Читать книгу Early Printed Books онлайн

4 страница из 42

It is impossible now to determine whether rumours of the art could have reached Europe from China and have acted as incentives to its practice. Writers on early printing scout the idea; and there is little to oppose to their verdict, with our present uncertain knowledge. Modern discoveries, however, point to the relations of China with foreign countries in the fourteenth century having been much more important than is generally supposed.

The earliest productions in the nature of prints from wooden blocks upon paper which we find in Europe, are single sheets bearing generally the image of a saint. From their perishable nature but few of these prints have come down to our times; and though we have evidence that they were being produced, at any rate as early as the fourteenth, perhaps even as the thirteenth century, the earliest print with a definite and unquestioned date still in existence is the ‘St. Christopher’ of 1423. This print was discovered in 1769 by Heinecken, pasted inside the binding of a manuscript in the library of the Convent of the Chartreuse at Buxheim in Swabia. The manuscript, which is now in the Spencer Library,ssss1 is entitled Laus Virginum, is dated 1417, and is said to have been given to the Monastery of Buxheim by a certain Anna, Canoness of Buchau, ‘who is known to have been living in 1427.’ On the inside of the other board of the binding is pasted a cut of the Annunciation, said to be of the same age and workmanship as the St. Christopher. It is worth noticing that there seem to have been some wood engravers in this Swabian monastery, who engraved the book-plate for the books given by ‘Dominus Hildibrandus Brandenburg de Bibraco’ towards the end of the fifteenth century; and these book-plates are printed on the reverse sides of pieces of an earlier block-book, very probably engraved and printed in the monastery for presentation to travellers or pilgrims.