Finely illuminated German Hortulus Animae uniting the traditions of Bavarian illumination with the emerging Renaissance vocabulary of Dürer’s generation.

v (paper) + 166 + xi (modern paper) leaves, quires foliated on tenth leaf in pencil, slightly trimmed, lacking several leaves after ff. 10, 82, 88. 139, and 153, else complete [collation: i10-1, ii10, iii10, iv10, v10, vi10, vii10, viii10, ix10-2, x10, xi10, xii10, xiii10, xiv10, xv10-1, xvi10, xvii10-1, xviii10], ruled in red ink in one column of seventeen lines (justification: 64 mm × 42 mm), written in a regular littera batarda script with later additions in kurrent to ff. 162v–166v, rubrics in red, capitals in alternating red and blue ink, three-line initials in gold on alternating gold, green, purple, and blue ground, ELEVEN ILLUMINATED INITIALS of five to seven lines on gold ground in red, green, blue, and lilac frames, some particolored, embellished with white tracing and penwork infill, ten of these with full border decoration of acanthus, foliage, florals, figures, birds, and animals enriched with gold bezants, EIGHT FULL PAGE MINIATURES with border decoration, surrounded by fleuronné in red ink. Eighteenth-century brown Morocco binding, the spine gilt tooled in compartments with a dense lattice of fillets and small floral and star stamps, edges gilt, missing clasp and catch, frontmatter with patterned floral pastepaper. Housed in a modern drop-spine case, labeled “Gebetbuch / Augsburg / 1520,” miniatures and borders slightly rubbed throughout with smudging and other traces of use, else in good condition. Dimensions 96 mm × 77 mm.

Provenance
(1) Probably made in Augsburg or Nuremberg, c. 1510–1520, for a male patron identified by the masculine grammatical forms (e.g. “my sunder, getrewer diener”) used throughout the manuscript. The patron likely lived in the Alsace region. Two saints, Leonard and Odilia, receive particular emphasis within the sequence of suffrages. Saint Odilia was venerated as the founder of the monastery at Hohenburg (Mount Sainte-Odile), while nearby Saint Leonard was honored at the abbey below the mountain near Boersch, associated with the canons connected to the cathedral chapter of Strasbourg. The personal nature of this devotion is further suggested by the prayer to Saint Leonard (f. 151), in which the owner refers to himself as the saint’s “poor servant” (“verleyh uns deynen armen dieneren”).

(2) Ernst Fischer (1866–1951), Weinheim (Ernst Fischer Sammlung). A German industrialist and collector, Fischer resided in Weinheim until 1913, when he relocated to Freiburg im Breisgau. In 1939, he donated a substantial portion of his manuscript and charter collection to the Heidelberg University Library. Additional archival materials from his estate are preserved in the Stadtarchiv Weinheim. Manuscripts formerly in his collection are now dispersed internationally, including examples in the University of California, Berkeley Library and the Bancroft Library.

(3) London, Sotheby’s, November 1929, lot 250.

(4) Private European Collection.

Text
In German, with many short rubrics also in Latin: ff. 1v–64, Short Office for the Virgin (Dye seynt die sybenn zceyt oder der cursus von unnser liebenn Frawenna…); ff. 66–76v, Indulgence of Pope Sixtus IV (Babst Sixt der Vierd hatt disz nach boeude…); ff. 78r–82v, Five Sorrows of the Virgin (Hie nach volgen gebet von der traurigkeit smertzen und mitleyden unser liebenn frawen…); ff. 83–88v, Antiphone to Christ and Indulgence of Pope Martin (Vonn der geburt Christi ein Antiffenn…); ff. 89v–108, The Seven Hours of the Passion (Die syben tag zeit des leydens unnsers herren Ihesu Cristi…); ff. 100–122, The Passion according to Saint John (Der Passionn als ynn Saint Johanns…); ff. 122v–139v, Cursus of Saint Bernard (ending imperfectly) (Hie nach fulgent garschoene gebett die zesprechenn seynt…); ff. 140–148, Prayer to the Glorious Resurrection (Vonn den kloren und schoenen aufferston…); ff. 149–162, Antiphone to Saint John (Vonn Sant Johanns dem Appostel unnd Ewangelistenn…); ff. 162v–166v, Added Prayers, in German, by three different hands (sixteenth century).

Illumination
The present manuscript contains a rich collection of late medieval devotional texts and images associated with the tradition of the Hortulus Animae (“Little Garden of the Soul”), one of the most popular forms of private prayer book in the German-speaking world around 1500 (see Ochsenbein 1983 and 2004). Closely related in function to the Books of Hours of France and the Low Countries, the Hortulus Animae gathered together Marian offices, Passion meditations, suffrages to saints, and indulgenced prayers intended for personal devotion. The tradition flourished especially between c. 1498 and 1523, when more than one hundred printed editions appeared, including richly illustrated examples with designs by artists such as Albrecht Dürer, Hans Baldung Grien, Urs Graf, and Hans Holbein the Younger. Despite the rapid expansion of print, luxurious handwritten examples continued to be produced for elite patrons, demonstrating the enduring prestige of manuscript devotional books at the dawn of the Reformation.

The illumination of the present manuscript reflects the dynamic artistic environment of southern Germany around 1500, when manuscript painters continued long-established traditions while absorbing new influences from printed imagery and the Italian Renaissance. Although the manuscript demonstrates familiarity with leading workshops in Augsburg and Nuremberg, the identification of individual hands or even specific ateliers remains difficult given the breadth and stylistic ubiquity of manuscript production in early sixteenth-century Bavaria (see Baier 2010, 66–70). Several miniatures, including the Crucifixion, Communion, and Saint John the Evangelist, appear to draw upon designs associated with Albrecht Dürer’s influential Salus animae (Nuremberg, Hieronymus Höltzel, 1503), providing a likely terminus post quem for the manuscript’s production. The decorative program represents a sophisticated synthesis of artistic currents: Renaissance-inspired borders with playful putti, garlands, and classical ornament appear alongside illusionistic borders of flowers, fruits, and natural motifs derived from the celebrated Ghent-Bruges tradition, a style widely adapted in German centers such as Cologne, Nuremberg, and Augsburg. Other borders preserve more traditional fifteenth-century forms, with colorful acanthus sprays, burnished gold bezants, birds, animals, and hunting scenes recalling the work of an earlier generation of Augsburg illuminators such as Ulrich Taler, including the celebrated Missal of Hugo von Hohenlandenberg, now divided between the Augustinermuseum, Freiburg, and the Morgan Library & Museum, New York (see Spätmittelalter am Oberrhein, Stuttgart, 2002, cat. no. 185). The present manuscript thus embodies a pivotal moment in the early sixteenth century, preserving the inheritance of Bavarian and Netherlandish manuscript illumination while simultaneously embracing the new Renaissance vocabulary spreading north from Italy through the transformative graphic language of Albrecht Dürer and his contemporaries.

The subjects of the eight miniatures are: f. 1v, Annunciation to the Virgin, surrounded by borders with playing putti; f. 65v, Virgin on the Crescent Moon, surrounded by borders with foliage and flowers; f.. 77v, Mater Dolorosa, surrounded by borders with foliage, flowers and birds; f. 89v, Crucifixion, surrounded by borders with, playing putti, garlandes, and symbols of the evangelists in four corners; f. 109v, Gethsemane, surrounded by borders with foliage, flowers and figures; f.. 122v, Man receiving Communion, surrounded by foliage, flowers and fruits and vegetables; f. 148v, St John Evangelist, surrounded by borders with foliage and flowers; f. 157v, Saint Catherine martyr, surrounded by playing putti.

LITERATURE
Unpublished; Related literature: M. Consuelo Oldenbourg, Hortulus Animae (1494)–1523: Bibliographie und Illustration, Hamburg, 1973; Peter Ochsenbein, “Hortulus animae,” in Die deutsche Literatur des Mittelalters: Verfasserlexikon, 2nd ed., vol. 4, Berlin and New York, 1983, cols. 147–54; supplement vol. 11, 2004, cols. 693–694; Friedrich Dörnhöffer, ed., Seelengärtlein – Hortus Animae, 3 vols. facsimile and 1 commentary vol., Frankfurt, 1907–1911. Ulrich Merkl, Buchmalerei in Bayern in der ersten Hälfte des 16. Jahrhunderts: Spätblüte und Endzeit einer Gattung, Regensburg, 1999; Spätmittelalter am Oberrhein: Maler und Werkstätten 1450–1525, exhibition catalogue, Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe, Stuttgart, 2002, nos. 185 (Missal), 226 (Hortulus animae); Christine Beier, “Producing, Buying and Decorating Books in the Age of Gutenberg: The Role of Monasteries in Central Europe,” in Early Printed Books as Material Objects, Bettina Wagner, Marcia Reed, eds., Berlin, 2010, pp. 65–130.

We thank Senior Consultant Sandra Hindman and Peter Bovenmyer for their assistance in preparing this sale and John T. McQuillen for consultation on this entry.