From this point a small staircase in the corner of the cloisters (Room 55) leads to Room 56, containing some interesting examples of early book-bindings. Passing through this room, and turning to the left, we arrive at
ROOMS 57-58,
where we have before our eyes the development of manuscripts, engraving and printing from the beginning of the eighth century. The first room contains many documents and charters, manuscripts, autographs, and illuminations. Besides these there are many sketches, architectural drawings and designs, chiefly heraldic, for works of art. Here, too, is a noticeable collection of wood-engravings, including many fine leaves by Durer (Apocalypse, Passions, Life of Mary), Lucas Cranach, Hans Burgkmair, Grien, Schäuffelein, etc., and of copper-engravings[68] by Durer, Lucas van Leyden, Aldegrever, Altdorfer, Augustin Hirschvogel, etc.
In the next room we enter the region of printed books, and find a well-arranged and delightful collection. In case i., among other examples of the early “Block books” (books printed wholly from carved blocks of wood, from which undoubtedly the idea of moveable type arose), we note the Ars Moriendi and the Kalendar of Ludwig von Basel (1460?). Of Block books at Nuremberg, we may note that Hans Sporer produced here an edition of the Endkrist (1472), of the Ars Moriendi, 1473, and of the Biblia Pauperum (1475).
The first two books to be printed from moveable type were two Latin Bibles (circ. 1453). Of these, one is known as the thirty-six line, or Bamberg Bible. It was printed by Gutenberg, and is represented in the Museum by two leaves only (case i.). The other is known as the Forty-two line, or Mazarine Bible. It was printed by Gutenberg, in partnership with Fust and Schöffer, and is represented here by one leaf (case ii.). One leaf, too, is all there is here to tell of the 1457 Psalter, with the wonderful capital letters printed by Fust and Schöffer. The extraordinary beauty and perfection of printing in its infancy can never fail to arrest attention. The explanation is obvious. It was not till the scribes, with whom printers had at first to compete in the multiplication of books, had ceased to exist that printers could afford to be careless in their work and indifferent in their choice of types.
Then there are the three books ascribed to Gutenberg’s press about the year 1460—
(1) The Tractatus racionis et conscientiæ of Matthæus de Cracovia;
(2) The Summa de articulis fidei of Thomas Aquinas; and
(3) The Catholicon.
The Catholicon type appears again in the Latin-German dictionary known as the Vocabularius ex quo, the second edition of which, published by Nikolaus Bechtermünze at Eltvil, is here represented.