Balthasar Sprenger
Balthasar Sprenger (also Balthasar Springer ) (* before 1500 in Vils , Ausserfern ; † probably between 1509 and 1511) was a Tyrolean traveler to Africa and India on behalf of the Augsburg trading house Welser .
person
Today the person is mainly referred to as Balthasar Springer, although he calls himself “Merfart” Balthasar Sprenger in his recording. Little is known about Sprenger's person. He was born in Vils , Ausserfern , in the 15th century , probably as the son of the wealthy Johannes (Hans) Springer, who was probably in the service of the Prince of Tyrol from 1482 to 1487 as the caretaker of the castle inquiries stone near Zirl . After a pilgrimage to the Holy Land with other Vils citizens, Hans Springer is said to have used part of his fortune to build a Chapel of the Holy Spirit and a “Seelhaus” for the poor, the elderly and the sick outside the city walls of Vils.
The date of Balthasar Sprenger's death is narrowed down to the period from 1509 to 1511 based on certain evidence. But there are no sources as to when and where Sprenger died.
Sprenger's journey
Sprenger was sent to Portugal as a representative by the Augsburg trading company Welser in 1503 to explore new business opportunities. In 1505 he took part in a voyage among the 22 ships strong fleet of the Portuguese viceroy Francisco de Almeida on his behalf , which took him from Lisbon around the African continent and the Cape of Good Hope to the African east coast and on to the Indian southeast coast to Kochi and ran Calicut to buy spices there. After a year he returned to Lisbon and Augsburg in 1506. In his travel diary he not only described the trade trip and the various cities and branches that the tour company visited, but also his impressions of the people, settlements and cultures with whom he came into contact in Africa and India.
The sea route to India was only discovered a few years earlier by the Portuguese Vasco da Gama (1497/98). The crew of the ship Sprengers probably drove a similar route. Sprenger describes, among other things, "Monbasa" ( Mombasa ), "Monsebick" ( Mozambique ) and "Mellyndi" ( Melinde ).
The travel diary
Sprenger's diary is one of the oldest travel reports in German. It was printed in 1509. The title is:
“DJe Merfart and the experience of new ships and ways to many unique islands and kingdoms
of the great Portuguese Kunig Emanuel Researched / found / disputed by ancestors.
Also wonderful strife / ordinance
life act and wonderful works of
the people of Thyrians were
found in that deeply Describing and abkunterfeyt
how I saw and experienced Balthasar Sprenger myself: in the times of kurtzuerschynen.
rc PRINTED ANNO. MDIX. "
The importance of the report is shown by the fact that the book was illustrated with woodcuts by one of the most recognized artists in this field at the time, the Augsburg draftsman Hans Burgkmair . His woodcut "Kunig von Gutzin", based on Sprenger's descriptions, is famous and shows the king of the kingdom of Kochi carried in a procession on a kind of sedan chair . A second version of the pictures was made by the Nuremberg graphic artist Georg Glockendon .
Immediately after the publication in Germany, a Flemish black copy of the entire text with copies based on Burkmair's woodcuts by Jan Doesborch was published in Antwerp . Four original copies still exist today.
The book was reprinted in 1998 in facsimile with translation and explanations by Haymon-Verlag in Innsbruck . Sprenger's trip was also the content of other books and a two-part television report by ORF as part of the series “ Land der Berge ”, which was first broadcast in June 1998.
Others
In Königsbrunn , the Mercateum Museum presents Balthasar Sprenger's trade trip from 1505.
In the city of Vils , a path is named after Balthasar Springer.
literature
- Beate Borowka-Clausberg: Balthasar Sprenger and the early modern travel report 1999 ISBN 3-89129-439-5 VI / 220, information on the publisher's website
- Eva Ramminger, Andreas Erhard: Die Meerfahrt - Balthasar Springer's journey to the Pfefferküste, 1998, ISBN 3-85218-260-3 , information on egotrip.de
- Franz Schulze (ed.): Balthasar Springer's India Journey 1505/06. Scientific appreciation of the travel reports as an introduction to the reprint of his "Sea Voyage" from 1509. Strasbourg 1902
- Franz Schulze: The scientific significance of the travel reports of Balthasar Springer, the first known India driver from Germany, Diss. Leipzig 1902 (digitized in the IA)
- Karl H. Reger: Pepper from the Far East. The adventurous life of an Augsburg businessman, 1986, ISBN 3-7787-3276-5
- David Armitage : The Procession Portrait of Queen Elizabeth I - A Note on a Tradition, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, (1990), pp. 301-307 online
- Karen Sabine Meetz: Tempora Triumphant - Iconographic studies on the reception of the ancient theme of the seasonal procession in the 16th and 17th centuries and its natural-philosophical, astronomical and pictorial requirements, Dissertation Bonn 2003, p. 231 f.
- Friedrich Ratzel: Sprenger, Balthasar . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 35, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1893, p. 301 f.
- Reinhard Jakob: Springer, Balthasar. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 24, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-428-11205-0 , p. 761 f. ( Digitized version ).
Web links
- So we went there with all our might and well-armed, experience of a traveling salesman 500 years ago NZZ Online from September 17th, 2005
- The Merfart Digitized
- Balthasar Springer's trip to India (1509) - text excerpt from the travelogue
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Sprenger, Balthasar |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Springer, Balthasar |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Tyrolean Africa and India traveler on behalf of the Augsburg trading house Welser |
| DATE OF BIRTH | before 1500 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Vils , Ausserfern |
| DATE OF DEATH | between 1509 and 1511 |