1526 HUTTICH Imperatorum Romanorum WOODCUT NUMISMATIC PORTRAITS ROMAN EMPERORS

Description

[Early Printing - Strasbourg] [Early Woodcut illustrations - Northern Renaissance - Hans Weditz] [History - Ancient Rome & Holy Roman Empire] [European Royalty] [Biographical Literature] [Numismatics - Coins and Medals]
Printed by Wolfgang Köpfel, Strasbourg, 1526.
Text in Latin. Profusely illustrated with woodcut roundel portraits. Second Edition (first printed in 1525) of Huttich's important medal book. Very Scarce!
This is one of the earliest and most important numismatic portrait-books of the Renaissance, presenting a collection of brief illustrated biographies of the Roman Emperors.
First published in 1525, the book was also subsequently published in German, Italian and French.
The volume contains descriptions of 263 medallions, 185 of which display portraits while 78 are left blank. Many of these fine woodcut portraits of emperors and their wives superbly displayed in white on a black background, are attributed to Hans Weiditz ("the Petrarch Master").
The portraits were mostly taken from antique coins, and brief biographies of the Roman Emperors (and the emperors of the Holy Roman Empire) from Julius Caesar to Ferdinand II and are adapted and improved by Huttich from Andrea Fulvio's
Illustrium Imagines
of 1517.
The additional portraits of the Holy Roman emperors Frederick III, Maximilian I, Philip of Austria, Charles V and Ferdinand II are larger in size than the others. They are almost certainly taken from authentic portraits and show Weiditz as a woodcut artist at his best.
This 2nd edition has a
superb grotesque woodcut "Bachus" title-border
(not used in the 1525 edition!)
by Hans Weiditz
, which is
one of the most charming of Weiditz's borders (see A.F. Johnson, German Renaissance Title-Borders, no. 40). It shows playful putti cavorting among grape vines, poring copious amounts of wine into fat bellies of Bacchus and his wife.
Johann Huttich (1480?-1544)
, a native of Mainz and an archaeologist and numismatist was the first person north of the Alps to write on numismatics. From 1521 he was a citizen of Strasbourg, where he was canon to St. Thomas. Huttich was a friend of Ulrich von Hutten and Beatus Renanus and a follower of Johannes Reuchlin. He is probably most famous for publishing in 1532 the ‘Novus Orbis Regionum', one of the mot important early collection of American voyages.
The printer of this edition Wolfgang Köpfel (1478 - 1541) was a distinguished Christian humanist and Roman Catholic priest who, breaking with his Roman faith, became a primary Reformer at Strasbourg.
The title-border and most of the woodcut portraits were designed by Hans Weiditz the Younger (1495 - c.1537), a notable German Renaissance artist, also known as 'The Petrarch Master'
for his woodcuts illustrating Petrarch's De remediis utriusque fortunae. He is best known today for his very lively scenes and caricatures of working life and common people. He was born in Freiburg im Breisgau, where his father Hans Weiditz the Elder and young brother Christopher also were artists of some repute. Hans Weiditz the Younger studied under Hans Burgkmair, and was active first in Augsburg between 1512 and 1522, and then in Strassburg from 1522 to 1536, producing woodcuts for book illustrations in the style of Burgkmair. Among his most important works was a series of botanical illustrations to Otto Brunfels' celebrated Herbarum vivae eicones.
Bibliographical references:
BM STC (German), p.427; VD-16 H6473; Chrisman H5.1.4 (1525 ed); Dekesel,
Bibliotheca Nummaria
, H39; Graesse III, p.402; Ritter II, 1236; Röttinger, Hans Weiditz, 96, No.67; Goldschmidt,
The Printed Book of the Renaissance
, p.76. Not in Adams.
Physical description:
Octavo. Textblock measures 15 cm x 9.5 cm. Rebound in modern full leather (pigskin?), boards with simple blind-stamped borders; spine with raised bands; new marbled endpapers.
Foliation: [8], 82 (i.e. 89), [2] ff. (forming 198 pages).
Signatures: A-M
8
N
4
[-N
4
blank with device].
Complete
(as often, without the final leaf N4 blank except for another printer's mark).
Printed in italic letter, in single columns. Title within historiated woodcut 'Bachus' border, and with woodcut printer's device.
Numerous woodcut roundel in text: 263 medallions, 185 of which display portraits,
while 78 are intentionally left blank.  One large floriated 10-line initial "N" on N
2
r.
Includes Huttich's dedicatory epistle to Otto von Pack (c. 1480 - 1537)
(leaf A
2
r-
3
r) an address to the reader ('Ad Lectorem' on leaf N
2
r,v) and Index Nominum Imperatorum Romanorum (on A
3
v - A
8
v). Colophon on leaf N
3
r (verso blank).
Provenance:
Lambach Abbey
(with an oval stamp of their monastic library to bottom margin of the title-page), a very old Benedictine monastery in Lambach, Upper Austria. Founded in Lambach in about 1040 by Count Arnold II, Lambach escaped the dissolution of the monasteries of Emperor Joseph II in the 1780s.
Condition:
Very Good antiquarian condition. Title-page with a few small holes (probably insect damage) slightly affecting the woodcut border, with outer margin cropped somewhat closely shaving just about a millimeter at the outer edge of border; with a small marginal repair at bottom outer corner, and an old monastic ownership stamp to bottom margin. Three further preliminary leaves with tiny marginal worm-holes, not affecting text. In all, a clean, bright solid example of this scarce richly illustrated post-incunable.
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