Juan de Icíar (1555)
The series from The Old Testament starts with the Fall of Man.
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The dance starts with Bones of All Men.
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This alphabet is very rare. The only one to mention it is Jenkins in his book
about woodcut initials:
A very curious alphabet, which although not equalling
Lützelberger's is of more than average execution, can be but
little known to bibliographers, for as far as we have ascertained it only occurs in a few books published at Stella, in
Spain. The scenes are selected from the Simulachres, and
each letter is a complete little picture.
(Oscar Jennings: Early woodcut initials, 1908, page 33)
Jenkins returns to this alphabet later:
The alphabet […] is a
copy not of Holbein's alphabet of Death, but of the little
pictures that illustrate his Simulachres or faces historiées de
la Mort. Some of them occur in a book entitled Series
totiu historiae sacri Evangelii autore Petro Trurozqui
Navarro (Stellae, Adrian Anverez, 1557), which contains
also most of the letters of an alphabet copied from the
Biblical series of Froshover of Zurich, mentioned in its
place.
Another book without printer's name, but dated 1555,
in which they occur, merits from us a more particular
description, inasmuch as it consists almost entirely of initial
letters. The title of this typographical curiosity is Libro
Sotilissimo y provechoso para deprender a escrevir y contar
el qual lleva la misma orden que lleva un maestro con su
discipulo en que estan puestas las cinco reglas mas principales
de guarismo y otras cosas sotiles y prouechosas. Each page
of the little volume is surrounded by a woodcut border. On
the verso of the title, the notice to the reader begins with the
M of the Dance of Death alphabet. The two succeeding
pages have little pictures of the saints.
On the verso of the fourth page begins the same Biblical
alphabet as in the other volume, the first letter, A, representing
Eve and the tempter with the Tree of Knowledge, the
alphabet, the letters of which are used as illustrative cuts
and not as initials, being continued one letter per page with
about five lines of text underneath; (B Abraham), C (Jacob),
D (David), H (Absalom), and so on. When the Biblical
alphabet is finished, the Dance of Death letters take its
place, two on a page with a cul de lampe underneath the
border, but no text. They are twenty-three in number,
occupying twelve pages, the last being accompanied by the
A (Eve and the Tree of Life) of the other series.
(Oscar Jennings: Early woodcut initials, 1908, pp. 98-99)
Libro llamado Auiso de priuados, y doctrima de cortesanos, 1579.
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Constituciones Synodales del obispado de Pamplona, 1591.
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We are dealing with two series of the letters from A to Z. As always with Roman majuscules
I/J and U/V are conflated, and since neither of these two series include any W,
there are 23 images in each.
The woodcuts were published separately in a book named "Libro sotilissimo" in 1555.
The first series features scenes from The Old Testament.
It starts with a copy of The Fall of Man by Holbein (picture in the top, left corner),
but the rest of the scenes appear in a rather random sequence.
The second series copies
Holbein's great dance of death and not his dance of death alphabet
as one would have expected. It starts with
"The Bones of All Men" (picture in the top, right corner) and follows the sequence from Simulachres
slavishly except that the astrologer doesn't appear,
just as he didn't appear in the so-called printer's proofs.
Jenkins states that these alphabets were only used in a few books published in Stella
(Estella is a town in the former kingdom of Navarre in northern Spain).
One might have assumed that these large initials would have been too dominating
to be used for practical purposes, but Jenkins is wrong: Quite contrary to what one should think,
these large images were in fact used very diligently in books
in Navarre in the 16th and 17th century.
Without having performed an actual count I'll almost claim they were used even more than
Holbein's original alphabet.
I include several examples below.
External Links
Job
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Auiso de priuados: P
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Auiso de priuados: A
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Constituciones Synodales: A
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Constituciones Synodales: B
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Constituciones Synodales: C
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Constituciones Synodales: D
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Constituciones Synodales: E
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Constituciones Synodales: G
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Constituciones Synodales: H
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Constituciones Synodales: I
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Constituciones Synodales: L
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Constituciones Synodales: M
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Constituciones Synodales: N
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Constituciones Synodales: O
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Constituciones Synodales: P
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Constituciones Synodales: T
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Rey don Iuan: E
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Inuentores del arte: A
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Inuentores del arte: E
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Menosprecio: P
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Totius historiae: A
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Totius historiae: D
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Totius historiae: E
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Totius historiae: F
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Totius historiae: H
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Totius historiae: I
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Totius historiae: M
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Totius historiae: N
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Totius historiae: P
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SenatorTotius historiae: Q
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SenatorTotius historiae: R
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SenatorTotius historiae: V
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Historias de idacio: A
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Historias de idacio: C
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Historias de idacio: E
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Historias de idacio: H
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Historias de idacio: I
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Historias de idacio: M
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Historias de idacio: N
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Historias de idacio: O
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Historias de idacio: P
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Historias de idacio: S
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Historias de idacio: T
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Historias de idacio: V
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Other interpreters of Holbein's dance of death
Dances of death
Holbein's dance of death
Icíar