The century of Columbus

by James J. Walsh

If ordinary impressions were to be accepted, it might well be expected that printing having been invented about the middle of the fifteenth century, the first century would see industrious, but rather crude applications of the invention, until men became accustomed to its employment, and then gradually, by that progress which is so often assumed to be inevitable in mankind, printing would rise to be an art more and more beautiful as time went on, until in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries we would have the most beautiful examples of book-making. As a matter of fact, however, during the first half century, immediately after the preliminary tentative application of the art, printing rose to a perfection that has never been excelled since and only equalled in few periods.

Between 1475 and 1525 some of the most beautiful printed books ever made were completed and [{148}] worthily bound. Columbus' Century can boast the production of the most beautiful books in the world. Succeeding centuries saw a decadence in the arts of book-making which was progressive until the latter half of the nineteenth century. At that time some of the worst books ever made, with poorly designed, cheap type, still cheaper but fortunately perishable paper, sadly inartistic illustrations and ugly bindings, were made (perpetrated is the expression one book-lover has used). It must not be forgotten that this same decadence affected everything else, and that painting and sculpture and architecture reached their lowest ebb also in the nineteenth century, though the book continued to be in the depths for longer than any of the other products of the arts.

Fortunately, William Morris came to call attention to the utter ugliness of commercialized book-making and to arouse his generation to a noble effort for the recovery of the lost art. He demonstrated how artistically books might be made by taking as models the printed books of Columbus' time. He imitated as far as possible their beautiful hand-made paper without reflecting surface, of a tint that made the ink stand out on printed pages with wide margins and judicious spacing, with type faces eminently suited for easy reading, and made with an eye to real artistic quality and with ink that has not faded all these 400 years. All these were book qualities well worthy of emulation. The work has been taken up in many places since, and now beautiful books are not so rare as they were, though it is doubtful whether, even with all our mechanical appliances, our ability to sell reasonably large editions, the prosperity of the time and the interest of publishers and bibliophiles, we have succeeded in making any books that we would dare to set in comparison with a number of the volumes that were printed in Columbus' Century.

The perfection which book-making by hand had reached at the time when printing was invented and began to come into general use made it comparatively easy for excellent printed books to be made--excellent in the sense both of good printing and fine illustration. The "Books of Hours" of the later fifteenth century are among the most beautiful volumes that were ever made. They were finely written in a dear hand, [{149}] beautifully decorated, handsomely illuminated and very suitably bound. Even the best painters did not hesitate to devote themselves to the making of illuminated illustrations for favorite volumes. The French were, as Dante suggests in Canto XI of the "Purgatorio," the best illuminators in his time, and they continued to maintain this superiority during the fifteenth century. Gerard W. Smith in his "Painting, Spanish and French" (Illustrated Handbooks of Art History), says that "the French school of miniature, though surpassed in seriousness and originality by those of Flanders and Italy, was yet skilful in appropriating many of the excellences of both. They surpassed the former in the general composition of their subjects and the latter in their perspective." The best known of their artist illustrators of this time was Jean Fouquet, the Court painter of Louis XI, whose work as painter is discussed in the chapter, Painting Outside of Italy. The pictures by him in the illuminated Josephus in the Paris Library are especially well known and often praised for their freedom of invention, their variety and the perfection of detail in their accessories. The compositions made for the illustration of Titus Livius, Livy the Latin historian, have been pronounced admirable for their naturalness and life. Fouquet is particularly happy in the landscapes which he introduces into his pictures and the architectural details which he adds. The miniature, which we have copied from the Livy manuscript in the Bibliothèque Nationale, illustrates all of these qualities very well and makes it clear that no element of artistic beauty or picturesque values was lacking in the books that were being made by hand when printing came to revolutionize the arts of book-making.

Some of the extra-illuminated books of this period are among the most beautiful printed books ever issued in their ornateness. Not long since Tregaskis advertised a little Book of Hours, printed by Simon duBois pour maistre geofroy tori de bourges 1527, at sixty guineas. He describes it as extremely rare and the first in which occurs the Arabesque border so frequently used by Tory and his successors in subsequent editions. Dibden, reproducing some of the borders in his "Bibliographical Decameron," said that he had seen [{150}] nothing more beautiful of this kind. Each page is printed within a varying woodcut border of birds, fish, flowers and insects, with the initials of the Queen Mother and of the King and Queen crowned, in combination with the arms of France and Savoy.

FOUQUET, JEHAN, MINIATURE PAINTING, FROM THE LIVY MSS. (BIBLIOTHÈQUE NATIONALE, PARIS)

This is, of course, the period when these books were most beautifully done. There are a number of examples of them that have appeared in the sales in recent years and have [{151}] commanded high prices not alone because of their antiquity, but because of the exquisite charm of their decorations.

It was in competition with such exquisite books that the early printers found themselves. No wonder, then, that they were stimulated to do beautiful work and that their best efforts were aroused. The fine, broad enterprise of the printers of the time can be very well appreciated from the rapid development of their art and craft by the making of fonts of letters for all the different alphabets. Greek type was made as early as 1465. The first book wholly printed in Greek minuscules was Lascaris' Grammar at Milan in 1476. The first Hebrew types appeared as early as 1475. Aldus' famous Italic type, said to be an imitation of the handwriting of Petrarch, was introduced by Aldus Manutius of Venice for his projected small edition of the classics. The cutting of it was probably done by the painter Francia (Raibolini). It was first used in the Virgil of 1500. Arabic types were first used for the printing of a book in 1514 at Fano in Italy. Syriac was used for printing as early as 1538, and just after the end of Columbus' Century excellent types of this language were in use. A Psalter was printed in Russian at Cracow as early as 1491, and the Russian types were used at Prague in 1517. Anglo-Saxon and Irish types were used shortly after the end of Columbus' Century.

Music printing began early, the earliest specimen of music type occurring in Higden's "Polychronicon," printed by Wynken de Worde at Westminster in 1495. Notes had been printed from wooden blocks twenty-five years earlier, though some books had spaces left to be filled in by hand. About 1500 a musical press was established at Venice. Toward the end of the century special types and presses of many kinds for music were invented.