A First Edition of Breydenbach's Itinerary Author(S): William M. Ivins, Jr
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A First Edition of Breydenbach's Itinerary Author(s): William M. Ivins, Jr. Source: The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, Vol. 14, No. 10 (Oct., 1919), pp. 215-221 Published by: The Metropolitan Museum of Art Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3253592 Accessed: 05/09/2009 07:56 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=mma. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1995 to build trusted digital archives for scholarship. We work with the scholarly community to preserve their work and the materials they rely upon, and to build a common research platform that promotes the discovery and use of these resources. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. The Metropolitan Museum of Art is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin. http://www.jstor.org BULLETIN OF THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART fell into the enemy's hands. An <anecdote A FIRST EDITION OF BREY- of this defeat is quoted by Mr. Riiggs in a DENBACH'S ITINERARY - letter to the writer. Genouilhac., itIL a..J-an_ peared, had drawn his artillery in,to effec- OF the several items received in the tive range and he was beginning th(3 battery Print Room during the last summer doubt- when he received an unexpected if not fatal less the most important and interesting command from the King to ceasse firing. is a tall and perfect copy of the first edition The order was unconditional .and the of Bernhard von Breydenbach's Itinerary artillerist obeyed, but not withoutt a burst of a Voyage by Sea to the Holy Sepulchre of herculean temper. In his rage Ihe seized (Hain No. 3956), written in Latin, and, the wheel of a cannon which w.as being according to the colophon, which is dated served by his side and lifting it he turned at the city of Mayence the eleventh day of the piece over and spurned it with his foot. February, 1486 (o. s.), printed by Erhard We may well believe Genouilhac at)le to ac- Reuwich. On the twenty-first of June, complish such a physical feat, if wze accept but little more than four months later, the tradition of his stature and strer igth, and Reuwich issued another and revised edition, especially if we consider the mocdest size this time in the German tongue, in which, of many early field cannon! On tthe other careful of his own renown, he procured the hand, we must fairly agree that this gest insertion of a casual though fuller reference could not have been witnessed by the pre- to himself: "Der Maler Erhart Reuwich sent armor, even assuming that so splendid geheissen, von Uttricht geboren, der all disz a suit would have been worn iii battle, gemelt yn diesem Buch hatt gemalet und since it was not completed until t,wo years die Truckery yn synem Husz volfuhret" after Pavia. It is said that Ge;nouilhac (the painter, called Erhard Reuwich, born was a prisoner to the Emperor fc)r nearly at Utrecht, who has drawn all that is two years, hence we can pleasantlIy picture contained in this book, and who carried him as a paroled state captive mziking his out the printing in his own house). home in Milan-then a delightful c;ity after From the introductions to these two first the artistic efforts of Sforza the Moor- editions we learn somewhat of the book, its and using his enforced leisure in o,verseeing writing and its illustration. Here, perhaps, the work upon the present harness. But the hand of Breydenbach himself, long we do not know, alas, that the ar'mor was chamberlain to the Prince-Bishop's courts produced in Italy. If designed -and exe- of law, is seen for the only time, his state- cuted in France, the work might wvell have ment so baldly complicated, so full of the been carried on by the armorer diiring the legal characteristic, that for full apprecia- absence of his patron. We are cionvinced tion we must forego traducing into modern that the present panoply took at Ileast two English and quote from that contemporary years in the making; indeed, it rnay well version which Jehan de Hersin put forth have cost its maker double this t ime. In in French at Lyons in the following year: this event the order for the present harness "Et afin que le dit voyage fut n5 pas a may have been given before the descent moy seulement mais aux autres tres deuotz of the French host into Italy and the work et vertueux cresties vtile et profitables et finished only after Genouilhac's rreturn to que leurs cueurs peusse plus atirer a deuo- France. But these are mere conljectures. cion et de tout ce q est necessaire savoir What cannot be questioned is that the pour faire le dit voyage ay a grat diligece present armor is of regal splend,or: it is c5sidere veu et regarde le escripuant de richer, in fact, than the harnesses o f Francis point en point ne espargnant point ma I which have come down to us. We are labeur ny argent ny or pour ce faire et fortunate, therefore, in being ablle to ex- mettre afin pour laquelle chose mieulx hibit in our collection so complete a panoply faire voulis mener auec moy et de fait illustrating, as it does, the art olf the ar- menay ung singulier et fort expert paintre morer during an excellent period. nome Erhardus revvich du trec, leql depuis B. D. le port de venise iussques en hierusalem 215 BULLETIN OF THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART toutes les villes places pors et autres singu- set are described at sufficient length in lieres choses especialement ou sont les Jehan de Hersin's quaint old French ver- reliques ou saintuaires des sains et de nostre sion-sufficient because it contains all that seigneur a grat diligece a mis par figures is known of him, except that his name ap- espresses et figurates les dittes choses moult pears as printer of three editions of the elegament et delectablemet a voir et regar- Itinerary and of no other books. The most der et les ay fait mettre par lettres vul- interesting of all the facts stated is one that gaires et en latin par ung grant clerq a by itself means nothing until traced down mon plaisir et selon mon aduis c6me il in bibliographies, one that Breydenbach, faloit laqlle euure parfaicte ay imprimer Reuwich, and their contemporaries re- pour q plus facilemet fut a chescun q le garded as a matter for thanksgiving-and vouldra auoir c6munique et plaise a dieu that was the completion of printing, an de sa grace q au salut et pourfit salutaire event which happened, in Reuwich's glad diceulx puist estre Amen." and hasty Latin "Anno salutis. M.cccc. We get further information from the lxxxvi. die. xi Februarij Finit Feliter." account of the pilgrimage written by Felix Finit feliciter, happily ended, it was beyond Fabri, a monk taken along by Breyden- doubt, but so hastily that he misspelled bach, who calls him "multa expertus," the record of his happiness. The biblio- because he had made the trip before. Fa- graphies make this date even more mem- bri says in one place, "The book of the orable than happy, since, many as were the pilgrimage of the Lord Bernhard von books previously printed, this is the earliest Braitenbach . which hath been instance in which it is possible to say with written in ornate style by that celebrated complete assurance that the illustrations Doctor of Divinity, Master Martin Roth, in a book were made by a definite man regent of the school of Heidelberg . whose name we know; and, because of this, There he will find clearly set forth all this book is the document with which be- that I have said before: he will find what gins the history, as distinct from the legend I have expressed in many words put into and the surmises, of woodcutting. few, and will find a duplicate of my book Luckily the illustrations themselves are of pilgrimage and wandering, with the ex- also very interesting, rather unexpectedly ception that sometimes I have been forced living up to the interest they receive from by the plan of my work purposely to alter the historical facts surrounding their mak- the days, saying 'This was done on such ing. The most important of them are a day' whereas he says it was done on the large views of Venice, Parenzo, Corfu, another day: wherein there is no violence Modon, Crete, Rhodes, and Jerusalem, or discrepancy, seeing that when we read and the map of the Holy Land, which are the Scriptures we find the same thing to so big that they had to be folded, the first have been done by the Evangelists." time this was done in a printed book.