Details
PASSIO S. MEYNRADI. Basel: Michael Furter, 20 September 1496.
Chancery 4° (182 x 130mm). Collation: a6 b8 (a1r title with woodcut, a1v text, b8v woodcut, verses by Sebastian Brant to the reader). 38 lines. Type: 3:180a, 5:93G, 1:83G. 21 woodcuts from 19 blocks. Woodcut ornamental initials, three 4-line initial spaces, one with guide-letter and one filled in red, paragraph marks and underlining in red. Modern blue morocco gilt, gilt turn-ins, g.e., by Trautz-Bauzonnet. Provenance: Jean Hersent (bookplate).
FIRST EDITION. A monk of Reichenau, Meinrad lived his life in pious seclusion, first at Etzel, and then, when visitors became too frequent, on an isolated mountain top. His piety continued to be renowned and the site of his hermitage became a place of pilgrimage. After his murder in 861, the Benedictine monastery of Einsiedeln was established there and Meinrad's reliquary brought to its the newly-built chapel. The authority for Meinrad's life is the work by an anonymous monk of Reichenau which was supposedly written before 900. His legend was then embellished by Georg von Gengenbach in 1378 in a chronicle of the monastery. The present work, although sometimes attributed to the Einsiedler monk and historian Albert von Bonstetten, derives from the ancient source (Verfasser Lexicon I, 178). Bonstetten, linked to the humanist circle at Basel which included Sebastian Brant, Jacob Locher and Furter, was, however, undoubtedly involved in its publication along with Brant.
The woodcuts in the Passio are based on the illustrations in the xylographic edition of about 1450-64. The blockbook may have been made for the jubilee of his canonization in 1464/6, and its 64 plates are the source for all subsequent Meinrad illustrations of the 15th and early 16th centuries. Furter added 16 further woodcuts drawn from the blockbook to his later edition, and the fine pen-and-ink drawings, probably by Hans Weiditz, in a manuscript of Meinrad's life, based on Gengenbach's version and made about 1520, also correspond to the blockbook (J. Salzgeber, Der heilige Meinrad, sein Leben und Sterben dargestellt nach 31 Federzeichnungen um 1520, Einsiedeln 1978). H *12453; BMC III, 784 (IA. 37788-89); Goff P-142; Schreiber 4607; Schramm XXII, p.43; Davies Murray German 384.
Chancery 4° (182 x 130mm). Collation: a6 b8 (a1r title with woodcut, a1v text, b8v woodcut, verses by Sebastian Brant to the reader). 38 lines. Type: 3:180a, 5:93G, 1:83G. 21 woodcuts from 19 blocks. Woodcut ornamental initials, three 4-line initial spaces, one with guide-letter and one filled in red, paragraph marks and underlining in red. Modern blue morocco gilt, gilt turn-ins, g.e., by Trautz-Bauzonnet. Provenance: Jean Hersent (bookplate).
FIRST EDITION. A monk of Reichenau, Meinrad lived his life in pious seclusion, first at Etzel, and then, when visitors became too frequent, on an isolated mountain top. His piety continued to be renowned and the site of his hermitage became a place of pilgrimage. After his murder in 861, the Benedictine monastery of Einsiedeln was established there and Meinrad's reliquary brought to its the newly-built chapel. The authority for Meinrad's life is the work by an anonymous monk of Reichenau which was supposedly written before 900. His legend was then embellished by Georg von Gengenbach in 1378 in a chronicle of the monastery. The present work, although sometimes attributed to the Einsiedler monk and historian Albert von Bonstetten, derives from the ancient source (Verfasser Lexicon I, 178). Bonstetten, linked to the humanist circle at Basel which included Sebastian Brant, Jacob Locher and Furter, was, however, undoubtedly involved in its publication along with Brant.
The woodcuts in the Passio are based on the illustrations in the xylographic edition of about 1450-64. The blockbook may have been made for the jubilee of his canonization in 1464/6, and its 64 plates are the source for all subsequent Meinrad illustrations of the 15th and early 16th centuries. Furter added 16 further woodcuts drawn from the blockbook to his later edition, and the fine pen-and-ink drawings, probably by Hans Weiditz, in a manuscript of Meinrad's life, based on Gengenbach's version and made about 1520, also correspond to the blockbook (J. Salzgeber, Der heilige Meinrad, sein Leben und Sterben dargestellt nach 31 Federzeichnungen um 1520, Einsiedeln 1978). H *12453; BMC III, 784 (IA. 37788-89); Goff P-142; Schreiber 4607; Schramm XXII, p.43; Davies Murray German 384.