Illustrated books -- Bibliography; Illustration of books; Printing -- History
At Lyon, as at Paris, at the beginning of the century the store of
fifteenth century cuts was freely drawn on for popular editions.
Considerable influence, however, was exercised at first by Italian
models, afterwards by Germany, so that while in the early sixteenth
century Latin Bibles the cuts are mostly copied from Giunta's Malermi
Bible, these were gradually superseded by German cuts, which Anton
Koberger supplied to the Lyonnese printers who worked for him. While in
Italy the small octavos popularized by Aldus continued to hold their
own, in France, from about 1530, editions in 32 deg. came rapidly into
fashion, and about the middle of the century these were especially the
vogue at Lyon, the publishers often casing them in very gay little trade
bindings sometimes stamped in gold, but often with painted
interlacements. The publication by the Trechsels in 1538 of the two
Holbein books, the _Dance of Death_ and illustrations to the Old
Testament, must have given an impetus to picture-making at Lyon, but
this was at first chiefly visible in illustrated Bibles and New
Testaments. Gilles Corrozet, who had written the verses for both the
Holbein books, continued his career, as we have seen, at Paris. The most
typical Lyonnese illustrated books were the rival editions of Ovid's
_Metamorphoses_ in French, one printed by Mace Bonhomme in 1556, with
borders to every page and little cuts measuring about 1(1/2) in. by 2,
and a similar edition (reissued in Dutch and Italian) of the next year
from the press of Jean de Tournes, the borders and little pictures in
which are attributed to Bernard Salomon. In 1557 De Tournes issued also
the _Devises Heroiques_ of Claude Paradin, and he was also the publisher
of a _Calendrier Historial_, a memorandum book charmingly decorated with
cuts of the seasons.
Partly owing to religious troubles the book trade at Lyon soon after
this rapidly declined, but the French style was carried on for a while
at Antwerp by Christopher Plantin, who printed Paradin's _Devises
Heroiques_ in 1562 and in 1564, and the two following years three books
of Emblems, those of Sambucus, Hadrianus Junius, and Alciatus himself.
His earlier Horae are also illustrated with woodcuts, and in at least
one edition we find the unusual combination of woodcut borders and
copperplate pictures. But although Plantin never wholly gave up the use
of woodcuts, for his more sumptuous editions he developed a marked
preference for copperplates, and by his example helped to complete the
downfall of the woodcut, which by the end of the sixteenth century had
gone almost completely out of fashion.
FOOTNOTES:
[44] Mr. Dodgson also ascribes to Traut the illustrations in the
_Legend des heyligen vatters Francisci_ (Nuremberg, 1512), and some
of the cuts in the _Theuerdank_ (1517).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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