EXHIBITION – VIGNETTES, SIGNETS, AND CARTOUCHES – THE BEAUTY OF ANCIENT BOOKS AND MAPS

The beauty of books is determined by the fonts used, their form, and the initials, which comprise a fundamental aspect of the layout of the text, often enriched with illustrations. The graphic design of both books and maps is enhanced by the addition of many decorative elements such as vignettes, tailpieces, cartouches, decorative borders, dashes and so on, which give a compact block of text or title a feeling of elegance and lightness. The style of these decorations allows for the identification of the period in which a given book or map was created.

This exhibition of 71 books and 35 maps and atlases illustrates the development of printing in the context of the decoration of the printed word and of the graphic representation of the earth. Visitors will discover the achievements of 15th-century forerunners of the typesetter’s art and the accomplishments of the creators of ancient books and maps in Poland and Europe from the 16th to the 18th centuries.

Early printers imitated the creators of hand-written books, which explains the presence in the earliest printed incunabula of hand-carved initials. Various types of fonts were used, with different sizes, typefaces, and shapes of the letters. In the 15th century, the first wood-cut printers’ signets, initials, and ornamental frames surrounding the text began to appear, title pages and wood-cut illustrations were introduced, and the new antiqua font began to be used, a harbinger of the Renaissance.

16th-century books delight viewers with their wood-cut embellished title pages, as seen in works created in the printing houses of Kraków operated by Jan Haller, Hieronim Wietor, and Florian Ungler. These works also include Renaissance ornamentation, heraldic, floral and faunal motifs, printers’ signets, architectural frames, and scenes relevant to the topic of the work.

Title pages and frontispieces in printed works from the 17th and 18th centuries are notable for their highly complex allegorical compositions and personifications. Care was also taken to ensure the appropriate layout of the text, for example by creating a pyramid of words.  

Special editions with monumental copperplate engravings were published to commemorate important events, such as the festivities of air and water organised in 1667 to celebrate the marriage of Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I to the infanta of Spain, Margaret Theresa or the funeral of Maria Clementina Sobieska, wife of James III Stuart and granddaughter of Polish king Jan III Sobieski, in Rome in 1735. There are also engravings which form rebuses, as is the case in a work by Mateusz Kuligowski, Królewic Indiyski [The Indian Prince], published in 1688 in Kraków.

Masterful workmanship is also displayed by copperplate engraved maps of the 18th century. These combined the highest skills of cartographers of the time and the precision of the graphic art of draughtsmen and engravers with a plethora of allegorical and symbolic title cartouches, vignettes, and genre scenes.

Ancient books and maps are fascinating for their artfulness of manufacture, outstanding graphic design, subtlety and wealth of ornamentation, as well as for the simplicity of their print layout.