PREFACE
From the number of works that have been published within the last few decades on early printing and the decoration of early books, it is evident that an increasing interest is taken in these subjects, not only by those whose studies have specially fitted them to appreciate such researches, but also by the general educated public.
There is, however, one variety of engraving that has hitherto attracted but little attention, and the importance of which, both from artistic and documentary points of view, is still unrecognised, and it may even be said unsuspected by the great majority of students. Whilst every engraving that may technically be termed a cut or an illustration is catalogued and recorded in the different monographs on special printers, those which take the form of initial letters, often of equal, if not superior merit, are represented much more sparsely, and as having a secondary importance only.
In a monograph on fifteenth-century printing in a certain German town, for instance, the writer, a professional bibliographer, gives about ten or twelve initial letters, whereas the extent of the material upon which he might have drawn may be judged from the fact that a more recent authority, in his history of one printer only of this town, has been able to reproduce more than fifty specimens, many of which are quite equal in interest to illustrations proper, some of them having been recently pointed out by a London expert as constituting the chief attraction of a volume[1] with both initials and illustrations which came under his hammer.
[1] The initials in the Leben der Heiligen Drei Könige of Knoblochtzer.
The above lines, written ten years ago, when I first began to collect material for this volume, are perhaps no longer as true absolutely as when first penned. Besides the works of Butsch, Reiber, and Heitz which were already in existence, Ongania’s book on Venice bibliography contains a great many initials; Heitz has devoted a volume to those of Holbein and other artists of the school of Basle, and others to certain initials of Strasburg and Hagenau; and Redgrave, Haebler, Claudin, Schorbach, Spirgatis, and Kristeller give a certain prominence to initials in their respective monographs.
I still think, however, that a special work on the subject is needed to do justice to the richness of artistic material available in this special matter.
The woodcuts in early books are often merely illustrative, that is to say explanatory of the text, and were not designed as ornaments; but the initials were intended to be decorative, and one can see in them a real artistic effort and sentiment.
Quaritch, indeed, has recently called attention to this fact, of the superiority in some early books of the initials over the woodcuts, and it is beginning to be recognised also by several great booksellers, whose catalogues contain increasing numbers of reproductions of ornamental letters in preference to other specimens of early engraving.
Unfortunately, circumstances have prevented my completing my first programme, and what I offer here can only be considered as a general introduction to the subject. But such as they are, these fragmentary notes will not, I hope, be found entirely devoid of interest.
In conclusion, I have to express my thanks to Mr. A. W. Pollard, the amiable and indefatigable secretary of the Bibliographical Society, for help in seeing this volume through the press, and for many valuable suggestions and criticisms.
OSCAR JENNINGS.