “a great many convents in Franconia, Suabia, Bavaria, and in the Austrian states, I everywhere discovered in their libraries many of those kinds of figures, engraved on wood, and pasted either at the beginning or the end of old volumes of the fifteenth century. I have indeed obtained several of them. These facts, taken altogether, have confirmed me in my opinion that the next step of the engraver in wood, after playing-cards, was to engrave figures of saints, which, being distributed and lost among the laity, were in part preserved by the monks, who pasted them in the earliest printed books with which they furnished their libraries.”[II-26]

[Footnote II-26: Idée Générale, p. 251. Hartman Schedel, the
compiler of the Nuremberg Chronicle, was accustomed to paste both
old wood-cuts and copper-plate engravings within the covers of his
books, many of which were preserved in the Library of the Elector
of Bavaria at Munich.--Idée Gén. p. 287; and Von Murr, Journal,
2 Theil, S. 115.]

A great many wood-cuts of devotional subjects, of a period probably anterior to the invention of book-printing by Gutenberg, have been discovered in Germany. They are all executed in a rude style, and many of them are coloured. It is not unlikely that the most of these woodcuts were executed at the instance of the monks for distribution among the common people as helps to devotion; and that each monastery, which might thus avail itself of the aid of wood engraving in the work of piety, would cause to be engraved the figure of its patron saint. The practice, in fact, of distributing such figures at monasteries and shrines to those who visit them, is not yet extinct on the Continent. In Belgium it is still continued, and, I believe, also in Germany, France, and Italy. The figures, however, are not generally impressions from wood-blocks, but are for the most part wholly executed by means of stencils. One of the latter class, representing the shrine of “Notre Dame de Hal,”--coloured in the most wretched taste with brick-dust red and shining green,--is now lying before me. It was given to a gentleman who visited Halle, near Brussels, in 1829. It is nearly of the same size as many of the old devotional wood-cuts of Germany, being about four inches high, by two and three-quarters wide.[II-27]

[Footnote II-27: Heineken thus speaks of those old devotional
cuts: “On trouve dans la Bibliothèque de Wolfenbüttel de ces
sortes d’estampes, qui représentent différens sujets de l’histoire
sainte et de dévotion, avec du texte vis à vis de la figure, tout
gravé en bois. Ces pièces sont de la même grandeur que nos cartes
à jouer: elles portent 3 pouces de hauteur sur 2 pouces 6 lignes
de largeur.”--Idée Générale, p. 249.]

The next step in the progress of wood engraving, subsequent to the production of single cuts, such as the St. Christopher, the Annunciation, and the St. Bridget, in each of which letters are sparingly introduced, was the application of the art to the production of those works which are known to bibliographers by the name of BLOCK-BOOKS: the most celebrated of which are the Apocalypsis, seu Historia Sancti Johannis; the Historia Virginis ex Cantico Canticorum; and the Biblia Pauperum. The first is a history, pictorial and literal, of the life and revelations of St. John the Evangelist, derived in part from the traditions of the church, but chiefly from the book of Revelations. The second is a similar history of the Virgin, as it is supposed to be typified in the Songs of Solomon; and the third consists of subjects representing some of the most important passages in the Old and New Testament, with texts either explaining the subject, or enforcing the example of duty which it may afford. With the above, the Speculum Humanæ Salvationis is usually, though improperly, classed, as the whole of the text, in that which is most certainly the first edition, is printed from movable metal types. In the others the explanatory matter is engraved on wood, on the same block with the subject to which it refers.

All the above books have been claimed by Meerman and other Dutch writers for their countryman, Laurence Coster: and although no date, either impressed or manuscript, has been discovered in any one copy from which the period of its execution might be ascertained,[II-28] yet such appears to have been the clearness of the intuitive light which guided those authors, that they have assigned to each work the precise year in which it appeared. According to Seiz, the History of the Old and New Testament, otherwise called the Biblia Pauperum, appeared in 1432; the History of the Virgin in 1433; the Apocalypse in 1434; and the Speculum in 1439. For such assertions, however, he has not the slightest ground. That the three first might appear at some period between 1430 and 1450, is not unlikely;[II-29] but that the Speculum--_the text of which in the first edition was printed from metal types_--should be printed before 1460, is in the highest degree improbable.

[Footnote II-28: A copy of the Speculum belonging to the city of
Harlem had at the commencement, “_Ex Officina Laurentii Joannis
Costeri. Anno 1440_.” But this inscription had been inserted by a
modern hand--Idée Générale, p. 449.]

[Footnote II-29: In the catalogue of Dr. Kloss’s Library,
No. 2024, is a “Historia et Apocalypsis Johannis Evangelistæ,”
imperfect, printed from wooden blocks. The following are the
observations of the editor or compiler of the catalogue: “At the
end of the volume is a short note, written by Pope Martin V., who
occupied the papal chair from 1417 to 1431. This appears to accord
with the edition described by Heineken at page 360, excepting in
the double _a_, No. 3 and 4.” If the note referred to were
genuine, and actually written in the book, a certain date would be
at once established. The information, however, comes in a
questionable shape, as the English _rédacteur’s_ power of
ascertaining who were the writers of ancient MS. notes appears
little short of miraculous.]

Upon extremely slight grounds it has been conjectured that the Biblia Pauperum, the Apocalypse, and the Ars Moriendi,--another block-book,--were engraved before the year 1430. The Rev. T. H. Horne, “a gentleman long and well known for his familiar acquaintance with books printed abroad,” says Dr. Dibdin, “had a copy of each of the three books above mentioned, bound in one volume, upon the cover of which the following words were stamped: Hic liber relegatus fuit per Plebanum. ecclesie”--with the date, according to the best of the Rev. Mr. Horne’s recollection, 142(8). As he had broken up the volume, and had parted with the contents, he gave the above information on the strength of his memory alone. He was, however, confident that “the binding was the ancient legitimate one, and that the treatises had not been subsequently introduced into it, and that the date was 142 odd; but positively anterior to 1430.”[II-30]

[Footnote II-30: Bibliotheca Spenceriana, vol. i. p. 4, cited in
Ottley’s Inquiry, vol. i. p. 99.]

In such a case as this, however, mere recollection cannot be admitted as decisive of the fact, more especially when we know the many instances in which mistakes have been committed in reading the numerals in ancient dates. At page 88 of his Inquiry, Mr. Ottley, catching at every straw that may help to support his theory of wood engraving having been practised by the Cunio and others in the fourteenth century, refers to a print which a Monsieur Thierry professed to have seen at Lyons, inscribed “SCHOTING OF NUREMBERG,” with the date 1384; and at p. 256 he alludes to it again in the following words: “The date 1384 on the wood-cut preserved at Lyons, said to have been executed at Nuremberg, appears, I know not why, to have been suspected.” It has been more than suspected; for, on examination, it has been found to be 1584. Paul Von Stettin published an account of a Biblia Pauperum, the date of which he supposed to be 1414; but which, when closely examined, was found to be 1474: and Baron Von Hupsch, of Cologne, published in 1787 an account of some wood-cuts which he supposed to have been executed in 1420; but which, in the opinion of Breitkopf, were part of the cuts of a Biblia Pauperum, in which it was probably intended to give the explanations in moveable types underneath the cuts, and probably of a later date than 1470.[II-31]

[Footnote II-31: Singer’s Researches into the History of
Playing-cards, p. 107.]