Aldis, M.A.
Cambridge: at the University Press 1916
1809 pictures printed from 645 different blocks. See A. W.
Pollard: Fine Books (1912), p. 117. printed at Cologne by
Heinrich Quentell some ten years earlier. The most
remarkable Italian illustrated book of the fifteenth century
was the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili of Francesco Colonna,
which Aldus, who was not given to the use of pictures,
printed for Leonardo Crassus in 1499. This fine folio in its rich
array of graceful and well-executed woodcuts is a striking
contrast to the little Savonarola tracts and Rappresentazioni,
or miracle-plays, which form the most characteristic
illustrated productions of the Florentine press. These popular
booklets, with their charming little woodcuts generally
surrounded by a border having a white design on a black
ground, had a vogue which lasted from 1490 to the middle of
the sixteenth century.
more than in most other places, that the printed book kept touch with the art of the illuminator. This is specially
observable in the Horae, or Books of Hours, of which innumerable editions were printed in France between 1486 and
the middle of the sixteenth century. In these books nearly every page is surrounded by an elaborate border, generally
made up of small pictures enclosed by intertwining foliage or other decorative framework. The subjects may be either
Old Testament types, biblical scenes, histories of saints, the dance of death, or even rural scenes and daily
occupations. The small pictures were frequently on separate blocks, and so lent themselves to an almost infinite
variety of combinations. Besides the borders, a larger picture, occupying nearly the whole page, was placed at the
beginning of the several sections of the work, each of which had its appropriate subject. Many copies were printed on
vellum, and the borders and pictures were often gilded and colored in the style of manuscripts by an illuminator, who,
when occasion demanded or fancy prompted, would overlay the printed ornament or picture with some entirely
different design.
Some of the best of these books of private prayers are among the editions printed at Paris by Philippe Pigouchet for
Simon Vostre during the twenty years from about 1490. Other prominent printers and publishers of them were Jean
du Pre, Thielman Kerver, Gilles Hardouyn, and Antoine Verard. The last of these was one of the greatest of the early
French publishers, and his numerous books are freely illustrated with cuts both new and old. In the Horae (1525) of
the artist-printer GeoffroyTory the tradition of manuscript decoration is no longer dominant and the ornamentation is
in full Renaissance style.
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