There is an unfortunate ambiguity connected with the marks that are found on ancient engravings in wood, and it has been a very great error on the part of all the writers who treat on such engravings, in referring the marks that accompany them to the block-cutters, or as the Germans properly denominate them the formschneiders, whilst, perhaps, the greatest part of them really belong to the designers, as is undoubtedly the case with respect to Albert Durer, Hans Schaufelin, Jost Amman, Tobias Stimmer, &c. It may be laid down as a rule that there is no certainty as to the marks of engravers, except where they are accompanied with some implement of their art, especially a graving tool. Where the designer of the subject put his mark on the drawing which he made on, or for, the block, the engraver would, of course, copy it. Sometimes the marks of both designer and engraver are found on prints, and in these cases the ambiguity is consequently removed.
CHAPTER VIII.
List of several editions of the Lyons work on the Dance of Death, with the mark of Lutzenberger.—Copies of them on wood.—Copies on copper by anonymous artists.—By Wenceslaus Hollar.—Other anonymous artists.—Nieuhoff Picard.—Rusting.—Mechel.—Crozat’s drawings.—Deuchar.—Imitations of some of the subjects.
I.
es Simulachres et historiées faces de la Mort, autant elegamment pourtraictes, que artificiellement imaginées. A Lyon, Soubz l’escu de Coloigne, MDXXXVIII.” At the end “Excudebant Lugduni Melchior et Gaspar Trechsel fratres, 1538,” 4to. On this title-page is a cut of a triple-headed figure crowned with wings, on a pedestal, over which a book with ΓΝΩΘΙ ΣΕΑΥΤΟΝ. Below, two serpents and two globes, with “usus me genuit.” This has, 1. A dedication to Madame Jehanne de Touszele. 2. Diverses tables de mort, non painctes, mais extraictes de l’escripture saincte, colorées par Docteurs Ecclesiastiques, et umbragées par philosophes. 3. Over each print, passages from scripture, allusive to the subject, in Latin, and at bottom the substance of them in four French verses. 4. Figures de la mort moralement descriptes et depeinctes selon l’authorité de l’scripture, et des Sainctz Peres. 5. Les diverses mors des bons, et des maulvais du viel, et nouveau testament. 6. Des sepultures des justes. 7. Memorables authoritez, et sentences des philosophes, et orateurs Payens pour conformer les vivans à non craindre la mort. 7. De la necessite de la mort qui ne laisse riens estre par durable.” With forty-one cuts. This may be safely regarded as the first edition of the work. There is nothing in the title page that indicates any preceding one.
II. “Les Simulachres et historiées faces de la mort, contenant la Medecine de l’ame, utile et necessaire non seulement aux malades mais à tous qui sont en bonne disposition corporelle. D’avantage, la forme et maniere de consoler les malades. Sermon de sainct Cecile Cyprian, intitulé de Mortalité. Sermon de S. Jan Chrysostome, pour nous exhorter à patience: traictant aussi de la consommation de ce siecle, et du second advenement de Jesus Christ, de la joye eternelle des justes, de la peine et damnation des mauvais, et autres choses necessaires à un chascun chrestien, pour bien vivre et bien mourir. A Lyon, à l’escu de Coloigne, chez Jan et François Frellon freres,” 1542, 12mo. With forty-one cuts. Then a moral epistle to the reader, in French. The descriptions of the cuts in Latin and French as before, and the pieces expressed in the title page.
III. “Imagines Mortis. His accesserunt, Epigrammata, è Gallico idiomate à Georgio Æmylio in Latinum translata. Ad hæc, Medicina animæ, tam iis qui firma, quàm qui adversa corporis valetudine præditi sunt, maximè necessaria. Ratio consolandi ob morbi gravitatem periculosè decumbentes. Quæ his addita sunt, sequens pagina commonstrabit. Lugduni, sub scuto Coloniensi, 1545.” With the device of the crab and the butterfly. At the end, “Lugduni Excudebant Joannes et Franciscus Frellonii fratres,” 1545, 12mo. The whole of the text is in Latin, and translated, except the scriptural passages, from the French, by George Æmylius, as he also states in some verses at the beginning; but several of the mottoes at bottom are different and enlarged. It has forty-two cuts, the additional one, probably not by the former artist, being that of the beggar sitting on the ground before an arched gate: extremely fine, particularly the beggar’s head. This subject has no connection with the Dance of Death, and is placed in another part of the volume, though in subsequent editions incorporated with the other prints. The “Medicina animæ” is very different from the French one. There is some reason for supposing that the Frellons had already printed an edition with Æmylius’s text in 1542. This person was an eminent German divine of Mansfelt, and the author of many pious works. In the present edition the first cut of the creation exhibits a crack in the block from the top to the bottom, but it had been in that state in 1543, as appears from an impression of it in Holbein’s Bible of that date. It is found so in all the subsequent editions of the present work, with the exception of those in Italian of 1549 and in the Bible of 1549, in which the crack appears to have been closed, probably by cramping; but the block again separated afterwards.