Nuremberg house books
The Nuremberg House Books , also called Twelve Brothers Books (in detail: House books of the Nuremberg Twelve Brothers Foundation ), are a collection of portraits of residents of two Nuremberg poor houses , the so-called Twelve Brothers Houses . The five volumes of the house books are kept in the Nuremberg City Library.
Background and content
The Mendelsche Twelve Brothers House was donated at the end of the 14th century, the Landauer Twelve Brothers House at the beginning of the 16th century. The foundations were abolished at the beginning of the 19th century, the buildings of the two poor houses no longer exist.
Three of the five books come from Mendel's Twelve Brothers House , two from Landauer's Twelve Brothers House . The residents of the houses were individually portrayed with their typical tools and given a short description (brother's first name and job title). Manufacturing processes and handicraft products are also partially shown. In addition to the (male) craftsmen who spent their retirement years in the houses, the cooks and housekeepers who looked after the residents were also portrayed.
There are various views as to the intended purpose of these books by the creators. Possibly they were written as memorial writings for the deceased residents in order to fulfill the religious obligation to commemorate the dead . However, it is also discussed that they arose from accounting data or that they served to prove the purpose of the foundation . It could possibly also be a question of self-portrayal to the outside world, in particular of the carer and their work.
The Nuremberg house books are considered to be the most extensive and valuable serial image source on historical craft in Europe. The critic Oliver Junge writes that the Nuremberg house books “are among the most important sources on the handicraft in the pre-modern era”.
Presentation on the Internet
The representations from the Twelve Brothers' books had long been known in specialist and popular scientific literature, but the books were never fully published until recently. Between October 2007 and February 2009, with the support of the German Research Foundation and the Germanisches Nationalmuseum, they were digitized, transcribed and published on the Internet with comments. All 1460 images are available on the Internet, including according to occupations, occupational groups, illustrated work equipment and illnesses of the residents.
literature
- Christine Sauer, Elisabeth Sträter (ed.): The Nuremberg House Books: The Most Beautiful Craftsman Pictures from the Middle Ages , Reprint-Verlag, Leipzig 2012, ISBN 978-3-8262-3038-7 .
Web links
- The house books of the Nuremberg Twelve Brothers Foundation
- Website on the internet
- Article about the house books in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung
- Christine Sauer: House books of the Nuremberg Twelve Brothers Foundation . In: Historical Lexicon of Bavaria
Individual evidence
- ^ House books of the Nuremberg Twelve Brothers Foundation - Historical Lexicon of Bavaria. Accessed July 31, 2019 .
- ↑ Oliver Junge: Alte Praxis online: Die Nürnberger Hausbücher , in: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung April 15, 2009, page N4.