The other artists who used the cross may be divided into three classes, according to M. Robert-Dumesnil's book. First, we find the cross alone, from 1522 to 1561; secondly, after a long interval, in 1599, the cross appears accompanied by the initials I, L, B; and, lastly, a little later, two engravers on copper, named Jean Barra and Claude Rivard, signed their works with the cross. I do not include here the double cross discovered by M. Robert-Dumesnil on the printer's mark of a book dated 1632, because it is the mark of Gilles Corrozet, engraved a century earlier, as we shall see further on.
To sum up, then, there are no anonymous works bearing the cross except those produced between 1522 and 1561. The only question is whether the engravings executed between those dates, which bear the cross without initials, belong to one or to several artists.
I will, first of all, call attention to the fact that this interval embraces only forty years, and that there is no reason to attribute to several contemporaneous and anonymous artists a very peculiar mark which a single artist might have used during an even longer time. But this is not all: this interval can be reduced by several years; for the examples alleged to be subsequent to 1557, mentioned by M. Robert-Dumesnil, bear no date; they appear, it is true, in books printed after that year, but they were engraved earlier, as I shall prove in due time. Blocks are not ephemeral objects; like type, they can be used indefinitely, and their use at a certain date does not prove that they had been made within a short time. We have just cited one—Gilles Corrozet's mark—which, simply by lack of use, it was possible to reproduce in books for more than a century.
What surprises me is not that M. Robert-Dumesnil has seen engravings with the cross printed in 1561, but that he has found none of a later date, which would have allowed him to fill up the gap that he has left between the anonymous artist of the cross alone and him who accompanied it with the letters I, L, B; he might have discovered the beautiful illustration of the Missal of 1539, which is described hereafter, in books of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Indeed, we find wood engravings of the sixteenth century, bearing the double cross, in a book published at Troyes in 1850!
On the other hand, I am surprised that M. Robert-Dumesnil found no engravings with the cross, accompanied by initials, of a date much earlier than 1599, for I myself have seen some that were contemporaneous with Tory. In fact, the Bibliothèque Nationale possesses a book of Hours according to the use of Paris, printed in that city in 1548, by Jean de Brye's widow, in which all the engravings are marked with the cross and the initials L, R. It is an octavo volume, printed in gothic type, and in red and black. An interesting fact to be noted here is that these engravings are improved copies of other unsigned engravings belonging to the printer Thielman Kerver,[289] and printed in a large number of books issued by him or his widow, Iolande Bonhomme, at least as early as 1522,[290] and still to be seen in the Paris Missal, published by his son Jacques in 1559. I have seen also engravings of the artist with the initials I, L, B (cited by M. Robert-Dumesnil under the date of 1599), in a book of 1547.
These facts do not tend to contradict my proposition; they prove that Tory founded a school, and that his pupils adopted his mark (which is nothing more than his initial, or, rather, his toret, transferred from the Pot Cassé, of which it was the essential feature, to his engravings), adding thereto their initials, to distinguish themselves from the master whose ensign they hoisted, and to preserve their own individuality. I shall recur to this subject later.
The principal reason which prevented M. Renouvier from attributing to Tory, as he was naturally inclined to do, the engravings marked with the double cross alone, was the impossibility, in his judgement, of attributing them all to the same artist. 'M. Robert-Dumesnil,' he says, 'has noted a large number of books of 1522 to 1599, on the title-pages and plates of which the cross of Lorraine is found. This list might be increased, and the items should be carefully compared by whoever would try to find on them the mark of a wood-engraving establishment, or of several engravers on wood who worked for the booksellers Pierre Gaudoul, Simon de Colines, Robert Estienne, Grouleau, Gilles Corrozet, Vincent Sertenas,[291] etc.'
I have already answered the objection based upon M. Robert-Dumesnil's book, which he himself has abandoned with great pleasure, taking a deep interest in my discovery.[292] As for what M. Renouvier adds, it does not run counter to my suggestion, for I have already mentioned that, after Tory's death, his widow carried on his engraving establishment for several years, retaining the same mark. This, doubtless, is the explanation of the differences to be noticed in the works signed with the Lorraine cross; for Perrette le Hullin, not being an engraver herself, must have employed different workmen.
This leads me to answer an objection that has been made to my theory. My attention has been called to the fact that the Lorraine cross appears on works anterior to Tory,—such, for example, as the mark of Gauthier Lud, the first printer of Saint-Dié in Lorraine. I have no purpose to claim the Lorraine cross for Tory alone. He was not its inventor, nor did it die with him; but there is a distinction to be made between an emblem employed in a general way, and one employed as the special mark of an artist. Not only do I not claim for Tory the Lorraine cross surmounting a circle, which appears on the mark of the Lorraine printer, Gauthier Lud,[293] in 1507, but I exclude the Lorraine cross surmounting a large gothic G, found on the title-page of a folio Missal according to the use of the church of Toul, printed at Paris by Wolfgang Hopyl, in 1508.[294] To my mind nothing could be more natural than that the Lorraine cross should be used in Lorraine; but that does not prove that an artist at Bourges may not have adopted it as the mark of his establishment.
I mention hereafter as one of Tory's first engravings on wood the title-page of a book printed at Meaux in 1522, and I then say that the preface of that book was dated 'Meldis, anno M. D. XXI.'[295] M. Brunet makes me say,[296] I cannot imagine why, 'Metis' instead of 'Meldis'; and M. Didot, misled by that statement, says that the book in question was published at Metz,[297] which fact seems to him to explain the presence of the Lorraine cross on the title. This shows how an error may be appealed to in support of a theory.