I pass on to another point as to which I think the Florentine woodcutters have something to teach us. If we put pictures into our books, why should not the pictures be framed? A hard single line round the edge of a woodcut is a poor set-off to it, often conflicting with the lines in the picture itself, and sometimes insufficiently emphatic as a frame to make us acquiesce in what seems a mere cutting away a portion from a larger whole. Our Florentine friends knew better. Here (pp. xiv-xv), for instance, are two scenes, from some unidentified romance, which in 1572 and 1555 respectively (by which time they must have been about fifty and sixty years old) appeared in Florentine religious chapbooks, with which they have nothing to do. The little borders are simple enough, but they are sufficiently heavy to carry off the blacks which the artist (according to what is the true method of woodcutting) has left in his picture, and we are much less inclined to grumble at the window being cut in two than we should be if the cut were made by a simple line instead of quite firmly and with determination by a frame.
FROM LORENZO DE' MEDICI'S LA NENCIA DA BARBERINO, S.A.
I have given these two Florentine cuts, much the worse for wear though they be, with peculiar pleasure, because I take them to be the exact equivalents of the pictures in our illustrated novels of the present day of which Miss Sketchley gives several examples in her third paper. They are good examples of what may be called the diffused characterization in which our modern illustrators excel. Every single figure is good and has its own individuality, but there is no attempt to illustrate a central character at a decisive moment. Decisive moments, it may be objected, do not occur (except for epicures) at polite dinner parties, or during the 'mauvais quart d'heure,' which might very well be the subject of our first picture. But it seems to me that modern illustrators often deliberately shun decisive moments, preferring to illustrate their characters in more ordinary moods, and perhaps the Florentines did this also. Where the illustrator is not a great artist the discretion is no doubt a wise one. What for instance could be more charming, more completely successful than this little picture of a messenger bringing a lady a flower, no doubt with a pleasing message with it? In our next cut the artist has been much more ambitious. Preceded by soldiers with their long spears, followed by the hideously masked 'Battuti' who ministered to the condemned, Ippolito is being led to execution. As he passes her door, Dianora flings herself on him in a last embrace. The lady's attitude is good, but the woodcutter, alas, has made the lover look merely bored. In book-illustration, as in life, who would avoid failure must know his limitations.
FROM THE STORIA DI IPPOLITO BUONDELMONTI E DIANORA BARDI, S.A.
Whatever shortcomings these Florentine pictures may have in themselves, or whatever they may lose when examined by eyes only accustomed to modern work, I hope that it will be conceded that as character-illustrations they are far from being despicable. Nevertheless the true home of character-illustration in the fifteenth century was rather in Germany than in Italy. Inferior to the Italian craftsmen in delicacy and in producing a general impression of grace (partly, perhaps, because their work was intended to be printed in conjunction with far heavier type) the German artists and woodcutters often showed extraordinary power in rendering facial expression. My favourite example of this is a little picture from the 'De Claris Mulieribus' of Boccaccio printed at Ulm in 1473, on one side of which the Roman general Scipio is shown with uplifted finger bidding the craven Massinissa put away his Carthaginian wife, while on the other Sophonisba is watched by a horror-stricken messenger as she drains the poison her husband sends her. But there is a naïveté about the figure of Scipio which has frequently provoked laughter from audiences at lantern-lectures, so my readers must look up this illustration for themselves at the British Museum, or elsewhere. I fall back on a picture of a card-party from a 'Guldin Spiel' printed at Augsburg in 1472, in which the hesitation of the woman whose turn it is to play, the rather supercilious interest of her vis-à-vis, and the calm confidence of the third hand, not only ready to play his best, but sure that his best will be good enough, are all shown with absolute simplicity, but in a really masterly manner. Facial expression such as this in modern work seems entirely confined to children's books and caricature, but one would sacrifice a good deal of our modern prettiness for a few more touches of it.