The Art Institute of Chicago

Sarah E. Raymond Fitzwilliam and the "Nuremberg Chronicle"Author(s): Laurie ChippsSource: Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies, Vol. 34, No. 2, Art through the Pages:Library Collections at the Art Institute of Chicago (2008), pp. 35-36, 93Published by: The Art Institute of ChicagoStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20205615 .

Accessed: 15/06/2014 09:42

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

.

The Art Institute of Chicago is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Art Instituteof Chicago Museum Studies.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 188.72.126.108 on Sun, 15 Jun 2014 09:42:21 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

SARAH E. RAYMOND FITZWILLIAM AND THE NUREMBERG CHRONICLE

LAURIE CHIPPS

Although not a high-profile collection, many of the several

hundred objects donated by Sarah E. Raymond Fitzwilliam to the Ryerson Library are of substantial historical interest.

These objects range from photographs and lantern slides to antique texts and guidebooks. Fitzwilliam was herself a notable figure, leading the public school system of

Bloomington, Illinois, between 1865 and 1885. Moving to Boston in 1892 to take part in charity work, she stayed

only a handful of years before returning to Illinois. She

then settled in Chicago, where she served as a regent and

historian for the Daughters of the American Revolution

and was also noted as an enthusiastic art and book collector.

Fitzwilliam made her generous gift to the Art Institute

of Chicago in December 1917, soon before her death.1

By far the oldest piece in Fitzwilliam's collection is a

1493 copy of Liber Chronicarum, which was produced by the physician Hartmann Schedel in Nuremberg. The premise of the Nuremberg Chronicle, as it is most commonly known

in English, is to provide a history of the world up to the

time of its publication. Detailed images and descriptions of cities accompany narratives about prominent authors,

martyrs, physicians, and saints, to name a few. The historical

significance of the chronicle is apparent on many levels: not

only was it a massive achievement in the world of early

printing (Johannes Gutenberg's press appeared in 1450), but

it also offered its first readers an illustrated history of many cities that they would never have seen, standing

even today as "a contemporary inventory of urban culture around

1490."2 The Nuremberg Chronicle appeared in both Latin

m

^ . _*_ jCemetwmtmoi folium cLxxxv

Jtfow ft?tew?WKit.POio(nM bobfunif **?*?i*-*?--??

Figure i. Folio clxxxv of the Nuremberg Chronicle (1493) presents a panoramic view of several prominent German cities, displayed in their relative positions their coats of arms.

with

35

This content downloaded from 188.72.126.108 on Sun, 15 Jun 2014 09:42:21 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

and German, with approximately fifteen hundred and one

thousand copies being printed, respectively.3 Appearing

throughout the nearly six hundred pages of printed text are

1,804 illustrations made from 652 different woodcuts, many of which were used multiple times.4

Many people played a role in creating the chronicle, most notably publishers Sebald Schreyer and Sebastian

Kammermaister; illustrators Michael Wolgemut and his

stepson Wilhelm Pleydenwurff; and printer Anton Koberger. Scholars have also long speculated that Albrecht D?rer

assisted in the production of several illustrations. This is, in

part, because D?rer was Koberger's godson and served as an

apprentice in Wolgemut and Pleydenwurff's workshop from

November i486 to December 1489, esteeming Wolgemut as his lifelong teacher.5 Although the production of the

Nuremberg Chronicle did not begin until two years after

D?rer left the shop, he is thought to have drafted several

preliminary drawings. One of two copies of the Nuremberg Chronicle in the

Ryerson Library, the Fitzwilliam copy is impressive and

well preserved. The folio measures forty-seven centimeters

high and is bound in calfskin. According to the colophon, this Latin version is a first issue of the first edition, and

many of the initials and letters are hand-colored in red and

blue. The second copy in the library's collection is a later

German edition (1496); it is a quarto measuring twenty-eight centimeters and lacks any hand-coloring. This volume was

received in 1939 from Alfred Ernest Hamill, a prominent

Chicago philanthropist.6

ARCHITECTURA CURIOSA NOVA

LORI M. VAN DEMAN

Georg Andreas B?ckler's Architectura Curiosa Nova is a

theoretical work on fountains, hydraulics, and landscape architecture, but it is most exceptional for its engraved plates. The book includes numerous illustrations of fountains

that were intended to demonstrate aspects of hydraulic

engineering and likely never built (see fig. i). Some of the most interesting images, however, depict important works of

European architecture and plans of their associated gardens

and fountains; among these are St. Peter's Basilica in Rome

and the royal monastery of the Escorial outside Madrid, which

appear as they were when the engravings were executed for the

first edition in 1664 (see fig. 2). Acquired in 1957, the volume

Figure i. This fanciful fountain design from Architectura Curiosa Nova

demonstrates Georg Andreas Bockler's hydraulic principles and bears the crown

and double-headed eagle of the Holy Roman Emperor.

in the Ryerson Library's collection is a complete copy of the

Latin edition of 1701 and features a contemporary speckled calf binding that is gilded on the spine and edges.

The 1701 edition was issued well after the death of B?ckler

and Paul F?rst, the original publisher.1 The plates are identical to those in the 1664 edition, a necessity because the majority of the text correlates to the illustrations. The key difference

between the 1701 version and earlier ones is that the type was

reset, which allowed for the inclusion of many large woodcut

headpieces, tailpieces, and vignettes. These illustrations, which serve both as decorations and as an homage to the

Holy Roman Empire, include floral and architectural motifs, the empire's double-headed eagle, and portraits of Leopold I, the emperor from 1658 to 1705.

B?ckler, a German engineer, wrote on subjects as

diverse as engraving techniques, heraldry, and mathematics,

36

This content downloaded from 188.72.126.108 on Sun, 15 Jun 2014 09:42:21 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Collection, Princeton University Library, 1982); Burr Wallen and Stephen Neil

Greengard, Pochoir: Flowering of the Hand-Color Process in Prints and Illustrated

Books, 1910-1935, exh. cat. (UCSB Art Museum, Santa Barbara, 1978); and Pat

Gilmour, "Stencilling," in Jane Turner, ed., The Dictionary of Art (Grove, 1996), vol. 29, pp. 626-29.

Ford and Tallarico, "Chicago Comics: A Century of Progress," pp. 30-34. 1. Jay Lynch, "The Adventures of Janey and Jay," Chicago Mirror 1, 2 (Winter

1968), p. 3. 2. The Ryerson's collection contains Zap Comix issues 1 through 11, and issue o.

Chipps, "Sarah E. Raymond Fitzwilliam and the Nuremberg Chronicle"

pp. 35-36. 1. For more on Raymond, see "Sarah Raymond: An Early School Administrator,"

Alliance Library System, www.alliancelibrarysystem.com/IllinoisWomen/files/

mc/htmi/raymond.htm (accessed Jan. 18, 2007); and "Obituary," Chicago Daily

Tribune, Feb. 1, I9i8,p. 15. 2. Hartmann Schedel, Chronicle of the World: The Complete and Annotated

Nuremberg Chronicle of 1493 (Taschen, 2001), p. 8.

3. Adrian Wilson, The Making of The Nuremberg Chronicle (Nico Israel, 1977),

p. 45.

4. Schedel (note 2), p. 8.

5. Ibid., p. 16.

6. Alfred Hamill spent a number of years as president of the Newberry Library board of trustees; served as a member of the board of trustees and vice president of the Art Institute; and was president of the Lake Forest Public Library, to name

just a few of his endeavors.

Van Deman, "Architectura Curiosa Nova" pp. 36-37. 1. For more on B?ckler and F?rst, see Andreas Kreul, "B?ckler, Georg Andreas,"

Grove Art Online, www.oxfordartonline.com (accessed Nov. 12,2007); "Boeckler,

Georg Andreas," in Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker, eds., Allgemeines Lexikon

der bildenden Kunstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, vol. 4 (W. Engelmann,

1910), p. 178; and "F?rst, Paul," in ibid., vol. 12 (1916), p. 563. 2. The only architectural work by B?ckler that has been specifically identified was a gate tower at Herried in Ansbach, built for the margrave in 1684-85 and

destroyed in 1750-51; see Andreas Kreul, "B?ckler, Georg Andreas,'" Grove Art

Online, www.oxfordartonline.com (accessed Nov. 12, 2007).

Cipkowski, "Inland Architect and News Record" pp. 38-39. 1. Inland Architect and News Record 1, 1 (Feb. 1883), p. 1.

2. Ibid.

3. Inland Architect and News Record 20, 5 (Dec. 1892), p. 47. The Ryerson and

Burnham Libraries hold extensive printed and archival collections on the World's

Columbian Exposition, including the personal and professional papers of its

director of works, Daniel H. Burnham (see pp. 67-70).

Martin Cole, "The Rub?iy?t of Omar Khayyam" pp. 40-41. 1. Regina Soria, "Vedder, Elihu," Grove Art Online, www.oxfordartonline.com

(accessed Jan. 17, 2008). 2. "Vedder's Drawings for Omar Khayyam's Rub?iy?t," Atlantic Monthly 55,

327 (Jan. 1885), p. 112. The Nineteenth Century in Print: Periodicals, Library of Congress, http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/ndlpcoop/moahtml/snchome.html

(accessed Dec. 28, 2007).

Carillo, "Animal Locomotion" pp. 41-42. i. Robert Bartlett Haas, Muy bridge: Man in Motion (University of California

Press, 1976), p. 46. This essay is especially indebted to Haas's seminal biography. 2. James L. Sheldon and Jock Reynolds, Motion and Document, Sequence and

Time: Eadweard Muybridge and Contemporary American Photography, exh. cat.

(Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, 1991), p. 9.

3. Gordon Hendricks, Eadweard Muybridge: The Father of the Motion Picture

(Grossman Publishers, 1975), p. 101.

4. J. B. Lippincott and Company, later a prominent publisher of medical texts,

published the catalogues of plates, while the printer of the plates themselves, the

Photogravure Company of New York, was in control of plate distribution; Haas

(note 1), p. 154.

5. Ibid., p. 155; and Art Institute of Chicago library accession books, Ryerson and

Burnham Libraries, vol. 1, nos. ^66-y6. 6. Haas (note 1), pp. 155, 157.

7. The zoopraxiscope was based upon earlier inventions, the zoetrope and the

phenakistoscope. Edward J. Nygren and Frances Fralin, Eadweard Muybridge:

Extraordinary Motion, exh. cat. (Corcoran Gallery of Art, 1986), p. 8.

8. Haas (note 1), p. 174; and Kevin MacDonnell, Eadweard Muybridge: The Man

Who Invented the Moving Picture (Little, Brown, 1972), p. 32.

Oliveri, "TheKeimscott Chaucer" pp.43-44. 1. One Hundred Books (Bridwell Library, Southern Methodist University, 1986), no. 64, quoted in William S. Peterson, The Kelmscott Press: A History of William

Morris's Typographical Adventure (University of California Press, 1991), p. 229. 2. Peterson (note 1), p. 257.

3. Morris's suppliers were Henry Band and later William J. Turney and

Company. 4. The press run had to be increased from 325 to 425 paper copies in order to

make a profit. 5. The full leather copies were bound by the Doves Bindery, and one dummy full leather (made of extra and mistake pages from the press run) is also ascribed

to Leighton. Marion Tidcombe, The Doves Bindery (British Library/Oak Knoll

Books, 1991), p. 58.

Arvio and Nichols, "Ephemeral and Essential: The Pamphlet Files in the

Ryerson Library Collection," pp. 45-46. The introductory quote is taken from Martin Andrews, "The Stuff of Everyday Life: A Brief Introduction to the History and Definition of Printed Ephemera," Art Libraries Journal 31,4 (2006), p. 6. Other useful sources on ephemera include

Extra Art: A Survey of Artists' Ephemera, 1960-1999 (Smart Art Press, 2001); and

Maurice Rickards, This is Ephemera (Gossamer Press, 1977). 1. James Elkins, e-mail message to Thea Liberty Nichols, fall 2007.

Carillo,"Camera Work"pp.46-47. i. Although quarterly publication was not always sustained, fifty issues were

published from 1903 to 1917. 2. Camera Notes 6 (July 1902), as cited in Christian A. Peterson, Alfred Stieglitz's Camera Notes, exh. cat. (Minneapolis Institute of Arts/W. W. Norton, 1993), p. 52.

3. Alma Davenport, The History of Photography: An Overview (Focal Press,

1991), p. in. Shaw's letter appeared in issue fifteen, Steichen's photogravures in

issue nineteen.

4. Pam Roberts, "Foreword," in idem, Alfred Stieglitz, Camera Work: The Complete Illustrations 1903-1917 (Taschen, 1997), p. 14.

5. Ibid., 14. 6. Davenport (note 3), p. 115; William Innes Homer, Alfred Stieglitz and the

American Avant-Garde (New York Graphic Society, 1977), p. 75.

7. The Ryerson Library apparently did not subscribe to Camera Work as it was

issued. Thirty-five issues were purchased from Stieglitz in 1917 for $78, and others

were filled in later. Ryerson Library accession books, Ryerson and Burnham

Libraries, nos. 19008-017, May 1923 entries.

8. New periodicals featuring avant-garde art, such as The Seven Arts and The Soil,

emerged soon after the Armory Show.

9. Homer (note 6), p. 258. 10. Katherine Hoffman, Stieglitz: A Beginning Light (Yale University Press,

2004), p. 292. 11. Davenport (note 3), p. 116. Other sources state there were only thirty-six subscribers. 12. Roberts (note 4), p. 30.

93

This content downloaded from 188.72.126.108 on Sun, 15 Jun 2014 09:42:21 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions