same conventional type, even in the details there was slight variation; and as the decorative arts in the churches were subordinated to architecture, these designs not infrequently bear the stamp of their original purpose, and are marked by the characteristics of mural art. They were copied, too, not only by the scribes from early representations, but they were reproduced by the great masters of the Renaissance from the manuscripts and block-books themselves; Dürer, Quentin Matzys, Lukas van Leyden, Martin Schön, and, in earlier times, Taddeo Gaddi and Orcagna, took their conceptions from these sources.
Of the block-books which reproduced these and similar manuscripts several have been preserved, and some of them have been reproduced in fac-simile, and minutely described. Among the most important of these, the Biblia Pauperum,[1] or, Poor Preachers’ Bible, of which copies of several editions exist, deserves to be first mentioned. It is a small folio, containing forty pages, printed upon one side only, with the pale brownish ink used in most early prints, and by means of a rubber. The pages are arranged so that they can be pasted back to back; each page is divided into five compartments, separated by the pillars and mouldings of an architectural design, which immediately recall the divisions of a church window; in the centre is depicted some scene (Fig. 5) from the Gospels, and on either side are placed scenes from the Old Testament history illustrative or typical of that commemorated in the central design; both
- ↑ “Biblia Pauperum.” Reproduced in fac-simile, from one of the copies in the British Museum, with an historical and bibliographical introduction by J. Ph. Berjeau. London, 1859.
