Plague leaf
Plague leaves are a special form of single-leaf woodcut , which, with their linear forms, is one of the earliest products of woodcut .
history
Under the impact of the devastating plague epidemics of the 14th century, people's need had increased to possess images that supported them in their personal dialogue with God. The plague leaves, which were created during the 15th century, initially showed pictorial representations of the saints venerated as plague helpers ( Mary , John the Baptist , Sebastian and Rochus ). After Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press around 1450 , these plague sheets also carried prayer texts and later even medical advice.
research
The term Pestblatt was particularly influenced by the work of the art historians Paul Heitz and Wilhelm Ludwig Schreiber in the first half of the 20th century. On the basis of their research, the monograph Pest Blätter des XV. Century , first published in 1901 and republished in 1918 in a revised form. Independently of Heitz and Schreiber, Karl Sudhoff also dealt with these early prints, included them in his directory of the first medical incunabula and published other finds in the Archive for the History of Medicine . In the literal sense of the Latin pestilentia (epidemic, epidemic, pestilence), single-leaf prints on other diseases such as syphilis are sometimes referred to as plague leaves.
literature
- Thilo Esser: plague, fear of salvation and piety. Studies on religious coping with the plague at the end of the Middle Ages. (Münster theological treatises 58) Altenberge 1999.
- Paul Heitz, Wilhelm Ludwig Schreiber (Hrsg.): Pestblätter des XV. Century. (= Single-sheet prints of the fifteenth century , 2) Heitz and Mündel, Strasbourg 1901, 2nd edition, ibid. 1918 ( online )
- Jan Marr: Wars and epidemics. Late medieval catastrophes and their reflection in German single-sheet prints from 1460 to 1520. University of Trier, 2010. ( online )