At Wittenberg the most important works issued were the repeated editions of Luther's translation of
the Bible. Here also Lucas Cranach, who had previously (in 1509) designed the cuts for what was known as the Wittenberger Heiligthumsbuch, in 1521 produced his Passional Christi und Antichristi, in which, page by page, the sufferings and humility of Christ were contrasted with the luxury and arrogance of the Pope. At Wittenberg, too, the thin quartos with woodcut borders to their title-pages were peculiarly in vogue, the majority of the designs being poor enough, but some few having considerable beauty, especially those of Lucas Cranach, of which [an example is here given]. Meanwhile, at Strassburg, Hans Grüninger and Martin Flach and his son continued to print numerous illustrated works, largely from designs by Hans Baldung Grün, and a still more famous publisher had arisen in the person of Johann Knoblouch, who for some of his books secured the help of Urs Graf, an artist whose work preserved some of the old-fashioned simplicity of treatment. At Nuremberg illustrated books after Koburger's death proceeded chiefly from the presses of Jobst Gutknecht and Peypus, for the latter of whom Hans Springinklee, one of the minor artists employed on the Weisskunig, occasionally drew designs. At Basel Michael Furter continued to issue illustrated books for the first fifteen years of the new century, Johann Amorbach adorned with woodcuts his editions of ecclesiastical statutes and constitutions, and Adam Petri issued a whole series of illustrated books, chiefly of religion and theology.
To Basel Urs Graf gave the most and the best of his work, and there the young Hans Holbein designed in rapid succession the cuts for the New Testament of 1522, for an Apocalypse, two editions of the Pentateuch, and a Vulgate, besides numerous ornamental borders. Some of these merely imitate the rather tasteless designs of Urs Graf, in which the ground plan is architectural, and relief is given by a profusion of naked children, not always in very graceful attitudes. Holbein's best designs are far lighter and prettier. The foot of the border is usually occupied by some historical scene, the death of John the Baptist, Mucius Scævola and Porsenna, the death of Cleopatra, the leap of Curtius, or Hercules and Orpheus. In a title-page to the Tabula Cebetis he shows the whole course of man's life—little children crowding through the gate, which is guarded by their 'genius,' and the fortune, sorrow, luxury, penitence, virtue, and happiness which awaits them. The two well-known borders for the top and bottom of a page, illustrating peasants chasing a thieving fox and their return dancing, were designed for Andreas Cratander, for whom also, as for Valentine Curio, Holbein drew printers' devices. Ambrosius Holbein also illustrated a few books, the most noteworthy in the eyes of Englishmen being the 1518 edition of More's Utopia, printed by Froben. His picture of Hercules Gallicus, dragging along the captives of his eloquence, part of a border designed for an Aulus
Gellius published by Cratander in 1519, is worthy of Hans himself. While the German printers degenerated ever more and more, those of Basel and Zurich maintained a much higher standard of press-work, and from 1540 to 1560, when the demand for illustrated books had somewhat lessened, produced a series of classical editions in tall folios, well printed and on good paper, which at least command respect. They abound with elaborate initial letters, which are, however, too deliberately pictorial to be in good taste. In Germany itself by the middle of the sixteenth century the artistic impulse had died away, or survived only in books like those of Jost Amman, in which the text merely explains the illustrations. It is a pleasure to go back some seventy or eighty years and turn our attention to the beginning of book-illustration in Italy.
[7] Dr. Lippmann was of opinion that the map of Venice was adapted from Reuwich's; that of Florence from a large woodcut, printed at Florence between 1486 and 1490, of which the unique example is at Berlin; and that of Rome from a similar map, now lost, which served also as a model for the cut in the edition of the Supplementum Chronicarum, printed at Venice in 1490.
[8] Burgkmair had already done work for the printers, notably for an edition of Jornandes De Rebus Gothorum, printed in 1516, on the first page of which King Alewinus and King Athanaricus are shown in conversation, the title of the book being given in a shield hung over their heads.