A quarto work of thirty-two cuts, containing subjects of Sacred writ; under each cut are fifteen verses in the German language.
Speculum Humanæ Salvationis; fifty-eight leaves, each containing two designs, mostly from the Old or New Testament; each design has a Latin inscription of one line engraved on it. Beneath is placed the descriptive text. In the Latin edition there are five leaves of preface, and in the Dutch four.
Die Kunst Cheiromantia; a work treating of palmistry.
Planetenbuch; treating of the influence of planets on human life.
Mirabilia Romæ; a guide to the principal shrines in Rome.
Opera nova contemplativa.
Of the above, Koning ascribes all those printed in italics to Coster,[110] together with the Catonis Disticha, and Horarium, the latter a book of eight small pages discovered by M. Enschedé of Haarlem, containing the letters of the Alphabet, the Lord’s Prayer, the Ave Maria, the Apostles’ Creed, &c., printed with moveable characters.[111] Including separate editions, Koning gives Coster the credit of printing seventeen works. Now the time, as well as labour, involved in designing and engraving these works must have been very great. In the Biblia Pauperum there are 200 designs, besides the text; in the Book of Canticles, 32; in the Speculum Humanæ Salvationis, 116; besides those in the Ars Moriendi, and the Apocalypse. These are among the very earliest specimens of design and engraving on wood that are known to exist. If then these were executed, as alleged, by Coster in Haarlem,[112] how came it, that his contemporaries knew nothing of them; that Van Mander,—himself an artist and an engraver, who describes in his History, written and printed at Haarlem, the works of Flemish and Dutch artists living both before and after Coster’s time,—is silent in regard to both the man and his works?—although he says that the city of Haarlem “dares to pretend to the glory of having invented printing.”
By this expression it is contended by Coster’s advocates, Van Mander “intended to say, that the claims of Haarlem were well founded.” And furthermore, that his silence is to be accounted for from the fact, that “none of these wood engravings bear the initials of the artists who designed or engraved them, and that he may have been uncertain as to their names.” But what a lame and impotent conclusion is this to arrive at. Van Mander, it is plain, knew of the tradition about the origin of printing in Haarlem. His own work was carried down to the year 1604, and Junius’s Batavia was printed in 1588—sixteen years previously. He could not therefore have been ignorant of what was said in that work about Coster, and his printing works with woodcuts similar to those of the Mirror of Salvation. Knowing that, he must have made inquiry concerning both, and have arrived at the same conclusion as Erasmus and Van Opmer. Otherwise, how is his silence to be accounted for? The very fact of the woodcuts being without initials should have stimulated inquiry. They are the work of an artist of no mean skill; and to suppose that he passed them by without notice, or without an attempt to discover their designer, engraver, or printer, who was alleged to have been a wealthy and influential burgher of the city in which he was writing, is to cast a slur on Van Mander’s reputation as an historian which he does not appear to deserve. Even as the works of an unknown artist they demanded, and would have received, notice, had they been printed and sold in the manner described by Junius, and those who have subsequently amplified his narrative.