Beschreibung:

BREYDENBACH, BERNHARD VON. [Peregrinatio in terram sanctam, German ]. Die heylign reyssen gen Jherusalem. Mainz: Erhard Reuwich 21 June 1486. Chancery folio, 301 x 215 mm. (11 13/16 x 8 1/2 in.), blind-tooled calf antique over wooden boards, title lettered in blind on upper cover, old brass center and corner-pieces and 2 fore-edge catches (lacking clasps), early pastedown endpapers (no free endleaves), joints split, modern wood and morocco gilt folding case, frontispiece possibly supplied from another copy, with a few skilfully repaired tears and lower and inner margins renewed, some damage and restoration along sheet junctures of folding views, Venice and Jerusalem views with a few expertly repaired tears, occasional minor surface wear, scattered marginal tears or repairs, gutter of fols. 26/1.8 renewed, minor marginal dampstaining especially at end, scattered soiling . Collation: [1-2 8 3 2 (+ 3 folding sheets) 4 2 5 2 6 2 (+ 1 fold-out sheet) 7 2 (+ 1 fold-out sheet) 8 2 (+ 1 fold-out sheet) 9-18 8 19 6 20 2 (+ 2 fold-out sheets) 21-26 8. 164 leaves, unfoliated, plus 8 fold-out sheets. Types: Schoeffer 8:93G (text), Schoeffer 7:149G (heading on 1/7r). 41-42 lines. Seven woodcut city views of Venice (4 sheets), Parenza (1 sheet), Corfu (1 sheet), Modon (2 sheets), Rhodes (2 sheets), Candia, (2 sheets), and Palestine with Jerusalem (3 sheets), one full-page armorial woodcut (1/1v), 9 text cuts showing Near Eastern genre scenes including 1 full-page cut of animals (including a unicorn), printer's device on colophon, ALL THE WOODCUTS FULLY COLORED BY A CONTEMPORARY HAND. Spaces for a few woodcuts left blank, initial spaces, rubricated: 9-line parti-colored blue and red initials on 1/2r and 1/7r, flourished 7-, 4-, and 3-line initials in red. FIRST EDITION IN GERMAN OF THE FIRST ILLUSTRATED BOOK OF TRAVEL AND A LANDMARK OF FIFTEENTH-CENTURY BOOK ILLUSTRATION, second edition, printed four months after the first Latin edition in the same type and using the same woodcuts. The famous text records a pilgrimage to Palestine and Mt. Sinai made by Breydenbach, Dean of Mainz Cathedral, and a large suite of noblemen in 1483-84; it amounts to a form of early guide book, containing much useful information on places in and on the way to the Holy Land, on distances, local customs and alphabets, etc. 4. The woodcuts are based on drawings made by Erhard Reuwich a native of Utrecht, who accompanied the expedition as its official artist. Although the types are Schoeffer's, the identification of Reuwich as printer in the colophon is no longer disputed, the layout of the first edition in particular showing a lack of expertise in forme-setting that differs from the carefully calculated composition practiced in Schoeffer's shop. Reuwich is not recorded as the illustrator of any other works, although attempts have recently been made to identify him with the "Hausbuchmeister"; however, the style of the woodcuts, and particularly of the frontispiece -- one of the earliest known woodcuts to employ cross-hatching (cf. von Arnim/Schäfer 77 and 348 for 2 earlier examples, both printed in 1483) -- closely resembles the frontispiece and cuts in Schoeffer's Gart der Gesundheit (1485). Of the six later incunable editions, in Latin, German, Dutch, French, and Spanish, four re-use Reuwich's woodcuts, which traveled from Germany (Mainz, 24 May 1488) to France (Lyon 1489/90), back to Germany (Speier 1490), and finally to Spain (Saragossa 1498). AN EXCELLENT COPY OF A RARE BOOK This vernacular edition is far scarcer than the first Latin edition, and copies appear very rarely on the market; complete copies of any of the seven incunable editions that contain the original Reuwich woodcuts are uncommon, and copies with early coloring are quite exceptional. H 3959*; GW 5077; Pr 157; BMC I, 44; Klebs 220.2; Schramm XV, p. 7; Schreiber 3631; Oates 53; H. W. Davies, Bernhard von Breydenbach (London 1911), 3; Goff B-1193. Provenance : A few early marginalia; occasio