Book-Plates

by William John Hardy

BOOK-PLATE OF HILDEBRANDE BRANDENBURG.

Following, in point of date, closely after this curious book-plate, comes a small woodcut, representing an angel who holds a shield, on which is displayed a black ox, with a ring passed through its nose—the arms of the Brandenburg family. A written inscription beneath it states that the book for which it was intended, and in which it was found, belonged to Hildebrande Brandenburg of Biberach, who presented it to the Carthusian monastery of Buxheim, of which he was a monk. This book-plate, which is rudely coloured, is struck off on scraps of paper, printed on one side; a curious illustration of the then scarcity of that material. Oddly enough, another very early book-plate—probably of almost the same date as the last—was also found in a book which belonged to the same monastery, and which had been given to it by Wilhelm von Zell. This book-plate also is anonymous; but the volumes that contained it, as in the last case, bear a written inscription, recording the fact that they belonged to the monastery in question, and were the gift of the person whose arms are figured in the book-plate inserted.

From the fact that two of the three known fifteenth century book-plates are connected with the monastery at Buxheim, it would seem as if the use of a book-plate commended itself to the librarian of that monastery, who commemorated the gifts of volumes by a book-plate bearing the donor's arms.

In the sixteenth century, German book-plates became numerous, and of their beauty there can be no doubt. There is a difficulty, however, in accepting many of the early armorial woodcuts which one finds; and it is this: Suppose the example is no longer doing duty in a volume as a book-plate, there is really no means of being assured that the cut of arms is a book-plate at all; for very many of these plates are void of any inscription, save perhaps a text or motto. Some of these book-plates are probably the work, or from the design, of Albert Dürer. He certainly produced some undoubted examples; the earliest, actually dated, in 1516. This is the Ebner book-plate (see [p. 119]). The inscription on this leaves us in no doubt as to its intended use: 'Liber Hieronimi Ebner, 1516.'

Eight years after completing the Ebner plate, Dürer engraved on copper a Portrait plate of Bilibald Pirckheimer, a Nuremberg jurist of some note, who became councillor to Maximilian I., and was the owner of a library, whose subsequent history has been told in 'Books about Books' by Mr. Elton in his Great Book Collectors. Now this Portrait plate, which is dated 1524, was undoubtedly used by Pirckheimer as his book-plate. There are plenty of known instances in which it may be still found fastened in at the end of a volume. Whether or not it was intended for any other purpose than that which I have here mentioned, we cannot say, for it bears no inscription expressing its use. However—very possibly at the same date—Dürer designed for Pirckheimer what was, without doubt, intended for a book-plate, since it bears the inscription, 'Liber Bilibaldi Pirckheimer.' This is, in many instances, found on the front cover of volumes which also contain the book-plate last described fastened on the back cover.

It is a very striking book-plate. A strangely large helmet, on which is placed an equally large crest, surmounts a pair of shields. The dexter one bears the arms of Pirckheimer—a birke or birch-tree; whilst the sinister bears those of his wife, Margretha Rieterin—a crowned mermaid with two tails, each of which she holds in her hands. Pirckheimer's arms show the curious punning heraldry of the time, the birke being, no doubt, a playful allusion to the jurist's name. Clasping the helmet are two angels. On either side of the shield is a large cornucopia apparently filled with grapes and vine leaves, and amongst these stands a smaller angel holding one end of a heavy festoon, the other end of which is fastened to a ram's head, the centre of the design. Angels, apparently at play, are also represented below the shield. Examples of this plate are not uncommon in English collections, many of Pirckheimer's books having passed into the Library of the Royal Society, and some of these having been sold as duplicates, when they were bought up by collectors for the sake of the book-plate. Sir Wollaston Franks points out to me that there is yet a third variety of Pirckheimer's book-plate, which is signed 'J. B. 1529,' and is not the work of Dürer.

The book-plate of Hector Pömer, provost of the Church of St. Laurence at Nuremberg, dated in 1525, is also ascribed to Dürer, though it is signed with the initials 'R. A.' This signature is probably that of the artist who cut the design upon wood, for it is now maintained that Dürer himself only made the drawings for the woodcuts known as his; the mechanical operation of cutting being handed over to assistants. The Pömer plate is the earliest dated book-plate which bears a signature either of the designer or the engraver.

The size of this really fine example of early wood-engraving is 13 inches by 9. On the principal shield in the design we have what are no doubt the arms of the monastery, the gridiron of St. Laurence, quartering those of Pömer. The gridiron is on the first and fourth quarters, whilst the second and third contain what is heraldically described as per bend sable (?) and argent, three bendlets of the first. We say 'sable,' because the dark mass which the artist has here shown is probably meant to represent this, but any dark colour may have been intended, as I have already endeavoured to show (see [p. 23]). These last arms are very probably Pömer's, for, in one of the small shields which appear in each of the four corners of the design, they occur again—the other three shields being most likely filled with arms quartered by the Pömer family. The helmet surmounting the principal shield is without wreath, and the crest is a demi-nun. The motto, 'To the pure all things are pure,' is given, as in other of Dürer's book-plates, in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. In charge of the shield stands St. Laurence himself, dressed in a monk's garb, and holding in his right hand the instrument of his martyrdom, and in his left the palm of martyrdom. The nimbus appears around his head. The beauty of the design is apparent at the first glance, and it becomes more apparent as we look into it.