Breydenbach, Bernhard von | A very good copy of the exceptionally rare first German-language edition of the first illustrated travel book

Breydenbach, Bernhard von

Peregrinatio in terram sanctam [German] Die heyligen reyssen gen Jherusalem. Mainz: Erhard Reuwich, 21 June 1486

Chancery folio (280 x 196 mm). Peter Schöffer's gothic types, 41–42 lines. collation: [a–b⁸ c^2+2+2+2 d–e² f–h²⁺² i–s⁸ t⁶ v²⁺²⁺² x–z⁸ A–C⁸]: 180 leaves. Numerous three- to nine-line initial spaces. Full-page allegorical frontispiece woodcut on verso of first leaf featuring a richly costumed woman with the armorial escutcheons of the three principal pilgrims, 7 views of ports of call (2 full-sheet and 5 folding, formed by pasting printed extension leaves to page edges), 6 woodcut illustrations of peoples of the Levant and 7 woodcut charts of their alphabets, woodcut illustrations of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and the aedicule over the grave of Christ (there are also several spaces left blank for the insertion of other woodcuts), woodcut printers device; outer extension sheets of the view of Venice and the map of Holy Land supplied in early facsimile, view of Rhodes a little stained, repaired, with small loss, and with a portion possibly supplied from another edition, view of Candia with some marginal dampstaining, view of Modoni just cropped at bottom and repaired with minor loss at joint of the two sheets, a few other views with woodcut borders just shaved, [z]6 with short tear at upper margin and small hole in lower margin, a few inconsequential wormholes at front and back, some very minor scattered soiling and staining. Late seventeenth-century German speckled sheep, covers panelled in blind, spine blind-panelled in five compartments, the second with two gilt-lettered red morocco labels, the upper with title, the lower with shelf-mark, two simply decorated brass clasps catching on front cover, plain endpapers, red-sprinked edges flecked with a little green; extremities a bit scuffed, especially head of rear joint. Patterned gold and brown cloth folding-case.

A very good copy of the rare first German-language edition of the first illustrated travel book, with distinguished provenance. Bernhard von Breydenbach (ca. 1440–1497), was a canon and, later, Dean of Mainz Cathedral. He "was one of many pilgrims to set sail from Venice for the Holy Land, but was the first to print an account of his experiences together with woodcuts … illustrating the places he visited. Breydenbach departed with a large group of German pilgrims from Oppenheim close to Mainz in April 1483. After two weeks he was in Venice, from where he took a boat to Jaffa, stopping on the way at a number of the Greek islands. He reached Jerusalem in July and then proceeded to Mount Sinai where he visited the monastery of St Catherine. He returned home via Cairo and Alexandria, and was back in Venice in January 1484. Like so many books on eastern travel at the time, Breydenbach's Peregrinatio is partly a compilation of descriptions made by far earlier travellers. It also includes accounts of the history and the customs of the various peoples he met and woodcut tables showing the Arabic, Hebrew, Greek, Syriac, Coptic, Ethiopic and Armenian alphabets which are remarkable from a typographical point of view" (Hamilton, p. 32).

Much of the fame of Breydenbach's travelogue rests on the series of woodcut views after (and probably cut on wood by) by Erhard Reuwich, an artist from Utrecht, who is described by the author as a "skillful painter": a map of the Holy Land incorporating a plan of Jerusalem and views of Corfu, Iraklion (Candia), Modoni, Parenzo, Rhodes, and Venice— five of which are the first folding illustrations ever to appear in a printed book. (A. Hyatt Mayor's Prints and People [Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1971] claims that Reuwich was the first book illustrator to be credited in print, and A. W. Pollard's Fine Books [Methuen, 1912] cites him as the first artist to use cross-hatching in a woodcut.) Praise for the accuracy and impact of the woodcuts runs throughout the various essays that comprise the Univerity of Chicago's monumental History of Cartography.

Peregrinatio in terram sanctam was extraordinarily popular. First printed in Latin in Mainz by Reuwich, 11 February 1486 (ISTC ib01189000), he issued this first vernacular edition four months later. Reuwich also printed an edition in Dutch, Die heylighe beuarden tot dat heylighe grafft in Jherusalem, in 1488 (ISTC ib01191000). Although these three editions of Breydenbach are the only works that can be traced to Reuwich's press, the text was distributed very widely. Seven other incunable editions were produced, including translations in French (Lyons: Michel Topié and Jacques Heremberck, 1488; ISTC ib01192000; and [Lyons: Gaspard Ortuin], 1489; ISTC ib01192500), Czech (Pilsen: Mikuláš Bakalář, 1498; ISTC ib01190500), and Spanish (Zaragoza: Paul Hurus, 1498; ISTC ib01196000). There are several post-incunable printings as well.

Fully complete copies, with all folding plates intact, of any incunable edition are uncommon, and the present German-language edition is much rarer than the first edition, both in total survival and, especially, on the market—possibly because the vernacular text had a wider readership than the Latin. Despite the sections of the views of Venice and the Holy Land that are here supplied in early facsimile, no more complete copy of this first German translation can be found on Rare Book Hub since the Hamilton Cole auction at Bangs, 7 April 1890, and that copy lacked the first page and a portion of the woodcut of Jerusalem, while some of the other folding illustrations were "repaired at folds and somewhat injured." The present copy is fresh and textually complete, with wide margins and all text illustrations present as well.

REFERENCES:

BMC I 44 (IB 335); Goff B1193; GW 5077; ISTC ib01193000; Tony Campbell, The Earliest Printed Maps 1472–1500 (British Library, 1987) 65; Alastair Hamilton, Europe and the Arab World: Five Centuries of Books by European Scholars and Travellers (Oxford Univerity Press, 1994); Elizabeth Ross, Picturing Experience in the Early Printed Book: Breydenbach's Peregrinatio from Venice to Jerusalem (Penn State University Press, 2014); cf. P. D. A. Harvey, "Local and Regional Cartography in Medieval Europe," in The History of Cartography Volume One: Cartography in Prehistoric, Ancient, and Medieval Europe and the Mediterranean, ed. Harley & Woodward (University of Chicago Press, 1987); Peter H. Meurer, “Cartography in the German Lands, 1450–1650,” in The History of Cartography Volume Three: Cartography in the European Renaissance, ed. Woodward (University of Chicago Press, 2007); Hilary Ballon & David Friedman, “Portraying the City in Early Modern Europe: Measurement, Representation, and Planning,” in The History of Cartography Volume Three: Cartography in the European Renaissance, ed. Woodward (University of Chicago Press, 2007)

PROVENANCE:

Thomas Molitoni Tugin, priest at Constantinople (inscription dated 1661 at top of [a]2r) — E. H. | XXIV (unidentified shelf-mark on spine label, probably German, late seventeenth-century [remnants of two paper labels on spine]) — Honoré d'Albert, duc de Luynes (1802–1867), art collector, archaeologist, and scientist — by descent to the present owner