Bavaria--Legal | Bairische Landtsordnung, Ingolstadt, 1553, contemporary blind-stamped Augsburg pigskin

[Bavaria; Legal.]

Bairische Landtsordnung. Ingolstadt: [Samuel und Alexander II Weißenhorn], 1553

[bound with:] Erclärung der Landsfreihait in Obern und Nidern Bairn. Munich: Andreas Schobser, 1553

2 works in one volume, folio (315 x 230 mm), 2 full-page woodcut title-pages, both titles printed in red, headings rubricated throughout, 1 full-page illustration of crayfish and 3 folding leaves illustrating 10 fish (to scale), woodcut initials, blind-stamped pigskin over thick wooden boards, dated 1561, by Friedrich Ziegler, Augsburg (EBDB w004037), with outer roll of palmettes with grotesque heads (r002486), inner roll with stamps dated 1557 depicting with Jesus, Paul, Moses, and John the Baptist (r002484), central panel composed of roll depicting Fides, Justitia, Prudentia, and Spes (r002487), spine with 4 bands, manuscript title lettering-piece in head compartment, some light spotting and browning, final 14 leaves dampstained towards lower outer corner, binding somewhat soiled, lower joint repaired, upper board splitting, lacking clasps 

FIRST EDITION of the 1553 Landtsordnung issued by Duke Albrect V of Bavaria. This statute-book was issued to replace the Landrecht of 1516, codified in the Gerichtsordnung im Fürstenthumb Obern und Nidern Bayern (first published Munich, 1520). For a copy of this older work, see lot 99.

The three woodcut plates of fish accompany the regulations about fishing in the Danube and its tributaries; these are thought to be THE EARLIEST LIFE-SIZE REPRESENTATIONS OF FISH. The other subjects covered in the Bavarian Landsordnung include capital crimes, civil law, trade and commerce, the Church, musicians, public health and order, beer, and wine.

The binding can be attributed to Friedrich Ziegler, Augsburg (EBDB w004037), one of the many workshops across Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands and other parts of Northern Europe which used tools cut by the stamp cutter“N.P.” (see E. P. Goldschmidt, Gothic & Renaissance Book Bindings, no. 226).

PROVENANCE:

Presentation inscription dated 1610 to title-page, from the Nördlingen rector M. Simon Retter (d. 1627), who had previously taught at the Lauingen Gymnasium, to the painter and draughtsman Georg Brentel the Younger of Lauingen (1581-1634); inscription ?“Steingadens” to title-page and first leaf; Georg Ernst Friedrich Hulbe (1851-1917), German leather artisan and bookbinder, bookplate to upper pastedown.

LITERATURE:

(i) VD16 B 1034; (ii) VD16 B 1027

[with:] 14 German 100 Mark Reichsbanknote, issued in Berlin, 21 April 1910