Since the first edition of this book appeared knowledge both of Spanish incunabula and the types in which they are printed has been greatly increased, thanks to the researches of Professor Haebler. These have dealt incidentally, but only incidentally, with the illustration and decoration of early Spanish books, and the present writer must still confine himself mainly to the little handful of illustrated books which have come under his own notice.

The book-hand in use in Spain's manuscripts during the fifteenth century was unusually massive and handsome, and the same characteristics naturally reappear in the majority of the types used by the early printers in Spain. A considerable proportion of these were Germans, whose tradition of good press-work was very fairly maintained by their immediate successors, so that throughout a great part of the sixteenth century Spanish books retain much of the primitive dignity which we are wont to associate only with 'incunabula.' From a very early period, also, they are distinguished by the excellence of their initial letters, which are almost as plentiful as they are good; the great majority of books printed after 1485, which I have seen, being fully provided with them. The prevailing form of initial exhibits very delicate white tracery on a black ground. In a few instances, as in a Seneca printed by Meinardo Ungut and Stanislao Polono, at Seville, in 1491, some of the initials are in red, and have a very decorative effect. A fine capital L and A appear in a work of Jean de Mena, issued by these printers in 1499, and a good M in their Claros Varones of Pulgar in the following year. A Consolat, printed, it is said, by Pedro Posa at Barcelona in 1494, is very remarkable for its profusion of fine initials. Engraved borders are not of common occurrence in Spanish books, though I shall have to notice two striking instances of their use in books printed at Zamora and Valencia. Borders are found, also, on the title-pages of various laws printed at Barcelona during the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, but these are of no great beauty, and some of the pieces of which they are composed are poor copies from the French Horae.

As a rule, Spanish title-pages are handsome and imposing. During the last few years of the fifteenth century and the beginning of its successor, the titles of books were often printed in large woodcut letters. A Spanish Livy, printed at Salamanca in 1497, a Vocabulary of Antonio Lebrixa, printed by Kromberger at Seville in 1506, and a Mar de Istorias printed at Valladolid in 1512, supply examples of this practice. In an Obra a llaors del benauenturat lo senyor sant Cristofol, printed at Valencia in 1498, the woodcut title is in white on a black ground, which is also relieved by a medallion of the saint fording the stream. Pictures were also used in connection with the more ordinary woodcut titles in black—e.g. in Juan de Lucena's Tratado de la vita beata, printed by Juan de Burgos in 1502, we have a cut of a king, bearing his sword of justice and surrounded by his counsellors; and in a Libro de Consolat tractant dels fets maritims of the same year, printed by Johan Luschner at Barcelona, beneath the woodcut title there is a large figure of a ship up whose masts sailors are climbing, apparently in quest of a very prominent moon.

Woodcut pictures of the hero decorate the title-pages of the romances of Spain as of other countries, and these pictorial title-pages are found also, though less frequently, in works of devotion and in plays. Such pictures are less common in Spain than elsewhere, because of the great popularity there of the heraldic title-page, in which the arms of the country, or of the hero or patron of the work, form a singularly successful method of ornament. These heraldic title-pages are found in a few books, printed before 1500, and were in common use throughout the sixteenth century.

The earliest Spanish illustrated book with which I am acquainted is the Libro delos Trabajos de Hercules of the Marquis Enrique de Villena, printed by Antonio de Centenera at Zamora, on January 15th, 1483 (1484). This has eleven woodcuts, illustrating the hero's exploits, and so rudely executed that they are plainly the work of a native artist. Far more interesting than these 'prentice cuts are the illustrative initials, apparently engraved on soft metal, in a Copilacion de Leyes, promulgated in 1485, and supposed to have been printed by Centenera in the same year. These initials are nine in number, and must have been designed and executed by finished artists, whose work is so fine that the printer in most instances has failed to do justice to it. On the first page of text an initial P contains within it figures of a king and queen, Ferdinand and Isabella. This page has at its foot a border containing a hunting scene, with a blank shield in its centre. The rest of the page is surrounded by a text, printed decoratively, so as to form an open-work border. The first section of the laws, treating of 'la Santa Fe,' has an initial E, showing God the Father upholding the crucified Christ. The second section sets forth the duty of the king to hear causes two days a week, and begins with an L, here reproduced, in which the king is unpleasantly close pressed by the litigants.

Two knights spurring from the different sides of an S head the laws of chivalry; a Canonist and his scholars in an A preside over Matrimony; money-changers in a D over Commerce, while a luckless wretch being hanged in the midst of a T warns evil-doers of what they may expect under the criminal law. The pages containing these initials are enriched also by a border in two pieces, the lower part of which shows a shield, with a device of trees, supported by kneeling youths. The perpendicular piece running up the outer margin bears a floral design. All the letters, while directly illustrating the subjects of the chapters which they begin, are at the same time essentially decorative, and they are certainly the best pictorial initials I have ever seen, though it must be reckoned against them that they were unduly difficult to print with the text.

The page here reproduced, unfortunately only about one-third of its original size, from the famous romance of Tirant lo Blanch, gives us another example of this peculiar style of engraving. It is taken from the edition printed at Valencia in 1490, and may fairly be reckoned as one of the most decorative pages in any fifteenth-century book. The rest of the volume has no other ornament than some good initials.

The first Spanish book with woodcuts of any artistic merit with which I am acquainted is an edition of Diego de San Pedro's Carcel d'Amor, printed at Barcelona in 1493. This has sixteen different cuts, some of which are several times repeated. The title-cut, showing love's prison, is here reproduced, and gives a very good idea of a characteristic Spanish woodcut. The other illustrations show the lover in various attitudes before his lady, a meeting in a street, the author at work on his book, &c. Another edition of the Carcel d'Amor, with the same woodcuts, was printed at Burgos in 1496 by Fadrique Aleman.

Most of the other Spanish incunabula with woodcuts, which I have seen, were printed at Seville by Meinardo Ungut and Stanislao Polono. The first of these, Gorricio's Contemplaciones sobre el Rosario de nuestra seÑora, issued in 1495, has some good initials, two large cuts nearly the full size of the quarto page, and fifteen smaller ones, with graceful borders mostly on a black ground. The small cuts illustrate the life of Christ and of the B. Virgin, and are, to some extent, modelled on the pictures in the French Horae. In the same year, the same printers published Ayala's Chronica del Rey don Pedro, with a title-cut of a young king, seated on his throne, and also the Lilio de Medicina of B. de Gordonio with a title-cut of lilies. In 1496, a firm of four printers, 'Paulo de Colonia, Juan Pegnicer de Nuremberg, Magno y Thomas,' published an edition of Juan de Mena's Labirinto or Las CCC (so called from the number of stanzas in which it is written) with a title-cut of the author (?) kneeling before a king. Three years later, still at Seville, Pedro Brun printed in quarto the romance of the Emperor Vespasian, with fourteen full-page cuts of sea voyages, sieges, the death of Pilate, &c. Against these books printed at Seville, during the last decade of the century, I have only notes of one or two books issued at Salamanca, Valencia, and Barcelona, with unimportant title-cuts, and a reprint at Burgos of the Trabajos de Hercules (1499) with poor illustrations fitted into the columns of a folio page. But it is quite possible that my knowledge is as one-sided as it is limited, and I must, therefore, refrain from building up any theory that Seville, rather than any other town, was the chief home of illustrated books in Spain. After 1500 the Spanish books which I have met have no important illustrations beyond the cuts which appear on some of their title-pages. But here, also, I should be sorry to make my small experience the basis of a general statement.

The devices of the Spanish printers were greatly influenced by those of their compeers of Italy and France. The simple circle and cross, in white on a black ground, with the printer's initials in the semicircles, is fairly common, while Diego de Gumiel and Arnaldo Guillermo Brocar varied it, according to the best Italian fashion, with very beautiful floral tracery. The tree of knowledge and pendant shields, beloved of the French printers, appear in the marks of Meinardo Ungut and Stanislao Polono, and of Juan de Rosembach. Arnaldo Guillermo had another and very elaborate mark, showing a man kneeling before the emblems of the Passion, and two angels supporting a shield with a device of a porcupine. One of the quaintest of all printers' marks was used by a later printer of the name Juan Brocar, whose motto 'legitime certanti' is illustrated by a mail-clad soldier grasping a lady's hair while he himself is being seized by the devil!