Early Illustrated Books / A History of the Decoration and Illustration of Books in the 15th and 16th Centuries

by Alfred W. Pollard

beautiful variant of the representation of the scene on Gethsemane, the angel appearing on the left instead of the right,[14] (2) a cut of S. James writing at a table, (3) a small cut of David in prayer, and some still smaller pictures of prophets and of the Crucifixion. At the end of the book is an Epistola a una devota donna Bolognose, which is headed and ended by a cut of a Dominican preaching in the open air to a congregation of nuns. An undated edition of the Tractato della Humilta has Images of Pity at the beginning and end, the former surrounded by a black border. Yet another edition has an outline cut of Christ holding His Cross, while blood streams from His hand into a chalice. An edition of the Tractato dello Amore di Iesu has two outline cuts, one large, one small, showing the Blessed Virgin and S. John standing by the Cross. A tract on self-examination, addressed to the Abbess of the Convent of the Murate at Florence, shows an aged friar being welcomed at the convent. Other tracts have pictures of a priest elevating the Host, a man praying before an altar, a man and woman praying, &c. One of the rarest is the superb cut to the Dyalogo della Verita prophetica, in which a friar is preaching to seven questioners arranged in a half-circle under a tree, a view of Florence occupying the background. Cuts in other books show Savonarola

meeting a devil and an astrologer, and represent him preaching to an intent congregation. With these tracts we must join the defence of Savonarola by his follower Domenico Benivieni, who appears in the title-cut in earnest disputation with a group of Florentines, while later on in the book there is a full-page illustration of the reformer's vision of the regeneration of the world and the Church, in which the stream of Christ's blood as He hangs on the Cross is being literally used for the washing away of sins. This book was published by Francesco Buonaccorsi in 1496.

Florentine book-illustration reached its highest in an edition of the Epistole e Evangelii,[15] or liturgical Gospels and Epistles, printed in 1495 by Lorenzo Morgiani and Johann Petri at the instance of the Ser Piero Pacini da Pescia, who for the next fourteen or fifteen years seems to have been an active promoter of illustrated books. Only two copies of the edition of the Epistole e Evangelii are known to exist, but the owner of one of them, Mr. C. W. Dyson Perrins, has reproduced all the woodcuts in it in very finely executed facsimile, together with a reprint of the text, for presentation to the Roxburghe Club, so that the illustrator's work can now be studied with comparative ease. The title-page shows S. Peter and S. Paul standing in a circle enclosed in an arabesque border of white floral ornaments and dolphins on a black ground. At the corners of the border are figures of the four

Evangelists. In the text there are twelve dozen large woodcuts and two dozen half-length figures of prophets, evangelists, and epistle-writers. Of the larger cuts eleven represent S. Paul writing and one S. Peter, most of the rest scenes from the life of Christ, several of those representing the Passion having previously appeared in an undated edition of the Meditatione attributed to S. Bonaventura from the press of Mischomini. The cuts form a treasure-house of Florentine art, and were frequently drawn upon by the printers of the later Rappresentationi, at which we shall soon have to look.

We must return now to Antonio Mischomini, who published many other illustrated books besides the Savonarola tracts. In 1492 he printed an edition of Cristoforo Landino's Formulare di lettere e di orationi uolgari, with a large title-cut of a very young teacher addressing a class, and at the end of the book his mark (a cross-surmounted M within two squares and a circle), surrounded by the arabesque border which we have already noticed in the Arte del bene Morire of 1496. The next year (i.e. 1493) he printed the Libro di Giuocho delli Scacchi of Jacobus de Cessolis, with a large title-cut (repeated at the end of the book) representing courtiers playing in the presence of a king, and thirteen smaller cuts personifying the various pieces. These comprise a king and queen, a judge, a knight, a 'rook,' or vicar of the king to visit in his stead all parts of the realm, and the eight 'popolari' or pawns, a labourer,

smith, wool-merchant, money-changer, physician, tavern-keeper (here shown), city-guard, and a runner to be at the rook's service. Chess-players may be interested to know that the pawns actually in use in 1493, as shown on the board in the title-cut, had already lost this excessive individuality, and resemble those of our own day.

In 1494 Mischomini printed the commentary on the Ten Commandments by Frate Marco dal Monte Sancta Maria, which has a title-cut of the friar preaching, and three full-page allegorical illustrations freely copied from those in an edition printed at Venice. The first of these represents 'la figura della vita eterna' by a picture of the glories of heaven,[16] and the earthly devotions by which they are to be attained; the second, which is in three divisions, the traversing of the Desert of Sin; and the third, Mount Sinai, up which Moses is seen climbing. In the same year, 1494, Mischomini also published a catechism known as the Lucidario, to which he prefixed a title-cut showing Damocles at his feast, the sword hanging over his head, and in another compartment some little rabbits running happily in a wood. Damocles and the rabbits have nothing whatever to do with the Catechism, and the occurrence of the cut proves that before this date Mischomini must have printed