Scripsi manu mea Hartmann Schedel in Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, clm 490

Abstract

The Padua-trained medical doctor Hartmann Schedel (1440–1514) of Nuremberg is today perhaps best known for his Liber Chronicarum, printed in Latin and German (Weltchronik) in 1493 with an ambitious programme of xylographies. Thanks to his well-spent study years in Padua (1463–1466), he also played an important role in the dissemination of Italian humanism north of the Alps, as witnessed, for example, by his important collection of inscriptions and Humanist texts. His rich library, consisting of manuscripts, both autographs and written by others, and printed books, was bought from his family by H. J. Fugger of Augsburg (1531–1598) in 1552. Fugger’s library was passed to the Bavarian Court Library in 1571 and is now housed at the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek in Munich. This article details one of the autograph manuscripts, the clm 490, containing medical texts. It gives direct access to Hartmann at work on his library, carefully writing out the contents in his all’antica hand, numbering the folios, providing a list of contents, presenting authors in short biographies and, last but not least, scrupulously dating and often localizing the sections copied.

Keywords

• German humanism
• Hartmann Schedel
• palaeography
• codicology
• book history