black ground. Another Antwerp printer, G. Back, used several varieties of bird-cages as his marks, in one of which the Antwerp castle is introduced on a shield hanging from the cage. Several printers—e.g. Colard Mansion at Bruges, Jacob Jacobsoen at Delft, and Gerard Leeu at Gouda, contented themselves with small devices of a pair of shields braced together. Leeu, however, while at Gouda, used also a large device of a helmeted shield supported by two lions.
CHAPTER X
SPAIN
Since the first edition of this book appeared knowledge both of Spanish incunabula and the types in which they are printed has been greatly increased, thanks to the researches of Professor Haebler. These have dealt incidentally, but only incidentally, with the illustration and decoration of early Spanish books, and the present writer must still confine himself mainly to the little handful of illustrated books which have come under his own notice.
The book-hand in use in Spain's manuscripts during the fifteenth century was unusually massive and handsome, and the same characteristics naturally reappear in the majority of the types used by the early printers in Spain. A considerable proportion of these were Germans, whose tradition of good press-work was very fairly maintained by their immediate successors, so that throughout a great part of the sixteenth century Spanish books retain much of the primitive dignity which we are wont to associate only with 'incunabula.' From a very early period, also, they are distinguished by the excellence of their initial letters, which are