“None of us is this Zeuxis Heracleotes”: The Illustrational Dilemmas of Cracow Publishers

Abstract

Renaissance publishers very often directly addressed the readers of the books that were published in their printing houses. In various dedications, prefaces, afterwords, etc., they presented the broad behind-the-scenes view of their editorial efforts, thus in this suggestive way attempting to shape universal views on the status and significance of ars artium. These authorial texts are an important source of information regarding the editors’ scholarly, social and professional contacts, as well as of the circumstances in which the various texts were created and all kinds of issues the editors encountered in their endeavours to publish them. Together with the development of the art of printing, an increasing amount of attention was given to the illustrations that were to accompany the texts. A critical analysis of these allegedly autobiographical texts must, of course, take under consideration their extreme subjectivism and reputation-building rhetorical strategies, which at times were highly conventional. Nevertheless, the intentional self-exposure contained in these texts reveals to us either the real or proclaimed intentions and frustrations of Renaissance publishers. An examination of authorial texts by Cracow publishers indicates that the issues of book illustration began to more clearly impinge on the publishers’ awareness in the second half of the 16th century. Interestingly, their direct statements on this topic, even though few, clearly show their critical approach to the images that were included in their own publications. An analysis of the contents of those texts, supported by an investigation of the pictorial material in question, shows that the publishers’ objections were not only conventional expressions of modesty, but an indication of their growing awareness of how complex the matter of book illustration truly was; these publishers understood that the functions of book illustrations varied and transcended a simple pictorial interpretation of the text. The forewords written by the Szarfenbergers (Biblia Leopolity, 1561; Herbarz, to iest ziół tutecznych, postronnych y zamorskich opisanie by Marcin Siennik, 1568) and Jan Januszowski (Ikones Książąt y Królów Polskich x. Jana Głuchowskiego, 1605) reveal the extent of their awareness of the current professional challenges and transformations in expectations concerning book illustrations, which mirrored, perhaps even on a magnified scale, the central artistic and cognitive challenges of the era. An analysis of these texts reveals that the publishers were well aware of the conflicts between creeds, in which the intellectual and polemic potential of images was often brought into play. They were also conscious of the cognitive qualities of illustrations and cognizant of theories regarding the mimetic nature of art. Another topic recurring in their forewords was that of the difficulties connected with finding a qualified woodblock cutter. Financial problems were an integral part of the history of early printing, and the topic of (excessive) expenses connected with preparing a large set of woodcuts is equally noticeable in these forewords, thus showing that Renaissance Cracow was not an exception to this rule. Thanks to these authorial confessions of Cracow publishers, a growing circle of recipients was increasingly more aware of the “art of the book”, i.e. of the complex processes of editing a text and the value of its appropriate presentation.