Master of the Meinrad legend

An unknown medieval artist of the 15th century is referred to as the master of the Meinrad legend . He created drawings that served as templates for woodcuts .

The master of the Meinrad legend got his emergency name from the templates he created for the 64 illustrations of an edition of the Meinrad legend printed as a block book in Basel in 1466 . It is the story of St. Meinrad von Einsiedeln, popular in the Middle Ages . This first edition has not survived. However, two subsequent editions, a Latin and a German from the Einsiedeln monastery and the Munich court library have been preserved.

The master of the Meinrad legend probably worked in Nuremberg . This assumption is based on the fact that his illustrations are of a similarly high quality and style as the illustrations for Schedel's World Chronicle made in Nuremberg in 1493 .

The master is also assigned templates for the 100 woodcuts for the prose novel Florio and Bianceffora . This German translation of a work by Giovanni Boccaccio was printed in Metz in 1499. The woodcuts are considered in research as an example of the high level of artistry and experience in the woodcut art of the late Middle Ages.

literature

• Gall Morel (ed.): The legend of Sanct Meinrad and of the beginnings of the farm 400 years ago, cut into wooden panels . Einsiedeln 1861.
• Karl Josef Benziger: Early prints from the Einsiedeln monastery. A compilation of all incunabulum prints published on behalf of the pen including a representation of the Meinrad legends, insofar as they refer to the same . Einsiedeln 1912 (dissertation).
• Franz J. Stadler: Michael Wolgemut and the Nuremberg woodcut . Strasbourg 1913, p.?.
• Martin Weinberger: The shapes of the Katharinenkloster in Nuremberg. An attempt on the history of the earliest Nuremberg woodcut. Nuremberg 1925, p.?.
• Swiss Bibliophile Society (Ed.): The Einsiedler Blockbuch. Reprint of the little book of Sankt Meinrad and the beginning of the Marian Shrine in the Dark Forest . Einsiedeln 1958 (facsimile edition, black and white).
• The block book of Sankt Meinrad and his murderers and the origin of Einsiedeln. Colored facsimile edition for the 11th Centenary of the Holy. 861-1961 . Einsiedeln, Zurich, Cologne, 1961 (facsimile edition, color).
• Emile van der Vekene: Kaspar Hochfeder. A European printer of the 15th and 16th centuries. An investigation into the history of printing. Baden-Baden 1974, p. 183.
• Eduard Isphording, Germanisches Nationalmuseum Nürnberg (Ed.): Five centuries of book illustration. Masterpieces of book graphics from the Otto Schäfer library. (Catalog for the exhibition). 2nd edition, Nuremberg 1987, p.
• Manfred H. Grieb (Hrsg.): Nürnberger Künstlerlexikon: Visual artists, artisans, scholars. Saur, Munich 2007. p. 998.
• Ulrike Bodemann, Peter Schmidt, Christine Stöllinger-Löser (Hrsg.): Catalog of the German-language illustrated manuscripts of the Middle Ages . Volume 4/2 Delivery 5. Munich 2010, p. 514.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Inkunabelausgabe the Latin Passio sancti Meinradi , Basel 1496. Bavarian library 4 Inc.ca 1324th
2. ^ Block book of the German Meinrad legend, Upper Germany or Switzerland, around 1466, Bavarian State Library Xylogr. 47.
3. ↑ Swiss Bibliophile Society (ed.): The Einsiedler Blockbuch. Reprint of the little book of Sankt Meinrad and the beginning of the Marian Shrine in the Dark Forest . Einsiedeln 1958, foreword.
4. ↑ Emile van der Vekene: Kaspar Hochfeder. A European printer of the 15th and 16th centuries. An investigation into the history of printing . Baden-Baden 1974, p. 183.
5. ^ Richard Muther: The German book illustration of the Gothic and early Renaissance (1460-1530). Volume 1. Munich 1884, p. 737 f .; Emil van der Vekene: Kaspar Hochfelder. A European printer of the 15th and 16th centuries. An investigation into the history of printing. Baden-Baden 1974, p. 126.