Hans Burgkmair’s woodcuts reused in “Le relationi universali”


Lengthy essays have been written about Giovanni Botero’s Universal relations but for the Graphic Arts Collection, it is the book’s Aggiunta (supplement) added by publisher Alessandro Vecchi with 33 woodcuts from 32 blocks that must be the primary focus of this rare publication. Vecchi knew the power of pictures.

Now attributed to the Renaissance genius Hans Burgkmair (1473-1531), the 30 full-page and 2 half-page woodcuts fall into two sections: the first group depict semi-human monsters and the remainder represent natives of India, Guinea, and East Africa. Walter Oakeshott’s 1960 study claims this was “the first serious study of native life and dress made for publication in a European travel book.”

Thanks to funds provided by the estate of Gillett G. Griffin, the copy recently acquired by the Graphic Arts Collection comes from the collection of Count Wolfgang Engelbert von Auersperg (1641-1709). The volume also holds a 19th-century bookplate of the Auersperg princely library in Laybach (Ljubljana), along with a label of Helmut N. Friedlaender.

Hans Burgkmair the Elder was the foremost Augsburg designer of woodcuts of his time, and together with Hans Holbein the Elder, the most important painter of the early sixteenth century in the city. The British Museum notes that the artist:

“Trained with his father, the painter Thoman Burgkmair (q.v), and from 1488 to 1490, was apprenticed to Martin Schongauer in Colmar. Designed woodcuts for the leading presses in Augsburg throughout his career. He became a master in 1498, and had a short stay in Italy during 1507. Worked primarily for the emperor Maximilian from c.1508 to 1519, for whom he designed the Genealogy of the Habsburgs of 1509-11, Der Weisskunig of 1514-16, Der Theuerdank of 1517 and the Triumphal Procession of 1516-18. …Between 1508 and 1512, [Burgkmair] played a leading role, together with the printer Jost de Negker, in the development of printing in colour. He was particularly influential in the introduction of Italian Renaissance forms into Augsburg.

The first of Burgkmair’s 15 woodcuts in the Aggiunta show mythological semi-human monsters, including a centaur, a dog-headed man, and others reminiscent of the border cuts in Schedel’s Nuremberg Chronicle.

The remaining 17 cuts depict real men and women, in attire and appearance exotic to European readers, 8 of which form part of a panorama that was cut up into single vignettes. The British Museum owns a rare portion of this procession of the King of Cochin, noting:

“These three blocks come from a set of eight, which was originally printed in the format of a frieze … and was based on a short report by Balthasar Springer published in 1508 of the first voyage made by German traders in 1505-6 to Africa, Arabia and the East Indies.”

The Princeton University Art Museum owns a single section (seen below).

Burgkmair’s original woodcuts must have been known, as they were copied throughout the 16th century, but the blocks themselves were not published until the 1618 edition of Le relationi universali. For the 1622 edition now at Princeton, Vecchi added a title illustration and improved the layout, using a larger type fount.

Giovanni Botero (1544-1617). Le relationi vniversali … diuise in sette parti… In oltre vi s’ aggiunge … un breve racconto di Mostri, & Usanze di quelle Indie, con le sue Figure al naturale d’ Alessandro de Vecchi … Quinta impressione stampata & ricorrette (Venice: Alessandro Vecchi, 1622-1623). Eight parts, numbered to six: with the Aggiunta to Part 4, and Part 6 in two parts, separately titled and paginated. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2018- in process

See also:
Hartmann Schedel (1440-1514), Das Buch der Croniken und Geschichten (Liber chronicarum) (Nuremberg, Anton Koberger, 23 Dec. 1493). Rare Books and Special Collections EXI Oversize 1016.816.11f

Walter Oakeshott (1903-1987), Some woodcuts by Hans Burgkmair : printed as an appendix to the fourth part of Le relationi universali di Giovanni Botero, 1618 (Oxford: Printed for presentation to the members of the Roxburghe Club, 1960). Graphic Arts Collection 2009-0966N

Hans, the elder Burgkmair (1473–1531), The Savages of Calicutt woodcut; watermark: HG? Block. Princeton University Art Museum. Gift of Professor Robert A. Koch, Graduate Class of 1954 x1983-159

O Books! Books! Books!

Sections from the ode “To A, B, C, & Co.” have been reprinted many times in many sources over the years. A search for the original publication of the poem led to the November 9, 1827 issue of The Ariel, a Philadelphia literary gazette.

Although no author is given, the work was written by the New Jersey poet Samuel Joseph Smith (1771-1835), who lived as somewhat of a recluse outside Burlington, rarely leaving the family home. The biography by his cousin Amelia Smith that accompanies a compilation of his writings claims this verse is autobiographical.

Here’s the whole:

Ye wee bit, crooked things ! I mind
The time when first I spied your faces,
And found—no trifling job to find—
That I must learn your names and places.

My grandsire, with well-meaning care,
Bore me to where the mistress she was
Hard at ye—but naught fancying there,
I was at home as soon as he was.

O ‘t was a most unsavoury measure,
To take a weentie, small as me,
From all his young heart knew of pleasure,
And bind him down to A, B, C.

I liked ye not—I’ll ne’er deny it—
And did my best the dose to shun,
But scolded, flattered, shamed, to try it,
Ye all were swallowed, one by one.

For ye are pills that every wee thing,
Is, will he, nill he, doomed to take,
Like measles, itch, small-pox, or teething,
Whate’er wry faces he may make.

And now I love ye well, I’m thinking,
Acquaintance wears disgust away;
Even smoking, hanging, snuffing, drinking,
But few admire at first, they say.

Aye ! and at times my bosom feels
Some pity for the life ye ‘re leading,
By blockheads gripit, neck and heels,
And twisted into wretched reading.

In dead born volumes—never read—
From age to age ye lumbering lie,
Where old housekeeping spiders spread
Their bits of weaving out to dry.

And oft in flimsy novels worn,
Till folk may see ye through and through,
And oft by reckless urchins torn,
For they must have their novels too.

O books ! books ! books !—it makes me sick
To think me how ye ‘re multiplied;
Like Egypt’s frogs, ye poke up thick
Your ugly heads on every side.

If a young thought but shake its ear,
Or wag its tail, though starved it look,
The world the precious news must hear,
The presses groan, and lo ! a Book.

Some busy trifler travels—dies—
Commits a murder, plays or sings—
Makes silly speeches, gathers flies,
Or rhymes—and forth a volume springs!

A host of worthies, stimulated
By hope of pudding or of praise,
Serve up, for stomachs sick and sated,
Their vapid flummery fifty ways.

O, if one half—and may be t’ other,
Were fairly in the Red Sea tost,
And left with Pharaoh’s host to smother,
Little worth keeping would be lost.

However we may find, no doubt,
Some crumbs of comfort—and we need ’em;
Knowing, we are, though books come out,
Not absolutely forced to read ’em.

Aweel, poor things! ye mind me, too,
Of blessed hours for ever past,
When o’er life’s morning fresh and new,
The star of joy its radiance cast.

When dear delusive hope exposed
Her rainbow-tinted scenes before me,
And those loved eyes that death has closed,
Watched with parental fondness o’er me.

But hold; we’ve doubtless shown a sample,
Sufficient, of our tediousness,
And now must set a good example,
By thinking more, and scribbling less.

Samuel Joseph Smith, Miscellaneous Writings of the Late Samuel J. Smith of Burlington, N.J. (H. Perkins, 1836)

Published in The Ariel: A Literary Gazette, Vol. 1 no. 14 (November 3, 1827)

 

Fairburn’s Dreams

This preliminary design by George Cruikshank (1792-1878) from the Graphic Arts Collection does not seem to have ever been realized in print. While trying to connect it to one of the many publications Cruikshank illustrated for John Fairburn (active 1789-1840), we looked at all the books in our own collection, in the British Museum printroom, and elsewhere.

Our colleagues with the Mortimer Rare Book Collection at Smith College hold the only copy of Fairburn’s Fashionable Dream Book, which seemed like a good bet. Unfortunately, that volume has only one plate and the image is not the same as our drawing.

 

John Fairburn (active 1819-1843), Fairburn’s Fashionable Dream Book, or, Dreamer’s Oracle: clearly showing how all things past, present, and to come may be ascertained by dreams on the following subjects: acquaintance … winds &c. &c. : to which are added, remarks on moles, and their signification, either in men or women (London : Printed and published by J. Fairburn, 110, Minories, 1819-1843?). Illustrated with one plate by George Cruikshank. SC Rare Book Room Stacks 398.5 F159

 


 

Bishopsgate Library, London, did a lovely online exhibition of other Fairburn publications, with additional biographical information. Sadly no Fairburn Dreams there either.
https://www.bishopsgate.org.uk/gallery_album.aspx?albumid=34

Let us know if you have more luck finding this.

 

Written in pencil: Fairburns. The Dream of Love. [bottom] Dreamers. Golden. Magnet.

Krysodav!

front pagesback pages

Together with Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies, the Graphic Arts Collection has brought to North America the first complete run of Krysodav! also known as The Rat Crusher.

Complete in three issues, this short-lived satirical Russian literary journal was produced under the editorial direction of Ukrainian writers Leonid Nedolia (later the main editor of Iugo-Lef magazine) and Mark Gai. It features poetry and prose by a number of noted writers related to contemporary politics and social issues in Russia, although it is the spectacular graphics throughout that will draw you in.

Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky (1893-1930) wrote the poem My [i.e. Us] for the front cover of the first issue (see top). Sergei Mikhailovich Tretyakov (1892-1937) wrote the hymn of the magazine that also appeared in the first issue: in his poem Krysodav is the metaphor for USSR. Sergei Makletsov (born 1892) contributed the impressive collage Nozhnitsy po Trotskomu [i.e. The Scissors according to Trotsky] showing Red Army soldier cutting ‘former people’ with giant scissors (above).

The second issue has several caricatures by Kirill Zdanevich (1892-1969) including the full-page back cover (above) with a Red Army soldier proclaiming Workers of the world, Unite! Issue three also features a Red Army soldier (Lenin) rolling over the map of Istanbul with its people trying to escape. Other contributors include Nikolai Aseev, Osip Brik, Aleksei Kruchenykh, Vsevolod Meyerhold, Dmitry Moor, Boris Zemenkov, and Boris Yefimov.

 


Крысодав! = Krysodav! (Moskva: [Sibkraĭizdat], 1923). No. 1 (ii︠u︡nʹ 1923 g.)-no. 3 (okt. 1923 g.). Complete run. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2018- in process

See also online: https://primarysources.brillonline.com/browse/russian-avantgarde-19041946/krysodavdvukhnedelnik;ava332

Toyohara Kunichika

(detail)

 

Thanks to funds provided by the estate of Gillett G. Griffin (1928-2016), the Graphic Arts Collection has acquired a unique album of 56 superb color woodblock prints by Toyohara Kunichika 豊原国周 (1835-1900). A theater bill has been placed at the front of the album, in which the actors of these portraits are listed in the manner of sumo contestants, followed by the sequence of color woodblock prints. Blockcutters include Katada Horichô, Uta Hori, and Hori Ei; and printers Yamamotoya, Kagaya, Kyu, Kinjudô, Kineidô, and Koeidô. The portraits are chiefly the male actors of the Kabuki theater, many of whom were known personally by the artist.

Toyohara Kunichika (1835–1900), First two (left and center) of triptych: A Shuihuzhuan of Beautiful and Brave Women (Kayûjo Suikoden): Actors Bandô Hikosaburô V, Onoe Kikugorô V, Sawamura Tosshô II (R), Ôtani Tomoemon V, Sawamura Tanosuke III, Iwai Shijaku II, Nakamura Shikan IV (C), Kawarazaki Gonnosuke VII, Bandô Mitsugorô V = 「花勇女水滸傳」　五代目坂東彦三郎、五代目尾上菊五郎、二代目沢村訥升　　五代目大谷友右衛門、三代目沢村田之助、二代目岩井紫若、四代目中村芝翫　　七代目河原崎権之助、六代目坂東三津五郎、三代目市川九蔵, 1869 (Meiji 2). Publisher Gusokuya Kahei, Blockcutter Ôta Masukichi (Hori Masu). Color woodblock print.

A complete list of the 56 prints with English translations is in process and will be posted in the future.

Kunichika was apprenticed to Utagawa Kunisada at thirteen having previously worked in the studio of the artist Toyohara Chikanobu (not his more famous contemporary of the same name) – his artist’s name being a composite of his two teachers as was the custom. His first confirmed print is from 1854 but his mature works begin in the early 1860’s. Kunichika was above everything an artist of the theatre. The vast majority of his output was concerned with actor portraits – as demonstrated in his great series 100 Roles of Ichikura Danjuro, in depictions of kabuki performances or scenes from well known plays. Despite his obsessive interest in kabuki, some of his best work remains the non-theatrical series, notably 36 Good and Evil Beauties.

–The Toshidama Gallery, where you can also find an 1898 interview with the artist transcribed and translated, http://www.kunichika.net/

Japanese print collectors will recognize many of the actors found in this album from facial features, even without the extensive cartouches, which also provide details on of the plays in which they were appearing. Among them are contemporary stars such as Nakamura Shikan IV (part of an acting dynasty tracing its lineage from 1818 to the twenty-first century), and Ichikawa Sadanji I (1842-1904), one of the leading Kabuki actors of the Meiji period, alongside Ichikawa Danjuro and Onoe Kikugorô.

 

 

Toyohara Kunichika, [Woodblock prints of Kabuki actors]. [Tokyo], Meiji 2-Meiji 7 [1869 -74]. Folio album (380 × 254 mm) containing 56 prints. French cloth binding, ca. 1900 with onlaid suminagashi marbled paper. Purchased with funds provided by the estate of Gillett G. Griffin. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2018- in process.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By one report, Toyohara Kunichika changed residences over 110 times while changing wives 40 times.  He  once boasted, “Although I can’t equal Hokusai in art, I beat him in the number of times I’ve moved.”  He spent money as in the saying, “A true Tokyoite doesn’t save a penny even for one night” and although he was a heavy drinker, he possessed fine manners.  Indeed, Kunichika’s life is full of colorful anecdotes. Kunichika was known as one of “The Three Greats of Meiji Ukiyo-e”, along with Yoshitoshi Tsukioka (1839-1892) and Kiyochika Kobayashi (1847-1915), and received praise as the “Meiji Sharaku”, a reference to the Edo period Ukiyo-e artist, Sharaku.

Source: Database on Yakusha-e Prints from the Ohe Naokichi Collection of Toyohara Kunichika’s Ukiyo-e Prints, Kyoto University Art and Design http://kensaku.kyoto-art.ac.jp/ukiyoe/kuni_e.html and Time Present and Time Past: Images of a Forgotten Master: Toyohara Kunichika (1835-1900) by Amy Reigle Newland (1999)

(detail)

Coming Soon…

Paul Souday (1869-1929), Les livres du temps (Paris: Émile-Paul Frères, 1913). ReCAP PQ281 .S71 1913

If Colette, author of La vagabonde, opened a store, would it be a travel shop? Wouldn’t Max Jacob, author of Le Cabinet noir, open a photography store? What about others?

This is the brilliant literary jeu d’esprit attempted by Pierre Henri Mac Orlan (Pierre Dumarchey, 1882-1970) in conjunction with the artist Henri Guilac (1888-1953) and Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler (1884–1979) who was publishing under the name Simon Kra. It’s easy to imagine them sitting at a sidewalk cafe late one night devising the scenarios, and then preparing a limited edition with pochoir plates under the title Coming Soon. 62 Literary Shops. Here are a few.


André Maurois (1885-1967), Ni ange, ni bête (Paris: B. Grasset, 1927, c1919). ReCAP 3269.34.367

Jean Giraudoux (1882-1944), Adorable Clio (Paris: Emile-Paul, 1920). ReCAP *Z-4838

Anatole France (1844-1924), Le livre de mon ami (Paris, Calmann-Lévy [189-?]). First edition published in 1885. ReCAP PQ2254 .L587 1890z

André Salmon, Peindre (Edité par Paris Ed La Sirène, 1921)

Edmond Jaloux (1878-1949), Le Reste est silence (Paris: P.-V. Stock, 1909). ReCAP 3260.26.376.11

Max Jacob (1876-19 ), Le Cabinet noir, lettres avec commentaires ([Paris] Gallimard, 1968). ReCAP 3260.24.323

Benjamin Crémieux (1888-1944), Le premier de la classe (Paris: B. Grasset, 1921). ReCAP PQ2605.R4 P7 1921

Pierre Mac Orlan and Henri Guilac, Prochainement Ouverture … de 62 boutiques littéraires (Paris: Simon Kra, [1925]). 62 pochoir plates. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2018- in process.

How Long Is Your Family Tree?

The Graphic Arts Collection recently acquired a bound volume holding seven engraved chronologies produced and published by Louis-Joseph Mondhare (1734-1799), each folded in half vertically and mounted on a stub:

1. Chronologie figurée pour l’intelligence de l’histoire des revolutions monarchiques … Inventé et dessiné par Mrs Mazaroz. A Paris chez Mondhare … [after 1774].
2. Chronologie de France appliquée a la généologie des rois et des princes du sang qui ont eu part au domaine de cet état … Inventé et dessiné par Mazazarot [sic]. A Paris chez Mondhare … [after 1774].
3. Chronologie figurée de l’Empire d ’Allemagne ou table de toutes les revolutions des differents etats d’Allemagne. Par Mr Moreau … A Paris chez Mondhare et Jean … [after 1780].
4. Chronologie figurée de l’Italie ou tableau de toutes les révolutions des differents états de l’Italie a ppliqué à l’histoire sacrée et profane, depuis J. C. jusqu’à nos jours … A Paris chez Mondhare et Jean … [after 1783].
5. Chronologie d’Espagne et de Portugal depuis l’invasion des goths vers l’an 370 avec toutes les revolutions arrivée dans ces roy aumes … A Paris chez Mondhare et Jean … [after 1780].
6. Chronologie d’Angleterre appliquée a la Généalogie des Rois Princes et Princesses qui ont eu des pretentions sur cette Couronne … A Paris chez Mondhare … Mararoz inv. [presumably 1780s].
7. Chronologie figurée des etats du Nord et de la Hollande ou tableau de toutes les revolutions des differents etats du Nord … A Paris chez Mondhare et Jean … [after 1788].

These still-growing trees represent the royal lineage of France; Germany; Italy; Spain and Portugal; England; States of the North and Holland; along with the “history of monarchical revolutions.” Genealogical trees are the most common visualization of family lineage and the Graphic Arts Collection hold a number of others, including this and this and this.

 

According to the Bnf, Mondare (or Mondard) was an engraver, publisher, and dealer of prints and maps. A native of Bougy (Calvados), Mondhare was active in Paris from 1759 until his death in August 1799. His son Pierre Jean (1754-1829) succeeded him. The British Museum lists his address as Rue St Jacques, à l’Hôtel Saumur.

Although these are European histories, the United States turns up on the far side of the chronology of England, as one of several “conquests and losses” along with Normandy, Ireland, various French provinces, and Scotland.

 

See also:

Timelines of History [produced in association with the Smithsonian Institution] (New York: DK Publishing, Inc., 2011). Trustee Reading Room Reference (DR) Oversize D11 .T538 2011q

Daniel Rosenberg and Anthony Grafton, Cartographies of Time (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, c2010). Graphic Arts Reference GARF Oversize D11.5. R64 2010

 

 


Shake-speare’s Sonnets

“The Petrarch Press edition of Shake-speare’s Sonnets has been the most significant project in our history,” writes William Bentley, “both for the end result and for the new skills and capabilities we developed along the way. The decision to print the original text was itself a journey of discovery, in which we abandoned our initial plan to issue (yet another) modernized edition of these timeless poems, and learned to appreciate the orthography of Shakespeare’s day.”

The Graphic Arts Collection recently acquired a copy of their Sonnets, for which they cast their own metal type and engraved the special characters needed to print a 17th-century text.
http://www.petrarchpress.com/shakespeare-sonnets/

When we began to visualize our new edition of Shakespeare’s Sonnets, just a few ideas stood out. We wanted an intimate volume where each sonnet would be presented on its own page and where each verse would stand on one line, regardless of its length. Visually, we wanted our edition to resonate with the books produced by the early fine presses: Handmade paper with deckle edges, an authentic limp-vellum binding, and types that have their roots in classic early printing.

Our access to typecasting matrices for Cloister Old Style (designed in 1913 to resemble the Jenson-based types of the Kelmscott Press) made the choice of font easy. William had already begun casting our own metal type after we acquired our first Monotype Thompson casting machine (as told in Our New Typecasting Foundry). But preparing the type for Shakespeare’s Sonnets turned into an adventure on a different level.

http://www.petrarchpress.com/creating-new-types-for-shakespeare/

 

The Petrarch Press in Oregon House, California, is a revival and expansion of the late Peter Bishop’s own Petrarch Press, which produced a series of special, hand-printed, limited editions both in Northern California and in New York City from 1985 through 1996.

“The Petrarch Press now builds on the rich history of 110 years of fine-press printing, using our passion and standards of refinement to create lasting fine editions of great world literature with a focus on typography.”

 

“This edition of Shakespeare’s sequence of sonnets honours the Quarto impression of 1609, perhaps the last publication of Shakespeare’s writings in his own lifetime. We have chosen to respect the arrangement, orthography, and punctuation of the original, with all its peculiarities, the only significant departure being to give each poem a page of its own. In all other ways we have tried to present the most authentic version of the Sonnets possible, in both typography and content, for our modern age.”

William Shakespeare (1564-1616), Shake-speare’s sonnets (Oregon House, CA: Petrarch Press, 2018). Copy 68 of 75 numbered copies on handmade Twin Rocker paper; bound in semi-limp calfskin vellum with slipcase. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2018- in process

SONNET 29
When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself, and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featur’d like him, like him with friends possess’d,
Desiring this man’s art and that man’s scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven’s gate;
For thy sweet love remember’d such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

Unidentified pickpocket

Detail

This pen and ink and watercolor drawing by George Cruikshank (1792-1878) in the Graphic Arts Collection has been mislabeled for a number of years. In trying to attribute it to the correction book or print a number of other pickpocket scenes were consulted, along with Rictor Norton’s text on Georgian raggamuffins and thieves. http://rictornorton.co.uk/gu11.htm

Richard Newton after Thomas Rowlandson, A Frenchman Plundered, 1792. Etching.

Isaac Robert Cruikshank, Dandy Pickpockets, Diving, December 2, 1818. Etching

Henry Heath, The Rule of Three, 1827. Etching.

Butler Clowes after John Collet, Female Bruisers, 1770. Mezzotint.

In 1820, Cruikshank was working out the plates for Pierce Egan’s Life in London, featuring the adventures of protagonists Tom, Jerry and Logic, three men about town. Although these figures are not as elegant as the published versions, it may be this watercolor was an early attempt to work out a scene never included in the final book. See more: https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/tom-and-jerry-life-in-london

Pierce Egan (1772-1849), Life in London; or, The day and night scenes of Jerry Hawthorne, esq., and his elegant friend Corinthian Tom, accompanied by Bob Logic, the Oxonian, in their rambles and sprees through the metropolis. By Pierce Egan … Embellished with thirty-six scenes from real life, designed and etched by I. R. & G. Cruikshank; and enriched also with numerous original designs on wood, by the same artists (London: Printed for Sherwood, Neely, and Jones, 1821). Graphic Arts Collection Cruik 1821

Do you have another theory?

 

 

 

 

“Destined for an audience of connoisseurs”

If you are a Friend of the Princeton University Library, you should be patting yourself on the back for your connoisseurship and good judgement in providing the funds for the purchase of this amazing new volume of satirical engravings. Congratulations.

Thanks to the generosity of the Friends, the Graphic Arts Collection has acquired a rare set of Dutch satirical engravings under the title (in English): Rome Perturbed or the Catholic Church in an uproar, presented in ten emblems showing how the papacy, but especially the monks, trespass against the Ten commandments… The volume holds eleven engravings with accompanying verses in Dutch. The imprint is false, ascribed tentatively to the publisher Carel Allard, Amsterdam. The author is identified on the title page by initials only “L.V.J.” for Liefhebber van Jansenius (an anonymous friend of Jansenius).


In his study Graphic Satire and Religious Change: The Dutch Republic, 1676-1707, Joke Spaans notes that Roma Perturbata was part of a media offensive against the Catholic Church, culminating in the schism between the Curia and the Dutch diocese in 1723. Apparently the book became something of a bestseller although copies are now extremely rare. This group of elaborate satirical prints focuses on Clement XI’s response to Jansenism in the Netherlands, with particular attention to Pieter Codde and his replacement Theodore de Coc.

The collected engravings went through two editions, one in 1706 consisting of eleven plates [now at Princeton], and an expanded edition with thirteen plates in 1707. Spaans writes

These ‘editions’ are not the fixed entities suggested by this term: the individual plates exist in several versions and the extant copies of the series show some variation in composition. This means that individual plates circulated independently before the series was conceived. The Allard firm collected these prints, altered them as and where they saw fit, and fleshed out the collection with other suitable material they had at hand.

They added a title page, on the reverse side of which they printed ten four-line stanzas that provide the reader with what amounts to a reasoned table of contents. This rhymed table interprets each of the emblems in turn within the wider context of the justification of Codde, the praise of the States of Holland for their support of the Clergy, and the vilification of DeCock, the Jesuits and the Pope and loosely connects them with the Ten Commandments, as referred to in the title of the series.

Spaans also notes that while there were many satirical pamphlets and broadside at this time of dubious quality, “all those in Roma Perturbata were intelligently made, and seem to have been destined for an audience of connoisseurs.”

 


Roma perturbata, ofte ‘t Beroerde Romen, vertoond door x zinnebeelden, toegepast op de x Geboden, door die van ‘t Pausdom … doorgaans meest overtreeden, gelijk nu in de historien van P. Codde, en T. de Kok; waar in de hoogmoedigheid van de Paus … en zyn onmacht om ‘t gewaande recht uit te voeren … voor oogen gesteld worden. By een gesteld door L.V.J. en zijn medehelpers, etc. (Loven [Amsterdam?]: gedrukt ten koste van de Groote Compagnie [Carel Allard?], 1706).

Small folio, 314 x 185 mm, bound in contemporary Dutch speckled calf. Provenance: Bibliotheca Abbatiae Vallis-Dei (Abbot of Gottesthal?), with their ex-libris on front pastedown and stamp of same on front and rear endpaper verso. Purchased with funds donated by the Friends of the Princeton University Library. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2018- in process

 


Given the rarity and uniqueness of each copy, the potential for new research is enormous. OCLC lists only six complete paper copies of the 1706 Roma Perturbata in public collections and none in North America. With current online records and limited published research, it is impossible to know which copies differ and to what extent. Since many of these prints are altered from the original, if in fact an original is known, the study of each impression is not only valuable but essential.

In his catalogue raisonné, Frederik Muller lists the plates of the 1707 publication under numbers 3410 a and b, 1-13, as follows:
Title page: letterpress, kept with the present print
Plate 1: Three medallions, Chronogram 1705
Plate 2: “De niewe Roomse kerktrophee”, Chronogram 1705
Plate 3: “Door Munneke jagt, wordt Babel verkracht”, Chronogram 1705
Plate 4: “Zinnebeeldig pourtret v.d. Ew.Hr. Theodorus de Coc”, Chronogram 1705
Plate 5: “Jansenisten en Munneken zeef”, Chronogram 1705
Plate 6: “Coddige droom van de smalle en brede weg”, Chronogram 1705
Plate 7: “Een Jansenist smeedt met zijn knapen…”, Chronogram 1705
Plate 8: “‘t Rooms Hollands Recht”, Chronogram 1705
Plate 9: “De Rooms Hollandse Tongeslijper”, Chronogram 1705
Plate 10: “‘t Roomse Rad van Avontuur”, Chronogram 1706
Plate 11: “Coddig nachtgezicht”
Plate 12: “De Roomse Kerken-Visiteerder of de Ridder…” Chronogram 1706
Plate 13: “Sic itur ad astra scilicet”; “Rooms Cocceaans Munnike…”

However, these titles vary from the collection catalogue of the British Museum, which also gives lengthy visual descriptions of each plate, suggesting earlier versions and or variations on each theme. Until a compendium of all the extent copies can be attempted, each rare copy of Roma Perturbata in a public collection adds to the scholarship not only of the individual engravings but also to the publication history of the set.