A few books printed or published by less prolific firms remain to be noticed before we speak of the Horae which form so important a section among Paris illustrated books as to require separate treatment. One of Vérard’s printers was Pierre Le Rouge, a member of a family which worked also at Chablis and at Troyes. In July, 1488, and February, 1488-9, Le Rouge printed “pour Vincent Commin Marchand libraire” La mer des histoires in two great folios with large cuts of the kind Vérard subsequently used in his Chroniques de France, and on the titlepage a particularly fine capital L. Philippe Pigouchet, mainly a printer of Horae, produced in 1499 for his usual publisher, Simon Vostre, a charmingly illustrated edition of a dull poem, Le Chasteau de Labeur, attributed to the playwright of Victor Hugo’s Notre Dame de Paris, Pierre Gringore. Wolfgang Hopyl printed some fine Missals, mostly after 1500; Le Petit Laurens, besides working for Vérard, printed for G. Marnef La nef des folles, with a few cuts by one of the most skilled of Paris craftsmen, and these were rivalled by Jean Treperel in an undated Paris et Vienne; Gillet Couteau and Jean Ménard printed a Danse Macabre in 1492 (not so good as Gui Marchant’s) and a new version of the Biblia Pauperum entitled Les figures du vieil testament et du nouveau; Jean Lambert, in 1497, produced La nef des folz du monde, with cuts imitating those in the Basel editions. It would be easy to mention other books, but not without turning our pages into a catalogue.
We must turn now to the Paris Horae. As already noted, among the pictures in Jean Du Pré’s Verdun Missal of November, 1481, there are a set of cuts which seem to have been designed for a Horae, though if they were even put to this use no copy of the edition in which they appeared has been recorded. The earliest illustrated Horae of which copies exist are three editions published by Vérard, in February 1485-6, August 1486, and July 1487, all of them small and with insignificant cuts, and all known only from single copies, of which that of the earliest edition (in private hands) is imperfect, while the woodcuts in the other two, both at the Bibliothèque Nationale, are heavily coloured.
Vérard’s Horae of 1486 and 1487 are said to have been printed for him by Jean Du Pré, and in the next group of editions Du Pré on his own account seems to have played the chief part, with Levet and Caillaut as subordinate actors. It is probable that the group may have been started by a Psalter printed by Levet 23 September, 1486, and reprinted 19 February, 1488-9, the cuts of these appearing in an undated Horae ad usum Romanum, printed by Du Pré, now in the British Museum. This measures about 45⁄8 × 3¼ inches, and of the same size, but with different woodcuts, are another undated Horae by Du Pré in the Bodleian, and a third, with Caillaut’s mark at the end, in the Bibliothèque Nationale. The cuts in all three are delightfully simple and naive, and those in the Bodleian Du Pré edition show really delicate work. The group, which comprised other editions only known from fragments, seems to be continued by two dated respectively 10 May, 1488, and 4 February, 1488-9, each measuring about 55⁄8 × 35⁄8 inches, the illustrations in which are distinctly stated to have been cut on copper (les vignettes de ces presentes heures imprimees en cuyvre). The illustrations especially referred to are the borderpieces, which are of great importance as containing the earliest examples of a series of small Horae cuts continued from page to page, in this case depicting incidents in the life of Christ and their prefigurements, on the plan of the old block-book Biblia Pauperum. Lastly, in 1490, we have a Du Pré Horae, with very fine cuts and with some of the miscellaneous borderpieces of the editions just mentioned, which is of exceptional interest in the history of French book-illustration and printing, since the cuts and borders in it are printed in different colours, faint red, blue and green, two colours (laid on the same block and printed at the same time) usually appearing together. The British Museum possesses one of two known copies of this Horae, and the late Prince d’Essling bought the other.
| XX. PARIS, VÉRARD, 1490 GRANDES HEURES (SIG. C 6 VERSO). MASSACRE OF THE INNOCENTS |
In the Horae of the group we have been describing the subjects of the larger cuts became fairly well settled, in accordance with the normal contents of the prayer book. For the Kalendar there is the figure of a man with an indication of the parts of his body presided over by the different planets: for the sequence of the Gospels of the Passion, sometimes a Crucifixion, sometimes a picture of S. John; for the Hours of the Blessed Virgin, the Annunciation, Visitation, Nativity, Shepherds, Magi, Circumcision, Massacre of the Innocents or Flight into Egypt, and Assumption of the Blessed Virgin; for the Hours of the Cross, a Crucifixion; for the Hours of the Holy Spirit, His Descent at Pentecost; for the Penitential Psalms, David’s fall (Bathsheba bathing or the death of Uriah) or repentance; for the Office of the Dead, either a Funeral, Dives and Lazarus, or the three Gallants and three Skeletons (les trois vifs et trois morts); for the Suffrages, small pictures of various saints. Any edition might have one or more additional cuts with less usual subjects, but those named occur in almost all.
Passing on, we come now to Vérard’s countermove to Du Pré’s group, Horae measuring 6 inches or a little under by about 3½. Editions of these were issued in April, 1488-9, and in January, February, and April of the following year. The last of these, completed 10 April, 1489-90, I wrongly described, in an article in Vol. III of Bibliographica, as having a titlepage bearing the words Les figures de la Bible. It has such a titlepage in the copy in the British Museum, but I have now woke up to the fact that it is a modern fabrication, added either by an artful bookseller or an artless owner. In these Horae the borders are made up of four pieces, one of which extends along most of the outer and lower margins, and shows children wrestling with each other, or playing with hobbies or go-carts. On 10 July, 1493, these are found in a Horae issued by Laurens Philippe. Vérard could the better afford to part with them, since in August, 1490, perhaps earlier, he had substituted much larger borders, the subjects in which seem imitated from those of Du Pré’s metal-cuts, the printed page now measuring about 8 × 5 inches, and thus winning for them the title Grandes Heures, by which they are generally known (see Plate XX). The large cuts, of which, though not all appear in every edition, there seems to have been seventeen, illustrate the following subjects:—
1. Prayer to the Virgin; 2. Anatomical Man; 3. A chalice the circumference of which represents the measurement of Christ’s wound; 4. Fall of Angels; 5. Creation of Eve and Fall; 6. Controversy in heaven between Mercy, Justice, Peace, and Reason, and Annunciation; 7. Reconciliation of Joseph and Mary, and Visitation; 8. Nativity and Adoration by the Shepherds; 9. Angels and Shepherds, Shepherds dancing; 10. Magi; 11. Circumcision; 12. Massacre of Innocents; 13. Coronation of the Virgin; 14. David’s choice of punishments; 15. Hearse in a Chancel; 16. Invention of the Cross; 17. Pentecost.
The cutting is good and the pictures are both quaint and decorative, their larger size enabling them to avoid the overcrowding which had damaged the effect of the earlier sets. These cuts continued in use till 1498, successive editions in May, July, and October of that year, from the press of Jean Poitevin, showing their gradual replacement by copies of Philippe Pigouchet’s second set.
This famous printer-illustrator was certainly printing as early as 1488, though Mr. Proctor in his “Index” makes the Horae for the use of Paris, finished 1 December, 1491, his earliest book. Although not his earliest book, I still believe that this was Pigouchet’s earliest Book of Hours, and regret that M. Claudin, while rejecting supposed editions of 1486 and 1487, should have accepted as authentic one of 16 September, 1488, said to have very rude and archaic cuts, while owning that he could not trace a copy. Until the book can be produced I shall continue to believe that this edition of 16 September, 1488, is a ghost begotten of a double crime, a bookseller’s manipulation of the date of one of Pigouchet’s best-known editions, that of “le xvi iour de Septembre Lan Mil cccc.iiii.xx et xviii,” by omitting the x in xviii, and a bibliographer’s endeavour to make this imaginary edition of 16 September, 1488, more credible by assuming—and asserting—that its cuts were rude and archaic because over three years earlier than any authenticated Horae from Pigouchet’s press. His edition of 1 December, 1491, was printed partly for sale by himself, partly for de Marnef, who subsequently owned the blocks. Besides the usual illustrations for the Hours, it has pictures of S. John writing and of the Betrayal for the Gospels of the Passion, of David’s choice of punishments for the Penitential Psalms, and of Les trois vifs et trois morts, and Dives and Lazarus for the Office for the Dead; also a small cut, with a criblé background of the Vision of S. Gregory, and numerous small cuts of saints. The sidepieces, which are marked with letters to indicate their sequence, illustrate the Creation, the prophecies of the Sibyls, and the subjects of the Biblia Pauperum. During the years 1491 and 1495 at least eight or ten Horae for various uses were printed by Pigouchet, mostly for Simon Vostre. Of most of these a good many copies have survived printed on vellum and often illuminated for wealthy purchasers. The paper copies, which presumably formed the bulk of each edition, are now far rarer, and to students of book-illustration much preferable to the coloured vellum copies. Good vellum copies with the pictures and borders uncoloured, but with their pages brightened by illuminated capitals and coloured paragraph marks, are the pleasantest to possess.
At the end of 1495 or early in 1496 Pigouchet began replacing the woodcuts of this series of editions with a new set much more graceful and less stiff, a few changes being made in the subjects. At the same time he substituted new borderpieces for the old, among the new blocks being a fine series of the Dance of Death, which were brought into use as they were completed, so that we can trace the increase of them from month to month, so frequent now were the editions. In 1497 and 1498 further additions were made to the large pictures by the addition of new metal cuts with criblé backgrounds for the Anatomical Man, chalice, Stem of Jesse, Adoration by the Shepherds, Descent from the Cross, Death of Uriah, and the Church Militant and Triumphant. By the end of 1499 new criblé borderpieces had been added, illustrating the life of Joseph, history of the Prodigal Son, history of Susanna, Fifteen Tokens of Judgment, Christ Seated in Judgment, the Cardinal Virtues, and woodland and hunting scenes. From August, 1498, to the end of 1502 Pigouchet’s editions were at their finest. Meanwhile the cuts of his second set were slavishly copied in editions printed for Vérard. From 1497, moreover, he had to face serious competition from Thielman Kerver, who issued closely similar editions with pictures and borders by cutters little, if at all, inferior either in technical skill or charm. On 5 April, 1503, Jean Pychore and Remy de Laistre completed an edition, in which Pigouchet probably had a hand, with three very large cuts of the Annunciation, Nativity, and Adoration by the Magi, and eight smaller ones surrounded by architectural framework, representing S. John before the Latin Gate, the Crucifixion, the Emperor Octavian and the Sibyl, the Massacre of the Innocents, Descent of the Holy Spirit, Death of the Virgin, and Raising of Lazarus, some of them showing strong traces of the influence of Dürer. From this point onwards the Renaissance spirit became increasingly powerful in these prayer books, and while in almost all their advances to meet it the work of Pigouchet himself, and of Thielman Kerver, continues interesting (though the mixture of old and new styles in their editions is often confusing), in the numerous editions poured forth by Germain and Gillet Hardouyn, many of them printed for them by Guillaume Anabat, and again in those printed by Nicolas Higman for Guillaume Eustace, the cuts are very inferior, so that they look best when most heavily illuminated. In a few editions published by the Hardouyns spaces appear to have been left for the illuminator to work unaided. In most of these late editions only the pages with cuts have borders, and these of the nature of picture frames, as contrasted with the old historiated borders.