[Pictures and documents from the journey of the count palatine Ottheinrich to Cracow and Berlin in 1536/37].
Just in time for teh 500th anniversary of the count palatine and later elector Ottheinrich (1502-1558) in April 2002, it became known that to this Renaissance rule we owe the earliest pictures of towns and residences from Upper Bavaria, Franconia and the Upper Palatine, from Bohemia, Silesia, Poland, Brandenburg and Saxonia. These pictures are the first series of town views after the wood engravings of the Schedel World Chronicle of 1493. Fifty plates in the size of about 30 x 40-86 cm show seventy town views, of which before only the cities of Breslau, Neisse, Prag and Eichstätt were reproduced in the work of 1493. For centuries the genesis of these pen-and-ink-drawings, coloured with watercolour and opaque water colour and ornamented with heightened gold, lay in obscurity. We only knew that they came from the monastery of Ebrach to the university library of Wurzburg in the course of teh secularisation in the year 1803. Lately these pictures, that show no signatures, but only the names of towns in the banderoles, could be identified as picture documents of a rather unknown journey of the Count Palatine Ottheinrich to Cracow and Berlin. The reason for Ottheinrich's journey was to discharge the unpaid promissory note of the marriage portion of his grandmother, the Polish Princess Hedwig who had married George the Rich of Bavaria-Landshut in 1475. The examination of hte pictures and their genesis, made by Angelika Marsch together with ten German, Polish and Czech scientists, also led to the finding of hitherto unknown documents proving that Ottheinrich's ride to his great-uncle King Sigismund the Elder had been successful. These documents also show by whom Ottheinrich was accompanied and why he didn't choose the direct way back from Cracow to Neuburg, but via Berlin. These journey pictures of Ottheinrich date fom the early times of the depiction of real towns. At the same time the first handed down picture documentation of a principal journey is of great interest for different fields of cultural history. The pictures are of special interest for the depicted towns, since they show views of buildings elsewhere not handed down, e.g. the living tower of the "Piasten" in Oberglogau or the cathedral of suburbia of Liegnitz which was laid down four later because of the refortification of the town. The artist of the pictures could not be clearly traced down, but probably belonged to the circle around Albrecht Dürer. It is assumed that it was Mathias Gerung, who also illustrated the Bible for Ottheinrich and made sketches for tapestry carpets. The artist accompanying Ottheinrich can only have made sketches during the journey, which he converted later to our plates in the size of up to 76 cm in width.
Marsch
Angelika
A
D001878:Books, Illustrated / Q000266:history*; D005858:Germany; D006076:Government / Q000266:history*; D049671:History, 18th Century; D008373:Manuscripts as Topic / Q000266:history*; D011044:Poland; D014195:Travel / Q000266:history*