Some Notes on Early Woodcut Books, with a Chapter on Illuminated Manuscripts — John Shaqi
Some Notes on Early Woodcut Books, with a Chapter on Illuminated ManuscriptsMorris, William
History
Some Notes on Early Woodcut Books, with a Chapter on Illuminated Manuscripts
Morris, William
Illumination of books and manuscripts; Illustrated books; Printing -- History
At Ulm, however, a later school arose after a transitional book,
Leonard Hol's splendid Ptolemy of 1482; of this school one printer's
name, Conrad Dinckmut, includes all the most remarkable books: to wit,
Der Seelen-wurzgarten (1483), Das buch der Weisheit (1485), the
Swabian Chronicle (1486), Terence's Eunuchus (in German) (1486).
Lastly, John Reger's Descriptio Obsidionis Rhodiæ (1496) worthily
closes the series of the Ulm books.
It should here be said that, apart from their pictures, the Ulm and
Augsburg books are noteworthy for their border and letter decoration.
The Ulm printer, John Zainer, in especial shone in the production of
borders. His De Claris Mulieribus excels all the other books of the
school in this matter; the initial S of both the Latin and the German
editions being the most elaborate and beautiful piece of its kind;
and, furthermore, the German edition has a border almost equal to the
S in beauty, though different in character, having the shield of
Scotland supported by angels in the corner. A very handsome border (or
half-border rather), with a zany in the corner, used frequently in J.
Zainer's books [by the by, in Gritsch's Quadragesimale, 1475, this
zany is changed into an ordinary citizen by means of an ingenious
piecing of the block], e.g., in the 1473 and 1474 editions of the
Rationale of Durandus, and, associated with an interesting historiated
initial O, in Alvarus, De planctu Ecclesiæ, 1474. There are two or
three other fine borders, such as those in Steinhowel's Büchlein der
Ordnung, and Petrarch's Griseldis (here shown), both of 1473, and in
Albertus Magnus, Summa de eucharistiæ Sacramento, 1474. A curious
alphabet of initials made up of leafage, good, but not very showy, is
used in the De Claris Mulieribus and other books. An alphabet of large
initials, the most complete example of which is to be found in Leonard
Hol's Ptolemy, is often used and is clearly founded on the
pen-letters, drawn mostly in red and blue, in which the Dutch
'rubrishers' excelled. [Another set of initials founded on twelfth
century work occurs in John Zainer's folio books, and has some
likeness to those used by Hohenwang of Augsburg in the Golden Bibel
and elsewhere, and perhaps was suggested by these, as they are not
very early (c. 1475), but they differ from Hohenwang's in being
generally more or less shaded, and also in not being enclosed in a
square.] This big alphabet is very beautiful and seems to have been a
good deal copied by other German printers, as it well deserved to be.
[The initials of Knoblotzer of Strassburg and Bernard Richel of Basel
may be mentioned.] John Reger's Caoursin has fine handsome
'blooming-letters,' somewhat tending toward the French style.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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