Bartholomew Ghotan

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Foreword to Missale Aboense with Ghotan's printer's mark, 1488 - The illustration shows Bishop Heinrich von Uppsala with his murderer Lalli
Colophon of the Revelationes with printer's mark, 1492

Bartholomew Ghotan (* unknown, † before September 1496 in Russia ), falsely as B. Gothan cited was an important incunabula - book printer and typographer , in Magdeburg , Stockholm and Luebeck worked and the first for Finland printed book and with Promptuarium medicinae created the first printed German-language herb book in 1483 .

life and work

Nothing is known about Bartholomäus Ghotan's childhood and youth. It is considered certain that he received training as a clergyman, as he is mentioned in several documents as a cleric of the diocese of Magdeburg . Ghotan is considered to be the first book printer in Magdeburg ; he can be verified for the first time in 1479.

Around 1484 he moved to Lübeck, which in this heyday of the Hanseatic League , among other things through the activities of Lucas Brandis and his family, developed into a center of the printing and bookkeeping trade for the entire Baltic Sea region.

After two very successful years, he subsequently opened an office for Johann Snell in the Hanseatic City of Stockholm in 1486 , where he printed several liturgical writings. However, due to a dispute, he preferred to return to Lübeck. His greatest work, the Missale Aboense , a missal for the Finnish Archdiocese of Turku , was written here in 1488 . The client was Bishop Konrad Bitz . The Missal is considered a Finnish national monument as it is the first book ever printed for Finland and the only Finnish incunable.

In 1483 in Magdeburg he first printed the incunable Promptuarium medicinae , written in Elbe-Ostfälisch , called beredicheyt der artzedige (also called Berêdicheit der Arstedîe ). This medical work mainly consists of a herbal book section .

Around 1493 Ghotan traveled via Turku (Swedish Åbo), where he was given a relic of the diocese patron, at the invitation of Ivan III. to Russia , where he probably came to Novgorod and Moscow . Maybe this trip Lübeck doctor and theologian Nicolaus Bulow played a role, who was for some time in Russia and 1492 in Lübeck at Steffen Arndes appeared Garden of Health ( "Gärde the Sunt awareness" of Johann Wonnecke of Kaub ) into Russian translated. Here in Novgorod, where Ghotan stayed at the court of Archbishop Gennadij, Ghotan's trail is lost. He probably came in connection with the Novgorod riots that in 1494 the closure of the Hanseatic Kontor Petershof by the great Ivan led their lives. The Lübeck chronicler Reimar Kock wrote in 1556, in connection with an order for new missals that had not been carried out in Russia, that on the return journey em de Russians had everything ghenamen unde en inth wather gheworpen unde vorssopeth . In this respect, Ghotan cannot be said to have any verifiable influence on letterpress printing in Russia.

In 1496 his executors sell his house in Lübeck. In his will, drawn up in 1484, Ghotan donated a small organ for the Marientids in the Marientid chapel of St. Mary's Church .

His workshop and the types presumably passed into the possession of Steffen Arndes.

Works (selection)

Magdeburg

the first missal books printed in Germany; Lucas Brandis was involved in both as a type caster
Promptuarium medicinae . Magdeburg 1483. Title page
  • Promptuarium Medicinae: Eyn schone Arstedyge boeck . Magdeburg 1483 Digital copy of the Berlin State Library
    • (modern edition) The Promptuarium medicinae. Magdeburg: Bartholomäus Ghotan 1483. - the first printed - herb book in German. EDP-supported edition. Edited by Peter Seidensticker with the assistance of Christel Seidensticker and computationally edited by Harald Händler, Lahr: Moritz Schauenburg 1990. (Corpus Herbariorum. Vol. 1.) ISBN 3-7946-0263-3 . ( Digital preparation of the text )
  • Martinus Polichius de Mellerstadt: Prognosticatio 1483 1482 (astronomical-astrological annual forecast of the Wittenberg scholar Martin Pollich )

Lübeck

  • Eyn ghud evaluates regiments van den pestilencien. (= Valascus de Tarenta: De epidemia et peste ) 1484
  • Michael Schrick: Kraft and doghede of the branden watere - handbook of spirits
  • [Speculum virtutum <Niederdt.>] Dyt bock ys gheheten de speygel der dogede. (Virtue mirror) 1485 ( Volldigitalisat )
  • Sunte Birgittens Openbaringe 1485 (excerpt from the revelations of Saint Birgitta of Sweden )

Stockholm

  • Vita of St. Birgitta 1487
  • Manuale Upsalense 1487 (Liturgical manual for non-eucharistic worship, predecessor of the Roman Ritual , for the Diocese of Uppsala )
  • Missale Strengnense 1487 (missal for the diocese of Strängnäs )
  • Vita cum miraculis b. Katherine 1487 (biography of St. Catherine of Sweden and the miracles worked on her intercession)

Lübeck

Vision of St. Birgitta, 1492

literature

  • Ursula Altmann: The achievements of the book printer named Brandis in the context of the book history of the 15th century . Diss. Berlin, Humboldt-Univ., 1974. ( Text as PDF file )
  • Alken Bruns, Dieter Lohmeier (Ed.): The Lübeck book printers in the 15th and 16th centuries. Letterpress for the Baltic region . Heide in Holstein: Boyens, 1994 ISBN 3-8042-0668-9
  • Siegfried Joost:  Ghotan, Bartholomäus. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 6, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1964, ISBN 3-428-00187-7 , p. 367 ( digitized version ).
  • Carl von Stern : Bartholomäus Ghotan in Stockholm and Moscow: together with a treatise on the beginnings of book printing in Germany and Russia , Lübeck: glasses, [1902]; Also contained in Wilhelm glasses : Fragments to the knowledge of the Lübeck first prints from 1464 to 1524 together with retrospectives in the later time. Lübeck: Glasses 1903
Digitized , Internet Archive
  • Gundolf Keil : Ortolf shares in the 'Promptuarium medicinae'. Investigations into the text train of Bartholomäus Ghotan's Middle Low German herb book. In: Gundol Keil, Johannes G. Mayer , Christian Naser: “making a teutsch bad luck”. Studies on the communication of medical knowledge in the national language (= Ortolf studies. Volume 1). Wiesbaden 1993 (= knowledge literature in the Middle Ages. Volume 11), pp. 499-537.
  • David B. Miller: The Lübeckers Bartholomäus Ghotan and Nicolaus Bülow in Novgorod and Moscow and the Problem of Early Western Influences on Russian Culture . In: VIATOR 9 (1978), pp. 395-412 DOI: 10.1484 / J.VIATOR.2.301558
  • Peter Seidensticker: Ghothan, Bartholomäus . In: Biographisches Lexikon für Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck , Volume 10, pp. 135-139, Neumünster 1994, ISBN 3529026506
  • Peter Seidensticker: Ghotan and Bulow in Russia. Printers and doctors as mediators of new cultural techniques . In: Würzburg medical history reports. Volume 14, 1996, pp. 311-324
  • Peter Seidensticker (Ed.): The Promptuarium medicinae. Magdeburg: Bartholomäus Ghotan 1483. Lahr 1990 (= Corpus herbariorum. Early German herb books. Volume 1), ISBN 3-7946-0263-3 .
  • Peter Seidensticker: 'Promptuarium medicinae' ('Beredicheyt der artzedige', '[Schone] Arstedyge boeck'). In: Author's Lexicon . 2nd edition, Volume 7, Col. 864-867.
  • Helmut Heinrich, Sabine Heinrich: Bartholomäus Ghotan. A life for black art. Magdeburg Cathedral Vicar becomes an important printer of the early days. Magdeburg 2019, ISBN 978-3-00-062854-2 .

Web links

Commons : Bartholomäus Ghotan  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ulrich Stoll: 'Promptuarium medicinae'. In: Werner E. Gerabek , Bernhard D. Haage, Gundolf Keil , Wolfgang Wegner (eds.): Enzyklopädie Medizingeschichte. De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2005, ISBN 3-11-015714-4 , p. 1185.
  2. ^ Gundolf Keil: Review by Elena Roussanova: German influences on the development of pharmacy in the Russian Empire. A handbook (= Relationes, series of publications from the project “Scientific relations in the 19th century between Germany and Russia in the fields of chemistry, pharmacy and medicine” at the Saxon Academy of Sciences in Leipzig. Volume 19). Shaker, Aachen 2016, ISBN 978-3-8440-4419-5 . In: Medical historical messages. Volume 35, 2016 (2018), pp. 295–299, here: p. 298.
  3. ↑ Heinrich Dormeier : The laikale foundations in late medieval parish churches: merchants, corporations and devotion to Mary in Lübeck. , Full text , p. 295
personal data
SURNAME Ghotan, Bartholomew
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Ghotan, Bartholomaeus
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Printer in Magdeburg, Lübeck and Stockholm
DATE OF BIRTH 15th century
DATE OF DEATH September 1496
Place of death Russia