Library Briefings

Swirling verve and alchemical commentaries

Two recent acquisitions at the McCormick Library of Special Collections are nice examples of the transmission and transformation of printed images. The two—a German edition of Ovid illustrations and a French translation of the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili—are similar in that each re-creates illustrations from earlier editions published elsewhere in Europe. In both cases the designs are redone by the later artists with little in the way of subject re-conception or format change, but the remakes are unmistakably different in style, somewhat as if the later artists were musicians and the earlier images their scores, to be performed accurately but with individual flair and improvisational flourish.

The Ovid is an illustrated model book published in Frankfurt in 1563 that depicts scenes from the Metamorphoses, accompanied with verses in Latin and German by Johann Posthius. Model books of course were used as templates for the designs of painters, embroiderers and weavers of tapestries, muralists, metal workers, sculptors and other craftsmen—this was a book that would have been principally purchased and used or admired for its pictures, not text. In this case the woodcuts were done by the prolific Nuremberg-based artist Virgil Solis (1514-1562). His model, for this model book, was the set of woodcuts made by Bernard Salomon (ca.1506-ca.1561) for a 1559 model book of Metamorphoses illustrations published in Lyons, a book already held within our collection.

In some cases the wood blocks used by a publisher might be sold and reused by another elsewhere, or the images traced and slavishly re-cut. The original blocks might also themselves be re-cut, lines deepened and added over time. Some version of the above was the case with two other French Ovid editions also possessed by the McCormick Library which re-use the Salomon blocks, or close copies of them. One—with cuts especially like the 1559 edition—was published in Paris in 1574, the other in Rouen in 1589. Our 1589 Rouen edition has been bowdlerized by some earlier owner, some nudity and amorous scenes blotted out in ink out by a fretting hand. A scene of Perseus rescuing Andromeda from each of these Salomon-based versions may be seen here:

Perseus 1559	Perseus 1576	Perseus 1589

No one could suspect the Solis wood cuts from our new German acquisition of having been printed from the Salomon blocks. For one thing the Solis prints are larger than the earlier French images. Solis has also transposed the left/right image orientation. But regardless of those two obvious factors, the Solis images are clearly the work of a different artist, with a manner of his own. Below is Solis’s version of the same scene of Perseus and Andromeda seen above.

Perseus 1563

Compare as well the following versions of these other images:

Creation 1559	Creation 1563
Deluge 1559	Deluge 1563
Phaeton 1559	Phaeton 1563

The original edition of the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, published in Venice by the Aldine Press in 1499, is probably the most famous and admired illustrated incunabulum. We are very pleased to acquire this French translation of this notoriously strange book, which akin to the Solis Ovid recreates the woodcuts of the original edition with numerous augmentations and in a different style. Published in Paris in 1600, this edition is also notable for incorporating the translator Béroalde de Verville’s alchemical commentaries on the text, a bizarre erotic dream tale of a man with a more than practical passion for architecture. Published anonymously, some believe the author of the original was the architect Leon Battista Alberti, though traditionally—based upon an acrostic found within the text—it is said to be the work of a priest named Francesco Colonna. Regardless, it is a wonderfully weird book.

While not as typographically elegant as the Aldine book, our French copy is certainly its match or better in the quality of its illustrations, printed from blocks first used in an earlier Parisian edition of 1546. Here are a few examples of pictures from the 1499 Venetian Hypnerotomachia (the digital images here taken from later reproductions, as alas we lack the Aldine original) and their reinterpretations in our more formal and Mannerist Parisian edition of 1600.

Temple 1499	Temple 1600
Elephant 1499	Elephant 1600
Poliphilo in the Wood 1499	Poliphilo in the Wood 1600

Also spectacular and (unique to this edition) is its illustrated title page, a wonderful little masterpiece of swirling verve and alchemical symbolism.

Title Page 1600

[Ovid] Iohan. Posthii Germersheimii Tetrasticha in Ovidii Metamor. lib. XV , quibus accesserunt Vergili Solis figurae elegantiss. & iam primùm in lucem editae : schöne Figuren auss dem fürtrefflichen Poeten Ouidio, allen Malern, Goldtschmiden, und Bildthauwern zu nutz unnd gutem mit fleiss gerissen durch Vergilium Solis, und mit Teutschen Reimen kürzlich erkleret, dergliechen vormals im Truck nie aussgangen durch Johan. Posthium von Germerssheim. Impressum Francofurti: Apud Georgium Coruinium, Sigismundum Feyerabent, & hæredes VVygandi Galli, 1563
McCormick Library of Special Collections 871O8 Upo

Le Tableau des Riches Inventions Couuertes du voile des feintes Amoureuses, qui sont representees dans le Songe de Poliphile Desvoilees des ombres du Songe, et subtilement exposees par Beroalde. Paris: Chez Matthieu Guillemot, 1600
McCormick Library of Special Collections 853.3 C719XF

Scott Krafft