Travel album of Count Palatine Ottheinrich

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Prague with Hradschin (left), Charles Bridge , on the other bank the old town with Tyn Church
Berlin, view from the northeast with the following distinctive church towers (from left to right): St. Nikolai , St. Petri , St. Marien and the church of the Heilig-Geist-Hospital

The travel album of Count Palatine Ottheinrich is a collection of cityscapes from the 16th century. They show the interest in a realistic representation awakened by the Renaissance. For Frankfurt an der Oder , Berlin, Wittenberg , Leipzig and numerous cities in Bohemia, Bavaria and Silesia, the album contains the earliest cityscape ever. The 50 leaves are 30 cm high and 40 to 86 cm wide. 70 different locations are shown. The album belongs to the holdings of the 1803 secularized monastery Ebrach in the university library of Würzburg (shelf mark: Delin. VI).

An unknown artist in the entourage of Ottheinrich von der Pfalz made sketches for these vedute when the prince went on a trip to Poland in the winter of 1536/37. Heavily indebted, he tried to collect old bonds on this trip, which he succeeded. The tour group covered around 2200 km in the middle of winter: On November 27, 1536, the 50 or so people left the residence in Neuburg an der Donau . On January 17th, 1537, they left Cracow , and for the 11th and 12th February 1537 the journey through Wittenberg is documented. At the end of February 1537, Ottheinrich and his entourage returned to Neuburg. The choice of travel route should keep costs as low as possible. Ottheinrich traveled as far as possible on his own territory and chose to stay with friends or relatives of princes.

Ottheinrich stayed in Prague for two days. Meanwhile the artist had the opportunity to make the sketches for a particularly detailed city view; this sheet enabled Angelika Marsch to estimate the approximate time the album was made. You can see the Hradschin with the Royal Palace completed in 1502 and destroyed by fire in 1541 (recognizable by the five roof pyramids) and the Black Tower, which was destroyed by lightning in 1538. The sheet was thus created between 1502 and 1538. Now Marsch checked which buildings were shown on the city views, not shown or seen as ruins, and thereby narrowed down the period of construction. In Wroclaw, for example, the Elizabeth Church had the Renaissance dome completed in 1535, and the tower of the cathedral was still in the Gothic shape that it lost in the fire of 1540. The special design of the Neuburg sheet made it probable that Neuburg was the starting point of the trip. The sheets could be arranged in a round trip, with Kraków being the easternmost and Berlin the northernmost stage. The places shown in the travel album are each a day's ride apart.

For the city views, the artist made sketches on the spot, which he later executed as pen drawings , colored with water and opaque colors, and heightened with gold. Marsch identifies him tentatively with Mathias Gerung , who illustrated the Bible for Ottheinrich and made designs for tapestries . Overall, the cities are shown realistically. However, structures have been enlarged and the distances are partly increased, partly shortened. The artist freely added set pieces such as mountains in the background, ravines and vegetation in the foreground. The stage locations are seldom seen in the wintry landscape that was presented to travelers in 1536/37. The view of Sandersdorf , the first topographically identifiable winter landscape in art history, is all the more remarkable .

Web links

Commons : Travel album of the Count Palatine Ottheinrich  - collection of images, videos and audio files

literature

  • Angelika Marsch et al. (Ed.): The travel pictures Pfalzgraf Ottheinrichs from the years 1536/1537 from his ride from Neuburg ad Donau via Prague to Krakow and back via Breslau, Berlin, Wittenberg and Leipzig to Neuburg , 2 volumes, Weißenhorn 2001.
  • Angelika Marsch: On the discovery of Count Palatine Ottheinrich's travel pictures of his ride to Krakow and Berlin in 1536/1537 and their historical classification . In: Christa Pieske et al. (Ed.): Working group image printing paper. Proceedings Ittingen 2004, Waxmann, Münster 2005. pp. 9-19.
  • Eva Pleticha-Geuder (Ed.): Journey, Rest and Moment: Central European City Views from the 16th Century ; Exhibition by the University Library of Würzburg, Dettelbach 2002.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Berlin. In: The journey of Count Palatine Ottheinrich 1536/37. University of Würzburg, accessed on March 16, 2019 .
  2. ↑ Angelika Marsch: On the discovery of Count Palatine Ottheinrich's travel pictures of his ride to Krakow and Berlin in 1536/1537 and their historical classification , Münster 2005, p. 11.
  3. ↑ Angelika Marsch: On the discovery of Count Palatine Ottheinrich's travel pictures of his ride to Krakow and Berlin in 1536/1537 and their historical classification , Münster 2005, p. 12.
  4. ↑ Angelika Marsch: On the discovery of Count Palatine Ottheinrich's travel pictures of his ride to Krakow and Berlin in 1536/1537 and their historical classification , Münster 2005, p. 15.
  5. ↑ Angelika Marsch: On the discovery of Count Palatine Ottheinrich's travel pictures of his ride to Krakow and Berlin in 1536/1537 and their historical classification , Münster 2005, p. 16.