The Venetian Illustrated Book
Producing illustrations, principally woodcuts, by mechanical means preceded
the invention of printing by movable type. The first illustrated book in
Italy was produced in Rome by Ulrich Hahn in 1467: the Meditationes of
Johannes de Turrecremata contained 34 woodcuts. Florence eventually
dominated the book illustration field, especially after the new techniques
of copperplate and intaglio engraving were perfected there. Venice did not
produce illustrated books extensively until the last decade of the 15th
century. It was not until 1489 that one encounters all of the characteristics
of a Venetian illustrated book in Matteo di Codecà da Parma's Devote
meditatione of pseudo-Bonaventura, with vignettes.
Both the 1491 and 149[2] editions of the Divine Comedy are splendid
examples of the Venetian illustrated book. They go far beyond the previous
illustrative programs of 1481 and 1484 to include one hundred woodcut vignettes,
one for each of the poem's cantos. The Benali/Codecà edition enlarges
the illustrations at the beginning of each of the poem's three cantiche
to folio size. The illustrations are interesting both in their origin and
subsequent history. Those to Inferno I-XIX are apparently based upon
the plates in the edition of 1481, and so have a certain connection with
Botticelli's designs. With slight alterations, the three full-page woodcuts
of 149[2] reappear in Matteo di Codecà da Parma's solo edition of
1493; the Inferno woodcut is also used in the editions of 1497 and 1507,
and the three initial woodcuts of 149[2] reappear with differences in ornamentation
in 1529. The vignettes of the 149[2] edition were also used in the editions
of 1493, 1507 and 1529; the same designs appeared in enlarged form and better
executed in 1497.
The small b which is found on a number of the illustrations, and
is supposed by some to be the initial of the name of the artist who designed
them, and by others to stand for the workshop in which the blocks were cut,
occurs also in a number of other Venetian books, including the Bible printed
by Giovanni Ragazzo for Lucantonio Giunta in 1490, the Vite dei santi
padri, the Boccaccio and Masuccio of 1492, the Epistole ed evangelii
of 1495, the Terence of1497, and the famous Hypnerotomachia of 1499.
