DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.7597#0085
56 IMPROBABILITY THAT WOOD ENGRAVING [chap. ir.
the restoration of the fine arts: and yet, so forcibly were they
counteracted by the general distaste for literature and science,
which still prevailed, added, perhaps, to the disquietude of those
times, that had it not been for Giotto, (who may truly be said to
have been gifted by nature with a genius of most rare occurrence,
and who struck out a new path) painting would probably have con-
tinued, for nearly two centuries, without experiencing any sensible
improvement; a supposition which we are the better justified in
forming, as, from his time to the time of Masaccio, a period of
considerably more than a hundred years, little change in the art of
painting, that can be called improvement, did take place.
The thirteenth, or even the fourteenth century, therefore, was not
likely to have been productive of an invention like that we treat of,
even in Italy, where letters and science, nevertheless, revived sooner
than in other parts of Europe.
Some writers, however, have insisted that the principle of this
art, impression, was well known to the ancients; and that this is
evident from their stamps of iron and other metals, still preserved in
our museums, with which, as it is supposed, they marked their
names or other inscriptions on their bales of goods, and on various
articles of their manufacture; and, moreover, th^t this practice of
applying stamps continued to be used throughout Italy, and in
other parts of Europe, during the low ages.
The art of taking impressions from engraved blocks of wood,
according to these writers, is little else than a modified application
of a principle of universal notoriety from time immemorial, and
consequently, scarce merits the name of an invention. Nay,
Typography itself, it should seem, is no new invention: the idea
of it, say they, was familiar to Cicero; and it is also known that the
ancient artists, in stamping their inscriptions upon their lamps of
pies of the religious zeal and costly magni- and sculpture; to say nothing of a very large
licence of those centuries, and decorated proportion of the principal churches in other
with numerous works of early Italian painting parts of Italy.
the restoration of the fine arts: and yet, so forcibly were they
counteracted by the general distaste for literature and science,
which still prevailed, added, perhaps, to the disquietude of those
times, that had it not been for Giotto, (who may truly be said to
have been gifted by nature with a genius of most rare occurrence,
and who struck out a new path) painting would probably have con-
tinued, for nearly two centuries, without experiencing any sensible
improvement; a supposition which we are the better justified in
forming, as, from his time to the time of Masaccio, a period of
considerably more than a hundred years, little change in the art of
painting, that can be called improvement, did take place.
The thirteenth, or even the fourteenth century, therefore, was not
likely to have been productive of an invention like that we treat of,
even in Italy, where letters and science, nevertheless, revived sooner
than in other parts of Europe.
Some writers, however, have insisted that the principle of this
art, impression, was well known to the ancients; and that this is
evident from their stamps of iron and other metals, still preserved in
our museums, with which, as it is supposed, they marked their
names or other inscriptions on their bales of goods, and on various
articles of their manufacture; and, moreover, th^t this practice of
applying stamps continued to be used throughout Italy, and in
other parts of Europe, during the low ages.
The art of taking impressions from engraved blocks of wood,
according to these writers, is little else than a modified application
of a principle of universal notoriety from time immemorial, and
consequently, scarce merits the name of an invention. Nay,
Typography itself, it should seem, is no new invention: the idea
of it, say they, was familiar to Cicero; and it is also known that the
ancient artists, in stamping their inscriptions upon their lamps of
pies of the religious zeal and costly magni- and sculpture; to say nothing of a very large
licence of those centuries, and decorated proportion of the principal churches in other
with numerous works of early Italian painting parts of Italy.