MIRABILIA ROMAE
A German guide-book for visitors to Rome. Ninety-two leaves, printed with black ink on both sides of the leaf, with only a few illustrations. It was perhaps first published to meet the rush of German pilgrims to Rome at the Jubilee of Pope Sixtus IV, 1475. The blocks were probably cut in Germany, and the printing done at Rome. Some of the ornaments are said to have been used in type-printed editions by Stephan Plannck. This suggests that the book may have been published by his predecessor, Ulrich Han.
In addition to these block-books of Low Country and German origin, mention must also be made of a very curious Italian one, a Passio domini nostri Jesu Christi, fully described by the Prince d’Essling. The copy of this at Berlin contains eighteen leaves, and was probably executed at Venice about the middle of the fifteenth century. Some of the blocks were subsequently used (after a scroll at the foot had been cut off) for an edition of the Devote Meditatione sopra la Passione del Nostro Signore (attributed to S. Bonaventura), published at Venice in 1487 by Jeronimo di Sancti e Cornelio suo Compagno, and a page from this is reproduced as a frontispiece to our chapter on Italian Illustrated Books.
Mention has already been made of the Opera nova contemplativa, an adaptation of the Biblia Pauperum, printed as a block-book at Venice about 1530.
The only extant French block-book, if it can be called one, is that of the “Nine Worthies” (Les Neuf Preux). This consists of three sheets, the first showing three heathen worthies—Hector, Alexander, and Julius Cæsar; the second, three from the Old Testament—Joshua, David, and Judas Maccabæus; the third, three from medieval romance—Arthur, Charlemagne, and Godfrey of Boulogne. Under each picture are six lines of verse. These three triple woodcuts, with the woodcut text, are assigned to about 1455.
No English block-book has yet been discovered, nor is it in the least likely that one ever existed, though there are a few single woodcuts.
Block-books possess two permanent attractions in addition to their supposed historical importance in the development of the invention of printing on which doubt is now cast—the attraction of popular literature and the attraction of the illustrated book. As we have seen, it would not have been worth any one’s while to cause a block-book to be laboriously engraved, or cut, unless a large and speedy sale could be expected for it. The most famous block-books are nearly all of a religious character, and they prove a widespread desire for simple instruction as to the incidents of the life of Christ and the events in the Old Testament history which were regarded as prefigurements of them, as to the dignity of the Blessed Virgin and the doctrine of the Virgin Birth, as to the end of the world and the coming of Antichrist, and as to the spiritual dangers and temptations of the dying and the means by which they might be resisted. As early specimens of book-illustration the value of the block-books varies very greatly. The majority of them are more curious than beautiful, but the pictures of the Cantica Canticorum, the Speculum Humanae Saluationis, and the Ars Moriendi have all very great merit. The tall, slender figures in the Song of Songs have a charm as great as any Dutch book-illustrations of the fifteenth century; the cuts of the Speculum are full of vigour, while the serene dignity of the scenes in the Ars Moriendi illustrating the Inspirations of the Good Angel is as impressive as the grotesque force used in depicting the diabolic suggestions. If we must grant, as the weight of authority now bids us, that these woodcuts are copies from the copper engravings of the Master E. S., it can hardly be disputed that the wood-cutter was the better artist of the two.
The block-books are a striking example of the difficulty of gleaning where the earlier collectors have reaped, a difficulty to which we shall often have to call attention. They vary greatly in positive rarity. Of the Biblia Pauperum and Ars Moriendi, which in their different issues and editions enjoyed the longest life and early attracted attention, Dr. Schreiber (if I have counted rightly) was able to enumerate in the one case as many as eighty-three copies—many of them, it is true, mere fragments—in the other sixty-one. Of the Apocalypse fifty-seven copies were known to him, of the Speculum twenty-nine, of the Antichrist thirteen, of the Defensorium twelve, and of the Mirabilia Romae six. But of these 261 copies and fragments no fewer than 223 are recorded as being locked up in public libraries and museums, the ownership of thirteen was doubtful, and only twenty-five are definitely registered as being in the hands of private collectors, viz. of the Apocalypse, eight copies or fragments; of the Biblia Pauperum, six; of the Speculum and Ars Moriendi, four each; of the Defensorium, two; and of the Cantica Canticorum, one. The chief owners known to Dr. Schreiber were the Earl of Pembroke, Baron Edmond de Rothschild, and Major Holford, to whom must now be added Mr. Pierpont Morgan and Mr. Perrins. No doubt the copies in public institutions are much more easily enumerated than those in private hands, and probably most of the untraced copies are owned by collectors. But when allowance has been made for this, it remains obvious that this is no field where an easy harvest can be reaped, and that the average collector may think himself lucky if he obtains one or two single leaves. The last great opportunity of acquiring such treasures was at the sale in 1872 of the wonderful collection formed by T. O. Weigel,[11] at which the British Museum bought a very fine copy of the first edition of the Ars Moriendi, the first edition, dated 1470, of the Biblia Pauperum, in German, a block-book illustrating the virtues of the hymn Salve Regina, and the compassion of the Blessed Virgin, printed at Regensburg about 1470, besides fragments and woodcut single sheets. The foundation of the Museum collection of block-books had been laid by George III, added to by Mr. Grenville, and completed by a series of purchases from 1838 to this final haul of 1872, since when there have been few opportunities for new acquisitions. It is now quite adequate for purposes of study, though not so rich as that of the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris.
[3] The authenticity of a still earlier date, 1418, on a cut of the Blessed Virgin at Brussels is disputed.