BURCHARDUS Urspergensis (before 1177-not before 1231). Historia Friderici Imperatoris. [Augsburg: Monastery of SS. Ulrich and Afra, 1472].
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BURCHARDUS Urspergensis (before 1177-not before 1231). Historia Friderici Imperatoris. [Augsburg: Monastery of SS. Ulrich and Afra, 1472].

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BURCHARDUS Urspergensis (before 1177-not before 1231). Historia Friderici Imperatoris. [Augsburg: Monastery of SS. Ulrich and Afra, 1472].

Chancery 2° (251 x 180mm). Collation: [1-410 56] (1/1 blank, 1/2r text, 5/6 blank). 41 leaves (of 46, lacking 1/10 and 4/3.7 and without first and final blanks). 38 lines. Type: 1:105R. Variant as GW Anm. 1. 5-line initial space opening text, 2-line initials, paragraph marks and capital strokes supplied in red to 3/3r. 19th-century speckled paper boards (lightly worn). Provenance: a few marginal annotations washed -- Hull, John M. Stark Bookseller (label) -- Alfred John Horwood (sale Sotheby's, 8 June 1883, lot 1118, 5s. to Thompson) -- William Henry Dutton (bookplate).

FIRST EDITION. Burchardus wrote his chronicle to glorify the reigns of the two Fredericks Barbarossa, often siding with imperial over papal authority. Written in about 1230, the work survives only in a single manuscript from the second half of the 15th century. That manuscript, interestingly, was previously owned by the Monastery of SS. Ulrich and Afra (now Munich, BSB Cod.lat. 4351), where the present edition was printed; it did not, however, serve as printer's copy and the first edition gives instead a shorter recension of the text, beginning with the rubric 'Historia Friderici Imperatoris'. The edition may not have been large, if the number of manuscripts copied from the incunable -- the most notable written out by Hartmann Schedel in 1474 -- is any indication. Despite having been largely overlooked by succeeding generations, the chronicle is one of the most important sources for the history of imperial Germany at the beginning of the 13th century. The complete text was not printed until 1515. Cf. O. Holder-Egger and B. von Simson, eds., Die Chronik des Propstes Burchard von Ursberg, 1916, ff. xxxi-xxxv. H *8718; GW 5737; BMC II, 340 (IB. 5756/5758); BSB-Ink. B-985; CIBN B-908; Goff B-1285.
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