Beschreibung:

BREYDENBACH, BERNHARD VON (d. 1497). Peregrinatio in terram sanctam . [Speier:] Peter Drach, 29 July 1490. Chancery 2° (310 x 212 mm). Collation: a 8 b 2 (+ 3 fold-out sheets) c 2 c2 2 c3 2 (+ 1 fold-out sheet) d1 2 (+ 1 fold-out sheet) d2 2 (+ 1 fold-out sheet) e-n 8 [o] 2 (+ 2 fold-out sheets) p 10 (a1r blank, a1v allegorical woodcut of Mainz, a2r Breydenbach's dedication to Bertholdus [de Henneberg], archbishop-elector of Mainz, a3r table, a3v preface, a6r text (with fold-out woodcuts as below) p10r colophon, p10v blank). 104 leaves, plus 8 fold-out sheets, quire [o] bound at end. 52 lines. Types 10:146G, 13:80G. 13-line woodcut initial R with the arms of the archbishop of Mainz, 4- and 6-line initial spaces. Woodcuts after Erhard Reuwich full-page allegorical woodcut of the city of Mainz with the armorial shields of Breydenbach and his traveling companions Johannes von Solms and Philip von Bicken, seven double-page or folding woodcut panoramic city views, of Venice (4 sheets), Parenzo (1 sheet), Corfu (1 sheet), Modon (2 sheets), Rhodes (2 sheets), Candia (2 sheets), and Palestine with Jerusalem (3 sheets, bound in at end in this copy), 9 woodcuts in text showing Middle Eastern costumes and genre scenes, 6 cuts of alphabets of various Middle Eastern languages, one full-page woodcut of animals and one small cut of the church of the Holy Sepulchre, these last two printed on the back of the folding Jerusalem view. Initials and paragraph marks supplied in alternating red and blue. (Filled wormholes from fol. a7 through quire b affecting text and Venice woodcut, minor creasing and a few small repairs at sheet junctures of the folding views, views of Rhodes and Jerusalem each with 2 or 3 very small areas of loss, touched up in ink facsimile, fore-border of Jerusalem view shaved, one sheet of Venice view probably supplied from a different copy, occasional soiling and staining throughout.) CONTEMPORARY MAGDEBURG BINDING from the shop of the "Dreikönigsmeister", of blind stamped calf over reverse-bevelled wooden boards, covers with central floral diaper panel within border formed by a repeating tool of foliage wound round a staff, outer border with sparsely repeated rosette tools, "Hystoria t(er)ra sancta" stamped in gothic letters at head of upper cover, original brass catches (rebacked, lacking clasps, rubbed with some leather loss to upper cover); modern folding morocco case (broken). Provenance : long contemporary inscription on recto of first leaf concerning the calculation of distances; Henricus de Bohemiis, ownership inscription in a different hand, dated 1580 (apparently in the first hand); contemporary marginalia in the hand of the long inscription on flyleaf; a few later marginalia. SECOND LATIN EDITION OF THE FIRST ILLUSTRATED BOOK OF TRAVEL AND ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT ILLUSTRATED BOOKS OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY. Breydenbach was dean of Mainz Cathedral; the Peregrinatio contains the journal of his pilgrimage to Palestine and Mount Sinai undertaken in 1483-84 in the company of Count John of Solms, Philip of Bicken, and other noblemen of the region. The account contains a wealth of useful information on places in and on the way to the Holy Land, and on distances, local customs, alphabets, etc., making it in effect one of the earliest printed guide books. The remarkable multi-block panaromic woodcut views are printed here from the original blocks of the first edition, printed in Mainz by Erhard Reuwich in February 1486 (the Armenian alphabet cut first appeared in Reuwich's German edition from the summer of the same year). These are the first detailed printed representations of most of the towns depicted, and are notable for being the earliest example of book illustrations whose artist is known: the woodcuts were based on the drawings of the painter Erhard Reuwich a native of Utrecht, who accompanied the expedition as its official artist, and who borrowed or leased Peter Schoeffer's types for the printing of the first