Edition 4 is made up in the same way as edition 2. The copy in the library at Lille contains some leaves with text printed upon both sides, seemingly by an error of the printer. The very fact of their existence shows that it was possible to print the text on both sides of the leaf. There must therefore have been some reason other than the ignorance or incapacity of the printer for printing these books on one side only, or, as it is called, anopisthographically.
There can be very little doubt that Mr. Sotheby is correct in his conjecture, that ‘the then usual process of taking off the wood engravings by friction, rendered it impossible to effect two impressions back to back, as the friction for the second would materially injure the first. On this account, and on no other, we presume, was the text printed only on one side.’ In the Lille copy above mentioned, two leaves, 25 and 26 (the centre sheet of the third quire), contain printed on their other side the text, not the illustrations, of leaves 47 and 62 (the first sheet of the fifth quire.)
From this we learn three things of great importance—1. That the text and the cut were not printed at the same time, and that the text was printed first. 2. That the printer could print the text, for which he used movable type, on both sides of the paper. 3. That the book was printed, not page by page, but two pages at a time.
Mr. Ottley was strongly of opinion, after careful examination, that the book was certainly printed two pages at a time. He says, ‘The proofs of this are, I think, conclusive. The upper lines of the text in those two pages always range exactly with each other.... Here and there, in turning over the book, we observe a page printed awry or diagonally on the paper; in such case, if the other page of the same sheet be examined, the same defect will be noticed. Upon opening the two Dutch copies of the edition, which I shall hereafter show to be the fourth at Harlem, in the middle sheet of the same gathering we find, upon comparing them, the exact same breadth and regularity of the inner margin in both, and the lines of the two pages range with each other exactly the same in both copies, which could not be the case had each page been printed separately.’
Where and when was this book printed? Conjectural dates have been given to it ranging from 1410 to 1470. The earliest date that can be absolutely connected with it is 1471-73. Certainly there is nothing in its printing which would point to its having been executed earlier than 1470. Its being printed only on the one side of the leaf was a matter of necessity on account of the cuts, and is not a sign of remote age, while the printing of two pages at a time argues an advance of knowledge in the printer, and consequently a later date. About 1480-81 the blocks which had been used for the four editions of the Speculum passed into the hands of John Veldener. This Veldener printed in Louvain between 1475 and 1477, and he was not then in possession of the blocks. ‘At the end of 1478 he began work at Utrecht, still, however, without this set of blocks. For his second edition of the Fasciculus temporum, published 14th February 1480, he had a few new blocks made, some of which were copied from Speculum cuts. At last, on the 19th April 1481, he published an Epistles and Gospels in Dutch, and into that he introduced two cut-up portions of the real old Speculum blocks. This was the last book Veldener is known to have printed at Utrecht. For two years we hear nothing more of him, and then he reappears at Kuilenburg, whither he removed his presses. There, on the 27th September 1483, he printed a quarto edition of the Speculum in Dutch. For it he cut up all the original blocks into their separate compartments, and thus suited them to fit into the upper portion of a quarto page. He had, moreover, twelve new cuts made in imitation of these severed portions of the old set, and he printed them along with the rest. Once more, in 1484 he employed a couple of the old set in the Dutch Herbarius, which was the last book known to have been issued by him at Kuilenburg. Thenceforward the Speculum cuts appear no more.’[3]
[3]Conway’s Woodcutters, p. 13.
The only place, then, with which the Speculum blocks are definitely connected is Utrecht, and there they must be left until some further evidence is forthcoming respecting their origin; nor have we any substantial reason for believing that when they passed into the possession of Veldener they had been in existence for more than ten or twelve years.
Some among the late block-books are of interest as having been produced by men who were at the same time printers in the ordinary sense of the word. There is part of a Donatus in the Bodleian, with a colophon stating it to be the work of Conrad Dinckmut, a printer at Ulm from 1482 to 1496. In the British Museum is a German almanac of about 1490 produced by Conrad Kacheloffen, who printed a number of books, many with illustrations, at Leipzig. For a book so small as the Donatus, a book which was always in demand, it would be almost as economical to cut blocks as to keep type standing, and we consequently find a number of such xylographic editions produced at the very end of the fifteenth century. In the Bibliothèque Nationale are two original blocks, bought by Foucault, the minister of Louis XIV., in Germany, and probably cut about 1500 or shortly before. The letters are cut in exact imitation of type, and with such regularity that a print from the block might almost pass for a print from ordinary type, did not the bases and tops of a few letters overlap.
The latest block-book of any size was printed at Venice. It is the Figure del Testamento Vecchio, printed about 1510 by Giovanni Andrea Vavassore.
In the library at Lambeth Palace are two curious block-printed leaves of early English work. Each leaf contains an indulgence printed four times, consisting of a figure of Saint Cornelius and five lines of text. ‘The hole indulgence of pardon granted to blessed S. Cornelis is vi score years, vi score lentes, ii M ix C and xx dais of pardon for evermore to endure.’