CUT FROM THE QUENTELL BIBLE. (COLOGNE, C. 1480. MUCH REDUCED)
ADAPTATION OF THE COLOGNE CUT FOR THE MALERMI BIBLE. (VENICE, 1490)
Another, though a less interesting example of the adaptation of large and rather clumsy cuts to the scale of the little Venetian vignettes is the imitation in the 'Terence,' published by Simon de Luere at Venice in 1497, of the illustrations in Trechsel's edition which had appeared at Lyons four years earlier. Again, if, as I believe, we should attribute the first illustrated Italian edition of the 'Ars Moriendi,' printed in 1490, 'co li figure accomodati per Johanne clein & Piero himel de alamanis,' to Venice rather than to Lyons, we may claim the majority of the cuts in this as additional examples of intelligent, if not very original, adaptation by Venetian artists, the originals, in this case, being the designs first used in the German block-books, imitated again two years later, by Vérard at Paris.
It is true that after 1496 Cleyn was printing at Lyons, and that there is a Lyonnese book with the probably erroneous date 1478 by him, but we have no evidence, I believe, of his whereabouts in 1490, and there is one cut in the book, for which, as far as I know, the artist drew entirely on his own imagination, and this appears to me to be much more Venetian in its character than Lyonnese.[8] I give this cut from a copy in the British Museum which has unluckily been heavily coloured, so that the reproduction was no easy matter. It comes within our subject, not only as evidence for the Venetian origin of the edition, but as the original of the little cut on the title of the 'Omnis Mortalium Cura' of S. Antonino, printed for Pacini in 1507; the differences between the copy and the original being characteristic of the alteration in tone always introduced by Florentine artists when dealing with foreign work. The border has been simplified and at the same time given the usual black background. The recesses of the church are in unrelieved black instead of merely shaded. The figures are slighter and more graceful, and good taste is shown in the removal of the whispering devils, one of whom bears a scroll with the words 'nolo dire,' while the other inscription contains the word 'vergogna' (shame), preceded by some other letters which I cannot decipher in the Museum copy. It will be noticed that the Florentine artist has reversed the positions of the figures, but not the little altar-piece. The other cuts in the 1490 'Arte del Morire' also found Florentine imitators, as I cannot doubt that it was through them that the illustrator of the Florentine editions of c. 1495 and 1513 obtained his knowledge of the German designs which he followed in ten of his cuts. Some of the designs are copied in reverse, others directly, but in nearly every instance we find that by a number of small touches the cut has been made to assume a distinctly Florentine appearance.
ILLUSTRATION ON THE BACK OF THE TITLE-PAGE OF THE 'ARTE DEL BEN MORIRE,' PRINTED IN 1490 BY JOHANN CLEYN AND PIERO HIMEL, PROBABLY AT VENICE
FLORENTINE ADAPTATION OF THE SAME CUT USED ON THE TITLE-PAGE OF THE SOMMA 'OMNIS MORTALIUM CURA' OF S. ANTONINO. PACINI, 1507