'EXCEPT THE LORD BUILD THE HOUSE.' FROM THE MALERMI BIBLE. VENICE, 'ANIMA MIA,' 1493
By 1492 the block for this had apparently been damaged and is replaced by a larger cut (56 mm. in height), representing a king and two councillors, apparently taken from some other book. The 1493 illustrator was clearly puzzled by this, and for lack of anything better repeated a cut of Moses and Miriam from Exodus. Clearly he had not in this case the 1490 edition before him. But neither am I at all sure that he had that of 1492. While he copies six of the new pictures in Genesis he omits six others; in Exodus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy he agrees with the 1490 edition against that of 1492; in Judges, Ruth, and Kings, with 1492 as against 1490; in Genesis, Leviticus, and Joshua, partly with one, partly with the other. In two other cases he steers a middle course. The 1490 artist had illustrated far too realistically both the temptation of Joseph and the sin which called forth the zeal of Phineas. In the 1492 edition these subjects are very wisely omitted. In that of 1493 they appear, but in a modified form. My own theory to account for these discrepancies is that between 1490 and 1492—presumably in 1491—Giunta published yet another issue of the Bible, adding a few illustrations, but not so many as in 1492, and substituting two new cuts of the subjects unpleasantly illustrated in 1490, which he subsequently thought well to pass over altogether. Such an intermediate edition would supply a model which would explain all the early illustrations in the edition of 1493, and would also allow a more reasonable time to 'Anima Mia' to get them made, and his book printed, than the nine months which separate the editions of July 1492, and April 1493. 'Anima Mia,' however, was by no means wholly a plagiarist, as is proved by the fact that while in his first volume the 236 illustrations stand midways numerically between the 215 and the 252 of the two Giunta editions of 1490 and 1492; for his second volume he provided no fewer than 208 against the 176 and 187 of his predecessors, the new cuts being fairly evenly distributed through the different books, while their artistic merit is of average quality.
'THE FOOL HATH SAID IN HIS HEART.' FROM THE MALERMI BIBLE. VENICE, GIUNTA, 1490
It is by this touchstone of artistic merit, and not by considerations of quantity that the comparative claims of the two rival editions must be decided; and on the whole there can be no doubt that both for originality of design and for the highest merit in execution the palm must be given to the artists and craftsmen employed by Giunta. Unfortunately in both editions large numbers of the woodcuts were intrusted to cutters quite incompetent to deal with such delicate work. Giunta's illustrations to the Gospels are quite painfully bad, while those of 'Anima Mia' are here only mediocre, his worst craftsman having been employed on some of the middle books of the Old Testament. His worst work is almost as bad as the worst of Giunta's, though less painful, as not introducing the figure of Christ. The proportion of mediocre cuts is far greater, and of these we give (p. 46) a generously chosen example in that prefixed to Psalm lii. It should really be an illustration, it may be imagined, to the text, 'Except the Lord build the house their labour is but vain that build it,' but in any case it is strikingly inferior to the brilliant cut in the 1490 edition, which illustrates the heading 'Dixit insipiens' with all possible cogency.
THE ENTRY INTO THE ARK. FROM THE MALERMI BIBLE. VENICE, 'ANIMA MIA,' 1493
Lastly, his best work, though really good, is not so good as that of his predecessor. One reason for this is, no doubt, that part of the space available in the column was occupied by the little border-pieces which, though offering a pleasing setting to the pictures, diminish the space available for illustration by nearly a quarter. The effect of this is especially noticeable when the 1493 artist is copying his predecessor, the necessity for 'selection' sometimes leading to the omission of important parts of the composition. But at the outset of both volumes, before the work began to be hurried, there is plenty of originality, and excellent use is made of the space at the designer's disposal. The cut of the animals entering the ark here shown is delightful, and in that of Jacob deceiving Isaac we seem to feel instinctively the blindness of the old man, who stretches out his hand to feel for the dish his false son is bringing him. As the 1493 edition is so little known compared with that of 1490, both our remaining illustrations are taken from it. The first, the frontispiece to the second volume, shown at the beginning of this article, compares very favourably with the similar design in the earlier edition. The second, the picture of S. Jerome in the Desert, is one of the best things in the book, both in design and cutting; but it differs from everything else in it, and may possibly belong to some other set.
