THE FUNCTIONAL PRINT WITHIN THE PRINT MARKET OF THE LATE FIFTEENTH AND EARLY SIXTEENTH CENTURY IN NORTHERN EUROPE AND ITALY

Lyndsay Bennion

A Thesis

Submitted to the Graduate College of Bowling Green State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

MASTER OF ARTS

December 2006

Committee:

Dr. Allison Terry, Advisor

Dr. Andrew Hershberger

© 2006

Lyndsay Bennion

All Rights Reserved iii

ABSTRACT

Dr. Allison Terry, Advisor

The focus of my thesis is the print market of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth

century. This market was a byproduct of the trade-based economy of Venice and cities in

Northern Europe. The multiplicity of prints allowed for their widespread circulation

among these cities. Religious prints were the first type of print to be disseminated via the

various trade routes. Such prints experienced an immense popularity due to the

devotional climate of early Renaissance society. Most often, they were utilized by

consumers as devotional tools. Yet as the print market grew, so too did the tastes of

consumers. A new type emerged who viewed the print as an art object and used it

accordingly; collecting it and storing it away within their private print cabinets. It is

these two different functions of the print that I am most interested in exploring. My

intent is to view the print as a functional object whose use changed depending on the type

of consumer who purchased it. The differing functions of the print resulted in a

segmentation of the market into a larger devotional market and a much smaller fine print

market. Printmakers acknowledged the existence of these two markets by creating works

to specifically appeal to consumers within each. Thus printmakers acted as both artists

and entrepreneurs. Albrecht Dürer was one such printmaker. His Small Passion (1509-

1511) series and his Engraved Passion (1507-1512) series effectively demonstrate how he created works to appeal to consumers in both markets. Such strategic rendering calls for the print to be seen less as an act of artistic genius and more as a highly devised entrepreneurial endeavor intended to attract a specific consumer. iv

To my family v

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank my Advisor, Dr. Allison Terry, for all of her help and encouragement. vi

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

INTRODUCTION ...... 1

THE DEVELOPMENT OF AN INTERNATIONAL PRINT MARKET ...... 5

THE FUNCTIONALITY OF THE DEVOTIONAL PRINT ...... 7

PRINTS AND THE PRACTICE OF COLLECTING...... 16

ALBRECHT DÜRER AND THE PRINT MARKET...... 23

CONCLUDING REMARKS...... 38

BIBLIOGRAPHY...... 40

FIGURES CONSULTED ...... 43

1

Joos van Cleve’s painting The Annunciation (c. 1525) is situated within a room similar to many found in the homes of the German and Netherlandish upper-class. The work illustrates typical devotional practices in the early sixteenth century. Within the room, devotional tools are clearly placed: the home altar showing Abraham and

Melchizedek stands against the back wall, an elaborately decorated book of hours rests on the prie-dieu upon which the Virgin kneels, and a colored woodblock print of Moses is affixed to the back wall. The inclusion of these objects, and the Virgin’s use of them, suggests that they were utilized within the daily devotional practices of Renaissance people.1 The altar, prie-dieu and book of hours have the clearest discernable functions

within this context: the altar was utilized in the same manner as a church altar would be

with the devotee praying before it, while the function of the prie-dieu lies within its name, which translates literally to pray or beg to God, and books of hours were used as prayer aids.

The only devotional tool that’s use is possibly unclear is the print, which Maryan

W. Ainsworth has described as being “indifferently tacked to the wall” and considers to

be a “cheap devotional image.”2 Save for these brief mentions, she devotes no further

discussion to how the work might have functioned within a devotional context. The print

is worth additional consideration on these grounds alone. It played a vital role within

devotional and non-devotional practices of the early sixteenth century, a role which

Ainsworth has chosen to ignore.

1 Maryan W.Ainsworth and Keith Christiansen, eds. From Van Eyck to Bruegel: Early Netherlandish Painting in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York: Abrams, 1998), 364. 2 Ibid, 364. Beyond these characterizations Ainsworth dismisses it as unimportant save for its image of Moses, who she believes to be an Old Testament prefiguration of the Eucharist. 2

This paper will explore the function of the print. My intent is to consider prints as

functional objects. Previous scholars have ignored the importance of prints as functional objects and have therefore failed to see the impact that the way in which consumers’

utilization of the print defined the larger market.3 The functional potential with which

consumers approached prints helped shape the development of the print market by

dividing it into two distinct segments: one utilized the print in a devotional capacity, whereas the other considered the print to be an art object due to its formal value and

content. It is from the former use of the print that the later developed.

As functional objects, prints were representative of two defined spheres: the sacred and the profane.4 When used as devotional objects prints became associated with the sacred and served as key components within devotional practices. Prints utilized within the second segment of the market tended to be connected to the profane. Their material value replaced their sacred value. They no longer merely functioned in

conjunction with a higher belief system. Rather, they were simply valued for their

aesthetics or socio-religious commentary.

Printmakers targeted their works to appeal to both the devotional and fine print

market. Yet by targeting these two markets printmakers acknowledged that a functional

division existed between the two. Albrecht Dürer’s Small Passion (1509-1511) and

Engraved Passion (1507-1512) series demonstrate how printmakers consciously tailored

their prints to appeal to the two segments of the market. These works support the

3Mark J. Zucker, The Illustrated Bartsch: Early Italian Masters. ed. Walter L. Strauss. Vol. 25. (New York: Abaris, 1984). 4 Emile Durkheim, “Ritual, Magic, and the Sacred,” in Readings in Ritual Studies (New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1996), 188. 3

division of the early Renaissance print market based on the ability of the print to function

as an object in multiple capacities.

The print included in Cleve’s Annunciation stands as a symbol of “devotional

efficacy” and represents the fervency of devotional piety that gripped early sixteenth

century Europe.5 The print belonged to a genre of devotional woodcuts that comprised

much of the international print market at that time. Two different types of prints existed

within the market. The first of these referenced specific pilgrimage shrines, relics, cult

paintings or sculptures. These prints also functioned as sacred objects and were used in a

variety of ways for the purposes of prayer, intercession and protection.6 In addition, they

served as visual links to miraculous experiences that occurred at the shrines where they

were sold.7

The second types of prints within this devotional market were those with religious

imagery that did not reference a specific shrine or preexisting religious work. These were

utilized in the same manner as the above mentioned prints. Early sixteenth century

printmakers produced numerous prints of generic Biblical subjects. These prints were often used within the context of private devotional practices. Individuals would glue them inside prayer books, or as with the Cleve print, tack them to a wall where they could take in the subject as a source of religious inspiration or as a moral reminder. Both types of prints were utilized as functional objects. This functionality is not addressed within

Cleve’s painting since the print is merely tacked to the back wall and the Virgin is not depicted interacting with it.

5 David S. Areford, “The Sacred Multiple: The Early Printed Image as Reproduction and Simulation.” (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Conference, 2006), 2. 6 Ibid, 2. 7 Ibid, 3. 4

Yet the functionality of the print within the early sixteenth century was not

restricted to only devotional practices. Another type of print emerged within this time

period that functioned differently from the types of devotional prints discussed above.

These prints were the product of the evolution of the print industry—as the medium

evolved the print was utilized by new consumers for different purposes. They were not

necessarily tacked to a wall or pasted into a prayer book where they acted as prayer aids.

These prints were instead collected and stored away, in essence becoming an art form

versus a devotional or functional object.

Despite their different functions these new prints shared the same religious

subject matter as devotional prints. What separated the new prints from the old, and

perhaps the reason they were utilized differently, was due first to the consumers’ attitudes

towards the print and then to its aesthetic development. The humanist movement helped

contribute to this change in functionality. The new ideas discussed within humanist

circles found outlets through the printmaker’s stylus. They included more complex

religious imagery that expressed the theological debates of the time. Printmakers also

began experimenting with innovative techniques to produce works with new aesthetics

that often emulated the visual effects of painting. Consumers noted these changes and viewed the print as an art object versus a strictly devotional tool.

It is tempting to classify the consumers of these two types of prints based on socio-economic factors. Yet, such a classification is too reductive and ignores the fact

that prints were used in both capacities by persons of higher and lower socio-economic

means. In many middle class homes prints served as decorative wall coverings and thus 5

functioned on an aesthetic level.8 Members of the upper classes also used prints for

devotional purposes by inserting them into prayer books where they functioned as prayer

aids. The print was therefore not simply a poor man’s devotional tool or the subject of a

rich man’s hobby. Whoever owned a print possessed it for a specific reason and

function. This functionality is of primary interest, yet cannot be fully understood without

a better understanding of the print market as a whole.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF AN INTERNATIONAL PRINT MARKET

The print market of the early sixteenth century was a byproduct of Venice’s trade-

based economy. Venice traded with a number of different cities throughout the then

known world, yet for the development of the international print market cities in the North

were the most important. These cities were situated in what is now southern Germany

and the Low Countries, which during the early sixteenth century included Belgium and

the southern Netherlands.9 Venetian contact with the North dates as far back as the

twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Trade at this early state was limited to overland routes.

Merchants from the Low Countries and Venice would congregate at fairs within central

France where the northern merchants would trade wool in exchange for spices and

expensive fabrics brought by the Venetian merchants from the Mediterranean and the

Levant.10 These fairs eventually became outmoded as merchants looked for more direct

and economic means of trade. The fourteenth century saw the rise of trade via sea routes.

Beginning in 1341, Venice sent its Fleet of Flanders to Bruges, which was the leading

8 David Landau and Peter Parshall, The Renaissance Print: 1470-1550. (New Haven: Yale UP, 1994), 81. . One of the most popular types of prints were those that dealt with the Passion cycle. 9 Bernard Aikema and Beverly Louise Brown, eds.. Renaissance Venice and the North: Crosscurrents in the Time of Bellini, Dürer, and Titian (New York: Rizzoli, 1999), 19. 10 Peter Stabel, “Venice and the Low Countries: Commercial Contacts and Intellectual Inspirations,” in Renaissance Venice and the North: Crosscurrents in the Time of Bellini, Dürer and Titian (New York: Rizzoli, 1999), 31. 6

trade center of the time due to its strategic location, developed urban market and

specialized infrastructure.11 The fleet was comprised of a number of galleys that were

controlled by the Venetian state. These galleys were sent to other northern regions as

Venice’s trading power steadily grew.

During the fifteenth century Bruges began to wane as a trading center due to the

predominate shift among merchants from sea routes to transcontinental routes. These

routes incorporated new areas of Europe into the emerging trade economy. One of the

most important regions for Venice lay across the Alps in Southern Germany. By the start of the sixteenth century the region was one of the most important markets for Venetian goods. Venice’s ties with the region were strengthened by the foundation of the Fondaco dei Tedeschi near the Rialto bridge. The Fondaco was controlled by the Venetian state and was part warehouse, customs depot, administrative center and dormitory for German merchants within Venice.12 Any German who wished to trade within the city had to be a

member of the Fondaco. This allowed the Venetian state to keep a careful watch on the

lucrative business the German merchants provided. These merchants inadvertently

impacted Venetian art through the importation of Northern works.

Art objects were among the many goods exchanged between the North and South.

Originally, it was mostly devotional paintings that traveled between the markets of the two regions, yet as the printing industry steadily grew prints also began to appear on the markets. The first types of prints to be produced and then sold in either Italy or the North

11 Stabel, 31. 12 Louisa C. Matthew, “Working Abroad: Northern Artists in the Venetian Ambient,” in Renaissance Venice and the North: Crosscurrents in the Time of Bellini, Dürer and Titian (New York: Rizzoli, 1999), 61. 7

were woodcuts. These prints date from as far back as the fourteenth century.13 Yet it is

difficult to pin down when exactly prints from the North began to be imported into Italy.

David Landau and Peter Parshall have suggested that this difficulty was due to the convenience and little cost involved with the shipping of printed materials.14 Ships’ captains would rarely note the presence of prints among the cargo since they took up little space and were of such insignificant cost in terms of shipping. Landau and Parshall point to the already mentioned trade fairs as a more definite source for the import and export of prints.15 Fairs like the Frankfurt Fair offered an international platform from which

printmakers and merchants could sell their works. By the early sixteenth century courier

services also ran twice weekly between cities like Venice and Nuremburg, which provided an efficient means for transporting printed materials.16 In this manner prints

were disseminated throughout Italy and the North. These two regions comprised the

majority of the international print market at that time.

THE FUNCTIONALITY OF THE DEVOTIONAL PRINT

Devotional imagery and text became exceedingly popular during the late

Medieval Ages. Kathryn A. Smith characterizes its popularity as a veritable “explosion

of devotional forms,” which was particularly prevalent among the laity.17 This increase

in interest was a product of the reform movement surrounding the Devotio moderna. The movement originated in the North, now the present-day Netherlands, and was begun by

13 A. Hyatt Mayor. Prints and People: A Social History of Printed Pictures. (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Princeton UP, 1971), Unpaginated, Image 9. 14 Landau and Parshall, 349. 15 Ibid, 349. 16 Fritz Korney, “Venice and Dürer,” in Renaissance Venice and the North: Crosscurrents in the Time of Bellini, Dürer and Titian (New York: Rizzoli, 1999), 241. 17 Kathryn A. Smith, “The Neville of Hornby Hours and the Design of Literate Devotion,” Art Bulletin 81, no.1 (1999): 72. 8

Gerard Groote of Deventer. The movement focused on the development of personal

piety based on the teachings of Christ and the cultivation of a simple private life.18 It advocated both prayer and meditation, through which it was believed a devout and

“practical” existence could be attained.19 A variety of prayers were generated to govern

all aspects of a person’s life. These included morning and evening prayers, special

prayers for avoiding dreams and death, prayers for walking, and prayers used before a

crucifix.20 It was natural for this new found religious sentiment to attach itself to both

human nature and Christ’s suffering: “Christ’s passion, the most perfect expression of

His humanity, was an ideal subject for the stimulation, through empathy, of powerful

religious emotions, calling into play a broad spectrum of human feelings including pity,

compassion, sorrow, guilt, gratitude and admiration.”21 As a result of this fixation much

of the imagery favored by members of the Devotio focused on the Passion cycle. The

Passion was thus a key component for the meditative practices favoured by the

movement. These practices were typically unscripted and were instead left to the devotee

to create on their own. Individuals were encouraged by clergy to develop personal

devotional practices, such as prayers. This emphasis on the personal development of a

spiritual life was one reason the movement enjoyed long lasting popularity.22

The Devotio extended throughout Europe and lasted far into the Renaissance

period. This was also due in part to the creation of convents and schools which promoted

the Devotio and to the widespread circulation of devotional texts. In support of how

18 John C. Olin, The Catholic Reformation: Savonarola to Ignatius Loyola (New York: Harper and Row, 1969), 22. 19 Ibid, 22. 20 RichardC. Trexler, Public Life in Renaissance Florence (Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1980), 100. 21 James H. Marrow, Passion Iconography in Northern European Art of the Late Middle Ages and Early Renaissance: A Study of the Transformation of Sacred Metaphor into Descriptive Narrative. (Kortrijk: Van Ghemmert, 1979), 8. 22 Ibid, 21. 9

many such texts circulated among members of the Devotio, Olin notes that “more than

600 manuscripts and fifty-five printed editions of the Imitation of Christ (one such

devotional text by Thomas à Kempis) date from the fifteenth century.”23 The large

number of books relating to the movement was a result of the high value it put upon texts.

Manuscript copying was prevalent throughout the numerous monasteries and convents

founded by the Devotio.24 In addition, these manuscripts frequently appeared in the

vernacular, which meant that composition was possible for anyone with even the most

basic literacy.25 This helps explain the immense popularity of the movement at least among the elite or educated segment of society. Yet regardless of the popularity of texts, the movement should not be viewed in relation to one segment of the laity. The Devotio

and other doctrines connected to personal devotion were preached throughout Europe.

Thus, any person who attended church, which included members of the middle and lower

classes, would have in some way been exposed to the call for personal piety.

The increased interest in devotional practices within early Renaissance society

created the need for devotional objects, which could aid in both meditation and personal

prayer. In some cases the need for such images was church mitigated, as was the case

with a sermon preached by Fra Girolamo Savonarola pre-1496. In it he urged

congregants to place at least three images within their home.26 The first of these images

was the most generic. It was to depict Heaven and Hell and was to be used as a tool to

incite the devotee to lead a more Christian life style. Savonarola stated that each morning

23 Olin, 22. 24 Marrow, 21. 25 Ibid, 21. 26 Donald Weinstein, “The Art of Dying Well and Popular Piety in the Preaching and Thought of Girolamo Savonarola,” in Life and Death in Fifteenth-Century Florence, eds. M. Tetel, R.G. Witt, and R. Goffen (Durham: Duke University Press, 1989), 92. 10

congregants should rise and contemplate the image before them, considering that day as

their last.27 Donald Weinstein suggests that the crowd to which Savonarola preached

comprised a wide cross-section of society, including people from “all ranks and conditions.”28 Therefore, it would not only have been members of the upper class who

sought out images such as the above to place within their homes. Those who made up the

middle to lower classes also needed access to devotional images, since they too were part

of the trend in personal devotion.

Prints readily met the need for devotional tools due to their inherent multiplicity

and their lower cost of production when compared to the more expensive medium of

painting. A single image could be reproduced several times via the printing process and

thus reach a larger number of people than a painted work. Printmakers used this

multiplicity and the devotional climate to their favour by producing a variety of religious

prints. Israhel van Meckenem stands as an example. Around 1500 the Northern

printmaker issued engraved indulgences which supposedly took years off of an

individual’s stay in purgatory if they performed certain devotions.29 His print of the

Mass of St. Gregory (c.1480) promised 200,000 years release for three prayers performed

in front of the print (fig. 2).30 The multiplicity of the medium allowed Meckenem to

reach a large number of consumers with this print, much to the chagrin of the papacy,

since the indulgence was not under papal review.

While this example was not issued by the Church, religious institutions also

utilized the multiplicity of the print to their advantage. Prints depicting saints or relics

27 Weinstein, 92. 28 Ibid, 90. 29 Landau and Parshall, 58. 30 Ibid, 58. 11

were often sold at established pilgrimage sites. A church would commission a local

printmaker to produce a print depicting their relic and they were then sold to the pilgrims

who visited the church.31 Pilgrims would typically purchase these types of prints as

mementos of their journey or religious experience. In this way they helped promote the

cult of a particular saint. 32

For example, a print of the Reichsheiltümer (1487) (fig. 3), which was the relics,

vestments and royal insignia of the Holy Roman Empire, was produced in a single sheet

woodcut. It was later included in a guidebook produced by Peter Vischer called the

Heiltumsbüchlein (1487).33 The prints and book were purchased by pilgrims so that they

could recognize the relics on the Feast of the Holy Lance. This was the one day a year

when they were revealed on the display platform at the church of the Heilig-Geist-Spital

in Nuremberg.34 Yet the use of devotional prints continued all the way up through the

early twentieth century at new pilgrimage sites such as Lourdes and Fátima.35

David S. Areford provides an excellent example of prints associated with the cult

of Simon of Trent, a boy who was supposedly murdered by Jews in 1475.36 Areford

suggests that these prints were “designed as powerful devotional images, as well as

effective advertisements for the pilgrimage site and its main attraction, the body of little

Simon.”37 Pilgrims could take a print home with them and show family and friends a

31 Allen Shestack, ed., Fifteenth Century Engravings of Northern Europe. (Washington D.C., National Gallery of Art, 1968), unnumbered. 32 Areford, 13. 33 Ibid, 16. 34 Ibid, 16. Local woodcutters were eventually used less and less to create these types of prints, until churches and monasteries quite using them altogether and instead commissioned industrial engravers from foreign cities.34 35 Ibid, Image 13. 36 Ibid, 13. 37 Ibid, 13. 12

concrete example of what the relic, in this case Simon’s body, looked like. This helped

spread interest in the cult and made the religious experience more tangible.

Yet these types of prints fulfilled a much more complex function than only simple

mementos. The prints purchased at pilgrimage sites such as Simon’s were often endowed

with a magico-religious power, much like a Byzantine icon. A print depicting a certain

saint frequently became associated with that saint and their particular power, making it in

essence a substitute for the saint.38 Thus, when an individual needed to seek out the

intercession or protective power of the saint they would use the print as an intermediary.

Robert Maniura notes several such instances involving prints of the painting of

Santa Maria delle Carceri.39 The prints reproduce a fourteenth century painting that was

involved in a series of miraculous events. It depicted the Virgin and Child, Saint Stephen

and Saint Leonard. In three recorded instances individuals prayed before prints of the painting and miracles occurred.40 But in one case a sick woman had a print that had

touched the painting placed on her mouth and body. The woman experienced a series of

convulsions which prompted her to have a vision of the Virgin. She recovered soon

thereafter.41 In all four cases the print functioned as an intermediary between the saint

and the devotee. In the first three examples in which prayers were offered up in front of

the prints they served as devotional objects. Yet, in the fourth the print acted as a literal

transmitter of the Virgin and Saints’ powers.

Such uses are not rare. Other documented cases exist in which individuals would

recite a prayer and then eat a print as part of a devotional ritual. The prints were believed

38 Areford, 2. 39 Ibid, 11. 40 Ibid, 12. 41 Ibid, 12. 13

to transmit the protective powers of the saint to the devotee so that they would be protected from harm after physically imbibing the saint. Prints were also fed to animals,

specifically cows, under this same vein of thinking.42 The beast would be protected from

sickness after eating the paper image and thus not lose the farmer his livelihood.

A more widespread devotional use of prints occurred in conjunction with prayer

books. In the fifteenth century it was common for people to paste prints into books of

hours and Bibles. This practice is responsible for the survival of many of the fifteenth

century prints that we have today. It was especially prevalent in Germany where the

Kleinmeister produced small highly detailed prints in the tradition of Italian nielli that

were perfectly suited for this purpose.43 Scholars have concluded that the practice must

have been extremely common because a vast number of prints were created in sequential

editions, such as Passion cycles. The creation of such series suggests that the prints were

meant to be kept together because the images followed a narrative flow, which made

them perfect for illustrating a prayer book or other such devotional text.44

Within this context the print functioned primarily as a tool for personal meditation

and as the vehicle for meditative departure. If the print were of Christ’s crucifixion or

any other scene from the Passion cycle then the devotee would use the image to help

focus on Christ’s sorrows. The purpose of this focus was to ignite feelings of spiritual

love and compassion as a result of witnessing Christ’s suffering.45 The practice was connected to the Devotio.

42 Areford, 3. 43 Sell, Stacey, “Printmaking in Italy and the North: A Dialogue Between Traditions.” Masterpieces of Renaissance and Baroque Printmaking a Decade of Collecting: Selected from the Collections of the Bayly Art Museum and Gertrude Weber. ed. Lawrence O. Goedde. (Charlottesville: UVA Press, 1991), 19. 44 Landau and Parshall, 64. 45 Marrow, 10. 14

As mentioned earlier, followers were urged to find their own unique spiritual expressions through creative outlets.46 Devotionalists created rapiaria, which were

books that contained readings, lessons and thoughts meant for personal meditation.47

Prints of the individual’s choosing could be inserted within a collection of pages. In this way they helped form a sort of personal devotional album. The ability to create these albums was open to all types of personages, since the Devotio was connected to the entire social spectrum, as were prints.

Gluing prints into devotional texts was not unique to any one level of society.

Peter Schmidt notes this use of prints “penetrated the highest levels of the social hierarchy.”48 He cites several examples, including Bianca Maria Sforza, the wife of

Emperor Maximilian I, who sewed metal cuts into her prayer book and Emperor

Ferdinand who inserted engravings and pilgrim badges into his Italian prayer book.49

Yet, members of the middle class also pasted prints into their own books. A German embroider by the name of Hans Plock illustrated his two volume edition of Martin

Luther’s Bible with a variety of drawings by Mathais Grünewald, as well as drawings, engravings and woodcuts by other artists like Martin Schongauer.50 Since ideas of piety

were ubiquitous during the early sixteenth century, so too was the use of prints as a form

of devotional illustrations.

Devotional images were a crucial component to any Italian, or Northern, household. Yet if one could not afford a painted image, like the one in Cleve’s painting,

46 Marrow, 21. 47 Ibid, 21. 48 Peter Schmidt, “The Multiple Image: The Beginnings of Printmaking, between Old Theories and New Approaches,” in Origins of European Printmaking: Fifteenth Century Woodcuts and Their Public, eds. Peter Parshall and Rainer Schoch with David S. Areford, and Richard S. Field. 35-56. (New Haven: Yale UP, 2005), 43. 49 Ibid, 43. 50 Landau and Parshall, 52. 15

then a print was the next most affordable choice. Prints were frequently pasted onto walls and canvases where they served as home altars in front of which devotees performed their prayers. These works served as sacred objects. Some prints have been discovered in Italy in states that clearly suggest this function. 51 Francesco Rosselli’s

Scenes from the Life of the Virgin and Christ with Borders (c. 1490) is one such print

(fig. 4). It was found attached to canvas along with several other prints, which lead

scholars to believe that it was used in conjunction with the others as a home altar.52 The

motifs utilized within these types of prints have also helped scholars establish them as

devotional tools.

The presence of a decorative border surrounding the print is one such motif as is a

central image ringed by smaller images (fig. 5).53 Both of these devices were borrowed by printmakers from other devotional works. The first was borrowed from illuminated manuscripts, which were used in devotional practices. The border was meant to focus the

attention of the devotee on the image. The same can be said of the central image ringed

by smaller images. This device was also borrowed, but from fresco and altarpiece

decoration.54 The arrangement provided a didactic narrative cycle that was intended to

further illuminate the depicted Biblical event, much like the decoration of an altarpiece.

The prevalence of these motifs within prints suggests that, when creating images for

devotional purposes, printmakers borrowed from works that already functioned in this

capacity. They also demonstrate that printmakers were cognizant of the devotional

character of the market and tailored their works accordingly.

51 Landau and Parshall, 82. 52 Ibid, 83. 53 Ibid, 81. 54 Ibid, 81. 16

PRINTS AND THE PRACTICE OF COLLECTING

Around the end of the fifteenth century a new type of print consumer emerged.

This consumer utilized the print in an entirely different manner, which created a division within the market. They used it for a non-devotionally motivated purpose—it became an art object that was collected. In this capacity, the print functioned as a conversation

piece, meant to incite debate, or to offer aesthetic enjoyment. Typically, this new

consumer was a humanist who prized the work for its artistic and intellectual qualities.

Some humanists were also printmakers who shared membership within these circles.

They incorporated humanist ideas and texts into their work to produce often obscure and

esoteric prints.55

In Italy these works found a market among members of various humanist circles,

which included members of the Italian courts.56 Such a view of the print was adopted

first in Italy because it was there that already independent masters began to experiment

with the art of engraving.57 This resulted in an aesthetically different type of print.

Landau and Parshall suggest that it was for this reason that consumers in Italy also started

to view prints as an extension of painting and to think of displaying them in more formal

ways that did not necessarily involve a devotional function.58 Printmakers became aware

of this change of function and altered their prints visually to meet the demands of the new

consumers. They therefore created prints that were aesthetically and stylistically

different than many of the devotional prints on the market. Yet, surprisingly, the core

subject matter remained the same.

55 Landau and Parshall, 102. 56 Ibid, 102. 57 Ibid, 82. 58 Ibid, 65. 17

While devotional images still made up the majority of prints within this segment

of the market, a small number of secular prints began to emerge, especially after 1470. 59

These new prints favored a more symbolic vocabulary than the devotional prints discussed above. 60 Their subject matter often came from literary sources popular among

the humanists. Collectors purchased these types of prints along with religious prints.

But the types of religious prints they purchased were different from the prints previously

discussed. One of the key differences was that the print became more technically

advanced.61 In part, this advance was due to the rise of engraving, which encouraged the use of lines finer than the heavier contours typical of the woodblock print. This allowed

for the creation of a tonal system, which produced prints that more closely echoed the

atmospheric qualities within paintings of the time, such as those by Giorgione. Another

difference was that the subject might not have been from the vernacular or the Latinate

Bible, but from the Hebrew Bible.62 Prints that drew on this level of learning sometimes

provided commentary on the current religious situation within the North, speaking to the

reformation and other similar issues.63 In effect, the print became a forum through which

current theological concerns were discussed and in which new artistic developments were

put fourth.

An excellent example of a print that functioned more as an art object versus

devotional tool is the Biblica Italica (1494). This Bible was composed of prints which

contained elaborately ornamented borders surrounding the illustrations. These borders

59 Susan Dackerman, The Pious and the Profane in Renaissance Prints. (Baltimore: Baltimore Museum of Art, 1998), 2. 60 Landau and Parshall, 89. 61 Dackerman, 2 62 Ibid, 3.

18

were composed of motifs that originated from classical antiquity.64 Lilian Armstrong

suggests that their presence indicates the buyer of the Bible would not have taken offense to such pagan inclusions and would have instead appreciated their presence for its ancient origins and its signification of their erudition and education in classical studies.65 The

inclusion also indicates that the Bible carried with it an obvious devotional function. The

difference between prints within this type of Bible and earlier devotional works was that

they were no longer treated or expected to function in a solely devotional context. A

value judgment was placed on the prints, which kept them from being tacked to a wall or

pasted into a prayer book. These qualities helped insert prints into the culture of

collecting.

The practice of collecting dates back to ancient times, yet the system of collecting

favoured during the Renaissance found its foundations in the Middle Ages. Originally, it

was ecclesiastical figures and groups who collected objects. Church officials like Abbot

Suger amassed large collections, using the justification from King Solomon that churches

should be store houses for all things beautiful.66 They also collected under the

philosophical idea that all beautiful objects were endowed with a marvelous or

miraculous quality. This quality was a reflection of God within the material, and thus by

possessing a marvelous or beautiful object the individual was achieving a closer

communion with God.67

64 Lilian Armstrong, “Venentian and Florentine Renaissance Woodcuts for Bibles, Liturgical Books, and Devotional Books,” in A Heavenly Craft: The Woodcut in Early Printed Books, ed. Daniel De Simone, 25-46. (New York: George Baziller, 2004), 26. 65 Ibid, 26. 66 Anthony Allen Shelton, “Cabinets of Transgression: Renaissance Collections and the Incorporation of the New World,” in The Cultures of Collecting, ed. John Elsner and Roger Cardinal (Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1994), 178. 67 Ibid, 178. 19

The upper ranks prescribed to this philosophy and soon “became the most

influential art clients” within their time.68 Evidence of this is suggested by such notable

examples as the Jean, duke of Berry and Philippe le Hardi duke of Burgundy.69 The

objects they collected ranged from small luxury items, to tapestries, to the newly

introduced easel painting and to manuscripts.70 The acquisition of such items helped

promote the image of the Valois as “wise rulers.”71 This image was one that numerous

members of the Renaissance aristocracy would also choose to adopt and use to inspire

their collections.

In the Renaissance some motivations for collecting gradually changed, though

collections were still approached with much the same scholarly justification used during the Middle Ages. The innate meaning of things and the nature of revelation continued to be cited as key ideas governing collections. 72 But new motivations emerged: it was believed that the amassing of objects could duplicate creation in miniature and ultimately achieve a better universe.73 Such an idea inspired many collectors to seek out exotic and

rare objects, which could range from natural wonders, like shells or animals from the new

world, to unusual paintings and other manmade art objects. This range of objects

describes the Italian collections of Ulisse Aldrovandi and Antonio Giganti.74 The

practice of collecting also became closely connected to humanism and its scholars. They

68 Brigitte Buettner, “Profane Illuminations, Secular Illusions: Manuscripts in Late Medieval Courtly Society.” The Art Bulletin 74, No.1 (1992): 75. 69 Ibid, 75. 70 Ibid, 76. 71 Ibid, 75. 72 Shelton, 181. 73 Ibid, 184. 74 Ibid, 182. 20

associated cultural possession with the possession of moral values.75 In addition, they

saw classical antiquities as the most desirable objects to collect, and thus endowed them

with a greater sense of intellectual acumen and exclusivity. Humanist collectors

therefore competed with each other to acquire any new antiquity that came onto the

market.76 This exclusivity helped create gender stereotypes in terms of who should collect what objects. Certain things were deemed as collectible for only certain genders

and social classes. This resulted in a hierarchy of collecting.77 Women within the ruling courts of Europe typically collected religious paintings and decorative arts, whereas aristocratic men collected antique cameos, gems and statuary.78 Some women, like

Isabella d’Este, broke these conventions and collected male gendered objects.79 Such

occurrences seem to have been rare and highly situational.

Ultimately, the parameters of a collection were determined by the economic status

and tastes of an individual.80 Some collectors prescribed to an encyclopedic system of

collecting, like Antonio Giganti, whereas others narrowed the focus of their collections to

only certain media. In some cases this narrowing was due to a lack of means.

Antiquities and certain types of paintings, which were near the top of the collecting

hierarchy, were barred from members of the middle classes due to sheer cost. The new

types of prints emerging onto the market were also out of many individuals’ financial

reaches. This segment of the print market tended to be dominated by the elite social

class. The new print collectors tended to be schooled in humanist thought or were

75 Rose Marie San Juan, “The Court Lady’s Dilemma: Isabella d’Este and Art Collecting in the Renaissance.” Oxford Art Journal 14, No.1 (1991), 69. 76 Landau and Parshall, 99. 77 San Juan, 70. 78 Ibid, 71. 79 Ibid, 71. 80 Shelton, 180. 21

humanist scholars themselves. They were often from the aristocracy due to the training

and education granted them by their relative positions. Humanist scholars quickly

recognized the potential of the print for disseminating qualities that they also admired

within art and literature.

Yet documentation exists that suggests members of the middle classes also

collected prints. Jacobus de Ruberiis offers one such example.81 His collection includes

at least fifty-three known prints, with the majority being woodcuts. He pasted them

amongst his personal writings where they functioned as illustrations. Another example of

a middle class print collector is the Nuremburg medical doctor Hartmann Schedel who

began collecting around 1460. Over his lifetime he acquired at least three hundred prints

which he, like Ruberiis, used to illustrate the books in his library.82 Some scholars have

suggested that Schedel’s collection is in fact not a collection due to its lack of “clearly

defined” parameters.83 Instead, I would argue that the variety of prints he acquired

simply supports the importance individual taste plays within the practice of collecting.

Scholars have also puzzled over why Schedel did not possess more prints by fellow

Nuremburg resident Albrecht Dürer.84 To date, only Dürer’s small woodcut Passion and

a book illustration have been connected to his holdings. Again, the lack of so few prints

by Dürer could be attributed to personal taste—perhaps Schedel simply did not enjoy the

aesthetics of Dürer’s prints and choose not to include his works within any of his books.

81 Landau and Parshall, 91. 82 Ibid, 64. 83 Ibid, 64. 84 Ibid, 64. 22

Or, as some suspect, he had a collection of the printmaker’s works but kept them separate from the rest of his prints, thereby affixing a personal value judgment to them.85

Collectors selected prints based on their aesthetic appeal or intellectually oriented

subject matter.86 They took interest in the different styles of prints within this segment of

the market. For example, Italian engravers favoured heavy contours and fine parallel

hatching.87 Two different techniques emerged from these preferences particularly in

Florence: “the ‘Fine Manner,’ was characterized by thin modeling lines, while the ‘Broad

Manner’ utilized slightly heavier hatching.”88 Increasingly Italian printmakers adopted a looser manner of style, which was best exemplified by the works of the Italian painter and printmaker Parmigianino. This development seemed to parallel collectors’ interest in original sketches and drawings. 89 Yet in the North a much cleaner style was favoured.90

Collectors enjoyed and valued prints for these differences as opposed to their devotional

content. They would assemble their prints into groups, which were then either pasted

into personal albums or tucked away in portfolios or print cabinets and brought out

among friends for discussion.91

In some cases prints were displayed in frames on walls. This was the case with

two of Guilio Campagnola’s prints, which were included in the Paduan collection of

humanist Pietro Bembo.92 The works were originally described by Marcantonio Michiel

in his journals as paintings, yet no paintings have been definitely attributed to the artist so

85 Ibid, 65. 86 Christopher L.C.E. Witcombe, Copyright in the Renaissance: Prints and the Privilegio in Sixteenth-Century Venice and Rome. (Boston: Brill, 2004), 5. 87 Sell, 18. 88 Ibid, 18. 89 Sell, 18. 90 Ibid, 18. 91 Dackerman, 3. 92 Jennifer Fletcher, “Marcantonio Michiel: His Friends and Collection.” The Burlington Magazine 123, no. 941 (1981): 462. 23 it is much more likely that these paintings were in fact prints. In addition, the works are on parchment and their subjects match those of several of Campagnola’s surviving prints.

By displaying the prints in such a way Bembo earmarked them as special and signified that they were of personal value to him. Part of the appeal of Campagnola’s prints lay in their striking differences to those of his peers. He used a highly detailed stippling technique that resulted in a gradation of tone and also frequently included Northern landscapes from Dürer’s works within the backgrounds of his prints.93 These inclusions were especially desirable to Italian collectors like Bembo because they represented exotic landscapes and vistas.94 Perhaps Bembo recognized Campagnola’s prints as unique for these reasons and therefore acquired them for his collection. Regardless, this example demonstrates that collectors valued prints for different purposes than their devotional potential alone and therefore utilized them as art objects. Ultimately, the emergence of this new attitude towards prints resulted in a more specialized market, which existed within the much larger devotional print market. This elite market viewed the print as an art object that competed with painting.95 Printmakers tailored their works according to the tastes of the markets’ consumers.

ALBRECHT DÜRER AND THE PRINT MARKET

Albrecht Dürer was unique in the realm of early Renaissance printmaking in that he consciously produced prints for both the devotional and fine print markets. His works suggest that he recognized the different attitudes towards prints and the diverging

93 Tancred Borenius, Four Early Italian Engravers: Antonio del Pollaiuolo, Andrea Mantegna, Jacopo de’Barbari, Giulio Campagnola (London: Medici Society, 1923), 93. 94 Beverly Louise Brown, “From Hell to Paradise: Landscape and Figure in Early Sixteenth- Century Venice,” in Renaissance Venice and the North: Crosscurrents in the Time of Bellini, Dürer and Titian (New York: Rizzoli, 1999), 424. 95 Landau and Parshall, 81. 24

functions for which they were being used. For most of his life Dürer worked out of his

hometown of Nuremburg, where he produced all manner of prints, ranging from woodcuts, to engravings, to etchings. The subject matter he worked with was as wide ranging as the techniques he used.

He created both religious and secular prints, including such popular subjects as the Monstrous Sow of Landser (1496) and the Ill-Sorted Couple (1495) (figs. 6 and 7).

These prints offered moralizing images of evils to guard against and possible evils to come, especially in the case of the Monstrous Sow of Landser.96 They were by no means

associated with a particular social class. Dürer also produced prints that dealt with more

complex subjects like The Knight, Death and the Devil (1513) or Melancholia I (1514)

(figs. 8 and 9). These later prints were clearly intended for a humanist audience due to

their esoteric and secular subject matter. Additionally, Dürer produced religious prints

for this market, such as Saint Jerome in His Study (1514) or The Crucifixion (1518) (figs.

10 and 11). These prints would have found favor amongst the members of the various

humanist circles Dürer was involved with through his friendship with Nuremberg

patrician and intellectual Willibald Pirckheimer.97 They exhibited technical innovations

and obscure theological subjects.

Yet Dürer created prints for a larger audience than his fellow humanists. These

prints were typically of religious subjects and tended to utilize popular devotional

96 Peter Parshall, “The Vision of the Apocalypse in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries,” in The Apocalypse and the Shape of Things to Come (Buffalo: University of Toronto Press, 1999), 107. The print was of a supposed mutant birth which was interpreted as an omen in connection to the Apocalypse. 97 Julie Robinson, Dürer and German Renaissance Printmaking. (delaide: Art Gallery of South Australia, 1996), 16. 25

imagery.98 His works depicting the Virgin and Child, various saints, and the Passion

cycle were intended for this market. These were generic images that could have been

utilized as protective talisman or as prayer aids by any type of consumer.

Dürer’s printmaking peers tended to produce prints for only one segment of the

market. In Italy, Andrea Mantegna’s prints functioned as art objects. Mantegna was

already well established as a painter by the time he turned to engraving. Many art collectors were therefore familiar with his work and considered his prints collectible.99

The same may be said for the Venetian printmaker Jacopo de’ Barbari, who was a court

artist for the Holy Roman Emperor, Maximilian I.100 He is best known for such tour de

force examples of printmaking as the View of Venice (1500), which was one of the largest

prints produced at that time and therefore acquired by Maximilian and other print

collectors. Mantegna and Barbari’s prints aimed at the elite print collector and tended to

stay away from subject matter that would have found more widespread appeal.

Unlike his contemporaries Dürer produced all manner of prints for both segments

of the market. Dürer’s reason for exploiting both markets was that he was always first

and foremost an entrepreneur and secondly an artist. This view is one that previous

scholars have failed to emphasize. Evidence of this is suggested in the letter he wrote to

his friend Pirckheimer while he was in Venice. In the letter he asked him to be sure and

have his mother put a selection of his prints on sale at the Relics Fair in Nuremburg.101

This was a fair that attracted a wide, regional audience. These merchants would have

98 Angela Hass. “Two Devotional Manuals by Albrecht Dürer: The Small Passion and the Engraved Passion. Iconography, Context and Spirituality.” Zeitschrift Für Kungstgeschichte, 63 Bd., H.2. (2000): 180. 99 Landau and Parshall, 83. 100 Ibid, 43. 101 David Hotchkiss Price, Albrecht Dürer’s Renaissance: Humanism, Reformation, and the Art of Faith. (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2003), 105. 26

bought his prints and taken them back to their respective cities to sell within their shops,

thus disseminating Dürer’s prints throughout the North. Selling his prints at the local fair

was therefore more than an immediate source of profit. It was a way to create awareness

of his work within a larger market beyond the local one and a way to ensure long term

profits.

Yet Dürer’s prints were not only disseminated throughout Germany and the

North. In the international realm Dürer also displayed his entrepreneurial intentions.

Dürer’s intrinsically Gothic compositions and technically advanced use of line were considered artistically unique by collectors north and south of the Alps. His images, along with those of a few other Northern printmakers like Martin Schongauer and Israhel van Meckenem, were also circulated throughout Italy and even Spain as a result of the

trade-based economy of the print market.102 Dürer helped facilitate the distribution of his

prints by standardizing them to a select set of dimensions so that they were more

marketable.103 This too demonstrated his entrepreneurial aims, as did his awareness of

the various ways his works might function within the markets.

This was especially true of his Apocalypse series. Dürer was aware of the success

of the series, and for this reason he reissued it in a Latinate edition in 1511. The series

included a prodigious and virtuoso use of line, and also offered Italian collectors glimpses

into the alien and exotic world of the North—rocky terrains, hilltop villages, and spiritual

chaos. Landau and Parshall suggest that the series was “recognized as an extraordinary

artistic achievement and purchased accordingly by clerics and humanists, who must have

regarded it less as an object of religious meditation than a work of the draftsmen art

102 Price, 246. 103 Mayor, Image 265. 27

meant for the private library.” 104 Dürer’s reissuing of the series indicates that he understood the different capacities with which the work was regarded. In the first vernacular edition the series was utilized as a devotional tool, whereas the second edition was viewed as an art object.

In addition to his printmaking endeavors Dürer undertook a variety of entrepreneurial projects within the literary arts. He was one of the first printmakers to publish his own books, of which the Apocalypse series was a famous example. Many of

these were meant for the collector’s segment of the market due to their subject matter.

This was especially true of those works in which Dürer collaborated with scholars and writers such as Sebastian Brant or Benedictus Chelidonius.105 Often, these scholars used

Dürer’s works as platforms for larger discussions of religious questions that surrounded

the Reformation. Such issues were not always of interest to those seeking spirituality.

But Dürer consistently produced works for both segments of the market, even

within his literary endeavors. One of the most interesting of these works he created is the

Seven Hours of Prayer. This was a poem and image, both produced by Dürer, printed as a religious broadside, or broadsheet.106 Such one-page prints typically attached greater

importance to the text than the image and were meant for wide distribution among the

public at large.107

Dürer’s many different commercial efforts demonstrated that he was in tune with

the print market in a very acute way: as an entrepreneur he understood the varying roles

104 Landau and Parshall, 42.

105 Price, 99. 106 Ibid, 130. 107 William A. Coupe, The German Illustrated Broadsheet in the Seventeenth Century: Historical and Iconographical Studies. (Baden-Baden: Heitz GMBH, 1966), 21. 28

prints could play in early sixteenth century society. Dürer’s Small Passion series (1509-

1511) and his Engraved Passion series (1507-1512) testify to this awareness and market savvy. Both deal with the same exact Biblical subject, yet these were clearly intended for two different consumers—the first being devotionally oriented and the second aiming for the fine print market. The two series most effectively demonstrate how Dürer manipulated a subject so that it appealed to both segments of the market.

Ultimately, Dürer viewed art in relation to religion. In his book The Art of

Painting (1525) he explicitly stated his opinion of the purpose of art: “for the art of painting is used to make known the suffering of Christ and to serve the Church.”108 It

may be assumed that he viewed printmaking in the same light, since the majority of the

prints he created dealt with religious subject matter. In addition, devotional works

pertaining to Christ’s life were highly popular in the North.109 This was particularly true

of those cities Dürer had close ties to for publishing purposes, including Cologne,

Bamberg, Augsberg, and his own town of Nuremberg.110

His Passion series, which comprise at least six different cycles, found favour within this devotional climate. The Small Passion and the Engraved Passion account for two of the six Passion series Dürer created. The Small Passion is composed of thirty- seven bound woodcuts and was accompanied by Latin poems written by Chelidonius. It was published first, in 1511, while the Engraved Passion was published two years later in

1513. This later series is composed of only sixteen engravings and was published unbound and without a text to accompany it. The subject of both is the Passion of Christ,

108Hass, 170. 109Ibid, 175. 110Ibid, 175. 29

yet it is portrayed in very different ways, which leads to questions of the functionality of

both series.

The Small Passion was intended to appeal to the devotional market. We can

discernthis from his inclusion of common devotional elements, such as the Virgin, a

heightened emphasis on Christ’s suffering and the inclusion of images depicting the Fall

of Man and the Last Judgment. Some of these elements came from the religious

iconography surrounding the devotee, like altarpiece scenes, other popular religious

prints, and passion plays.111 Dürer created the Small Passion according to this genre of

expectations. He placed an exaggerated emphasis on Christ and his sufferings. He also developed a human emphasis and portrayed the series in a clear and straightforward manner so that the devotee could follow the narrative.

The format of the Small Passion is perhaps one of the greatest indicators as to its intended devotional use. The series appears unextraordinary when compared to other passion prints like Martin Schongauer’s Large Procession to Calvary (c. 1475-1480) or

Israhel van Meckenem’s Passion cycle (c.1490) (fig. 12). Both pieces use similar

iconography and formats to produce works for the same devotional market. In addition,

they were sold in small sets which made them highly suitable for either pasting within

religious texts or binding together as a devotional book.112 Dürer also published the

Small Passion bound and accompanied with a text. This format indicates that Dürer

meant for it to be sold on the devotional market. Devotees would have read the text

while contemplating the printed images, much like they would have done with a book of

hours. The text would have acted as a guide for the devotee, indicating key focal points

111 Hass, 227. 112 Landau and Parshall, 58. 30

and the appropriate feelings that should have been generated from the prints.113 From the

images to the packaging of the prints, Dürer made sure that the series fit the popular devotional model.

One of the key devotional functions for religious prints was to serve as a meditative tool. The subject matter had to provide a certain emotive and emotional content. For this reason Dürer made the sufferings of Christ highly visible within the prints in this series. At least five of them focus on Christ being ridiculed or shamed in some way. These include the Mocking of Christ, Christ Crowned with Thorns, the

Flagellation of Christ, Ecce Homo, and the Bearing of the Cross. This number of prints

appears especially high when compared to the Engraved Passion, in which only three

prints focus on the subject.

Dürer devoted so many prints to this theme because these instances had some of

the greatest potential for sparking feelings of sorrow and compassion. As mentioned

earlier, such portrayals were meant to ignite feelings of spiritual love as a result of

witnessing Christ’s suffering.114 This was a key element of the Devotio, and therefore a

popular focus among all of Christian society during the early sixteenth century. Dürer’s

frequent depictions of Christ being unmercifully beaten and jeered at for the sake of

mankind’s sins offered ample opportunity for compassionate feelings to emerge.

These emotions were also generated through Dürer’s positioning of the devotee.

Dürer put them within his images through the use of perspective and composition. This

added a unique human element to the series. This is especially evident in prints like

Christ Before Annas (fig. 13). Christ steps up and into the picture plan as he is lead up

113 Hass, 227. 114 Marrow, 10. 31

the steps. Dürer’s use of composition gives the devotee the impression of events

unfolding outside the parameters of the print, as if they are just out of eyesight. In

addition, actions continue around Christ, which causes the image to feel less contrived

and instead more natural, as if the devotee is just one of many within Annas’ hall viewing

the imprisoned Christ. This would have allowed for the intensification of an emotional

response from the reader, providing the desired result for any devotional work.

We see this compositional use again in Ecce Homo (fig. 14). Dürer places the

devotee amongst the crowd of on-lookers, so that they too are staring up at the form of

Christ as he is presented to the multitude. In essence, the use of composition implicates the devotee in Christ’s crucifixion by putting them amongst those who choose his death over that of Barabas. Once again, this would have lead to a more emotive response from the devotee and deepened their devotional experience.

Dürer also included details which endowed the prints with the status of an

eyewitness quality.115 These inclusions functioned in much the same way as the

composition of the prints. In Christ before Caiaphas he includes a small dog at the

ruler’s feet and a tufted pillow beneath his seat (fig. 15). These inclusions are obviously

not mentioned within the Biblical account of events, yet their presence gives the devotee

a sense of actually being present at the event by collapsing the psychological distance between them.

This idea was important to the meditative practices prescribed by the Devotio.

We can see this from instructional writings by such authors as the Pseudo-Bonaventura.

In his Meditations on the Life of Christ he writes: “meditate only on what the Lord did or

115 Eleanor A. Sayre, ed. Albrecht Dürer: Master Printmaker. (Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, 1973), 141. 32

on what happened concerning Him or on what is told according to the Gospel stories,

feeling yourself present in those places as if the things were done in your presence, as it

comes to your soul thinking of them.”116 Such thought, when aided by images like

Dürer’s, intensified the meditative process and produced a greater spiritual impact.

Meditation would not have been possible were it not for the clarity of the prints.

Clarity has two uses within this context—the first being a narrative clarity and the second

a graphic clarity. In terms of the narrative, clarity was crucial for the devotee to follow

the narrative cycle and grasp the main point of the images. For this reason Dürer

composed the scenes of the Small Passion so that Christ always remained highly visible.

He did so by elongating Christ’s form so that He maintains a dominate position throughout the series.117 Most often Christ is depicted in the middle of the prints, so that

the devotee cannot lose their place within the narrative cycle.

Clarity was also important graphically. Dürer created the prints for the Small

Passion by foregoing the use of engraving and instead utilizing the medium of woodcut.

The very nature of the woodcut lends these prints a certain graphic clarity, which allows

for legibility. They lack the more varied tonal ranges possible with engraving or etching, which in some cases obfuscates the scene. Without this legibility the devotee would have lost the emotional experience that could be had from the series.

Dürer’s use of woodcut to create the series also suggests that it was intended for the larger devotional audience. Different printing methods, such as woodcut, were better suited for a particular segment of the market than other methods. This was something that Dürer was acutely aware of as an entrepreneur. Woodcuts were far cheaper and less

116 Hass, 221. 117 Hass, 214. 33

time intensive to produce than engravings or etchings. This was especially true when it came to printing the pages for a series. Inking a woodblock was much simpler than inking an etched or engraved plate, with which the amount of ink had to be controlled.

When inking a woodblock all that had to be done was simply role a layer of ink over the surface of the block. It was not necessary to work ink into the valleys of the block, as with an etched or engraved plate, a more laborious job. The whole process was therefore much quicker when dealing with a woodcut. It was also less expensive because wood cost less than the copper required for engravings. These factors made woodcuts ideal when creating works intended for a large audience, like the devotional market. For this reason Dürer utilized this particular medium for the Small Passion series.

Dürer employed a completely different approach when he created the Engraved

Passion because the work was intended for a completely different audience. As a whole the series appears highly similar to the Small Passion, yet the format, aesthetic concerns, and medium suggest otherwise. Dürer intended the work for the fine print consumer. He therefore, as an effective entrepreneur should, changed certain elements to suit their tastes.

Perhaps one of the greatest changes was that the Engraved Passion was sold in a

single sheet format. The work was not bound like the Small Passion, nor was it

accompanied by a text of any kind. Thus, no clear devotional use was specified. This

format made the order of the images unclear and left the owner with the choice of how to

arrange them.

Unlike the Small Passion, which was bound and therefore had a clearly

determined narrative order, the Engraved Passion could be read in the order the owner 34 wished. Scholars have suggested that the prints were read in pairs, which increased the theological complexity of the series as one continued along.118 This lack of a clear didactic order suggests that the Engraved Passion was not intended for the wider devotional audience. The work was much better suited to collectors. They could have kept the prints in their portfolio cabinets and brought them out among their friends to discuss the proper arrangement.

It is also clear that Dürer did not intend the Engraved Passion for the devotional market due to its lack of common devotional elements. It does not highlight the sufferings of Christ to the same extent that the Small Passion does. Overall, the work seems far more emotionally restrained. This is clear when comparing the first two images of the series, the Man of Sorrows Seated from the Small Passion and the Man of

Sorrows by the Column in the Engraved Passion (figs. 16 and 17). In the Small Passion print Christ sits on a rock crumpled over in sadness and grief. His eyes are closed and

His right hand cups His face, as if He is crying. The pose is pitiable and sorrowful. This representation of Christ is clearly meant to ignite feelings of compassion from the viewer.

The print from the Engraved Passion is much different. Dürer depicts Christ with the wounds of the Crucifixion standing next to a column holding the instruments of the

Flagellation. Mary and James look on in awe-struck wonder. Christ does not appear pitiable or sorrowful, nor is the emphasis placed on his suffering. Two faint squirts of blood spurt from his right side, yet they are barely perceptible. The image seems to be more about the artistic qualities of the print, such as Dürer’s representation of the human form, the works tonality, and its composition versus compassionate sympathy. The same is true of both series’ Crucifixion prints.

118 Hass, 228. 35

In the Small Passion image Christ’s body appears emaciated while blood gushes

from the wound at his side (fig. 18). In addition, the crowd around him seems anguished

and distressed. On the contrary, no such emotions are present in the Engraved version

(fig. 19). Christ’s body appears physically resplendent. His face is calm and reposed, no

blood seeps from his side and a breeze seems to softly blow back his curling hair and loin cloth, which demonstrates Dürer’s virtuosity with line. It also demonstrates Dürer’s ability to render the human form. The mourners mirror Christ’s calmness, looking on in awe-struck wonder. Such a lack of the common emotional tropes suggests that the

Engraved series was not intended to illicit the same emotions as the Small Passion. It

instead suggests that the series was meant to be valued for other reasons, such as its

artistic qualities.

The artistic elements Dürer employed within the Engraved Passion are much different than those within the Small Passion. The series therefore deals with more than just a narrative cycle, but is also concerned with a particular manner of representation.

Throughout the series Dürer utilized a variety of perspectives and compositions to create prints that appear visually complex. This is due to his narrowing of the width of the prints so that the overall composition is much tighter than that of the Small Passion. In

addition, he plays with the arrangement of figures and the human form itself. We see this especially in the print of the Entombment and the Lamentation.

In the Entombment, Christ’s body is presented on an almost central axis, which requires extreme foreshortening of the figure (fig. 20). Yet Dürer places a man in the foreground of the print that leans across the body of Christ, obscuring his figure from the viewer. This lessens the emotional impact of the image. Instead of Christ’s body being 36

the focal point, as in the Small Passion version, the man’s body replaces it with its slight contrapposto and detailed costume. This suggests that the image was not necessarily meant to illicit an affecting response, since the typical source for such feelings is obscured from view. Yet the man’s form is highlighted, which again demonstrated

Dürer’s understanding of the human form. This was something he was very eager to prove due to the Italian stereotype that northern artists could not properly render the human body. Thus within the print Dürer deals with issues beyond the apparent Biblical subject—he takes artistic matters into concern, which were of interest to fine print consumers.

We see this again in the Lamentation print (fig. 21). The arrangement of the figures is very similar to that of the same titled print within the Small Passion (fig. 22).

But in the Engraved version, Dürer highlights the compositional arrangement by leaving the background behind the mourning woman’s head devoid of anything. This draws attention to her distress and offers a dramatic compositional and tonal contrast that collectors must have appreciated. In the Small Passion version Dürer includes a forest behind the figures, which obscures their arrangement and instead focuses the devotee’s attention on the slumping body of Christ. This is fitting of the series’ devotional purpose.

Comparing the prints from the Small Passion and Engraved Passion shows that the emphasis of the two series seems to once again fall differently, which suggests their differing functions.

Even the medium used for the Engraved Passion suggests that it was created for other purposes than a devotional aid. It was, as its name suggests, engraved. This form of printmaking produced a much more delicate print overall than a woodcut. It also 37 allowed for a more varied gradation in tone that closely mirrored the effects of painting.

Yet the process was far more time consuming than creating a wood cut and therefore was not suited to creating works intended to disseminate among a large audience, like the devotional market.

In addition to the difficulty of creating gradation of tone, engraving was also challenging when it came to the printing process. An engraved plate is much more delicate than a woodblock, because over time the printing press will ware away at the engraved line, which causes a loss of detail within the image. Thus, over repeated printing the line will eventually disappear, producing poor impressions. This process is therefore less ideal for creating images intended to reach a large audience. As an entrepreneur Dürer must have been aware of the disadvantages engraving posed if used in mass printing. He therefore chose the medium only when the audience he intended his work for was small, like the fine print market. If he had intended the Engraved Passion for the larger devotional market he would have instead used the woodcut.

Historical evidence supports this idea. Dürer placed a high value on the Engraved

Passion. So much so that on twelve documented occasions he gave it as a gift to both friends and patrons, such as Maximilian I.119 In his journal he even goes so far as wish to be remembered by it. Nowhere is anything like this mentioned of the Small Passion.

This work was simply another one of the artist’s entrepreneurial projects, designed for the larger devotional market. Its ability to function as a devotional and meditative aid was its main purpose.

On the other hand, the Engraved Passion appears as a highly specialized work for a highly specialized consumer. Its devotional content was a part of its appeal, yet its

119 Hass, 214. 38

aesthetic qualities are what distinguished it from the Small Passion and where its value

lay. It was not necessarily meant to be meditated upon, but to be admired for its artistic

finesse and the discussion its lack of ordered arrangement generated. Both series

demonstrate that Dürer understood how the print market was segmented. They also

acknowledge that he was thinking of the print in terms of its functionality.

CONCLUDING REMARKS

It is often difficult to consider prints like Dürer’s as functional objects. We also

tend to lack the proper historic context through which to view them. In the museum

environment they habitually become static art works that function as simply art objects.

This view diminishes the devotional context in which many were meant to be utilized.

Prints of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth century were highly functional tools within

religious practices. Renaissance consumers and printmakers alike approached prints as

objects that possessed this potential. Yet out of this use the later idea of the print as art object emerged. But even today we as viewers do not appreciate the object in the same manner as print collectors of the early Renaissance did. To us the ideas surrounding the

Reformation are historical fact, not new emerging ideas packed with revolutionary potential. It is through such theologically charged eyes that many print collectors viewed

Dürer’s and his peers’ prints. This allowed for a different type of appreciation than just aesthetic enjoyment, which is often how we today approach these prints.

Perhaps it is most challenging to view prints, and by extension art, as a product of material culture. Prints were not originally created as art objects. As previously mentioned, this view developed only around the start of the Renaissance. Prints were 39

originally intended as devotional objects, yet they were produced as a consumer good first by goldsmiths and later what became printmakers. They were commodities on the open market, and as such they were meant to turn a profit for the printmaker or the

Church. In order to do so they had to appeal to the market. Thus, we can look at these works’ artistic components within this context—how they attracted the customer or not.

Thus devotional prints may be viewed as more entrepreneurial works of genius than artistic works of genius.

The same may be said for those prints that developed out of the fine print market.

Printmakers produced prints that stood as artistic achievements within this segment of the market, though they were created to attract the eye of print collectors. Printmakers copied popular imagery from famous paintings or attempted to mimic the techniques of other printmakers in hopes of gaining a competitive advantage within the market. In this way the print was once again a commodity that could be bought and sold. But the artistic qualities within them and the subjects they depicted all spoke to their functionality as art objects. Thus these prints were a commodity within a specialized market. This market functioned within the larger devotional print market and the art market in general.

40

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Aikema, Bernard and Beverly Louise Brown, eds. Renaissance Venice and the North: Crosscurrents in the Time of Bellini, Dürer, and Titian. New York: Rizzoli, 1999.

Ainsworth, Maryan W. and Keith Christiansen, eds. From Van Eyck to Bruegel: Early Netherlandish Painting in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York: Abrams, 1998.

Areford, David S. “The Sacred Multiple: The Early Printed Image as Reproduction and Simulation.” Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Conference, 2006.

Armstrong, Lilian. “Venentian and Florentine Renaissance Woodcuts for Bibles, Liturgical Books, and Devotional Books,” in A Heavenly Craft: The Woodcut in Early Printed Books, ed. Daniel De Simone, 25-46. New York: George Baziller, 2004.

Borenius, Tancred. Four Early Italian Engravers: Antonio del Pollaiuolo, Andrea Mantegna, Jacopo de’Barbari, Giulio Campagnola. London: Medici Society, 1923.

Brown, Beverly Louise. “From Hell to Paradise: Landscape and Figure in Early Sixteenth-Century Venice,” in Renaissance Venice and the North: Crosscurrents in the Time of Bellini, Dürer and Titian. New York: Rizzoli, 1999.

Buettner, Brigitte. “Profane Illuminations, Secular Illusions: Manuscripts in Late Medieval Courtly Society.” The Art Bulletin 74, No.1 (1992).

Coupe, William A. The German Illustrated Broadsheet in the Seventeenth Century: Historical and Iconographical Studies. Baden-Baden: Heitz GMBH, 1966.

Dackerman, Susan. The Pious and the Profane in Renaissance Prints. Baltimore: Baltimore Museum of Art, 1998.

Durkheim, Emile. “Ritual, Magic, and the Sacred,” in Readings in Ritual Studies. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1996.

Fletcher, Jennifer. “Marcantonio Michiel: His Friends and Collection.” The Burlington Magazine 123, no. 941 (1981).

Hass, Angela. “Two Devotional Manuals by Albrecht Dürer: The Small Passion and the Engraved Passion. Iconography, Context and Spirituality.” Zeitschrift Für Kungstgeschichte, 63 Bd., H.2. (2000).

Korney, Fritz. “Venice and Dürer,” in Renaissance Venice and the North: Crosscurrents in the Time of Bellini, Dürer and Titian. New York: Rizzoli, 1999. 41

Landau, David and Peter Parshall. The Renaissance Print: 1470-1550. New Haven: Yale UP, 1994.

Marrow, James H. Passion Iconography in Northern European Art of the Late Middle Ages and Early Renaissance: A Study of the Transformation of Sacred Metaphor into Descriptive Narrative. Kortrijk: Van Ghemmert, 1979.

Matthew, Louisa C. “Working Abroad: Northern Artists in the Venetian Ambient,” in Renaissance Venice and the North: Crosscurrents in the Time of Bellini, Dürer and Titian. New York: Rizzoli, 1999.

Mayor, A. Hyatt. Prints and People: A Social History of Printed Pictures. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Princeton UP, 1971.

Olin, John C. The Catholic Reformation: Savonarola to Ignatius Loyola. New York: Harper and Row, 1969.

Parshall, Peter. “The Vision of the Apocalypse in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries,” in The Apocalypse and the Shape of Things to Come. Buffalo: University of Toronto Press, 1999.

Price, David Hotchkiss. Albrecht Dürer’s Renaissance: Humanism, Reformation, and the Art of Faith. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2003.

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San Juan, Rose Marie. “The Court Lady’s Dilemma: Isabella d’Este and Art Collecting in the Renaissance.” Oxford Art Journal 14, No.1 (1991).

Sayre, Eleanor A., ed. Albrecht Dürer: Master Printmaker. Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, 1973.

Shestack, Allen, ed. Fifteenth Century Engravings of Northern Europe. Washington D.C., National Gallery of Art, 1968, unnumbered.

Schmidt, Peter. “The Multiple Image: The Beginnings of Printmaking, between Old Theories and New Approaches,” in Origins of European Printmaking: Fifteenth Century Woodcuts and Their Public, eds. Peter Parshall and Rainer Schoch with David S. Areford, and Richard S. Field. 35-56. New Haven: Yale UP, 2005.

Sell, Stacey. “Printmaking in Italy and the North: A Dialogue Between Traditions.” Masterpieces of Renaissance and Baroque Printmaking a Decade of Collecting: Selected from the Collections of the Bayly Art Museum and Gertrude Weber. ed. Lawrence O. Goedde. Charlottesville: UVA Press, 1991.

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Shelton, Anthony Allen. “Cabinets of Transgression: Renaissance Collections and the Incorporation of the New World,” in The Cultures of Collecting, ed. John Elsner and Roger Cardinal. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1994.

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Trexler, Richard C. Public Life in Renaissance Florence. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1980.

Weinstein, Donald. “The Art of Dying Well and Popular Piety in the Preaching and Thought of Girolamo Savonarola,” in Life and Death in Fifteenth-Century Florence, eds. M. Tetel, R.G. Witt, and R. Goffen. Durham: Duke University Press, 1989.

Witcombe, Christopher L.C.E. Copyright in the Renaissance: Prints and the Privilegio in Sixteenth-Century Venice and Rome. Boston: Brill, 2004.

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FIGURES CONSULTED

Figure 1. Joos van Cleve, The Annunciation, 1525. Maryan W. Ainsworth and Keith Christiansen, eds. From Van Eyck to Bruegel: Early Netherlandish Painting in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York: Abrams, 1998).

Figure 2. Israhel van Meckenem, Mass of St. Gregory, c.1480. David Landau and Peter Parshall. The Renaissance Print: 1470-1550. (New Haven: Yale UP, 1994). 44

Figure 3. Anonymous, Display of Relics at Nuremburg Heiltumsfest, 1487. David Hotchkiss Price. Albrecht Dürer’s Renaissance: Humanism, Reformation, and the Art of Faith. (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2003).

Figure 4. Francesco Rosselli, Scenes from the Life of the Virgin and Christ with Borders, c. 1490. David Landau and Peter Parshall. The Renaissance Print: 1470-1550. (New Haven: Yale UP, 1994). 45

Figure 5. Anonymous Florentine Artist, Crucifixion, Surrounded by Fourteen Other Scenes from the Passion, Date unknown. David Landau and Peter Parshall. The Renaissance Print: 1470-1550. (New Haven: Yale UP, 1994).

Figure 6. Albrecht Dürer, Monstrous Sow of Landser, (1496). OhioLink.

46

Figure 7. Albrecht Dürer, Ill-Sorted Couple, 1495. OhioLink.

Figure 8. Albrecht Dürer, The Knight, Death and the Figure 9. Albrecht Dürer, Melancholia I, 1514. Devil, 1513. OhioLink OhioLink. 47

Figure 10. Albrecht Dürer, Saint Jerome in His Study, 1514. OhioLink.

Figure 11. Albrecht Dürer, The Crucifixion, 1518, (With enlarged image). David Landau and Peter Parshall, The Renaissance Print: 1470-1550. (New Haven: Yale UP, 1994).

48

Figure 12. Martin Schongauer, Large Procession to Calvary, c. 1475-1480. OhioLink.

Figure 13. Albrecht Dürer, Christ Before Annas from the Small Passion, 1509-1511. OhioLink.

49

Figure 14. Albrecht Dürer, Ecce Homo from the Small Passion, 1509-1511. OhioLink.

Figure 15. Albrecht Dürer, Christ before Caiaphas from the Small Passion, 1509-1511. OhioLink. 50

Figure 16. Albrecht Dürer, Man of Sorrows Seated from the Small Passion, 1509-1511. OhioLink.

Figure 17. Albrecht Dürer, Man of Sorrows by the Column from the Engraved Passion, 1507-1512. OhioLink 51

Figure 18. Albrecht Dürer, Crucifixion from the Small Passion, 1509-1511. OhioLink.

Figure 19. Albrecht Dürer, Crucifixion from the Engraved Passion, 1507-1512. OhioLink. 52

Figure 20. Albrecht Dürer, Entombment from the Engraved Passion, 1507-1512. OhioLink.

Figure 21. Albrecht Dürer, Lamentation from the Engraved Passion, 1507-1512. OhioLink. 53

Figure 22. Albrecht Dürer, Lamentation from the Small Passion, 1509-1511. OhioLink.