The best known of the block-books, and the one which has the most important place in the history of printing, is the Speculum Humanæ Salvationis. While it is called a block-book, it has many differences from those we have previously spoken of, and occupies a position midway between them and the ordinary printed book.
The earliest block-books were printed page by page, and the sheets were bound up one after the other; but the Speculum is arranged in quires, though still only printed on one side of the page. In it, too, the text is, as a rule, printed from movable type, except in the case of one edition, where some pages are entirely xylographic. There are four editions known, printed, according to the best authorities, in the following order:—
1. Latin, printed with one fount. [Hessels, 2.]
2. Dutch, printed with two founts. [Hessels, 3.]
3. Latin, with twenty leaves printed xylographically. [Hessels, 1.]
4. Dutch, with one fount. [Hessels, 4.]
In all these four books the same cuts are used, and the type with which they were printed was used in other books.
Edition 1 contains sixty-four leaves, made up by one gathering of six leaves, three of fourteen, and one of sixteen; the text is throughout printed from movable type. In two copies, those in the Meerman-Westreenen Museum at the Hague, and the Pitti Palace at Florence, are to be found cancels of portions of some leaves. Either the text or the illustration has been defectively printed; in each case the defective part has been supplied by another copy pasted on.
Edition 2 contains sixty-two leaves, made up in the same way as the first edition, but having only four leaves in the first gathering. Two leaves in this edition are printed in a different type from the rest of the book.
Edition 3 contains the same number of leaves, and is made up in the same way as edition 1. It is remarkable for having twenty leaves printed entirely from blocks, text as well as illustrations.