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THE EARLIEST ILLUSTRATED TRAVELODGE IN A FINE EDITION WITH CONTEMPORARY COLOURING
Jean de Mandeville. (Itinerarius, in German). Johannes von Montuilla Ritter. (Reysen
und wanderschaff.) Translated by Otto von Diemeringen.
Strasbourg: Johann Prüss, 1484.
Fifth German edition, the second in Strasbourg; at the same time the sixth illustrated
edition.
2°. 288 x 203 mm. 84 leaves (instead of 87/88; without a1, a8, h1 and the final blank). Regular
collation (GW): ab8, cd6, e8, f6, g8, h6, i-m8. – 41 lines, gothic letter. With several woodcut initials, 8
exotic alphabets in woodcut and 144 (instead of 149) woodcut illustrations in contemporary
colouring. – The xylographic title and 2 leaves with altogether 5 woodcuts are missing (Schramm
figs. 1038, 1123-1126). Lower corner of leaf g2 torn away and repaired (partial loss of 11 lines of
text). Larger tears into leaves a2, c1, d1, e2, k7 and l5 repaired (minimal loss); numerous further
repaired corners and tears, some browning, soiling and water-staining throughout. – 19th-century
marbled cardboard. Slightly worn; housed in a dark red quarter morocco box.
TEXT
Purporting to be the account by an English knight of his journey to the Holy Land and
beyond, the Travels of Sir John Mandeville were originally written in French in the middle of
the 14th century. The popular book tells the story of a young knight from St Albans who left
Britain in 1322 and spent the next thirty-four years travelling in the East, visiting the Middle
East and Palestine before continuing to India, Tibet, China, Java, and Sumatra, then returning
westward to Egypt and North Africa.
Dr. Jörn Günther Rare Books AG · Mosboden 1 · 6063 Stalden · Schweiz
Office: Spalenberg 55 · 4051 Basel · Fon +41 61 275 7575 · Fax +41 61 275 7576
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By some accounts the Travels were probably written in Liege by Jean de Bourgogne dit à la
barbe (d. 1372), others mention Jean de Bourgogne as Mandeville’s physician who had
encouraged him to write down his adventures. In fact the work appears to be a compilation
from several sources, of which the principal are William of Bodensele’s Liber de quibusdam
ultramarinis partibus and Odoric of Pordenone’s Relatio, both written in the 1330s: the first a
narrative of the author’s pilgrimage to Egypt and the Holy Land, and the second an account of
the wonders seen during the friar’s decade-long mission to India and China. Further sources
were Vincent de Beauvais, Jacques de Vitry, Jacobus de Voragine, the letter of Prester John,
and many others.
The earliest known manuscript (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale), in French, is dated to 1371.
This is the first of almost three hundred manuscript versions in ten languages (including
Czech, Irish and Danish), created over the next century, making the Mandeville narrative one
of the most popular secular texts prior to the invention of printing. Apocryphal or not, the
Mandeville adventures set the stage for all of published travel literature.
Two German translations were made already in the last quarter of the 14th century. One is by
Michel Velser, based on a French manuscript; the other by Otto von Diemeringen, a canon
from Metz (d. 1398), who claimed to have translated the text from French and Latin. Both
versions survived in an approximate number of manuscripts (41/46, cf.
www.handschriftencensus.de) and in several incunable editions. In Augsburg appeared the
first edition, printed by Anton Sorg by the end of 1480 (ISTC im00163700, only one copy
known), his reprint followed in 1481, another reprint by Schönsperger in 1482. All Augsburg
editions are based on Michel Velser’s translation, while Otto von Diemeringen’s German
version was first published in Basel by Bernhard Richel (about 1481, ISTC im00165000), and
was the model for the subsequent Strasbourg editions: Johann Prüss, 1483, 1484 (the present
Dr. Jörn Günther Rare Books AG · Mosboden 1 · 6063 Stalden · Schweiz
Office: Spalenberg 55 · 4051 Basel · Fon +41 61 275 7575 · Fax +41 61 275 7576
[email protected] · www.guenther-rarebooks.com
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edition) and 1488; Bartholomeus Kistler, 1499; Hupfuff, 1501; Knoblauch, 1507. This
translation proved to be most successful as it was continuously reprinted in the following
centuries, while the publication of Velser’s version ceased after the 1482 edition (see Ridder
1991, p. 262-65).
ILLUSTRATION
This fifth German is the sixth illustrated edition. Although there were several preceding
editions in other languages (Dutch, c. 1477, French, 1480, Italian, 1480, and Latin, 1483),
none of those included any illustration, with the exception of a French edition (Lyon, before
1483) re-using Sorg’s woodblocks. The German editions, however, contained woodcuts from
the very beginning. It is not clear by now, to what extent pen-and-ink drawings in the later of
the German manuscripts might have influenced the German incunable illustration of
Mandeville’s Travels.
This is one of the first illustration
series published by the Prüss
workshop, here printed for the
second time. With one exception (see
below), Prüss had used the woodcuts
already for his Mandeville-edition
the year before and again in 1488.
The woodcuts were copied from the
first edition of von Diemeringen’s
translation, published in 1481 by
Bernhard Richel in Basel.
The quarter to half page illustrations
present the whole range of the
realities and wonders described by
Mandeville: Holy and fabulous sites
of the East, their inhabitants and their
script; also monsters, exotic animals
and plants. For the present edition,
Prüss replaced the woodcut on leaf
d6, in the edition of 1483 showing
Lot and his daughters, with the birth
of the Antichrist, resembling a realistic depiction of a Caesarean section. This woodcut stems
from the earliest typographical edition of the Antichrist (Strasbourg: printer of the Antichrist,
about 1482; GW 2050). – With bright original colouring.
PRINTER
Bibliographers believed Johann Prüss (1447-1510) began printing about 1483, but he is now
proved to have started as early as 1479. Only in 1490 Prüss became a Strasbourg citizen,
where he was active as a printer until his death in 1510. His range covered liturgical,
religious, classical and humanistic books as well as schoolbooks and pamphlets. In the early
years of his career, however, he seems to have focused on works of popular literature in
Dr. Jörn Günther Rare Books AG · Mosboden 1 · 6063 Stalden · Schweiz
Office: Spalenberg 55 · 4051 Basel · Fon +41 61 275 7575 · Fax +41 61 275 7576
[email protected] · www.guenther-rarebooks.com
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German (‘chap-books’), such as Pfaffe Amis, the famous Heldenbuch, The Seven Wise
Masters, Melusine, Peter von Staufenberg and Mandeville’s Travels.
RARITY
Extremely rare, as are all German incunables of Mandeville. According to ISTC, only 12
further copies (plus one fragment of 2 leaves only) of the present edition are known, mostly
uncoloured, at least four are incomplete. Since 1948 (the Landau sale, Sotheby’s, 13 July
1948, including Prüss’s 1483 edition, lot 79), apart from the present volume, only a quite
damaged and incomplete copy has been offered at auction (Koller, 2008).
PROVENANCE
1. Franciscan monastery in Ingolstadt; inscription on leaf a2r: “Ad SS. Franciscanorum
Ingolst. Bibl.” (16th/17th century).
2. Small label on pastedown: “Brockhausen & Bräuer”, antiquarian bookseller’s in Vienna
(the company existed from 1870-90; cf. G. Hupfer, Zur Geschichte des antiquarischen
Buchhandels in Wien, 2003, p. 113f).
3. Baron Horace de Landau (1824-1903), Florence; his bookplate with intertwined monogram
HL and no. 3617. His collection was sold by his heirs at four auctions in Geneva, Zurich,
London (three portions) and Florence, 1948-49.
4. Private collection, France.
LITERATURE
Hain-Copinger, no. 10649. – GW
M20416. – ISTC im00167000. –
Goff M-167. – London, BMC I, p.
119. – Pellechet no. 7550. –
Paris/BN, Cat. des incunables
(CIBN), M-67. – Ritter III, no. 508.
– Klebs no. 651.5. – Schmidt,
Répertoire
Strasbourgeois
III,
Prüss, no. 8. – Schreiber no. 4802. –
Kristeller, Straßburger BücherIllustration 44. – Schramm XX, p.
9, 25 and fig. 1030-1184. –
Heitz/Ritter 376.
Compare the Basel woodcuts of ca.
1481 in Schramm XXI, fig. 398-552
and p. 9-11. – On the illustration see
also: Andres Betschart, Zwischen
zwei Welten, Würzburg 1996 (this
edition, p. 256, p).
On Mandeville and his work see E.
Bremer, in Verfasserlexikon V, col. 1201-14. – Klaus Ridder, ‘Werktyp, Übersetzungsintention und
Gebrauchsfunktion. Jean de Mandevilles Reiseerzählung in deutscher Übersetzung Ottos von
Diemeringen,’ in Reisen und Reiseliteratur im Mittelalter und in der Frühen Neuzeit, Amsterdam
1992. – K. Ridder, Jean de Mandevilles ‘Reisen’, München 1991 (this edition, no. jp2).
Dr. Jörn Günther Rare Books AG · Mosboden 1 · 6063 Stalden · Schweiz
Office: Spalenberg 55 · 4051 Basel · Fon +41 61 275 7575 · Fax +41 61 275 7576
[email protected] · www.guenther-rarebooks.com