Page:History of the German people at the close of the Middle Ages vol1.djvu/34

22 HISTORY OF TILE GERMAN PEOrLE day as masterpieces of the typographical art, and can no longer be equalled in beauty. Johann von Olpe's printed editions of the works of Sebastian Brant, Eeuchlin, and ether German humanists, are notable instances of clear and faultless type and beautiful get-up. The accompanying woodcuts also are for the most part real models of German art. The book-dealers, indeed, gave great encouragement to the pictorial art by their demand for illustrations. 1 Nearly all the great publishers carried on business from real love of truth and learning, and not only with a view to pecuniar} 7 gain. They worked with genuine enthusiasm, and made real sacrifices for the perfecting of their art. The new invention was also used in the service of the ancient classics, as well as of ecclesiastical learning and literature. Besides many other printers already mentioned, the learned Gottfried Hittorp, of Cologne, and the brothers Leonard and Lucas Alantsee, of Vienna, earned lasting tributes of gratitude in this respect. Publications for the people, chiefly the work of the clergy, appeared in large numbers : prayer-books, catechisms, manuals of confession, books of homilies, collections of sacred and secular song, wall calendars,, and also a number of popular works on natural science and medicine. The collections of German writings of the fifteenth century which are still extant give an extremely favourable impression of the culture of the period, and 1 See W. von Seidlitz, ' The printed illustrated prayer-books of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in Germany ' in the Year-book in the Royal Prussian art collections, vols. v. and vi. (Berlin : 1884, 1885).