Commin. It is in two tall folios, with the man-at-arms L to decorate its title-pages, and splendid initials P, I, and S, the first having within it a figure of a scribe at work, the S being twisted into the form of a scaly snake, and the body of the I containing a figure of Christ. The cuts and borders of the book are not very remarkable. In 1498 Vérard published a new edition of it, having obtained the use of the old blocks. A Lyons reprint was issued about 1500, and other editions during the sixteenth century. Two other printers who cannot be said to have learnt anything from Vérard are Jean Bonhomme, who as early as 1486 printed an illustrated edition of a very popular book, Le livre des profits champêtres, translated from the Latin of Petrus Crescentius, and Germain Bineaut, who in 1490 printed a Pathelin le grant et le petit which is said to have woodcuts. Guyot Marchant's series of editions of the Danse Macabre or 'danse des Morts,' has been already mentioned. An edition of the same work, printed at Lyons, February 18, 1499 (no printer's name), a copy of which is among the books which entered the British Museum under the bequest of Mr. Alfred Huth, is especially interesting as containing cuts of the shops of a printer and a bookseller, at both of which Death is at work.
Another edition of the Danse was printed by Nicole de la Barre at Paris in 1500, and others of the same character in the early years of the next century. We shall have to recur to the book again
both with reference to the Horae and for the later Lyons editions, the cuts in which followed designs by Holbein.
The only other Paris printer whom we have space here to mention is Jean Trepperel, whose career began in 1492, in which year, according to Hain, he issued a Histoire de Pierre de Provence et de la belle Maguelonne, probably illustrated. In 1493 he published an edition of the Chroniques de France, with four cuts, one of the founding of a town, another of an assault, and two battle scenes. They are good of their kind, especially that which serves for all the founders of cities from Æneas and Romulus to S. Louis, but their repetition becomes a little wearisome. In an undated issue of Jehan Quentin's Orologe de Devotion the cuts are all different, but fall into two series, one badly drawn and infamously engraved, the other showing really fine work, and having all the appearance of having been originally designed for a Book of Hours.
The only other fifteenth century book of Trepperel's with which I am acquainted is a charming quarto edition of the romance of Paris et Vienne, a copy of which is in the Morgan collection. It is undated, but was printed while the Pont Notre Dame was still standing. The title-cut shows signs of breakage, and may possibly have been designed for the earlier edition by Denis Meslier mentioned by Brunet as having a single cut. The rest of the large cuts in the book have all the appearance of having been
specially designed for the new edition, and are equal to the best work in the Horae. Meanwhile at Lyons the rude cuts of the books which heralded illustrated work in France had been replaced by far more artistic productions. In 1488 Michelet Topie de Pymont and Jacques Herrnberg produced a French version (by Nicole Le Huen) of Breydenbach's Peregrinatio (see p. 57) with copies of some of the original cuts, the smaller ones cut on wood, the large maps engraved on copper. The next year Jacques Maillet brought out a rival version (by Frere Jehan de Hersin) for which he acquired the original Mainz woodblocks themselves. To Maillet, also, we owe passable imitations of some of the less sumptuous books of Vérard's. Lastly, Jean Trechsel struck out a new line in a profusely illustrated Terence of 1493. At Rouen the Missal and Breviary printed by Martin Morin were adorned with a curious initial M and B in the same style as some of the more frequent Ls, and Pierre Regnault did work which Vérard found worthy of his vellum. Paris, however, having once gained the predominance in illustrated work, had as yet no difficulty in maintaining her position.
It remains for us to notice briefly the printers' devices in early French books. These are so numerous that it is possible to divide them into rough classes. The largest of these is formed by the marks which have as their central ornament a tree with a shield or label hung on the trunk, with supporters
varied according to the owner's fancy, and which are not always easy to assign to their right place in the animal creation. Durand Gerlier preferred rams, Michel Tholoze wild men, Denys Janot a creature which looks like a kangaroo, Hemon Le Fevre dancing bears duly muzzled and chained, Simon Vostre leopards, Thielmann Kerver unicorns, Felix Baligault rabbits, Robert Gourmont winged stags, Jehan Guyart of Bordeaux dolphins. Most of these devices have a dotted background, and they are sometimes found printed in red ink, which adds greatly to their decorative effect. Another class, to which Vérard's well-known device belongs, showed in their upper part the French lilies crowned and supported by angels. Jean Le Forestier combined this with the tree of knowledge, choosing lions as its supporters, but adding also the sacred lamb (for his name 'Jean'), and similar variations were adopted by other printers. In another large class the French printers, especially those of Lyons, followed the simple cross and circle so common in Italy. This was mostly printed in white on a black ground, as by Pierre Levet, Matthieu Vivian of Orleans, and Le Tailleur. Less often, as in the marks of Berthold Rembolt and Georges Wolf, the ground is white and the design black. Guillaume Balsarin who, as was very common, had two devices, had one of each kind. Outside these classes the special designs are too many to be enumerated. The successive Le Noirs punned on their names in
at least six different devices of black heads, and Deny de Harsy with less obvious appropriateness selected two black men with white waistbands to uphold his shields. Guyot Marchant's shoemakers, with the bar of music to complete his pious motto Sola fides sufficit, form one of the earliest and best known of French marks. Pierre Regnault showed excellent taste in his flower-surrounded P, in which the letters of his surname may also be deciphered. The scholar-printer Badius Ascensius chose a useful, if not very pretty, design of printers at work, the two variants of which first appear respectively in 1507 and 1521. All these devices and countless others will be found roughly figured in Silvestre's Marques Typographiques, many of them appear also in Brunet's Manuel du Libraire, and those of the chief fifteenth century printers have been reproduced with absolute fidelity in M. Thierry-Poux's Monuments de l'imprimerie française. Only the mark of Du Pré and one of those used by Caillaut are therefore given here, the first (on p. [141]) in honour of a pioneer in French illustration, the second, as perhaps the most beautiful of any which the present writer has seen.