FROM INGOLD'S 'GULDIN SPIEL.' AUGSBURG, 1472.
The last point to which I would draw attention is that a good deal more use might be made of quite small illustrations. The full-pagers are, no doubt, impressive and dignified, but I always seem to see written on the back of them the artist's contract to supply so many drawings of such and such size at so many guineas apiece, and to hear him groaning as he runs through his text trying to pick out the full complement of subjects. The little sketch is more popular in France than in England, and there is a suggestion of joyous freedom about it which is very captivating. Such small pictures did not suit the rather heavy touch of the German woodcutters; in Italy they were much more popular. At Venice a whole series of large folio books were illustrated in this way in the last decade of the fifteenth century, two editions of Malermi's translation of the Bible, Lives of the Saints, an Italian Livy, the Decamerone of Boccaccio, the Novels of Masuccio, and other works, all in the vernacular. At Ferrara, under Venetian influence, an edition of the Epistles of S. Jerome was printed in 1497, with upwards of one hundred and eighty such little cuts, many of them illustrating incidents of monastic life. Both at Venice and Ferrara the cuts are mainly in outline, and when they are well cut and two or three come together on a page the effect is delightful. In France the vogue of the small cut took a very special form. By far the most famous series of early French illustrated books is that of the Hours of the Blessed Virgin (with which went other devotions, making fairly complete prayer-books for lay use), which were at their best for some fifteen years reckoning from 1488. These Hour-Books usually contained some fifteen large illustrations, but their most notable features are to be found in the borders which surround every page. On the outer and lower margins these borders are as a rule about an inch broad, sometimes more, so that they can hold four or five little pictures of about an inch by an inch and a half on the outer margin, and one rather larger one at the foot of the page. The variety of the pictures designed to fill these spaces is almost endless. Figures of the Saints and their emblems and illustrations of the games or occupations suited to each month fill the margins of the Calendar. To surround the text of the book there is a long series of pictures of incidents in the life of Christ, with parallel scenes from the Old Testament, scenes from the lives of Joseph and Job, representations of the Virtues, the Deadly Sins being overcome by the contrary graces, the Dance of Death, and for pleasant relief woodland and pastoral scenes and even grotesques. The popularity of these prayer-books was enormous, new editions being printed almost every month, with the result that the illustrations were soon worn out and had frequently to be replaced. I have often wished, if only for the sake of small children in sermon time, that our English prayer-books could be similarly illustrated. An attempt to do this was made in the middle of the last century, but it was pretentious and unsuccessful. The great difficulty in the way of a new essay lies in the popularity of very small prayer-books, with so little margin and printed on such thin paper as hardly to admit of border cuts. The difficulty is real, but should not be insuperable, and I hope that some bold illustrator may soon try his hand afresh.
FROM THE MALERMI BIBLE. VENICE, GIUNTA, 1490.
FROM A FRENCH BOOK OF HOURS. PARIS, KERVER, 1498.