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Parisian Panel Stamps between 1480 and
1530
by
Ernst Kyriss
[*]
THE DESCRIPTIONS in this paper are based on rubbings taken by the writer since 1929, mainly in south German libraries. The fact that such a relatively small number of Parisian panel stamps from this period have appeared in the approximately 36,000 early bindings I have examined must be considered evidence for their rarity at least outside of their own country.
The oldest ones, those dated before the turn of the century, always have single stamps in the outer border. Their smaller format is an immediate external distinction in which they differ from later ones, and, according to Michon,[1] they are to be viewed as the work of goldsmiths or engravers of seals. The library of the St. Nikolaikirche in Isny owns two such bindings on its incunabula Phil. 26 (HR 10478), a Parisian imprint by Crantz, Gering, and Friburger dated 1477, and Phil. 41 (H 10448), a Venetian edition of Locatellus dated 1487. The bindings consist of wooden boards covered with brown leather and at one time held together by two clasps extending from front to back, the arrangement generally customary in France at this time. The rectangular center fields, each of which contains four panel stamps, are enclosed by decorated borders, each of which contains three single stamps. The first has a 53 mm. x 78 mm. panel portraying the Annunciation (Fig. 1), and the second has a 55 mm. x 75 mm. panel portraying the Crucifixion (Fig. 2). Both are mentioned by Michon, 1 p. 33. The panels are surrounded by a 12 mm. wide border with the initials GP tied together with a knot in the middle of the lower edge of the border. The border of the first panel (Fig. 1) contains a snail, two birds, and a lizard in the corners, and a frog, an owl, and a bird in the other three sides of the border, all surrounded by a leafy vine. The border of the second panel (Fig. 2) shows a dragon in the middle of each of the verticals, a griffon in the middle of the upper edge, and a dog on either side of the
The next binding, executed around the turn of the century, is on Theol. 8 372 of the Nuremberg Stadtbibliothek, a book of hours dated 1497. On each cover of the soft brown leather binding there are two impressions of a rectangular panel depicting St. Nicholas and measuring 79 mm. x 106 mm. There is no evidence of this panel on any other binding. In this panel, as in the first two, there is a 15 mm. wide border showing blackberry vines and acorns with a bird in each of the upper corners and a dragon in each of the lower corners. The upper edge of the border does not appear in the rubbing (Fig. 3). In the lower edge of the border, between the dragons, there is the name "theodric9 ricardi." As Hobson[2] proves on p. 71, this name was later replaced by "NICOLA9 MATHEI" (cf. Gruel 3 p. 135, and the accompanying plate). A second panel by Richard is mentioned by Michon on p. 33 and is reproduced by Gruel[3] on p. 156 from a 1493 Parisian imprint in the Bibliothèque Nationale. The latter, presumably a somewhat later form with St. Barbara but similar in
Two large panels on Inc. K 281a in the Zürich Zentralbibliothek probably bring us to the beginning of the sixteenth century. The binding contains GKW 6969, a Parisian imprint of 1498. Two borders decorated with single stamps surround panels on both covers measuring 84 mm. x 126 mm. The front cover has an 11 mm. wide border filled with a blossom-covered vine with lilies in the corners. At the left St. Sebastian is depicted pierced by arrows, and at the right there is an archer. An angel holding a crown hovers over the saint. The lower edge of the border contains the name "gilbert.ferrer" (Fig. 4). On the back cover a similar 12 mm. wide border encloses a chalice held by two angels, with the sun, moon, and stars at the top. Hobson[4] reproduces the panel as Plate VIIIa and points out on p. 420 that this scene appears frequently in French books of hours. Blossom- covered vines and lilies similar to those in Fig. 4 fill the entire border, although the upper edge contains a bird, the lower a heart, the left a snail, and the right two circular bands cutting through one another. In connection with both panels Michon refers to the otherwise unknown Ferrer as a bookseller.
On p. 34 Michon refers to at least fifty-three bindings as traceable to the Parisian bookseller André Boule, concerning whom there is no other information. His bindings, which show only two different panels in addition to rolls, contain imprints ranging from 1487 to 1520. The panels may be reckoned among the most beautiful French designs of the period. The more frequently used panel, showing St. Sebastian and measuring 81 mm. x 122 mm., has been reproduced frequently (e.g., by Michon as Plate XI, by Husung[5] as Fig. 2, by Goldschmidt[6] as Plate XXIV, by Gruel in v. I, p. 59, by Westendorp[7] as no. 14, and by de Marinis[8] as Plate CXCVI), and therefore it need not be reproduced here. The saint stands in the center with an archer on either side and two angels hovering over him and holding
Presumably the bindings of Julien Desjardins, of whom we know no more than we know about Boule, also belong to the sixteenth century. He is known from two panels, one with St. Yves, the other with St. Barbara and St. Sebastian, on which there are also nine single stamps and three rolls. As a result of investigation conducted by the writer six volumes can be added to the twelve reported by Hobson 2 on p. 51 which were printed between 1508 and 1512. These six contain books printed in Paris, Tübingen, Pforzheim, and Basel between 1505 and 1512. Five volumes show single stamps and occasionally rolls, and only the panel of St. Yves, the patron saint of lawyers; and the second panel appears on only one book. Some of the covers are wooden boards, others pasteboard, all covered with brown leather. Goldschmidt describes the 77 mm. x 128 mm. panel of St. Yves as no. 67 and reproduces it as Plate XXIX. The saint is in the costume of a prebendary, whose dress is completely covered with ermine. He is standing between two trees, and in his right hand he has an open book, in his left a parchment roll. A horizontal lettered band with the inscription ":Sainct:yvez:" is at the lower extremity of the panel. The second panel measures 75 mm. x 113 mm. and is enclosed in an II mm. wide border containing an inscription. To the left there is St. Sebastian pierced by arrows, with the conventional angel hovering over him with a crown; and at the right St. Barbara stands with a palm leaf in her right hand and an open book in her left hand, with a two-storey tower at her right. The
According to Michon, p. 35, and Hobson, 2 pp. 72-75, the otherwise unidentified sixteenth-century bookseller and bookbinder Jean Norvis had six panels, all of which go back to models in French books of hours with the exception of the acorn panel. The panels show David and Bathsheba, St. Michael, the vision of Emperor Augustus (See Fletcher,[9] Plate XVII), Christ and the Samaritan woman, and the emperor. All panels have either the initials IN connected with a knot or the full name "JEHAN:NORVIS". The two first panels always appear together, and four bindings with these panels have been identified and described. Three have been reproduced, viz., in Goldschmidt, no. 130, Gruel, v. II, p. 124 and Gumuchian's catalog XII (Belles reliures, Paris, 1929), no. 14. The location of the fourth binding was not indicated, but it is probably C 257 of the Kunstgewerbemuseum in Cologne. All four bindings are duodecimos and contain Parisian imprints of 1523. Since the panels are broader than the covers of the books, no binding has been located thus far which shows them in their full breadth. The first panel shows David on a balcony in the upper center looking down on Bathsheba in her bathtub, and at the right of the latter a servant woman holding a mirror, at the left another servant woman with a bowl of fruit. The lower extremity is formed by a rectangular lettered band with the name "IEHAN:NORVIS". The full breadth of the panel was 62 mm., the height less than 104 mm. In the second panel St. Michael appears in full armor with raised sword in his
On a book in the Feldkirch Stadtarchiv there is the crowned standing figure of the emperor with an elevated sword in his right hand and a terrestrial sphere in his left hand. The scene is an exact reproduction of one in the dance of death, particularly as it appears in the borders of Pigouchet's books of hours (cf. Hobson, 4 p. 418, Fig. 2 and Plate VII). A broad border with the same scenes always encloses the rectangular center field and can be cited in four slightly varying forms. The middle of the upper edge of the border shows Mary with the Child in a crescent. The lower edge shows the Massacre of the Innocents in Bethlehem, as King Herod looks on from a throne in the left corner. Above him in the left vertical Emperor Octavian stands and above him the Tiburtine Sibyl. In the right vertical are the three kings, one above the other. All of these panels show a shield in the middle of the lower edge of the border with different monograms or symbols, although it is empty in some cases. The difference between the panels lies not in the shield but in the construction of the border. The richest form is found on the binding in Feldkirch with the initials IN on the shield. It corresponds precisely to Hobson's Plate VII, 4 except that Hobson's shield is empty. It is characteristic for this border that all the figures in the verticals on both sides stand on a low mound and that between Mary and the Sibyl is an s-shaped band with the inscription "sic deum adora". The dimensions of the entire panel are 98 mm. x 155 mm. The binding contains F. Tissardus' Grammatica hebraica, a Parisian imprint of 1508 with the mark of G. de Gourmont and a Basel imprint of 1504. According to a manuscript notation the book was purchased in Paris in 1508 by the humanist Michael Hummelberg of Ravensburg, who lived in the French capital from 1504 to 1511. It has pasteboard sides covered with brown leather and has four leather straps.
A second variety of the emperor panel is on the back cover of Lit. B VII 893 of the Eichstätt Staatsbibliothek, which contains two Nuremberg imprints of 1501 and 1502, measuring 99 mm. x 158 mm. The figures in the verticals hover in space without a base, and the lettered band does not occur in the upper edge. The shield bears the monogram IG, but it also appears in the same border with the initials RP (cf. Hobson, 2 p. 13 and
On the back cover of the copy of Aulus Gellius' Commentarii noctium atticarum (Paris, 1508) in the Feldkirch Stadtarchiv there is a third form of the border. Here the figures in the verticals are on a somewhat higher base, and, contrary to the other bases on which the kings stand, stems with blossoms and leaves are growing from the ground. The same is true for the base on which the emperor stands (Fig. 7). The entire panel is 97 mm. x 154 mm. In the shield there is a domestic symbol which can be ascribed to Michael Hummelberg on the basis of another binding in the library containing a Parisian imprint of 1502 and GKW 2359 (1497). According to a manuscript notation Hummelberg bought the Gellius in Paris in 1509. Thus we have evidence of the different significance that may be ascribed to such initials and symbols. The covering of brown leather on pasteboard has four leather straps and, in addition to two different panels (for panel on front cover, see infra), has two single stamps in the border, and under the emperor panel there is a separate impression of the shield with the symbol. The same panel but with an empty shield occurs on the front cover of Lit. III 10,25 of the library of the St. Mang Church in Kempten. It contains four Parisian imprints of H. Stephanus ranging from 1504 to 1506. In addition to the panel two single stamps varying from those on the preceding binding occur in the border. A panel identical with the one in Kempten is reproduced by Lempertz,[10] Part C, Plate VI C. It should be pointed out that all three emperor panels are the same size.
For the sake of completeness a fourth variety should be noted in the literature. It is described by J. Baer & Co. in their Frankfurter Bücherfreund, XII (1914), 7, and reproduced as Plate IV. It varies from the three others particularly with respect to the headgear and the large blossom-bearing stems on either side of the shield, which contains the initials PL. The figures in the verticals stand on thick bases. The binding contains Cajetan's Summa theologiae (Paris, C. Chevallon, 1511).
A quadripartite panel with saints frequently appears with the emperor panels. According to Hobson, 4 p. 408, there are at least twenty-one different
A volume we have already mentioned, Lit. B VII 893 in the Eichstätt Staatsbibliothek, has on the front cover a 108 mm. x 164 mm. panel representing saints and their attributes according to the legend underneath each one: "S.katerine: - S. nicolas: - S.iehan: - S.barbe:". A 9 mm. wide strip with quadrifoliate flowers is on the outside of the group at the right and the left. The panel has been reproduced from a book containing a Lyon imprint of 1507 to accompany no. 647 in Sotheby's Catalogue of the Library of George Dunn (London, 1913).
In the library of the Benedictine Monastery in Engelberg, Switzerland, are two Parisian incunabula (Inc. 221 of 1500 and 1502 and Inc. 290 [Cop. 2391] of 1500) and two supplementary volumes of 1500. Impressed on the brown leather drawn over wooden boards is a quadripartite panel without lettering and measuring 104 mm. x 171 mm. It shows John the Evangelist with the palm branch and cup of poison; St. Barbara with an open book, palm branch, and tower at the right; St. Catherine with a sword, an open book, and a wheel at the left, over which appears the letter "p"; and St. Nicholas with an open book and a crosier and a "g" at his left. The panel was owned by the otherwise unknown bookbinder Pierre Guiot. Here we should also include Lit. B XI 717 from the Staatsbibliothek in Eichstätt, containing two Parisian imprints of 1505 and 1509, with its panel on the front cover accompanied by a single stamp. There are reproductions from
Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
A second variety of quadripartite panels portrays biblical characters enclosed in a border decorated with vines bearing blossoms and fruit with birds and dragons in the middle of the border. To this type belongs the front cover of the 1508 Gellius in the Feldkirch Stadtarchiv (supra). On this 95 mm. x 163 mm. panel, of which the border is 12 mm. wide, we see John the Baptist, the Virgin and the Child, the three kings, and King David (Fig. 9).
A very similar panel corresponding to the front cover of the book in Husung,[12] Fig. 48, is on the back cover of a book in the Augsburg Staatsbibliothek, H. v. Schlettstadt's Quadrivium ecclesiae (Paris, 1509). The border of the Husung panel did not make a full impression. The panel is 96 mm. x 161 mm. The pasteboard sides are covered with brown leather.
The next version is distinguished from the other panels we have described especially in that the four figures are larger as a result of not being enclosed in a border. Goldschmidt describes it as no. 66 from a 1508 Lyon imprint, and Weale[13] describes it in v. II under R 512 from a 1509 Parisian imprint. Gumuchian's Belles reliures describes it as no. 16 and reproduces it as Plate VIII. It shows God the father with a crown and a terrestrial sphere over a schematic band of clouds, under which there is the inscription "o dne libera animam meam"; St. Peter with an open book in his right hand, a key in his left hand with the tiara at his right; John the Baptist with the Easter lamb and the banner of the cross; and King David kneeling with his harp. The panel measures 96 mm. x 165 mm. This panel may be seen on the back cover of a book in the Feldkirch Stadtarchiv, R. Gaguinus' Compendium de gestis francorum (Paris, 1507). The pasteboard sides are covered with brown leather. According to a manuscript notation Hummelberg bought the book in Paris.
There is another panel on the front cover of the same book. It shows
John the Evangelist with a palm branch and a bowl of poison appears in a 25 mm. wide border on the front cover of the Schlettstadt book in Augsburg. The whole panel, measuring 98 mm. x 168 mm., appears in Fig. 48 in Husung 12 but in incomplete form. In the middle of the upper edge of the border there is the evangelist's eagle with the lettered band "S:iohane" under a tripartite Gothic arch. In the three other edges there are autumnal scenes, at the left the fruit harvest, at the right and the bottom a deer hunt (Fig. 11). They have been taken from almost the same designs, except in the contrary sense, in marginal decorations of French books of hours in the manière criblé. Such designs appear, for example, in HC 8855, which introduces among the figures in the dance of death the emperor who has been described repeatedly in this paper.
The Kempten volume has an example of the acorn pattern on the back cover (the emperor panel, supra, is on the front cover). Michon, p. 36, mentions it, and according to Hobson, 4 p. 398, some twenty versions of it have been identified. A 17 mm. wide border decorated with vines bearing thistles and acorns with a dragon in the middle of the verticals and a strip on the lower edge containing an empty shield in its middle encloses nine full and two half acorns which are on the ends of two juxtaposed arching friezes. The border and the center field are separated by two thin lines on the outside and two heavier lines on the inside. The panel is 94 mm. x 153 mm.
Another panel of the same dimensions, reproduced by Schmidt,[15] Fig. 34, from a 1524 Basel imprint presently in the Darmstadt Landesbibliothek, is distinguished from the preceding one in particular by a row of pearls which forms the border of the inner rectangle. Schmidt incorrectly ascribes the binding to the Low Countries and alleges that on account of the row of pearls the panel consists of two parts, the border and the center field. A careful examination does not support this statement. On the contrary, the panel is impressed from a single piece, and the design in the border is hardly distinguishable from the preceding one. Bickell[16] reproduces a second binding, a book printed in Paris in 1518, as Plate XII. It is possible that this panel was cut on the model of the first one which we described. Here too belongs Diogenes Laërtius' De vita et moribus philosophorum (Basel, 1524) in the Hofbibliothek at Donaueschingen.
Still another type of panel (Michon, p. 36) divides the center field, which is enclosed in a border, into vertical stripes. An example may be found on the back cover of Lit. B XI 717 of the Eichstätt Staatsbibliothek (supra). The 104 mm. x 171 mm. panel is enclosed in a 15 mm. wide border, and within the rectangle there are five stripes in three different forms and breadths, which increase as the stripes progress from the middle to the edge. Blackberry vines fill the outer stripes, and the middle ones are filled with quadrifoliate blossoms. The border is decorated with blackberry vines, and five birds, two dragons, a snail, and four lettered bands are inserted in it. The inscription, which begins at the top and runs down the verticals, reads: "experence:-.en.dieu :z tout:-bon :advis", while the band in the lower edge contains the name of the binder, "Pierre guiot". Reproductions of this panel (just as in the case of the front cover, supra) may be found in Goldschmidt, Plate XXIII, Gruel, v. II, preceding p. 89, and Loubier, p. 113. The center field poses a problem with its border of straight lines which also delimit the stripes, since the vertical lines cut over the horizontal ones, a phenomenon which suggests that the panel was not made from a single impression. Moreover. the sharply defined upper and
A second quite similar panel is on the binding of GB IV 4 59 of the Cologne Universitäts- und Stadtbibliothek. It contains the undated incunable H 15168 and a book printed in Venice in 1502. The whole measures 87 mm. x 137 mm., and the smaller border is 14 mm. wide. Again the border is filled with blackberry vines in which three birds, three dragons, a snail, and three bands are inserted. Their inscription reads "Esperance .de. - T A I P - M. . ." (cf. Michon, p. 36). The lower edge, which has no lettered band, distinguishes this panel from the first. In the case of the center field, which is divided into four stripes, the statements about the preceding binding also apply here. In design, the three different filets resembles the ones in the first panel almost exactly. The traces of two nails 4 mm. in diameter in the upper and lower edges of the center rectangle are recent. Here, as in the preceding binding, the panel is accompanied by a single stamp, in this instance a crowned lily.
In conclusion we have a heraldic panel on the covers of a textually incomplete octavo no. 28986 in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nuremberg. A shield with the initials DM, connected by a knot, is held by two nude figures, a man with a club and a woman. A monkey sits on the richly designed cover of the full-barred helmet. A 19 mm. high horizontal band in which a stag and a dragon face one another concludes the armorial design at the bottom (Fig. 12). The panel measures 76 mm. x 133 mm. Hobson, 2 p. 12-13, mentions it, but no second example has been found.
We have discussed twenty-seven bindings containing books printed between 1477 and 1524 with twenty-seven different panels. The breadths vary from 53 mm. to 104 mm. and the heights from 75 mm. to 171 mm. The smaller formats are characteristic of the period before the turn of the century. The subjects of the pictorial representations are taken from the Bible and hagiographical literature. In addition, there is the figure of the emperor, the acorns, the borders, and a heraldic panel. The following bookbinders or booksellers are mentioned by name: André Boule (two bindings), Julien Desjardins (six), Pierre Guiot (three), Jean Norvis (two), Gilbert Ferrer (one), Theodoricus Ricardus (one), and Denis Roce (one). Three bindings are marked with the initials GP and one each with JG and DM. It should also be pointed out that the monograms and symbols frequently given in a shield in the border have varying significance and may not be viewed only as marks of the bookbinder or bookseller.
Notes
Geoffrey Dudley Hobson, Blind-Stamped Panels in the English Book-Trade, c. 1485-1555, London, The Bibliographical Society, 1944. (Supplement to the Bibliographical Society's Transactions, no. 17.)
Léon Gruel, Manuel historique et bibliographique de l'amateur de reliures, Paris, Gruel & Engelmann, 1887-1905, 2 V.
Geoffrey Dudley Hobson, "Parisian Binding, 1500-1525," The Library, 4th ser., XI (1931), 393-434.
Max Josef Husung, "Zur Praxis und zur Psychologie der äteren Buchbinder," Zeitschrift für Bücherfreunde, n.s., IX (1918), 276-279.
Ernest Philip Goldschmidt, Gothic and Renaissance Bookbindings, Exemplified and Illustrated from the Author's Collection, London, E. Benn, 1928, 2 V.
Karl Westendorp, Die Kunst der alten Buchbinder auf der Ausstellung von Bucheinbänden im alten Schloss zu Strassburg, Elsass, veranstaltet in Oktober 1909 durch die Landesverwaltung von Elsass-Lothringen, Halle a.d.S., W. Knapp, 1909.
William Younger Fletcher, Foreign Bookbindings in the British Museum, London, K. Paul, Trench. Trübner & Co., 1896.
Heinrich Lempertz Bilderhefte zur Geschichte des Bücherhandels und der mit ihm verwandten Künste und Gewerbe, Cologne I.M. Heberle (H. Lempertz) 1853-1865.
Hans Loubier, Der Bucheinband von seinen Anfängen bis zum Ende des 18. Jahrhunderts, 2nd ed., Leipzig, Klinkhardt & Biermann, 1926. (Monographien des Kunstgewerbes, v. xxi/xxii.)
Max Joseph Husung, Bucheinbände aus der Preussischen Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin in historischer Folge erläutert, Leipzig, K. W. Hiersemann, 1925.
W. H. James Weale, Bookbindings and Rubbings of Bindings in the National Art Library, South Kensington Museum, London, Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1894-1898, 2 v.
Hannover, Kunstfœrdige gamle Bogbind indtil 1850; det Danske Kunstindustri-Museums Udstilling 1906, Copenhagen, Lehmann & Stages, 1907.
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