European Blockbooks
Lately I’ve been looking at a lot of medieval manuscripts. And thinking about mostly just… medieval manuscripts. Which is great; I’ve seen amazing things in the last few days and my dissertation is coming along nicely. But I’d like to think about something else for a bit, so while this topic is actually kinda still medieval, at least it’s a form of printing.
Blockbooks appeared in northern Europe at almost the same time as movable type, during the mid-fifteenth century, and may have developed from the printing of patterned fabric, individual devotional images, and playing cards. They can be differentiated from other types of early printed books because they didn’t use movable type: text was always carved into the block along with the images. This process is labor-intensive and sort of a bitch if you screw up or decide to change something, but it allowed for quick, cheap reproduction. Pages were printed on one side by rubbing the paper against the carved and inked block, and the blank sides were often glued together before binding. Hand-coloring of the illustrations was also common. These were cheap, popular, and ephemeral publications, similar in that way to the broadsides that would become ubiquitous in later centuries. Blockbooks were probably owned by a range of people, including the illiterate, and may have been common teaching aids. This is mostly speculation, though, as few copies remain and we have little material evidence of their use.
Blockbooks developed into a handful of extremely specific genres, usually based on older manuscript books and traditional illustration cycles. Here are examples of a few:
Ars moriendi (The Art of Dying): You’d think that once at the deathbed there couldn’t be much left in the way of sin. After all, you can’t move enough to commit murder or adultery, and you’re probably not in the mood for gluttony. Unfortunately, this is incorrect. In the medieval Christian worldview death was a time of significant temptation and obviously the most important time to resist. The Ars moriendi were guides to a good death, explaining the types of sin that the dying could fall into, and counseling both the sick and his or her family on how to behave at this crucial time. In the illustrations saints and demons fight over the soul of a dying man, who eventually goes to heaven. In the image below, from the Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel (which has a nice selection of digitized blockbooks), the dying man is tempted by devils into deathbed-specific sins such as despair, impatience, and pride.
Apocalypse: These blockbooks are based on the Book of Revelation, one of the most visually interesting parts of the Christian Bible, and their format and illustrations come from manuscript traditions that are extant in an illuminated Apocalypse held by the Bodleian Library. The image below, of the mouth of Hell, is from a hand-colored Apocalypse at the University of Glasgow, which was featured as their website’s book of the month in August 2005. The site includes lots of images and a really excellent discussion of this particular book of the Bible and the blockbooks it inspired—highly recommended.
Danse Macabre (Dance of Death): This was a widely popular series of illustrations that originated in the late Middle Ages, probably as a response to widespread mortality during the plague, and it appeared in many variations in books and artwork. In each image Death takes someone, from children, paupers and farmers to merchants, scholars, knights, kings, and popes; the lesson being that Death can come at any moment and he doesn’t care how much money or power you have. Potentially humbling for the rich, darkly humorous for the downtrodden. BibliOdyssey has posted a nice set of images from a German Totentanz at the University of Heidelberg: below, death takes (what I assume is) a haughty queen. Interestingly, in most of the pictures Death looks jovial, but here he seems pretty annoyed by the queen’s attitude. The coloring in these is also nicely done.
Biblia Pauperum (Poor Man’s Bible): Some might say it’s the ideal Bible for the easily distracted internet generation. The Biblia Pauperum compresses the the whole thing into 40 pages— mostly illustrations of the life of Christ. From the Herzog August Bibliothek, a page featuring a scene from Genesis. I really like the serpent, though a it’s bit odd that Eve seems to be the one offering the fruit. Here you can see that the quality of script carved into a piece of wood could easily be less than optimal. The text in the Ars moriendi above is much better.
Memento Mori Part I
Quid me mihi detrahis? Who is it that tears me from myself? – Ovid, The Metamorphosis Book VI
I recently began an essay on the evolution of images in anatomy books between 1450 and 1800, and I thought I’d share some of my early research. All the images I’ve used are from the National Library of Medicine, which has an excellent historical anatomy exhibit. Clicking on the pictures below will take you to the appropriate section of the NLM website for more images, biographies, and bibliographies. (And a word of warning, some might find the illustrations graphic, disturbing, or not safe for work.) Part II will hopefully appear sometime next week.
Sources:
- Books of the Body: Anatomical Ritual and Renaissance Learning by Andrea Carlino
- The Body Emblazoned: Dissection and the Human Body in Renaissance Culture by Jonathan Sawday
- The Art of Anatomy: Depicting the Body from the Renaissance to Today by Rifkin, Ackerman, and Folkenberg.
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Although curiosity about the body has long been a feature of human culture, anatomical science stagnated during the Middle Ages, a time when the words of classical authorities were valued over discovery. Rather than working from observation or experimentation, medieval scholars compiled, rewrote, and annotated older medical works, particularly those of Galen. It wasn’t until the late Middle Ages and Renaissance that increasingly literate and intellectual segments of society, renewed interest in science and discovery, and advances in printing resulted in the production of new anatomical treatises that eclipsed the achievements of the past and led to the foundation of modern anatomy. But these new volumes were not purely scientific or didactic. Luxury texts intended for an erudite, upper-class audience beyond the medical profession, they mixed art, science, and religion to create dramatic meditations on the natures of flesh and soul and the meaning of the body’s short existence.
Fasciculus de medicina
The first printed anatomy book was published in Venice in 1492 by the Gregorio brothers. A Latin translation of a work by a little known German physician named Johannes de Ketham, it was planted firmly in the medieval medical tradition. The book, which included treatises on subjects such as bloodletting, urinoscopy, and dissection, became an important teaching text, but its sumptuous woodcuts were also geared toward an audience of wealthy intellectuals. A major success, it was republished in 1493 with new illustrations showing contemporary medical scenes including a dissection, and it appeared in twelve editions within a decade. Though produced by a workshop, the designs are good examples of the clean, classical style of Venetian Renaissance illustration. Below is the traditional zodiac man as well as a dissection scene, which portrays an anatomy lesson as performed in the late Middle Ages. The young lector reads from an anatomical text, most likely Galen, while the sector, an uneducated barber/surgeon, preforms the dissection, and the ostensor, a high ranking professor, translates the words of the lector and directs the sector. At this time dissection was not an act of observation and discovery, but was a tightly controlled public ritual intended to reinforce the authority of classical medical texts. The illustration indicates the importance of the text by the prominent placement of the lector relative to the other figures, including the higher ranking ostensor.
Isagogae breves
This book, published in 1522 and 1523 by the humanist physician Jacopo Berengario da Carpi, is credited as the first printed anatomy text based on direct observation of the body. Berengario was deeply skeptical of traditional anatomical practice, saying that a good anatomist ‘does not believe anything in his discipline simply because of the spoken or written word: what is required here is sight and touch.’ Though the woodcuts are artistically and anatomically crude, part of their importance lies in their reflection of Italian Renaissance culture. Berengario was an art collector, and many of the figures are based on rediscovered classical art, religious images, and important works by Leonardo, Michelangelo, and Raphael. Berengario recognized the importance of anatomical knowledge for artists, and he recommended his book for their use as well as that of medical students. The half-flayed figure below is in the traditional pose of an Apollo with light rays. Other illustrations represent the redemptive potential of dissection, which was believed to help atone for the sins of the criminals whose bodies were commonly used for this purpose. Several images of partially draped female nudes indicate a tension between sexual modesty and the display of dissected reproductive organs.
De humani corporis fabrica
One of the most famous medical texts of all time, The Fabric of the Human Body (1543) by Andreas Vesalius, was the first truly modern anatomical book. Vesalius was a Flemish surgeon of the University of Padua who had been trained in the Galenic tradition. Based on his own experience with dissection he rejected Galen as the ultimate authority and argued that surgeons should make their own observations, and he corrected many Galenic mistakes, such as the multi-lobed liver, that had been passed from text to text through the Middle Ages. Vesalius and his collaborators were also some of the first people to grasp the full potential of the printed book, using the title page, illustrations, initials, and chapter/paragraph subdivisions to create a harmonious and practical work. Vesalius’s illustrations were most likely based on his own careful drawings, and he worked closely with the woodcut artist Jan Stefan van Kalkar, a member of Titian’s studio. This partnership resulted in extremely accurate and detailed work, better than anything that proceeded it. But these are not just sterile medical images—the cadavers display human emotions of sadness, despair, and mourning. The skeleton below ponders mortality in a memento mori which would reappear throughout western culture, including in Shakespeare. The second appears to pray, or to be bent in agony. Throughout the book dead trees and barren landscapes, representing death, are contrasted with churches and the promise of eternal life.
De dissectione partium corporis humani
Charles Estienne, a member of the famous printing family of Paris, began work on this book during the 1530s, hoping it would replace the Isagogae breves of Berengario. He had been a student in Paris at the same time as Vesalius, sharing the former’s interest in dissection and the belief that direct observation was more important than the words of authorities. Unfortunately, while Estienne’s book contributed some new discoveries to the science of anatomy, it was plagued by legal issues regarding the artwork and was not published until two years after De humani corporis fabrica. One of the interesting aspects of Estienne’s book is that it includes a number of woodcuts of nude women that were, according to Rifkin, originally intended as ‘genteel humanist erotica’, but were altered by partial dissection and the inclusion of anatomical information relating to reproductive anatomy. Included are Bathsheba being spied upon by David (below), as well as the goddesses Venus, Antiope, and Proserpina. A good example of the complex relationships between art, medicine, books, and sex during the early modern era.
