chapter 1 Johann Froben’s Early Life and Career (c. 1460–1512)

1.1 From Hammelburg to Basel by Way of Nuremberg

That the tiny Franconian village of Hammelburg, Germany, some fifty kilome- tres from Würzburg, was the birthplace of Johann Froben requires no verifica- tion. It was Froben himself who explicitly confirmed his origins in a letter to the abbot of the monastery in Fulda, Heinrich II of Kirchberg (c. 1466–1529). In the printed dedication that opens Froben’s edition of Agapetus’ De officio regis, in fact, which Froben published in January 1518 (Catalogue No 69), he specifically mentions being “born and raised in Hammelburg”.1 From the very beginning of his career in the printing industry, moreover, Froben often included a ref- erence to his birthplace both in the colophons of his publications and in his signature on outgoing correspondence.2 In 1491, for example, in the first work he published (Catalogue No 1), he included the printed statement, “Explicita est biblia … per Johannem Froben de Hammelburck” (“Here ends the Bible … by Johann Froben of Hammelburg”). Conversely, no such clear documentation exists with regard to the date of his birth, which can nonetheless be estimated as having taken place around 1460.3

1 “Hammelburgii […] et ortus et altus”: Catalogue No 69, fol. x1v. The letter is signed by Johann Froben, but is generally attributed to Beatus Rhenanus. See Frank Hieronymus (ed.), Griechi- scher Geist aus Basler Pressen (Basel: Universitätsbibliothek, 2003) (hereinafter: GG), No 19. Online version: http://www.ub.unibas.ch/cmsdata/spezialkataloge/gg/, consulted on 10 Sep- tember 2016. 2 Froben signed one of his own earliest letters, which is now conserved within the Amerbach family’s correspondence, “Joh. Froben v. Hammelburg”: Basel UB, call number: G II 29.1, fol. 110. The letter is printed in: Alfred Hartmann, etc. (eds.), Die Amerbachkorrespondenz, (11 vols. in 14 parts, Basel: Universitätsbibliothek, 1942–2010) (hereinafter AK), I. Ep. 167. 3 Froben’s date of birth can be deduced from a portrait of him based upon a design by Hans Holbein the Younger made between 1522 and 1523 (Fig. A). For information regarding the dating of the sketch and a discussion of the best known copies, see Lionel Cust, ‘The Portrait of John Frobenius’, Apollo, 5 (1927), pp. 249–252; John Rowlands, Holbein: The Paintings of Hans Holbein the Younger—Complete Edition (Oxford: Phaidon, 1985), p. 129; Stephan Kemperdick, ‘The Portrait of the Book Printer Johann Froben’, in Christian Müller (ed.), Hans Holbein the Younger: The Basel Years 1515–1532 (München: Prestel 2006), pp. 296–298; and Jennifer Scott, ‘Johannes Froben, c. 1522–3’, in Kate Heard etc. (eds), The Northern Renaissance: Dürer to 10 chapter 1

Regarding the early decades of Froben’s life, a void in documentation, cited faithfully in the literature, exists.4 That space begins to fill only some thirty years after his birthdate, when the entry “Johann Froben of Hammelburg, printer” appeared on the rolls of the residents of Basel on 13 November 1490, and when in May 1492 Froben enrolled in the “Safranzunft” in Basel, the “Saf- fron Guild”, which brought together an extremely diverse group of merchants, tradesman, and artisans, including a large number of specialists in the new printing and publishing industries.5 As the city’s official rolls make clear, Fro- ben was among the few printers in Basel capable of paying the eight Gulden for both official residency in Basel and his enrolment in the guild.6 At the time, such a sum was equivalent, for example, to the retail price of some ten copies of Froben’s 1491 edition of the Bible (Catalogue No 1, copy price), or just over

Holbein—Catalogue of the Exhibition at the Queen’s Gallery (London: Royal Collection Pub., 2011), pp. 155–156. 4 A comprehensive list of studies on Johann Froben is provided at the end of this volume: ‘Bibliography on Johann Froben’, pp. 767–770. 5 The rolls of the residents of Basel are held in the State Archive of the city of Basel (Staat- sarchiv des Kantons Basel-Stadt) (hereinafter StABS), Protokolle, Offnungsbuch, VII. Fol. 4: “(13 November 1490) Johannes Fröwen de Amelburg [sic], Impressor”. See also Karl Stehlin, Regesten zur Geschichte des Buchdrucks (3 vols., Leipzig: B.G. Teubner, 1887–1891), II. 36, No 1268. I translate the Latin “impressor” and the German “Buchdrucker” as “printer” and the Latin magister impressor or magister artis impressoriae and similar terms, as well as the Ger- man Meister Buchdrucker and Verleger, with printer/publisher; see David Shaw, ‘Ars formula- ria: Neo-Latin Synonyms for Printing’,TheLibrary, s6–11.3 (1989), pp. 220–230. See, in addition, Christoph Weismann, ‘Die Beschreibung und Verzeichnung alter Drucke. Ein Beitrag zur Bib- liographie von Druckschriften des 16. bis 18. Jahrhunderts’, in Hans-Joachim Köhler (ed.), Flugschriften als Massenmedium der Reformationszeit (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1981), pp. 447– 614, as well as Anthony Grafton commenting on Theodor Zwinger’s Methodus apodemica in the former’s The Culture of Correction in Renaissance Europe (London: The British Library, 2011), pp. 6–10. On Froben’s enrolment in the Saffron Guild see StABS, Zunft zu Safran, Ein- trittsrodel, I. Fol. 222: “(13 Mai 1492) Johannes Hammelburg der Buchtrucker; bezahlt die ganze Gebühr baar”. See also Stehlin, Regesten, II. 39, No. 1374. The list of Saffron Guild mem- bers reported by Stehlin includes bookbinder Michael Furter (No 1290), bookseller Wolfgang Lachner (No 1291), and printer Johann Petri (No 1293). For more on the “Safranzuft”, see Paul Kölner, Die Safranzunft zu Basel und ihre Handwerke und Gewerbe (Basel: Schwabe, 1935), especially pp. 311–340. 6 “Johanes Frowen von Hamelburg [sic]; bezahlt die 4 Gulden baar”: StABS, Rothes Buch, fol. 310. See also Stehlin, Regesten, II. 38, No 1301, who notes (p. 41) that the enrollment fee for the Saffron Guild was four Gulden and two Schillings. Between 1488 and 1500, only the printers Johannes Petri, Kilian Fischer, and Nicolaus Lampater paid the fee in cash. See Stehlin, Regesten, II. 38–39, No 1293, 1309, 1310.