Graphic History: The Wars, Massacres and Troubles of Tortorel and Perrissin (review)

Two entrepreneurial thread-makers get an idea: they move from Antwerp to Geneva, an artist and woodcut-maker are found, and contracts are signed in the spring of 1596 for making forty 32 cm. by 50 cm. prints depicting the recent momentous events in France. Except for a shift to copper intaglio for some of the plates, the original contractual arrangements would be honored, and the famous series known by the name of the artist Tortorel and the woodcut maker Perrissin would be complete and on the market by late summer, 1570. Bearing titles and letter-place descriptions in French, German, Italian, and Latin, approximately 6,360 sets of these illustrations and their title page were printed on 530 reams of paper (there was paper left over). The sheer magnitude of such a production, in such a short period, inspires awe. Hand-coloring increased both the aesthetic appeal and the price. Depending on the painter’s reputation and the quality of the work, the usual price, one livre, might increase three- or even fivefold.

The entrepreneurs left their debts behind them in Antwerp. Thanks to months, if not years, in the notarial, city, and parish archives of Antwerp, Lyon, and Geneva by generations of historians, and particularly by Philip Benedict, these entrepreneurs and artists of quite middling urban origins, are brought to life in quite strong biographies. This work is a celebration of Genevan and artistic-printing history that will, and should, inspire emulation, and perhaps frustration. Lack of sources sometimes cannot be overcome.

The search, throughout the Western world, for every surviving print and series sheds much light on the history of collecting works of art, of the interest in French culture, and of the religious wars. Nearly complete sets can be found in Rostock, Paris, Florence, Toulouse, Bern, and Madrid. Some smaller libraries, for example the Herzog August Bibliothek in Wolfenbütel and the Bibliothèque de la Société de l’Histoire du Protestantisme français in Paris, probably acquired their prints for scholarly reasons, while Madame de Pompadour and Marie Antoinette owned them as a result of their librarians’ desire to possess rarities. Did collectors shy away from them because they were not “great art,” or were they put off by the violent subject matter? A few tapestries were woven from the illustrations, and Agrippa d’Aubigné drew on the images in his writing.

The principal subjects are battles, sieges, massacres, executions, the conspiracy of Amboise, the accidents of Henri II and Guise. There is only one depiction of peace, the peace of Orléans of 1563. Reliance on visualizing from written accounts was heavy, but there is some evidence of eyewitness reporting. Several illustrations include facts unknown until years later.

The desire for news, combined with vicarious participation in major events, drove the selection of subjects, confirming Pierre Nora’s pioneering work on the “event” in Faire de l’Histoire (Paris: Gallimard, 1974). Topography, buildings, vegetation, and troop-artillery emplacements would have complemented written accounts, and would probably have been of little value for someone interested professionally in the art of war. The overview is stressed, and the presence of the commanders is evident; but the beholder is spared the sense of close-up violence and death that is found in, say, Uccelo’s Battle of San Romano. The six prints on the Battle of Dreux (December 1562) permit beholders not only to follow the different stages of the battle, they also prompt reflection, or account-settling, about which commanders or troops were truly courageous and worthy of glory, and which were not. Since the prints followed a chronology, the artists or entrepreneurs strengthened the partiality for the Huguenots that was already present although not strident, by adding events interpretable as favorable to the latter.

The eye-catching and beautiful border on the title...