Das neue Gebetbuch Kaiser Maximilians I. in seiner Entstehung
Heidrun Lange-Krach
Albrecht Dürer, Hans Burgkmair, Lucas Cranach, Hans Baldung known as Grien, Albrecht Altdorfer, and Jörg Breu, drawings by all of these artists are brought together in a single work: the Prayer Book of Emperor Maximilian I. How did this prayer book, adorned with marginal illustrations by such eminent hands, come to be produced?
The Prayer Book of Maximilian I., printed in Augsburg in 1513, contains drawings by the most celebrated artists of the German Renaissance. Commissioned by the Emperor, Albrecht Dürer, Hans Burgkmair, Lucas Cranach, Hans Baldung known as Grien, Albrecht Altdorfer, and Jörg Breu embellished a printed liturgical text with intricate pen-and-ink marginal illustrations. Only one of the ten surviving copies contains these drawings, whose purpose, whether as preparatory designs for woodcuts or as autonomous works of art, has long divided art historians. At the same time, a second edition featuring woodcuts by Hans Schäufelein was produced. The present study surveys the surviving corpus of these prayer books and reconstructs the history of their creation.