is still very plump, and so large in proportion to the tree that if he had but stood on his hind legs he ought to have reached the top! Others of the pictures are without this charming touch of absurdity, perhaps the most perfect being a little cut of a traveller on horseback, as to the expenses of whose journey the teacher was anxious for some information from his young friends. These little cuts are all about an inch square, and drawn in outline. Another edition of the Arithmetic, in Roman type instead of black letter, but otherwise very similar, was issued in 1518 by Bernardo Zucchetta.
With the year 1492 we come to the first dated editions of the illustrated Savonarola tracts, which play no inconsiderable part in the history of book illustration in Italy. Their existence is in itself the best refutation of the popular belief that the reformer's influence was wholly hostile to the interests of art, though the number of artists who reckoned themselves, formally or informally, among his followers should have sufficed to prevent the belief growing up. These tracts, save for the cuts with which they are adorned, are insignificant in appearance, being for the most part badly printed, and with few and poor initial letters. The woodcuts, seldom more than two in a tract, are, however, charming, and have won for them much attention.
The first publisher of these tracts seems to have
been Antonio Mischomini, who on June 26, 1492, issued a
Trac
tato
dello
Amore Di Iesu Christo Composto
da frate Hieronymo da Ferrara del
l'ordine
de frati
predica
tori pri
ore di San
Marcho di
F I R E N Z E
with the title arranged cross-wise, as here shown. On the back of the title is a picture of the Crucifixion, with the Blessed Virgin and S. John standing by the Cross. This was followed on June 30th by the Tractato della humilta, with a large title-cut representing the dead Christ before His Cross, an angel supporting each arm. Neither of these cuts shows typical Florentine work, for the blank spaces have all to be cleared away by the engraver, and there is an abundance of shading. The first design was clearly spoilt in the cutting, the second is of great beauty. The typical Florentine work, in which white lines are cut out from a black ground, as well as black lines from a white, appears in the Tractato ouero Sermone della oratione, finished by Mischomini on October 20th. Here the title-cut shows the scene at Gethsemane: the three disciples asleep in the foreground, Christ in prayer, and the
hands of an angel holding a cup appearing in a corner above. The picture, as always in distinctively Florentine work, is surrounded by a little border or frame, in which a small white pattern is picked out from a black ground.
The other illustrated Savonarola tracts bearing an early date, with which I am acquainted, are the De Simplicitate Christianae Vitae, printed 'impensis Ser Petri Pacini,' August 28th, 1496, and the Predica dell arte del bene Morire, preached on Nov. 2 of that year, taken down at the time by Ser Lorenzo Violi, and doubtless published immediately afterwards. The De Simplicitate has on its first page a picture of a Dominican friar writing in his cell, a sand-glass at his side, a crucifix in front of his desk, and books and his gown scattered on a table. The illustrations to the Arte del bene Morire comprise a hideous outline cut of Death, scythe on shoulder, flying over ground strewn with corpses (this is enclosed in a large black border used by Mischomini in 1492), and cuts of Death showing a young man Heaven and Hell,[13] of a sick man with his good and bad angels watching him and Death standing without the door, and of a dying man attended by a friar, Death sitting now at his bed's foot, and the angels watching as before.
Turning now to the undated tracts, we find that the Expositione del Pater Noster contains (1) a very