The earliest Edition of the Imagines Mortis which I have as yet seen, is one printed, as appears from the Colophon at the End, by Melchior and Gaspar Trechsel, in small 4to. at Lyons, in 1538: It is in French, and its Title is as follows: “Les Simulachres & Historiees faces de la Mort, autant elegamment pourtraictes, que artificiellement imaginees: A Lyons, soulz l’Escu de Cologne.” But Papillon, in Loco supra cit, tells us, that the Cuts to the Imagines Mortis must have been done about the Year 1530, for that the four first of them occur among Holbein’s Cuts to the Old Testament, printed in 1539; and that it is apparent from those among the Scripture Cuts, that the Blocks had then already furnished many Thousands of Impressions. That the four first Cuts of the Imagines Mortis are among the Scripture Cuts of Holbein, is certainly true; but I think I once saw, in the Hands of a Friend, a Copy of the vulgate Latin Bible, in which those Scripture Cuts were inserted, and which, if my Memory does not greatly deceive me, was printed so early as in or about 1518 or 1520.
The same Author further relates, that the first Edition, which he thinks for the above Reasons should be placed in the Year 1530, was printed at Basil, or Zuric, with a Title to each Cut, and, as he believes, some Verses under each, all in the German Language (but, that there was an early Edition in Flemish); and adds, that the Book, having passed over into France, was much sought after by the Curious there; so that a Printer of Lyons was induced to purchase the Blocks, and that from them he printed several Editions in Latin, French, and Italian.
Having thus accounted for the Existence of the Book, and for its Arrival in France, it remains to speak of the several Impressions which it there underwent. We have already mentioned one, the earliest which we know of, printed in small Quarto, at Lyons, soulz l’Escu de Cologne, by Melchior and Gaspar Trechsel, in 1538: The Cuts in this Edition are forty-three in Number, and no more; and over each is, in Latin, a Passage from either the Old or New Testament or Apocrypha, which, in the present Publication, is given in English, from the Translation of the Bible now in use. Under the Cuts are four Lines in French Verse, the Substance of which has been preserved in all the Editions, whether they were in Latin, French, or Italian. This Edition, in order to make it of a tolerable Size (for the Cuts alone would have been too few to constitute a Volume) is accompanied with several Tracts in French, which, as not relating to, or connected with, our present Subject, we here forbear to enumerate; but it is necessary, before we close our Account of this Edition of 1538, to remark, that it is preceded by a Dedication in French, to the very Reverend Abbess of the Religious Convent of St. Peter of Lyons, Madam Jehanne de Touszele; and in this Dedication the Author of it notices, that the Name and Surname (or, as we term them, the Christian and Surname) of the Abbess and himself are precisely the same in sound, excepting only the Letter T, from which I conjecture (for his Name does not any where appear) that his Name was Jean, or, as it was anciently written, Jehan [i. e. John] de Ouszell, or Ozell, as it is now usually spelt. In this Dedication is also a Passage, a Translation of which will be given hereafter, from which it appears that the Person by whom the Cuts were designed, was then dead, leaving behind him several others of the same Kind, which, though drawn, were unfinished, and particularly one representing a Waggoner crushed under his overthrown Waggon; in which Cut, a Figure of Death is represented secretly sucking through a Reed, the Wine out of a Cask; and that to these unfinished Cuts no one had dared to put the last Hand.
The next Edition, in Point of Time, which I have seen, I conceive to have been the first that appeared in Latin, and it was printed in Duodecimo, at Lyons, sub scuto Coloniensi, by John and Francis Frellon, in 1542. It contains the same Number of Cuts (and no more) as that of 1538, and is entitled, “Imagines de Morte, et Epigrammata e Gallico idiomate a Georgio Æmylio in Latinum translata;” from whence it appears that it is, in Fact, a Translation of the French Edition of 1538. This also contains some additional Tracts, all differing from those in the Edition of 1538, but not in the least relating to the present Inquiry, and therefore not here particularized, though they have been continued through almost all the subsequent Impressions, and have been given respectively in French, Latin, and Italian, according as the Verses under the Cuts to the Imagines Mortis were in one or other of those Languages.
In 1547, another Edition was published of this Book, in French; it was entitled, “Les Images de la Mort,” and printed at Lyons, A l’Escu de Cologne, Chez Jehan Frellon; the Title-Page also informs us that twelve Cuts are added to it, and on Examination we find that the Cuts inserted in Page 40, and the seven subsequent Pages of this Work, and four Cuts of Boys, which, as not relating to this Subject, are in the present Edition omitted (none of which occur in either the French Edition of 1538, or the Latin one of 1542, the only two prior Editions that I know of) are to be found in this of 1547[15].
In the same Year, viz. 1547, but whether prior or subsequent to the last above mentioned, cannot be known, another Latin Edition appeared, printed at Lyons by the same John Frellon, and containing the same increased Number of Cuts as the French one of the same Year, that is to say, fifty-three in all; and the same John Frellon, in 1549, printed an Edition of this Work in Italian and Latin, the Passages from Scripture over the Cuts being in Latin, and the Verses under the Cuts in Italian; and this also contains the same Number of Cuts with the two last-mentioned Editions: But Papillon, P. 169, remarks that the Blocks, when this Edition of 1549 was printed, had already furnished more than an hundred-thousand Impressions, for that in some Places they appear to be worn.
In 1562, the same John Frellon published another French Edition, which appears, by the Printer’s Colophon at the End, to have been printed at Lyons by Symphorien Barbier, and which professes in the Title to be augmented with seventeen Plates. Papillon, P. 182, mentions both this Edition and Peculiarity, but denies the Truth of the Assertion, because he tells us, that in this French Edition he finds but five more Cuts than in the Italian One of 1549; notwithstanding which, it is certainly true, as will be presently proved. Papillon admits that the Edition of 1562 contains five Cuts more than that of 1549, and, if he had gone farther back in his Research, would have found that that of 1549 (and so do the French and Latin Editions of 1547) comprizes twelve more than that of 1538, and that those twelve were first added to the French and Latin Editions of 1547. The Edition of 1562 does not assert that that contains seventeen Cuts more than any preceding Edition, but, reckoning the five which it has more than the Impression of 1549, and the twelve which that has more than the Edition of 1538, and which are also inserted in that of 1562, they make together seventeen Cuts more than were in the Edition of 1538, and consequently justify the Assertion in the Title, that the Edition of 1562 contains seventeen additional Cuts.
The Success which such a Number of Editions seems to imply, induced a Bookseller of Cologne to counterfeit the Book; and, instead of making use of the original Cuts, which, in all Probability he could not procure, he got Copies, and not very exact ones, engraven from them for his intended Edition. When the first counterfeited Edition appeared, I am not informed; but am induced to think that this Person, whom I have above described as a Bookseller of Cologne, was Arnold Birckman, as I find an Edition, printed in 1555, at Cologne, Apud hœredes Arnoldi Birckmanni. In this Edition, and also in one printed by the same Persons in 1573, the Cuts are reversed, the Passages from Scripture over the Cuts, and also the Verses under the Cuts, are in Latin; and both these Editions contain the Number of Cuts in the Latin and French ones of 1547, and no more: In the Cut inserted P. 17, of the present Edition, is the following Mark
(intended, no doubt, for that of the Engraver) and which was that of Silvius Antonianus, an Artist of considerable Merit.