With the advent of printing the'bInek books were superseded and wood engraving became a handmaid of the greater art. Illustrations are to be found in many of the books of the early printers. The earliest wood engravings in a printed book with an authentic date appear in the Psalter of Faust (or Fust) and Peter Scheffer or Schaeffer) published at Mayence in 1457. From Cologne, Mayence, Nuremberg, Uni, Augsburg, Strassburg and 'Basel came many printed books illustrated with wood en gravings.
The Bible was the book on which the early printers spent most of their energies. Numerous editions were published with illustrations. The most important of these was the famous Co logne Bible which appeared before 1475. Its 109 designs were, after the block hooks, the first il lustrations of Scripture. and they showed more originality and invention than anything that had gone before. Many of the decorative borders of this Bible are in curious contrast to the sacred text.
The tendency of the early printers to trade cuts is made dear by the fact that the Nurem berg Bible, published in 1482, contains wood cuts from the Cologne Bible, published between 1470 and 1475. The Augsburg Bible, published about 1475, is a most elaborately illustrated work; Gunther Zainer is said to have been the publisher. With the exception of two, all the 73 woodcuts are placed m combination with initial letters and absorb a full column of space.
Next to the Bibles in interest in the study of wood engraving are the numerous 'Chroni cles' and histories. These are records of kg ends and imaginery events and are illustrated with woodcuts dealing with the lives of the saints and the great happenings in local history. One of the best known of these chronicles is the one published at Nuremberg in 1493. Hart mann Schedel, a Nuremberg physician, com piled the work and it was printed by Anthony Koburger. It has over 2,000 cuts, views of cities, saints, portraits, etc., and is supposed to have been supervised by William PI urff and Michael Wohigemuth, the latter a master of the great Diner. The chief distinction of the Nuremberg Chronicle lies in the fact that in it for the first time wuodetits were printed in simple black and white. They were modern in this respect and in the use of cross-hatching by which grays and blacks of varying intensity were obtained by engraving lines that crossed er_ch other at different intervals.
Another peculiar feature is the fact that the same single cut is used to represent a number of different poets, etc., or one cut suffices to d.• pict views of several cities, etc. This economi cal method of multiplying the usefulness of a woodcut occurs frequently in contemporary v. orks.
An old style of book of the 15th century also is the figure alphabet, in which the pages arc devoted to forming initial letters from fig gores of all kinds posed in attitudes conforming to the outlines of the capital letters. All these
early 15th century hooks were printed by a rubbing process, either some fund of burnisher as roller pressed the paper over the block. The book printing press was not invented till the lat ter half of the century.
In France wood engraving was early identi fied with printing. Religions books contained many curious and often beautiful illustrations. Those known as the 'Livres d'Heures,' Books Hours, often contained many fine examples carefully executed blocks in imitation of mM latures. Many of these early woodcuts served imply as an outline for the colorist, who often .verlaid them with an entirely different design. The first really effective artistic use of the deco rative border may he seen in these 'Livres and some of them are notably quaint mbodiments of scriptural ideas combined with .,there that are certainly not to be found in the sacred Book.
At Lyons several hooks with woodcuts were published about 1476, but the engraving is of the same coarse German grade, till, in 1493, an edition of Terence was issued with illustrations of a more artistic nature. In Paris we find among the publishers of the above-mentioned books of devotion ("Hours•), history, romance and poetry, such names as lehan.Du Pre. Guyot Marchand. Pierre Le Rouge ('I.a Mer des His toires,' 14&), Pierre Le Caron, Antoine Verard, tc. Those engravings done by Jean Foucquet and Jean Perreal showed ambitious art work that needed no pigments for embellishment The books from these publishers found a wide for eign circulation in their Flemish, English and Italian versions. Guyut Marchand's 'Danse Macabre,' Dance of Death (1485), shows most merit in its illustrations. The French brought out a new style, termed by us scrible,* in which the delineation is composed of dots; Renouvier says it was the goldsmiths' manner of engrav ing and may have been impressed, in some cases, from metal England lagged behind other countries in her art development, and wood engraving was little known there before the publication of Caxton's 'Game and Piave of the Chesse' pub lished in 1476 and it is thought that the cuts in this were imported from Germany, and they are too crude for the English to dispute the claim. In Italy the earliest wood engravings were either importations from Germany or were suggested by German originals. The most noted example of early Italian wood engraving is the 'Hyp rotomachia Poliphili.' or Dream of Poliphilo, written by a Venetian monk in 1467 and prilayd by the famous Aldus, in Venice, 1499. It con tains 192 woodcuts on such subjects as my tholoa, ancient history, processions, etc. The Italians developed a method of engraving in chiaroscuro, in imitation of painting, by the usy of several blocks, each printed in a different color. The Germans also employed the same methods, but in a much cruder form.