Illustrated books -- Bibliography; Illustration of books; Printing -- History
After removing to Strassburg, Weiditz copied some Wittenberg Bible cuts
and also Holbein's Apocalypse set for Knoblauch in 1524. In 1530 he
illustrated for J. Schott the _Herbarium_ of Brunfels, which went
through several editions both in Latin and German, and for this
comparatively humble work was praised by name in both editions, so that
until 1904 it was only as the illustrator of the Herbal that he was
known. Many of his Augsburg woodcuts subsequently passed to that
persistent purchaser of old blocks, Christian Egenolph of Frankfort.
Before passing away from the Nuremberg and Augsburg book-illustrators,
it seems necessary to describe briefly, but in a more connected form,
the literary and artistic enterprises of the Emperor Maximilian, to
which so many incidental allusions have been made. The Emperor's first
attempt to glorify himself and his lineage took the form of a Genealogy
for which several antiquaries--Mennel, Sunthaim, Tritheim, and
Stabius--made researches. Burgkmair made designs of some ninety
ancestors and their heraldic coats in 1509-11, and the wood-blocks were
cut. It was apparently intended to print them in 1512, but the whole
project was abandoned, and the work is now only known from a few sets of
proofs, no one of which is quite complete.
After this failure Maximilian planned a Triumphal Arch and Procession,
the programme for the Arch being drawn up by Stabius, that of the
Procession by Treitzsaurwein. The plan of the Arch was largely worked
out by Durer, with help from Springinklee, Traut, and Altdorfer, whose
designs were carried out in 192 woodblocks cut by Hieronymus Andrea and
his assistants. When the impressions from these are put together they
make a design measuring nearly twelve feet by ten. In the centre is the
Gate of Honour, to the left and right the gates of Praise and Nobility.
Above the main gate rises a tower on which are displayed the Emperor's
ancestors and their arms, above the other gates a series of incidents of
Maximilian's life, surmounted by busts of his imperial predecessors and
of contemporary princes. This was printed in 1517-18 at Nuremberg, and
in 1526-8 and 1559 at Vienna. On the Procession or Triumph, Durer,
Springinklee, Schaufelein, Burgkmair, and Beck were all engaged. The 138
blocks composing it were cut by Andrea and Jost de Negker in 1516-18,
and it was printed by order of the Archduke Ferdinand in 1526. A
Triumphal Car designed by Durer in 1518, in connection with the same
project, was published in eight sheets in 1522.
A series of representations of Saints of the House of Hapsburg had been
planned soon after the abandonment of the Genealogy, and assumed shape
in 1514. From drawings now attributed to Leonhard Beck, 123 woodblocks
were made, and an edition in book form was printed some time after
1522.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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