When we have mentioned the _Passional Christi_ of Lucas Cranach, published by J. Grünenberg at Wittemberg in 1521--twenty-six mediocre wood engravings--we shall have cited the most important of the interesting and rare volumes published in Germany at the commencement of the sixteenth century.
The Netherlands, Spain, and England were working, but without great success. In the Low Countries Plantin and his gigantic enterprises may be recalled. In Spain the taste had not yet developed itself; and although the drawing of illustrations may be careful enough, the wood-cutting is pitiable. We will mention the Seneca of Toledo in 1510, and the "Chronicle of Aragon" in 1523. Of England we will speak later.
In France, on the contrary, we find an enormous commerce in books at the commencement of the sixteenth century. All the publishers mentioned in the preceding chapter were still living, and they were feeling the effects of the French conquests in Italy. The dithyrambic literature then inaugurated, and which had its origin under Louis XII., exercised a bad influence equally upon the printers and decorators of the Book. Doubtless the composition of the text and engravings was done hastily, for the great people did not like to wait for this kind of history. _Le Vergier d'Honneur_, written by Octavian de St. Gelais and Andry de la Vigne, was thus published about the end of the fifteenth century and ornamented with hasty vignettes, probably at the expense of Antoine Verard. Upon the accession to the throne of Louis XII., Claude de Seyssel, his master of council, composed _Les Louenges du Roy Louis XII._, and soon after translated it from Latin into French for the same Verard, who printed it in 1508.
The taste for historical works induced the publishers to produce _La Mer des Histoires_, which had already been published in the fifteenth century; Thielman Kerver put forth the "Compendium" of Robert Gaguin in 1500 on account of Durand Gerlier and John Petit. The French version of this work was given in 1514 by Galliot du Pré, with vignettes, and afterwards under the name of _Mirouer Historial_, by Renaud Chaudière in 1520, by Nyverd, and others; the same with the _Rozier Historial_, with figures, in 1522 and 1528. Among the most popular works was the _Illustrations de la Gaule et Singularitez de Troye_, by John le Maire de Belges, printed in Paris and ornamented. In 1512 it was published by Geoffroy de Marnef, in 1515 by John and Gilbert de Marnef, by Regnault, by Philip le Noir, and others, always in the Gothic characters which prevailed in France at the beginning of the sixteenth century.