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

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http://www.jstor.org BULLETIN OF THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART fell into the enemy's hands. An 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. These paragraphs contain almost all The view of Venice, printed on several that is known concerning the writing, the sheets from several blocks and then pasted illustration, and the printing of the book, together, is ten inches high by a little over and, though by no means all that is amus- five feet in length, and the map is almost ing, more than is of importance. What as large. These great folding plates, while stands forth from them, however, suffi- adding much to the interest of the book, ciently warrants lingering for a moment are also responsible for the extreme rarity longer. Schoeffer, whose type was used of all its early editions in good condition, by Reuwich "yn synem Husz," was the since folding plates have always been pecu- surviving partner of the firm of Fust and liarly liable to get torn and damaged. Schoeffer, which about thirty years before The value of these large illustrations from had succeeded to the printing business and a topographical point of view is very great, stock in trade of John Gutenberg, the in- as they were the first attempts made to ventor of printing with moveable types. present accurate pictures of the places Reuwich himself and the task he was they represent, of several of them, as that 216 g t v y a-- g e

BULLETIN OF THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART

of Venice for example, being the earliest appears the caption, "Haec est dispositio printed views. They not only depict the et figura templi dominici sepulchri ab buildings, moles, and fortifications of the extra," and the full-page picture of the towns, but further attempt to give local curious animals the travelers saw, among color, being full of busy figures and con- them a giraffe, thus presented to the Euro- taining many apparently accurately drawn pean public for the first time, a crocodile, vessels. Fashions in naval architecture not two goats, a salamander, a camel led by a changing very rap- monkey with a long idly in those days, - tail and a walking the big ship in the - stick, and in the view of Modon has middle a unicorn. a peculiar interest They all are named, for all Americans, 1 with the exception since the probabili- of the mon key ties are good that it - underneath which bore a strong family m B t we read, "We don't likeness to the ves- _= know its name" sel in which Colum- L (non constat de bus sailed forth sx - nomine); and under years later on his __ 1 all as a general des- great r voyage.e a o two cthiongcription cear appearss the the What the actual Elabel, "These ani- facts in the case - mals are veraciously

telling, but it is saw them in the worthy of remark ~ Holy Land" (haec that when Colum- m animalia sunt verac- bus' letter to the . - iter depicta sicut King describing his " vidimus in terra discovery was ~ sancta). One won- printed in I494 at t t ders did that multa Basle, the publisher ai expertus monk, inserted as one of l Felix Fabri, cover the illustrations a up the unicorn with very close copy of ! his dates under the that ship from our cloak of the Evan- book which is here gelists. reproduced. Most - From a purely ar- of the other illustra- tistic point of view tions are representa- : the most important tions of costumes of DETAIL OF THE VIEW OF MODON and interesting cuts the peoples among FROM BREYDENBACH'S ITINERARY, I486 in the book have yet whom the travelers to be described, the journeyed-Turks, Saracens, Jews, Greeks, very famous and beautiful frontispiece and Syrians, and Indians-and tables contain- the equally charming printer's mark which ing their respective alphabets, several of appears below the colophon on the last which in this manner made their first page. Both of them are here reproduced, appearances in a printed book. Amusing the frontispiece of necessity much reduced, as these are, however, they still yield in and the final cut in its full size. Looking interest for most of us today, just as they at the printer's mark as reproduced we are did for contemporary readers, to the pic- able to see two things clearly: first, that ture, said to be the first printed one, of the the person who designed it was a well- Church of the Holy Sepulchre, under which trained and skilful draughtsman, no mere 217 BULLETIN OF THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART publisher's hack or thick-thumbed incom- even Durer did but more fully develop petent; and, second, that the woodcutter the idea which Erhard Reuwich of Utrecht has actually succeeded in leaving in the in Holland had been the first to apply. lines cut by him a large amount of the In the lower half of the frontispiece sensitiveness and delicacy of the drawing. appear three shields with the names of the Until Dtirer began to design and publish Knight Philip von Bicken, the Count woodcuts just before 1500 nothing com- Johann von Solms, and the Canon Bern- parable to this is to be found. It is the hard von Breydenbach respectively, and first really skilful woodcut made. The they bring us finally to the book itself. great and most decorative frontispiece is In the second half of the fifteenth century, almost equally fine in these respects, but of all the corporations in Christendom the the reduction necessary to get it into a church foundations of the Rhine country page of the BULLETINprevents its remark- were by far the richest; the splendor of their able quality from being seen in the repro- churches the marvel of the world, the luxury duction. Prior to its appearance there of their fat abbots and soft canons, for had been no such woodcut, nothing so rich whom little was too expensive and nothing in design, nothing so carefully planned, no too indigestible, was one of its crying figure so graceful and stately as that of the shames. At last even the Pope in the woman who stands in the center of the name of the merest decencies had to ask composition. Whether she is meant to the canons at Mayence not to drink so well personify the city of Mayence or Saint or to quaff so deep; to which reply was Catherine, the patron of learned men, to made, as saucy as might be, that they had whose shrine on Mount Sinai the travelers more than they needed for the Mass, not went, no one knows; but that is immaterial, enough to turn their mill wheels with; she might well be considered the patroness and they went on drinking as before. Some of the woodcutters, the first lovely figure years later, to be exact, in 1483, one of their that their art produced. The wealth of number, the "Magnificent Master" Ber- design in the arbor about her is such an nard von Breydenbach, Doctor, Protono- unexpected thing in the German art of its tary and for thirty-three years Canon of the time and had such numerous progeny, Cathedral though not yet ordained a that it has led to much investigation, and priest, remembering his youth undertook it has finally been agreed that in all proba- a trip to the Holy Land in the hope of bility it is based upon the late Gothic carv- extenuating his sins. What they may have ing about the Porta della Carta of the been we know not, but if one may judge Doge's Palace at Venice. One other from the hardihood of his resolution, deep thing about this frontispiece deserves notice and black, for when his friend Fabri asked and that is the kind and quality of cross- the advice of Duke Eberhard of Wiirtem- hatching which it contains. There are berg, who had been to Palestine, the answer occasional earlier woodcuts which have came, "There are three things one cannot cross-hatching in them, but it is coarse advise upon, one way or the other; mar- and clumsy, a rough symbol of form used riage, war, and the pilgrimage to the in the most arbitrary and careless way. Holy Land. They may all begin well Here the cross-hatching is carefully and and end badly." Nothing daunted, the deliberately used as a means of introducing Canon formed a party, Bicken and Solms "color" into the black and white pattern of after himself its most noteworthy members, the design, that is, as a distinctly artistic which also included twelve other knights device instead of a mere representational and barons, our artist Reuwich, at least one. If this is really the first instance in four priests and monks including Felix which cross-hatching was used in this Fabri and one Thomas, a Minorite, who manner and to such an end, as seems to was "skilled in many languages," two be the case, then was it doubtless the great- armor bearers, two interpreters, a school- est advance that the art of drawing for the master, doubtless taken along for the woodcutter ever made at one leap, and benefit of Solms who was but a youth, a 218 r^ Qz>,

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FRONTISPIECE TO BREYDENBACH'S ITINERARY MAYENCE, 1486 BULLETIN OF THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART lutenist who also was a barber, two manci- on the eighteenth they were at the Jordan. ples, and several cooks, not to mention ser- On July 26 with the aid of a "pagan" vants and hangers-on. they visited the house of Saint Anne which, The party started at different times, having been converted into a mosque, was joining forces at Venice, Breydenbach and forbidden to Christians, and from it they two of his companions leaving for there carried away small pieces of the stonework. from Oppenheim just south of Mayence on After this the party broke up, some return- April 25, 1483, and taking fifteen days in ing to Joppa, but Breydenbach and his the journey. Once in Venice, where the two companions remained over to make Magnificent Master lodged with Peter the trip to Saint Catherine's on Mount Ugelheimer of Frankfort, they bargained Sinai, starting for thete on August 24. for a passage over the sea with Agostino On the sixteenth of September they saw Contarini, the captain of a galley, with her relics, and to their great joy each was whom they had so much difficulty in presented with a fragment of the cotton coming to an understanding that their in which the relics were kept. September contract with him is set forth at length as 27 they started back, reaching the Red a model for the use of later travelers. Its Sea on October 3. When walking around most important clauses had to do with Cairo with some Mamelukes they were the question of food, two hearty meals a mistaken for slaves and some slave dealers day as required for real men (pro viris offered ten ducats a head for them-but honestis) as well as bread and wine both twice the entrance fee to the Holy Sepul- morning and evening for the accustomed chre. Before they left Cairo they were "refection" and "collation." Then comes received by the Sultan, assisted at a most a lengthy description of the holy relics at exciting eclipse of the moon, and got very Padua and Venice, dwelling longingly over much wrought up over the egg incubators one of the six jars in which at Cana water which the Arabs had devised. October had been turned into wine. They spent 19 they went down the Nile to Rosetta, twenty-two days in Venice, being delayed on the way making heated note of the until June i because Contarini who was natives' unlimited capacity for bakshish. to carry them to Palestine was clapped A week later found them at Alexandria, into jail for debt and only with much where poor young Solms died. On Novem- trouble released. From Venice they skirted ber 15 they set sail in the galley of Sebastian their way down the Adriatic, through the Contarini, arriving safely at last in Venice islands, and to Joppa, where they arrived on January 8, 1484. about July i, having stopped at many The adventure had been so great that places en route, notably at Modon, where nothing would do but the publication of a they discussed gipsies, and at Candia book, in which their itinerary was the whence came the malvoisie of Venice. smallest part; for they turned it into the At Joppa the Arabs, for the Turks had not earliest printed Baedeker, throwing into yet acquired Palestine, clapped them into a it all information they could find which cave and kept them there in quarantine might be of use or interest to intending and discomfort until the eighth of July, travelers, a "compendious description of when they set out for Jerusalem, where the Holy Land," essays on the manners, they arrived at six o'clock in the evening beliefs, and errors of that country's in- of the eleventh. The next morning they habitants, a history of Mahomet, a com- started sightseeing, going that day to the pendium of Mahometan law, and a short Church of the Holy Sepulchre (paying a Arabic vocabulary, as well as many other five-ducat entrance fee), the Temple of valuable and informing things, such, for Solomon (then the Mosque of Omar), and example, as remedies against seasickness trying to see the Golden Gate, which how- and how to deal with "cooties," against ever they were not allowed to approach. which, as they plaintively remarked, even The fifteenth found them at Bethlehem, the most noble blood was not proof. the next day they were in Bethany, and Rarely has a more fascinating book 220 BULLETIN OF THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART been written and compiled, since for genera- writer superior to that of the inspired tions it supplied the material for learning historian of the creation. After mention- and for traveling, even more, the store of ing that Cain built the city of Enoch, he incident from which subsequent travelers observes, that, though Moses is silent upon could eke out their failing memories; for the foundation of other cities before the example, the account of the pilgrimage Deluge, eight more are mentioned by that made in I507 by Sir Richard Guilford and excellent man Bernhard de Breydenbach, the Prior of Giseburn (late successor of who visited the Holy Land in 1483!" Robin Hood's friend), which Pynson printed One last word as to Breydenbach; when at London in 151I, in large part but a his tomb was opened in 1582, his body was word for word translation of Breydenbach. found perfectly preserved, for he had taken Its renown held on for many years, a the precaution of bringing back with him learned author writing about a hundred from Alexandria the best of spices for em- years ago remarking of it, "The estimation balming, and his face, though in life clean in which this work was held was very great; shaven, as witness his statue in the Cathe- and John Rous, in a passage which has dral of Mayence, was covered with an often been brought forward to exhibit his abundant and ruddy beard (cum prolixa ac ignorance, considered the authority of the ruffa barba). W. M. I., JR.

PRINTER'S MARK FROM BREYDENBACH'S ITINERARY PRINTED BY ERHARD REUWICH

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