Part I.—Introduction.

31

thafc “ ereis figuris ” refers fco the type, not to the cuts, hoth on the
analogy of other expressions used to describe the type in the early
days of printing, and because two other editions of the same book,
printed by Knoblochzer at Strassburg in 1478, and by Sorg at Augs-
burg in 1481, copy the same expression in the colophon, whereas the
cuts in all three are quite different in character, and in none of the
three at all resemhle the supposed “ metal-cuts.”

Quite a different piece of evidence is that afforded by the Horae,
printed at Paris by Jehan du Pre in 1488. The expression, “les
vignettes de ces presentes heures imprimees en cuyvre,” taken with
its context, is quite free from ambiguity, and proves that the illustra-
tions were printed from copper. These illustrations, however, differ
as much from the primitive “ metal-cuts ” as they do from ordinary
woodcuts. The work in them is not coarser, hut far more delicate
than the acknowledged work on wood. The metal relief-blocks
actually existing are the following: certain borders and book orna-
ments on copper used by Basle printers of the xvi century, and
found at Basle—there are two metal-blocks of the same sort in the
Berlin Print-cahinet, viz. the Tahle of Cehes (P. 90, copy b, Vogelin’s
version C) and a title-border dated MDXX. by the engraver I. P.—
an Adoration of the Sheplierds, impressions of which are found in the
Hours printed by Simon Yostre; certain blocks said to resemble
Venetian illustrations of tlie middle of the xvi century; the block
of an Arbor Porphyriana at Malines ; certain blocks found in the
Eotenhan family archives at Eentweinsdorf, and a few blocks not
connected with book-illustration, viz. the Yision of St. Bathilde
(Schr. 2564), a Prench copper-plate of about 1500, attached for
printing to a wooden block on which three lines of xylographic text
are cut; and two blocks in the possession of M. de Bruyne at Malines,
the Castellum Marthe (Schr. 2219) and the Trinity, with SS. Crispin
and Crispinian (Schr. 2441), again a metal-plate of about 1502, which
was originally fastened to a wood-block for printing. These metal-
blocks are very few compared with the number of wood-blocks of the
same period which are preserved; they have nothing to do with tlie
so-called “ metal-cuts ” of the first half of the xv century, and they
tend to prove that when metal was used it was for the sake of obtain-
ing effects of unusual delicacy, just the quality which is wanting in
the early cuts. Metal was, no doubt, largely used in the decoration
of finely-printed books like the Prench “ livres d’heures,” and again at
Basle, where Holbein introduced the fashion of borders and initials
engraved in relief on a minute scale. That is all that the historical
evidence warrants us in believing.