Anton Koberger

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Eneas Sylvius, epistolae. Printed by Anton Koberger in Nuremberg in 1496

Anton Koberger (* around 1440 in Nuremberg ; † October 3, 1513 ibid) (also: Koburger , Coberger , Coburger ) was an important German book printer , publisher and bookseller of the incunable period , who was one of the first to recognize the special economic opportunities of this branch of industry and ran its business as a capitalist company. He published the Schedelsche Weltchronik . Koberger was Albrecht Dürer's godfather .

Life

Egidienplatz (Nuremberg) with the houses (left) in which the Kobergers print shop was set up

Anton Koberger came from a Nuremberg baker family. No reliable information can be given about his early education and career. In 1464 he was mentioned for the first time in the Nuremberg town books. In 1470 he married the merchant's daughter Ursula Ingram and after her death in 1491 Margarete Holzschuher from a Nuremberg patrician family , a cousin of Hieronymus Holzschuher . The two women gave Anton Koberger a total of 25 children, of which only thirteen survived their father.

In 1470 Koberger founded his own printing company, which he expanded in the following years into a large company with participation in other printing companies. His sales office is said to have gradually increased to 24 presses and employed 100 journeymen . These included printers, typesetters , type foundries , illuminators, etc. By increasing its production, Koberger succeeded in gaining supraregional importance with its company. He exchanged productions with other companies, entertained traveling agents and bookkeepers and established branches all over Europe (for example in Venice , Milan , Paris , Lyon , Vienna ). Koberger secured regular sales through high print runs of common fonts and standardizing fonts and typesetting in order to reduce production costs. In addition to his print shop, he also ran at least two paper mills .

In 1488 he was named one of the Grand Council of Nuremberg. From the 1490s he also worked as a publisher. From 1504 Koberger turned primarily to the book trade. He often gave print jobs to foreign companies.

Anton Koberger died on October 3, 1513 and was buried in the Nuremberg Dominican monastery (not in the Koberger family grave established around 1525 on the Nuremberg Johannisfriedhof (grave site I / 1116)). His cousin Hans d. Ä. (around 1454–1543), who had previously represented the company in Lyon and Paris, continued the business as the children's guardian. He and Anton's son Hans d. J. (1499–1552) could not keep the company on the road to success. In 1526 the shop was closed and six years later the general book trade was also given up.

plant

Creation representation in the Koberger Bible 1483, creation of Eve "in the rose"
Schedelsche Weltchronik

Up to the year 1500, around 250 prints had been produced in the Nuremberg store. Although a printing company did not mention his name for the first time in 1473, it can be assumed that Anton Koberger began printing shortly after founding his printing company in 1470. His oldest known work is the Manuale confessorum by Johannes Nider from 1471.

Koberger's printing and publishing program was broad and varied in content. He published mainly Latin writings of theological , philosophical , canonical and legal content, but also printed historical works (e.g. Vitae pontificum des Platina ), liturgica (e.g. Dominikanerbrevier ; 1485, Missale Ratzeburgense ; 1493) and Bibles in different editions. Classical and humanistic titles, on the other hand, were relatively rare.

Anton Koberger's German-language prints were not particularly numerous, but all the more important . One of his most important printed works is the two-volume German Bible edition printed in 1483, which is also called the Koberger Bible or Koburger Bible. It was printed in a preliminary form by the Schwabacher family and decorated with woodcuts from the Cologne Low German Bible. The treasure chest of Father Stephan Fridolin , a biblical contemplation with 96 sheet-sized woodcuts, is also one of the most valuable prints of the Koberger'schen print. The Apocalypse from 1498 is also considered to be of particular artistic perfection. It contains important woodcut illustrations by Albrecht Dürer. Other German-language prints were a pharmacopoeia (1477), the two-volume Heiligenleben or the Swabian Chronicle .

It is also known that Koberger printed the Malleus Maleficarum .

The most famous print from Anton Koberger's Nuremberg printing works to this day is Hartmann Schedel's World Chronicle , the most extensive illustrated work of the entire incunable period. This commissioned work by two Nuremberg merchants was equipped with woodcuts by Michael Wolgemut and Wilhelm Pleydenwurff in 1809 and was published in 1493 in a German and a Latin edition. The sale of the Nuremberg original edition was made very difficult because Johann Schönsperger from Augsburg brought a cheap reprint of the work onto the market in a very short time .

Publisher binding

Along with Peter Schöffer, Anton Koberger was one of the first publishers to have small series of special covers made for expensive works. However, this could not prevail because on the one hand the entrepreneurial risk was too great and on the other hand a higher prestige could be conveyed by means of commissioned and individual valuable bindings. Nevertheless, these orders can be regarded as the forerunners of today's publisher's binding .

Others

Haller Madonna , 1498 by Albrecht Dürer ; below left the patrician coat of arms of the Haller , on the right the craftsman's mark of the Koberger

In Nuremberg's gardens behind the fortress , a square and a street are named after Koberger.

A daughter from his first marriage, Ursula, married Wolf Haller from the well-known Nuremberg patrician family in 1491 . He initially entered his father-in-law's business as an assistant and traveler, but fell out with him after a few years and fled to Vienna, where he died in 1505. The coat of arms of the Haller and Koberger can be seen on the Haller Madonna by Albrecht Dürer , on the lower left the Haller coat of arms and on the right the Koberger craftsman 's mark. The famous painting that now hangs in the National Gallery of Art in Washington is influenced by Giovanni Bellini , whom Dürer met on his first trip to Venice (1494–1495) and was therefore probably created in the years that followed. It was commissioned as a private devotional picture, possibly by the couple, but more likely by Anton Koberger, as a gift for his daughter who had ascended to the patriciate. Koberger was Dürer's godfather, the two families lived on the same street. Hieronymus Holzschuher , the cousin of Koberger's second wife and later one of his executors and guardians of the children, had himself portrayed by his friend Dürer in 1526.

literature

  • Johann Ferdinand Roth: History of the Nuremberg trade . Adam Friedrich Böhme, Leipzig 1801, pp. 32–34 ( Google Books )
  • Severin Corsten : Anton Koberger. In: Severin Corsten (Hrsg.): Lexicon of the entire book system (LGB). 2nd, completely revised and expanded edition. Volume IV, Hiersemann, Stuttgart 1989, ISBN 3-7772-9501-9 , p. 256.
  • Fritz Funke: Book customer. An overview of the history of books and writing. Documentation publishing house, Munich 1969.
  • Walter Gebhardt: Nuremberg is under pressure! From the media stronghold to the print center. In: Marion Voigt (Ed.): Lust for books. Nuremberg for readers . Nuremberg 2005, pp. 11–43.
  • Ferdinand Geldner : The German incunabula printer. A manual of the German printer of the XV. Century by place of printing. Part 1: The German-speaking area. Hiersemann, Stuttgart 1968, ISBN 3-7772-6825-9 .
  • Oskar von Hase (editor): Koberger publishing directory . 1885.
  • Oskar von Hase (Ed.): Letter book of the Koberger zw Nurmbergk . Breitkopf, Leipzig 1881.
  • Oscar von Hase: Die Koberger. A representation of the bookselling business during the transition from the Middle Ages to the modern age . Van Heusden, Amsterdam; Breitkopf and Härtel, Wiesbaden 1967; 3rd edition, reprint of the 2nd revised edition 1885.
  • Oskar Hase: The Koberger. Bookseller family in Nuremberg. Breitkopf & Härtel, Leipzig 1869. Digitized
  • Georg Wolfgang Karl Lochner :  Koberger, Anton (printer) . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 16, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1882, pp. 366-368.
  • Hans Lülfing :  Koberger, Anton. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 12, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1980, ISBN 3-428-00193-1 , p. 245 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Ingrid Münch:  Anton Koberger. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 4, Bautz, Herzberg 1992, ISBN 3-88309-038-7 , Sp. 196-200.  ( Article / beginning of article in Internet archive )
  • Hans-Otto Keunecke : Anton Koberger. Family and relatives. business success and social position. With an excursus: the Koberger coat of arms. In: Communications from the Association for the History of the City of Nuremberg. Volume 100, 2013, pp. 99-148.
  • Albert Schramm : The picture decoration of the early prints. Volume 17: The printers in Nuremberg. Part 1: Anton Koberger. Hiersemann, Leipzig 1934.
  • E. Voulliéme: The German Printers of the Fifteenth Century. 2nd Edition. Publishing house of the Reichsdruckerei, Berlin 1922.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Calendar sheet Deutschlandradio Kultur from October 3, 2013. Accessed on October 3, 2013.
  2. ↑ These figures come from the source Johann Neudörfer, repeatedly cited directly and indirectly: Messages from the most distinguished artists and workers of Nuremberg. 1546 [7]. Gebhardt (2005) points to p. 13f. according to the fact that Koberger's house in Nuremberg never had room for 24 printing presses and therefore this number, like the 100 journeymen , is probably an exaggeration that one has to read as “dozen”, “a whole lot”.
  3. ^ A b Fritz Funke: Buchkunde. An overview of the history of books and writing. Verlag Documentation, Munich 1969, p. 86f.
  4. ^ Heinrich Kramer (Institoris) : The witch hammer. Malleus Maleficarum . Ed .: Wolfgang Behringer and Günter Jerouschek . 1st edition. Munich 2000, ISBN 3-423-30780-3 , pp. 31 f . GW M12471 .
  5. ^ Reinhard Wittmann: History of the German book trade. An overview. CH Beck, Munich 1991, ISBN 3-406-35425-4 , p. 34.
  6. ^ ADB: Anton Koberger
  7. ↑ Madonna and Child , on the National Gallery of Art in Washington website
personal data
SURNAME Koberger, Anton
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Koburger, Anton; Coberger, Anton; Coburger, Anton
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German printer, publisher and bookseller
DATE OF BIRTH around 1440
PLACE OF BIRTH Nuremberg
DATE OF DEATH October 3, 1513
Place of death Nuremberg