The Munich Kunstkammer: Art, Nature, and the Representation of Knowledge in Courtly Contexts (Spatmittelalter, Humanismus, Reformation / Studies in the La) 9783161521881, 9783161586118, 3161521889

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Spätmittelalter, Humanismus, Reformation Studies in the Late Middle Ages, Humanism and the Reformation herausgegeben von Volker Leppin (Tübingen) in Verbindung mit Amy Nelson Burnett (Lincoln, NE), Berndt Hamm (Erlangen) Johannes Helmrath (Berlin), Matthias Pohlig (Münster) Eva Schlotheuber (Düsseldorf)

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Katharina Pilaski Kaliardos

The Munich Kunstkammer Art, Nature, and the Representation of Knowledge in Courtly Contexts

Mohr Siebeck

Katharina Pilaski Kaliardos, born 1972; studied Art History in Münster, Vienna, Strasbourg, Berlin, and Santa Barbara; 2007 PhD; doctoral fellowship at the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts in Washington, DC; currently a lecturer at The Catholic University of America, Washington DC.

ISBN 978-3-16-152188-1 / eISBN 978-3-16-158611-8 unveränderte eBook-Ausgabe 2019 ISSN 1865-2840 (Spätmittelalter, Humanismus, Reformation) Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliographie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2013 by Mohr Siebeck Tübingen, Germany. www.mohr.de This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, in any form (beyond that permitted by copyright law) without the publisher’s written permission. This applies particularly to reproductions, translations, microfilms and storage and processing in electronic systems. The book was printed on non-aging paper by Gulde-Druck in Tübingen and bound by Buchbinderei Spinner in Ottersweier. Printed in Germany.

Acknowledgements The dissertation on which this book is based would not have been possible without the inspiration and support of my advisor Mark Meadow. In our discussions, he has continuously opened up new perspectives for my research, and his unflagging enthusiasm about my work has been an invaluable source of energy especially during the difficult stretches of my archival explorations. I am grateful for his extraordinary intellectual and personal generosity as my advisor. I also owe thanks to the other members of my committee. Ann Jensen Adams initiated me to the fascinating field of the history of science and the role that images play in this context. Bruce Robertson has been tremendously helpful in restructuring my project at a point when it seemed to have gotten too large to manage. Philip Soergel has provided invaluable suggestions that helped shape my reflections on natural prodigies and their confessional implications. One of my greatest debts is to Matthias Pohlig. My conversations and discussions with him have shaped my own research interests in no small degree. Since our high school days, he has been an enthusiastic reader of my work and has continuously provided me with valuable suggestions and constructive criticism. He has also helped me whenever I encountered difficulties with my Latin sources. I would like to express my gratitude for his friendship and encouragement. For financial support, I am very grateful to the University of California, Santa Barbara, especially the Art History department, for providing me with generous funding throughout my doctoral studies. The research and writing of this book were largely made possible by the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. I would like to thank the Center, its Deans, and also my colleagues during the year in residence for their support. I am specifically indebted to Peter Parshall, whose comments on my CASVA shoptalk helped shape Chapter 4 of this book. I must also thank the staff of the Interlibrary Loan office at the National Gallery, who has been able to procure sources from even the most remote locations, and has greatly facilitated my research by providing me with extraordinarily large quantities of non-art historical material from the Library of Congress, thus enabling me to do most of my work in the Gallery’s reading room.

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Acknowledgements

The research for this book was largely conducted in Munich, and I would especially like to thank the staff at the Hauptstaatsarchiv and the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek for their friendly assistance. My stay in Munich would not have been as successful as it was without the support of many people there. I am especially grateful to Winfried Schulze, who generously invited me to participate in his weekly colloquium and daily lunch circle. My thanks also to all the colleagues and friends from this group for making my time in Munich a truly enjoyable experience, and for sharing their knowledge and their insights into the local archives and libraries. Special thanks to Cornel Zwierlein, who has been helpful with deciphering some particularly messy lines in archival documents, and has transcribed and translated Greek quotations in Latin texts. Lorenz Seelig kindly offered encouragement during the early stages of the development of this project, Peter Diemer was extremely generous in sharing the fruits of his work on the Munich Kunstkammer’s inventory with me, and Christl Karnehm has given me helpful insights into the role of the Fuggers at the Munich court. I would particularly like to thank Gabriele Wimböck, whose enthusiastic interest in my research has always stimulated my thoughts. My special gratitude goes to my husband Bill Kaliardos, who has ensured that my life was not entirely consumed by the work on this book, and has stayed by my side and tolerated my moods during its writing. My parents have been infinitely generous and supportive throughout my academic studies, and it is with profound thanks that I dedicate this book to them.

Table of Contents Introduction................................................................................................... 1 Chapter 1: A Central Repository of Knowledge: The Kunstkammer and the Consolidation of Princely Power.......................... 7 The Collection’s Setting, its Contents and their Display................................. 8 The Northern Gallery as a Reception Hall of Dynastic Representation and its Conceptual Source ....................................................................... 13 Dynastic Representation beyond the Northern Gallery................................. 24 The Representation of the Bavarian Territory .............................................. 26 The Centralization of Princely Power .......................................................... 35 Chapter 2: A Topical Collection for Princely Purposes: Samuel Quiccheberg’s Conception of the Kunstkammer and the Intellectual Milieu of the Court ....................................................... 41 Quiccheberg’s Inscriptiones as a Culmination of the Topical Epistemology .............................................................................................. 45 Objects of Knowledge, History, and Empiricism ......................................... 57 Courtly Science: the Utility of Knowledge for the Administration of the State.............................................................................................. 63 Quiccheberg’s Ideas, the Kunstkammer, and the Intellectual Milieu of the Munich Court................................................................................ 72 Chapter 3: Collecting Prodigies: Material Evidence, Confessional Argument, and the Sacralization of the Bavarian Territory .... 89 The Confessional Structure of the Discourse on Prodigies ........................... 94 Contemporary Approaches to Prodigies in Popular Discourse and Courtly Practice.............................................................................. 103 Objects and the Materiality of Counter-Reformation Religious Practice..... 116 Strategies of Authentication....................................................................... 127 Sacralizing a Catholic Dynasty and its Territory ........................................ 132

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Chapter 4: Collecting Reproductions: The Epistemology of the Imago Contrafacta and the Status of Documentary Imagery ................................ 135 ‘Bildmagie’ and the Question of Contemporary Perception........................ 140 Reproduction and Knowledge of Nature .................................................... 143 Quiccheberg on the Functions of Images ................................................... 149 Mechanical Reproduction and the Idea of the Impressed Image ................. 152 Reproduction and the Relationship between Art and Nature....................... 157 Reproductions in Votive Practice............................................................... 163 The Imago Contrafacta and the Question of the Historicity of Perception......................................................................................... 171 Conclusion ................................................................................................ 175 Figures ...................................................................................................... 179 Bibliography.............................................................................................. 185

Index of Historic Personages ..................................................................... 207 Index of Subjects....................................................................................... 211

Introduction When Albrecht V, Duke of Bavaria, died in October 1579, the Ingolstadt physician Ioannes Boscius dedicated a funeral oration to him in which he praised the Munich court as only comparable to the imperial one, a place full of generous knights, nobles of illustrious birth, the wisest clerical and worldly councilors, the most knowledgeable doctors, and excellent musicians. Following this enumeration of Albrecht’s entourage, and before he went on to laud the duke’s magnificent palace, its decoration, the splendid spectacles and tournaments that were held there, as well as the thriving state of Bavaria and its people, Boscius praised the ducal Kunstkammer as a “Theatrum earum rerum, quas memorabiles atque suspiciendas natura vel ars machinata est amplißimum.”1 By describing the ducal collection as a theatrum amplissimum, Boscius used the same terms that Samuel Quiccheberg, the Flemish physician who served as Albrecht’s advisor in matters of collecting, had employed in the title of his treatise that gave instructions for the foundation of a princely Kunstkammer. 2 The fact that Boscius described the contents of the Munich collection as consisting of nature and the mechanical arts is further evidence that his perception of this Kunstkammer had been shaped by Quiccheberg’s ideas, which focused on the collection’s function as a site for the production of practically applicable knowledge. It is one of the central premises of this book that the Munich Kunstkammer was conceived in close conjunction with the development of Quiccheberg’s ideas, and that these ideas and their intellectual context are essential for understanding the Kunstkammer’s conceptual

1

See Orationes Funebres in Exequiis, Serenissimo Illlustrissimoque Principi ac Domino, Domino Alberto V. (Ingolstadii: Ex Officina Weissenhorniana, apud Wolfgangum Ederum, 1580), p. 29f. 2 See Samuel Quiccheberg, Inscriptiones vel tituli theatri amplissimi (Munich: Adam Berg, 1565). A modern edition with a problematic German translation was published by Harriet Roth (see Harriet Roth, Der Anfang der Museumslehre in Deutschland. Das Traktat “Inscriptiones vel Tituli Theatri Amplissimi” von Samuel Quiccheberg. Lateinisch-Deutsch. Herausgegeben und kommentiert von Harriet Roth. (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2000).). An edition with English translation is forthcoming: Mark Meadow and Bruce Robertson, eds, Samuel Quiccheberg, Inscriptiones vel tituli Theatri Amplissimi, Munich, 1565, in series Texts & Documents, Getty Research Institute. I am using this translation with the kind permission of the editors.

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Introduction

roots and the duke’s rationale for investing in such as vast, lengthy, and costly project of courtly representation. The Munich Kunstkammer was one of the earliest foundations of a universal collection at a princely court north of the Alps.3 Albrecht had started collecting at a steadily accelerating pace from the beginning of his reign in 1550; already in 1557, his councilors found it necessary to admonish him to curtail his expenses that considerably aggravated the court’s already precarious financial situation.4 As the councilors insinuated, this development not coincidentally paralleled the duke’s intensified contact with Hans Jakob Fugger. Fugger, as the internationally educated scion of the wealthy Augsburg merchant family, was one of the driving forces behind Albrecht’s efforts to expand his collections, and it was through him that Albrecht had made the acquaintance of Samuel Quiccheberg. 5 In the early 1560s, Albrecht’s plan to erect a separate building to house a universal collection must have started to evolve, and construction work on the project began in 1563. The exterior structure of the building was mostly finished by 1567, but work on its interior continued at least until 1578; however, visits to the collection were already

3

Lorenz Seelig presented a seminal study of the Munich Kunstkammer in 1986, which included his reconstruction of the Kunstkammer’s arrangement on the basis of Fickler’s inventory (see Lorenz Seelig, “Die Münchner Kunstkammer,” in Jahrbuch der Bayerischen Denkmalpflege 40 (1986): 101–38; an earlier, shorter version was published in English, see Lorenz Seelig, “The Munich Kunstkammer, 1565–1807,” in The Origins of Museums: The Cabinet of Curiosities in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Europe, ed. Oliver Impey and Arthur MacGregor (Oxford 1985): 76–89). A more extensive discussion of the Kunstkammer by Lorenz Seelig can be found in “Die Münchner Kunstkammer”, in Die Münchner Kunstkammer, ed. Dorothea Diemer, Peter Diemer, Lorenz Seelig, et al., 3 vols. (München 2008), vol. 3: 1–114. 4 The financial records of the court show a slight increase in expenses for luxury goods, building activities, and collectibles since 1551 (see Otto Hartig, “Die Kunsttätigkeit in München unter Wilhelm IV. und Albrecht V. (1520–1579). Neue Forschungen,” Münchner Jahrbuch der bildenden Kunst, N.F. 10, no. 3–4 (1933): 147–252. p. 169); the Denkschrift issued by Albrecht’s councilors is published in Sigmund Riezler, “Zur Würdigung Herzog Albrechts V. von Bayern,” Abhandlungen der bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften (1894): 67–132). Their admonition seems not to have had any impact on Albrecht’s proclivity for pursuing his collecting activities (see Hartig, “Kunsttätigkeit,” p. 171). 5 See Riezler, “Würdigung,” p. 126. For my discussion of this document and a brief summary of Fugger’s role at the court, see Katharina Pilaski, “Wissen, Handel, Repräsentation. Exotica und lokale Monstrositäten in der Kunstkammer Albrechts V. von Bayern,” in Wissenswelten. Perspektiven der frühneuzeitlichen Informationskultur, ed. Wolfgang E. J. Weber (Augsburg 2003): 181–199, pp. 181–183, 187. On Fugger’s role for Albrecht’s collecting activities, see also Mark Meadow, “Hans Jacob Fugger and the Origins of the Wunderkammer,” in Merchants & Marvels: Commerce, Science, and Art in Early Modern Europe, ed. Pamela H. Smith and Paula Findlen (New York 2002), 182–200.

Introduction

3

possible at the end of the 1560s.6 Quiccheberg published his treatise in 1565, and died in 1567, thus before the Kunstkammer was completely installed. Nonetheless, his ideas had a detectable impact on the particular characteristics of the Munich collection, and their close investigation in conjunction with that of the Kunstkammer itself lead to a better understanding and partial reevaluation of the phenomenon of the princely Kunstkammer in the second half of the sixteenth century. It is particularly important to place both Quiccheberg’s treatise and the Munich collection in the larger intellectual contexts and traditions from which they stemmed. Previous scholarship on the Munich Kunstkammer has not attended to the epistemological issues involved in the sixteenth-century interest in this type of collection.7 In this book, I discuss the Munich Kunstkammer as a prime example of a cultural phenomenon based on an epistemology peculiar to the second half of the sixteenth century. The widespread notion of the Kunstkammer as a ‘curiosity cabinet’ is ill-suited to describe what princes of the sixteenth century had in mind when they founded such a collection. The idea of a collection containing only the strange and rare whose sole function was to leave the visitor gaping with speechless stupefaction in the face of the wondrous objects displayed was a development of the seventeenth century, and its retroprojection onto the sixteenth century Kunstkammer bars us from understanding period perceptions of this type of collection.8 Quiccheberg conceived of a universal collection as a site with eminently pragmatic functions. It was to be a place that served to further useful knowledge about the world, useful in particular for the governance of the territory.9 This idea of gaining practically applicable knowledge through the investigation of objects and images was quite an innovative claim in the sixteenth century, whose notion of scientia was still dominated by the Aristotelian notion of deductive reasoning. As I argue in Chapter 2, the Kunstkammer, at the time of its inception, was a phenomenon that grew out of a productive con6

On the construction history of the Kunstkammer and visitors to the collection, see Seelig, “Kunstkammer” (2008), pp. 1–3, 10–12, Seelig, “Kunstkammer” (1986), pp. 101–103. 7 Seelig stresses the importance of Quiccheberg’s treatise, discusses its importance for the architectural design of the Kunstkammer building, and repeatedly refers to it in his analysis of the contents and layout of the collection (see Seelig, “Kunstkammer” (2008), pp. 17–19 and passim). Peter Diemer briefly discusses the treatise and its connection to the Munich collection in Diemer, Kunstkammer (2008), vol. 3, pp. 346–349. 8 This understanding of the Kunstkammer phenomenon from a seventeenth-century viewpoint underlies Lorraine Daston’s work on the topic (see Lorraine Daston, “The Factual Sensibility,” Isis 79 (1988): 452–470, p. 458; Lorraine Daston and Katharine Park, Wonders and the Order of Nature. 1150-1750 (New York: Zone Books, 1998), pp. 255-301). Against this view, see Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann, “From Mastery of the World to Mastery of Nature,” in The Mastery of Nature. Aspects of Art, Science, and Humanism in the Renaissance (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1993): 174–194, p. 181, 303, n. 56. 9 I discuss this at length in Chapter 2.

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Introduction

junction of traditional approaches to collecting, ordering, and storing knowledge, and a new interest in the empirical investigation of nature. The early Kunstkammer was thus one manifestation of the larger developments within the history of science concerning new approaches to nature and technology that took place in the context of princely courts. Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann has warned against neglecting the particular aims and functions of the earlier universal collections,10 and his ideas about the Kunstkammer of Emperor Rudolf II as a form of repraesentatio have provided an important inspiration for my own research.11 I investigate the representational function that the Kunstkammer served from two angles, which correspond to the two principal meanings that the term ‘representation’ has acquired in modern scholarship: one the one hand, I look at the collection as a tool of political representation, understanding ‘representation’ as the visual display of rulership and its legitimacy.12 On the other hand, I use the term ‘representation’ in the sense of an object, image or reproduction that serves to make an absent thing, person, place, or event present within the Kunstkammer.13 The first meaning entails iconographical questions concerning the particular contents of the collection, their arrangement and display, and the arguments that are being constructed with them. Thus, I shall show in Chapter 1 how in the Munich Kunstkammer, dynastic and territorial representation are played out in order to construct arguments about the status, legitimacy, and confessional conviction of the Wittelsbach dynasty and the territory over which the family ruled. Quiccheberg, in his systematic overview of the various types of objects to be included in such a collection, laid particular stress on objects and images that represented the founder, his dynasty, and his territory. Jean-Marie Moeglin has stressed the extremely close connection between the Wittelsbach dynasty and the Bavarian territory that was made in 10

See Kaufmann, “Mastery,” p. 295, n. 9. See Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann, “Remarks on the Collections of Rudolf II: The Kunstkammer as a Form of Representatio,” in Art Journal 38 (1978): 22–28. 12 This is what Hedda Ragotzky and Horst Wenzel have identified as the dominant meaning of the term in modern historical scholarship concerned with courtly representation during the medieval and early modern periods (see Hedda Ragotzky and Horst Wenzel, eds, Höfische Repräsentation. Das Zeremoniell und die Zeichen (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1990), p. 180). 13 On the complex tradition of the term from which these two meanings have evolved, see Hasso Hofmann, Repräsentation. Studien zur Wort- und Begriffsgeschichte von der Antike bis in 19. Jahrhundert (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1974). For a concise summary, see also Eckart Scheerer, “Repräsentation,” in Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie, vol. 8, ed. Joachim Ritter, Karlfried Gründer, Gottfried Gabriel and Rudolf Eisler (Basel: Schwabe, 1971). More generally on the meaning and use of the term in cultural history, see Carlo Ginzburg, “Repräsentation. Das Wort, die Vorstellung, der Gegenstand,” in Holzaugen. Über Nähe und Distanz, ed. Carlo Ginzburg (Berlin: Wagenbach, 1999): 97–119. 11

Introduction

5

political documents of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and the idea that the fate of Bavaria is inextricably linked with that of the Wittelsbach dynasty can be traced throughout Bavarian territorial historiography.14 Quiccheberg’s ideas about dynastic and territorial representation were thus particularly suited to the Bavarian situation; at the time he wrote his treatise, this traditional inclination to demonstrate the legitimacy of Wittelsbach rulership by showing an organic connection between the dynasty and the Land gained particular urgency through the duke’s efforts at the consolidation and centralization of his princely power against the local competencies of his estates. Knowledge about the territory was crucial to maintaining and expanding ducal rulership, and its representation within the Kunstkammer was therefore both a means of displaying the duke’s capacity to rule, as well as a way of storing this knowledge at the court. Chapter 3 presents a case study of this representation of territorial knowledge and dynastic legitimacy through the inclusion of ‘relics’ of prodigious events within the Munich collection, investigating this interest in prodigies with particular regard to the confessional stance of the Catholic Munich court. The epistemological sense of ‘representation’ involves questions of the status of objects and images in the process of the production of knowledge, and the relationship between an original object and its reproduction. While Chapter 2 investigates the intellectual traditions from which the new confidence placed in material objects and images for the production of knowledge originated, in Chapter 4, I consider the specific phenomenon of the abundance of ephemeral reproductions of natural objects in the Munich Kunstkammer, and relate it to contemporary attitudes and practices regarding visual and material representations, particularly within the religious context. From this should emerge a new image of the Munich Kunstkammer that sees it as a grandiose attempt at the production of universal knowledge through the orderly assemblage of objects and images, serving as a representation of princely territorial rulership and confessional allegiance to the Catholic Church, in which knowledge about the territory is embedded in a totality that demonstrated the duke’s status as a ruler who derived his legitimate power from a divine source.

14 See Jean-Marie Moeglin, Dynastisches Bewußtsein und Geschichtsschreibung. Zum Selbstverständnis der Wittelsbacher, Habsburger und Hohenzollern im Spätmittelalter (München 1993), pp. 17–21.

Chapter 1

A Central Repository of Knowledge: The Kunstkammer and the Consolidation of Princely Power The Munich Kunstkammer was at its time one of the largest courtly collections North of the Alps. According to the inventory that the court jurist Johann Baptist Fickler wrote up in 1598,1 it contained over 6,000 objects, and the breadth of its scope made it the first truly encyclopedic princely collection in Central Europe.2 In comparison to the contemporary courtly Kunstkammern, such as those of Ferdinand II at Ambras, and of August of Saxony at Dresden, and also to the slightly later one at the imperial court in Prague, the Munich collection is distinguished by an exceptional emphasis on the representation of its founder, his dynasty, and his territory.3 This focus comprises several classes of objects, including portraits, coats of arms, chorographical representations, naturalia of Bavarian origin, and a diverse range of historical objects, such as weapons, clothes, and Roman remains excavated in Bavaria. The presence of the duke and his dynasty in the Kunstkammer asserted the ducal possession of this collection, while advancing arguments about dynastic legitimacy; on the other hand, the representation of the Bavarian territory turned the Kunstkammer into a central repository of knowledge about the duke’s sphere of power.4 In an article about collections of antiquities in courtly contexts, Gerrit Walther posed the question of how the production and display of knowledge

1

See Johann Baptist Fickler, Das Inventar der Münchner herzoglichen Kunstkammer von 1598. Editionsband. Transkription der Inventarhandschrift cgm 2133, ed. Peter Diemer (München: Verlag der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2004). 2 See Seelig, “Kunstkammer” (1986), pp. 104, 117; Seelig, “Kunstkammer” (2008), p. 84 (here more broadly on the Munich Kunstkammer’s place in the history of sixteenth-century collecting, pp. 71–85). 3 Seelig has called the territorial and dynastic representation the “constitutive” feature of the Munich Kunstkammer, which, especially with regard to high-level visitors, almost assumes the role of a “propagandistic instrument” (see Seelig, “Kunstkammer” (2008), p. 32). 4 Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann has first established the interpretation of the Kunstkammer as a means to the representation of (in that case) imperial power with regard to Rudolf II’s collection at Prague (see Kaufmann, “Remarks on the Collections of Rudolf II”).

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Chapter 1

functioned in contexts whose primary concern was the exertion of power.5 This question is of particular relevance to the Munich Kunstkammer, as Quiccheberg’s treatise confirms that the knowledge that could be gained in this collection was thought to be of both theoretical and practical value, as well as of particular importance for the governance of the state. I shall discuss this theoretical claim and the question of the epistemological status of knowledge gained from the investigation of objects at greater length in Chapter 2. This first chapter is concerned with the same issue on the more concrete level of territorial and dynastic representation within the collection itself, and its symbolic, political, and practical functions. Following a brief overview of the Kunstkammer’s mode of display and the various types of objects contained in the Munich collection in general, I shall discuss the question of their arrangement, and analyze how the Kunstkammer’s focus on the representation of the ruler, his dynasty, and the territory was presented to the Kunstkammer’s visitor, and which rhetorical or practical functions these objects may have served. I shall then set these observations in the context of the political situation of the Munich court at the time the collection was founded.

The Collection’s Setting, its Contents and their Display The Munich Kunstkammer was set on the top floor of a three-story building that was constructed in the years between 1563 and 1567 by adding a fourth section to three pre-existing buildings, thus combining them into a fourwinged structure with an open inner courtyard surrounded by arcaded galleries (fig. 1).6 On the ground floor, the building housed the courtly stables, while the first upper story provided space for the tack rooms along with the living quarters for the equerry and other personnel of the stables.7 While the exterior structure was likely finished by 1567,8 sources report the Kunstkammer’s still unfinished state in 1568, and ongoing work on the interior until at

5 See Gerrit Walther, “Adel und Antike. Zur politischen Bedeutung gelehrter Kultur für die Führungselite der Frühen Neuzeit,” in Historische Zeitschrift 262 (1998): 359–385, pp. 361f. 6 For a brief overview of the building’s history in the sixteenth century, see Seelig, “Kunstkammer” (2008), pp. 1-3. For a more extensive history of the building, see Michael Petzet, “Das ehemalige Marstall- und Kunstkammergebäude in München und sein Ausbau zur königlichen Münze,” in Jahrbuch der Bayerischen Denkmalpflege 40 (1986): 15–100, pp. 16–36. The question of the architect is unsolved, as Petzet points out (see ibid., p. 18). 7 See Seelig, “Kunstkammer” (2008), p. 1. On the combination of stables and collections in one building in the sixteenth century, see ibid. pp. 12–17. 8 See Petzet, “Das ehemalige Marstall- und Kunstkammergebäude in München,” pp. 17f.

The Kunstkammer and the Consolidation of Princely Power

9

least 1579, the year of Albrecht’s death.9 In the 1570s, however, the collection was already in a state that allowed for visitors to enter it.10 Thus, the state of the collection that is documented in Fickler’s inventory of 1598 may roughly have been reached by the end of Albrecht’s lifetime. Documents show that Wilhelm V, Albrecht’s son and successor, facing ongoing quarrels with the Bavarian estates about financial matters, agreed early during his reign to make no further acquisitions for the courtly collections.11 While he nonetheless added numerous objects, the majority of which were gifts or were transferred from various parts of the ducal residence, he did not change the Kunstkammer’s character in any fundamental way.12 Thus Fickler’s inventory, which is the only source documenting the contents and arrangement of the Munich Kunstkammer in a comprehensive manner, may, cum grano salis, be taken as reflecting the Munich Kunstkammer’s original conception under Albrecht V. In my general overview of its contents, I follow the hypothetical reconstruction of the Kunstkammer’s setup offered by Lorenz Seelig (fig. 2).13 The objects in the Munich collection were displayed openly on about 60 large and smaller tables. Unlike in the roughly contemporary Kunstkammer at Ambras or the later one in Prague, comparatively little was kept in cabinets or chests. Further objects – paintings and reliefs, as well as sculptures and vessels – were hung on the walls or placed upon two shelves surrounding the room in the upper section of the wall facing the courtyard.14 A few stuffed animals were hung from the ceiling.15 This open presentation of the objects in the impressively large space of approximately 1,200m2 was geared towards open visual access to large numbers of objects. Through this generous manner of display, the planners of the collection avoided the impression of crammed disorder among the Kunstkammer’s heterogeneous contents.16 The aim was to convey the impression of the breadth of the collection’s scope, but not to leave the visitor dumbstruck by confronting him with a “hodge-podge” of disorderly arranged ‘curiosities’, as has been argued by Lorraine Daston with regard to this type of collection.17 9

See Seelig, “Kunstkammer” (2008), p. 2f.; Seelig, “Kunstkammer” (1986), pp. 102f. On the Kunstkammer’s accessibility under Albrecht V and his son, see Seelig, “Kunstkammer” (2008), pp. 10–12. See also Seelig, “Kunstkammer” (1986), p. 103. 11 See Seelig, “Kunstkammer” (1986), p. 115, Seelig, “Kunstkammer” (2008), p. 48; on the chronology of objects and their inclusion in the Kunstkammer, see ibid. pp. 44–49. 12 See Seelig, “Kunstkammer” (2008), p. 48; Seelig, “Kunstkammer” (1986), p. 115. 13 See Seelig, “Kunstkammer” (1986); Seelig, “Kunstkammer” (2008), pp. 4f., pp. 19–27. 14 See Fickler, Inventar, p. 169. 15 See Seelig, “Kunstkammer” (1986), p. 106; Seelig, “Kunstkammer” (2008), p. 26. 16 See Seelig, “Kunstkammer” (1986), pp. 106f.; Seelig, “Kunstkammer” (2008), pp. 26f. 17 See Daston, “The Factual Sensibility,” p. 458; Daston and Park, Wonders, pp. 255–301. 10

10

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As any universal collection of the early modern period, the Munich Kunstkammer contained both objects of nature (naturalia) and objects of art (artificialia). Many of the naturalia were unaltered samples and specimens of inorganic or organic materials, i.e. minerals, ores, and parts of animals such as teeth, bones, horns, or shells. These objects were of either local or exotic origin; some, but not all of these were deformed or otherwise anomalous. The topic of natural wonders and prodigies will specifically be addressed in Chapter 3 of this book. Apart from a few pieces of wood and branches of trees, original parts of plants were relatively scarce in the Kunstkammer.18 This was probably due to issues of conservation, and indeed there is no lack of plants in the form of reproductions.19 Reproductions make up a significant portion of the artificialia in the Munich Kunstkammer. While many artificial objects in this collection certainly were primarily prized for their aesthetic value or for their material preciousness, a large number of images also or solely fulfilled documentary functions. Copying the natural specimens or human body parts faithfully – by means of pictorial representation (usually on paper), as casts in plaster or metal, and even carved in wood – they were clearly conceived as substitutes for the original objects. This prevalence of ephemeral documentary imagery is quite unique to the Munich Kunstkammer, and it belies the common notion that such collections functioned solely or even primarily as a “declaration of independence for the disciplines of invention and high artifice”.20 Besides the various forms of imagery reproducing natural specimens, portraits formed a particularly large group of pictorial documents in the Munich Kunstkammer. The collection contained a total of 579 portraits of historical and living personages, many of which were conceived as sets.21 These were generally listed 18

See Seelig, “Kunstkammer” (1986), p. 108. See Seelig, “Kunstkammer” (2008), p. 38. 20 Peter W. Parshall, “Imago Contrafacta: Images and Facts in the Northern Renaissance,” in Art History 16, no. 4 (1993): 554–579, p. 555. In this seminal article on Renaissance documentary imagery, which provides the basis of my understanding of images as documents in the Munich Kunstkammer, Peter Parshall, with reference to Lorraine Daston’s view of such collections, cast the relationship between art and nature in Kunstkammer collections as antithetical to the documentary impetus that he discerned in other areas. As I shall discuss, this is a problematic view with regard to the Munich Kunstkammer. 21 On the portrait collection in Munich, see Franz von Reber, “Die Bildnisse der herzoglich bayerischen Kunstkammer nach dem Fickler’schen Inventar von 1598,” in Sitzungsberichte der philosophisch-philologischen und historischen Classe der königlich bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften (1893): 2–56 and also Reber, “Die Gemälde der herzoglich bayerischen Kunstkammer nach dem Fickler’schen Inventar von 1598,” in Sitzungsberichte der philosophisch-philologischen und historischen Classe der königlich bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften (1892): 137–68, and more recently Peter Diemer, “Wenig ergiebig für die Alte Pinakothek? Die Gemälde der Kunstkammer”, in Diemer, Münchner Kunstkammer, vol. 3: 125–224. 19

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anonymously in the inventory, and this neglect of authorship emphasizes their documentary function.22 Furthermore, a large number of books were kept in the entrance area of the Kunstkammer rather than in the library. Most of these were illustrated books with antiquarian, historical, artisanal and technological, natural historical, chorographical, and religious contents.23 The print collection that was situated next to this bookcase probably represented a similar range of topics (F. 121a).24 The issue of the status and functions of documentary images in the Munich Kunstkammer will be discussed at length in Chapter 4. Beyond this profusion of documentary imagery, the artificialia in Munich ranged from objects of craftsmanship to non-documentary paintings and sculptures, as in any princely Kunstkammer of the period.25 Characteristically, the Munich collection also contained a large number of objects that played on the boundary between art and nature by altering various and often precious or exotic naturalia in a way that emulated their natural forms and blurred the distinction between the natural object and its artificial alteration.26 Equally typical Kunstkammer objects were the miniature mountains built from ‘original’ materials, i.e. from ores and crystals found in the type of landscape they represent; as well as the sculptural landscape formations that were made from corals used to imitate trees. Furthermore, there were countless craft objects, executed either by professional craftsmen or by princes and noblemen themselves. The latter most often produced works of wood or ivory turning, which was a particularly popular past-time for the nobility, but some rulers also created goldsmith work, plaster casts, and carvings in wax.27 Objects with utilitarian functions formed by far the largest group of artificialia in the Munich Kunstkammer, including vessels and containers, dishes, 22

On the denial of authorship to enhance the image’s status as documents, see Parshall, “Imago Contrafacta,” p. 567. 23 On the early history of technological treatises in the fifteenth century and their social and intellectual contexts, see Pamela O. Long, “Power, Patronage, and the Authorship of Ars: From Mechanical Know-How to Mechanical Knowledge in the Last Scribal Age,” in Isis 88, no. 1 (1997): 1–41. 24 Throughout this book, I cite the inventory as “F.” followed by the number according to the manuscript Cgm 2133 (which served as the basis for the recent printed edition). 25 See Seelig, “Kunstkammer” (1986), pp. 109, 133, n. 131, 132; on the paintings (other than the portraits) in the Kunstkammer, see Reber, “Bildnisse,” and Diemer, “Gemälde.” 26 On this type of object and its epistemology, see Daston and Park, Wonders, pp. 255– 301. See also Martin Kemp, “‘Wrought by no artist’s hand’: the natural, the artificial, the exotic, and the scientific in some artifacts from the Renaissance,” in Reframing the Renaissance. Visual Culture in Europe and Latin America, 1450-1650, ed. Claire Farago (New Haven, London: Yale University Press, 1995): 176–96. 27 See Klaus Maurice, Der drechselnde Souverän. Materialien zu einer fürstlichen Maschinenkunst (Zürich 1985).

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cutlery, clothes and weapons of both local and exotic provenances.28 The way the exotic objects among these are described in Fickler’s inventory shows that they were specifically collected with an acute interest in their use, although many of them certainly also had aesthetic appeal.29 This utilitarian approach is in accord with the theoretical premises of a Kunstkammer collection that Samuel Quiccheberg formulated in his treatise on universal collections, written at Munich, to be discussed in Chapter 2.30 At first sight, there was no thematic order on a larger scale in the Munich Kunstkammer. Almost any type of object can be found in any of the collection’s four galleries. Local and exotic objects are intermingled throughout the Kunstkammer, as are objects of art and of nature. There was, however, order on a micro-level. Objects are often, but not consistently grouped by materials and sometimes by origin (see, for instance, the cluster of “Indian” objects on table no. 4). Series of portraits were obviously hung together, and are sometimes thematically linked with other images, as in the case of the pairing of Roman emperors with scenes of ancient history to be discussed below. Certain natural prodigies are grouped on one table (a grouping discussed in Chapter 3 of this book), while others are dispersed throughout the collection. We may say that there is a consistent diversity of types of objects throughout the Munich Kunstkammer, with topical clusters discernable on individual or adjacent tables. This observation is in line with the general characteristics of topical ordering systems in the rhetorical tradition, an issue that is discussed in Chapter 2 in relation to Quiccheberg’s treatise. However, a closer analysis of the Kunstkammer’s principal focus, the representation of the ruler and his territory, shows that there was indeed also an order on a larger scale. Many of the above-mentioned types of objects represented the ruler, his dynasty, and the Bavarian territory,31 and I shall now show how this focus is established as an overarching theme for the Munich collection by the arrangement of objects in its principal gallery, which was the one the visitor first entered.

28

See Seelig, “Kunstkammer,” p. 110. See Pilaski, “Wissen, Handel, Repräsentation,” pp. 187f. 30 See Quiccheberg, Inscriptiones. 31 While exotic objects, like in any princely Kunstkammer, also held a prominent position in the Munich collection, this Kunstkammer was distinguished by a particular emphasis on local objects (on the exotica in the Munich collection, see Elke Bujok, Neue Welten in europäischen Sammlungen: Africana und Americana in Kunstkammern bis 1670 (Berlin: Reimer, 2004); see also Lorenz Seelig, “Exotica in der Münchner Kunstkammer der bayerischen Wittelsbacher,” Jahrbuch des Kunsthistorischen Museums Wien 3 (2001): 145–161, and Seelig, “Kunstkammer” (2008), pp. 32–38). 29

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The Northern Gallery as a Reception Hall of Dynastic Representation and its Conceptual Source The Augsburg art merchant Philipp Hainhofer, who had the privilege to spend several days in the Munich Kunstkammer in the early seventeenth century, reports that he entered the collection’s northwestern corner through the socalled tennelein, and then first walked through its northern gallery.32 According to Seelig’s reconstruction, this tennelein was a sort of vestibule located on the side facing the inner courtyard.33 Fickler, in his inventory, repeatedly refers to an entrance “da man von der gassen hinauf geht,” when speaking of the Kunstkammer’s northwestern corner.34 That the northwestern corner was the Kunstkammer’s general entrance area is thus confirmed by the description in Fickler’s inventory,35 and seems to have been true both for those mounting the stairs from the courtyard, as well as for the visitors entering the space through the Hofgang that led to the second floor of the building from the ducal residence.36 Either way, it is clear from both the inventory and Hainhofer’s description that the tour of the Kunstkammer first led into the northern gallery. This gallery, which was the largest of the four sections of the collection, thus functioned as the collection’s principal reception hall, and was accordingly distinguished from the rest of the Kunstkammer in the selection and arrangement of its contents. The order of objects in this gallery was slightly more uniform than in the other three sections. In contrast to the variety of objects displayed on the small tables underneath the windows in the other three sections of the Kunstkammer, in the northern gallery these tables held an uninterrupted series of coral mountains.37 Hunting trophies adorned the walls between the windows on the exterior wall of the building,38 and an arrangement of serial portraits 32 See Haeutle, Christian, “Die Reisen des Augsburgers Philipp Hainhofer nach Eichstädt, München und Regensburg in den Jahren 1611, 1612 und 1613,” in Zeitschrift des historischen Vereins für Schwaben und Neuburg 8 (1881): 1–316, p. 84; Seelig, “Kunstkammer” (2008), p. 21. 33 See Seelig, “Kunstkammer” (2008), p. 21. 34 See Fickler, Inventar, pp. 189, 207, 209. This is at odds with Petzet’s assertion that the main staircase leading up to the Kunstkammer from the ground level was close to the southwestern corner, and that the northern staircase was a modern addition to the building (see Petzet, “Das ehemalige Marstall- und Kunstkammergebäude,” pp. 24, 29). 35 See Fickler, Inventar, p. 41; Seelig, “Kunstkammer” (1986), p. 104, Seelig, “Kunstkammer” (2008), p. 21. 36 The former existence of this walkway is documented by the sixteenth-century model of the city of Munich by Jakob Sandtner, and affirmed by Michael Petzet, see Petzet, “Das ehemalige Marstall- und Kunstkammergebäude,” p. 16. 37 F. 131, 188, 290, 327/28, 352, 387, 441, 509, 634, 827, 903. 38 See Seelig, “Kunstkammer” (1986), p. 131, n. 73.

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and historical scenes was displayed on these same walls.39 Fickler begins his description of the paintings in the Kunstkammer with the first portraits in a series of popes on these walls of the northern gallery, starting with Pope Gregory XIII, the incumbent pope during the time the Kunstkammer was set up.40 He then goes on to describe an arrangement was formed by medallions in plaster showing a series of Roman emperors above almost every window in this gallery,41 while on the pillars between the windows copies of Titian’s famous series of twelve Roman emperors from Mantua were displayed, accompanied by a series of ancient Roman histories underneath, again copies from Mantua based on Giulio Romano.42 Presumably below these pairs the series of papal portraits was continued, accompanied by portraits of cardinals and of other rulers or commanders. Thus, the exterior walls of this northern gallery presented an arrangement of images that paired exemplary historical rulers (the Roman emperors) with history scenes from ancient times, and linked those with more recent or contemporary secular and clerical rulers. As Peter Diemer has pointed out, some of the portraits of members of the Wittelbach and other ruling families can only have been added during Wilhelm V’s reign.43 Even if the original order had been diluted, a panorama of historical and contemporary monarchical rulership announced the Kunstkammer’s princely character to the visitor, and demonstrated the duke’s identification with the virtues embodied by ancient emperors, as well as his own ambitions to imperial status, to which the Bavarians had been aspiring since the last Wittelsbach emperor, Ludwig IV in the fourteenth century. Although Albrecht was not actively pursuing the imperial crown as his father and grandfather had, the theoretical claim to the family’s eligibility was still present, an issue to which I shall return below.44 At the same time, the portraits of popes and cardinals declared Albrecht’s allegiance with the Catholic Church. 39

It is not entirely clear to which walls Fickler is referring, but I assume with Diemer, “Gemälde,” (p. 142) that he is referring to the exterior walls of the Kunstkammer building here. 40 F. 2587, see Diemer, “Gemälde,” p. 142. 41 See Seelig, “Kunstkammer” (1986), p. 106. See F. 2598, 2605, 2614, 2622, 2635, 2649, 2656, 2663, 2672. 42 See F. 2599 and 2600, 2609 and 2610, 2617 and 2618, 2625 and 2626, 2631 and 2632, 2638 and 2639, 2645 and 2646, 2652 and 2653, 2659 and 2660, 2666 and 2667, 2675 and 2676, 2682 and 2683. See Diemer, “Gemälde,” pp. 138, 142, and Dorothea and Peter Diemer, “Mantua in Bayern? Eine Planungsepisode der Münchner Kunstkammer”, in Diemer, Münchner Kunstkammer, vol. 3: 321–329. 43 See Diemer, “Gemälde,” p. 142. 44 See Alois Schmid, “Die bayerische Königspolitik im Mittelalter und in der Frühen Neuzeit,” in aventinus bavarica 3 (Summer 2006), in aventinus, URL: http://www.aventinusonline.de/no_cache/persistent/artikel/7763/ (20 September 2012).

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In an according fashion, a long series of large full- and half-length portraits of contemporary rulers and their wives adorned the interior walls of this gallery (those facing the inner courtyard).45 Significantly, all the larger painted portraits of Albrecht in the collection were concentrated here. The full-length portraits were situated above the shelf that extended around the Kunstkammer. There were two portraits of Albrecht, accompanied by paintings showing members of the Wittelsbach family.46 Several of these fulllength portraits within this set represented members of the Habsburg family, thus demonstrating the close ties between the imperial Habsburgs and the Wittelsbachs, which had been tightened through the marriage of Albrecht V with Anna of Habsburg, Emperor Ferdinand I’s daughter.47 At least part of this portrait series must have been installed after 1589, because a few of these full-length portraits centered on peak events of the last of the French Wars of Religion. These portraits represented King Henry III of France and his wife (F. 3002–3003), along with Duke Henry of Guise (F. 3006), his brother Louis II, Cardinal of Guise (F. 3007), and his cousin Charles, the Duke of Aumale (F. 3005). As the founder of the Catholic League, the Duke of Guise got enmeshed in a conflict with the French king, which led to his and his brother’s assassination at the order of King Henry III in 1588. Only a year later, Henry III was himself murdered by a fanatic monk, an event represented within the collection by a small panel with this monk’s likeness that was appended to the frame of Henry III’s portrait (F. 3004). The whole conflict had been unleashed by the Duke of Guise’s cousin, the Duke of Aumale, who had led a rebellion in Picardy in 1587 that resulted in this confrontation between the Guises and the French throne; his portrait appropriately precedes those of the two assassinated Guises in the series (F. 3005).48 The inclusion of these portraits in the Kunstkammer demonstrates Wilhelm V’s interest in this violent escalation of confessional struggle, during a time of confessional stability in his own territory. It is unlikely that the Bavarian duke would have sided with the radicals of the Catholic League; rather, the argu45

After describing the paintings on the exterior walls, Fickler proceeds to listing “daß Gemehl außer des Einfangs so inmitten der Kunstkamer an den 4 Seitten ober und under dem gesymbs nacheinander angemacht.” He then first lists those images hanging “An der Seitten gegen Mitternacht anfahendt an dem Eckh wie man von der gaßen hinauf in die Kunstkammer geht.” (Fickler, Inventar, p. 209). This must be the interior wall, and this may also be taken as confirmation that the entrance “from the street” was on the interior side of the building. 46 F. 2995, 3011. On the series of Wittelsbach portraits clustered here, see Diemer, “Gemälde,” pp. 165–173. 47 The close ties between the two families were one of the central topics of Albert Hunger’s funeral oration in memory of Albrecht (see Orationes Funebres, pp. 49f.). 48 The inventory says “Herzog von Aumena”, which is the Duke of Aumale. On this episode of the French Wars of Religion, see Mack P. Holt, The French Wars of Religion, 1562– 1629 (Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005). pp. 121–152.

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ment this set of portraits made was likely in favor of the more moderate position of Henry III, whose portrait was thus included along with his wife’s as part of this representation of the leading ruling dynasties of Europe in this gallery – the Habsburgs and the Valois, with the Wittelsbach family at its center. The half-length portraits of various rulers and their wives were placed below the shelf, and again, the set comprises members of the Wittelsbach family in the company of clerics, Habsburgs, and a few other Catholic leaders.49 The set included two portraits that showed Albrecht at a younger age.50 Three further painted portraits of Albrecht, of which two again showed him as a young man, were placed in comparable arrangements of smaller paintings in the same gallery.51 Thus the most prominent likenesses of the collection’s founder were presented in the gallery that first received the Kunstkammer’s visitor. They presented him in the company of his closest allies, secular rulers, popes and other leading clerics, an arrangement that announced the collection’s overall function as representative of its founder, his dynasty, and his territory. The large tables in this gallery, as well as the display areas underneath the small tables below the windows, held a relatively diverse arrangement of objects, but as Seelig has observed, particularly valuable collectibles were concentrated in this section of the Kunstkammer.52 It also housed the princely collection of ancient coins in a variety of containers.53 The most valuable objects of the Kunstkammer were found in the northeastern corner, which was separated by dividers so as to form an enclosed chamber of precious objects.54 In the northwestern corner, the arrangement began with the collection of books (F. 121) and the collection of prints kept in a chest (F. 121a). Their position at the beginning of the display and the comprehensive range of subjects that they encompassed indicated that they functioned as a universal col49

F. 3021–3038. F. 3035–3036. 51 F. 3058, 3134, 3136. 52 See Seelig, “Kunstkammer” (1986), p. 106. 53 See Seelig, “Kunstkammer” (2008), p. 24; for an overview of the history of the Munich court’s coin collection, which has not yet been studied comprehensively, see Peter Diemer, “Zum Schicksal der Münzsammlung Herzog Albrechts V.,” in Diemer, Münchner Kunstkammer, vol. 3: 253–260. A manuscript inventory by Fickler has been preserved, see Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, clm 1599–1602, Descriptio numismatum. On the central importance of numismatics in humanist discourse, see Johannes Helmrath, “Die Aura der Kaisermünze. Bild-Text-Studien zur Historiographie der Renaissance und zur Entstehung der Numismatik als Wissenschaft“, in Medien und Sprachen humanistischer Geschichtsschreibung, ed. Johannes Helmrath, Albert Schirrmeister, and Stefan Schlelein (= Transformationen der Antike 11) (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2009): 99–138. 54 See Seelig, “Kunstkammer” (2008), pp. 22–24; Seelig, “Kunstkammer” (1986), pp. 104, 105. 50

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lection in itself.55 Both books and prints represented objects that could not be or were not kept in the collection in original. Accordingly, next to the book case and the chest with the prints, a large table was mostly filled with various kinds of documentary images and charts.56 Among these were maps,57 a genealogy (F. 137), a number of portraits of various rulers and of the Roman philosopher Seneca,58 along with reproductions of natural objects,59 and of natural prodigies.60 The documentary images on this table were intermingled with religious images and books,61 and some antiquarian and mythological representations.62 The other large tables in this gallery displayed a wide range of collectibles, with some of them focused on a particular theme. Thus, table no. 3 displayed mostly Jewish cult objects, while exotic objects from the New World could be seen on table no. 4, and weapons on table no. 9. Craft objects were grouped by materials: ivory objects were concentrated on tables no. 5 and 12, wooden objects on tables no. 8 and 11, and objects made of mother of pearl on table no. 6. Historical clothes (among them pieces from Albrecht’s mother, from a member of the Sforza family in Milan, and from Emperor Friedrich III’s wife63) were distributed throughout the gallery, and objects from the Holy Land were intermingled on table no. 10. Natural prodigies were dispersed throughout this gallery; they were found on table no. 2,64 on the adjacent small table close to the entrance (F. 132), on two small tables further down (F. 233– 35), as well as on the large tables no. 7 and 10.65 A chest with Roman and “oriental” coins, placed just before the entrance to the northeastern corner with its precious objects, ended the succession of tables.66 Just as the arrangement of portraits on the walls announced the princely character of the collection and served to construct arguments about the status and virtues of its founder and his dynasty, several of the tables in this gallery functioned in a similar way by displaying a combination of portraits of rulers 55 The print collection has been lost. Hints about its contents are given by Quiccheberg in his Inscriptiones. On the books and prints in the Kunstkammer, see most recently Peter Diemer, “Verloren – verstreut – bewahrt. Graphik und Bücher der Kunstkammer,” in Diemer, Münchner Kunstkammer, vol. 3: 225–252, who reproduces the relevant passage from Quiccheberg’s treatise with German translation. 56 See table no. 2, F. 135–187. 57 F. 135, 152, 169, 171. 58 F. 142, 172–175, 177. 59 F. 156, 161, 168. 60 F. 138–140, 145, 149, 150, 155. 61 F. 143, 146, 158, 159, 166, 167. 62 F. 136, 148, 183, 176. 63 No. 5 (F. 320, 321), 6 (F. 333), 8 (F. 390). 64 F. 178, 179, 181, 182. 65 F. 383, 595, 599–607 (bezoar stones etc.), 618. 66 F. 905a.

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and cardinals with religious objects and images. The most concentrated groupings of this kind were found on tables no. 7 and 11. Especially table no. 7, located exactly at the center of the northern gallery, functioned as a conceptual focal point of the entire gallery’s argumentative structure. A tall chest with shelves on either side, which displayed an arrangement of dynastic portraits behind glass prominently crowned the table. The top shelves held plaster portraits of Albrecht and his wife Anna on the one side, and of Wilhelm and his wife Renata on the other. Below, on the one side there was a set of roundels with “English portraits”, one of which, as Fickler reports, “was said to be the Queen of England”.67 Another portrait of Albrecht, this time at a young age, was included among those portraits. Two portraits of the Queen of Scotland completed the set on this side. The shelves on the other side of the chest were completely filled with small round portraits of cardinals. Further portraits of popes, cardinals, the English Queen (he is likely referring to the reigning Elizabeth I), and a Turkish bassa, were leaning against the bottom of the chest.68 This portrait chest, which rose above the other objects on this table and thus formed a visible center of the northern gallery, corresponded with the series of dynastic portraits on the interior wall of this gallery that has been outlined above. The political argument made with this arrangement is not obvious there were no particularly close relations between the Wittelsbach and the English crown. The precise meaning of this arrangement thus remains uncertain; but on a more general level we may assume that the close association of the current Wittelsbach family and the English royalty was to make a statement about the royal pretensions of the Bavarians. As has been mentioned above, these had a long tradition within this dynasty that had only once produced a Roman King and Emperor. Fifteenth-Century chroniclers of territorial history claimed that Bavarians had in fact brought forth three emperors, Charles the Great (to whom the Wittelsbachs traced their ancestry69), Henry II the Saint, and Ludwig the Bavarian.70 They also contended that Bavaria used to be a kingdom in the past, and used this claim to legitimize the independence of the territory within the Holy Roman Empire.71 Such ideas gained particular popularity in the sixteenth century after the reunification of Bavaria in 1506. Although the election of the Habsburg Ferdinand I as Roman King in 1531 had destroyed the hopes regarding the realization of the Wittelsbach’s imperial aspirations for the nearer future, the ambitions were further pursued on a propagandistic level. For instance, the celebratory publication Trophaea 67

See Fickler, Inventar, p. 62. See F. 361–364. 69 See Moeglin, Dynastisches Bewußtsein, p. 10. 70 See Moeglin, Dynastisches Bewußtsein, p. 13. 71 See Moeglin, Dynastisches Bewußtsein, pp. 15f. 68

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Bavarica, issued on the occasion of the consecration of the Jesuit church of Saint Michael’s in 1597, repeatedly lauded the Wittelsbach as a family of royal blood (sate sanguine Regum).72 The placement of a combination of Wittelsbach and English royal portraits in this main gallery of the Munich Kunstkammer may seem to be underscoring such ideas. The fact that they were complemented with a set of papal and cardinal portraits was certainly meant to emphasize the Wittelsbach’s allegiance with the Catholic Church, a demonstration that was perhaps deemed particularly necessary in the company of the Anglican English. Besides this portrait display case, the majority of objects on this central table were precious craft objects, many of which showed religious scenes.73 Some of the natural objects clearly also bore religious significance, as for instance a part of a skull “mit stain uberwachsen” (F. 379) that may be read as a memento mori, and a piece of a date tree still bearing a fruit containing the seeds (F. 380). As a typical plant from the Holy Land, this branch had meaning as a natural relic, a type of object that I discuss more extensively in Chapter 3.74 Apparently unrelated to these religious objects, an image on this table showed a view of the city of Seville (F. 375). Table no. 11 made a similar argument about the status of the Wittelsbach family. It is covered with a multitude of small portrait roundels made of various materials that represented members of both the Wittelsbach and the Habsburg families.75 With their aspirations for the crowns of the Roman King and emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, the Wittelsbachs were the natural competitors of the Habsburgs who had firmly secured their grasp of the imperial throne since the fifteenth century.76 By the time of the establishment of the Kunstkammer, the Habsburgs were also closely related to the Wittelsbach by family ties, because Albrecht V had married Ferdinand I’s daughter Anna. Table no. 11 thus demonstrated the close relationship of the Wittelsbach to the imperial family, implicitly alluding to the former’s own imperial aspirations. These are, as already on the walls of this gallery, emphasized by the interspersed placement of various portraits of ancient Roman emperors.77 The family’s allegiance with the Catholic Church is once again demonstrated by the inclusion of several portraits of popes, cardinals, and bishops in this en72

See Schmid, “Königspolitik”. F. 370, 372, 373, 374, 376. 74 The fact that reproductions of two unusually large feet of a stag (F. 383) were placed underneath this table may also been seen in the contexts laid out in Chapter 3. 75 F. 636–645, 653–655, 658–660, 662, 665f., 668, 670f., 680, 694, 710, 727, 774. 76 See Heinrich Lutz and Walter Ziegler, “Das konfessionelle Zeitalter. Erster Teil: Die Herzöge Wilhelm IV. und Albrecht V,” in Handbuch der Bayerischen Geschichte, vol. 2, Das alte Bayern. Der Territorialstaat vom Ausgang des 12. Jahrhunderts bis zum Ausgang des 18. Jahrhunderts, ed. Andreas Kraus (München 1988): 324–392, see pp. 317–323. 77 F. 687, 701, 706, 730, 756, 757. 73

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semble.78 Finally, the deeper religious convictions of the Wittelsbach family were again expressed by a multitude of religious images on this table, along with some relic-like objects and several rosaries.79 This arrangement of objects in the northern gallery strongly resembles certain groupings suggested in Quiccheberg’s treatise. In the first part of this treatise, the function and intellectual context of which I shall discuss at length in Chapter 2, Quiccheberg systematically laid out the various types of objects that were to be included in a universal princely collection. The exact relation of Quiccheberg’s treatise to the Munich collection is unclear.80 It is not always completely evident whether Quiccheberg derived an aspect of his theoretical suggestions from the situation observed at Munich, or whether Albrecht modeled his Kunstkammer on Quiccheberg’s treatise. However, since the Kunstkammer building, as has been discussed at the beginning of this chapter, was only roughly finished by 1567, with work on the interior continuing into the late 1570s, it is unlikely that by 1565, when the treatise was published, Quiccheberg would already have found anything close to the arrangement of objects described in the inventory. Quiccheberg grouped the objects of his ideal Kunstkammer into five classes, which in turn were divided into various subgroups referred to as “inscriptions”. His first class contains an ensemble of objects that focuses on the founder of the collection, his dynasty, and territory, and combines these representations with religious imagery, as well as with various other geographical, chorographical, and technological images. Although there is no evident hierarchy among Quiccheberg’s five classes, his first class seems to have been accorded a superior status as the opening group, containing objects meant to form something like the collection’s conceptual root. The selection of objects 78

F. 664, 684, 702, 711. One of the objects resembling a relic was a little box containing fourty small stones that were accompanied by a note that claimed that these were the seeds from Palestine that had been petrified in the presence of Jesus Christ. The story, which seems to be apocryphal, reads: “Item das seind die Zesen, die der Baur säet zu der Zeit, da Jesus zunegst bey Bethlehem fürgieng, und sprach zu dem Baurn was er säet, So antwort er Jesu, Er säet stain, also sein die Zesen zu stain worden, die hab ich selbs mit meinen henden vom Hl. Lannd herfürbracht, und selbs in demselbigen Ackher genommen.” (Fickler, Inventar, pp. 82f.). I shall discuss the theological context for this type of object and its function within the collection in Chapter 3. 80 Scholars tend to remain vague on this issue (see Dirk Jacob Jansen, “Samuel Quicchebergs “Inscriptiones”: de encyclopedische verzameling als hulpmiddel voor de wetenschap,” in Verzamelen. Van rariteitenkabinet tot kunstmuseum, ed. E. Bergvelt, D. J. Meijers and M. Rijnders (Heerlen 1993): 57–76, pp. 57f.; Roth, Museumslehre, p. 20; Horst Bredekamp, Antikensehnsucht und Maschinenglauben. Die Geschichte der Kunstkammer und die Zukunft der Kunstgeschichte (Berlin: Wagenbach, 1993), p. 33). See Peter Diemer’s brief discussion of the relationship of Quiccheberg’s treatise to the Munich collection in Diemer, Kunstkammer, vol. 3, pp. 346–349. 79

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on display in the northern gallery of the Munich Kunstkammer seems to have been modeled on the first class of Quiccheberg’s ordering scheme. “Images of sacred history” are the subject of his first inscription in this class. As the overall purpose of the collection was, according to the treatise, the production of knowledge, this was a declaration that all knowledge ultimately stemmed from divine origins. Thus the prevalence of religious imagery throughout the Munich collection was by no means at odds with the Kunstkammer’s central epistemological function, as knowledge in general, and thus also scientific knowledge, were inseparable from religious knowledge throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.81 The arrangement in the Munich Kunstkammer was designed to make an argument similar to Quiccheberg’s about the fundamental role of religion in regard to both power and knowledge, as religious imagery was particularly concentrated and widely dispersed throughout the northern gallery. The innumerable images depicting biblical histories in this principal section of the collection were produced in various media, and at the same time were often virtuosic craft objects. This corresponds to Quiccheberg’s specifications in inscription I.1 that the religious images in the first class should be “both painted and sculpted, or produced by some other craft”, and that they should be “of a certain consummate artifice”.82 The order of inscriptions not only declares knowledge of any kind to be rooted in God, but also exposes the source of the power of the Kunstkammer’s founder. In Quiccheberg’s treatise, the prince and his dynasty are the subject of the second and third inscriptions, immediately following the religious imagery. This is of course an assertion that like any monarchical ruler, the founder of the Kunstkammer drew his legitimization from the divine endowment to him and his dynasty of the right to rule. Quiccheberg’s second inscription lays the stress on the importance of the dynasty, calling for charts of the founder’s genealogy, while his third inscription uses portraits for a dynastic argument centering upon the present ruler. He recommends “[p]ortraits of the theater's founder, at various ages; and also of his parents, kinsmen and of his sometime predecessors in office, however many as were pre-eminent in his family or in earlier governments: at least those whose portraits could be obtained, either in bust length or in full figure.”83 The Munich Kunstkammer 81 For an illuminating case-study of the intertwinement of religion and science in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries see Michael Weichenhan, “Ergo perit coelum ...”: die Supernova des Jahres 1572 und die Überwindung der aristotelischen Kosmologie (Wiesbaden: Steiner, 2004). 82 See for instance F. 370, 372, 373, 374. 83 See Quiccheberg, Inscriptiones, Inscription I, 3: “Effigies fundatoris theatri, diversarum aetatum: tum et eius parentum, cognatorum, & quandoque antecessorum in officiis, quotquot praecipui in ea familia vel antecedente gubernatione fuerunt: quorum saltem effigies conquiri potuerunt: partim pectore tenus, partim integrae staturae.” All English translations of Quic-

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contained only a single genealogical chart, which showed the descendants of the Habsburg emperor Ferdinand I., but surely enough, it was placed within the opening northern gallery, reinforcing the impression that this gallery was designed with Quiccheberg’s first class in mind.84 The exclusive concentration of full- and half-length dynastic portraits of Albrecht and of his family in this gallery is equally in correspondence with Quiccheberg’s recommendations, and so is the fact that these portraits showed Albrecht at various ages. Moreover, there are indeed several painted portraits in the Kunstkammer that show Albrecht’s predecessors in office, namely his father Wilhelm IV,85 his grandfather Albrecht IV,86 and his uncle Ludwig X,87 and all of these were displayed in the northern gallery. Notably, there are no painted portraits of his son and successor Wilhelm V in this part of the Kunstkammer, except for one likeness of Wilhelm and his brother Ferdinand as children in a portrait of their father Albrecht V (F. 3317). This strong focus of the portrait ensemble in the northern gallery on portraits of the collection’s founder and his predecessors, and the near exclusion of likenesses of his successors, again strengthens the hypothesis that the selection of portraits here was indeed modeled upon Quiccheberg’s first class. It might also be further evidence to the fact that Wilhelm, although he was the inheritor of the Kunstkammer, was not particularly invested in expanding it, and in fashioning himself as its new owner. Although some portraits of him were on display in other parts of the collection, these were small and relatively few.88 Beyond these forms of dynastic representation, Quiccheberg’s first class contained an array of imagery of an encyclopedic character. Maps, depictions of cites from Bavaria and beyond, depictions of battles and other war-related imagery, triumphal entries and other spectacles, architectural models and models of machines, and large paintings of animals, both indigenous and exotic. As has been mentioned, some maps are found on table no. 2. in the Munich Kunstkammer’s northern section, and a few city views were dispersed throughout this gallery. The models of the largest Bavarian cities however, were relegated to the southwestern corner of the Munich Kunstkammer; they were thus the first objects the visitor would encounter in the western gallery, which focused on the representation of the Bavarian territory, as I shall discuss below. A broadsheet portraying events from the oppressive regime of the Duke of Alba in the Netherlands was placed among the documentary imagery cheberg with the kind permission of Mark Meadow and Bruce Robertson, eds, Samuel Quiccheberg, Inscriptiones vel tituli Theatri Amplissimi, Munich, 1565, in series Texts & Documents (Getty Research Institute, forthcoming). 84 F. 137. 85 F. 3014, 3033, 3137; two of these were sided by portraits of his wife (F. 3013, 3034). 86 F. 3140 (next to his wife, F. 3139). 87 F. 3012, 3132. 88 F. 356, 584, 587, 1394, 1616, 1619, 1629.

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on table no. 2 (F. 144), and further images of battles and wars are located among the ancient histories within the ensemble of emperor and cardinal portraits on the walls between the windows that has been described above.89 Among these is also the depiction of an imperial triumphal entry. Both battles and triumph scenes were part of Quiccheberg’s first class, assembled in inscriptions 6 and 7, respectively. Large paintings of animals, however, also recommended by Quiccheberg, were virtually absent from the Munich collection.90 Much of the imagery for which Quiccheberg calls in his first class is nonetheless represented in the illustrated books that were on display in the Kunstkammer’s entrance area. There were books containing descriptions of cities and countries,91 images of animals,92 depictions of military battles and books on other war-related topics,93 reproductions of architecture,94 and technological imagery.95 Similarly, and this is unfortunately not spelled out in detail in the inventory, the chest containing the print collection most likely held a similar conglomeration of encyclopedic imagery.96 Although it is not clear, and in fact rather unlikely, that Quiccheberg’s classes and inscriptions were meant as a blueprint for the actual physical arrangement of any Kunstkammer, it would appear that in the Munich collection the idea underlying Quiccheberg’s first class, its function as an overture for the collection as a whole, had provided the matrix for the design of the northern gallery as the Kunstkammer’s primary reception room. This does not imply a consistent correspondence of the recommended objects; the books and prints, for instance, which opened the northern gallery, are part of the fifth class in the treatise, which focused on various forms of representational media. The treatise, overall, offered a conceptual classification of various types of objects rather than a practical guide to physical installation. The first class’ focus on the collection’s founder, however, seems to have been perceived as a suitable model for structuring the Kunstkammer’s opening gallery.

89

F. 2611, 2626, 2632, 2639, 2646, 2660. Fickler lists a few paintings of animals (F. 2788, 2811, 2975, 3238, and 3240), most of which were located in the southern gallery. 91 F. 46, 81. 92 F. 43, 65, 77. 93 F. 50, 57, 120. 94 F. 101–116. 95 F. 117, 118, 119, 121, 96 F. 121a. On the print collection, which is lost, see Diemer, “Verloren – verstreut – bewahrt.” 90

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Dynastic Representation beyond the Northern Gallery Looking closely at the distribution of objects in the Munich Kunstkammer, it seems that there was indeed a hierarchical order as well as particular thematic focal points among the collection’s four galleries. While all the painted portraits of the members of the Wittelsbach family were concentrated in the northern gallery, all other portraits of the ducal family were either also located in this principal section, or were displayed in the Kunstkammer’s southern gallery. There are no Wittelsbach portraits in either the eastern or the western gallery, with the sole exception of a minting block for striking a portrait medal of Wilhelm V that was on display in the eastern section (F. 3392). The representation of Duke Albrecht as the collection’s founder was limited to those two large galleries, including even those objects related to him personally that were not portraits. For instance, an instrument with a compass that Albrecht had used was displayed in the Northern section (F. 832). In the southern gallery, there was a plaster cast of Albrecht’s arm (F. 1444), and two plaster reliefs that had been cast by Albrecht (F. 1486). The same choice of spatial setting was made for his parents, Wilhelm IV and Jakobäa: a hat that had belonged to Wilhelm was on display in the northern gallery, while a little chest with his wife’s sewing utensils was placed underneath one of the smaller tables towards the northeastern corner.97 Only a ring that had belonged to Albrecht V’s grandfather Albrecht IV was kept in the eastern gallery of the collection (F. 950). The prominent placement of a chest with small portraits of the ducal family in the northern gallery found its counterpart in an arrangement of portraits in the center of the southern gallery: on the large table no. 28, a large number of small round relief portraits in wax represented members of the ducal family among members of other Catholic dynasties.98 The first set of twelve portrait roundels showed Albrecht’s wife Anna and their children among the daughters of Ferdinand I of Habsburg, Anna’s father.99 Another set of 40 roundels of various sizes showed a number of contemporary clerics, Catholic rulers, and female members of ruling Catholic dynasties.100 97

F. 321, 905. The sole confessional exeption is a small portrait diptych of Elector Johann Georg of Brandenburg and his wife (F. 1620). 99 F. (1607) 1608–1619. As has been laid out in Diemer, Kunstkammer, vol. 1, p. 501, eleven of these were actually part of two different series: F. 1611, 1615 and 1617-19 belonged to a series of portraits of the five living children of Albrecht V the Anna, dated 1560, while F. 1608–1610 and 1612–1614 were part of a set of roundels portraying children of Emperor Ferdinand I and his wife Anna of Hungary, dated 1561. The 12th roundel Fickler grouped with these (F.1616) was not part of the 1560 series, as it was set on a glass instead of a copper base (Diemer, Kunstkammer, vol. 1, p. 503). 100 F. 1621–1632. 98

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Hans Belting has argued that there is an intrinsic resemblance between portraits and coats of arms, both which he characterized as media of representation that could function as substitutes for a person’s body.101 This function may be observed here and elsewhere in the Munich Kunstkammer, where the Wittelsbach family is represented not only by portraits, but also extensively by means of their arms. These adorn countless objects of various kinds throughout the entire collection. Once again, there is a clear concentration of the Bavarian arms in the northern gallery, strengthening still further the family’s presence within the northern section of the Kunstkammer as the primary reception room for the visitor. On the central table in the southern gallery, a few coats of arms accompanied the wax roundels along with further small dynastic portraits.102 Moreover, several religious images were placed among these portraits,103 one of which was crowned by an Agnus Dei, a wax roundel showing the Lamb of God, which was a sacramental object that after papal consecration was believed to protect against natural disasters, evil spirits, illness, and other perils, and was, in popular religious practice, treated like a relic.104 So once 101 See Hans Belting, Bild-Anthropologie. Entwürfe für eine Bildwissenschaft (München: Fink, 2001). Chapter 5: “Wappen und Porträt. Zwei Medien des Körpers”, pp. 115–142. 102 Emperor Maximilian II and his seal (F. 1638), the Bavarian coats of arms (F. 1639), Queen Mary of Spain, daughter of Emperor Maximilian II (F. 1641), the arms of the bishop of Trent on a booklet containing a wax image of the muses and Apollo (F. 1642), and a set of nine panel portraits of unnamed rulers (F. 1645), as well as another set of 34 panels of various sizes showing unspecified history images and portraits (F. 1646). 103 F. 1633–34, 1643–44. 104 On the Agnus Dei, see Ulrich Bock, “Kontaktreliquien, Wachssakramentalien und Phylakterien,” in Reliquien. Verehrung und Verklärung. Skizzen und Noten zur Thematik und Katalog der Ausstellung der Kölner Sammlung Louis Peters im Schnütgen-Museum, ed. Anton Legner (Köln 1989): 154–165, pp. 155f.: “Als ‘Agnus Dei’ bezeichnet man ein ovales (selten rundes) Wachsmedaillon, dem avers die Darstellung des Lamm Gottes mit Siegesfahne und der aus der Meßliturgie stammenden Umschrift: ECCE AGN(US) DEI, QUI TOL(LIT) PECC(ATA) MUNDI (= Seht das Lamm Gottes, das hinwegnimmt die Sünden der Welt) aufgeprägt ist. Revers zeigt es in der Regel die Ganzfigur eines Papstes oder eines Heiligen mit Attributen. Das Agnus Dei wurde im Bereich der Volksfrömmigkeit wie eine Reliquie behandelt. Es diente als Phylakterium (Schutzmittel) gegen den Unbill der Natur (Hagel, Sturm, Überschwemmungen), gegen Feuer, böse Geister, Krankheiten, den plötzlichen unbußfertigen Tod, schützte schwangere Frauen und jeden, der es in einer Gefahrensituation der Bedrohung entgegenhielt. Seine Weihe als wirksamstes Schutzmittel erhielt die Sakramentalie vom amtierenden Papst: Seit Martin V. (1417–31) besitzt der Pontifex Maximus das ausschließliche Weihe-Privileg, das seit etwa 1600 nach genau festgelegten Regeln ausgeübt wurde. Im Jahr der Übernahme des Heiligen Stuhles, sodann nach jeweils sieben Jahren seines Pontifikates segnete der Heilige Vater die Wachstäfelchen an einem Tag der Karwoche in der Sixtinischen Kapelle. Die anwesenden kirchlicen Würdenträger nahmen sie ‘päckchenweise’ in Empfang und verschenkten sie zumeist an Klöster ihres Ordens. Ein kleines Kontingent verblieb im Vatikan und wurde bei Gelegenheit an ausgewählte und um die Kirche verdiente Bittsteller abgegeben.”

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again, we find dynastic portraits to be intermingled with religious imagery and objects resembling relics. I discuss the issue of the inclusion of relics in this collection, and their affinity with collectibles, more generally in Chapter 3. The careful distribution of objects related to the ducal family shows that the pattern of representation of the Wittelsbach in the Kunstkammer was by no means random. As the largest rooms of display, the northern gallery was the collection’s paramount space, and southern gallery was secondary, but apparently considered to be of higher status than the shorter eastern and western sections; these two large rooms were thus solely appropriate for the representation of the ducal family through portraiture and personal objects.105

The Representation of the Bavarian Territory While the northern and, secondarily, the southern gallery of the Kunstkammer were devoted to the representation of the Wittelsbach dynasty and their allies, the Kunstkammer’s western gallery was dedicated to the representation of the Bavarian territory. For the visitor who was following what seems to have been the standard tour through the collection,106 the southwestern corner formed the opening for the display of territorial representation. Visually, this corner was dominated by an arrangement of limewood models of Bavarian cities and their fortifications (fig. 1).107 The duke commissioned these models from the Straubing wood turner Jakob Sandtner in the late 1560s, most likely specifically for display in the collection.108 They represented the five largest cities of Bavaria, as well as the fortifications of Ingolstadt; in addition, there was a representation of the city of Jerusalem. The project seems not to have been Albrecht’s initiative; rather, Sandtner produced the model of his hometown Straubing in 1568 on his own account, and then used it as a showpiece to secure the duke’s patronage.109 At Albrecht’s behest, Sandtner worked on the models of Munich, 105

On the hierarchy between the four galleries, see also Seelig, “Kunstkammer” (2008), p.

26. 106

Clockwise from the northwestern corner, see Fickler, Inventar, p. 41 and Seelig, “Kunstkammer” (2008), p. 21. 107 F. 1960–1966. 108 See Seelig, “Kunstkammer” (2008), p. 47. On Sandtner, see Alexander Freiherr von Reitzenstein, Die alte bairische Stadt in den Modellen des Drechslermeisters Jakob Sandtner, gefertigt in den Jahren 1568–1574 im Auftrag Herzog Albrechts V. von Bayern (München: Callwey, 1967); Uta Lindgren, “Bayerische Stadtmodelle des 16. Jahrhunderts und die zeitgenössische Kartographie,” in Zeitschrift für bayerische Landesgeschichte 55 (1992): 647– 658. 109 See Reitzenstein, Die alte bairische Stadt, p. 6.

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Landshut, Ingolstadt, and Burghausen from 1570 until 1574.110 Sandtner also most likely was the maker of the model of Jerusalem. It must have been produced before 1580, since in this year, the wood turner failed to enthuse his deceased patron’s successor for a model of Rhodes, and was finally taken off the court’s retirement payroll.111 Sandtner worked on each model – except for the one of Jerusalem – on site, a fact that is suggested by a payment for shipping the Ingolstadt model from there to Munich.112 Working on site was necessary in order to reach the degree of topographical accuracy that these reproductions were meant to attain. As the use of the terms “Contrafektur” and “abformierung” to describe them indicates, they were conceived as authentic portraits or miniature reproductions of the cities.113 These limewood models, which today are still useful sources of knowledge about the architecture and topography of these cities in the sixteenth century, served to represent the capitals of the five Rentämter into which Bavaria was divided. Their inclusion in the duke’s collection was both a symbolic statement about Albrecht’s power over these communities, as well as a source of topographical information. That they could actually be used as such is documented by a report from the Landzeugmeister of Ingolstadt, Freiherr von Sprinzenstein, written in 1590, which is concerned with the desolate condition of the Ingolstadt fortifications. Here, von Sprinzenstein referred to an “accurate wooden model of the fortress Ingolstadt” that the duke had requested to be brought to his chamber.114 We do not know when this model (F. 1966), which was kept in two chests underneath the large table on which the reproductions of Munich, Ingolstadt, and Landshut were displayed, was produced, but as Peter Diemer has argued, it was probably built in the context of the partial collapse of the Ingolstadt fortifications in 1575 and the plans for their repair, for which the court hired the military architect Daniel Specklin in 1575/76.115 In 1590, the model may thus have served as a document of the earlier condition of the decaying fortifications.

110

See Reitzenstein, Die alte bairische Stadt, p. 5. See Reitzenstein, Die alte bairische Stadt, p. 10. 112 See Reitzenstein, Die alte bairische Stadt, p. 8. 113 See Reitzenstein, Die alte bairische Stadt, p. 8; F. 1960. The epistemological claims inherent in the concept of contrafactum in the context of the Kunstkammer are the subject of Chapter 4. 114 See Reitzenstein, Die alte bairische Stadt, pp. 6, 10, who does not name the primary source of Freiherr von Sprinzenstein’s request for a “Hultzes gerechts Model von der Vessten Inglstatt”. 115 See Diemer, Kunstkammer, vol. 2, p. 607. Specklin also built a model for fortifications on the island of Frauenchiemsee with its Benedictine convent, which was also on display in the western gallery of the Kunstkammer (F. 1946, see Diemer, Kunstkammer, vol. 2, pp. 596f.). 111

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The southwestern corner as a whole was thus a space of territorial chorographical representation. The inclusion of the model of Jerusalem, which was distinguished from the Bavarian models by its more imaginative, less topographically accurate character,116 was a confessional political statement. The parallel display of Jerusalem and the Bavarian towns within this princely collection affirmed the legitimacy of Christian rulership over the Holy City. It thus evoked the idea of the crusade, which in the late sixteenth century was a predominantly Catholic theme, and the inclusion of this reproduction was thus one of the instances in which the Munich collection was confessionally structured, a topic that I shall discuss at greater length in Chapter 3.117 The symbolic representation of princely power is only one aspect under which these objects of miniaturized architecture can be viewed; Sandtner’s consummate artifice in creating these accurate reproductions is another aspect of their interest. Two additional objects kept in this same corner underscore this. One of these was the Bavarian duke’s copy of Emperor Maximilian I’s Ehrenpforte, which was kept underneath the table next to the model of the Ingolstadt fortifications (F. 1967). This giant woodcut had been specifically conceived for inclusion in princely collections with the intention of widely distributing a statement about Maximilian’s imperial status and personal genealogy.118 Produced in the medium of print, it was also an example of mechanical reproduction, serving as a substitute for a (in this case inexistent) building within any collection. Two clothed wooden puppets leaning against the first window of this same corner of the Munich collection thematized artificial reproduction from a different angle (F. 1968). These may have served as study models for artists concerned with the representation of figures in motion, thus they were objects of an entirely practical function, an aid to the accurate reproduction of nature. The center of the western gallery, into which the visitor would enter from the southwestern corner, was formed by a large collection of metals, minerals, and ores, some of them containing fossils. These were displayed on and under the centrally positioned tables no. 38, 39, and 40, which were juxtaposed with

116

See Reitzenstein, Die alte bairische Stadt, p. 10. Plans to invade Constantinople and conquer the Holy Land were revived by Catholic authorities during the 1580s (see Ludwig Pastor, Geschichte der Päpste im Zeitalter der katholischen Reformation und Restauration: Sixtus V., Urban VII., Gregor XIV. und Innozenz IX. (1585–1591) (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 1926), vol. 10, pp. 388–393). For the confessional implications of the crusade theme see also Matthias Pohlig, “Konfessionskulturelle Deutungsmuster internationaler Konflikte um 1600 – Kreuzzug, Antichrist, Tausendjähriges Reich,” Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte 93 (2002): 278–316. 118 See Thomas Schauerte, Die Ehrenpforte für Kaiser Maximilian I. Dürer und Altdorfer im Dienst des Herrschers (München: Deutscher Kunstverlag, 2001). 117

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a set of four large travel chests with drawers.119 Very few of these mineral specimens are identified as coming from the Bavarian territory; one of them is a group of fossils in Khehlhaimer stain (F. 1996), which is identical with the so-called Solnhofen stone, a fine-grained, flat-cleaving limestone that had long been used as roof and floor tile. It is also famous for its fossils, which are of a particularly detailed character due to the stone’s special properties.120 Solnhofen limestone is also the mineral to which Fickler refers as Aichstetter stain.121 Apart from this one group of fossils in Solnhofen limestone in the central collection of minerals in the western gallery, this stone, under either of its names, is found in the Kunstkammer in the form of art objects rather than among the mineral samples.122 Some of these samples were from places outside Bavaria, notably from the Fugger-owned silver mines at Schwaz in Tyrol.123 Most of them, however, were not specifically labeled with regard to their origin at all. The fact that some samples were kept in a small chest that bore the Bavarian coats of arms may suggest, though, that these were of Bavarian origin (F. 2076). Certainly the samples of silver, iron, and copper ores may have been found in Bavaria, but on the basis of the surviving documentation, this is impossible to ascertain. Although there were hardly any lucrative mining activities taking place in Bavaria in the second half of the sixteenth century, and none of these were in the duke’s hands, the ores in the Munich Kunstkammer certainly represented the idea expressed by the Augsburg humanist Hieronymus Wolf in a poem appended to Philipp Apian’s cartographic project of the Baierische Landtafeln, which shall be discussed below. In this poem, Wolf praised Bavaria’s mountains as “full of ores inside”.124 In reality, one of the few successful mines in sixteenth-century Bavaria was the iron mine near Aschau that had been founded by the ducal councilor Pankraz von Freyberg. The duke started to take a growing interest in this mine in the 1560s, but only Maximilian I managed to bring at least half of the property into his possession at the beginning of the seventeenth century.125 The inclusion of some pieces of slate ore found in Freyberg’s mine in this assemblage of minerals in the Kunstkammer may be understood as a token of the prince’s pretensions to this property al119

F. 1994–2093. See http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/mesozoic/jurassic/solnhofen.html (20 July 2012). 121 See Seelig, “Kunstkammer” (1986), p. 108. 122 F. 1776, 1780–1783, 1785–1787, 1789, 1796–1797. 123 These were “etliche handtstainl Swazer berckhwerckh” (F. 2072), or “12 oder 13 größer und cliener handtstainl von silber und kupfferärz Schwazer Berckhwerckh” (F. 2074). 124 Poem quoted in Auguste Gruber, Philipp Apian. Leben und Werke (München 1923), p. 52. 125 On mining in Bavaria, see Andreas Kraus, ed, Handbuch der Bayerischen Geschichte, Bd. 2, Das alte Bayern. Der Territorialstaat vom Ausgang des 12. Jahrhunderts bis zum Ausgang des 18. Jahrhunderts (München 1977), pp. 677–680, on Aschau see p. 678. 120

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ready at an earlier date, even if the pieces of ore may have been a gift from Freyberg’s inheritors.126 Whether the origin of these samples was Bavarian or not, it is still clear that they had an epistemological function. Even though some of them were ores of precious metals such as silver and gold, they were not simply collected as more or less precious natural objects with an aesthetic or a curiosity appeal, but were representations of geological knowledge. This is evident from the fact that a number of these samples are accompanied by “brobzettln”, i.e. by accompanying labels that identified their content of precious metal.127 The fundamental interest the dukes displayed in matters of mining, and their lingering hopes to tap their territory’s resources in this way are also confirmed by archival sources. For instance, in 1584, Wilhelm V wrote a letter to Elector August of Saxony, asking him to send a copy of the Saxon mining regulations.128 Wilhelm admits that he did “not have or know of” any mines in his own territory, but declares that he was nonetheless interested in the topic, and was hoping to gain some “experience” from learning about practices abroad. In exchange, he offered to share with the elector any knowledge that he might have and that might be of interest to August. This letter shows that the Munich dukes were always probing the possibilities of tapping the territory’s natural resources in a profitable way, a desire that was also the motivation for a more general interest in knowing the various kinds of those resources. The interest in such knowledge is the basis of the mineral collection within the Munich Kunstkammer.

126 The entry in the inventory reads: “schiferärz, so in deßen von Freybergs Eysenberckhwerckh nahet bey Aschaw gegen Marquartstain zu, gefunden worden.” (F. 2093). Von Freyberg himself had fallen into disgrace with the court as a leading figure in the alleged conspiracy at the Ingolstadt diet (an event to be discussed below), and he died in 1565 (see Lutz and Ziegler, “Das konfessionelle Zeitalter,” pp. 375–79). – The topographic origin of another piece of ore cannot not be determined, as no mine of this name is known in Austria today: “ain schöner handtstain von dignem Silber, Christall und anderm Erz, welcher handtstain im Jar 1583 auf dem Underweisischen Berckwerckh gebrochen worden.” (F. 2012; see Diemer, Kunstkammer, vol. 2, p. 621.) 127 F. 2049, 2073, 2082. See Diemer, Kunstkammer, vol. 2, p. 628. 128 “Obwol wir diser Zeit in vnnseren Lannden nichts von Perckhwerckh haben oder wissen, Yedoch wollten wir dannocht von merer erfarung willen, gern wissen, wie es an ain vnnd anndern ortt gehallten werde. Belanngt demnach vnnser ganntz freundtlich bitten an Eur L. Sy geruhen vnns zue Perckhwercks ordnungen, wie sy die vnnderschidlich haben vnnd gebrauchen, durch gleichlauttende Abschrifften vnbeschwerdt in vertrauen, bej disem vnnserem Currier zukhommen zulassen, daran erweisen sy vnns sonnder angenems freundtlichs gefallen, mit dem gegen erbieten, solches nit allain vmb E. L. freundtlich zuverdienen, sonnder so sy bey vnns dergleichen jr gefelligs wissen, E. L. dasselb, auf jr begern, ebenmessig vnabschlegig mit freundtlichem willen widerfaren zelassen. Datum Ingolstadt den. 21. Septembris. Anno d. 84.” (Sächsisches Staatsarchiv, Hauptstaatsarchiv Dresden, Loc. 8520/1, fol. 16r.)

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Within this collection of minerals, a special case is presented by the gold washed from the sediments of the rivers Isar and Danube in Bavaria. The Munich archives preserve extensive correspondences between the dukes and the local authorities that show their struggle to gain control over those precious finds. The correspondence started in 1574 and went on at least until 1581; it shows that Albrecht and then Wilhelm fought a constant battle against unauthorized gold panning, urging their local administrators to enforce their sovereign right to these products of the nature of their territory.129 Occasionally, they managed to obtain small quantities of this gold, samples of which were included in the Kunstkammer. According to the inventory, thirteen pieces of it were kept in the bottom drawer of the fourth travel trunk, locked away in a small chest lined with crimson red satin.130 Although tucked away in the bottom drawer of a trunk, the display chest for these samples was quite lavish, and the fact that it was locked not only indicates its material value, but also its symbolic importance as a proof that the duke had prevailed in the conflict concerning the rights to the gold in his territory’s rivers. Included in his collection, princely possession of this gold was affirmed and demonstrated, with the access to it restricted fourfold: firstly within the territory, then within the Kunstkammer as an enclosed space to which only the privileged had access, in the drawer of a trunk, and finally by the seclusion in the locked chest.131 A parallel struggle went on for pearls found in the territory. The Kunstkammer contained a number of pearls from the river Ylz, which were kept in a small chest on a table in the northern gallery.132 The correspondence about pearls shows that the duke specifically inquired with his nobles out in the countryside when he had heard about finds of pearls.133 On one occasion in 1578, Wilhelm, who seems to have been invested in this matter even before his father’s death, wrote to one of the territorial administrators in order to ob129

The correspondence regarding the Waschgold is found in the Libri Antiquitatum, see Hauptstaatsarchiv München, Abt. III, Kurbayern Äußeres Archiv 4853–55, passim. 130 “ain Drühel inwendig mit Carmesin Attlaß underzogen, außwendig mit geflochtnem stroh, auf schwarzem Sammat von zugwerckh genäet, mit einem schlößl und schlüßl, in dem drüchel steht ein gestattel, darinnen ligen 13 khügelein clainer und größer von waschgoldt, auß der Yser und Thonaw” (F. 2042). 131 Another sample of Waschgold may have been the set of 13 ‘water stones’ that were placed on top of the same trunk (F. 2028, see Diemer, Kunstkammer, vol. 2, p. 624). 132 F. 1010, on table 13, which according to Seelig’s reconstruction was the last table in the northern gallery before the northeastern corner. 133 There is, for instance, a letter from the nobleman Hans Christoph Pfaller to Duke Wilhelm written on 24 February 1584, in which he responds to an inquiry from the duke, denying the presence of pearls in the creek on his domain, but promising to send any pearls he would find to the court. (Hauptstaatsarchiv München, Kurbayern Äußeres Archiv 4855, fol. 203r).

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tain a particularly large pearl that a peasant was said to possess.134 During the first year of his reign, Wilhelm issued a mandate regulating pearl fishing in the territory and instructed his administrators to send pearls that were found to him.135 The table with natural prodigies from the Bavarian territory that I shall discuss in Chapter 3 was another instance of territorial representation within the western section of the Kunstkammer, situated directly adjacent to the tables and chests containing the mineral samples.136 It is not accidental that during the period in which he founded the Kunstkammer, Albrecht undertook a major project of territorial representation that may be seen as a related enterprise. This was the cartographic representation of Bavaria on which the mathematician Philipp Apian was commissioned to work in the 1550s. Between 1554 and 1561, Apian traveled the territory to take measurements.137 The first result of this project was a very large map of Bavaria that was painted by the court painter Bartholomäus Refinger; it was finished around 1563/64 and then hung in the ducal library.138 This rather spectacular representation was not the only part of the cartographic project. 134

See Hauptstaatsarchiv München, Kurbayern Äußeres Archiv 4854, fol. 247r. See Diemer, Kunstkammer, vol. 1, p. 332. On Wilhelm’s quest for pearls from the territory, see Berndt Ph.Baader, Der bayerische Renaissancehof Herzog Wilhelms V. (1568– 1579). Ein Beitrag zur bayerischen und deutschen Kulturgeschichte des 16. Jahrhunderts (Leipzig, Straßburg 1943), p. 251; Georg Ferchl, “Bayerische Behörden und Beamte 15501804,” in Oberbayerisches Archiv für vaterländische Geschichte 53 (1908/12): V–XXXVIII, 1–1516, p. 304; Karl Heinz Reger, Perlen aus bayerischen Gewässern (München 1981), pp. 44, 115. 136 F. 2094–2119. 137 See Christoph Schöner, Mathematik und Astronomie an der Universtiät Ingolstadt im 15. und 16. Jahrhundert (Berlin 1994), p. 420. The Hofzahlamtsrechnungen record payments related to the map of Bavaria from 1558 (however, some of the earlier volumes are missing) until 1563/64, with a final payment of 2,500 fl. made to Apian for the completion of the map in 1564/65 (Hauptstaatsarchiv München, Kurbayern Hofzahlamt 9, fol. 328r: “Bezalt den 5 Aprilis Anno d. 64 Philippo Appiano zu völliger Entrichtung der gemachten Bayrischen Mappa vermig hienebenliegennder zetl 2500 fl.”). Philipp Apian and his projects are relatively well researched; the most extensive documentation is still found in the unpublished dissertation by Auguste Gruber (see Gruber, Philipp Apian, pp. 36-39 for the financial documentation; see furthermore Siegmund Günther, “Peter und Philipp Apian, zwei deutsche Mathematiker und Kartographen. Ein Beitrag zur Gelehrtengeschichte des XVI. Jahrhunderts,” in Abhandlungen der Königlichen Böhmischen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften, (Prag 1882 (Nachdrucke Amsterdam 1967 und Osnabrück 1985)); Max Gasser, Studien zu Philipp Apians Landesaufnahme (München 1903); Otto Hartig, “Aus der Werkstätte Philipp Apians,” Das Bayerland 29 (1918): 325-33; Hans Wolff, ed, Philipp Apian und die Kartographie der Renaissance (Weißenhorn: A. H. Konrad, 1989); Christoph Schöner, Mathematik und Astronomie an der Universtiät Ingolstadt im 15. und 16. Jahrhundert (Berlin 1994), pp. 415–424. 138 See Gruber, Philipp Apian, pp. 39–44. 135

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From the beginning, Albrecht had a printed version in mind, one that would be suitable for wider distribution.139 Apian eventually published the Bairischen Landtafeln in woodcut embellished by chorographical illustrations executed by Jost Amman.140 The idea for this cartographic project was related to Albrecht’s investment in the publication of the first printed edition of the Annales Boiorum, the famous work of territorial history by Johannes Aventinus, Wilhelm IV’s court historiographer, which had so far remained unprinted due to the confessionally questionable stance of their author.141 Albrecht commissioned this edition (purged of confessionally problematic passages) from the Ingolstadt professor Hieronymus Ziegler in 1554, and it may also be seen as a project of territorial representation prefiguring the foundation of the Kunstkammer.142 A map of the duchy of Württemberg that he had seen upon the occasion of a visit to Duke Christoph in Stuttgart in 1554 inspired him to undertake a similar cartographic project, which he envisioned to be published either in conjunction with Aventinus’s chronicle or independently of it.143 Ultimately, Apian’s Landtafeln turned out to be a much larger project than Albrecht might initially have planned and were not published merely as an appendix to Aventinus’s work. As maps, they were so detailed and accurate that they most likely did serve practical purposes of territorial administration and tax collection, as Sigmund Günther has suggested.144 While Apian’s large map was displayed in the ducal library instead of being included in the Kunstkammer proper, we may nonetheless see it as a part 139

See Gruber, Philipp Apian, pp. 44–45. See Gruber, Philipp Apian, pp. 46–48. 141 On Aventinus, see Gerald Strauss, Historian in an Age of Crisis. The Life and Work of Johannes Aventinus 1477-1534 (Cambridge, Mass.1963); Alois Schmid, “Die historische Methode des Johannes Aventinus,” in Blätter für deutsche Landesgeschichte 114 (1994): 338–395. 142 See Johannes Aventinus, Annalium Boiorum libri septem Ioanne Auentino Autore (Ingolstadt: Weissenhorn, 1554). On Albrecht’s involvement in this editions see K. von Reinhardstöttner, “Zur Geschichte des Humanismus und der Gelehrsamkeit in München unter Albrecht V,” in Jahrbuch für Münchener Geschichte 4 (1890): 45–174, pp. 75 and 142, n. 215. See also Hauptstaatsarchiv München, Kurbayern Hofzahlamt 1561, fol. 363r, Hofkammerprotokolle 1574, fol. 167r., and Kurbayern Hofzahlamt 4 (1558/59), fol. 535r. 143 See Gruber, Philipp Apian, Beilage II (p. 3). 144 See Günther, “Peter und Philipp Apian,” p. 585. Gruber rejects this by quoting the duke’s initial idea of commissioning a map to accompany the Annales, as well as a later statement by a Frankfurt printer who published a reprint of Aventin’s work in 1566, and who also refers his readers to Apian’s forthcoming map as an excuse for not reproducing Aventin’s own map of Bavaria (see Gruber, Philipp Apian, pp. 33f.). Neither of these quotes, however, contradict Günther’s argument for a practical function that the Landtafeln, which turned out much more elaborate and scientific than originally planned, eventually may have served. 140

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of the conceptual whole of the collection because, according to Quiccheberg’s theoretical scheme, the library was understood as an integral part of a theatrum. Moreover, a lavish reproduction of Apian’s Landtafeln by Peter Weinher, engraved, printed on vellum and bound in red leather, was kept inside the Kunstkammer among the books in the entrance area (F. 81).145 The woodblocks that Apian had used to print his Landtafeln, along with the printing blocks of chorographical illustrations and coats of arms of the Bavarian nobility that he had intended for his own project of a Topographia Bavariae (which remained unpublished until the nineteenth century), were kept on a table located close to the southwestern corner in the collection’s western gallery (F. 1969, 1970).146 These blocks had only been added to the collection after Apian’s death in 1590, when his wife sold them to Wilhelm V.147 Nonetheless, the fact that these blocks were placed in the Kunstkammer shows that the collection with its focus on territorial representation was viewed as an appropriate site for them. The blocks not only had symbolical value as tools of territorial representation, but their possession was a matter of control over the publication of the maps and chorographical and genealogical images. Access to accurate maps of the territory seems to have been regarded as a matter of state security, as the hesitant attitude of the Saxon elector August shows, who was reluctant to allow free publication of territorial cartography and claimed possession of printing blocks for maps as soon as he heard of their existence.148 In contrast to him, Albrecht initially seems to have viewed this issue with less concern. Apian was allowed to publish the Landtafeln on his own account, and – which was likely the reason for Albrecht’s ‘generosity’ in this matter – at his own cost. Besides the financial component, this is evidence of the trust that Albrecht placed in the Ingolstadt mathematician. He trusted that the blocks 145

See Diemer, Kunstkammer, vol. 1, p. 25. See Diemer, Kunstkammer, vol. 2, pp. 608–610. The Topographia was only partially published later (Edmund Freiherr von Oefele, “Philipp Apians Topographie von Bayern und bayerische Wappensammlung,” in Oberbayerisches Archiv 39 (1880): 1–497). On the project, which was not a ducal commission, and its partial later editions see Gruber, Philipp Apian, pp. 139–43. 147 Transcriptions of the documents related to this transaction can be found in Gruber, Philipp Apian, pp. 70–79. 148 Two letters from August, dating from 1567 and 1568 respectively, and addressed to independent cartographers are evidence of his reservations about the publication of maps of his territory. In the second letter, August claims possession of the printing block even before publication: “da wir diese Mappen also öffentlich zu publiciren zu lassen, allerlei Bedenken tragen, begehren wir, Du wollest uns den geschnittenen Stock, gegen Vergleichung der Kosten, so darauf zu schneiden gegangen, zukommen lassen” (Karl von Weber, Anna, Churfürstin zu Sachsen, geboren aus Königlichem Stamm zu Dänemark: ein Lebens- und Sittenbild aus dem sechzehnten Jahrhundert (Leipzig: Tauchnitz, 1865), pp. 329f., for this quote see p. 330). 146

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were in faithful hands, and that he could order reprints at his convenience. Indeed he repeatedly ordered individual copies of maps from the Landtafeln, which he then had illuminated by a painter, and possibly used as gifts.149 However, with Apian’s expulsion from the territory on confessional grounds 1569, the duke lost access to the blocks.150 He made an attempt to buy them back from Apian around 1578 for the relatively large sum of 800fl., but Apian, still hoping to publish another edition, turned the duke down.151 As a consequence, in 1579, eleven years after the Landtafeln’s first publication, Albrecht asked Peter Weinher to reproduce the maps as copper plate engravings. This time, perhaps having learned from the consequences of the way he handled the matter with Apian, Albrecht immediately brought the plates into his possession and also prohibited the sale of prints.152 Peter Weinher was even incarcerated for half a year because he dared to give away copies of the maps to people outside Bavaria without the duke’s permission.153 The abovementioned engraved reproduction of the Landtafeln (F. 81) is a copy of Weinher’s work. The fact that Apian’s woodblocks for both the Landtafeln and his Topographia Bavariae were included in the Kunstkammer as soon as they entered the duke’s possession is a statement of princely control over the representation of the Bavarian territory, which was the principal focus of this collection as a whole.

The Centralization of Princely Power Rather than just a collection of precious and curious objects, the Munich Kunstkammer functioned as a site for dynastic representation, as a repository of territorial knowledge, and a display of princely control over the unified and unwaveringly Catholic state of Bavaria. It is not coincidental that the Bavarian foundation of a Kunstkammer, a kind of collection enjoying popularity at courts throughout Europe, was undertaken at this particular time, and with this particular functional focus.

149

See Gruber, Philipp Apian, pp. 49f. See Gruber, Philipp Apian, pp. 56f. 151 This is documented by one of the letters that Apian’s widow wrote to the duke during the negotiations about the set of woodblocks: “Soviel erstlich die grossen Mödl oder Furm anlangt, ist meinem Hauswirth Seligen ungefähr vor ain 12 Jahren allhie vom Hoff ain 800 gulden angeboten worden. Aber er derselben Zeit noch im Willen gewest wiederumb zu drucken lassen, wie er dann auch schon ain Dail mit Babier mit schweren Unkosten versehen gewusst. Aber laider durch Schwachheit und andere angelegenheit verhindert worden.” (quoted from Gruber, Philipp Apian, p. 74). 152 See Gruber, Philipp Apian, p. 57. 153 See Gruber, Philipp Apian, p. 57. 150

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Ever since the reunification of Upper and Lower Bavaria in 1506 under Albrecht IV, the Wittelsbach dukes had worked towards consolidating their power as the central territorial authority, which had consistently been challenged by the estates as the local rulers over counties and smaller plots of land. In order to avoid another separation of the territory, Albrecht V’s grandfather Albrecht IV had decreed that his elder son Wilhelm IV was to hold power alone over the united Bavaria, thus ending the traditional practice of dividing the territory between the two eldest sons. However, Wilhelm’s mother, in collaboration with her brother Emperor Maximilian I and the Bavarian estates, forced Wilhelm to share power with his younger brother Ludwig X. This arrangement considerably weakened the centralization of princely power pursued by Wilhelm, and gave more influence to the estates.154 The conflict was eventually resolved by a rather nominal division of power, which nonetheless was a trauma to Bavarian ducal authority, one that Albrecht V was determined to overcome. Albrecht V’s reign was marked by the effort to establish himself as the unchallenged ruler over the indivisible state of Bavaria. The foundation of the Kunstkammer was a project intimately related to this process that involved the rapid expansion of the court and a restructuring of territorial administration.155 Thus, it was perhaps not entirely coincidental that the beginning of construction work on the Kunstkammer building began in the year of the apex and resolution of Albrecht’s conflict with the Bavarian estates. This conflict, in which financial and confessional issues were inextricably intertwined, had been developing since the 1550s.156 While the estates, during this time, were able to expand their power, Albrecht started to undertake extensive reforms of territorial administration in order to consolidate his central princely authority. The main objectives of these reforms were to gain access to existing financial resources and to develop new sources of income for his rapidly expanding court.157 Traditionally, the court’s primary source of funding was the dues paid by the territorial estates, so Albrecht’s expanding financial needs necessarily led to tensions with the nobility. Part of the strategy he pursued was to integrate the estates into territorial administration. So Albrecht’s first major act in this process of centralizing and rationalizing administrative processes 154

See Lutz and Ziegler, “Das konfessionelle Zeitalter,” pp. 297–300. On the expansion of the court, see Kramer, “Entstehung,” with further literature; on the centralization of territorial administration, see Maximilian Lanzinner, Fürst, Räte, Landstände. Die Entstehung der Zentralbehörden in Bayern 1511–1598 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1980). 156 See Lutz and Ziegler, “Das konfessionelle Zeitalter,” pp. 375–79. 157 See Lutz and Ziegler, “Das konfessionelle Zeitalter,” p. 378. For a more extensive discussion of the so-called “Adelsverschwörung, see Christian Wieland, “Die bayerische Adelsverschwörung von 1563. Ereignis und Selbstdeutungen,” in zeitenblicke 4 (2005), URL: http://www.zeitenblicke.de/2005/2/Wieland/index_html (22 July 2012). 155

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was the foundation of the Hofkammerrat in 1550, which was largely composed of members of the estates and meant to act as a central authority of financial administration that was independent of both the duke and the Hofrat.158 Albrecht had inherited serious amounts of debt, and his growing interest in collecting and a lavish courtly lifestyle increasingly aggravated this situation.159 In the face of this situation, the Hofkammerrat soon showed that it did not see its role to be merely the execution of ducal orders, but they were determined, in loyalty towards their own peers, to watch over the ducal finances in a responsible manner.160 In 1557, they issued a Denkschrift, in which they castigated Albrecht’s luxurious lifestyle and spendthrift attitude, particularly chiding his collecting activities with specific reference to the bad example provided by certain merchants – most likely a reference to the financially detrimental influence Hans Jakob Fugger was exerting on the duke.161 As worried as the estates were about Albrecht’s collecting expenses already in 1557, they had no inkling of what was yet to come. Albrecht countered the admonition with a counter-evaluation written by no other than Hans Jakob Fugger, and swiftly moved on with his spending, leading towards the establishment of a universal collection.162 The Kunstkammer was thus a means to show the estates that despite their role in territorial administration, he was still the princely sovereign and able to spend large sums on a museum that outdid any territorial prince’s project of the representation of knowledge, power, and wealth seen so far in the Holy Roman Empire. Thus the Kunstkammer, with its emphasis on the representation of territorial knowledge and princely heritage and power, not only functioned as an instrument to assert Albrecht’s status among the other territorial rulers of the Empire but also served domestic politics. The territorial diet at Ingolstadt in 1563 was an occasion for the duke to solicit funding from the estates. These requests were usually answered with demands for greater religious freedom, as many members of the nobility were adherents of the Lutheran faith. This year at Ingolstadt, the situation came to a head when a small group of nobles demanded a legalization of the Augsburg Confession, i.e. the right to practice Lutheranism freely in the territory. This was effectively an assault on the prince’s authority to determine the territory’s confessional orientation that had been guaranteed at the imperial diet at Augsburg in 1555, and thus equaled a demand for his submission to the power of

158

See Lanzinner, Fürst, Räte, Landstände, pp. 32–38. See Lanzinner, Fürst, Räte, Landstände, pp. 39–55, esp. 50–52. 160 See Lanzinner, Fürst, Räte, Landstände, p. 38. 161 The Denkschrift is published in Riezler, “Würdigung”; on Albrecht’s collecting habits, see esp. p. 126. 162 See Lanzinner, Fürst, Räte, Landstände, p. 55, n. 136. 159

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the estates.163 Albrecht, who had so far followed a strategy of confessional appeasement, at this point lost his patience. Accusing this group of nobles, among which the above-mentioned ducal councilor Pankraz von Freyberg played a leading role, of a conspiracy, he had them incarcerated. Although they were all eventually released, this mighty demonstration of ducal authority had the effect of permanently staunching any serious opposition from the estates in confessional matters.164 From this point on, the Bavarian duke strictly enforced the Catholic faith, and was the first German prince to implement the confessional doctrines that had just been finally laid down by the Council of Trent.165 The assertion of central princely authority was thus closely connected to confessional matters; scholars have correspondingly argued that the confessional question, rather than purely a matter of Albrecht’s personal conviction, was also an instrument in this process of consolidating princely authority and of building a centralized Bavarian territorial state; an argument grounded in the larger concept of early modern ‘confessionalization’.166 Keeping in check the desire for confessional freedom on the part of his estates was an important means of asserting his power and securing support from the Roman church, which through the order of the Jesuits helped him expand his control over the populace through education and pastoral supervision. It is therefore significant to observe how confessional issues were played out in this collection that was founded in conjunction with the political developments sketched above. The close juxtaposition of dynastic portraits with those of clerical authorities, as well as with objects of religious significance such as rosaries and relics described above, needs to be viewed in this topical context, as do the confessional arguments made by the collection of Bavarian natural prodigies that I discuss below in Chapter 3. These dynastic and confessional arguments are inseparable from the representation of knowledge about the territory of a more pragmatic kind. To Albrecht, the geographical and chorographical projects by Apian and Sandtner, and the collection of samples of resources em163

See Lutz and Ziegler, “Das konfessionelle Zeitalter,” p. 382; on the diet in Ingolstadt, see also Karl-Ludwig Ay, “Der Ingolstädter Landtag von 1563 und der bayerische Frühabsolutismus,” in Zeitschrift für bayerische Landesgeschichte 41 (1978): 401–416. 164 See Lutz and Ziegler, “Das konfessionelle Zeitalter,” pp. 382–384. 165 See Lutz and Ziegler, “Das konfessionelle Zeitalter,” pp. 387–392. 166 See Alois Schmid, “Zur Konfessionspolitik Herzog Albrecht V. von Bayern,” in Forschungen zur bayerischen Geschichte, ed. Dieter Albrecht (Frankfurt a. M. et al. 1993): 99– 114; Wieland, “Die bayerische Adelsverschwörung von 1563,” p. 36. The seminal texts on the paradigm of confessionalization are Wolfgang Reinhard, “Zwang zur Konfessionalisierung? Prolegomena zu einer Theorie des konfessionellen Zeitalters,” in Zeitschrift für historische Forschung 10 (1983): 257–277 and Heinz Schilling, “Die Konfessionalisierung im Reich. Religiöser und gesellschaftlicher Wandel in Deutschland zwischen 1555 und 1620,” in Historische Zeitschrift 246 (1988): 1–45.

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bedded in the territory’s soil and found in its rivers provided knowledge needed for the exploitation of the riches that his territory held, aiding him in his movement towards ever more comprehensive princely control.

Chapter 2

A Topical Collection for Princely Purposes: Samuel Quiccheberg’s Conception of the Kunstkammer and the Intellectual Milieu of the Court In 1561/62, Samuel Quiccheberg, a Flemish physician then working as a librarian for Hans Jakob Fugger, made several trips to Munich, staying at a local inn at the expense of Albrecht V.1 Quiccheberg had been in Fugger’s service since about 1558, and it had likely been through the intensifying contacts between Hans Jakob and Albrecht that he was introduced to the Bavarian duke.2 While Quiccheberg had certainly visited the court before (he reports having been a guest at Albrecht’s court since 15593), the fact that the visits of 1561/62 are documented in the financial records of the court, the Hofzahlamtsrechungen, indicates their more official nature, and possibly his involvement in the planning of what was to be the first truly universal princely collection north of the Alps.4 Albrecht had been collecting since the beginning of his reign in 1550, but his activities in this field had gathered considerable momentum since about 1557 – a development not coincidentally paralleling

1 Quiccheberg’s trips to Munich are documented in the Hofzahlamtsrechnungen of 1561– 163, where in three instances payments to a local innkeeper are recorded for Quiccheberg and once also for Fugger’s coachman. See Hauptstaatsarchiv München, Kurbayern Hofzahlamt Bd. 6 (2 February 1561 to 2 February 1562): “Mer bezalt Venedicten Andorffer auslosung für doctor Quickhlperger 1 fl. 6 ß 5 dl; 371” (fol. 370r); “Mer jme [Andorffer] auslosung für Doctor Quickhelperger 2 fl. 2 ß 29 dl.” (fol. 371r); Kurbayern Hofzahlamt Bd. 7 (2 Feb. 1562–2 Feb. 1563): “Jtem bezallt Venedictn Andorffer auslosung für Doctor Quickhlperger. 4 fl. 2 ß 26 dl.; Mer bezalt ime für Jacoben Fuggers Gutschi. 1 fl. 2 ß 17 dl.” (fol. 338v). 2 On Hans Jakob’s contact with Albrecht, see Hartig, “Kunsttätigkeit,” p. 171. On Quiccheberg’s function as Hans Jakob Fugger’s librarian, see Otto Hartig, Die Gründung der Münchener Hofbibliothek durch Albrecht V. und Johann Jakob Fugger (München: Verlag der Königlich-Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1917), pp. 19, 228. It is unclear on what basis Hartig reports that this introduction took place in 1553 (see ibid., p. 228). 3 See Quiccheberg, Inscriptiones, Admonitio seu consilium (Translation, Meadow and Robertson, Quiccheberg, Inscriptiones). 4 We know from occasional remarks in the Hofzahlamtsrechnungen that Albrecht funded certain people out of his personal budget, and these expenses would not be reported in detail in the official financial records.

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the duke’s intensified contact with Hans Jakob Fugger.5 It was in the early 1560s when his plan to erect a separate building to house a universal collection must have been evolving, as construction work on this project was to start in 1563.6 It was probably shortly after this that Quiccheberg moved permanently to the court.7 From then until his early death in 1567, he was likely the principal conceptual force shaping this project, the completion of which he would not live to see.8 His treatise Inscriptiones vel tituli theatri amplissimi, 5 The financial records of the court show a slight increase in expenses for luxury goods, building activities, and collectibles since 1551 (see Hartig, “Kunsttätigkeit,” p. 169); this already led to the Denkschrift that Albrecht’s councilors addressed to him in 1557, castigating his proclivity for a luxurious lifestyle (see Riezler, “Würdigung”), an admonition that apparently fell on deaf ears (see Hartig, “Kunsttätigkeit,” p. 171). On Fugger’s role for Albrecht’s collecting activities in general, see Mark Meadow, “Hans Jacob Fugger and the Origins of the Wunderkammer,” in Merchants & Marvels: Commerce, Science, and Art in Early Modern Europe, ed. Pamela H. Smith and Paula Findlen (New York 2002), 182–200. 6 On the construction history of the Kunstkammer, see Seelig, “Kunstkammer” (2008), pp. 1–3, 10–12, and Seelig, “Kunstkammer” (1986), pp. 101–103. 7 According to Heinrich Pantaleon, Quiccheberg accompanied Albrecht on official journeys since 1562, and then undertook a trip to Italy in 1563. Upon returning “home”, he wrote, among other things, the Inscriptiones, and at the time of Pantaleon’s visit to Munich in 1565, Quiccheberg was in the position to give the Basle scholar a tour of the ducal collections: “Wie er an Herzog Albrecht hoff kommen/ hatt er jhm fürgenommen den Teutschen adel auß zustreichen/ die alten geschlecht zu ergründen/ und die wappen fürzustellen/ welches jm auch umm so viel leichter zu thun/ weil jn der Fürst offt mit sich zu der Fürsten versamlung gefueret/ da er moegen allen sachen fleißig nachfrag haben/ wie dann solliches erstlich zu Prag als Maximilian gekroenet/ und haernach im 1562 jar zu Franckfurt beschehen/ als er Roemischer Koenig erkoren. Wie auch das Concilium zu Triendt versamlet/ was Samuel zugegen/ und begeret in vieler herren kundtschafft zu kommen. Auff solliches hat er im 1563 jar ein reiß gehn Rom gethon/ und fast gantze Italien besichtiget/ damit er viel antiquiteten zusamen brechte. Wie er wider heim kommen/ hatt er die Biblischen Apophtegmata und Stratagemata beschriben/ und zu dem truck geordnet/ darzu ein kurtz Theatrum gestellet/ in welchem die gantze Philosophey begriffen. Als ich in meiner reißfart deß 1565 jar gehn München kommen/ hatt er mir alle freündtschafft erzeiget/ und in deß Fürsten neüwen schloß seine studia und mancherley antiquiteten geoffenbaret.” (Heinrich Pantaleon, Der dritte und letste Theil Teutscher Nation Heldenbuch (Basel: Niclaus Brylinger, 1570), p. 506). There is a slight discrepancy between Pantaleon’s report and what Quiccheberg says in his biography of Albrecht that he contributed to the same publication: “[...] Er hielte viel auff die studia/ wie solliches sein neüwe wol gerüstete liberey/ und das er allezeit gelehrte leüt by sich am hoff gehalten/ genugsam bezeüget: wie ich im 1565 jar zu München vor jm erschinen/ hat er mich wol gehalten/ und gnedigklich lassen hinscheiden.” (448f.) This suggests that Quiccheberg only came (moved?) to the court in 1565; however, this text is clearly edited by a later hand, as the reference to Quiccheberg’s death shows, and whenever he actually moved to the court, it is clear that his ideas were available to the duke since the late 1550s. 8 Quiccheberg died in 1567, and was buried at Albrecht’s expense (see Bayerisches Hauptstaatsarchiv München, Kurbayern Hofzahlamt Bd. 12 (2 February 1567 to 2 February 1568): “Vnchossten wegen besinckhnus doctor quickhlpergers.16 fl. 2 ß 10 dl.” (fol. 351r). The Kunstkammer building was mostly finished by 1567, but work on its interior continued at

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in which he laid out his precepts for the foundation of a universal collection, was written while he was in residence at the Munich court. Quiccheberg repeatedly stresses that the court of Albrecht V was the principal site of the studies underlying his treatise: “Furthermore, for some years now, I have profited from a familiarity with and access to the museums of the illustrious Prince Albrecht, Duke of Bavaria, and to the incredible abundance of images long ago brought together in Munich, and prior to that at Landshut. To be sure, I use these as much in all my researches as I do [through being] immersed in my attentive perceptions.”9 His recurrrent references to Albrecht’s collections as well as the fundamental congruencies between his theoretical scheme and the Munich Kunstkammer seem to be evidence that Quiccheberg indeed exerted considerable influence on the formation of this collection. The most obvious correspondence is that objects representing the territory of the collection’s founder figure prominently in Quiccheberg’s enumeration of types of collectibles, and as has been demonstrated in the previous chapter, the Munich Kunstkammer had an extraordinary emphasis on the representation of the Bavarian territory and its ruling dynasty. This was likely a consequence of the particular focus of Quiccheberg’s ideal theatrum. On the most obvious level, this focus was a strategy for securing the duke’s patronage. The prominent presence of local objects (juxtaposed with the many exotica) in his treatise is closely linked to his central argument regarding the utility of a Kunstkammer for the administration of the state. As we shall see, the utility Quiccheberg envisioned was primarily epistemological – the objects assembled were meant to educate the visitor about both the nature and the history of the territory, while also providing access to technological knowledge indispensable for territorial administration. Quiccheberg does not speak about the more symbolic, representational functions of the collection I have laid out in the previous chapter. Most likely those were relatively self-evident to anybody familiar with the concerns of rulers, and it may be assumed that Quiccheberg was also sympathetic to those functions. However, as I shall demonstrate in this chapter, the idea of the utility of knowledge in his treatise was central to his argument because it was a product of the intellectual tradition from which his ideas stemmed. Quiccheberg’s accomplishment was to adapt this tradition and its epistemological implications to the specific conditions of the courtly milieu in which he was working. least until 1578; however, visits to the collection were already possible during the years after 1567 (see Seelig, “Kunstkammer” (1986), pp. 101–103). 9 “etiam aliquot iam annorum profuit consuetudo & aditus ad Illustrissimi Principis Alberti Bavariae ducis musea, et imaginum incredibilem copiam pridem Monachii, et ante quoque Landishutae conquisitam: quibus certè tàm in omnibus studiis utor, quàm etiam sensibus intensis involuor.” (Quiccheberg, Inscriptiones, Admonitio seu consilium; Translation, Meadow and Robertson, Quiccheberg, Inscriptiones).

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As Patricia Falguières has argued, Quiccheberg’s treatise needs to be seen in the context of the interest in a “methodical” approach to knowledge as it had grown out of the tradition of topical dialectic, and was principally advanced by the work of Petrus Ramus and his followers.10 In the first part of this chapter, I shall take up Falguières’ suggestion and elaborate on it by looking more closely at the correspondences between Quiccheberg’s treatise and a conceptually related contemporary product of the topical tradition, published in Basel in the same year by another medically trained scholar: the Theatrum vitae humanae by Theodor Zwinger. With its much more extensive theoretical reflections, Zwinger’s work – despite the obvious differences – offers insights into issues at which Quiccheberg, due to the brevity of his treatise as well as his less theoretically inclined approach, merely hints. The topical tradition, having developed in close connection with educational practice, fostered an intrinsically pragmatic approach to knowledge. That Quiccheberg thought of the Kunstkammer as a collection meant for the production of useful knowledge is evident from his own text, but looking at Zwinger’s work reveals the origins of this object-based epistemology, while providing insight into the central question of the epistemological status of knowledge gained from the investigation of objects. Zwinger’s views on the value of observation and experience were relatively unconventional for his time, and especially for the academic milieu in which he was working. I argue that Quiccheberg likely shared his favorable attitude to a more empirical approach to nature, and that this approach found a specifically receptive audience in the courtly context in which he, unlike Zwinger, was seeking his patronage. Both Quiccheberg’s pragmatism and his focus on objects, having grown out of the topical tradition, were particularly suited to the demands of the courtly milieu, which in the early modern period increasingly leaned toward scientific approaches that were determined more by the practical and symbolic demands of government than by academic traditions. Following a discussion of the implications of the courtly context in general, I shall introduce a few figures associated with or resident at the Munich court who showed unconventional interests connected to the Kunstkammer’s epistemology. After this, I shall briefly discuss some other scholars who engaged in more conventional intellectual pursuits that were nonetheless related to the representational functions of the collection. These brief over10 See Patricia Falguières, “Fondation du Théâtre, ou méthode de l’exposition universelle. Les inscriptions de Samuel Quiccheberg (1565),” Les Cahiers du Musée National d'Art Moderne 40 (1992): 91–116. On Ramus and his reception, see the seminal study by Walter J. Ong, SJ, Ramus: Method and the Decay of Dialogue. From the Art of Discourse to the Art of Reason (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1958), and more recently Howard Hotson, Commonplace Learning. Ramism and its German Ramifications, 1543–1630 (New York 2007), who offers a critical view of Ong’s approach.

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views will make evident the diversity of the Munich court’s intellectual milieu in which the Kunstkammer came into being.

Quiccheberg’s Inscriptiones as a Culmination of the Topical Epistemology In his treatise Inscriptiones vel tituli Theatri amplissimi, issued from the presses of the Munich court printer Adam Berg in 1565, Quiccheberg laid out his vision of a collection that would accomplish no less than the representation and advancement of knowledge about the universe, making it accessible to anyone who had the privilege to visit and use it.11 The treatise begins with a systematization of the suggested contents of the collection, which is presented as an enumeration of types of objects that are divided into five classes, and within these subsumed under ten or eleven “inscriptions.” This classificatory layout is followed by suggestions for workshops and more specialized collections (most prominently a library) to be attached to the main Kunstkammer. Subsequently, Quiccheberg gives some general “recommendation or advice” concerning the potential scope and value of collecting, the possible modes of storage and display, and the logistics of the accumulation of objects through agents and gift exchange. From here, Quiccheberg proceeds to give an assessment of his own expertise in the matter at hand, and a description of the context within which he wrote the present treatise, the court of Albrecht V in Munich. These rather short passages are followed by more extensive “digressions and clarifications,” in which Quiccheberg elaborates on individual “inscriptions” from his classification in the first part. The final section of the treatise is a collection of “exempla,” a catalogue of collectors throughout Europe whom Quiccheberg has either known or heard of himself, or which he has drawn from Hubert Goltzius’ Iulius Caesar,12 and whom he presents as models worthy of emulation for anyone engaging in the business of collecting. In her article published in 1992, Patricia Falguières argues that Quiccheberg’s treatise and his conception of a Kunstkammer need to be seen in the context of sixteenth-century concerns with the topical organization of knowledge, as it was manifested in loci communes collections and had found a ‘methodical’ systematization in the work of Petrus Ramus.13 More recently, she has also published a small book in which she extends her interpretation more 11

See Quiccheberg, Inscriptiones. See Hubertus Goltzius, C. Ivlivs Caesar Sive Historiae Imperatorvm Caesarvmqve Romanorvm Ex Antiqvis Nvmismatibvs Restitvtae Liber Primvs: Accessit C. Ivlii Caesaris Vita Et Res Gestae (Brugis Flandorum: Goltz, 1563). 13 See Falguières, “Fondation du Théâtre.” 12

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generally to the phenomenon of the “chambres de merveilles” of the sixteenth century.14 Indeed, for anyone somewhat familiar with the tradition of topical logic and the Renaissance preoccupation with accumulating and ordering the ever-expanding knowledge about the world, it is quite obvious that Quiccheberg’s treatise can only be properly understood in this context. The most obvious indication is his use of the term theatrum in the title, which signals his claim that the collection he proposes to found was an ordered and at least ideally exhaustive representation of a totality of examples – in this case not only of one particular topic, but of the entirety of things.15 Quiccheberg discusses the implications of this title explicitly in his text. In the first place, he exploits the spatial and visual implications of the term: “Also, the term “theater” is not unsuitably, but rather properly, employed here for a grand building that is in the form of an arc, or oval, or in the shape of an ambulatory, of a kind which in basilicas or cloisters are called “circuits” by those who reside in them, and that is constructed with high stories on four sides, in the middle of which a garden or interior courtyard might be left (as, for example, the Bavarian theater of artifacts appears), so that four enormous halls open out in very broad fashion towards the four directions of the sky. For this reason it would also be possible in some way to apply the term ‘amphitheater’ to it.”16

Thus on a primary level, Quiccheberg uses the term theatrum quite literally to describe the envisaged, and in Munich at this time already partially realized, structure that should serve to contain the collection. However, as Falguières has pointed out, what he offers is not simply a description of architectural form.17 Quiccheberg’s use of the term theatrum implies an emphasis on the 14

See Patricia Falguières, Les chambres de merveilles (Paris: Bayard, 2003). See Falguières, “Fondation du Théâtre,” p. 92. For the history and use of the theatrum metaphor, see Ann Blair, The Theater of Nature: Jean Bodin and Renaissance Science (Princeton 1997), pp. 155–179; Paula Findlen, “The museum: its classical etymology and Renaissance genealogy,” in Journal of the History of Collections 1, no. 1 (1989): 59–78, pp. 63–66; Ken R. Arnold, Cabinets for the Curious. Practicing Science in Early Modern English Museums (Diss. Princeton, 1991), pp. 265–273. On the use of theatrum as a book title, see Markus Friedrich, “Das Buch als Theater. Überlegungen zu Signifikanz und Dimensionen der Theatrum-Metapher als frühneuzeitlichem Buchtitel,” in Wissenssicherung, Wissensordnung und Wissensverarbeitung. Das europäische Modell der Enzyklopädien, ed. Theo Stammen and Wolfgang E. J. Weber (Berlin 2004): 205–232. 16 Quiccheberg, Inscriptiones, [at the beginning of the Digressiones]: “Theatri etiam nomen hic assumitur non improprie, sed verè pro structura grandi, vel arcuatea, vel ovali, vel ad formam ambulacri, cuius generis in basilicis, aut coenobiis circuitus ab, ipsis, incolis vocantur, ad quatuor latera altis contignationibus extructum, in quorum medio hortus aut cavedia sit relictà (ita enim Bavaricum theatrum artificiosarum rerum spectantur), ut quatuor maximae aulae, ad quatuor coeli regiones, latissime pateant. unde et accommodari aliquo modo amphitheatri nomen ipsi posset.” (Translation, Meadow and Robertson, Quiccheberg, Inscriptiones). 17 “Théâtre, ici, désigne un dispositif spatial, une structure, une machine: le ‘théâtre’ est à entendre comme ce que je nommerais un ‘lieu composé’, ordonné par l’exigence du ‘fairevoir’.” (Falguières, “Fondation du Théâtre,” p. 92). 15

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importance of spatial experience and visual accessibility, and also sets his museum in relation to an earlier instance of a theatrum project, one that was likely familiar to Quiccheberg’s audience: the memory theater by the Italian rhetorician and hermeticist Giulio Camillo (1480–1544).18 Camillo had conceived of his teatro as a structure resembling a Vitruvian theater, in which universal knowledge could be stored according to a metaphysical ordering system, and made retrievable for a user – in Camillo’s case, the French king Francis I – who would thus “be able to discourse on any subject no less fluently than Cicero”, as Viglius van Zwichem put it, who saw Camillo’s theater in 1532.19 Quiccheberg’s theatrum differs in many ways from Camillo’s, and he himself draws only a vague comparison to Camillo.20 Referring his reader to other projects whose authors had employed the term theatrum, and which he sees as related to his own, Quiccheberg writes: “Here it is necessary to mention that the museum of Giulio Camillo, on account of its semicircular construction, could also properly be called a theater: On the other hand, others have used this term figuratively, as did Christoph Mylaeus, Conrad Lycosthenes, Theodorus Zwinger and Guilelme de la Perrière, and perhaps others as well, when they, nonetheless beautifully, so titled certain books on, for example, the conditions of human life, the science of writing history and remaining matters of exposition and narrative, though not on the importance of situating a building and the objects displayed or presented within it.”21 It is this expansion of his frame of reference to the metaphorical use of the term theatrum as a book title that makes it truly obvious in which context 18

Described in a treatise published posthumously, see Giulio Camillo, L’idea del teatro (Florence 1550). 19 On Camillo, see Frances A. Yates, The Art of Memory (London: Pimlico, 1992), pp. 135–174. The Netherlandish humanist and jurist Viglius van Zwichem had seen Camillo’s construction in Venice, an experience about which he wrote to Erasmus in 1532 (Yates, The Art of Memory, pp. 135–137). 20 On Quiccheberg’s own references to Camillo, see Elizabeth M. Hajos, “References to Giulio Camillo in Samuel Quicchelberg’s ‘Inscriptiones vel tituli Theatri Amplissimi’,” Bibliothèque d’Humanisme et Renaissance 25 (1963): 207–11, and more recently Stephan Brakensiek, Vom “Theatrum Mundi” zum “Cabinet des Estampes”. Das Sammeln von Druckgraphik in Deutschland 1565–1821 (Hildesheim, Zürich, New York: Georg Olms, 2003), pp. 46–56. 21 Quiccheberg, Inscriptiones, [at the beginning of the Digressiones]: “Monere hic opportet Julii Camilli museum semicirculo suo rectè quoque theatrum dici potuisse: alii vero hoc nomine usi sunt metaphoricè ut Christopherus Mylaeus, Conradus Lycosthenes, Theodorus Zvingger, Guilelmus de la Perriere et fortè etiam alii, quando sic conditiones vitae humanae et scribendae historiae doctrinam, et caeteras res tractandi ac memorandi, non autem spectandi aedificii, et rei, quae in eo agatur, aut proponatur amplitudinem, libros quosdam pulchrè tamen, inscripserunt.” (Translation, Meadow and Robertson, Quiccheberg, Inscriptiones).

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Quiccheberg wanted his project to be viewed. The authors he cites have presented attempts at the exhaustive representation of a topic – Christopher Mylaeus, Conrad Lycosthenes and Theodor Zwinger of history, Guillaume de la Perrière of emblems – and it is this claim to the representation of a totality that the choice of title primarily signals.22 More importantly, beyond this quest for completeness, these references indicate that Quiccheberg wished the collection he proposed to be viewed as an ordered and methodical approach to the representation of universal knowledge. Most significant and illuminating in this respect is Quiccheberg’s reference to Lycosthenes and Zwinger. Theodor Zwinger (1533–1588) was professor of theoretical medicine in Basel and the center of intellectual life in this city.23 Being the stepson of Conrad Lycosthenes (1518–1561), Zwinger had continued and eventually published a book that Lycosthenes had not lived to finish: the Theatrum vitae humanae, a collection of examples from universal history excerpted from published sources. Reissued in increasingly augmented editions after its initial publication in 1565, this book’s declared objective was to provide methodical access to the material needed for a comprehensive and ‘scientific’ understanding of human life.24 As an organized collection of excerpts culled from the author’s readings, Zwinger’s work stood in the tradition of commonplace books, and indeed it was, according to Walter Ong, “the most comprehensively ambitious compilation of commonplace excerpts” up to its time.25 One of the central features of Renaissance pedagogy was the practice of collecting excerpts from one’s readings and to distribute them under various headings in order to make them accessible for re-use – as quotations or simply as references for factual information – in one’s own writings. Based on the classical rhetorical concept of topoi or loci, which Quintilian had defined as the ‘seats’ of argument, these 22

See Christoph Mylaeus, Theatrum universitatis rerum (Basel 1557), to be read in conjunction with his De scribenda universitatis rerum historia (Basel 1551); Zwinger, Theatrum (1565); Guillaume de la Perrière, Le théâtre des bons engins (Lyons 1546). 23 See Gilly, “Erfahrung und Spekulation,” part 1, p. 58. 24 The known editions are Zwinger, Theatrum (1565); Zwinger, Theatrum (1571); Theodor Zwinger, Theatrum humanae vitae (Basel: Eusebius Episcopius, 1586); Theodor Zwinger, Theatrum humanae vitae (Basel: Henricpetri, 1604). A listing of these and other (lost) editions is found in Ong, “Commonplace Rhapsody,” p. 111, n. 1, who also provides a brief introduction to the work and its author (pp. 111–117). On Zwinger and his work, see also the comprehensive article by Gilly, “Erfahrung und Spekulation,” as well as Arno Seifert, Cognitio historica: Die Geschichte als Namengeberin der frühneuzeitlichen Empirie (Berlin 1976), pp. 79-88; and Helmut Zedelmaier, Bibliotheca universalis und bibliotheca selecta: das Problem der Ordnung des gelehrten Wissens in der Frühen Neuzeit (Köln: Böhlau, 1992), pp. 228–43 and passim. 25 Ong, “Commonplace Rhapsody,” p. 111. On the commonplace method in general, see Paul Joachimsen, “Loci communes: Eine Untersuchung zur Geistesgeschichte des Humanismus und der Reformation,” in Jahrbuch der Luther-Gesellschaft 8 (1926): 27–97.

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headings were conceived as the ‘places’ where the material to elaborate on a given topic (see topos) could be found.26 The notion of locus or topos, however, had since antiquity acquired a somewhat ambiguous meaning, and could equally be applied to the collected items themselves.27 Ong has suggested differentiating between these two meanings as ‘analytical’ (for the headings) versus ‘cumulative’ (for the items) commonplaces for purposes of clarity.28 However, the fluidity of the concept was apparently no disturbance to contemporaries, and this may be taken as an indication of how deeply ingrained and self-evident the concept of the loci and the associated practice of excerpting, ordering, and storing re-usable items had become by the mid-sixteenth century. Due to the pervasive use of this method of organizing the fruits of one’s readings in the education of teenagers, it also came to be the basis of sixteenth-century scholarship and literary creation. The loci, in both senses of the concept, were essential to the Renaissance understanding of the process of invention (‘finding’), in either artistic creation or the production of knowledge.29 The development of the commonplace tradition from a rhetorical technique suitable for literary creation to a method of information management that acquired formative importance for Renaissance epistemology was mainly a result of the reception of the topical logic of Rudolf Agricola (1444–1485).30 By developing a logic (a discipline traditionally concerned with deductive demonstration leading to certain knowledge, i.e. science in the Aristotelian sense) that was based on topics (i.e. the places, an essentially rhetorical concept, thus only capable of yielding probable knowledge) rather than the Aristotelian categories (which had been the basis of scholastic logic), Agricola precipitated and finalized a development that was already inherent in the scholastic philosophy of the arts curriculum: the tendency to blur the distinction between a dialectic31 arguing probabilities and deductive demonstration yielding cer26

See Quintilian, Institutio oratoria, lib. V, x, 20. A quick overview of this matter is given in Ong, “Commonplace Rhapsody,” pp. 92– 94. A more extensive discussion is provided by Lechner, Commonplaces. 28 See Ong, “Commonplace Rhapsody,” p. 94. 29 On the implications of the commonplace tradition and its prevalence in education for the production and reception of the visual arts see Mark A. Meadow, “On the structure of knowledge in Bruegel’s Netherlandish Proverbs,” in Volkskundig Bulletin 18, no. 2 (1992): 141–169 and Mark A. Meadow, Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s Netherlandish Proverbs and the Practice of Rhetoric (Zwolle: Waanders, 2002). 30 “Although the topics or places are items of which the orator or the dialectician avails himself to suggest matter for his subject or for proving his case, with Agricola the topical tradition tends to forget its limited objectives and to think of itself as somehow the adequate instrument for dealing with all knowledge whatsoever.” (Ong, Ramus, p. 105). 31 Dialectic, according to Agricola, is “the art of discoursing with probability on any subject, insofar as the nature of the subject is capable of creating conviction.” (See Agricola, De inventione dialectica, Lib. II, cap. ii; translation taken from Ong, Ramus, p. 101). 27

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tain knowledge, i.e. what in the Aristotelian tradition was called scientia.32 The boundary between rhetoric and science33 thus being effectively dissolved, the new topical logic was able to claim “to account for more or less the whole of the intellectual processes”.34 The commonplace method, as the pedagogical and scholarly technique intimately connected to this philosophical tradition, thus became a core characteristic of the sixteenth-century approach to knowledge. Collecting, ordering, and re-using bits and pieces of knowledge have therefore justifiably been described as a fundamental habit of mind structuring Renaissance thought.35 This tradition culminated in the work of the Parisian scholar Petrus Ramus, who was the principal agent of Agricola’s place-logic and its application to the production of knowledge.36 The Ramist program to combine philosophy and eloquence in the service of the ‘methodical’ systematization of knowledge had immense impact on scholarly practice and pedagogical technique in the sixteenth century and beyond.37 The most conspicuous feature of Ramism was its systematic visualization of knowledge in bracketed tables that broke down any topic into ever more detailed entities by means of analytical dichotomies.38 Ramus’ preoccupation with these tables was on the one hand the result of his quest for pedagogical efficiency, his goal to provide clear and easy access to a wide range of subjects in a short time for an audience of nonspecialists (in his case, for teenage students);39 on the other, it was one symptom of a general tendency in the development of sixteenth-century intellectual history of which Ramus is but the most provocative and influential exponent: the increasing inclination to conceive of mental processes, and by implication 32 See Ong, Ramus, p. 101. On the earlier blurring of that boundary in the work of Peter of Spain, see ibid. pp. 59–63. 33 When I use the terms ‘science’ or ‘scientific’ in the remainder of this chapter, I am referring to knowledge that would have been regarded as certain. 34 Ong, Ramus, p. 105. For a detailed discussion of Agricola’s place-logic, and its immense impact on sixteenth-century epistemology, see Ong, Ramus, pp. 92–130. 35 On the loci method and Renaissance epistemology, see Ong, Ramus; Joan Marie Lechner, Renaissance Concepts of the Commonplaces (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1962); Walter J. Ong, SJ, “Commonplace Rhapsody: Ravisius Textor, Zwinger and Shakespeare,” in Classical Influences on European Culture A. D. 1500–1700, ed. R. R. Bolgar (Cambridge, London, New York, Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 1976), 91–126; Ann Moss, Printed Commonplace-Books and the Structuring of Renaissance Thought (Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 1996); Meadow, “Structure of Knowledge”; and Meadow, Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s Netherlandish Proverbs. 36 The seminal study of Ramus and his impact on Western intellectual history was Ong, Ramus; for a more recent assessment, see Hotson, Commonplace Learning. 37 See Ong, Ramus, p. 8. 38 On Ramus’ dichotomies, see Ong, Ramus, pp. 199–202, and Hotson, Commonplace Learning, pp. 46f. 39 See Hotson, Commonplace Learning, pp. 39–47.

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of the outside world in ‘objective’ and spatial terms.40 This tendency was already inherent in Agricola’s emphasis on the ‘places’ in philosophical argument, and Ramus, by “treating the contents of the mind as a set of objects”,41 and by “regarding everything, mental and physical, as composed of little corpuscular units”,42 conceived of the practice of sorting and ordering these objects or units as the starting point of all philosophy.43 Just as Agricola, Melanchthon, and many other sixteenth-century scholars, “Ramus is occupied with the same ‘infinite variety of things’ and with cutting a road through the confusion in which they exist”, and he regards “the order in teaching, and through this, all intellectual order, as reducible by rough analogy to some simple spatial arrangement or rearrangement of intellectual atoms.”44 It is this epistemology that is grounded in topical logic and its rhetorical approach to knowledge that underlies the endeavors of both Zwinger and Quiccheberg. Even though the reception of Ramus’ works did not really take off in Germany until the French scholar’s tour through the German-speaking lands in 1568-70, Zwinger had been confronted with Ramist thoughts early in his life. During his stay in Paris in 1551/52, he had won Ramus’ friendship and had studied with him at the Collège de France, where Ramus had just been appointed regius professor.45 It was likely Ramus who inspired Zwinger’s analytical visualization of the contents of the individual chapters of his Theatrum in bracketed tables as well as his use of this method in the various medical and philosophical compendia he published.46 At the beginning of the table that gave an overview of the entire disposition of the contents of the 1565 edition of the Theatrum, Zwinger announces that his work contained “everything that can happen to man, good or evil, either internal or external, arranged under certain titles, and in a didactic order described, and then in the

40

This is the central argument of Ong, Ramus. Ong, Ramus, p. 197. 42 Ong, Ramus. p. 203. 43 See Ong, Ramus, p. 197. 44 Ong, Ramus, p. 247. 45 See Carlos Gilly, “Zwischen Erfahrung und Spekulation. Theodor Zwinger und die religiöse und kulturelle Krise seiner Zeit,” in Basler Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Altertumskunde 77/79 (1977): 57–137; 125–223, part 2, p. 128. On Ramus’ appointment as regius professor, see Ong, Ramus, pp. 25–27. Although Zwinger later loathed Ramus’ militant antiAristotelianism, he acknowledged his debt to Ramus who taught him the importance of studying the original texts of the ancients, and of measuring the value of philosophical doctrine by experience (see Zwinger in the preface to his commentary of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, quoted in Gilly, “Erfahrung und Spekulation,” part 2, pp. 130f.). 46 See Gilly, “Erfahrung und Spekulation,” part 2, pp. 130, 146–48. Zwinger, however, never adhered to Ramist dichotomization, but was much more flexible in his methodical structuring of material (see Gilly, “Erfahrung und Spekulation,” part 2, p. 149). 41

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same manner explained and illustrated by particular examples”.47 This claim to comprehensive and orderly storage of particulars with a didactic purpose not only makes it very clear that his work was a product of the topical tradition, but also indicates the proximity of Zwinger’s project to Ramist ideas: like Ramus, Zwinger was concerned with organizing a store of knowledge of which he conceived and that he treated as an infinite collection of movable bits and pieces to be ordered and distributed in a classificatory system the primary objective of which was its accessibility for the student or scholar who would use this store as a basis for the advancement of philosophical, i.e. scientific knowledge. Even if Ramism, as Howard Hotson has recently argued, is a more rigorous and original system than Ong acknowledged, his fundamentally pragmatic commitment to pedagogical efficiency and the intrinsic visuality of the tabular exposition of his method were expressive of “mental habits evolving within a centuries-old educational tradition and specializing in certain kinds of concepts, based on simple spatial models, for conceiving of the mental and communicational process and, by implication, of the extramental world.”48 From this point of view, there is no doubt that not only Zwinger, but also Quiccheberg were both pursuing ideas that took part in this same ‘cluster of mental habits’. Quiccheberg’s particular relation to Ramism is not known, but he was certainly aware of his philosophy, as he refers to it in the biography of Sebastian Reisacher (a scholar I shall discuss below) that he contributed to Heinrich Pantaleon’s Heldenbuch, and from this reference a favorable attitude may be inferred.49 Furthermore, “tabulae ramosae” are included among the incriptions of his treatise.50 This expression does not necessarily refer to Ramism, but it does refer to bifurcate tables, which, while not invented by Ramus, were popularized by him.51 We also do not know whether Quiccheberg had known Zwinger in person, as he only briefly studied in Basel.52 However, through Heinrich Pantaleon 47

“In quo [Theatro] omnia ea quae in hominem cadere possunt, bona atque mala, tum interna, tum externa, titulis certis, et didascalico ordine descriptis comprehenduntur, eademque particularibus subinde exemplis declarantur & illustrantur.” (Theodor Zwinger, Theatrum Vitae Humanae (Basel: Johannes Oporinus, 1565), p. 32). 48 Ong, Ramus, p. 8. Howard Hotson refutes Ong’s reduction of Ramus to the mere anonymous center of a larger tradition and stressed that Ramus’ assembly and development of “principles applicable to the exposition of any discipline whatsoever”, and his transformation of the “rules of Aristotelian logic into methological principles indispensable for the treatment of any discipline” was a distinctive achievement that was recognized by a long line of followers, (see Hotson, Commonplace Learning, pp. 10, 50f.). 49 See Pantaleon, Teutscher Nation Heldenbuch, p. 487. 50 See Quiccheberg, Inscriptiones, Inscriptio V, 4. 51 See Hotson, Commonplace Learning, p. 50. 52 Quiccheberg’s studies in Basel are documented by Heinrich Pantaleon, see Pantaleon, Teutscher Nation Heldenbuch, p. 506: “Auff solliches kame er in Bayeren/ und in dem 18 jar

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and probably also through Hieronymus Wolf, who preceded him as Fugger’s librarian,53 Quiccheberg kept in touch with Basel scholars.54 As Zwinger was the center of intellectual life in Basel,55 it is quite likely that Quiccheberg was aware of Zwinger’s ongoing work on the Theatrum that took place at the same time he was working on his own treatise. As I shall show, the fundamental similarities between the two projects are quite striking. The fact that these similarities actually grew stronger with the later editions of Zwinger’s Theatrum, especially the one published in 1571, shows that independently of the question of direct reception, both scholars were concerned with matters that were fundamentally similar, even if their approaches, priorities, and goals differed in many ways. As has been indicated above, the title Theatrum customarily implies a claim to exhaustive treatment of a topic, but both Zwinger and Quiccheberg make a larger claim to a truly universal approach, and they also share the explicit stress placed on their ordering of this universal totality. When Quiccheberg labels his book Inscriptiones vel tituli, he is invoking the headings of commonplace books. Just as in Zwinger’s case, who made this very clear by speaking of the tituli certi under which he was going to distribute his material,56 it is especially the use of the term tituli that denotes Quiccheberg’s proposal of a methodical approach using analytical headings in order to grasp the contents of the amplissimum theatrum that was to house “exemplary objects and exceptional images of the entire world”.57 Throughout Quiccheberg’s text, references to the orderly distribution of a totality of particulars recur: the library was to be equipped with “books of every kind and seines alter [i.e. 1547] auff die hohen Schul gehn Basel: daselben hoeret er uber die gemeinen Professores/ M. Huldricum Coccium und Hieronymum Wolffium/ so jm etwas insonderheit taeglich in Philosophia geoffenbaret/ da er mir dann auch durch sein gute art und züchtigen wandel bkandt gewesen. Auff solliches zoge er gehn Freyburg/ und bald haernach gehn Augspurg/ da Keiser Carle im 1548 jar ein grossen Reichßtag gehalten. Zu dieser zeit haben jm die herr Fugger jr freigebigkeit bewisen/ und ist er wider im 1550 in Bayeren gezogen/ in seinen studijs für zufaren. Wie er zu Ingolstadt gewesen/ hat er etliche mal für die Professores gelesen/ und ist den gelehrten darzu den fürnembsten in Bayeren bekandt worden: vorab als er der Fugger Bibliothec gemehret/ und ein grossen lust zu den alten antiquiteten/ und bildnussen getragen.” 53 See Hartig, Hofbibliothek, p. 223–227. 54 Quiccheberg provided Pantaleon with the biographies for twelve Bavarian personalities for the third volume of the latter’s Heldenbuch. 55 See Gilly, “Erfahrung und Spekulation,” part 1, p. 58. 56 See Zwinger, Theatrum (1565), p. 32. 57 The title reads: “Inscriptiones vel tituli theatri amplissimi, complectentis rerum universitatis singulas materias et imagines eximias. ut idem recte quoque dici possit: Promptuarium artificiosarum miraculosarumque rerum, ac omnis rari thesauri et pretiosae supellectilis, structurae atque picturae. quae hic simul in theatro conquiri consuluntur, ut eorum frequenti inspectione tractationéque, singularis aliqua rerum cognitio et prudentia admiranda, citò, facilè ac tutò comparari possit.” (Quiccheberg, Inscriptiones, title page; translation, Meadow and Robertson, Quiccheberg, Inscriptiones).

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[that is] divided according to their classes”,58 the print shop must contain “types of all kinds ready for printing any possible language, art and discipline.”59 At the end of his “digressions”, Quiccheberg explains that he was not able to elaborate on all inscriptions of the theater: “Since all those topics are present that universal nature embraces, that all books teach, that all of human life can offer, it is perfectly clear that no discipline can be taught, no work of art examined, no state of life imagined, that does not have its foundations, equipment, means of support, or examples here [in the theater].”60 He expresses the hope that in his “most complete and universal enumeration”, “there is nothing left to be desired.”61 Despite the fact that both Zwinger and Quiccheberg placed such strong emphasis on the importance of their ordering systems, neither of them is particularly innovative in this respect. In his Theatrum of 1565, Zwinger largely adhered to the Aristotelian classification of the sciences as found in the Nicomachean Ethics.62 The aim of his ordering system was both pragmatic and epistemological: on the one hand, his stated goal was to arrange the innumerable items collected in his book in a way that would make them visually retrievable and thus easily accessible; on the other hand, he also made claims for the ontological significance of the intricate dichotomous subdivisions under which he distributed his collected quotations. When Zwinger declared that the order of the Theatrum “depends on the subject matter”,63 he was vaguely claiming that the order of the material was a ‘natural’ one, because he “felt that somehow the thousands of quotations ranged ‘logically’ in his text represented in some vague way the ‘structure’ of the human life-world, the microcosm, and thus in some fashion, no doubt, the macrocosm as well.”64 In comparison to Zwinger with his refined, if not strictly dichotomous, subdivisions, Quiccheberg’s proposed order is rather simple: the second, third, and fourth class contain artificialia, naturalia, and various kinds of instruments, respectively. The first and the fifth class each have a somewhat 58

“Bibliotheca omnis generis librorum instructissima, in suas classes […] distincta” (Quiccheberg, Inscriptiones, at the beginning of the Musea et officinae section; Translation, Meadow and Robertson, Quiccheberg, Inscriptiones). 59 “Typographica officina et supellex: in qua typi omnis generis ad quaslibet linguas, artes, disciplinas in promptu sunt excudendas.” (Quiccheberg, Inscriptiones, Musea et officinae; Translation, Meadow and Robertson, Quiccheberg, Inscriptiones). 60 See Quiccheberg, Inscriptiones, Digressiones (Translation, Meadow and Robertson, Quiccheberg, Inscriptiones). 61 Quiccheberg speaks of his universa absolutissima enumeratio (see Quiccheberg, Inscriptiones, Admonitio seu consilium; Translation, Meadow and Robertson, Quiccheberg, Inscriptiones). 62 See Gilly, “Erfahrung und Spekulation,” part 2, pp. 161f. 63 “Dispositio autem totius Operis ex materia subiecta pendet.” (Zwinger, Theatrum (1565), p. 32). 64 Ong, “Commonplace Rhapsody,” p. 116.

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more obscure common denominator: the first class basically consists of various forms of representations pertaining to government in the widest sense, with an emphasis on the territory and dynasty of the collection’s founder, as I have discussed in the first chapter. The fifth class includes paintings and watercolors, with a clear emphasis on aesthetic quality, as well as a print collection, and various forms of tables and images of historical and genealogical significance.65 Various scholars have attempted to discern the logic behind Quiccheberg’s five classes,66 either attempting to decode an eclectic but still metaphysically significant pattern,67 or concluding the epistemological ‘failure’ of an ordering system that essentially relied on figures and devices from contemporary ‘mannerist’ poetry.68 Considering its origin in the commonplace tradition, however, the vagueness and multivalence of Quiccheberg’s ordering principles are not at all surprising, but a characteristic feature of an epistemology that had grown out of an intrinsically pragmatic, rhetorical approach to knowledge. Just as the order of commonplace books allowed for classification of items under multiple, categorically incongruous headings, so the types of objects in Quiccheberg’s scheme could be subsumed under various classes and inscriptions according to shifting principles of classification. This is nei65

Insightful accounts of Quiccheberg’s approach to ordering his material can be found in Mark Meadow, “Quiccheberg and the Copious Object: Wenzel Jamnitzer's Silver Writing Box,” in The Lure of the Object, ed. Stephen W Melville (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005): 39–58, and Dirk Jacob Jansen, “Samuel Quicchebergs "Inscriptiones": de encyclopedische verzameling als hulpmiddel voor de wetenschap,” in Verzamelen. Van rariteitenkabinet tot kunstmuseum, ed. E. Bergvelt, D. J. Meijers and M. Rijnders (Heerlen 1993): 57–76, pp. 71f. 66 See Falguières, “Fondation du Théâtre,” pp. 92–95; Klaus Minges, Das Sammlungswesen der frühen Neuzeit (Münster: Lit, 1998), pp. 62–75. 67 See Minges, Sammlungswesen, pp. 62–75. 68 See Falguières, “Fondation du Théâtre,” who states: “Ayant emprunté à Ravisius Textor une série de rubriques, Quicchelberg, en praticien confirmé des lieux communs, a donc ‘bricolé’ très empiriquement une méthode d’exposition, à partir de segments d’ordonnances hétérogènes, ajointés par des artifices tout maniéristes: répétition, écho, chiasme, rapport du tout à la partie, métonymie, synecdoque, etc., et il s’en faut de peu qu’une mnémotechnique n’organise ses figures. Ces ajointements imprévisibles qui confèrent au théâtre sa qualité poétique remettent en exercice, et sur un mode fragmentaire, des vestiges: les restes, mutilés et parfois à peine reconnaissables, d’ordonnances disparues, comme les catalogues de Pline, les règles d’exposition du droit antique, les catégories de la scolastique, etc., qui se jouxtent, s’entrecroisent et se regroupent partiellement, conférant au texte des Inscriptions le feuilleté d’un palimpseste. A aucun de ces principes de hiérachisation n’est assurée une prééminence, de sorte qu’un élément peut appartenir à plusieurs classes à la fois, ou constituer une classe à lui tout seul: il faut, pour chaque objet, inventer une règle d’exposition qui n’a qu’une pertinence locale. Performance qui relève de la compétence du philologue, c’est-à-dire, comme Quicchelberg l’indique, de l’‘art d'écrire l’histoire’. Le travail de la mémoire n’a pas encore, comme c’était le vœu des systématiciens, cédé la place à la ‘science de l’ordre’.” (pp. 100f.)

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ther ‘poetic’ nor a failure: it is primarily a feature of the epistemology on which it is based, an epistemology that was fundamentally rhetorical, and thus pragmatic in nature. If Zwinger was already vague about the ontological significance of his ordering system, Quiccheberg makes it quite clear that he was aware of the lack of philosophical rigor that characterized his scheme. In the digressions on the first class of his inscriptions, he states: “Moreover, as pertains to the entire ordering, I hope that this [ordering] will be judged sufficiently plausible: for here we are not dividing up all natural objects precisely in line with their very natures for philosophers, but rather, we are separating mostly objects which are pleasant to observe into certain orderings for princes. Nor was it even permitted then to divide individual objects according to the seven planets, as they might have been able to do in imitation of Vitruvius and Camillo, since a more obvious ordering according to the forms of things would have to have been displayed.”69

Quiccheberg thus openly admits to the fact that his approach to ordering the objects in his theatrum was, above all, pragmatic – adapted to the needs of princes, to whom he obviously did not attribute an overwhelming interest in philosophical niceties. I shall discuss this issue of the social context in which Quiccheberg developed his ideas more extensively below. I have thus far shunned the discussion of the most fundamental and obvious difference between Quiccheberg’s Inscriptiones on the one hand, and Zwinger’s Theatrum or any other Theatrum that had so far been published on the other. If Quiccheberg’s treatise is, especially compared to Zwinger’s opus magnum, rather short, this is due to the fact that while Zwinger’s book actually was the Theatrum, Quiccheberg’s text represented only a brief outline with explanatory additions of a Theatrum that was to be established in real space using material objects. This is what made Quiccheberg’s humble treatise such a radically innovative feat: he was the first to realize that the spatial, visual epistemology that had grown out of the topical tradition not only logically demanded knowledge to be arranged in a visually accessible spatial construction such as Camillo’s theater, but ultimately called for knowledge to be based on the investigation of real objects. With his idea of a Kunstkammer, Quiccheberg put into practice what Ong described as the central characteristic of a Ramist approach to knowledge – “the world […] thought of as an assem-

69 “Porro quòs ad totum ordinem attinet spero eum satis plausibilem iudicatum iri: nec enim hic philosphis res naturales omnes ad amussim, cum ipsa natura partimur sed principibus, in quosdam non difficiles ordines, res plerasque asservatu iucundas segregamus. Nec enim iam etiam licuit secundum VII Planetas singula distribuere, ut facere potuissent Vitruvium & Camillum imitando, cum ordo facilior secundum formas rerum debuerit exhiberi” (Quiccheberg, Inscriptiones; translation, Meadow and Robertson, Quiccheberg, Inscriptiones).

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blage of the sort of things which vision apprehends – objects or surfaces”.70 The primacy of visuality in Quiccheberg’s Theatrum is based on an epistemology that “represented a drive toward thinking not only of the universe but of thought itself in terms of spatial models apprehended by sight.”71

Objects of Knowledge, History, and Empiricism That Quiccheberg saw the objects to be assembled in the Kunstkammer as ‘objects of knowledge’ is made clear in several instances throughout his text. When he, for instance, in regard to the collection of naturalia in the Kunstkammer, styles the pursuit of collecting natural specimens as vital to the research of natural historians like Conrad Gessner, Leonhard Fuchs, and Georgius Agricola, he draws a close connection between his proposed establishment of a courtly Kunstkammer and the more specialized collections put together by naturalists like Ulysse Aldrovandi in Bologna, whom he visited in person. Most prominently, he announces this idea of a collection devoted to the production of knowledge in the title, where he states that it “is recommended that these things be brought together here in the theater, so that by their frequent viewing and handling one might quickly, easily and carefully be able to acquire a unique knowledge of things and admirable prudentia.”72 The primary purpose of the Kunstkammer, according to Quiccheberg, is thus not aesthetic pleasure, but knowledge of things, which can only be gained by “frequent viewing and handling” of objects. At a time during which ‘science’, yielding certain knowledge, was still understood in Aristotelian terms as based on deductive demonstration rather than the investigation of particulars, this is quite a radical claim. 70 Ong, Ramus, p. 9. While Ramus himself had little interest in observation and experiment, his way to conceive of cognition was both expressive of and influential on the increasing sixteenth- and seventeenth-century interest in the observation of the external world: “Nevertheless, although Ramus does not attack deductive procedure and is not interested in observation in the Baconian, much less in the present-day sense, he is certainly stressing observational attitudes by his cartography of the mind. At the same time that it was an outgrowth of a central logico-pedagogical tradition in Western thought, this stress was something new. Indubitably, it was effective in preparing the human sensibility for a still further stress on observation of the external world. [...] Ramus organizes in an observational field not the external world but the ‘contents’ of consciousness.” (Ong, Ramus, p. 195). 71 Ong, Ramus, p. 9; see also ibid. pp. 193–204. 72 “quae hic simul in theatro conuqiri [sic] consuluntur, ut eorum frequenti inspectione tractationéque singularis aliqua rerum congnitio et prudentia admiranda, citò, facilè ac tutò comparari possit.” (Quiccheberg, Inscriptiones, title page; Translation, Meadow and Robertson, Quiccheberg, Inscriptiones; I slightly modified this translation to preserve the concept of prudentia).

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Quiccheberg makes it clear that the basis of his expertise needed to write his treatise was his access not only to texts, but also to objects: “But all these things, indeed, are in proportion to the modest measure of our ability and study, not beyond it: truly, we can be of service to the extent allowed by our research and residencies at various museums and libraries, and our frequent visits to markets and councils.”73 Knowledge collected first-hand, in museums, marketplaces, and at political assemblies, not just culled from the pages of books, made it possible for Quiccheberg to give advice on the foundation of collections that in turn would work in the service of the production of knowledge about the world. The prevailing terms Quiccheberg uses when he reflects on his method of knowledge production are ‘to search’ (consectare), ‘to arrange’ (distribuere), and ‘to observe’ (observare).74 Again, orderly distribution is presented as essential for making objects accessible to observation, and it is this orderly disposition (however pragmatic or traditional it might be) of visually accessible material that provides the basis for both Quiccheberg’s and Zwinger’s claims that their collections would be tools for the production of knowledge that goes beyond the mere recording of haphazard facts. As Quiccheberg’s theoretical reflections on epistemological matters remain rather limited, it is again illuminating to look at Zwinger’s work and his more explicit reflections on the epistemology underlying his Theatrum vitae humanae, whose fundamental affinities with Quiccheberg’s treatise I have demonstrated above. The 1565 edition of Zwinger’s Theatrum was in essence an attempt to explicate the precepts of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics – a work on which Zwinger was preparing a set of tables with written commentary at the time he 73

“Sed haec quidem omina pro nostri ingenii studiique modulo, nec ultra: omnino vero quantum nos iuvisse potest, quòd post varia musea, et bibliothecas inquisitas, inhabitatasque, post multa emporia, et comitia frequenter visitata.” (Quiccheberg, Inscriptiones, Admonitio seu consilium; translation, Meadow and Robertson, Quiccheberg, Inscriptiones). 74 “Indeed if I start with the genealogies placed near the beginning of these inscriptions, I will show a definite pattern for composing them, and the paths which it befits everyone to try to seek to follow. In treating of portraits, I will present agreeable observations that I have jotted down concerning painters. In other cases, I will attempt to make known certain other things that I have arranged and observed for the benefit of many people. In particular, whatever I have diligently discovered in my earlier studies concerning the insignia and arms of noble families, and which was earlier confirmed, I would deny no nobleman or scholar.” [“Equidem si incipiam à genealogiis principio fere harum inscirptionum positis, monstrabo certam eas conficiendi formam, & limites quos sequi quibusque insistere conveniat: in effigiebus delineandis observationes pictoribus non iniucundas à me annotatas producam: in aliis alia quaedam à me distributa et observata, ad multorum utilitatem, in medium proferre tentabo. praesertim primo quoque tempore quae de insignibus familiarum armisque nobilium consectatus sum, prius recognita, nimini nobili aut literato denegabo.”] (Quiccheberg, Inscriptiones, Admonitio seu consilium; translation, Meadow and Robertson, Quiccheberg, Inscriptiones).

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was working on the Theatrum – by means of examples from the history of mankind.75 It was thus rooted in the historical-encyclopedic tradition going back to Valerius Maximus that saw history primarily as a source of moral exemplars worthy of imitation.76 To understand Zwinger’s, and, as we shall see, Quiccheberg’s projects, it is essential to attend to the broader meaning of the term historia that by the sixteenth century had become particularly popular, and which referred to the method rather than to the particular contents of a work.77 The ‘historical’ approach to knowledge, as I shall discuss below, was concerned with the truthful observation and recording of facts of any kind. Thus, this methodical concept of historia is the basis for the expansion of subject matter in Zwinger’s Theatrum vitae humanae. Zwinger’s work, already in its first edition, had encompassed not only topics of political history, but also a section on the mechanical arts; however, it was not until the expanded edition of 1571 that he fully realized the epistemological implications of his approach. Zwinger’s Theatrum had now evolved into “the formidable attempt to reduce all human actions and achievements, weaknesses, all arts, sciences, and even religions to a methodical system of theorems and principles”.78 His work is thus the result of a productive intersection of the methodically refined topical tradition with the ‘historical epistemology’ of the sixteenth century. In Quiccheberg’s treatise, this intersection accounts not only for his ingenious decision to transpose a traditionally textual form of collecting into the realm of objects, thus realizing the spatial and visual implications of Agricolan-Ramist topical logic more radically than Zwinger, but also for the systematic juxtaposition of objects of sacred, human, and natural history – a universality never realized in printed ‘theaters’ – in his Kunstkammer.79 75

See Gilly, “Erfahrung und Spekulation,” part 2, pp. 157, 160. Zwinger explicitly conceived of the two works complementing each other. 76 See Seifert, Cognitio historica, p. 80; on the exemplary function of history see also George Nadel, “Philosophy of History before Historicism,” in History and Theory 3 (1964): 291–315 and Felix Gilbert, “The Renaissance Interest in History,” in Art, Science and History in the Renaissance, ed. Charles S. Singleton (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1968): 373–387. 77 See Seifert, Cognitio historica; see also Gianna Pomata and Nancy G. Siraisi, eds, Historia: Empiricism and Erudition in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2005); on Zwinger’s ‘historical’ approach, see Gilly, “Erfahrung und Spekulation,” part 2, pp. 166f., and Ann Blair, “Historia in Zwinger's Theatrum humanae vitae,” in Historia: Empiricism and Erudition in Early Modern Europe, ed. Gianna Pomata and Nancy G. Siraisi (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2005): 269–296. 78 See Gilly, “Erfahrung und Spekulation,” part 2, p. 150: “Zwingers Theatrum […] stellt […] den großartigen Versuch dar, alle menschlichen Handlungen, Leistungen, Schwächen, Künste, Wissenschaften, ja sogar Religionen auf ein methodisches System von Theoremata und Prinzipien zu reduzieren”. 79 The fact that books entitled Theatrum never realized the breadth of content proposed by Quiccheberg has been noted by Markus Friedrich (see Friedrich, “Das Buch als Theater,” p.

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What Quiccheberg envisioned his theatrum to include were the two kinds of subject matter with which historia, according to sixteenth-century theory, was concerned: res naturales and res humanae, representing historia naturalis and historia mundi.80 Both of these found their origin and reference point in biblical history, historia sacra, to which Quiccheberg gives prominent place in the first inscription of the first class. As I have shown in the first chapter, this conceptual priority of biblical history is enacted in the Munich Kunstkammer by the profuse dissemination of religious imagery. As Arno Seifert has shown, historia, traditionally defined as narratio rei gestae,81 was understood as the truthful report about real things, recording events of recent history that the historiographer had experienced himself, of a reality that he had seen with his own eyes.82 This connotation of the term of ‘history’ became formative to the sixteenth-century concept of a ‘historical’ approach to knowledge, meaning the unprejudiced and unfiltered truthful observation and recording of facts of any kind. The sixteenth century thus revived a meaning of the term rooted in ancient Greek philosophy that had been prominently preserved by Aristotle and Pliny the Elder, and is at the root of the concept of natural history and of works like Conrad Gessner’s Historia animalium.83 This process of reception resulted in the central importance of the concept of historia in early modern epistemology and its understanding as basically synonymous with the idea of empiricism.84 As is well known, in Aristotelian philosophy, the value of ‘experience’, such as that collected in natural histories, was to provide illustrative examples for ‘philosophical’, i.e. scientific doctrines that were reached by deductive argument rather than observation. Historia was thus not only subordinate to philosophy, it was posterior: rather than being its epistemological basis, it simply provided material to make philosophical knowledge about nature more tangible. Observations that were contradictory to the preconceived philosophical knowledge tended to be regarded as anomalies that fell outside the 205), who, however, does not discuss the epistemology of topical collections of either textual items or real objects. 80 See Seifert, Cognitio historica, pp. 50f. 81 See Seifert, Cognitio historica, p. 21. 82 “Historie als wahrer Bericht über wirkliche, nicht erfundene Dinge, mithin als Zeitgeschichtsschreibung im Sinne von Aufzeichnung selbsterlebter, autoptisch bekannter Wirklichkeit” (Seifert, Cognitio historica, p. 23). 83 “Es ist die historiographische Konnotation von primärer, vorwissenschaftlicher, wirklichkeitsnaher Sacherkenntnis, unter der die Vokabel historia von der Philosophie entdeckt, aufgegriffen und in Dienst genommen werden kann.” (Seifert, Cognitio historica, p. 29; on the reception of the ancient Greek meaning of the word, see ibid. pp. 36–62). 84 Arno Seifert has analyzed this development of intellectual history in order to explain “die außerordentliche Bedeutung, die dem Historia-Begriff unversehens in der Logik und Wissenschaftstheorie der frühen Neuzeit zuwuchs.” (Seifert, Cognitio historica, p. 29.)

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scope of natural philosophy, rather than being regarded as clues to necessary modifications of existing theories. The sixteenth century was a transitional period in this respect, and with the increasing interest in the observing and recording of the natural world came the broadening of the claims that were made with regard to the function and epistemological status of observations.85 This shift can also be observed in Zwinger’s reflections on this issue. Although certainly an Aristotelian, he makes larger claims for the possibilities arising from practicing what he called the rhapsodia exemplorum, the collection and orderly distribution of examples.86 Zwinger defined this form of history as ocularis et sensata cognitio – knowledge gained with the senses, especially the eyes, and to him, it presented the indispensable basis for philosophical reflection.87 Aristotle’s famous dictum that “nothing is in the intellect that has not passed through the senses” had resulted in frequent quotations of examples in scholarly texts of the peripatetic tradition. For Zwinger, however, ‘experience’ meant not the generic experience of regurgitated exempla from remote times and places culled from texts, but experience of one’s own hands’ work.88 As his ultimate concern in the Theatrum was not theory, but practice, he thought that first-hand experience and artisanal work were essential for the production of knowledge.89 He considered artisanal practice to be a fundamental tool for the development of all arts and sciences, and crucial for making truthful judgments.90 Indispensable, in Zwinger’s view, was therefore knowledge of things. Without knowledge of things, Zwinger thought, it was not only impossible to understand these concrete things themselves, but also to grasp any abstract concept; it is first-hand experience of things that distinguishes true science from sophistry.91 He thus put the arts as well as ethics, 85

See Daston and Park, Wonders, pp. 135–172. This the term that Zwinger used to describe his concept of historia in contrast to a history that recorded events in a chronological narrative (see Seifert, Cognitio historica, p. 83). 87 See Seifert, Cognitio historica, pp. 79–88, see p. 81. 88 See Gilly, “Erfahrung und Spekulation,” part 1, pp. 106f. 89 See Gilly, “Erfahrung und Spekulation,” part 2, p. 150. 90 According to Zwinger, humans possessed three such fundamental tools for the production of knowledge: a natural talent for invention (ingenii acumen), that what is learned by instruction (institutione et doctrina), and artisanal practice (usus scilicet et exercitatio singulorum, or scientia operum naturae). (See Gilly, “Erfahrung und Spekulation,” part 1, p. 103.) 91 See Gilly, “Erfahrung und Spekulation,” part 1, pp. 103f. Although Zwinger adhered to the Aristotelian classification of the sciences into theoretical (physica, mathematica, prima philosophia), poetical (the liberal and mechanical arts), and practical (ethica, oeconomica, politica) fields of knowledge, he differed crucially from Aristotle in how he assessed the value and epistemological status of these fields of knowledge. For Aristotle, only the scientiae theoreticae were ‘science’ in the strict sense of certain knowledge gained by logical deduction (episteme), and the scientiae practicae (ethics and politics) and especially the scientiae poieticae, i.e. the arts, were accorded a lesser status (see Gilly, “Erfahrung und Spekulation,” pp. 161f.). Consequently, staunch Aristotelians like Bartholomaeus Kecker86

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economics, and politics on the same epistemological level as the theoretical sciences. The difference he saw was not one of degree of certainty of knowledge, but merely the fact that arts and practical sciences were aimed at the production of objects or the performance of actions.92 Already in 1565, Zwinger saw the value of the theoretical sciences primarily in their potential to serve as a basis for the arts and practical sciences.93 Later, in the 1571 edition of the Theatrum, he came close to according practical experience a higher degree of certainty than theoretical reflection.94 Thus, as Carlos Gilly has shown, the collected examples in Zwinger’s Theatrum provided not merely illustrative material, but were meant to serve as the basis for philosophical argument. In contrast to Aristotle, Zwinger understood experience as rationally guided observation of selected phenomena, from which conclusions could be drawn that were applicable to all similar phenomena.95 It is possible to understand Quiccheberg’s hope that his “most complete and universal enumeration” would provide a basis for his readers to “measure the magnitude of their knowledge of all things”, and that they “might be stimulated to imagine and investigate other matters in turn”,96 as rooted in a similar view of the value of observation and experience. Just as Zwinger’s book, Quiccheberg’s ideal Kunstkammer contained innumerable objects related to the mechanical arts; technological knowledge, as well as knowledge of the materials with which these arts worked, was probably the most significant part of his collecting program. And like Zwinger’s, Quicchemann excluded the ‘poetical sciences’ from their epistemological systems, arguing that “much confusion would arise in the philosophical system, if medicine and the liberal arts or even agriculture and the art of craftsmen, tailors and cobblers were admitted to the field of philosophy” (Bartholomaeus Keckermann, Operum omnium tomus primus (Genevae 1614), p. 15 (quoted from Gilly, “Erfahrung und Spekulation,” part 2, p. 162, my translation)). 92 See Gilly, “Erfahrung und Spekulation,” part 2, p. 162. 93 “Sic Philosophia naturalis a speculatione ad opus aliquod utile et proficuum homini in rebus externis descendens, Artem Metallicam, Hydraulicam, Chymicam, ipsam denique Medicinam, veluti propagines ex se produxit.” (Zwinger, Theatrum (1565), p. 2); see Gilly, “Erfahrung und Spekulation,” part 2, p. 162. 94 See Gilly, “Erfahrung und Spekulation,” part 2, pp. 165f. 95 Zwinger understood the process of scientific knowledge production as follows: “Experientia observes the images, Ratio collects ideas, Memoria conserves these and Memoria then brings them forth again, Ratio draws conclusions, Experientia accomodates and confirms these.” [“Experientia enim simulacra observat, Ratio ideas colligit, Memoria easdem conservat et vicisim Memoria ideas depromit, Ratio deducit, Experientia accomodat et confirmat.”] (Theodor Zwinger, Theatrum vitae humanae (Basel: Froben, 1571), p. 202; see Gilly, “Erfahrung und Spekulation,” pp. 150f.). 96 “sed quòd voluerim, tanquam Cicero perfectum oratorem ita haec universa absolutissima enumeratione hominum cogitationibus infundi: quibus magnitudinem cognitionis rerum omnium metirentur, ad’que res iterum alia animo concipiendas et pervestigandas excitarentur.” (Quiccheberg, Inscriptiones, Admonitio seu consilium; Translation, Meadow and Robertson, Quiccheberg, Inscriptiones).

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berg’s Theatrum was an assemblage of exempla which he probably hoped would provide the basis for the production of knowledge that was just as certain and certainly more useful than Aristotelian scientia. Whether the two ‘theaters’ actually came to be used in this way is another question and hard to determine.97 Even if they were not, it is essential to understand that for a brief period of time, the collection and ordering of particulars not only in printed, but also in material form was deemed a viable way to further knowledge about the world. The early Kunstkammer was by no means, as Lorraine Daston has repeatedly argued, intended as a hodge-podge of ‘curiosities’ assembled in order to dazzle and stupefy the visitor.98 Quiccheberg’s treatise is evidence that these collections were thought of as fulfilling serious epistemological functions. Whether they ever succeeded, i.e. what their actual role in the more long-term developments of scientific thought were, is quite irrelevant at this point, and so is the question whether Quiccheberg's treatise ever reached a wide audience. Quiccheberg undoubtedly had a strong hand in devising the conceptual framework for the Munich Kunstkammer and in promoting its institution, as is obvious from the Kunstkammer’s contents and architectural setting, which was under construction at the time Quiccheberg wrote his treatise. Even if, as shall be shown below, the philosophical ideas underlying his project were not necessarily shared by many among the members of the court, he must have convinced Albrecht V and some of his entourage of its viability.

Courtly Science: the Utility of Knowledge for the Administration of the State As Gerrit Walther has argued, one of the central characteristics of courtly science was its stress on visual accessibility. Scholars seeking courtly patronage knew that they had to present their research projects and results in a way that was intriguing as well as quickly and easily comprehensible for their potential benefactors, who often only had an amateur knowledge of natural or historical inquiry.99 With the Kunstkammer, Quiccheberg appropriated the traditional courtly practice of collecting, a practice particularly suitable for splendid representation of princely affluence and power, and merged it with the ideas and 97 Ann Blair has briefly addressed this issue with regard to Zwinger (see Blair, “Historia,” p. 288). 98 See Daston, “The Factual Sensibility,” p. 458; Daston and Park, Wonders, pp. 255–301. Against this view, see Kaufmann, “Mastery,” p. 181, 303, n. 56. 99 See Gerrit Walther, “Fürsten, Höfe und Naturwissenschaften in der Frühen Neuzeit. Versuch einer Systematik,” in Scientiae et artes, vol. 1, ed. Barbara Mahlmann-Bauer (Wiesbaden 2004): 143–159, p. 153.

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practices of the topical tradition. Quiccheberg’s Kunstkammer was a rhapsodia exemplorum,100 and it was thus a radical realization of Zwinger’s understanding of history as ocularis et sensata cognitio.101 Taking the visual implications of this kind of historia one step further than any rhapsodist before him, he called for putting true objects of knowledge in front of the audience’s eyes. He thus created a site for the production of knowledge that accommodated both princely interests of visually impressive representation, as well as promoted new directions in natural inquiry. If we understand an experimental approach to nature, as Walther has suggested, not so much as a means to provide scientific proof, but as a way of making theoretical knowledge visually accessible, then experiments were a core characteristic of courtly science.102 Even if the Kunstkammer thus effectively remained within the confines of Aristotelian ‘experience’ and ultimately was a dead end street in the more long-term developments of scientific inquiry, it is important to see that at the time of its initial conception, it claimed to have functions beyond this.103 Quiccheberg’s idea of a Kunstkammer thus ingeniously responded to the specific conditions and demands of its courtly context, and this context was a particularly conducive environment to the development of new approaches to the production of knowledge. It has long been argued that the changing attitude to observation and experience was precipitated by a rising esteem for technological knowledge.104 As requiring manual labor and being concerned 100

On Zwinger’s definition see Seifert, Cognitio historica, p. 83). See Seifert, Cognitio historica, pp. 79–88, see p. 81. 102 See Walther, “Fürsten, Höfe und Naturwissenschaften,” p. 153. 103 On how the epistemology of the Kunstkammer and the development of scientific inquiry parted ways in the early seventeenth century, see Kaufmann, “Mastery,” pp. 191–94. DaCosta Kaufmann has also pointed to the necessity of differentiating the aims and functions of the earlier Kunstkammern from seventeenth-century developments in the history of collecting (see ibid. p. 295, n. 9). On these developments see also Giuseppe Olmi, “Alle origini della politica culturale dello stato moderno: dal collezionismo privato al cabinet du roy,” La Cultura 16 (1978): 471–484 and Giuseppe Olmi, “Dal ‘teatro del mondo’ ai mondi inventariati. Aspetti e forme del collezionismo nell’età moderna,” in Gli Uffizi, quattro secoli di una galleria: atti del convegno internazionale di studi, Firenze 20-24 settembre 1982, ed. Paola Barocchi and Giovanna Ragionieri (Firenze: L.S. Olschki, 1983): 233–269. 104 One of the first to argue (with a clearly Marxist agenda) for the influence of craftsmen on the development of scholarly thought leading to the Scientific Revolution was Edgar Zilsel; see Edgar Zilsel, “The Origins of William Gilbert's Scientific Method,” in Journal of the History of Ideas 2 (1941): 1–32 and Edgar Zilsel, “The Sociological Roots of Science,” in American Journal of Sociology 47 (1942): 544–562; Paolo Rossi built on Zilsel’s work in his seminal book Philosophy, Technology, and the Arts in the Early Modern Era (New York: Harper & Row, 1970); see also more recently A. C. Crombie, “Science and the Arts in the Renaissance: The Search for Truth and Certainty, Old and New,” in History of Science 18 (1980): 233–246; A. C. Crombie, Styles of Scientific Thinking in the European Tradition (London: Duckworth, 1994) (vol. 1, chapt. 8); James A. Bennett, “The Mechanic's Philoso101

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with practical matters rather than philosophical speculation, the mechanical arts had since antiquity been regarded as inferior to and set apart from scientific endeavors.105 This started to change during the fifteenth century, when according to Pamela Long, the increasing output of written treatises on technological topics by artisan-trained practitioners gradually heightened the status of the mechanical arts.106 One reason for this rise in technical authorship was the fact that some artisans turned away from the craft guilds in order to seek courtly patronage, using written treatises as an effective way to advertise their knowledge to the elites.107 The artisans’ quest for patronage met favorably with a heightened interest in technological matters on the part of princes. As Long has shown, already in the fifteenth century the practice and representation of princely power came to be closely associated with technological knowledge.108 Changes in military technology resulted in new crafts that were of particular interest to rulers, who had a special interest in military utility.109 Medical knowledge, especially surgery and veterinarian medicine were of particular relevance in the same context.110 Empirical medicine as well as the preparation of drugs had traditionally been considered as related to the mechanical arts, and left to lay practitioners rather than academic physicians.111 Given the vital function of such pracphy and the Mechanical Philosophy,” in History of Science 24 (1986): 1-28; Reijer Hooykaas, “The Rise of Modern Science: When and Why?,” in British Journal for the History of Science 20 (1987): 453–473; William M. Eamon, Science and the Secrets of Nature: Books on Secrets in Medieval and Early Modern Culture (Princeton 1994); and for the implications for the history of art and images Bert S. Hall, “Der Meister sol auch kennen schreiben und lesen: Writings about Technology ca. 1400–1600 A.D. and their Cultural Implications,” in Early Technologies, ed. Denise Schmandt-Besserat (Malibu, CA: Undena, 1979); Pamela O. Long, “Objects of Art/Objects of Nature. Visual Representation and the Investigation of Nature,” in Merchants & Marvels: Commerce, Science, and Art in Early Modern Europe, ed. Paula Findlen and Pamela H. Smith (New York: Routledge, 2002): 63–82; Pamela H.Smith, The Body of the Artisan: Art and Experience in the Scientific Revolution (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004). 105 See Eamon, Secrets of Nature, pp. 82f. 106 See Pamela O. Long, “Power, Patronage, and the Authorship of Ars: From Mechanical Know-How to Mechanical Knowledge in the Last Scribal Age,” in Isis 88, no. 1 (1997): 1– 41, p. 3. 107 See Eamon, Secrets of Nature, p. 87; Long, “Authorship of Ars,” p. 3.; Tara E. Nummedal, “Practical Alchemy and Commercial Exchange in the Holy Roman Empire,” in Merchants and Marvels. Commerce, Science, and Art in Early Modern Europe, ed. Pamela H. Smith and Paula Findlen (New York, London: Routledge, 2002): 201–222. 108 See Long, “Authorship of Ars,” p. 3. 109 See Walther, “Fürsten, Höfe und Naturwissenschaften,” pp. 146–148; and Eamon, Secrets of Nature, p. 87. 110 See Walther, “Fürsten, Höfe und Naturwissenschaften,” p. 147. 111 On the changing status of medicine since ancient times, see Jerome J. Bylebyl, “The Medical Meaning of Physica,” in Osiris 6 (1990): 16-41.

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titioners not only in the context of warfare, but for fighting diseases, appreciation for the most knowledgeable among them increased along with the rising esteem for other arts. These developments can be observed at the Munich court. Albrecht V kept not only several academically trained physicians on his payroll, but also a Steinschneider, a surgeon specializing in the excision of bladder stones.112 Furthermore, Albrecht V’s long-term personal physician, Johann Thanmüller, who stayed in his service from 1560 until his death in 1579, was also a surgeon who did not have academic training but had learned his trade from his father.113 Albrecht’s other principal physician was Johann Albrecht Wimpinaeus, a Paracelsian who had left Ingolstadt to enter princely service, and whom I shall discuss at greater length below. The rising interest of princes in practically applicable knowledge is also closely related to the centralization of princely power that Albrecht, as has been discussed in the first chapter, was pursuing at the time of the Kunstkammer’s foundation, but that had to a lesser extent concerned rulers since the fifteenth century.114 In this process, historical and genealogical knowledge were central to bolstering dynastic and territorial claims, while the practical administration of the territory and the exploitation of its natural resources required extensive technical expertise. Surveying and cartography, architectural projects, various forms of engineering for the construction of machines, vehicles and boats, fountains and pumps, as well as the financial administration of the territory increased the need for knowledge in applied mathematics, while the exploitation of the territory’s natural resources through farming, mining, and hunting required knowledge of its natural conditions, products, and processes. Thus the complex process of territorial centralization, in Bavaria as well as at other courts throughout Europe, led to an increasing demand for experts of all kinds.115 It prompted the massive intrusion of academically educated 112 The Steinschneider Jakob Vogl was awarded a life-time appointment as “Diener und Provisioner” for Albrecht V in 1575 (see Bestallungsrevers of 15 September 1575, Hauptstaatsarchiv München, Haus- und Familiensachen, Dienstpersonal, Nr. 105; see also Kurbayern Hofzahlamt Bd. 21 (1575), fol. 197v, and Bd. 30 (1584), fol. 189r). 113 See Leonhard Wolf, Ärztebiographien (Stelzlin - Thanmüller) aus dem Elenchus quorundam Bavariae medicorum des Münchener Hofbibliothekars Andreas Felix von Oefele (Erlangen 1966): 48–51. Thanmüller was appointed “Diener und Wundarzt” in 1560 (see Hauptstaatsarchiv München, Haus- und Familiensachen, Dienstpersonal, Bestallungsrevers of 18 September 1560, Nr. 92). He is documented among the court physicians up to 1578 in the Hofzahlamtsrechnungen. In 1579, an expense is recorded for his funeral mass (Kurbayern Hofzahlamt Bd. 25, fol. 369r). 114 See Long, “Authorship of Ars.” 115 See Lanzinner, Fürst, Räte, Landstände; Lutz and Ziegler, “Das konfessionelle Zeitalter,” pp. 375–379.

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burghers into princely service at the Munich court – a development that met with some concern on the part of the nobles who traditionally held courtly offices, but also entailed a rising pursuit of academic education among the nobility.116 Many of these were jurists, but some of them had very wide-ranging interests. A prominent example is Hans Jakob Fugger, whose influence on Albrecht’s collecting activities has been stressed by Mark Meadow.117 The increasing complexity of centralized government and of courtly life not only led to a multiplication of administrative officers, it also entailed an expansion of courtly staff at a lower level.118 The Hofzahlamtsrechnungen list an increasing number of different craftsmen, as well as people who were in charge of the garden, the pharmacy, the aviary, the fish ponds, and so forth.119 Moreover, the duke increasingly engaged with scholars and experts of various kinds for purposes of intellectual exchange or specific tasks. A prominent example was Philipp Apian, who served as Albrecht’s mathematician and territorial cartographer since 1554; strikingly, this affiliation even persisted beyond Apian’s expulsion from Bavaria on confessional grounds in 1569.120 Some of these scholars or artists were paid out of Albrecht’s personal budget so that they do not figure in the financial records of the court. This is for in116 For statistics about the level of education of the noble and burgherly Bavarian coucillors in the late fifteenth to seventeenth centuries, see Rainer A. Müller, “Zur Akademisierung des Hofrates. Beamtenkarrieren im Herzogtum Bayern 1450–1650,” in Gelehrte im Reich. Zur Sozial- und Wirkungsgeschichte akademischer Eliten des 14. bis 16. Jahrhunderts, ed. Rainer Ch. Schwinges (Berlin 1996): 291–307. Even Hans Jakob Fugger, although only of recent nobility and not in principle adverse to the academically educated burgherly members of the Bavarian courtly council, expressed his concern with their dominant presence in 1573: “[…] dz gantz regiment ist in der doctorn hande, und ob ich sy wol fur guete erliche leut halt, so wirdet doch in gmain und denen vom adl allerlay davon geredt, derwegen ich vermaint hab, auß den andern regimenten inen ernante personen zue ersetzen, damit die vom adl […] auch iren Taill haben.” (Quoted from Lanzinner, Fürst, Räte, Landstände, p. 229, n. 9.) 117 See Meadow, “Hans Jacob Fugger.” 118 Two unpublished theses investigate the increasing differentiation of courtly offices at the Munich court during Albrecht’s reign based on the Hofordnungen, see Maria H. Dausch, Zur Organisation des Münchner Hofstaats in der Zeit von Herzog Albrecht V. bis zu Kurfürst Maximilian, Diss. München 1944; Claudia Scharbert, Die Entwicklung des Münchner Hofstaats unter Albrecht V. (1550–1579). Zur Organisation und Differenzierung der Ämterhierarchie eines Fürstenhofstaats in der Frühen Neuzeit (Staatsexamensarbeit, München 1997). 119 Hauptstaatsarchiv München, Kurbayern Hofzahlamt, Hofzahlamtsrechnungen, passim. 120 The Hofzahlamtsrechnungen record payments related to the map of Bavaria from 1558 (some of the earlier volumes are missing) until 1563/64, with a final payment of 2,500 fl. made to Apian for the completion of the map in 1564/65 (Kurbayern Hofzahlamt 9, fol. 328r: “Bezalt den 5 Aprilis Anno d. 64 Philippo Appiano zu völliger Entrichtung der gemachten Bayrischen Mappa vermig hienebenliegennder zetl 2500 fl.”). After that, Apian receives an annual Leibgeding until 1567/68; these payments then resume in 1571/72 and continue until his death in 1589. He is also occasionally ordered to the court, such as for the completion of a terrestrial globe (see Gruber, Philipp Apian, pp. 100–106).

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stance the case with the painter Georg Hoefnagel, who specialized in natural illustrations, and who, up to Albrecht’s death, used to be paid out of his private seckhel.121 The fact that Quiccheberg does only sporadically figure in the Hofzahlamtsrechnungen as receiving an occasional Gnadengeld may therefore suggest that he was part of the more personal entourage with which Albrecht liked to surround himself, and which he refused to subject to control by the Hofkammer.122 The new practical demands of territorial administration thus led to a social and intellectual diversification of the courtly milieu and created an environment conducive to intellectual exchange between members of different social groups and educational backgrounds. The princely courts, as Bruce Moran has shown, became “institutional nodes of technical activity” by providing a setting where scholars and craftsmen mingled.123 Due to the increasing interaction between scholars and artisans, an active approach to nature, geared toward practical results rather than conformity with theoretical principles, gradually penetrated scholarly thinking, and eventually favored a more empirical, experimental approach to natural inquiry.124 It is this pragmatic attitude that made courts such intrinsically conducive sites for the development of unconventional approaches to knowledge production. For rulers, it was the

121 This can be inferred from the following record: “Geörgen Huefnagl Malern. per sein ausstendige Quatember Weihanchten Anno 79 zalt, dann jne sein fl. g. Hertzog Albrecht hochseligister gedechtnus hievormals, aus jr f. g. seckhel bezallen lassen, thuet lautt der zetl fl. 76: 30.” (Hauptstaatsarchiv München, Kurbayern Hofzahlamt 26 (1580), fol. 432v). On Hoefnagel in Munich, see Thea Vignau-Wilberg, “Joris Hoefnagels Tätigkeit in München,” in Jahrbuch der Kunsthistorischen Sammlungen in Wien, N.F. (1985): 104–166, for his payments and status see p. 115. 122 On Albrecht’s refusal to subject his personal company to courtly regulations, see Ferdinand Kramer, “Zur Entstehung und Entwicklung von Hofordnungen am Münchner Hof in der zweiten Hälfte des 16. Jahrhunderts,” in Höfe und Hofordnungen 1200–1600 Residenzenforschung, ed. Holger Kruse and Werner Paravicini (Sigmaringen: Jan Thorbecke Verlag, 1999): 383–399, p. 397. 123 See Bruce T. Moran, “German Prince-Practitioners: Aspects in the Development of Courtly Science, Technology, and Procedures in the Renaissance,” in Technology and Culture 22 (1981): 253–74, pp. 253, 270–72. 124 On the increasing interest of artists/artisans in natural inquiry during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in general, and the effects of the enhanced social recognition of their expertise on the development of a more empirical approach to nature, see Smith, The Body of the Artisan. On the same grounds, arguments have been made for the importance of natural magic for the epistemological developments leading to the Scientific Revolution. Just like technology, which was often associated with magic, natural magic promoted an active, manipulating approach to nature. See among others Frances A. Yates, “The Hermetic Tradition in Renaissance Science,” in Art, Science and History in the Renaissance, ed. Charles S. Singleton (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1968): 255–274; Hall, “Der Meister”; Copenhaver, “Natural Magic”; Eamon, Secrets of Nature.

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result that counted: as long as it benefited the needs of their rulership, they did not worry about the means by which it was reached.125 If Quiccheberg, with the intrinsic visuality of his conception of a universal collection, had already productively accommodated the visual character of the topical tradition to the representational interests of his princely patron, he took a similar approach in regard to the duke’s pragmatic epistemological interests. The traditional goal of topical collections of bits and pieces of textual information had been fundamentally practical, aimed at making the collected material easily accessible, and we have seen that Zwinger’s and even more so Quiccheberg’s ordering systems are primarily geared toward that purpose. If Zwinger already had made it clear that the utility of knowledge was the principal criterion of selection and the central aim of his Theatrum,126 Quiccheberg made this focus on utility, which is rooted both in the tradition of textual topical collections and in the development of courtly science, the central theme of his argument for the establishment of a Kunstkammer, and adapted it to the courtly context by claiming the collection’s utility for the administration of the state. Quiccheberg’s prominent insistence in the title of his treatise that hands-on experience with objects was essential not only to the production of knowledge, but also to the attainment of prudentia, is clearly geared toward his princely audience.127 Prudence was a cardinal virtue traditionally seen as being of particular importance to rulers. Discussed by Aristotle in his Nicomachean Ethics as an intellectual virtue that allowed a person to make wise decisions in determining a course of action,128 and succinctly defined by Thomas Aquinas as recta ratio agibilium (“the right reason applied to practice”), prudence was understood as “the agent’s ability to deliberate, decide and properly to order the process of practical reason to action.”129 In the sixteenth century, the concept of prudentia played a vital role for the empirical political pragmatism of Machiavelli, and later came to be a central topos in neostoic political theory, notably in the works of Justus Lipsius.130 A virtue with an eminently practical 125

See Walther, “Fürsten, Höfe und Naturwissenschaften,” p. 150. See Gilly, “Erfahrung und Spekulation,” part 1, p. 104; Gilly, “Erfahrung und Spekulation,” part 2, pp. 166f. 127 “quae hic simul in theatro conquiri consuluntur, ut eorum frequenti inspectione tractationéque, singularis aliqua rerum cognitio et prudentia admiranda, citò, facilè ac tutò comparari possit.” (Quiccheberg, Inscriptiones, title page). 128 See Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book VI, v–xiii. 129 Daniel Westberg, Right Practical Reason: Aristotle, Action, and Prudence in Aquinas (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), p. 187. For Aquinas’ discussion see Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Secunda secundae partis, quaestiones 47-56. 130 On Machiavelli, see Cornel Zwierlein, Discorso und Lex Dei. Die Entstehung neuer Denkrahmen im 16. Jahrhundert und die Wahrnehmung der französischen Religionskriege in Italien und Deutschland (Göttingen 2006); on prudentia in Lipsius and his followers, see 126

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function, it was vital to politics and statecraft. Succinctly formulated in the title of Quiccheberg’s Inscriptiones, the idea of ‘empirical’ knowledge as the basis for the attainment of prudentia and its utility for governing the state is the leitmotif of his treatise and the preeminent rationale for the foundation of a princely universal collection. Quiccheberg’s most extensive reflections on the knowledge gained from a collection of objects and its special utility for rulers occur in the section in which he gives “[r]ecommendation and advice [...] concerning the universal theater”. Here he compares the purpose of his treatise to that of Cicero’s Orator, a work similarly concerned with the universality of knowledge needed for political action.131 Quiccheberg thus closely links his collection with the rhetorical tradition, a connection that is already evident from the intrinsic relationship of his ideas with the topical tradition. As Maurice Slawinski has argued, the model of rhetoric known from Cicero’s Orator, with its stress on the usefulness to political action and its comprehensive treatment of all matters, provided the fundamental model for science in the early modern period.132 After the breakdown of the Roman republic, the rhetorician’s importance as a political actor diminished, and Quintilian, in his Institutio Oratoria, which was written under the conditions of the Empire, shifted his vocation to the education of rulers.133 In the Renaissance, Quintilian’s version of the task of the rhetorician provided a useful argument for humanists and other intellectuals who were seeking employment as princely preceptors and advisors, or were looking for patronage for their projects. In the context of the Bavarian efforts at the centralization of princely power in the later sixteenth century, it was principally the Jesuit order who put Quintilian’s ideas into practice by offering an educational program geared towards confessional conformity and the maintenance of princely power in return for ducal protection. Individual scholars equally sought to make use of the rhetorical model, and one of the central arguments in Renaissance treatises on natural philosophy was the Gerhard Oestreich, “Justus Lipsius als Theoretiker des neuzeitlichen Machtstaates,” in Geist und Gestalt des frühmodernen Staates, ed. Gerhard Oestreich (Berlin 1969): 35–79 and Gerhard Oestreich, “Policey und Prudentia Civilis in der barocken Gesellschaft von Stadt und Staat,” in Strukturprobleme der frühen Neuzeit. Ausgewählte Aufsätze, ed. Brigitta Oestreich (Berlin 1980): 367–379. 131 “sed quòd voluerim, tanquam Cicero perfectum oratorem ita haec universa absolutissima enumeratione hominum cogitationibus infundi: quibus magnitudinem cognitionis rerum omnium metirentur, ad’que res iterum alia animo concipiendas et pervestigandas excitarentur.” (Quiccheberg, Inscriptiones, Admonitio seu consilium). 132 See Maurice Slawinski, “Rhetoric and science/ rhetoric of science/ rhetoric as science,” in Science, Culture and Popular Belief in Renaissance Europe, ed. Stephen Pumfrey, Paolo Rossi and Maurice Slawinski (Manchester, New York: Manchester University Press, 1991): 71–99, pp. 77f. 133 See Slawinski, “Rhetoric and science,” p. 79.

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practical applicability and utility of their contents for the administration of the state.134 It is precisely this context within which we have to see Quiccheberg’s claims for the utility of the Kunstkammer, a utility not only for the ruler and other noblemen, but also for scholars.135 In a crucial passage, he writes: “Indeed, I also judge that it cannot be expressed by any person’s eloquence how much wisdom and utility in administering the state – as much in the civil and military spheres as in the ecclesiastical and scholarly – can be gained from the examination and study of the images and objects that we are prescribing. For there is no discipline under the sun, no field of study, or practice, which might not most properly seek its instruments from these prescribed furnishings. Yet, in fact, it would require divine genius to assemble from all places and to order all these things that, once concisely and comprehensively collected, might be capable of instructing the mind of any reasonably refined person in countless matters.”136

Linking the universal scope of his envisioned collection to the universal demands of statecraft, Quiccheberg quite ingeniously fits his proposal to the interests of his ducal patron. The administration of a state encompasses civil, military, ecclesiastical and literary (i.e. scholarly or educational) matters, and the Theatrum was to contain objects relevant to all of these spheres. For instance, Quiccheberg claims with regard to the collection of foreign weapons: “Indeed, among these very objects there will be none so rare and so unfamiliar that knowledge of it would not be useful.”137 The collection is the promptuarium, the storehouse for the instruments, objects and materials required for both theoretical and practical pursuits of knowledge. Finally, when speaking of the ‘divine genius’ needed to put together and order all these things, Quic-

134

See Slawinski, “Rhetoric and science,” pp. 79–83. “In other cases, I will attempt to make known certain other things that I have arranged and observed for the benefit of many people. In particular, whatever I have diligently discovered in my earlier studies concerning the insignia and arms of noble families, and which was earlier confirmed, I would deny no nobleman or scholar.” [“in aliis alia quaedam à me distributa et observata, ad multorum utilitatem, in medium proferre tentabo. praesertim primo quoque tempore quae de insignibus familiarum armisque nobilium consectatus sum, prius recognita, nimini nobili aut literato denegabo.”] (Quiccheberg, Inscriptiones, Admonitio seu consilium; Translation, Meadow and Robertson, Quiccheberg, Inscriptiones.) 136 “Censeo enim etiam nullius hominis facundia edici posse, quanta prudentia, & usus administrandae reipublicae, tàm civilis & militaris, quàm ecclesiasticae & literatae, ex inspectione et studio imaginum et rerum, quas praescribimus, comparari possit. Nulla enim sub coelo est disciplina, nullum studium, aut exercitatio, quae non sua etiam instrumenta ex hac praescripta supellectile rectissimè petat. Iam ergo divino opus esset ingenio, quod haec omnia sic undique componeret & ordinaret, ut succintè & compendiosè conquisita cuiusvis non impoliti animum, in innumeris instruere possent.” (Quiccheberg, Inscriptiones, Admonitio seu consilium; (Translation, Meadow and Robertson, Quiccheberg, Inscriptiones). 137 Quiccheberg, Inscriptiones, Digressiones IV, 8 (Translation, Meadow and Robertson, Quiccheberg, Inscriptiones). 135

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cheberg stressed the difficulty and intellectual challenge of the task, and thus cleverly secured his own role in the project he proposes. The Munich Kunstkammer’s emphasis on the representation of the Bavarian territory, which I have discussed in the first chapter, can only be fully understood when seen against this background, and it was arguably the most tangible result of Quiccheberg’s personal involvement in its conception. Under Quiccheberg’s aegis, who had ingeniously merged the lessons from the topical tradition for the practice of collecting with the political and representational interests of a duke in the process of securing and expanding his personal power, the Munich Kunstkammer evolved into a central repository for objects of knowledge about the history and nature of the territory and its ruling dynasty. Quiccheberg’s early death in 1567 prevented him from guiding this project to completion, and from offering more elaborate theoretical support for it. Being peculiarly adapted to the contemporary Bavarian situation, his brief treatise as well as he himself soon fell into oblivion.

Quiccheberg’s Ideas, the Kunstkammer, and the Intellectual Milieu of the Munich Court Quiccheberg did not think of the Kunstkammer as an isolated museum; he envisioned a number of musea et officinae to be attached to the central collection: a library, workshops for printing, wood-turning, and casting metal, a pharmacy, a mint, and a metallurgical and alchemical laboratory; furthermore, he recommended separate rooms for more specialized collections such as prints, portraits, maps, artisanal equipment and tools, and musical instruments, moreover for precious vessels, tapestries, curtains, and garments, as well as for costumes to fit out courtly spectacles. He even included a chapel for religious worship in this list of appended institutions.138 On the one hand, this idea of more specialized satellite collections and workshops provides further evidence for Quiccheberg’s understanding of the collection as an active site for the production of knowledge; on the other, it stresses the Kunstkammer’s links to the larger structure of the Munich court as an institution.139 A large part of these facilities is indeed documented as extant at the Munich court, and Quiccheberg himself refers repeatedly to them.140 For instance, when speaking of the aviary kept by duchess Anna, Quiccheberg lauds it as a 138

See Quiccheberg, Inscriptiones, Musea et officinae. See Meadow, “Quiccheberg and the Copious Object.” 140 The only one to have received serious and detailed scholarly attention so far is the library, see Hartig, Hofbibliothek, and Franz Georg Kaltwasser, Die Bibliothek als Museum: von der Renaissance bis heute, dargestellt am Beispiel der Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek (Wiesbaden 1999), pp. 5–32. 139

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“storehouse of knowledge” that was “celebrated by investigators of natural objects”. Clearly, the purpose of the aviary, in Quiccheberg’s mind, was very similar to that of the Kunstkammer: it was there so that “those interested in this can gain knowledge of these things.”141 Likewise, in regard to the pharmacy Quiccheberg explains that “by the making of medicines, by the preserving of many things, and by the distillation of liquids and oils, the excitement of the mind can never be sated, so long as it can see that new practical expertise flows immediately from facts long known”.142 Shortly afterwards, he reports that such a pharmacy was already being run at the Munich court by Albrecht’s wife, the duchess Anna.143 Courtly records also show that there was a repository for costumes to supply courtly spectacles, which was overseen by the ducal councilor Ludwig Müller.144 The Kunstkammer Quiccheberg envisioned was thus by no means an isolated place to show off courtly splendor by the amassment of rarities, but was conceptually linked in many ways to the entire system of courtly life. Therefore, any consideration of the project’s potential reception within the institution of the court as a whole must include a very broad spectrum of interests and pursuits. If Quiccheberg’s treatise is intrinsically pragmatic, catering to the epistemological and representational interests of a territorial ruler, it is on the other hand also related to more esoteric philosophical pursuits concerned with the representation of universal knowledge, and the quest for insight into the inner workings of nature. This is connection is indicated by Quiccheberg’s constant claims to the collection’s universality, by his repeated references to the attainment of ‘wisdom’ as an ultimate goal, and his invocation of scholars pursuing such philosophical interests. It becomes particularly evident in a passage at the end of the Digressiones in his treatise, where after stressing again the universal scope of the ideal Kunstkammer, he advises that the collector should be educated in “a certain style of learning”, and that “it cannot 141 Quiccheberg, Inscriptiones, Admonitio seu consilium (Translation, Meadow and Robertson, Quiccheberg, Inscriptiones). 142 “praeterquam quòd ex pharmacorum confectione, et rerum plurimarum conditione, et aquarum oleorumque destillatione, nunquam satis exaciari animus potest, dum novam subinde experientiam ex dudum cognitis rebus videat promanare.” (Quiccheberg, Inscriptiones, Museae et officina; Translation, Meadow and Robertson, Quiccheberg, Inscriptiones). 143 “Amongst these various establishments, praise is owed also to duchess Anna, dearest wife of prince Albrecht and daughter of the emperor, Duke Ferdinand, who by way of increasing alms and assistance in royal fashion, had a laboratory for ointments and cures and an apothecary, constructed so ornately that they have come to be counted among the most glorious buildings of the new citadel. In doing this she imitated Jacobäa, Marquise of Baden, the most illustrious prince Albrecht’s mother, who some time before had a pharmacy of her own installed in the home in which she spent her years of widowhood, in the company of Scholastica Nothafft, widow of Christoph, baron of Schwarzenberg.” (Quiccheberg, Inscriptiones, Admonitio seu consilium; Translation, Meadow and Robertson, Quiccheberg, Inscriptiones) 144 See Hauptstaatsarchiv München, Kurbayern Hofzahlamt 23 (1577) –26 (1580).

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be but that in the shortest time, without great exertion and dangers or troubles, which would in general have to be faced in the investigation of things, he will acquire unbelievable practical knowledge regarding everything and a manifestly divine wisdom.”145 In his treatise, mainly in the section of the Exempla, Quiccheberg names several scholars connected to the Munich court who were working on projects that he sees as related to the Kunstkammer. In this last section of this chapter, I shall introduce a few of these scholars, and show how their interests may have related to the collection’s conceptual framework. As a consideration of the ‘intellectual milieu’ of the court in its entirety would be beyond the scope of this chapter, I shall specifically focus on those scholars who displayed philosophical interests in the production of universal knowledge and the empirical investigation of nature, i.e. in those issues most closely related to the conceptual core of Quiccheberg’s theatrum.146 This discussion shall also serve to bolster my previous discussion of the general directions in courtly science with some specific evidence from the particular context of the Munich court. Furthermore, I shall briefly introduce scholars who engaged in research that was thematically related to the Munich Kunstkammer’s focus on the representation of the Bavarian territory. The Old Testament quotes appended to Quiccheberg’s treatise draw parallels between the Kunstkammer’s founder and Solomon as the archetype of collectors endowed with wisdom.147 Thus while stressing the pragmatic slant of his proposal – most significantly in contrast to the more esoteric ideas of Giulio Camillo – Quiccheberg still sees his project as related to philosophical traditions concerned with the quest for universal knowledge, such as some versions of mnemonics, numerology, Lullism, alchemy, or natural magic.148 This 145

Quiccheberg speaks of “quaedam discendi methodo”, the cited passage reads: “abesse non poterit, quin brevissimo tempore sine magno labore, & periculis molestiisque, quae alioqui in pervestigatione rerum tollerandae forent, incredibilem omnium rerum peritiam, & divinam planè prudentiam acquirat.” (Quiccheberg, Inscriptiones, Digressiones; Translation, Meadow and Robertson, Quiccheberg, Inscriptiones). 146 For a survey of the diverse literary, historiographical, and theological scholarship at the Munich court, see Reinhardstöttner, “Zur Geschichte des Humanismus.” 147 See James Bennett and Scott Mandelbrote, The Garden, the Ark, the Tower, the Temple: Biblical Metaphors of Knowledge in Early Modern Europe (Oxford: Museum of the History of Science, 1998). 148 For these traditions, see Thomas Leinkauf, “Scientia universalis, memoria und status corruptionis. Überlegungen zu philosophischen und theologischen Implikationen der Universalwissenschaft sowie zum Verhältnis von Universalwissenschaft und Theorien des Gedächtnisses,” in Art memorativa. Zur kulturgeschichtlichen Bedeutung der Gedächtniskunst 1400– 1750, ed. Jörg Jochen Berns and Wolfgang Neuber (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1993): 1–34; Wilhelm Schmidt-Biggemann, “Enzyklopädie und Philosophia perennis,” in Enzyklopädien der Frühen Neuzeit. Beiträge zu ihrer Erforschung, ed. Franz Eybl, Wolfgang Harms, Hans-

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should not be viewed as a contradiction, as there was an intrinsically pragmatic side to most of these pursuits, which often claimed not only to lead to wisdom, but to lead one to it quickly.149 Correspondingly, immediately following the above-cited passage on the quick attainment of divine wisdom, Quiccheberg cites “arithmologies” as a form of such objects or books that are its source. As the example of the Arithmologia published a century later by Athanasius Kircher shows, an arithmology could be a work concerned with the mystical power of numbers, and thus with cabbalistic or numerological ideas.150 Quiccheberg names Petrus Cortoneus, one of the court physicians at Munich, as a “philosopher of that kind”.151 Unfortunately, very little is known about Cortoneus, only that he first came to the court from Italy in 1565, and was from then on among Albrecht’s court physicians until 1570, possibly the year of his death.152 In addition to Cortoneus, Quiccheberg names two slightly better documented proponents of similar interests at the Munich court: Sebastian Reisacher (1531–1571), a professor at Ingolstadt University and Bavarian ducal councilor, and Johann Albrecht Wimpinaeus (†1599), personal physician of Albrecht’s and also formerly a professor at Ingolstadt. Both of these scholars, each in their own way exemplify the status and spectrum of interests in the attainment of universal knowledge and the investigation of nature at the Munich court. Quiccheberg’s own fascination with those esoteric matters becomes most evident in the extensive attention he devotes to Sebastian Reisacher in one of Henrik Krummacher and Wolfgang Welzig (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1995): 1–18; Paolo Rossi, Logic and the art of memory: the quest for a universal language (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000). 149 This is especially recognizable with regard to alchemy and magic, which by virtue of their manipulative approach to nature were closely related to development of natural science and technology (see Yates, “Hermetic Tradition”; Paolo Rossi, Francis Bacon: From Magic to Science (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1968); Hall, “Der Meister”; Brian P. Copenhaver, “Natural Magic, Hermetism, and Occultism in Early Modern Science,” in Reappraisals of the Scientific Revolution, ed. David C. Lindberg and Robert S. Westman (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990): 261–301; Eamon, Secrets of Nature). 150 See Athanasius Kircher, Arithmologia sive de abditis numerorum mysteriis (Rome 1665). 151 “philosophus cuius generis” (see Quiccheberg, Inscriptiones, Digressiones; Translation, Meadow and Robertson, Quiccheberg, Inscriptiones). 152 In 1565, Cortoneus is still referred to as “ain welschen doctor”, to whom a Gnadengeld of 50fl. was granted (Hauptstaatsarchiv München, Kurbayern Hofzahlamt 10 (1565/66), fol. 313v). He must have been successful in his request for employment, as in the same year, he is paid as one of the court’s physician for three quarters of that fiscal year (Kurbayern Hofzahlamt 10, fol. 401r). In 1570, he disappears from the payroll. In 1578 and 1580 the son of the deceased doctor receives a Gnadengeld (Kurbayern Hofzahlamt 24 (1578), fol. 305v and Kurbayern Hofzahlamt 26 (1580), fol. 348v).

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the biographies he contributed to Heinrich Pantaleon’s Teutscher Nation Heldenbuch.153 Quite at odds with the fact that Reisacher is today completely obscure, having left only minor published works and very few traces in the documents at all, Quiccheberg discusses Reisacher in a far more detailed way than, for instance, Wiguleus Hundt.154 Quiccheberg relates that Reisacher studied the arts in Ingolstadt, where he “read books by various philosophers, and compared them to the opinion of Petrus Ramus and of other methodical writers.”155 After Reisacher became professor of ancient Greek at the same school in 1554, he “studied much in natural and secret arts, gladly engaged in disputations, and published several of these in print.”156 Of these academic disputations, only two have survived, both of which treat a conglomeration of philosophical issues: the first, published in 1553, attends to issues of magic, fortune, the dialectic of the syllogism, and ethics; the other, published in 1559, treats questions of logic, physics, and politics.157 In the section on magic, Reisacher reveals himself as a knowledgeable adherent of natural magic, which he strives to distinguish clearly from any form of demonic magic. The series of authors concerned with magic that he affirmatively cites reads like a pantheon of what is generally referred to as the hermetic tradition,158 and he proposes to discuss and investigate their ideas.159 In 1557, 153

See Pantaleon, Teutscher Nation Heldenbuch, p. 487. His published works are merely a few academic disputations and orations given at Ingolstadt, see Sebastian Reisacher, Disputatio in pvblicvm Ingolstadii proposita. Anno post Ch: Nat: M. D. LIII. Præsidente M. Sebastiano Reisachero ac respondentibus Ioanne Aurpachio, & Georgio Chunio (s. l. 1553); Sebastian Reisacher, Quaestiones philosophicae (Ingolstadt 1559); Sebastian Reisacher, “Oratio de optimo dicendi genere,” in Orationes Ingolstadienses, ed. Valentin Rotmar (Ingolstadt 1571): 370–404. 155 “wie er die geschrifft in dem Vatterland zimmlich erlehrnet/ und auff das 17 jar kommen/ zoge er gehn Ingolstadt/ studieret fleißig in freien künsten/ und durchlase der Philosophen vielfaltige buecher/ mit welchen er auch Petri Rami und anderer Methodischen scribenten meinung verglichen” (Pantaleon, Teutscher Nation Heldenbuch, p. 487). 156 “studieret er offt in natürlichen heimlichen künsten/ disputieret gern/ und ließ etliche dergeleichen propositiones im truck außgehn” (Pantaleon, Teutscher Nation Heldenbuch, p. 487). 157 See Reisacher, Disputatio; Reisacher, Quaestiones. 158 On the history of the use of that term and its problems, see Copenhaver, “Natural Magic.” 159 “His de Magia pronunciatis quanquam clarissimi, doctissimique uiri, Iannes Picus Mirandula, Ioannes Reuchlinus, Theophrastus Paracelsus, Marsilius Ficinus, Ioannes Tritemius, Cornelius Agrippa, Albertus Magnus, & ex ueteribus oroaster, Mercurius Trismesgistus, Pythagoras, Democritus, Iamblichus, Proclus, Porphyrius, & tota Cabalistarum schola apertè assentiantur, nec obscurè sacrae literae, sanctique patres multis & exemplis, & testimonijs ea comprobent, tamen nos ea quidem non tàm affirmamus, quàm, an affirmari debeant, & ad disputandum proponimus, & exquirendo cognoscere studemus, & ueriorem sententiam, firmioresque rationes asserenti non solum libenter cedemus, sed maximas quoque gratias agemus.” (Reisacher, Disputatio.) 154

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Reisacher became professor of philosophy at Ingolstadt, while engaging in studies at the faculties of medicine and law, earning his doctorate in the latter in 1562. As a professor, Quiccheberg relates, Reisacher taught the “method” which he invented, and which offered “everything that may be useful to man, while revealing many wonderful causes and origins of nature.”160 Thus stressing the utility of Reisacher’s esoteric pursuits, Quiccheberg goes on to laud the further merit of Reisacher’s method, which allowed him to acquire a great amount of knowledge about a variety of subjects in a very short time.161 After ten years of such meritorious scholarly work, Reisacher ascended to the position of ducal councilor at Burghausen, a task that he fulfilled in an equally laudable way, while continuing his philosophical endeavors. These, according to Quiccheberg, showed “a more certain path to all arts” than the cabbalistic writings by Johannes Reuchlin.162 The works by Reisacher to which Quiccheberg is referring were never published, and the only other document we have regarding their nature is a letter that Wimpinaeus wrote to Hans Jakob Fugger in 1573, which provides some hints of the perception of Reisacher’s – and Quiccheberg’s – ideas in the context of the Munich court.163 The letter is concerned with a visit that Wimpinaeus paid to Reisacher’s widow in Burghausen, apparently during a hunting trip in that area on which he had accompanied Albrecht. He had known Reisacher for a long time, and was aware of the deceased scholar’s industrious work and great erudition, so he was interested in finding the works he might have left behind. However, to Wimpinaeus’ disappointment, he did not find the comprehensive books that he had hoped for; rather, he encountered a multitude of diverse manuscripts, “imperfect and confused”, but certainly learned and evidence of the great erudition for which Reisacher had been known. Wimpinaeus nonetheless set himself to the painful task of looking through the disorderly writings, and then deferred the matter to Duke Albrecht. Albrecht asked for these manuscripts to be sent to him, and finally 160

“In diesem hat er alles was dem menschen moegen nutzlich sein fürgetragen/ auch viel wunderbare ursachen und gründ der natur geoffenbaret.” (Pantaleon, Teutscher Nation Heldenbuch, p. 487.) 161 “Als jm auch diese lehr dienstlich/ hat er viel buecher in den Rechten/ Artzney/ und Philosophey angefangen/ und mit kurtzem gantz viel begriffen.” (Pantaleon, Teutscher Nation Heldenbuch, p. 487.) 162 “Wie er dergestalt zehen jar die guten künst der jugent fürgehalten/ und ein neüwe Philosophey angerichtet/ warde er von dem Fürsten in Bayeren under seine Raeth angenommen/ und zu Burghaußen mit sampt anderen Regenten befolhen alles recht anzuschicken: daselben hat er sich mit richten und rathen sehr geuebet/ und wann er weil bekommen sich wider zu seinen buecheren gewendet/ damit er dieses/ so er erfunden/ heiterer außstreichen/ und besser erleüteren moechte: dann daselben wirt ein weg zu allen künsten viel gewüsser/ dann in Reüchlini Caballistica angezeiget. Dergestalt faret er zu Burghaußen für/ und hat bey den geleerten durch sein hohen verstand ein grossen nammen erlanget.” 163 The letter is published in Hartig, Hofbibliothek, pp. 314f.

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decided to dispatch them to Hans Jakob Fugger; Wimpinaeus’ letter apparently accompanied this shipment. While Wimpinaeus concedes that the confusion of the writings will be displeasing to Fugger, he nonetheless emphasizes that those writings, which he styles as the result of twenty years of labor by a “sharp and practiced mind,” were worthy to be included in the ducal library. He expresses the hope that other scholars will then engage in the task of ordering and polishing these materials. Wimpinaeus suggests that this work might appeal to Georg Lauther, one of Albrecht’s court theologians, who had studied philosophy with Reisacher and would therefore understand the principles upon which his writings were based.164 Furthermore, he relates that the widow would also be happy to share a number of different manuscripts on the subject of civil law, but Wimpinaeus was reluctant to accept them, because he was already unsure of how Fugger would like the first set of writings. It is possible, he says, that Fugger would find them “Quicchebergian”. What follows then is a bit startling, considering that Quiccheberg used to be Fugger’s protégé: “Contineas risum quaeso”, asks Wimpinaeus, “I beg you to contain your laughter.” He then continues: “Whatever [these writings] are like, they are surely the fruit of a perspicacious genius,” and he would not deny that they were rooted in the principles of the Lullian art, which was often looked upon with contempt by the ignorant. He himself used to dabble in this art; and it would not be difficult for him to explain its universal principles to Fugger in half an hour after his return. We do not know what Fugger’s reply was, but another visit to the widow seems to have ensued, this time by Johann Thanmüller, the surgeon who was Albrecht’s other personal physician. Whatever this second expedition was about, in 1575, Reisacher’s widow submitted a petition to the Hofkammer, asking the for the compensation that had been promised to her when two years earlier Wimpinaeus and Thanmüller had picked up her husband’s writings on behalf of the duke.165 Both documents show that while the duke found Reisacher’s “Quicchebergian” works important enough to bring them into his possession, his ideas enjoyed but a marginal status at the Munich court. The fact that Wimpinaeus somewhat ironically labels them as “Quicchebergian” not only indicates their close association with the author of the Inscriptiones, but also their somewhat eccentric status. This is particularly clear from Wimpinaeus’ request that Fugger contain his laughter, which indicates that Hans Jakob Fugger, for instance, might not have had the most acute interest in such esoteric matters as hermetic or Lullist philosophy and Ramist method. Thus, the letter suggests 164 Wimpinaeus and Lauther were old college classmates; both had earned their M.A. at Ingolstadt in 1561 (see Johann Nepomuk Mederer, Annales Ingolstadiensis Academiae (Ingolstadt 1782), p. 267). 165 This document (from Hofkammer-Sessionsprotokolle XV, fol. 170v and 171r, 28 July 1575) is also published in Hartig, Hofbibliothek, p. 315.

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that while Quiccheberg’s expertise in the practice of collecting, as well as his genealogical activities and the commentary he provided on the works of Orlando di Lasso, were certainly welcome at the Munich court, the philosophical and epistemological implications of his treatise were likely only appreciated by a very small group of people there. Among these was certainly Wimpinaeus, and his suggestion that someone like the theologian Georg Lauther, who is otherwise not known to have engaged in anything but confessional polemics and homiletic writings, might be inclined to edit Reisacher’s works, possibly indicates a more widespread familiarity with the philosophical ideas upon which both Reisacher’s and Quiccheberg’s writings were based (after all, Lauther was likely not the only former student of Reisacher’s around the court, given that Reisacher had taught in the arts faculty). Nonetheless, it seems that they were regarded as rather eccentric. Johann Albrecht Wimpinaeus had been on Albrecht’s payroll as a physician since 1567.166 Documented in Ingostadt since 1559 and having earned his M.A. in philosophy in 1561, Wimpinaeus became professor of poetry at Ingolstadt in 1563. In 1564, he started lecturing on Aristotelian physics, while being enrolled as a student in the faculty of medicine, where he earned his doctorate in 1567.167 He was the protégé of Friedrich Staphylus, and was also closely associated with the Jesuits, for whom he wrote a polemical treatise in 1563.168 In 1566, he was suspended from his professorship, and finally left the university for good in 1567.169 His departure may have been related to the contemporary expulsion of Jesuit professors from the arts faculty, although Wimpinaeus was not a Jesuit himself.170 Whether or not his association with the Jesuits was part of the reason he had to leave the arts faculty, the university’s records note that he left because he was needed as a medical practitioner, and indeed he made a direct transition to the Munich court to 166 All following remarks on his status at the court are based on my research in the Hofzahlamtsrechnungen, see Hauptstaatsarchiv München, Kurbayern Hofzahlamt 12–49. 167 See Laetitia Boehm et al., eds, Biographisches Lexikon der Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München. Teil I: Ingolstadt-Landshut 1472–1826 (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1998), pp. 7f. 168 Here Wimpinaeus calls Staphylus his “günstigen herren und Mecaenaten” (Johann Albert Wimpinaeus, Von der Gesellschafft Jesu (Ingolstadt 1563), p. 55v). That this treatise was instigated by Petrus Canisius is documented in Canisius’ letters, see Otto Braunsberger, Epistolae et acta Petri Canisii (Freiburg i. Br.: Herder, 1896–1923), Bd. 4, pp. 178, n. 5; 228; 245; 550; 579; 585; 1001–1003. 169 See Arno Seifert, Die Universität Ingolstadt im 15. und 16. Jahrhundert. Text und Regesten (Berlin 1973), p. 237, n. 10. 170 The arts faculty complained about him as being pushed into the faculty by the Jesuits in 1564 (see Carl von Prantl, Geschichte der Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Ingolstadt, Landshut, München (München 1872), Bd. 1, p. 229). See also Seifert, Die Universität Ingolstadt, p. 237.

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become Albrecht’s physician.171 By 1569, his annual salary had risen to a respectable 300fl. In the last quarter of 1570, Wimpinaeus received a one-time payment of 350fl., and was sent on what was apparently his second journey to Italy, endowed with a two-year stipend from the duke.172 When he returned to the court in 1573, he was granted the same annual salary as before, plus an additional 50fl. to pay a servant.173 Wimpinaeus was initially the only one of Albrecht’s doctors who enjoyed this privilege; it was only in 1577 that Thanmüller was granted the same.174 It seems quite likely that more than his link with the Jesuit order, it was Wimpinaeus’ philosophical orientation that made him leave academia and seek courtly patronage. He was a follower of Paracelsus, and as is well known, Paracelsus was the pariah of academic medicine.175 Most of his adherents were to be found not in the universities, but in the courtly milieu.176 The Wittelsbachs, in particular, developed a tradition of supporting Paracelsian doctors, with the Neuburg duke and later Palatine elector Ottheinrich being the first ruler to employ not only a doctor, but also a chemist and a librarian who followed Paracelsian teachings.177 Ottheinrich was a protestant, and from 171 See Universitätsarchiv München, E I 2, 24. 6. 1567 (see Leonore Liess, Geschichte der medizinischen Fakultät in Ingolstadt von 1472 bis 1600 (München 1984), p. 178). 172 See Hauptstaatsarchiv München, Kurbayern Hofzahlamt 15, fol. 317v. “Nachdem Doctor Johann Albrecht pösserer Erfarung halber widerumben jnn Jtalia geraist, vnd ain Zeitlanng daselbsten zu Studiern vorhabens, hat jme mein g. f. vnd Herr auf zwaj Jarlanng iedes 150 fl. zegeben bewilligt, sennd jme anheut den 20 October die 150 fl. so sich Michaelj deß 71 Jars verfallen werden, durch mich vermüg beiligender vrkhundt bezalt worden. 150 fl.” (Kurbayern Hofzahlamt 15, fol. 318r/v). The destination of this journey was Rome, and in 1575, Wimpinaeus received an additional 180fl. to cover expenses: “Mer bezalt doctor Johann Albrechten per zörung für sein volbrachte Raiß nach Rohm. 180 fl.” (Kurbayern Hofzahlamt 21, fol. 339r, see also Kurbaiern Protokolle, Bd. 11, fol. 117r). 173 Wimpinaeus must also have been in need of extra money after his journey: “Nachdem dem Doctor Johann Albrecht, den 15 Julij A. d. 73 50 fl. vnnd den 27 Augustij bemelts Jars 20 fl. alls ehr aus Italia khomen, glihen worden. Aber jme dieselben, hernach aus gnaden, Nachgesehen Derhalber ichs hiemit in Ausgab einpring vermig Herrn Fuggers vrkhundt. 70 fl.” (Hauptstaatsarchiv München, Kurbayern Hofzahlamt 18, fol. 262r). 174 See Kurbayern Hofzahlamt 23, fol. 499r. 175 For an overview of the reception of Paracelsus see Hugh Trevor-Roper, “The Paracelsian Movement,” in Renaissance Essays, ed. Hugh Trevor-Roper (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985): 149–199. 176 An exception to this is Theodor Zwinger, who had a critical, but ulitimately favorable attitude toward Paracelsus’ works (see Gilly, “Erfahrung und Spekulation,” part 1). On Paracelsianism in courtly contexts, see Hugh Trevor-Roper, “The Court-Physician and Paracelsianism,” in Medicine at the Courts of Europe, 1500–1837, ed. Vivian Nutton (London, New York: Routledge, 1990): 79–94. See also Allen G. Debus, The Chemical Philosophy. Paracelsian Science and Medicine in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (Mineola, New York: Dover Publications, 2002). 177 See Trevor-Roper, “The Court-Physician,” pp. 82f.; Hans Kerscher, “Neuburg an der Donau und Paracelsus,” Neuburger Kollektaneenblatt 136 (1984): 25–54.

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the beginning, Paracelsianism had been closely linked to Protestantism.178 However, as Hugh Trevor-Roper has argued, Catholic censorship only set in later, following the increasing rejection of Platonism and Hermetism by the Catholic Church, especially on the part of the Jesuits.179 As Wimpinaeus shows, ideological affiliation with both the Jesuits and Paracelsianism was still possible in the 1560s and 70s. In 1570, Wimpinaeus published four editions of Paracelsian works through the office of Adam Berg, Albrecht’s court printer, who was also the printer of Quiccheberg’s treatise, but who is otherwise known to be one of the chief disseminators of Counter-Reformation propaganda in Germany.180 The dedicatory preface to the editions of Paracelsus’ Archidoxa, addressed to Albrecht V, styles Paracelsianism as the path to recovering true knowledge of nature that had been obscured since the expulsion from paradise. Since “true experience [warhaffte experientz]” was lost through the Fall, all philosophers have only been able to offer more or less imperfect accounts, a fact that was, according to Wimpinaeus, the reason for philosophical discord as well as the justification for disagreement with ancient and other authorities.181 All these authorities only offered opinions, rather than grounding their philosophy “strongly and rigidly 178

See Trevor-Roper, “The Court-Physician,” p. 82. See Trevor-Roper, “The Court-Physician,” p. 88; Trevor-Roper, “The Paracelsian Movement.” 180 Paracelsus, Archidoxa D. Philippi Theophrasti Paracelsi von Hohenhaim/ zwölff Buecher/ darin alle gehaimnuß der natur eroeffnet/ wie die zu anfang des ersten Buchs nach ordnung verzeichnet. Auch noch vier andere Buechlein/ so darzu gethan worden/ vnd hiebey neben ordentlich Jntitulirt. Von D. Iohanne Alberto Vvimpinaeo, Medico & Philosopho. (München: Adam Berg, 1570) [VD16: P 392].; Paracelsus, Archidoxa D. Philippi Theophrasti Paracelsi von Hohenhaim/ zwölff Buecher/ darin alle gehaimnuß der natur eroeffnet/ wie die zu anfang des ersten Buchs nach ordnung verzeichnet. Auch noch vier andere Buechlein/ so darzu gethan worden/ vnd hiebey neben ordentlich Jntitulirt. Von D. Iohanne Alberto Vvimpinaeo, Medico & Philosopho (München: Adam Berg, 1570) [VD16: P 393]; Paracelsus, Archidoxa D. Philippi Theophrasti Paracelsi von Hohenhaim/ zwölff Buecher/ darin alle gehaimnuß der natur eroeffnet/ wie die zu anfang des ersten Buchs nach ordnung verzeichnet. Auch noch vier andere Buechlein/ so darzu gethan worden/ vnd hiebey neben ordentlich Jntitulirt. Von D. Iohanne Alberto Vvimpinaeo, Medico & Philosopho (München: Adam Berg, 1570) [VD16: P 394]; Paracelsus, Philippi Theophrasti Paracelsi von Hohenhaim/ etliche Tractetlein zur Archidoxa gehoerig. 1. Von dem Magneten/ vnnd seiner wunderbarlichen tugend/ in allerley kranckheiten sehr nuetzlich zugebrauchen. 2. De occulta Philosophia, darinnen tractirt wird De Consecrationibus. De Coniurationibus. De Caracteribus. Von allerley erscheinungen im schlaff. Von den jrdischen Geistern oder Schroetlein. Von der Imagination. Von den verborgnen Schätzen. Wie der mensch vom Teuffel besessen wird. Wie man den boesen Geist von den besessenen leuten außtreiben sol. Von dem Vngewitter. 3. Die recht weiß zu Administrirn die Medicin/ von Theophrasti aigner hand gezogen. 4. Von vilerley gifftigen Thiern/ wie man jhnen das gifft nemen/ vnd toedten sol (München: Adam Berg, 1570) [VD16: P 629]. 181 See Paracelsus, Archidoxa, fols. +ii r–iiir. 179

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on the foundations of nature [die grundtfest der natur]”.182 While Wimpinaeus recognized the value of authorities, notably of Hermes Trismegistus, Pythagoras, Plato, Aristoteles, Hippokrates, Galen, Averroes and Avicenna, he credits only Paracelsus with truly engaging in the study of “the hidden secrets of nature [den verborgnen haimligkeiten der natur]”, and bringing them to light.183 Therefore, Wimpinaeus argues, it was outrageously unfair that Paracelsus was generally rejected with such hostility by the medical establishment, while traditional philosophers received praise. He contends that the contempt with which the Paracelsian approach usually met was certainly based on arrogance and ignorance, and a fear of loss of authority by those who were unable to offer effective treatments for current ailments. Wimpinaeus bolsters this assertion with a lengthy excursus on the failed methods of dealing with various diseases, followed by a praise of chemical medicines.184 It is likely that this diatribe was also fueled by Wimpinaeus’ personal experience at Ingolstadt, an experience that likely drove him to seek a more favorable environment for his interests at the Munich court.185 Besides the practical benefits of Paracelsian medicine, Wimpinaeus also stresses the larger philosophical implications of Paracelsus’ writings, the most “noble and useful” of which he assembled in his edition; in these, “nature as a whole is revealed to those who are diligently dedicated to the investigation of nature.”186 He assures the duke that Paracelsus himself, if still alive, would have dedicated this edition to Albrecht, because the duke of Bavaria was not only known as a generous patron to all scholars and naturalists, but also as an erudite ruler who was himself “experienced in nature”.187 182

See Paracelsus, Archidoxa, fol. +iii r. See Paracelsus, Archidoxa, fol. +iii v. 184 See Paracelsus, Archidoxa, fols. +iv r–*r. 185 Kobolt reports that Wimpinaeus’ medical and philosophical orientation earned him many enemies and much contempt: Anton Maria Kobolt, Baierisches Gelehrten-Lexikon (Landshut 1795) pp. 755–757: “In der Arzneykunde zeichnete er sich besonders dadurch aus, daß er von der damals üblichen Heilungsart anderer Aerzte in etwas abwich, keiner gewissen medicinischen Sekt sonderheitlich anhieng, und auch keine derselben verwarf, weder sich durch das Ansehen eines Hippokrates, Galens, oder Theophrasts verleiten ließ, diesem oder jenem seinen Beyfall zu geben, sondern überall der Wahrheit nachspührte, mit den Griechen die Araber und Lateiner verglich, mit allen aber das Studium der Natur selbst verband. Dieses zog ihm nun verschiene Feinde, und Verläumder auf den Hals, welche ihn heimlich und öffentlich angriffen, und heftig verfolgten, an deren Schmähsucht und Verfolgungsgeist er sich aber in einer seiner Schriften Excursiones defensivae betitelt auf das Nachdrücklichste rächte.” (Kobolt is probably referring to Johann Albert Wimpinaeus, De Concordia Hippocraticorum et Paracelsistarum libri Magni Excursiones Defensiuae, cum Appendice, quid Medico sit faciundum (München: Adam Berg, 1569)). 186 “so inn jnen die gantze natur eröffnet ist/ denen, die sich die natur zuergründen embsig vnderfangen haben.” (Paracelsus, Archidoxa). 187 See Paracelsus, Archidoxa. 183

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Although Albrecht personally was probably more keenly engaged with music and boating than with natural inquiry, his interest in Paracelsus is documented not only by the long-term patronage offered to Wimpinaeus, but also by a letter he wrote to August of Saxony in 1566.188 Sending August a book by Paracelsus, he assured the Saxon elector that he would find “wondrous things” in it, and asked him to share his opinion after he read it.189 Both princes, however, were reluctant to provide funds for the larger project Wimpinaeus had in mind: an edition of Paracelsus’ complete works. When Wimpinaeus, shortly after the publication of his Paracelsus edition in 1570, sent August a copy of it accompanied by a solicitation for funding for his more comprehensive project, August referred him back to Albrecht, and only promised that after receiving a copy of the completed edition, he as well as other rulers would surely contribute financially to support communal wellbeing as well as this ‘useful art.’190 Wimpinaeus’ interest in Paracelsus reveals a philosophical interest in universal knowledge as well as an epistemological approach that was focused on “nature itself”, making a strong claim to a strictly empirical approach. Both of these aspects, as we have seen above, were not only characteristic of courtly 188 The interests of Albrecht’s that Quiccheberg lists in his biography for Pantaleon’s Heldenbuch are the Bible, history, hunting, music, coins, and rare antiquities [“seltzame antiquiteten”] (see Pantaleon, Teutscher Nation Heldenbuch, pp. 448f.). 189 The letter is dated June 7, 1566 (Sächsisches Staatsarchiv, Hauptstaatsarchiv Dresden, Loc. 8511/2, fol.15 r/v). 190 “Ann Dr. Joan; Albrechten Bayrischen Leibartzt, Hochgelerter lieber bester wir haben Ewer schreiben sampt den vberschickten gedruckten Paradoxis Thephrasti alhier auff der hirschjagt entpfangen vnd ewern bericht vnd fürhabend werck lesend vernohmmen. Vnnd ist an dem des vnss man dem Bayrischen deuck solch buch als wir jungst zu Praga gewesen vberantwortet worden, so haben wir dasselbig auch eine gutte Zeit zuvorn geschrieben vnnd jns Latein vertirt gedruckt gehabt. Wir thun vns aber nichts destoweniger solcher Ewer vberschickung vnd vntertheniger// naigung gegen vns gnedigst bedanken haben auch dasselbig buch sonderlich [...] zu gnedigsten gutten gefallen angenohmmen vnnd schicken Euch zu einer geringen gegenverehrung zehen gulden groschen Die wollet dismal vnverschmeht entpfahen Was dan ewer fürhaben anlangt das jr bedacht seit die gantze Theophrastische Artznajkunst vnd phylosophei jn ein ordenlich Corpus zufassen vnd zubringen das lassen wir vns sehr wohl gefallen, würdet auch ein sehr nützlich notig vnd loblich werck werden. Vnnd dieweil wir wohl erachten konnen, das ein solch werck wo es vermoge der verzeichnete tittel solte volkomblich vnd mit vleiss volbracht vnd jn ein ordentlich Corpus digerirt werden vber die Kunst vnnd geschickligkait vnd erfarung, viel schwerer arbeit auch vnd trefflichen vleiss erfordern werde. So zweifeln wir nicht der hochgeborne fürst vnser f. l. vetter vnd bruder Hertzog Albrecht jn Bayern (dessen L. vns hirin fürzugreiffen nicht gezimet) werde euch hirzu gnedig vnd reichlich verlegen Wann dan solch werck verferttigt vnnd vns offeriert wiedet, wollen wir vns vor vnser pensum vmb befürderung des gemeinen besten vnd nützlicher Kunst willen mit furstlicher verehrung auch dankbar zuerzaigen wissen wie wir dan andere Chur vnd fürsten vor der zeit hirzu auch wohl genaigt vermerkt. [...]” (Hauptstaatsarchiv Dresden, Cop. 356a, fol 331v f.).

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science in general, but also at the heart of the Kunstkammer’s conception. Even though there is no evidence of any interaction that Wimpinaeus might have had with the Kunstkammer itself, it is not unlikely that he would have had interest in the project. One indication is the list of Paracelsian remedies he offers in his preface, among which are precious stones, pearls, and corals – materials abundantly present in the collection that were not only of aesthetic, but also of medical interest. Furthermore, as Hugh Trevor-Roper has argued, Paracelsian doctors often engaged in the building of copper or iron foundries or in apothecary work.191 We have documentation that Wimpinaeus engaged in the development and use of at least the pharmacy, as August, while denying the requested funding, expresses interest in obtaining the services of the “skilled chemist” with whom Wimpinaeus was working, and who was experienced in the preparation of Paracelsian medicines. 192 Wimpinaeus must have enjoyed a certain fame in the courtly world, because in 1578, Albrecht ordered him to make a journey to Prague to treat the wife of Emperor Rudolf II.193 Unfortunately, the court records report that on this journey, he went insane and was from then on out of commission.194 Upon his return to Munich, he was still paid his salary until Albrecht’s death in 1579, after which he formally retired and received a pension until the end of his life in 1599. Albrecht’s successor Wilhelm V seems to have preferred other physicians anyway, notably Thomas Mermann and Philipp Menzel, both 191

“This was an unforeseen, but not illogical, development from Paracelsus's experience in the mines of the Fuggers at Villach and the interest of his disciples in mineral waters and baths.” (Trevor-Roper, “The Court-Physician,” p. 94). 192 August writes: “Wir weren auch nicht vngenaigt den wohl gevbten Chymisten so jr itzo bej euch habt vnd den Mercurium solis recht prepariren kan zu vns zuerfordern vnd denselben machen zulassen vnd den modum preparandum selbst antzusehen.” (Hauptstaatsarchiv Dresden, Cop. 356a, fol 332r). – Rudolf Schincke claims that Wimpinaeus joined the duchess Anna in preparing medicines in the courtly pharmacy; unfortunately, none of his references (all to secondary literature) support this claim (see Rudolf Schincke, Über das Kräuterbuch des Johann Wilhelm Weinmann. Ein Werk Regensburger Naturforschung (Erlangen, Diss. 1962), p. 9). The first reference to the pharmacy in the financial records of the court occurs in 1561/62, where it is mentioned that Doctor Thanmüller had a small chest made for the substantial sum of 19 fl. (Hauptstaatsarchiv München, Kurbayern Hofzahlamt 6, fol. 425r). From 1567 on, regular references to a professional apothecary and a number of assistants can be found; by 1574, a separate rubric was dedicated to the pharmacy in the Hofzahlamtsrechnungen, for which expenses were steadily rising. 193 See Hauptstaatsarchiv München, Kurbayern Protokolle, Bd. 30, fol. 279v. 194 See Hauptstaatsarchiv München, Kurbayern Hofzahlamt 26 (1580): “Nachdem Doctor Johann Albrecht den 11. Junij Anno 77 auf zörung vnnd Rechnung nach Grätz fl. 150 empfangen dieweil er dann seit heer seiner Sinn beraubt, vnnd also weder Rechnung noch anders von jme zu bekhomen, jst befohlen solche jn ausgab zusetzen, thuot laut der zetl fl. 150. Ebenmessig hat er den 24 jener Ao 78 Auf zörung vnnd Rechnung nach prag fl. 100 empfanngen, vnd dieweil er dann auf derselben Raiß von Sinnen khomen, werden sy gleichsfalls für ausgab gesehen. Lautt der zetl fl. 100” (fol. 392r/v).

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of whom he had already ordered to Munich in the fall of 1579 to take care of his dying father.195 With Albrecht’s death, Paracelsianism did not disappear from the court: his son Ernst, Archbishop of Cologne, constantly borrowed Paracelsian books from the Munich court library through the ducal councilor Ludwig Müller.196 Ernst later became one of Paracelsianism’s most important patrons by funding a complete edition as Wimpinaeus had aspired to produce.197 My introduction to both Reisacher and Wimpinaeus can hardly be taken as representative of the overall ‘intellectual milieu’ of the Munich court. Reisacher was but a marginal figure, and while Wimpinaeus was likely one of Albrecht’s most important physicians, his stance toward Paracelsianism was likely not shared by the majority of ducal physicians in Munich.198 However, 195

“Jtem aus befelch vnnsers genedigen Fürsten vnnd herrn herztog Wilhelms jn Bayern etc. bezallt Doctor Merman von Aichstet fl. 200 vnnd Doctor Menntzln von Jngolstatt fl. 100 vmb willen das sy beede jn weilend vnsers g. Grüsten vnnd Herrn, Hertzog Albrechts jn Bayern hochloblicher gedechtnuß schwachhait jn die sechs wochen lanng alhie gewest, zur verehrung laut der zetl zalt fl. 300.” (Hauptstaatsarchiv München, Kurbayern Hofzahlamt 25, fol. 308r). On Mermann, see Gustav Falk, “Dr. Thomas Mermann von Schönberg. Herzoglich-Bayerischer Arzt und Leibmedikus (1547–1612),” in Das Bayerland 16 (1905): 558– 560; on Menzel, see Liess, Geschichte der medizinischen Fakultät, passim; Heinz Goerke, “Die Medizinische Fakultät von 1472 bis zur Gegenwart,” in Die Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in ihren Fakultäten, Bd. 1, ed. Laetitia Boehm and Johannes Spörl (Berlin 1972): 185–280. 196 This is documented in the fragmentary lending records of the court library, which cover the years 1581-87. Müller repeatedly borrowed larger numbers of both alchemical and Lullist books from the library, most of which were for Ernst who was then already in Cologne (see Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München, Cbm Cat. 120 (f. I), passim). Quiccheberg mentions Müller in passing in his Exempla as having an interest in “rare materials”. Müller is documented in the Hofzahlamtsrechnungen among the learned councilors from 1566 on. He received a ducal gift of 1,000fl. in 1571/72 (Hauptstaatsarchiv München, Kurbayern Hofzahlamt 17, fol. 406r), and an inheritance of 4,000fl. after Albrecht’s death (Kurbayern Hofzahlamt 26 (1580), fol. 156v). 197 On Ernst’s patronage for this edition, Hugh Trevor-Roper writes: “That was a remarkably bold step in 1590–1605, when the Catholic Church was condemning all forms of Platonism, hermeticism, and so on. [...] He was just in time, for within a few years the growing opposition of the roman Church would reach its climax and the works of Paracelsus would be put on th Roman Index. Later, when the Wittelsbach Palatinate had fallen into pious Roman Catholic hands, Ottheinrich's great collection would be solemnly burnt.” (Trevor-Roper, “The Court-Physician,” p. 83). On this edition, which was undertaken by Ernst’s court physician Johannes Huser, see also Karl Sudhoff, Versuch einer Kritik der Echtheit der Paracelsischen Schriften, 2 vols. (Berlin: Reimer, 1894-99), Leo Norpoth, “Kölner Paracelsismus in der 2. Hälfte des 16. Jahrhunderts,” in Jahrbuch des Kölnischen Geschichtsvereins 27 (1953): 133– 46, pp. 138–40, and Trevor-Roper, “The Paracelsian Movement,” pp. 153f. 198 In the dedicatory preface to his De Concordia Hippocraticorum et Paracelsistarum libri Magni Excursiones Defensiuae of 1569, Wimpinaeus, in order to emphasize the special

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both Reisacher and Wimpinaeus point to the wide scope of possible intellectual attitudes at the Munich court, and also confirm general tendencies in the history of courtly science. It is possible that these attitudes may have been viewed favorably not only by Albrecht, but also by other members of the Munich court, as is indicated by the documented interests of Duke Ernst, Ludwig Müller, and possibly also Georg Lauther. I have focused on these two scholars because their interests are far less known than those of other members of the court who pursued activities that were more obviously related to the conceptual framework of the collection, its focus on the representation of the Bavarian territory. Quiccheberg prominently names Wiguleus Hundt (1514–1588), who was not only one of the most renowned long-term court officials in Bavaria, but also engaged in the historiography and genealogy of the territory.199 Both Hundt’s Metropolis Salisburgensis,200 a Bavarian church history, and his Bayrisch StammenBuch201 were not published until the 1580s, but both works were certainly already under way in the 1560s. The Stammen-Buch was an attempt to put together a comprehensive inventory of the noble families constituting the Bavarian territory; it may, in a way, be seen as an undertaking parallel to the Kunstkammer in that is was a project of territorial documentation and inventorization.202 Furthermore, the cartographic project of the Bairische Landtafeln, for which Philipp Apian travelled all over Bavaria between 1554 and 1561 to take measurements, is similarly related to the Kunstkammer as a

utility of his book, snidely remarked that the ducal doctors were not always the most knowledgeable (see Wimpinaeus, De Concordia). Here again, he stresses the necessity to investigate nature directly, rather than relying on books: “Natura itaque non ex Libris tantum, sed ex seipsa cognoscenda: cum Libri quandoque varient, & natura vna eademque semper sit: nec vt hominum opinio, ita illa in hanc illamue [recte: illaque] partem facile flectatur.” (A5 r/v) 199 On Hundt, see Manfred Mayer, Leben, kleinere Werke und Briefwechsel des Dr. Wiguleus Hundt (Innsbruck 1892); Wilhelm Liebhart, “Wiguleus von Hundt zu Sulzemoos und Lauterbach,” in Lebensbilder aus zehn Jahrhunderten (Dachau 1999): 65–69; Rainer A. Müller, “Wiguleus Hundt zu Sulzemoos und Lauterbach (1514–1588). die Autobiographie des Politikers und Geschichtsschreibers,” in Amperland 39 (2003): 166–170; Stefan Benz, Zwischen Tradition und Kritik. Katholische Geschichtsschreibung im barocken Heiligen Römischen Reich (Husum: Matthiesen, 2003), pp. 473f. 200 Wiguleus Hundt, Metropolis Salisburgensis (Ingolstadt: David Sartorius, 1582); see Mayer, Hundt, pp. 89–92. 201 Wiguleus Hundt, Bayrisch Stammen Buch Der erst Theil (Ingolstadt: David Sartorius, 1585) and Wiguleus Hundt, Bayrisch Stammen Buch Der ander Theil (Ingolstadt: David Sartorius, 1586); the third part was never published until the nineteenth century. On the Stammen-Buch, see V. Koch-Sternfeld, “Über Dr. Wiguleus Hundt’s bayerisches Stammenbuch,” in Oberbayerisches Archiv 12 (1851): 61–79, and Mayer, Hundt, pp. 93–105. 202 I owe the felicitous characterization of the Stammen-Buch as an “Untertaneninventar” to Leonhard Horowski.

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project of territorial representation.203 As I discussed in the first chapter, both copy of the printed edition of the Landtafeln of 1568 as well as the woodblocks were kept in the Kunstkammer (F. 81, 1970),204 and Albrecht’s commission of the first printed edition of Aventin’s Annales Boiorum from the Ingolstadt professor Hieronymus Ziegler was a further project sponsored by the court that was related to the Kunstkammer’s function as a collection and representation of territorial heritage.205 The range of courtly interests was apparently known beyond the court itself. In 1567, the Munich Stadtarzt Martin Klostermair published a curious work that aimed to cater to the concerns with territorial and dynastic representation as well as the more esoteric philosophical interests present at Albrecht’s court. The book was called Chronographia particularis, dedicated to Albrecht, and offered as a shortcut for the busy ruler to the otherwise lengthy study of history.206 Bearing the secondary title Arithmologia, it contained a chronological list of important dates of Bavarian and universal history and viri illustres, along with a short biography of Wilhelm IV, presented in the form of “numerical distichs”, which in some way were to serve easier memorization of the historical examples. In Klostermair’s work, the numerological method of presentation was furthermore combined with the use of astrological and alchemical symbols. Klostermair’s use of this genre was likely a recognition of the presence of such interests at the Munich court, as we know from Quiccheberg that the court physician Petrus Cortoneus collected arithmolo203 Philipp Apian and his projects are relatively well researched; the most extensive documentation is however still found in the unpublished dissertation by Auguste Gruber (see Gruber, Philipp Apian; see also Günther, “Peter und Philipp Apian”; Max Gasser, Studien zu Philipp Apians Landesaufnahme (München 1903); Otto Hartig, “Aus der Werkstätte Philipp Apians,” in Das Bayerland 29 (1918): 325–333; Wolff, Philipp Apian; Schöner, Mathematik und Astronomie. 204 The woodblocks only came into the Kunstkammer later, along with Apian’s Nachlass. – The most extensive account of Apian, along with transcriptions of various sources, is still found in Auguste Gruber’s unpublished dissertation (see Gruber, Philipp Apian). See also Günther, “Peter und Philipp Apian”; Hartig, “Aus der Werkstätte Philipp Apians”; and more recently Hans Wolff, “Die Bayerischen Landtafeln – das kartographische Meisterwerk Philipp Apians – und ihr Nachwirken,” in Philipp Apian und die Kartographie der Renaissance (Weißenhorn: A. H. Konrad, 1989): 74–124. 205 See Aventinus, Annalium Boiorum libri septem. On Albrecht’s involvement in this edition see Reinhardstöttner, “Zur Geschichte des Humanismus,” pp. 75 and 142, n. 215. See also Hauptstaatsarchiv München, Kurbayern Hofzahlamt 1561, fol. 363r, Hofkammerprotokolle 1574, fol. 167r., and Kurbayern Hofzahlamt 4 (1558/59), fol. 535r. 206 See Martin Klostermair, Chronographia particularis, in gratiam, illustrissimi principis Alberti, Boiariæ Ducis, congesta, authore, MKD./ Arithmologia, seu memoriale chronographicum, per numeralia quaedam Disticha: Authore Martino Clostromario Ingolstadiense, medico doctore, Monachij, elucubratum, Vna quibusdam alijs annexis Carminibus (München: Adam Berg, 1567). There is no literature on this work; it is only mentioned in passing in Reinhardstöttner, “Zur Geschichte des Humanismus,” pp. 81f.

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gies and was concerned with the methodical presentation of knowledge.207 Klostermair was apparently also aware of the connection between his book and methodical collections of objects: in a typical move of rhetorical understatement, he states to have issued his tiny work ‘hastily’ from his ‘museum’ [“Raptim Monachij ex Museo nostro”]. This may not only indicate that he owned a collection himself, but it may also be a tribute to the court’s interests in collections that provided a shortcut to universal knowledge. In recognition of his book’s dedication to Albrecht, Klostermair received 20fl., and an almost illegible document of 1564 refers to a scholarship awarded to him – possibly funding for his Chronographia/Arithmologia.208 The book itself is preceded by a series of laudatory poems written by Bavarian courtly and civic officials and academics, among them the above-mentioned Hieronymus Ziegler, as well as Gabriel and Jodocus Castner, both of whom also contributed epigrams appended to Quiccheberg’s treatise.209 Although Klostermair’s book is, like the Reisacher’s scholarship, a marginal appearance in the intellectual milieu of the Munich court, it confirms its diversity as well as the fact that these interests were recognized beyond the court’s inner circles. It is thus evident that the concerns of Quiccheberg’s treatise, its intrinsic pragmatism that was rooted in the topical tradition and spurred by the exigencies of his courtly environment, as well as its connections with more esoteric philosophical endeavors regarding the quest for universal knowledge, found parallels and resonances in the work of other scholars at and around the Munich court. Rather than simply being an early manual for the establishment of a museum of curious objects, Quiccheberg’s Inscriptiones offered an ambitious proposal for the foundation of a collection that envisioned a new role for the accumulation and display of universal knowledge that was specifically suited to the needs and interests of rulers who in their pursuit of the centralization and consolidation of princely control over their territories were in need of both practically applicable knowledge and the visual display of divine wisdom.

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See Quiccheberg, Inscriptiones, Digressiones. See Hauptstaatsarchiv München, Kurbayern Hofzahlamt 12 (1567/68), fol. 304r; Kurbayern Äußeres Archiv 4284, fol. 7r. 209 Joducus Castner, a Jesuit, became preceptor of Duke Ernst of Bavaria (Albrecht’s son) in 1565 (see F. Schmidt, Geschichte der Erziehung der bayerischen Wittelsbacher von den frühesten Zeiten bis 1750 (Berlin 1892), p. XLIV). He died in 1577 (see Mederer, Annales Ingolstadiensis Academiae, vol. 1, pp. 230, 277). Both Gabriel as well as Jodocus had matriculated in Ingolstadt (Götz von Pölnitz, Die Matrikel der Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (Ingolstadt, Landshut, München 1937–1986), vol. 1,1, Anno 1552, Sp. 693: “24. Iodocus Castner Haslacensis famulus 8 dl.”), but neither left any major works. 208

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Collecting Prodigies: Material Evidence, Confessional Argument, and the Sacralization of the Bavarian Territory In the western gallery of the Kunstkammer – the gallery that focused, as I have discussed in Chapter 1, on the representation of the Bavarian territory – a small table displayed an unusual arrangement of objects. One of the entries in the inventory listing the items on this table describes “several nuts, which have grown on a tree in a village in the Venetian area 3 miles from Görz, called Campolongo, which tree greens and blooms and bears nuts every year on Saint John’s Night, which otherwise stays without leaves. And it has been noted after the New Calendar had been published that it did not blossom and bear fruit according to the old, but according to the new, as is described more extensively in an accompanying missive.”1

The next entry lists “several branches, with leaves taken from the aforementioned tree of nuts.” (F. 2104) Like so many ephemeral objects in this collection, these nuts and branches are lost, and so is probably the letter that accompanied them. In the archives of the Munich library, however, a copy of a letter has survived that may well contain the same or a very similar report about this event.2 In this letter the Jesuit Michael Cardaneus tells the nobleman Niclas von Salm about the tree’s wondrous behavior, and about the journey he had undertaken in the company of ten others to inspect it. The meaning of the event was not difficult to discern for the Jesuit father: It was a divine miracle intended to confirm the Gregorian calendar reform of 1582. Cardaneus relates how he and many other ‘pilgrims’ to this site picked up nuts and leaves to take with them, and mentions that he has just dispatched some of these to 1 F. 2103: “Item etliche nuß, so von ainem baum, in einem Dorff der Venediger gebiet, 3 meil von Görz, Campolongo genant, gewachsen, welcher baum järlich an St. Johanns des Tauffers Nacht, zumal gruent, blüeet, und nuß tregt, welcher sonst das ganze Jar dürr bleibt. Und ist vermerckht worden, nachdem der New Calender publiciert, das er nit mehr dem Alten, sonder dem newen nach außgeschlagen, und frucht getragen, wie in einem beyligenden Missif weitleuffiger beschriben.” 2 Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Oef. 342.14. This copy of the letter is included in a small handwritten avviso-type pamphlet assembling various reports about miracles. Both the letter itself and the pamphlet are undated. According to the catalogue of the Oefeleana, the collection at the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek in which this document is found, the pamphlet dates from the sixteenth century.

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another nobleman. Whether Niclas von Salm also received samples is not stated in the letter, but it is certain that the Bavarian Duke Wilhelm V was provided with some of this precious evidence – not unlikely by Cardaneus himself or another member of this same Jesuit delegation. The duke incorporated the objects into his Kunstkammer, where they thus served as material testimony to the miracle.3 The miraculous nuts were not the only objects of this kind in the Munich Kunstkammer. In the western gallery, on one of the tables placed underneath the windows, the visitor encountered a group of objects that had no counterpart in any contemporary princely collection. Along with the nuts, it comprised 25 further items (F. 2094–2119, and 2098a) grouped on top and underneath this table. The group, as listed in the inventory, begins with eight entries describing various containers holding grains that had rained from heaven in a number of places throughout the Bavarian territory. In three of these, the grains are juxtaposed with two kinds of porridge made from it (F. 2098), flour ground from it (F. 2101), and two kinds of bread baked from the flour (F. 2097). The following item is a container holding flour that a poor man in Bohemia found in the earth when desperately digging for clay [laim] to feed his children. Several entries interspersed throughout as well as following this group list branches of trees and stalks of grains that had borne fruit twice during one year (F. 2095, 2106), as well as apples from a tree in the territory that had miraculously bloomed and borne fruit on Christmas Eve (F. 2102). Added to these were the branches and nuts from the miraculous tree of Campolongo (F. 2103f.). After this first part of the group, the theme of which was the miraculous fertility of nature, which worked to the benefit of the pious poor and whose course was closely linked to the church calendar, follows a set of objects that at first sight appears to be of a somewhat different kind: it starts out with a little box containing two kinds of stones, white and brown, that display a “naturally grown” pattern of branches (“welche voller stainener arbes”), and are said to be found in Karlsbad (F. 2107). As a typical instance of an object marvelously fusing the botanical and the mineral realm, they lead over to a group of three bladder stones – mineral objects grown inside the human body. The first of these was the most remarkable, as it was cut from Albrecht’s uncle, Duke Ernst of Bavaria, Archbishop of Salzburg (F. 2108), the other two were coming from a cantor of Duke Albrecht’s (F. 2109), and from an unnamed boy (F. 2110). All of these are listed with their exact weight or at least their approximate size. Then, next to a branch of a cedar tree with three fruits 3

Part of this chapter was the basis for my recent article in Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte, see Katharina Pilaski Kaliardos, “Prodigious Relics: Confessional Argument and the Sacralization of the Territory in the Munich Kunstkammer,” in Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte 102 (2011): 267–295.

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brought from the Holy Land (F. 2111), we find a wooden reproduction of a pear grown in Etschland in Southern Tyrol that had weighed 1 pound and 15 lott (F. 2112).4 Accompanied by exact data of origin and weight, the reproduction of the abnormally large pear relates to the bladder stones, but also resonates with a series of objects denoting monstrosity and overabundance in nature: a young bird with two heads (F. 2113), and a pair of conjoined cat twins (F. 2115). Placed in between these two woundrous objects is a skeleton of a bird without any abnormal characteristics (F. 2114). The last two objects on top of this table represent two miraculous divine interventions: two knives in a sheath through which lightning had struck while they were attached to the belt of a Bavarian peasant boy, accompanied by a letter to Albrecht reporting this event (F. 2116), and a piece of wood petrified by divine intervention when Veitt of Lendershaim, identified as one of the duke’s subjects, was cutting wood for his fireplace on Good Friday, despite warnings and admonitions from his neighbors that he should be going to church instead (F. 2117). Lastly, underneath this table, the visitor could examine four mandrake roots, cut in the shape of a man and a woman; these were placed next to a sleeve of a peasant stained by a blood rain that had taken place in the vicinity of Aichach (F. 2118, 2119). Albrecht, and later his son Wilhelm, had here put together a unique collection of objects documenting events some of which were most likely perceived as miraculous signs. Interest in such signs, or Wunderzeichen has usually been seen as particularly strong in Protestant contexts, because the majority of the printed sources recording and discussing Wunderzeichen in the German context were published by Protestants.5 Indeed Protestants, because of their antagonism towards the idea of saintly miracles and the potential significance of natural signs within eschatological conceptions of history, often used Wunderzeichen in sermons and pamphlets, as the seemingly increasing number of such events could be interpreted as a sign for the approaching end of this world.6 Lorraine Daston and Katharine Park, on the other hand, looking pre4

For the function of reproductions like this in the Kunstkammer, see Chapter 4. See the overview in Irene Ewinkel, De monstris: Deutung und Funktion von Wundergeburten auf Flugblättern im Deutschland des 16. Jahrhunderts (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1995), pp. 15f., n.1. Ewinkel emphasizes the dominance of Protestant authors among those concerned with the collection and interpretation of prodigies at several points, see pp. 24, 38, 57. For a detailed analysis of some of the most important Protestant collections of prodigies, see Philip M. Soergel, Miracles and the Protestant Imagination. The Evangelical Wonder Book in Reformation Germany (New York 2012). 6 While preoccupations with the approaching end of this world were common already during the decades before the Reformation, apocalyptic ideas became particularly important to Protestant authors after Luther’s death (see Robin Barnes, Prophecy and Gnosis: Apocalypticism in the Wake of the Lutheran Reformation (Stanford 1988); Volker Leppin, Antichrist und Jüngster Tag. Das Profil apokalyptischer Flugschriftenpublizistik im deutschen Luthertum 5

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dominantly at material from the Italian and French contexts, have argued that independently of confessional stance, the preoccupation with prodigies as Godly signs or portents throughout the sixteenth- and seventeenth centuries was very much determined by external events and was always at its peak in times of social, political, and confessional crisis.7 This was doubtless the case, however, as I would argue, precisely because the issue of prodigies during the sixteenth century came to be inextricably entangled in confessional controversy, and the stance taken toward those phenomena by either party was always potentially precarious (both because of the danger of demonic deceit, as well as because of possible apocalyptic interpretations), it is not only worthwhile, but necessary to consider the issue of the confessional determination of the approach taken to extraordinary events in nature within the limited contextual framework of a particular time and place. Even if larger generalizations as to a ‘Protestant’ and a ‘Catholic’ approach are impossible – which is hardly surprising given the long-standing tradition of the theological and natural-philosophical preoccupations with natural anomalies from antiquity through the Middle Ages – it is possible to discern certain confessional patterns in the attitude towards this highly virulent topic. The Wunderzeichen collection in the Munich Kunstkammer not only shows that Catholics also had a vital interest in such events, but also makes clear in which ways this interest differed from Protestant viewpoints. What is most striking about the collection of prodigies assembled in Munich is the representation of these events by material objects. While most of the printed collections of Wunderzeichen reports, such as those by Joachim Camerarius,8 Conrad Lycosthenes,9 Job Fincel, Caspar Goltwurm, and Christoph Irenaeus10 1548–1618 (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 1999); Soergel, Miracles and the Protestant Imagination). 7 Daston and Park, Wonders, pp. 187–89. 8 See Joachim Camerarius the Elder, De ostentis (Wittenberg 1532). There was a copy in the Hofbibliothek (of the 1552 edition that was appended to Lycosthenes’ Obsequens edition), but it seems not to have passed the confessional censorship, as it lacks the definitive call number (see Cbm. Cat 107 (ca. 1575–1580)); this, however, does not mean that the book was not available at least to the ducal family themselves (on censorship within the court library and how the call numbers reveal this, see Hartig, Hofbibliothek, pp. 84–89, esp. pp. 87f.). 9 See Conrad Lycosthenes, Prodigiorum ac ostentorum chronicon (Basel 1557). Again, a copy of this book that had not passed the censorship is found in the catalogue of the court library. 10 See Job Fincel, Wunderzeichen. Wahrhafftige beschreibung und gruendlich verzeichnus schrecklicher Wunderzeichen und Geschichten die nach dem Jar an 1517 bis auffjtziges Jar 1556 geschehen und ergangen sind. Nach der Jarzal (Jena: Christian Roedinger, 1556); Goltwurm, Caspar, Wunderwerck vnd Wunderzeichen Buch (Frankfurt am Main: David Zephelius, 1557); Christoph Irenaeus, Wasserspiegel. Ergiessung der Wasser sind anzusehen als ein 1. Zorn- 2. Creutz- 3. Trost Spiegel (Eisleben: Petri 1566); Christoph Irenaeus, Prognosticon

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were assembled by Protestants, and a famous collection of broadsides and other documents of extraordinary contemporary events was put together by the Zürich minister Johann Jakob Wick,11 the Counter-Reformation Munich court documented such events by means of objects. This part of the collection thus forms a particularly significant instance of the transposition of a type of collection that was relatively widespread in printed form into the realm of objects, a step that I have discussed in the previous chapter as Quiccheberg’s radical realization of the topical epistemology. In this chapter, I argue that the way the Wunderzeichen were represented in the collection, as well as the associations provoked by their particular arrangement, need to be seen in the Counter-Reformation context of the Catholic Munich court. In the first chapter, I have demonstrated the Munich Kunstkammer‘s specific focus on the representation of its founder’s territory. The prodigy objects grouped on this table fulfill a central function in this context. The inventory declares most of them to originate from or stand in close relation to Bavaria, or at least have been brought from other Catholic places. As Philip Soergel has shown, both Albrecht V and his son Wilhelm were invested in the revival of local shrines and the promotion of local pilgrimage.12 I argue that this group of objects is part of the larger efforts of the Munich dukes aiming at what Soergel has aptly called the “sacralization of the territory.”13 As relics of miraculous deviations from the regular process of nature that had taken place in Bavaria or in allied territories, the particular Wunderzeichen objects collected in Munich presented a strong argument not only for divine attention, but for divine benevolence toward the lands under Wittelsbach rule.

Aus Gottes Wort nötige Erinnerung (n.p. 1578), and Christoph Irenaeus, De monstris. Von seltzamen Wundergeburten (Oberursel: Nicolaus Henricus 1585). On Fincel, Goltwurm, and Irenaeus’ wonder books, see Soergel, Miracles and the Protestant Imagination. 11 Wick put together his collection between 1560 and 1588. It was most likely intended as a chronicle containing potentially useful information for understanding the present and future course of history – a matter of vital importance to Protestants who were increasingly unsure about the continuing success of the Reformation. On Wick, see Wolfgang Harms and Michael Schilling, eds, Die Sammlung der Zentralbibliothek Zürich. Kommentierte Ausgabe, Teil 2: Die Wickiana II (1570–1588) (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1997); Wolfgang Harms, ed., Deutsche illustrierte Flugblätter des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts, 7 vols. (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1980– 2005), vol. 6 and 7; Barbara Bauer, “Die Krise der Reformation. Johann Jakob Wicks Chronik außergewöhnlicher Natur- und Himmelserscheinungen,” in Wahrnehmungsgeschichte und Wissensdiskurs im illustrierten Flugblatt der Frühen Neuzeit (1450–1700), ed. Wolfgang Harms and Alfred Messerli (Basel: Schwabe & Co, 2002): 193-236; Matthias Senn, Johann Jakob Wick (1522–1588) und seine Sammlung von Nachrichten zur Zeitgeschichte (Zürich: Leemann, 1974). 12 See Philip M. Soergel, Wondrous in his Saints: Counter-Reformation Propaganda in Bavaria (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), passim. 13 Soergel, Wondrous in his Saints, p. 161.

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Acting as evidence for this benevolence, these objects are central examples of the Kunstkammer’s function as a repository for territorial knowledge, and point to the cultural contexts that shaped contemporary approaches to documentation and evidence.14 Focusing on the collection’s immediate context, I shall show how the habits of mind that structured period perceptions of this group of objects were at least partially shaped by the use and status of objects in religious practice. The affinities of the remnants of the Wunderzeichen events in particular, and of collectibles more generally, with relics as well as with votive offerings need to be taken into account in order to understand the value of these objects in period terms. Both their epistemological status, i.e. their potential investment with sacred significance, and their function as documents, as material means of authentication, are structured by their resonances with these religious objects. 15

The Confessional Structure of the Discourse on Prodigies The narratives accompanying the miraculous nuts, the petrified wood, and some of the other objects in the inventory show that many of them were perceived as representing and documenting miraculous deviations from regular natural processes, and were thus understood as divine signs. Contemporary discourse concerned with such deviations from the regular processes of nature, however, was complicated and did not allow for a tidy classification of causes into the categories of the ‘natural’ and the ‘supernatural’. The realm of the ‘preternatural’, located somewhere in between, did not make matters easier. Preternatural events were wondrous because their causes were occult, i.e. hidden, but they were natural; their anomalies were brought about by unusual circumstances, chance, the stars, or possibly by demons, which as created beings were also part of the realm of the natural.16 It was the possibility of the involvement of demons – an increasingly virulent idea in the sixteenth century – that made preternatural events potentially suspicious, especially for fear of confusing demonic counterfeits with true miracles.17 True miracles, as 14 Lorraine Daston has shown how marvels and miracles played a key role in the development of notions of fact and evidence in the early modern period (see Lorraine Daston, “Marvelous Facts and Miraculous Evidence in Early Modern Europe,” in Questions of Evidence: Proof, Practice, and Persuasion across the Disciplines, ed. James Chandler (Chicago 1994): 243–274). 15 The role of material objects in Catholic religious practice has most recently been discussed by Caroline Walker Bynum (Caroline Walker Bynum, Christian Materiality. An Essay on Religion in Late Medieval Europe (New York 2011), esp. pp. 125–176). 16 See Daston and Park, Wonders, pp. 126f. On the status of demons, see Daston, “Marvelous Facts,” p. 248. 17 See Daston, “Marvelous Facts,” p. 256.

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supernatural events, were brought about by Godly will.18 The miraculous tree near Campolongo, which abided by the papal calendar reform, was clearly perceived as an example of the latter category. In his letter, Cardaneus calls the event a “godly miracle” and states that “nowadays the insentient trees are getting more sensible, and more willing to be obedient to the Church than the sensible heretics”.19 To the Jesuit Cardaneus, nature abiding by papal law was certainly acting upon divine order, thus demonstrating godly approval of the Pope and his actions. However, the supernatural status was not quite so obvious for all of the objects in the group. A particularly difficult case was presented by the monstrous aberrations from the normal course of nature: the reproduction of the giant pear, the two-headed bird, and the pair of conjoined cat twins (F.2112, 2113, 2115). Within a collection such as the Kunstkammer that was primarily concerned with the products and processes of nature in all its variety, a moment of doubt whether these aberrations did indeed have supernatural causes was inevitably a facet of contemporary perception. As a whole, this group of objects thus likely confronted the contemporary observer with two questions: were the documented events divine signs or not? And if they were, what was their significance? Contemporary discourse on prodigies has come down to us in various forms. Cheaply available illustrated broadsheets and pamphlets were the most widespread medium, which would have most efficiently shaped public perceptions.20 Besides this popular medium, learned tracts discussed unusual natural phenomena and marvelous events from theological, natural-philosophical, or medical perspectives.21 Collections of prodigy reports in Wunderzeichenbüchern (wonder books) were published mainly by Protestant theologians and often offered eschatological interpretations.22 Letters and avvisi23 exchanged between princes and scholars sometimes reported about 18 On the separation of these categories, see Daston, “Marvelous Facts,” pp. 245–257; and Daston and Park, Wonders, pp. 159–214. 19 “[…] daz mitler Zeit die unvernifftigen paum verestendiger, unnd der khirchen zugehorsamen, genaigter unnd williger werden, als die verniftigen khetzer” (Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München, Oefeleana 314.14). 20 For a systematic analysis of the representation and interpretation of monstrous births in German illustrated broadsides see Ewinkel, De monstris. Less insightful, but focusing on a broader range of prodigies rather than just one type, is Michaela Schwegler, “Erschröckliches Wunderzeichen” oder “natürliches Phänomenon”? Frühneuzeitliche Wunderzeichenberichte aus der Sicht der Wissenschaft (München: Institut für Volkskunde, 2002). See also Daston and Park, Wonders, pp. 173–214. 21 For these see Daston and Park, Wonders, esp. pp. 159–214. 22 See Soergel, Miracles and the Protestant Imagination on the Wunderzeichenbücher by Job Fincel, Caspar Goltwurm, and Christoph Irenaeus. 23 Avvisi are manuscript compilations of news reports, also known as Zeitungen, but the sources often use the Italian term.

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prodigies, at rare times affording a glimpse at the preoccupations of rulers with these events. These different media present different modes of discourse, a fact that needs to be taken into account when observing differences in approach between various texts. Broadsides, for instance, targeting a wide popular audience, relatively rarely addressed natural-philosophical questions, and usually focused on theological and moral implications. The same holds true for the majority of popular pamphlets.24 This, however, does not mean that such questions were not present in the minds of educated beholders such as princes and courtiers familiar with the broader discourse on aberrations from the regular course of nature. The Munich collection was established during a time of confessional tension and at a court actively involved in Counter-Reformation propaganda, and some of the objects in the group make an explicitly confessional argument. It is therefore particularly important to consider the confessional structure of contemporary discourse on prodigies. As the current state of research on the topic shows, this is a very elusive issue and has thus often been glossed over in the literature.25 Due to the fact that the majority of the printed sources recording and discussing Wunderzeichen in the German context were published by Protestants, scholars who discussed the confessional issue at all have usually concluded that interest in natural prodigies in Reformation and CounterReformation Germany was largely a Protestant phenomenon.26 Indeed, there is no question that most of the German printed collections of prodigies were published by Protestants, and in the case of many anonymous broadsides Protestant authorship is likely, although not certain.27 The data usually given on broadsides include the place of the event and, often but not always, the place of publication, which also in the majority of cases was a Protestant city.28 We need to take into account, however, that in the sixteenth century not only the publishing places of prodigy broadsides were mostly Protestant, but publishing places in general, simply because most larger cities had by the time become Protestant.29 Moreover, it was especially in Protestant 24

See Ewinkel, De monstris, p. 119. Ewinkel discusses the issue in some detail, yet without offering any tangible results; see Ewinkel, De monstris, pp. 25–46; Daston and Park briefly address the topic but do not make out any confessional patterns; see Daston and Park, Wonders, p. 183. 26 See the overview of the literature in Ewinkel, De monstris, pp. 15f., n.1, who also concludes that Protestant authors dominate discourse on prodigies, pp. 24, 38, 57. 27 On the Lutheran wonder books and the role of prodigies in Protestant discourse, see Soergel, Miracles and the Protestant Imagination. 28 See Ewinkel, De monstris, p. 20. 29 Seeking a cultural explanation for the preponderance of Protestant publishing places, Elizabeth Eisenstein has pointed to the Protestant predilection for the written word, casting the culture of book printing in general as a phenomenon dominated by adherents of the new faith (see Elizabeth L. Eisenstein, The Printing Press as an Agent of Change: Communica25

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cities where small corner presses producing broadsides flourished, partially due to the fact that Protestants had made particularly prolific use of this medium for capturing public attention in the earlier years of the Reformation, and had thus created the appropriate infrastructure.30 This habit of using broadsides in general may therefore be partially responsible for the prevalence of Protestant prodigy broadsides, so that this fact does not necessitate the conclusion that prodigies themselves were of overwhelmingly greater interest to Protestants. The Protestant authors were often theologians by profession,31 and there are indeed some intrinsic reasons why primarily theologically educated Protestants were concerned with the publication of prodigies and their assemblage in printed compendia. On a pragmatic level, due to their significance as warning signs of Godly wrath, prodigies were a useful tool for preachers because reports of them could be readily incorporated into the German sermons of Protestant ministers, who had soon recognized their efficacy both in terms of their disciplining effects as well as their sensational character suitable to augment the turnout at church services.32 Sermons were thus an important way to popularize attention to prodigies in Protestant communities, and the broadsides can be seen both as spurring and responding to public interest in these phenomena. From this point of view, the broadsides also served as documents authenticating the events upon which preachers based their arguments, while the printed compendia of Wunderzeichen could be used as reference manuals for ministers providing them with suitable examples for their sermons. The discussion at the level of elite theological discourse reveals some reasons for the heightened interest in prodigies on the Protestant side, and also for the more cautious Catholic approach to these phenomena. As Irene Ewinkel has shown, Luther specifically endorsed attention to Godly intervention in nature, and contrasted the admonitory function of prodigies both with the attempts of precise prognostigation made by astrologers, as well as with

tions and Cultural Transformations in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1979)). This position has been criticized by Philip Soergel, who, referencing the vast output of Catholic presses, has argued that Eisenstein’s thesis has “prevented us from assessing the ways in which printing and books functioned within Catholic culture.” (Soergel, Wondrous in his Saints, p. 6). 30 See Ewinkel, De monstris, p. 23. 31 See Ewinkel, De monstris, pp. 23f. According to Volker Leppin, two thirds of the identifiable authors of apocalyptic pamphlets were theologians (see Leppin, Antichrist und Jüngster Tag), p. 51, and Philip Soergel notes that with the exception of the natural philosopher Job Fincel, Lutheran wonder books “were written exclusively by university-educated theologians and pastors.” (Soergel, Miracles and the Protestant Imagination, p. 27). 32 On prodigies as means of maintaining social discipline and their use in sermons see Ewinkel, De monstris, pp. 86–89.

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traditional Catholic miracles.33 Unlike natural prodigies, according to Luther, Catholic miracles are not working in the service of the moral and spiritual reformation of Christians.34 This idea of replacing ‘traditional’ miracles performed by saints and relics with the wonders performed by God within nature was enthusiastically exploited by some of Luther’s followers.35 Protestants started to claim the occurrence of natural prodigies, which they saw primarily happening in Protestant territories, as a sign of Godly attention to the development of Protestant faith.36 Not surprisingly, Catholic authors attacked these attempts to establish natural prodigies as miracles testifying to Godly approval of Protestant communities, and castigated them as a recourse to pagan traditions prompted by the Protestant incapability to recognize true miracles. The Catholic priest Georg Witzel made this argument in the preface to his Chorus Sanctorum Omnium of 1554 and 1563,37 and so did Johann Oldekop in his Chronicle.38 Furthermore, it was the potential significance of Wunderzeichen as signs of the approaching end of this world that made them particularly relevant to Protestant, more specifically Lutheran authors. 39 While the idea that the time of this world was limited was common in the sixteenth century, and the question how near the end actually was therefore also occupied Catholic authors,40 the expectation that the end was truly imminent was widespread only in Lu-

33 On Luther’s position, see most recently Soergel, Miracles and the Protestant Imagination, pp. 46–54. 34 See Ewinkel, De monstris, pp. 25–29. 35 See Ewinkel, De monstris, p. 30, and especially Soergel, Miracles and the Protestant Imagination. 36 See Ewinkel, De monstris, pp. 51–56. 37 See Georg Witzel, Zwelff Bücher Historien Aller Heiligen Gottes (on alle die ausserweleten, welcher Namen allein im Hymel angeschrieben sind) aus den alten, guten, vnd bewereten Schrifften vnserer Gottseligen Vorfaren (Cölln am Rhein: Quentel, 1554), fol. B i r, and Georg Witzel, Chorus Sanctorum omnium. Zwelff Bücher Historien aller Heiligen Gottes (Cölln am Rhein: Quentel und Calenius, 1563), fol. B ij r; see also Ewinkel, De monstris, pp. 31f. 38 See Johannes Oldekop, Chronik des Johan Oldecop (Tübingen: Literarischer Verein in Stuttgart, 1891), pp. 474f. 39 See Philip M. Soergel, “Die Wahrnehmung der Endzeit in monströsen Anfängen,” in Im Zeichen der Krise. Religiosität im Europa des 17. Jahrhunderts, ed. Harmut Lehmann (Göttingen 1999): 33–51. 40 The Catholic writer Johannes Rasch, as well as the Ingolstadt theologian Friedrich Staphylus and the Munich court preacher Johann Jakob Rabus published tracts concerned with apocalyptic prophesies during the second half of the sixteenth century; see Heribert Smolinsky, Deutungen der Zeit im Streit der Konfessionen. Kontroverstheologie, Apokalyptik und Astrologie im 16. Jahrhundert (Heidelberg: Winter, 2000), pp. 30–33. See also Weichenhan,“Ergo perit coelum ...”, pp. 79–102.

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theran circles during the second half of the sixteenth century.41 Catholics, in contrast, often assumed an explicitly anti-apocalyptic stance.42 In a popular tract of 1582 summarizing contemporary knowledge on comets and dedicated to Wilhelm V, the Catholic author Johannes Rasch labels apocalyptic interpretations of such prodigies as comets and new stars as “evangelical”, and rejects such positions in a two-and-a-half page diatribe.43 Johannes Rasch’s treatise seems to be particularly useful for our purposes of reconstructing contemporary opinions about prodigies around the Munich court, not only because it was, as the author declares in his preface, written for Albrecht V.44 It is also a treatise that, rather than proffering one author’s individual stance, presents an attempt at summarizing received knowledge on comets both from natural-philosophical and from theological viewpoints, and constantly engages in confessional argument and polemic.45 As Rasch’s treatise suggests, from the Catholic point of view the apocalyptic interpretations of prodigies, which were specifically virulent in relation to monstrous births as well as to celestial phenomena, were the most precarious. 41

On Lutheran apocalyptic discourse in Flugschriften see Leppin, Antichrist und Jüngster Tag, on the question of confessional differences see esp. pp. 45-50. Soergel, Miracles and the Protestant Imagination examines both Luther’s position and that of his followers. See also Ewinkel, De monstris, p. 82. 42 See Leppin, Antichrist und Jüngster Tag, pp. 46f. 43 See Johannes Rasch, Cometen Buech (München: Adam Berg, 1582), pp. F iv r, Fii v– Fiii v. 44 Only due to a delay on the part of an Ingolstadt printer was it not published during his lifetime, but instead posthumously issued by the Munich court printer Adam Berg, upon which occasion he dedicated it to Albrecht’s son Wilhelm: “Demnach/ Gnaedigister Fuerst/ weil ich nu vier Jaerliche Calender practic/ und sonst andere opuscula in E. F. G. Landen in truck geben und außgehn lassen/ unnd künfftig mehr tractat/ die hoffentlich so gar vergeblich oder gemaine leiren nit sein/ mit aller gnedigister zulassung/ doselbst/ als zu meiner gelegensamheit (mit Gottes will und huelf) fuerzubringen vorhabens bin/ hab ich daß Cometen buechel E. F. G. Herren Vatter seligisten/ gleichwol dediciern/ des Datum/ Wien/ den letzten Decembris/ 1577. do es aber bißher bey den Buchtruckern zu Ingolstat vnbefuerdert verlegen/ und nu abermals Cometen erschienen/ darueber mein gutduncken begeret/ solle nu gedachter Tractat herfuer gezogen/ E. F. G. billich noch offeriert vnd commendieret werden” (Rasch, Cometen Buech). 45 Rasch (c.1540–c.1612) was neither a theologian nor a natural philosopher, but a writer who published treatises on various topics ranging from earthquakes to various astrological practicae to the art of wine-making, many of which were printed at Adam Berg’s office. He reports to have studied with Bartholomäus Reisacher, Emperor Maximilian II’s personal physician. From 1570 on, he was organist at the Schottenstift in Vienna, and also worked as a composer, publishing various musical scores with Berg (see Smolinsky, Deutungen, pp. 7f., and ADB, vol. 27, p. 316). For a discussion of his œuvre, see Siegmund Günther, “Münchner Erdbeben und Prodigienlitteratur in älterer Zeit,” in Jahrbuch für Münchener Geschichte 5 (1890): 233–256, and especially Smolinsky, Deutungen, pp. 7–18 and passim. Smolinsky also notes the fact that Rasch represents the mainstream of the Catholic stance on astrology and prognostication (Smolinsky, Deutungen, p. 8).

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Already in 1536, when Georg Witzel was attacking Lutheran attention to prodigies, he did so with reference to Luther’s attempts at raising fear by casting those events as apocalyptic signs in order to lure the people to his faith.46 In opposition to such attempts, Rasch decidedly privileges positive interpretations of natural prodigies throughout.47 Referring to the debate over the ‘new star’ in the sign of Cassiopea that had been boggling the minds of astronomers since 1572,48 he writes: “The beautiful star is a comforting sign indicating general benefit to Christianity rather than detriment, as many have been thinking who are waiting for an imminent transformation of things, while Cassiopea […] means providence”.49 It was the destabilizing function of apocalyptic prognostication with which Rasch seems to be most concerned.50 Catholic scholars were generally eager to counter apocalyptic arguments in order to downplay the significance of the Reformation as the eschatological harbinger of the Second Coming of Christ, which Protestants often claimed.51 The widespread association of prodigies with this kind of eschatological argument may be partly responsible for the fact that constructive discussion of prodigies in Catholic discourse during the second half of the sixteenth century was largely confined to treatises of natural philosophy rather than found in theological tracts.52 Thus, the Catholic convert and Munich court preacher Johann Jakob Rabus, in his polemical tract Christlicher und wolgegründter Gegenbericht von Mirackeln unnd wunderzaichen does not attend to the issue of natural prodigies. He is exclusively concerned with defending traditional 46

Ewinkel, De monstris, p. 34. Rasch argues in favor of positive prognostication also in other publications; see Smolinsky, Deutungen, pp. 13–15, 31. 48 In late 1572, astronomers all over Europe had observed what they thought was a new star (today we know that it was in fact a supernova, the explosion of an old star) in the sign of Cassiopea. This observation prompted an extensive debate among astronomically interested contemporaries, because measurements showed that it was certainly located above the moon. Since according to Aristotelian cosmology, the supralunar world was immutable, the phenomenon forcefully undermined one of the central tenets of received cosmological theory. From a theological viewpoint, this phenomenon was uncannily similar to the star of Bethlehem, and was thus by many associated with the imminent Second Coming of Christ. – On this particular phenomenon and its repercussions in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century astronomy and theology, see Weichenhan, “Ergo perit coelum ...”. 49 “Der vorige schöen Stern vertröstet auch mehrers allgemainen Christlichen nutz dann schaden/ als etliche jr vil also gedunckt/ vnnd gewarten bald einer newerung der sachen/ wann Cassiopæa (wie D. Thoma in syderali Abysso steht) fürsichtigkeit bedeuttet/ Gott der Herr geb es vns zu gutem/ Amen.” (Rasch, Cometen Buech, G iv v–Hr). 50 See Smolinsky, Deutungen, p. 13, and p. 29: “Die Antiapokalyptik etwa eines Rasch setzte auf die großen Ordnungsgefüge in Politik und Religion, nämlich auf Papst und Kaiser, d. h. auf die klassisch tradierten Garanten der Stabilität in der Christenheit.” 51 See Matthias Pohlig, “Konfessionskulturelle Deutungsmuster,” pp. 295f. 52 On the social-political implications of the apocalyptic interpretation of prodigies see Ewinkel, De monstris, pp. 77–102. 47

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Catholic miracles against Protestant charges of demonic imposture, and does not seem to deem interest in natural prodigies worthy of his attention.53 When Catholic scholars did attend to prodigies, they seem to be more interested in the naturalization of such phenoma than their Protestant colleagues, as is suggested by Ewinkel’s analysis of texts by the Catholic authors Georg Witzel, Polydore Vergil, Gabriele Paleotti, and Martin Delrio.54 This, of course is especially pronouned when Catholic scholars were writing from a natural-philosophical perspective, and it certainly seems as if Catholic authors who wrote in Reformation and Counter-Reformation contexts were not only a lot more cautious in the interpretation of prodigies as signs,55 but were more inclined to naturalize them. Correspondingly, the resistance Protestant theologians displayed towards “Aristotelian” attempts of naturalizing all prodigies seems to underscore this confessional pattern.56 These varying attitudes may partially be attributed to the longstanding theological ambivalence towards the manifestation of the divine in the material world, but it also appears closely linked to the confessional struggles of the sixteenth century.57 Thus, Johannes Rasch points to the inherent contradictions in Protestant natural philosophy that tries to reconcile natural explanations of prodigies with their interpretations as Godly signs,58 and it is clear enough throughout his treatise that what he favors are ‘philosophical’, i.e. natural explanations. As Daston and Park have shown, naturalizing preternatural phenomena has 53

See Johann Jakob Rabus, Christlicher und wolgegründter Gegenbericht von Mirackeln unnd wunderzaichen, wie man dieselbigen auss Gottes Wort, und nach catholischer allgemainer warhait rechtgeschaffen erkennen ... soll: Wider die ... Lesterschrifft, welche Joh. Marpach Superint. zu Strassb., wider die wunderwerck der lieben Heyligen Gottes im Bapstum .. hat lassen aussgehen (Dillingen: Sebaldus Mayer, 1572). On Rabus and his controversy with the Strasbourg Lutheran Johann Marbach see Soergel, Wondrous in his Saints, pp. 131–58. 54 See Ewinkel, De monstris, pp. 34–38. 55 As suggested by Ewinkel, De monstris, p. 37. 56 See Ewinkel, De monstris, pp. 131, 136–49. 57 On the theological struggles with the issue of holy matter throughout the Middle Ages and sixteenth century, see Bynum, Christian Materiality, esp. 154–167. 58 “Derhalben die Sectischen Practicanten mit mir nit so gar unrecht thun/ daß auch sie in jren Tractaten und wandzetteln vor allen dingen so häfftig dringen auff buß/ gebet vnnd frombkeit/ etc. Wegen des zorn Gottes vber vnser boßheit/ das vns der Comet gewiß zuuerstehen gibt: man spüret augenscheinlich/ wie sich das Land bey jnen bessert vnd frucht bringt/ daß jr wort wol gerahte: Wiewol es der welt zu wider ist/ vnd fürwerffen/ weil die Finternussen ordentlich beschehen/ vnd die Cometen natürlich erwachsen/ als die Philosophi Philosophiern/ wie es dann ein sunder zeichen sunders zorn Gottes künne sein/ genent vnd außge-//schrien werden/ in dem wären sie wider sich selbst: Diß Arguitur pro & contra, laß ich die Ketzer/ von denen die illation vnnd relation herkumbt/ soluiern vnd verantworten/ bey den Catholischen Astrologen ist der form zu Theologisiern weniger im brauch.” Rasch, Cometen Buech, E iv v–F i r. For the Protestant, more specifically Melanchthonian interpretation of natural wonders, see Ewinkel, De monstris, pp. 136–143.

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been the aim of Aristotelian natural philosophers ever since the Middle Ages.59 The fact that late-sixteenth-century Catholic authors are deliberately continuing this tradition much more than their Protestant colleagues appears to be a response to the prevalent usurpation of prodigies by Protestants, and more specifically to the possibility of reading them as apocalyptic signs. When in a short disputatio on human conception the Ingolstadt professor of medicine Johannes Lonnaeus Boscius attends to the issue of monstrous births, he catalogues historical examples and discusses the question of their causes without addressing the issue of their portentous meaning at all.60 In a similar vein, the Ingolstadt physics professor and Jesuit Balthasar Hagel, later professor of theology at the Jesuit university in Dillingen, aims at a naturalization of wondrous natural events in both disputationes over which he presided in Ingolstadt in 1588.61 In the face of widespread contemporary belief in the portentous meanings of Wunderzeichen, however, Hagel has to admit that some events do not have natural causes and were therefore justifiably called prodigies. Referring to the appearance of a comet shaped like a sword that was seen in the sky above Jerusalem for an entire year, he concedes that such a phenomenon could hardly be thought of as caused by natural forces.62 As he 59

See Daston and Park, Wonders, pp. 109–133. See Ioannes Boscius, Concordia medicorum et physicorum de humano conceptv (Ingolstadt: Wolfgang Eder, 1582). On the causes of monsters: “Monstrosi euadunt conceptus, prodigalitate aut defectu seminum aut imaginatione aut distortione.” (§XXIV) 61 See Josef Schaff, Geschichte der Physik an der Universtiät Ingolstadt (1472–1800) (Erlangen 1912), who writes: “Allenthalten zeigt sich in dieser wie in der folgenden Schrift das Bestreben, alle Erscheinungen auf natürliche Ursachen zurückzuführen und geheimnisvolle oder unheilbedeutende Kräfte möglichst auszuschließen.” (pp. 82f.). See also Martin Mulsow in Boehm, Biographisches Lexikon, p. 163: “In der Physik von Johannes Eck abhängig, versuchte Hagel, okkulte Kräfte in den Erscheinungen auszuschließen und statt dessen natürliche Ursachen, etwa korpuskularer Natur, anzugeben.” 62 See Balthasar Hagel, Disputatio philosophica; De meteoris (Ingolstadt: David Sartorius, 1588), thesis 17: “Neque tamen omnia, quæ in mundo hoc sensibili præter naturam & opinionem existunt, in has tantùm caussas referre ausim. Ecquis enim equites aliquando per aêra discurrentes actione cœli, elementorumque productos existimet? Quis xiphian illum ensis specie integro anno horribiliter ardentem supra Hierosolymam naturæ viribus constitutum censeat? Multa igitur euenire possunt, quorum caussa in natura non est, quæque proinde rectiùs prodigia quædam ac terata censeri debeant, quàm metewpa.” He refers back to this in thesis 103: “Non caret tamen probabilitate, quod vt suprà thesi 17 dicebamus, caussam in natura nullam habeant, præcipuè si certis temporibus atque etiam modis eueniant.” Xiphias is a type of comet described by Pliny, which had a short tail that was pointed like a sword (see Pliny, Natural History (London and Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1968), II.xxii.89). The event to which Hagel is referring is most likely the appearance of Halley’s Comet in AD 66, which was seen above Jerusalem for an entire year, and was said to have announced the city’s destruction (see R. M. Jenkins, “The Star of Bethlehem and the Comet of AD 66,” in Journal of the British Astronomical Association 114 (2004): 336–43, p. 340). This event is reported in Flavius Josephus’ Wars of the Jews, Book VI, Chapter V.3. — I would like to 60

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later on explains, it is the specific circumstances of certain events that may necessitate their interpretation as prodigies, and it is not insignificant that he alludes precisely to a celestial sign seen above Jerusalem as his example for a legitimate Wunderzeichen: it was a reference to the idea of the crusade, which in the late sixteenth century was a predominantly Catholic theme.63 Speaking about the question, however, whether subsequent events could be deduced from prodigies such as comets, Hagel refuses to see a connection: while he grants that in the wake of the apparition of comets, it had been observed that rulers died, wars were unleashed, and treasons were committed, he firmly denies that the comets were actually announcing signs, because, as he maintains, there was no direct causal relationship between their apparition and the following events.64 Ultimately, it seems to be the prediction of imminent disorder that the Jesuit author is trying to circumnavigate. As the previous overview has shown, Catholic authors writing in the context of the Bavarian Counter-Reformation largely favored natural explanations of wondrous events in nature. Nevertheless, they occasionally admitted supernatural causes, as the examples both from the writings of Johannes Rasch and the Jesuit Balthasar Hagel demonstrate. Rather than interpreting the events as harbingers of things to come, however, they saw them as signs of God’s wrath, or, preferably, of his benevolence.

Approaches to Prodigies in Broadsides and Courtly Practice In his book on Counter-Reformation propaganda in Bavaria, in which he marginally attended to the issue of prodigies, Philip Soergel observed that in popular broadsides there was little difference between Lutheran, Calvinist, and Catholic approaches to these phenomena.65 He emphasized the fluidity thank David Ratzan for providing me with the transcription and translation of the Greek in this passage. 63 See Hagel, De meteoris, th. 103. Precisely during the years preceding the publication of Hagel’s disputatio, Catholic authorities were contemplating plans to invade Constantinople and conquer the Holy Land (see Pastor, Geschichte der Päpste, vol. 10, pp. 388–93). For the confessional implications of the crusade theme see also Pohlig, “Konfessionskulturelle Deutungsmuster,” pp. 291f. 64 “Observatvm est, post Cometarum apparitiones, principes esse // mortuos, bella exorta, proditiones factas, & alias sexcentas calamitates consecutas. Ex quo permulti concludunt, Cometas esse huiusmodi calamitatum signa, sed malè. Quis enim fulgure, tonitru, aut fulmine, quæ post illa sæpè acciderunt calamitates significatas fuisse arbitretur? negamus igitur Cometam vllos tetros euentos propriè significare, tum quia est naturæ quoddam opus, nec ex natura sua nec ex institutione alicuius vim significandi habet, tum quia vnum ab altero necessariò non pendet.” (Hagel, De meteoris, th. 56). 65 See Soergel, Wondrous in his Saints, p. 149.

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between contemporary perceptions of traditional miracles and natural prodigies in popular discourse,66 rather than constructing a confessionally determined antithesis between interest in miracles and interest in prodigies.67 Regarding the interpretation of prodigies in popular broadsides, it is indeed true that on both confessional sides the recurring interpretive topos is that aberrations from the regular course of nature were a sign of Godly wrath, a warning for imminent punishment. The only confessional difference seems to be, and this would bolster the observations from learned discourse, that Catholic authors generally avoided precise prognostications and apocalyptic interpretations in particular.68 Of course a non-apocalyptic approach can be found in countless presumably Protestant broadsides as well. In their interpretive reti66

See Soergel, Wondrous in his Saints, p. 150. On prodigies and popular culture, see Robert W. Scribner, “Incombustible Luther: the Image of the Reformer in Early Modern Germany,” in Past and Present 110 (1986): 38–68; Robert W. Scribner, For the Sake of Simple Folk: Popular Propaganda for the German Reformation (Cambridge; New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1981); for Scribner’s more recent viewpoint on the issue, see for instance Robert W. Scribner, “Die Wahrnehmung des Heiligen am Ende des Mittelalters,” in Religion und Kultur in Deutschland, 1400–1800, ed. Robert W. Scribner (Göttingen 2002): 101–119. 67 A problematic example of this latter approach is Schwegler’s discussion of “katholischen Wunderwerken” and “Protestantischen Wunderzeichen” (Schwegler, “Erschröckliches Wunderzeichen” oder “natürliches Phänomenon”?, pp. 49–57). As Renate Dürr has argued, belief in such events was widespread in Lutheran circles, despite the fact that in Lutheran theological discourse miracles were judged to be unnecessary for the confirmation of the new faith; furthermore, she particularly stressed the point that there was no fundamental difference between the belief of the laity and that of the theologians (see Renate Dürr, “Prophetie und Wunderglauben – zu den kulturellen Folgen der Reformation,” in Historische Zeitschrift 281, no. 1 (2005): 3–32, pp. 4f.). Addressing the widespread tendency in Reformation research to extrapolate the ‘Protestant’ stance – which is usually said to be relatively hostile to miracles and prodigies – from sources pertaining to the Calvinist strand of Protestantism (p. 18), Dürr argues that viewing the interest in miracles and prodigies as a remnant of Catholic practice among the laity represents a nineteenth-century perspective on Lutheranism, and that such belief was in fact a central tenet of Lutheran theology (Dürr, “Prophetie und Wunderglauben”). For Luther’s evolving position on traditional miracles and his approach to natural prodigies, see Soergel, Miracles and the Protestant Imagination, pp. 33–66. 68 An example of this are the prodigy broadsides published by Bartholomäus Käppeler in the 1570s to 1590s (see Walter L. Strauss, The German Single-Leaf Woodcut (1500–1550) (New York: Hacker, 1974), vol. 2, pp. 477–498); his confession may be inferred from a couple of sheets that reveal a Catholic stance, such as the one on the capture of Catholic Mühlhausen by Protestant Swiss cities (Bartholomäus Käppeler, Warhafftige vnd Gründtliche newe Zeytung/ welcher massen die fürnemme Statt Mülhausen in Schweitz gelegen/ in disem 1587. Jar/ den 17. Junij/ von den vier Orten/ Bern/ Basel/ Zürich/ vnd Schaffhausen belegert/ vnd volgends den 25. diß/ mit schröcklichem Bluotuergiessen Erobert/ vnd eingenommen worden ist (Augsburg 1587) (Strauss II, 483), or his portrait of prince Sigismund Batory (Bartholomäus Käppeler, Eygentliche bildnuß/ des Hochgebornen Fürsten vnd Herren/ Herren Sigißmundt Batori/ Fürsten in Siebenbürgen/ Wallachey/ vnd Moldaw (Augsburg 1595)).

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cence, these broadsides proposed a response to prodigies that was not necessarily confessionally specific. Returning to the Munich collection, the first set of objects in the group of Wunderzeichen, the grains rained from heaven, suggests that Catholics certainly read these non-confessional broadsides just as eagerly. Grain showers were relatively widely reported in broadsides, and apparently Albrecht collected samples of such showers in response to these reports. The first showers thus recorded had occurred in 1550 in the vicinity of Klagenfurt in Carinthia, Austria, and in Weimar and Auerstädt in Thüringen. The author, Stefan Hamer of Nuremberg, compares them to the manna bestowed on the children of Israel in the desert (Exodus 16, 13–35), and speaks of the grains rained down around Klagenfurt as himmelkorn.69 Although he concludes that the meaning of these events was obscure, known to God alone, it is clear throughout the text of his broadside that he saw the showers as signs of divine benevolence rather than wrath.70 In 1570, another set of broadsides reports grain showers around Zwiespalen in Upper Austria, Ried in Bavaria, and “in the county of Ortenburg close to Mattighofen.”71 The grains in the Munich collection, according to the inventory, were taken from showers in Braunau and Pfarrkirchen in 1570, as well as from events in Mattighofen, Burghausen, and Wittlsbach near As-

69

Stefan Hamer, Ein wunderbarlich vnd Warhafft geschehn Wunderwerck/ wie inn Kernten/ inn dem MDL. Jar/ nach Christus geburt/ an dem XXIII. tag/ Martij/ Korn von dem Himmel (wie ein Regen) gefallen ist (s. l. 1550). On this broadside see Rolf Wilhelm Brednich, “Die Überlieferung vom Kornregen. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der frühen Flugblattliteratur,” in Dona Ethnologica. Beiträge zur vergleichenden Volkskunde, ed. Helge Gerndt and Georg R. Schroubek (München 1973), 248–60, p. 255f. 70 In the image illustrating the broadside, the piety of the lands and people upon which the grains rained is stressed by the framing of the depicted countryside with a town on right, the gate of which was topped by a cross and the church spire in the distance, and an assembly of buildings on the left that was likely the monastery Fytrung mentioned in the text. A very similar approach is taken in Hamer’s second broadside dealing with the showers of grain in Weimar and Auerstädt. Here the parallel to the biblical precedent is not drawn, but several quotes from the Old Testament that stress the wondrousness of God’s works make clear that the event is viewed in a biblical framework, concluding that humans ought to have faith in his benevolence (Stefan Hamer, Ein ander wunderzeychen da es wider koren vnd waytzen von Himel ab geregnet hat/ zuo Weimar vnd Auerschstat/ im Land zuo Thüringen/ etc (Nürnberg 1550). 71 Harms notes that of these locations only Mattighofen can be identified as the village close to Braunau on the Inn, while there are countless places named Ried, and Zwispalen ob der Enns cannot be identified at all (see Harms, Deutsche Illustrierte Flugblätter, p. 8, n. B2). The localization of Mattighofen close to Ortenburg seems to be a mistake on the part of the broadside’s publisher.

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bach.72 We may thus infer that the series of events reported in the 1570 broadsides was likely the one from which at least the Mattighofen grains in the Munich Kunstkammer originated. The text of the first of these broadsides, published in Augsburg by Michael Manger, interprets the showers as one way by which God shows his power and benevolence through miracles, and, like the 1550 broadsides, draws the comparison to the biblical shower of manna. Obviously wishing to lead over to an admonitory note, the author states that this biblical parallel notwithstanding, the grains might also be pointing to imminent punishment for humanity’s sinful and irreverent life. This note of caution may have been prompted by the report of a simultaneous blood rain close to a place called Ried, which is also included in this broadside, and which was a prodigy with generally negative connotations. This particular event may well be the origin of the blood-stained sleeve in the Kunstkammer.73 The text of the broadside closes with an appeal for prayers to God not to withdraw his benevolence, but to lead people to true faith.74 Another sheet reporting the same event was pub72

Pfarrkirchen was a marketplace village located about 130km northeast of Munich in Lower Bavaria, while Braunau was a town on the Inn river, today in Austria, but under Wittelsbach rule in the sixteenth century. Seven further entries list more grains, some with unspecified origins, but most with the locations given: the grains were found in and around Mattighofen, a village close to Braunau and also in the Bavarian territory, and in “various parts of the district of the lower Rentamt Burghausen”, as well as in Wittelsbach or Wildbach close to Asbach, a place most likely also in the Bavarian territory. The name of this place is different in the two copies of the manuscript inventory: Cgm 2133 reads “Wittlspach”, while Cgm 2134 gives “Wildtspach”. This location is difficult to identify, as it was presumably very small, there were probably a number of places termed Wildbach (“wild creek”), and there are several Asbachs within Bavaria today. 73 As has been noted above, places named Ried are countless in southern Germany. The village of Ried cited in the broadside is said to be located three miles from Augsburg, which was a little over 22 km (see Heinrich Grebenau, Tabellen zur Umwandlung des bayerischen Masses und Gewichtes in metrisches Maß und Gewicht und umgekehrt nebst dazu gehörigen Preisverwandlungen (München 1870)). Aichach, the origin of the blood-stained sleeve that is cited in the inventory, is located 26 km from Augsburg, and there are several places with “Ried” in their names in the area, which are slightly closer to Augsburg. 74 “Auß welcher geschicht ein Christ betrachten mag/ die allmechtigkeit vnd gütigkeit Gottes/ der vns durch vil Wunderwerck sein Herrligkeit sehen last/ wie er dann auch vor alter zeyt/ im Alten Testament/ den Kindern Jsrael das Himmelbrot geschickt hat/ damit angezaigt/ das er die seinigen nit verlassen wöl/ wie wol solche obgemelte gschicht/ vns mehr ein straff vnsers Sündlichen lebens bedeüten möcht/ weder ein guotthat/ dieweil wir mit vnseren Sünden vnnd vndanckbaren leben/ täglich wider Gott handlen/ vnd auch sein Allmechtigkeit antasten/ vnnd vns selbst alle hilff vnnd besserung absprechen. Derhalben last vns den Allmechtigen Gott bitten/ das er sein milte Hand vnd hilff/ nit vmb vnser Sünd willen von vns abziehe/ sonder vnser Hertzen dahin wenden wöll/ das wir nach seinem Göttlichen willen leben/ damit vns das Ewige Himelbrot zu theil werde/ das er vns auch allhie zeitlich/ vnnd dort Ewig speisen/ Amen.” (Ein warhafftige/ doch wunderseltzame geschicht/ So gesehen ist worden/ von etlichen namhafftigen Personen zu Zwispalen/ in dem Ländlein ob der Ens/ dem

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lished in Zürich with a different image and a text that is even more reticent about the interpretation of the showers.75 It eschews any kind of judgment, stating that “what the almighty God wants to tell by this miracle, time will show”, and proceeding to offer a catalogue of historical showers of grain from biblical times to the shower in Carinthia of 1550. The broadsides reporting the grain showers, all published in either biconfessional or Protestant cities, thus unanimously interpret the events as a divine miracle, but none is certain about its meanings. While Manger’s text wavers between taking the grain showers as a positive or a negative sign and uses them for a moralistic appeal to its audience, the author of the Zürich broadside finds it impossible to predict any consequences. He instead unfolds a collection of historical precedents, without drawing any conclusions from these, thus leaving judgment completely up to the reader.76 Overall, grains Haus Osterreich zuogehörig/ Deß gleichen auch zuo Ried im Bayrland/ vnd in der Graffschafft Ortenburg/ bey Mattickhofen/ dises M. D. LXX. Jars/ Am 14. tag Junij (Augsburg: Michael Manger, 1570). (Strauss II, 666; Harms VII, 5)). This broadside was then reprinted by Peter Hug in Strasbourg with an almost identical text but a different image, while the text was also reproduced in an Augsburg Flugschrift in conjunction with other news reports (see Peter Hug, Ein warhafftige/ doch wunderseltzame geschicht/ So gesehen ist worden/ von etlichen namhafftigen Personen zuo Zwispalen/ in dem Ländlein ob der Ens/ dem Haus Osterreich zuogehörig/ Desgleichen auch zuo Ried im Bayrland/ vnd in der Graffschafft Ortenburg/ bey Mattickhofen/ dises M. D. LXX. Jars/ am xiiij. tag Junij (Straßburg: Peter Hug, 1570). (Strauss I, 457); Newe zeytung vom Kornregen. Ein Warhafftige vnnd Wunderseltzame geschicht/ so sich zu zwispalen im Löndlein ob der Ens dem Hauß Osterreich zugehörig/ deßgleichen zu Ried im Bayerland/ vnd Graffschafft Ortenburg bey Mattigkhofen/ von vilen namhafften Personen ist gesehen worden/ dieses 70. Jars. Am 14. tag Junij. Item/ erschröcklicher Absagbrieff, des Türckischen Keysers den Venedigern vberschickt/ dises Jars/ darinnen er das Königreich Cypern sampt Malda erfordert/ vnd allbereit sich verfast gemacht auff dem Ocianischen Meer dasselbe zubekriegen/ etc. Mehr warhafftige Beschreibung vnd erschröckliche Geschichte so sich in disem 70. Jar am Himmel haben sehen lassen/ vber Stätt vnd Dörffer/ im Welsch vnd Teutschlandt/ wie dann die ort verner vermeldet/ Alles zu einer trewlichen warnung an Teutschlandt (Augsburg 1570) (Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Res/ 4 Phys. sp. 300,47). 75 See Ein warhafftige/ doch wunderseltzame geschicht/ So gesehen worden/ von etlichen namhafftigen Personen zu Zwispalen/ in dem Laendlein ob der Ens/ dem Hauß Osterrich zuogehoerig Deß gleichen auch zuo Ried im Bayerland/ in der Graffschafft Ortenburg/ bey Mattikhofen/ dises louffendenn M. D. LXX. Jars/ Am 14 tag Junii (Zürich: Christoffel Schwytzer, 1570) (Harms VII, 4). 76 Whether these differences can be attributed to the confessional stance of the respective authors is very difficult to determine. At first sight, it would seem that the more rational approach of the Zürich broadside is in line with contemporary developments in Calvinist theology, which entailed a strong skepticism towards any kind of prognostication (see Weichenhan,“Ergo perit coelum ...”, pp. 498f., and also Smolinsky, Deutungen, p. 5). The ‘empirical’ approach taken by the Zürich broadside, as well as the continuity thus postulated between biblical and more recent precedents of this prodigy recalls the contemporary efforts of the Zürich minister Johann Jakob Wick, who at the time was putting together the so-called

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rained from heaven are one of the few types of prodigies that are interpreted as carrying primarily positive meanings.77 As food falling from heaven, they are generally associated with Godly grace. Besides the fact that some of the samples in the Munich collection apparently documented some of the showers reported in the broadsides, there are other striking resonances between these documents and the records in the Munich inventory. All of the broadsides published in 1550 and 1570 stress the fact that the grains were ground into flour, which was then baked into “delicious bread”. The fact that the grains were actually processed into bread was offered as proof that what had rained down were in fact real grains, and Albrecht obviously wanted to document this in his collection as well: as has been mentioned above, the grains he included in the Kunstkammer were accompanied by samples of flour, bread, and even some kind of porridge. On the one hand, this is a sequence of raw materials and products made from them that expresses an interest in mechanical processes that can be witnessed in many of the craft objects in this and other Kunstkammer collections.78 Thus the collection is almost literally translating the written argument of the broadsides into an assemblage of material objects, physically placing the proof in front of the viewer’s eyes. Even more importantly, the juxtaposition of flour and food made from it is a statement about the utilitarian structure of Godly intervention in the world that provides humans with what they need, a point to which I shall return later in this chapter.79

Wickiana, a vast collection of printed and handwritten accounts of wondrous or otherwise extraordinary events, presumably meant as a chronicle useful for understanding the course of history at a time when Protestants were increasingly unsure about the continuing success of the Reformation. See Bauer, “Die Krise der Reformation”: “Wick und seine Informanten waren bestrebt, den Gang der Weltgeschichte in der Zeit politischer und konfessioneller Unübersichtlichkeit aus der Fülle merkwürdiger Natur- und Himmelserscheinungen herauszulesen und mit biblischen Prophezeiungen in Übereinstimmung zu bringen.” (p. 194); on Wick see also Senn, Johann Jakob Wick. 77 See Brednich, “Die Überlieferung vom Kornregen.” 78 See, for instance, the juxtaposition of raw ore, refined metal, and finished artifacts in the Kunstkammer at Ambras (the inventory is published in Wendelin Boeheim, “Urkunden und Regesten aus der k. k. Hofbibliothek,” in Jahrbuch der Kunsthistorischen Sammlungen des Allerhöchsten Kaiserhauses 7 (1888): 91–313, for the cited juxtaposition, see for instance pp. 233–235). 79 Within the larger context of the Kunstkammer, the inclusion of this processed version of the wondrous grains is also significant from a different viewpoint: it is a display of an artisanal activity – breadmaking – and thus of an active human manipulation of nature, which resonates strongly within a collection that throughout was concerned with issues of the relationship between art and nature, and of which utility was one of the central aims. With Pamela Smith we might see this as an expression of an “artisanal epistemology” (Smith, The Body of the Artisan) that suffuses the Kunstkammer throughout.

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The second point that both the 1550 broadsides as well as the Zürich sheet make is the fact that the grains were objects of exchange between friends. While Hamer’s broadside reporting the shower in Carinthia states that “afterwards these grains were sent back and forth in many lands from one good friend to another as a great miracle of God”,80 thus implying the objects’ function as tokens of evidence to the miracle, Hamer’s second sheet, published in response to the events in Thüringen, makes this evidentiary function even more clear. This broadside, after briefly describing the miracle, affirms that “this was truly reported in a letter by a citizen of Weimar to his brother in Nürnberg, and he has sent him several pieces of this same heavenly grain and wheat, and it also has been written and sent back and forth by other trustworthy persons”.81 While the exchange of grains in itself is authenticating the miracle to those who receive the grains, the story of this exchange serves as a means of authentication between the author and the reader of the broadside. The authenticating function is made explicit by stressing the trustworthiness of the people involved in the exchange, thereby revealing that the objects themselves were in need of authentication in order for them to be credible as true heavenly grains. This part of the broadside’s argument is very important in the context of the Kunstkammer, as “exchange among friends” was also how at least part of the grains in the Munich collection reached the Bavarian court, a fact the broadside published in Zürich in 1570 documents.82 Reporting grain showers that happened simultaneously around Zwiespalen in Upper Austria, around Ried in Bavaria, and in the “county of Ortenburg close to Mattighofen,” it states with respect to the latter location that “of these grains the aforementioned count has sent some to the Emperor as well as his duke of Bavaria, and

80

“ouch ist nachmals solchs himmelkorn/ hin vnnd wider in vil Landt von einem guoten fründt zuo dem anderen/ für ein groß Wunderwerck Gottes/ geschickt worden” (Stefan Hamer, Ein wunderbarlich vnd Warhafft geschehn Wunderwerck/ wie inn Kernten/ inn dem MDL. Jar/ nach Christus geburt/ an dem XXIII. tag / Martij/ Korn von dem Himmel (wie ein Regen) gefallen ist (s. l. 1550). 81 “Solches hat warhafftig ein mitpurger von Weymar/ seynem Bruder gen Nürnberg geschriben/ vnnd jm desselbigen himel Korn vnnd Waytzen etliche körnlein geschickt/ Wie das denn von mer glaubwirdigen personen hin vnnd wider geschiben vnd geschikt ist worden” (Stefan Hamer, Ein ander wunderzeychen da es wider koren vnd waytzen von Himel ab geregnet hat/ zuo Weimar vnd Auerschstat/ im Land zuo Thüringen/ etc. (Nürnberg 1550)). 82 See Ein warhafftige/ doch wunderseltzame geschicht/ So gesehen worden/ von etlichen namhafftigen Personen zu Zwispalen/ in dem Laendlein ob der Ens/ dem Hauß Osterrich zuogehoerig Deß gleichen auch zuo Ried im Bayerland/ in der Graffschafft Ortenburg/ bey Mattikhofen/ dises louffendenn M. D. LXX. Jars/ Am 14 tag Junii (Zürich: Christoffel Schwytzer, 1570) (Harms VII, 4).

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also to other noblemen, as a special miracle or wondrous sign.”83 The broadside also informs us that the count of Ortenburg had ground part of the grains into flour, in order to find out “if they are suitable for food like the natural kind,” concluding that the flour had yielded a “very good, sweet, and delicious bread.”84 As discussed above, Albrecht V had obviously done the same, and had found the result suitable for inclusion in his Kunstkammer. One can only speculate about the meaning of this gift for the Lutheran Joachim of Ortenburg and its Catholic recipient. The imperial county of Ortenburg, an enclave in the Bavarian territory, had become Protestant in 1563,85 an event that is considered the peak of the territorial nobility’s quest for confessional autonomy, and the second culmination of the conflict between Albrecht and his estates after the diet at Ingolstadt earlier that year.86 Despite the count’s status as an imperial estate, which legally afforded him confessional autonomy, Albrecht used a pending lawsuit at the Imperial Chamber Court regarding the county’s legal status along with the fact that the count was also a Bavarian freeholder and therefore considered one of his subjects, to invade Ortenburg, seize the count’s residences, and expel Protestant preachers.87 While the duke and the count can therefore by no means be considered ‘friends’, by 1570, Joachim was seeking reconciliation with Albrecht,88 and the gift of grains may have been a gesture of appeasement. On the other hand, Joachim may have thought of the grains as evidence that God bestowed his benevolence upon the Lutheran county as well. It was obviously possible for Albrecht, who probably considered Ortenburg to be part of his territory despite its imperial status, to neglect such an interpretation when he included the grains in his collection. Whether all the grains in the collection reached Munich through locals out in the territory sending them to the court is unknown. A scrap of evidence found in the court archives possibly suggests the venue by which some of the 83 “Von disem korn hatt gedachter Graff/ keyserlicher Mayestet auch sinen Fürsten in Beyern/ des glichen andren Herren/ zuom eine sonderen mirackel oder wnder [sic] zeichen zuo geschickt.” (Ibid.) 84 “der hatt auch des korns ein teil maalen lassen. von wonders waegen/ ob es zur spyß/ wie das natürlich zebruchen/ das dan ein seher guot/ sues/ und wolgeschmackt Brott gaeben hatt.” (Ibid.) 85 See Leonhard Theobald, Die Einführung der Reformation in der Grafschaft Ortenburg (= Beiträge zur Kulturgeschichte des Mittelalters und der Renaissance 17) (Leipzig, Berlin 1914); see Lutz and Ziegler, “Das konfessionelle Zeitalter,” pp. 341–343. 86 See Wieland, “Die bayerische Adelsverschwörung von 1563,” pp. 9, 17. 87 An exchange of letters between the count and members of the Protestant nobility found at one of the Ortenburg castles formed the evidence for the treason trial Albrecht initiated in 1564 against the group of nobles who had made far-reaching confessional demands at the Ingolstadt diet, accusing them of ‘conspiracy’ – an allegation he was ultimately unable to prove (see Wieland, “Die bayerische Adelsverschwörung von 1563,” p. 17). 88 See Theobald, Die Einführung der Reformation, pp. 103–130.

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other grains may have come into the Kunstkammer: the Hofzahlamtsrechnungen of 1571 report a gratuity of 50 guilders paid to a man from Ingolstadt named Jacob Pracher for having assisted the court in “doing research on a number of grains in several places.”89 According to the same volume, two payments were made to an innkeeper in Munich for hosting him, probably when he was reporting about the results of his research.90 Now it is impossible to determine with any certainty if these entries are related to the wondrous showers of grains, and the identity of Jacob Pracher is equally difficult to ascertain.91 Nonetheless, the use of the term erforschung suggests that what was at issue was an unexplained, wondrous phenomenon. Furthermore, the possibility that the court indeed hired somebody to inspect such a wondrous event that supposedly took place in the territory is entirely in accordance with documented practice at other courts. In an undated document found in the Dresden archives, presumably an excerpt made from a letter sent by Duke Ludwig of Württemberg to another prince in 1583, the duke responds to a request for information about the appearance of blood-colored water in the moat of the town Beilstein in Württemberg.92 This report, although unrelated 89 “Dem Jacob Pracher von Jnnglstat vmb das er sich etlicher ortten vmb erforschung ainer anzal getraids geprauchen lassen vererung 50 fl.” (Hauptstaatsarchiv München, Kurbayern Hofzahlamt Bd. 16, fol. 322r). 90 “Mer [dem Chastner Im Thal] für Jacob Pracher zu Jnnglstat. 18 fl. 6 ß 26 dl. 1/2 Mer für jne Pracher 7 fl. – ß 21 dl.” (Hauptstaatsarchiv München, Kurbayern Hofzahlamt 16, fol. 330r). 91 One person of this name is documented in the Ingolstadt archives as a member of the city council from 1531 on, serving as a Spitalpfleger for many years (Stadtarchiv Ingolstadt Urk B 506 (5 November 1554); Urk B 508 (1 June1560); Urk B 509 (10 November 1562); Urk B 511 (29 July1567); Urk B 850 (29 October 1567); Urk B 512 (14 May1570), and even as mayor of the city on and off from 1559, during which time he was at some point suspended for confessional reasons (“ob religionis suspicionem”), but installed back in office in 1573, until he was finally dismissed in 1576 because of his adherence to the lay chalice movement (see Stadtarchiv Ingolstadt, Bürgerkartei, s. v. Pracher, Jakob; Sonntagsblatt. Gratis-Beilage zum “Ingolstädter Tageblatt” (1867–1868)). In 1571, he would thus not have been in office, and his activities at this time are entirely obscure. Indeed, it may even be questionable, if not impossible, that the court should have hired a religiously suspicious person to investigate a miracle. Furthermore, the Ingolstadt matricles list two Jacob Prachers who enrolled at the university to study the artes – one in 1535 and one in 1564. With those, again, we have no way of knowing whether either of them was identical either with the mayor or with the Pracher mentioned in the Hofzahlamtsrechnungen. – I would like to thank Dr. Doris Wittmann at Stadtarchiv Ingolstadt for providing me with this information on Pracher. 92 This event has also been documented in a broadside, see Erschröckliche Newe Zeytung, (Lauingen: Leonhard Reinmichel, 1583) (see Harms and Schilling, Die Sammlung der Zentralbibliothek Zürich, VII.144). Ludwig also reported about it to Wilhelm of Hessen (Harms and Schilling, Die Sammlung der Zentralbibliothek Zürich, p. 290, B4); whether the Dresden document is a copy of this letter, sent as an avviso to August, I cannot say, but the fact that Harms knows of the name of the councilor (who goes unnamed in the Dresden letter) seems to imply that it was not.

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to Munich, is elucidating for how contemporary dukes may have approached Wunderzeichen events in their territory.93 News of the blood-red water in the moat of Beilstein was brought to the Württemberg duke because of the clamor that the event had caused among the town’s residents. He therefore decided to dispatch a councilor for investigation, a decision indicating the importance accorded to such phenomena by state officials: as in Roman antiquity, prodigies were regarded to be of potential significance to the government of the state.94 The councilor went and conducted a number of experiments on site. As the red color in the moat always appeared during the day and vanished at night, he had to monitor the site over a period of two days. Watching the water closely, he was able to observe that the red color indeed disappeared in the evening. The next day, he went back to the moat early in the morning, in order to see that between 4 and 5 a.m. the water was still “naturally white”, but after seven, the “blood-colored springs” started to flow again, coloring large parts of the moat red. The councilor then “for the sake of an even more thorough report” (“zu noch mehrern grundtlichen bericht“) ordered to cut off the water from the moat, upon which the red springs continued to rise from the mud in the ground, but when he asked his assistants to dig into the mud, only “naturally white” water was found underneath. As a last step in the investigation, the councilor took a glass full of the mysterious water and brought it back to Stuttgart, “in order to observe it further” (“dasselbe noch ferner zu Obseruiren”). At the court then, the red water was left untouched over night, and it was observed that the red color slowly settled at the bottom of the glass, so that “nothing but natural water” was left. In the morning, however, without having been touched, the water started to stir by itself, turning red again just as it had at the original site. This marvelous behavior was taken as confirmation that there was no natural explanation to be found for the “ostentum”, and the fact that during the night in Beilstein, the councilor had also witnessed fires in the sky, one of which had appeared above the duke’s administrative building in the town, probably strengthened the idea of the sign’s political significance. This document makes it tempting to think that the Munich court, instead of sending a councilor, did indeed hire somebody to inspect grains that had supposedly rained from heaven in various places throughout the Bavarian territory. The record in the Hofzahlamtsrechnungen dates from 1571, and we may speculate that in the wake of the widely reported miraculous grain showers of 1570, of one of which the Munich duke had received a sample from the count of Ortenburg, similar events were purportedly observed in other places, for which the court then sought authentication by visits to the sites in question. 93

See Hauptstaatsarchiv Dresden, Geheimes Archiv, Loc. 8520/2, fol. 131r–132r. On Roman prodigies, see Veit Rosenberger, Gezähmte Götter. Das Prodigienwesen der römischen Republik (Stuttgart 1998). 94

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This might be how the larger number of grains from places in the territory for which there is no broadside documentation came into the Kunstkammer. Although in the case of the Württemberg prodigy at Beilstein the phenomenon was eventually ‘confirmed’ as a divine sign, the court had by no means taken this for granted, but had conducted an in-depth on-site investigation, followed by a laboratory experiment. This indicates the degree to which the supernatural causes of prodigies had become a matter of skepticism and dispute in the period. Although the portentous meaning of a prodigy could still be upheld even if a natural explanation was found, the heightened interest in their empirical study was increasingly aimed at disproving their character as signs.95 Thus, in the 1588 disputatio De meteoris, the Ingolstadt Jesuit Balthasar Hagel addresses the question whether various kinds of unusual rain could be attributed to natural causes. Taking a position of uncertainty, he is leaning toward a natural explanation, and states that the historically documented showers of blood, milk, stones, frogs, etc. were “not always necessarily to be called miracles”. Why, he asks, should one invoke miracles, and could they not have been generated in the skies?96 That he thought they could is made clear in another disputatio he published in the same year, De metallo et lapide.97 Rejecting the idea of wondrous kinds of rain as miraculous signs, he offers a causal explanation based on the mixture and condensation of vapors that produced hard objects of either stone or metal.98 Although Hagel in this text does not directly discuss grains, this document shows that among Catholic scholars, allegedly miraculous showers were at least approached with some caution; an interpretation that is in line with observations made earlier in this chapter. As Daston and Park have argued, the anomalous nature of such wondrous phenomena made it impossible to deduce them from first principles, which necessitated investigation on a case-by-case basis. Hagel thus grounds his argument in a long catalogue of recent instances of stones that fell from the skies, taken not only from traditional Aristotelian authors such as Augustinus Niphus and Julius Caesar Scaliger, but also from Conrad Gessner.99 As a 95

See Daston and Park, Wonders, p. 183, who cite Conrad Lycosthenes as an example for a scholar maintaining a prodigy’s meaning as a portent even if there was a convincing natural explanation. On the gradual naturalization of prodigies, see ibid. pp. 135–214. 96 “Plvit interdum sanguine, lacte, lapide, rana, &c. Quod in prodigijs habitum fuisse scribunt historici. Tamen non semper necesse est miracula dicere. Cur enim ista attrahi, aut in alto progigni nequeant?” (Hagel, De meteoris, th. 126). 97 See Balthasar Hagel, Disputatio Philosophica, de metallo et lapide (Ingolstadt: David Sartorius, 1588), theses 2–3. 98 “Nec à ratione aut natura alienum est, posse exhalationes & vapores interdum in nube vt in terra, admisceri atque concrescere, & concretione quadam insolubili ita durari, vt in lapidem aut metallum vertantur.” (Hagel, De metallo et lapide, th. 3.) 99 See Hagel, De metallo et lapide, thesis 2.

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university professor Hagel still argues within a largely Aristotelian framework,100 although he frequently cites Girolamo Cardano and also displays and interest in alchemy.101 It was particularly in a courtly context that the experimental approach to natural inquiry developed, as is exemplified by the Dresden document and by the likelihood that the Munich court ordered research on the wondrous grains to be undertaken. This experimental approach had gained momentum and claimed increasing legitimacy during the course of the sixteenth century.102 Nonetheless, the observers at the Stuttgart court were unable to find a natural explanation for the ‘bloody’ water and, as the display of the grains within the Munich Kunstkammer suggests, the Bavarian investigations do not seem to have resulted in naturalization either. The aim of the ‘research’ in both 100 See Schaff, Geschichte der Physik an der Universtiät Ingolstadt, p. 82. Schaff grants, however, that Hagel had an inclination toward drawing conclusions from concrete examples: “Experimente kommen in ihr [der disputatio De meteoris] nicht vor, wenn auch bei Beweisführungen Erfahrung und die aus sinnlichen Wahrnehmungen hergeleiteten Argumente bewußt stets Abstraktionen vorgezogen werden.” (p. 82) In regard to De metallo et lapide, Schaff writes: “Dem Experiment schreibt er eine große Beweiskraft zu, pflegt es aber nicht besonders; nur an der oben erwähnten Stelle zieht er wirkliche Versuche zur Entscheidung heran.” (p. 85). Indeed we can observe that even Hagel’s use of particulars is not the strictly Aristotelian approach that Daston described, where examples drawn from experience are only illustrating general theory, while counter-examples contradict this theory only when an alternative universal lies ready at hand: “Examples do not float free of an argumentative context; they are, in our parlance, evidence rather than facts.” (See Daston, “Marvelous Facts,” p. 260). Hagel does not use collected examples of a certain phenomenon in a merely illustrative way, but often starts out with a set of facts and then sets out to explain them (see for instance Hagel, De metallo et lapide, p. 2). 101 See Schaff, Geschichte der Physik an der Universtiät Ingolstadt: “An verschiedenen Stellen der Schrift spricht er [Hagel] über die Alchemie, für welche er auch die Namen ‘Chemia’ und ‘Pyrotechnia’ verwendet. Trotzdem er sie an sich ablehnt und für betrügerisch und unerlaubt hält, sieht er in ihr die guten Keime zu einer praktischen Wissenschaft, welche Metalle rein darstellen, zweckmäßige Verbindungen und besonders Metallegierungen zu finden und allenthalben nützliche Anwendungen für das praktische Leben zu machen gestattet.” (p. 84) Indeed, while Hagel firmly rejects the idea that alchemy can transform the substance of metals, he follows Georgius Agricola as well as Cardano in granting that the art that he prefers to call Pyrotechnia instead of Chimia has great utility for transforming metals at the level of accidents. (Hagel, De metallo et lapide, th. 81–93.) 102 See Daston and Park, Wonders, pp. 139-44 and passim. On the importance of courts for the development of experimental science, see Bruce T. Moran, Science at the Court of Hesse-Cassel: Informal Communication, Collaboration, and the Role of the Prince-Practitioner in the Sixteenth Century (Diss. UCLA, 1978); Robert S. Westman, “The Astronomer’s Role in the Sixteenth Century: A Preliminary Study,” in History of Science 18 (1980): 105– 147; Moran, “German Prince-Practitioners”; Trevor-Roper, “The Court-Physician”; Bruce T. Moran, The Alchemical World of the German Court: Occult Philosophy and Medicine in the Circle of Moritz of Hessen (1572–1632) (Stuttgart: Steiner, 1991); Walther, “Fürsten, Höfe und Naturwissenschaften.”

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cases was probably not one of finding natural causes for the phenomenon, but rather of determining whether it was indeed a Godly sign. That is to say that although the inclination to accept the fact of a prodigy or divine miracle was likely strong, the awareness of the possibility of a natural cause demanded investigation. As has been observed in the beginning of this chapter, some of the items in the group of Wunderzeichen in the collection were rather unequivocally presented as divine interventions in the regular process of nature. This is the case with those objects accompanied by narratives in the inventory, such as the miraculous nuts, flour, and the petrified wood. These narratives, as Fickler sometimes explicitly notes, were displayed in the form of written notes along with the objects. Furthermore, the close similarities between the presentation of the grains (in unprocessed form along with flour and bread) and the reports found in contemporary broadsides make it likely that the approach taken in these publications largely accorded with the way in which these grains were to be perceived by visitors to the Munich Kunstkammer. The argument that these objects make, however, only gains its full meaning when viewed in the context both of contemporary discourse about natural versus supernatural causes, and – if the conclusion was in favor of the latter – of the confessionalpolitical significance with which prodigies were invested, a matter which I discussed above. That the prodigy objects – even those that were explicitly construed as miraculous in the inventory – were seen in close connection with preternatural phenomena is shown by their juxtaposition with such objects as fossils (F. 2107), and bladder stones (F. 2108–2110), both of which were phenomena described as praeter naturam in the mineralogical and medical literature, which means that they were thought to have natural causes that were simply difficult to discern and ascertain.103 Nonetheless, the miraculous status of many of the objects is the perspective that dominates this grouping. At the most obvious level, the Munich court, in its selection and presentation of the prodigious objects, appears to be making an argument parallel to that made by Protestant theologians, i.e. that the miraculous events were a sign of benevolent divine attention to Catholic lands. This is quite evident in the case of the grains: since most of those kept in the Munich collection had rained down onto places located within the Ba103

Bartholomaeus Eustachius, for instance, under the keyword “kidney stone” in the index of his treatise on kidneys, refers the reader to the entries grouped under “preternatural diseases of the kidneys” (see Bartholomaeus Eustachius, “De Renum Structura, Officio, & Administratione,” in Opuscula Antatomica, ed. Bartholomaeus Eustachius (Venice: Vincentius Luchinus, 1564): 25–147, index unpaginated). Albertus Magnus presented an influential description of fossils as a preternatural phenomenon, which was reprinted at the time the Kunstkammer was being established (see Albertus Magnus, De mineralibus et rebus metallicis libri quinque (Coloniae: Ioannes Birckmann, 1569), pp. 186–199).

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varian territory, they could be taken as a sign of God’s benevolence towards the lands under Wittelsbach rule. By petrifying the wood the impious Veitt of Lendershaim had dared to cut on Good Friday, God showed that he did not allow irreverent behavior in this Catholic territory. By letting a peasant boy survive a lightning strike, as the two knives in the sheath attest, God showed the protection he bestowed on this pious territory’s inhabitants. Structurally, these arguments do not specifically differ from the way in which Protestants might have made use of such events in their own favor. As I would like to suggest, however, in the Munich collection it is the means by which these arguments were made, and the material context in which they were set that are indeed confessionally determined and quite specifically Catholic.

Objects and the Materiality of Counter-Reformation Religious Practice Let us return to the miraculous nut tree with which this chapter began. The example of the tree that abided by the papal calendar reform, represented in the Munich collection by samples of the nuts along with some twigs and leaves, demonstrates the fluidity between traditional miracles and natural prodigies in contemporary perception. Unequivocally presented as a result of divine order in the inventory, the context in which the report by the Jesuit Cardaneus quoted in the beginning survived also underscores this interpretation: the letter to Niclas von Salm had been copied into an avviso alongside a quite traditional story about a Portuguese nun receiving stigmata in visionary experience.104 This association of a natural prodigy with a ‘traditional’ miracle is in accordance with an attitude found in earlier Catholic discourse: for example, in 1532 Friedrich Nausea, later bishop of Vienna, published his Libri Mirabilium Septem, in which he tried to accommodate natural prodigies into the traditional canon of miracles.105 Cardaneus’ letter to Niclas von Salm suggests that interest in the miracle of the nut tree was quite keen among Catholic elites; this interest is made even more clear by an anonymous pamphlet published in Munich by Adam Berg that reproduces another more extensive letter by Cardaneus, in which he describes in more detail the network of correspondence and personal exchange among Catholic officials about the miracle, while also emphasizing the broad

104

See Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München, Oef. 342.13–15. See Friedrich Nausea, Libri Mirabilium Septem (Köln: Petrus Quentelius, 1532) (see Ewinkel, De monstris, pp. 35f.). 105

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public attention it received.106 Cardaneus himself had first heard about the miraculous tree from the Habsburg Archduke Karl of Styria, who had received an avviso about it from the papal nuntius. Cardaneus reports that after hearing about the miracle, he mentioned the matter at the residence of the bishop of Laibach107, but a nobleman from Görz (the town three miles from Campolongo where the miracle happened) was already there reporting about it. This nobleman told him and the bishop that the judge of Görz had sent a “trustworthy man” to the site, who had observed the tree’s miraculous behavior and brought back several branches as evidence (“zum zeugknuß”). The judge then sent these branches to the archpriest and other local notables. Upon hearing this report, Cardaneus traveled to Görz himself. He went to see the archpriest and had a look at the branches there. Despite this material evidence, Cardaneus wished to witness the miracle with his own eyes. He kindly asked the priest to let him travel to Campolongo under the guidance of the same “old pious man” that the judge had first dispatched. So Cardaneus, in the company of ten others, undertook an expedition to the place, saw the tree that stood in “a poor peasant’s orchard”, broke off leaves and branches, and picked up nuts from the ground. He also talked to locals of Campolongo, who all testified to the miracle’s truth, and told him that people were coming from as far as Mantua and Florence to see it. After his return, Cardaneus sent a branch with nuts, notably one that had been broken off on St. John’s Day, to a noble named Von Diettrichstain, expressing his expectation that Diettrichstain would show them to the Emperor. Cardaneus also wrote about the event to the bishops of Olmitz and Vienna, and intended to take another branch along with some nuts and leaves to Rome, planning to present them to the Pope.108 The interest of both Catholic clerics and rulers in this miraculous prodigy is not surprising, as it was extremely useful in the politically and confessionally highly virulent debate about the papal calendar reform of 1582.109 The 106 See Warer Bericht/ warumb das alt Römisch Calender diser Zeit notwendig ersehen und gebessert worden/ wie im Nicenischen Concilio von 1255. Jahrn/ auff begeren des großmächtigsten Römischen Keysers Constantini Magni auch beschehen (München: Adam Berg, 1584). The pamphlet consists of a short preface presumably by Berg, and the “Zeitung von einem Wunderbaum/ geschrieben auß Gertz/ an den Pfarrher zu Nitlospurg in Märhern. 1583.” Very close correspondences in the narrated events, most importantly the fact that the author, just like Cardaneus, declares to have visited the tree with a group of eight people on horseback plus three by foot, seem to confirm that both documents are by the same author. 107 Today Ljubljana, the capital of Slowenia, at the time part of the Habsburg Empire. 108 See Warer Bericht. 109 On the calendar reform, see Felix Stieve, Der Kalenderstreit des sechszehnten Jahrhunderts in Deutschland (München 1880); Malcolm Freiberg, “Going Gregorian, 1582–1752: A Summary View,” in Catholic Historical Review 86 (2000): 1–19; Edith Koller, “Die Suche nach der richtigen Zeit – Die Auseinandersetzung um die Autorisierung der Gregorianischen Kalenderreform im Alten Reich,” in Die Autorität der Zeit in der Frühen Neuzeit, ed. Arndt Brendecke, Ralf-Peter Fuchs, Edith Koller (Münster: LIT, 2007): 307–332.

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implementation of the reform was part of the program of the re-catholicization of Karl II’s Inner Austrian territories, and the county of Görz had been the first battleground of this campaign.110 The Bavarian dukes, who saw the Counter-Reformation in Karl’s territories as a complement to the ongoing efforts in their own lands, acted as driving forces behind the formation of a Catholic alliance against the increasing demands for religious freedom by the Inner Austrian estates.111 As a token of success from an allied territory confirming the validity of his cause, Wilhelm could easily integrate the nuts from Görz with the Wunderzeichen of Bavarian origin. Ultimately, the struggle between Protestant opposition to the reform and Catholic insistence on its implementation concerned papal power to regulate time, and, by implication, nature. Beyond this, the dispute involved central tenets of religious practice, and these, I argue, were at the heart of the presentation of prodigious objects in the Munich Kunstkammer. One of the central points of dispute in the controversy about the calendar reform was that of feast days and of the so-called Lostage, which were feast days of saints that popular lore linked to certain meteorological patterns, and that in practice provided temporal orientation for farming, medical, or nautical activities. Catholic theologians, such as the French bishop Hugolin Martellus in his treatise defending the calendar reform published in 1582, argued that in order for the celebration of feast days to be effective, the celestial constellation on a particular holy day had to correspond to the original constellation on the day of the commemorated event.112 The calendar reform, according to Martellus, did nothing but restore this correspondence between the history of salvation that determined the cycle of the church year and the order of nature.113 The miraculous nut tree presented evidence for exactly this point: it had been in accordance with the church calendar before the reform, as it only bloomed and bore fruit on the eve of St. John’s Day, and it remained in accordance by shifting the time of its blooming as the new calendar demanded it.114 So although the tree’s behavior of bearing leaves and blooming only on this particular holy day was in itself “unnatural” (Cardaneus notes that the 110

See Regina Pörtner, The Counter-Reformation in Central Europe. Styria 1580–1630 (Oxford 2001): pp. 71–107, on Görz see pp. 72f. The county’s political significance was rooted in papal concerns that Venice might exploit confessional instability in Görz for an annexation of the county. 111 See Pörtner, Counter-Reformation, pp. 80–82, and passim. 112 See Hugolin Martellus, De anni integra in integrum restitutione. Una cum apologia quae est Sacrorum temporum assertio Hugolini Martelli Episcopi Glandatensis (Lyon 1582). 113 See Smolinsky, Deutungen, pp. 22–25. 114 That contemporaries saw the close link between the nut tree miracle and the issue of Lostage, which linked feast days to natural laws, and that this link was of particular interest to the popular audience, is shown by the fact that it is the main point of discussion in the short preface to Adam Berg’s pamphlet about the miracle (see Warer Bericht).

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other nut trees in the neighborhood were blooming “naturally at their time”, while the miraculous tree remained barren115), its shifting of this unnatural behavior according to the shifting of the feast day brought about by the calendar reform revealed the essential, natural truth both of the feast day itself and of the calendar reform. As Heribert Smolinsky has shown, the argument Martellus makes revolves around the importance of holy times and places.116 The restitution of feast days to their natural time ensured a chronological presence of the original events, analogous to the presence pilgrims, having overcome the geographical gap, experienced at the holy places in Palestine.117 Smolinsky describes this hypostasizing conception of time and space as a “kind of materialization of religious practice”, and points to its correspondence with the Catholic-Thomistic doctrine of the sacraments. 118 The way Cardaneus, other Catholic officials, and even the populace approached the miracle, flocking to the site like pilgrims and collecting the branches and nuts, in order to keep them as sacred tokens or use them as evidence (“zeugknuß”) of the miracle, testifies to the habits of mind in which these theological ideas were rooted. This combination of eyewitness reports by honorable observers and material, visual evidence was not only the dominant principle for authenticating secular knowledge in the period,119 but was also inseparable from contemporary religious discourse and practice. Within the Kunstkammer, the relics of the miraculous nut tree represent this complex of ideas and habits of mind literally in nuce. To consider the context of religious ideas and practice opens up perspectives for understanding what we have identified as the most striking feature of the Munich approach to prodigies: their representation by material objects. It was the central 115

See Warer Bericht. See Smolinsky, Deutungen, p. 23. 117 See Smolinsky, Deutungen, p. 24; see Martellus, De anni integra in integrum restitutione, pp. 36–39. 118 See Smolinsky, Deutungen, p. 28. On the doctrine of the sacraments within confessional conflict and its relation to visuality see Karlheinz Diez, ‘Ecclesia – non est civitas Platonica’. Antworten katholischer Kontroverstheologen des 16. Jahrhunderts auf Martin Luthers Anfrage an die ‘Sichtbarkeit’ der Kirche (Frankfurt am Main 1997). 119 For this in relation to wondrous phenomena, see Robert Jütte, “Ein Wunder wie der goldene Zahn” – Eine “unerhörte” Begebenheit aus dem Jahre 1593 macht Geschichte(n) (Ostfildern: Thorbecke, 2004), pp. 33–35; for methods of authentication in the field of natural history, see for instance Laurent Pinon, “Conrad Gessner and the Historical Depth of Renaissance Natural History,” in Historia: Empiricism and Erudition in Early Modern Europe, ed. Gianna Pomata and Nancy G. Siraisi (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2005): 241–267, p. 259. See also Ulrike Hass-Zumkehr, “Wie glaubwürdige Nachrichten versichert haben.” Formulierungstraditionen in Zeitungsnachrichten des 17. bis 20. Jahrhunderts (Tübingen 1998); Steven Shapin, A Social History of Truth. Civility and Science in Seventeenth-Century England (Chicago 1994). 116

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importance of material objects in Catholic religious practice, which had a long tradition but was particularly defended and emphasized during the CounterReformation, that gave this group of objects in particular, and mutatis mutandis many other objects in the Munich collection, and perhaps even the conception of this collection as a whole, their particular significance.120 We find evidence for this religious significance of material objects in the immediate Bavarian context. In 1571, the Bavarian ducal councilor Martin Eisengrein, responding to Protestant criticism of Catholic veneration of saints and relics, put forward an unusually pronounced argument for the intrinsic importance of objects and places within the Catholic faith, asserting that God uses “tools” (mittel) to help human beings. Such tools, according to Eisengrein, could be Mary, saints or their bodily remains, as well as holy sites and churches.121 Not only could objects that were either physical remnants of saintly persons or had been in physical contact with them, such as their clothes, be used by God in order to perform his miracles, but so could a diverse range of other material objects. Eisengrein insists that any object, down to the very lowliest things, could be chosen by God to perform whatever he wants.122 Interestingly, among the “tools” that God uses, natural objects take a prominent place. Bolstering his argument with the inevitable long series of Old and New Testament examples, Eisengrein expatiates on the story of Moses and the Israelites who on their way through the desert were in need of fresh water at the river Marah, the water of which was bitter.123 Eisengrein writes: “Now the Lord, out of his almighty power, would have been able to make the bitter water fresh in front of their eyes without any tool: But he did not do so; if Moses wanted fresh

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On materiality in medieval and sixteenth-century Christian practice and theology, see Bynum, Christian Materiality. 121 “Die aller höchst vnnd vnzertrent/ H. Dreyfältigkait vnser Got würdket sie/ Aber durch mittel die jme darzuo gefallen: Er würckets/ durch mittel seiner lieben Muotter/ Durch mittel seiner ausserwölten Diener vnd Hayligen/ Durch mittel der Relliquien von den selben/ Durch mittel dises oder jhenes orts/ dises oder jhenes Gottshauß vnd kirchen. Jn summa/ durch wunderbarliche mittel/ die aber wie gemeldet/ seiner Göttlichen Mayestät darzuo gefallen” (Martin Eisengrein, Unser liebe Fraw zu Alten Oetting (Ingolstadt: Weissenhorn, 1571), p. 97v). 122 “Dann darmit wir es nur wol mercken/ das er uns sein hilff/ durch mittel/ und offtermals solche mittel/ die in unsern augen gar schlecht anzuosehen seyen/ mitthailen woelle/ so gebraucht er nit allain die Menschen/ auch jhre Klaidung/ Schwaißtuechlen und fazanetle zuo mitteln/ Sunder es ist auch der schatt an der wand/ das aller schlechtichst und nachgaeltigest ding/ unnd das kot auff der erden/ nit sicher/ muosse auch ain mittel sein/ und die kranckhaiten der menschen vertreiben helffen.” (Eisengrein, Unser liebe Fraw zu Alten Oetting, pp. 105v f.) 123 See Exodus 15, 22–25.

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water, he had to use a tool: What tool? A piece of wood the Lord showed him, that he had to take and throw into the water, and thereby the bitter water became fresh.”124

There had been an affinity of natural marvels with relics since the Middle Ages, based on the belief that both possessed healing powers, as Lorraine Daston and Katharine Park have shown.125 Eisengrein is clearly expanding on this idea, using this biblical example in order to extend the notion of the sacred functionality attached to relics to basically the entire realm of objects in the world. This idea of the materiality of Godly intervention is also essential to Eisengrein’s justification of pilgrimage, as it entails the notion of the holiness of particular places.126 While Eisengrein does not want to speculate about the reasons why God chooses to make use of objects rather than performing miracles without them, he insists that the fundamental structure of Godly intervention in worldly affairs is by means of objects and holy places.127 The way in which this argument blurs the definition of a relic by according the same potential of sacred utility to any other material object is certainly dazzling to the modern reader who is accustomed to a more narrow definition of the concept, such as the one proposed by Walter Pötzl: “In the narrowest sense, what we call reliquiae are the body or parts of the body of a saint, in a wider sense objects that have been in physical contact with the saint when he was alive, in an even wider sense also objects with which the bones have been touched in the grave.”128 Eisengrein, however, puts relics on a par with any 124

“Als Moses die kinder von Jsrahel/ durch das Rott Meer gefuert/ und sie wider jne murmelten/ darumb das sie kain suesses wasser hetten/ und auß dem Bach Marath/ von wegen der bitterkait/ nit trincken mochten/ Hette Gott der Herr/ auß krafft seines Allmaechtigen gewalts/ wol angesicht jrer augen/ on alles mittel/ das bitter wasser sueß künden machen: Er that es aber darumm nit/ sunder hat Moyses suesses wasser woellen haben/ so hat er nur ain mittel muessen gebrauchen: Was für ain mittel? Ein Holtz hat jhm Gott der Herr zaigt/ das hat er nemmen und in das wasser muessen werffen/ daruon ist das bitter wasser sueß worden.” (Eisengrein, Unser liebe Fraw zu Alten Oetting, p. 99r). 125 See Daston and Park, Wonders, pp. 73–75. 126 “So bezeugt die erfahrung/ vnd vil hundert tausen Exempla/ das Gott der Herr ettwa an ainem ort sein gnad reichlicher scheinen lasset/ als an ainem andern.” (Eisengrein, Unser liebe Fraw zu Alten Oetting, p. 107v). 127 “Er ist jha wol ain also gewaltiger Gott/ das er vns/ inn allen vnsern ob vnnd ahnligen/ mit ainem aingien wort/ ja gar on wort/ in ainem augenblick/ jha noch schneller als in ainam augenblick/ ohn alle mittel/ helffen kündte: Er wille es aber nicht yederzeit thuon: Sunder durch mittel/ wil er vns auff diser Welt ye sein Göttliche hülff erzaigen: Also gefellt es jme/ der selbst am besten waißt/ wie er jhme thuon solle: Vnd niemandt darffe jme einreden oder ordnung geben/ warumb er es eben also vnnd nit anderst geordnet hab/ [...] Derhalben wann wir seiner Göttlichen hülff thailhafftig wöllen werden/ vns der mittel/ die er vns in H. Schrifft vnd sunst geoffenbaret/ danckbarlich gebrauchen” (Eisengrein, Unser liebe Fraw zu Alten Oetting, pp. 97v f.) 128 “Im engsten Sinn bezeichnet man als reliquiae den Körper oder einzelne Teile des Körpers eines Heiligen, im weiteren Sinn Gegenstände, die zu Lebzeiten des Heiligen mit seiner Person in Berührung gekommen waren, in einem noch weiteren Sinn auch Gegen-

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object in the world that is useful to humanity. The idea of pragmatic utility that this argument accords to the divine order of the world, where God uses material things in order to accomplish his goals, may be seen as providing a theological context for the utilitarian conception of the Kunstkammer as a whole that has been discussed in the previous chapter. The fluidity that Eisengrein implies between what we define as relics and any other objects that God may choose as his tools accords a quasi-sacred status to many of the objects in the Munich collection. It is well known that the objects central to Catholic devotion – most importantly relics and pilgrimage souvenirs – had themselves often been collected, and collectibles in general thus traditionally bore affinities with these sacred objects.129 Eisengrein’s argument makes it possible to give this affinity a much more tangible significance: if any object may be chosen by God as an effective means to assist human beings, then objects in general, especially those with utilitarian functions, can potentially acquire a sacred meaning. From this point of view, the presence of numerous objects with an obvious religious significance in this collection, which from a modern perspective stände, die man im Grab an den Gebeinen berührt hat.” (Walter Pötzl, “Bild und Reliquie im hohen Mittelalter,” in Jahrbuch für Volkskunde N. F. 9 (1986): 56–84, p. 56 (my translation)). On various forms of relics, see also Bynum, Christian Materiality, pp. 131–139. 129 On relic collections, see Patrick J. Geary, Furta sacra. Thefts of Relics in the Central Middle Ages (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978); Philipp M. Halm and Rudolf Berliner, Das Hallesche Heiltum (Berlin 1931); Denis Bethell, “The Making of a TwelfthCentury Relic Collection,” in Popular Belief and Practice: Papers read at the Ninth Summer Meeting and the Tenth Winter Meeting of the Ecclesiastical History Society, ed. G. J. Cuming and Derek Baker (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972): 64–72; Lorenz Seelig, “Dieweil wir dann nach dergleichen Heiltumb und edlen Clainod sonder Begirde tragen. Der von Herzog Wilhelm V. begründete Reliquienschatz der Jesuitenkirche St. Michael in München,” in Rom in Bayern. Kunst und Spiritualität der ersten Jesuiten, ed. Reinhold Baumstark (München: Hirmer, 1997): 199–262; Rainer Rückert, ed, Der Schatz vom heiligen Berg Andechs (München 1967), E. Hlawitschka, “Der Heiltumsschatz in Legende und Geschichte,” in Andechs. Der heilige Berg. Von der Frühzeit bis zur Gegenwart (München 1993): 104–118, K. Merkel, “Die Reliquien von Halle und Wittenberg. Ihre Heiltumsbücher und Inszenierung,” in Cranach. Meisterwerke auf Vorrat. Die Erlanger Handzeichnungen der Universitätsbibliothek (Erlangen 1994): 37–50; J. Rasmussen, “Untersuchungen zum Halleschen Heiltum des Kardinals Albrecht von Brandenburg,” in Münchner Jahrbuch der bildenden Kunst, N.F. 27 (1976): 59–118 and J. Rasmussen, “Untersuchungen zum Halleschen Heiltum des Kardinals Albrecht von Brandenburg,” in Münchner Jahrbuch der bildenden Kunst, N.F. 28 (1977): 91–132; on the affinities of relics and natural marvels in medieval collections see Daston and Park, Wonders, pp. 69–88; on relics in Kunstkammer type collections, see Daston, “The Factual Sensibility,” p. 456, n. 6; on the persistence of the idea in the nineteenth century, see Angela Matyssek, “Die Wissenschaft als Religion, das Präparat als Reliquie. Rudolf Virchow und das Pathologische Museum der Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität zu Berlin,” in Sammeln als Wissen. Das Sammeln und seine wissenschaftsgeschichtliche Bedeutung, ed. Anke Te Heesen and E. C. Spary (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2001).

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would be perceived as an essentially secular place, becomes more meaningful. I shall exemplify the ubiquity of such objects by a cluster found on one of the large tables in the northern gallery of the Kunstkammer130: “a wooden model of the holy sepulcher of Christ in Jerusalem” (F. 510), a couple of apple-like pieces of fruit also from Palestine (F. 556), a band of cloth measuring the length of Mary’s body (F. 558, 2), a rosary made of the earth of which Adam had been made (F. 558, 3), another rosary made of Indian black beans (F. 534), a stone naturally grown in the shape of a rosary (F. 549), three plates made from the earth of the sacred places in Palestine,131 seeds brought from there (F. 559.5), and a number of sacred images and texts132 are here placed together on one table. These objects of indisputably sacred significance are grouped with a number of ‘secular’ items: craft objects such as spoons and knives made from exotic or local natural materials,133 a petrified piece of wood (F. 539), samples of terra sigillata,134 seeds from a cotton tree (F. 556), fossils (F. 548), a wooden pear (F. 563), an abnormally large gall apple (F. 596), numerous casts of reptiles, shellfish, and herbs,135 and several bezoar stones.136 Some of these natural objects, such as the bezoar stones, were of potential medical utility, and from Eisengrein’s perspective can thus justifiably be seen as divine tools. Therefore, their grouping with the sacred objects, some of which (like the samples from the earth of the holy sepulcher) are relics even according to the narrower definition, acquires a whole new dimension of significance.137 Furthermore, the juxtaposition of overtly religious objects with such items as the wooden reproduction of a pear – notably both here (F. 563) as well as in the grouping of prodigy objects that is the central 130

See table no. 10. F. 558.3, see also 559.4. 132 F. 513, 524, 536, etc. 133 F. 514–518, 526–533, etc. 134 F. 543, 559.6. 135 F. 568–575, 578–580, 582–583. 136 F. 601–607. 137 On these relics from the Holy Land, see Ulrich Bock, “Kontaktreliquien, Wachssakramentalien und Phylakterien,” in Reliquien. Verehrung und Verklärung. Skizzen und Noten zur Thematik und Katalog der Ausstellung der Kölner Sammlung Louis Peters im SchnütgenMuseum, ed. Anton Legner (Köln 1989): 154–65, p. 155, who argues from a narrow definition of relics: “Seit dem Einsetzen der Wallfahrten ins Heilige Land ist es Brauch, Erde, Steine, Staub, Pflanzen oder etwa Holz von Särgen dort bestatteter Heiliger von den Stätten des Wirkens Christi oder Mariens sowie von anderen biblischen Orten einzusammeln und mit nach Hause zu bringen. Entsprechend zahlreich sind die im Abendland vorzufindenden Heiligland-Reliquien, deren sakrale Wertigkeit natürlich nicht mit den Heiligkreuz-Partikeln vergleichbar ist. Wenn den Pilgern auch die ganze biblische Landschaft reliquien- bzw. andenkenwertig erschien und mitunter noch heute erscheint, als im engeren Sinne HeiliglandReliquien können nur die Substanzen gelten, die durch Berührung mit dem Heiligen Grab in den Rang von Kontaktreliquien gehoben wurden.” 131

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subject of this chapter (F. 2112) – and the oversized gall apple (F. 596) suggests that these fruits of nature, especially in their preternatural, i.e. abnormal form, were also invested with religious significance. The naturally grown rosary (F. 549) that is included in this group is an interesting case of an object merging the secular and the sacred: at first sight, it is an example of the fusion of art and nature that was so common in Kunstkammer collections, where objects created by nature seemed to be man-made artifacts; but the ‘natural rosary’ puts this idea in the service of a strong confessional argument: it suggested that nature herself fabricated an object central to Catholic devotional practice, thereby claiming that this devotional practice was natural. The juxtapositions within this group as a whole make it necessary to reconsider the status of seemingly ‘secular’ collectibles in the minds of contemporaries. Their interest was not merely secular: for the contemporary beholder, they bore strong resonances with the sacred. At the very least, they were sacred in the sense that they were material testimony to the wonder of divine creation. While this may seem like a confessionally indifferent truism, their particular presentation in conjunction with the sacred objects reveals an attitude toward them that was structured by habits of mind shaped by Catholic religious practice.138 The particular importance of the general affinity of collectible objects with relics for our understanding of the group of Wunderzeichen objects in the Munich Kunstkammer becomes evident when we look at some of the objects with which the Wunderzeichen objects were juxtaposed: on the one hand, there was “a branch of a cedar tree with three fruits that had grown on the mount Libano in Palestine, and was brought from there”, and on the other the group of bladder stones from members of the Wittelsbach dynasty or the Munich court. Akin to the Palestinian objects in the cluster in the northern gallery just discussed, the cedar branch here was most similar to a relic, because it was a pilgrimage souvenir from the Holy Land. As Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann has argued, in medieval and early modern perceptions of pilgrimage places, nature was considered part of the realm of the sacred,139 and this idea is fully underscored by Eisengrein’s reasoning. Moreover, the objects from Palestine refer to contemporary discourse about the possibilities of a new crusade to the Holy Land, which had also interested the Jesuit physicist Balthasar Hagel in relation to Wunderzeichen reports. As has been noted above, crusade plans were primarily contemplated on the Catholic side during the CounterReformation, and the combination of pilgrimage souvenirs from the Holy Land with natural prodigies thus had strong confessional overtones.

138 On the status of objects in religious practice and ambivalence of theologians’ efforts to come to terms with these beliefs, see Bynum, Christian Materiality, pp. 125–176. 139 See Kaufmann, “Mastery,” p. 43.

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The connection with the realm of the sacred is less obvious at first sight, but in fact equally strong in the case of the bladder stones that were also placed alongside the prodigy objects on this table. Certainly, stones generated inside the human body were first of all a much discussed topic in the medical literature. As phenomena praeter naturam,140 i. e. preternatural phenomena that occurred outside the regular course of nature but were nonetheless natural, their particular causes were a subject of much debate,141 and this as well as the fact that they presented an intrusion of the mineral into the organic realm made them (just like the bezoar stones found in the bodies of certain animals) fit for inclusion into collections of wondrous (but not necessarily miraculous) natural phenomena. As such, they were discussed in the Histoires prodigieuses by Pierre Boaistuau in 1560, in Ambroise Paré’s Des monstres et prodiges of 1573, as well as in other similar works.142 While this discourse was certainly an important aspect of the bladder stones’ contemporary perception, I would here like to draw attention to these objects’ functions and connotations within religious practice, a context that is especially relevant within the particular group of objects under consideration in this chapter. As hagiographic legends confirm, bodily stones, when taken from saints, could be venerated as relics. For example, when the Italian nun Chiara of Montefalco was autopsied in the fourteenth century, three stones were found inside her gall bladder, and these were put on display in the church as relics along with her heart. Miraculously, each of the stones, as well as two or all three of them together, always had exactly the same weight, a miracle that 140

As mentioned above, Bartholomaeus Eustachius, under the entry “lapis renum” in the index of his treatise on kidneys, refers the reader to those entries assembled under „Renum affectus praeter naturam“ (see Eustachius, “De Renum Structura” (index unpaginated)). 141 Certainly the medical classics deal with the issue, such as Hippokrates and Galenus, and in the sixteenth century, there are countless treatises addressing the topic; see for instance Claudius Galenus, De renum affectus dignotione et medicatione liber (Moguntia 1530); Johannes Kentmann, Calculorum qui in corpore ac membris hominum innascuntur genera XII (Zürich: Jacob Gesner, 1565); Iohannis Ferrandus, De Nephrisis et Lithiasis, seu de renum et vesicae calculi definitione, causis, signis, praedictione, precautione & curatione (Paris: Gulielmus Iulianus, 1570); Ioannes Boscius, De lapidibus qvi nascuntur in corpore hvmano, et praecipve renibvs ac vesica, et ipsorum cvratione (Ingolstadt: Weissenhorn, 1580); Mariano Santo, Mariani Sancti Barolitani Medici Clarissimi de lapide renum curiosum opusculum nuperrime in lucem aeditum. Eiusdem de lapide vesicae per incisionem extrahendo sequitur aureus libellus. (Paris: Christianus Wechelus, 1584). 142 See Pierre Boaistuau, Histoire prodigieuses. Texte intégral (Paris, Genève: Slatkine, 1996), pp. 145f.; J. F. Malgaigne, Œuvres complètes d'Ambroise Paré. Revues et collationnées sur toutes les editions, avec les variantes (Paris: Baillière, 1841) (see chapter XV of Paré’s treatise on monsters (pp. 29–33)); Cornelius Gemma Frisius, De Naturae divinis characterismis; sev Raris & admirandis spectaculis, causis, indiciis, proprietatibus rerum in partibus singulis vniuersi, Libri II. (Antwerpen: Plantin, 1575), pp. 98f.; Antonio Benivieni, De abditis nonnullis ac mirandis morborum et sanationum causis (Springfield, Illinois: 1954), pp. 26, 176.

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was seen as expressive of the doctrine of the Trinity.143 Since this story does not originate from the context of the Munich court, we unfortunately have no way of knowing whether the visitors of the collection were familiar with it or not. However, the fact that one of these stones was reported to have cracked into three parts in 1560 – an event that was seen in connection with the religious disunity of the time – at the very least confirms that there must still have been an awareness of these gall stones at the time the Munich collection was assembled.144 Perhaps even more important than the suitability of bodily stones as relics, however, was the fact that in sixteenth-century Bavaria, both gall and bladder stones were also very common as votive offerings. 145 Placing bladder stones in pilgrimage churches typically served to testify to the cure of a particular votant from this widespread ailment.146 143 Elfriede Grabner, “Gallensteine als Heiligenattribut. Clara von Montefalco in Ikonographie und Legende,” in Dona Ethnologica. Beiträge zur vergleichenden Volkskunde, ed. Helge Gerndt and Georg R. Schroubek (München 1973): 172–184, esp. p. 180; Katharine Park, “The Criminal and the Saintly Body: Autopsy and Dissection in Renaissance Italy,” in Renaissance Quarterly 47, no. 1 (1994): 1–33, pp. 1–3. A similar example is found in the case of the Dominican tertiary Margarita of Città di Castello, who was autopsied in the fourteenth century, and in whose heart were found three little stones bearing impressions of the holy family (see Park, “Impressed Images”). 144 Moreover, there seems to have been a tradition of this story in Bavaria, as it is recounted by the Bavarian Augustinian eremite Wolfgang Eder in 1694 (see Wolfgang Eder, Die Andere Welt. Das ist/ Daß nach disem zeitlichen ein anderes/ vnd zwar ewiges/ jmmerwehrendes Leben seye (München 1694), p. 130f. (quoted in Grabner, “Gallensteine als Heiligenattribut,” pp. 180f.)). 145 The literature on votive practice is vast, but unsatisfying. A lot of it focuses on particular local instances of votive practice and is written from an ethnographical (and sometimes religiously biased) perspective, being largely unconcerned with conceptual issues. In conceptual terms, there is a controversy between authors like Rudolf Kriss, who approach the phenomenon in ahistorical terms from a psychological-anthropological perspective, and others, like Wolfgang Brückner and Lenz Kriss-Rettenbeck, who call for a more historically specific and rationalizing approach to the topic, emphasizing the objects’ and images’ functions as signs. While the problems of the first approach are obvious, the latter, although more convincing, still leaves many questions unanswered, the most pressing of which concern the documentary function and epistemological status of objects (to be discussed here), and of images (to be addressed in the next chapter). On votive practice in general see Wolfgang Brückner, “Volkstümliche Denkstrukturen und hochschichtliches Weltbild im Votivwesen. Zur Forschungssituation und Theorie des bildlichen Opferkultes,” in Schweizerisches Archiv für Volkskunde 59 (1963): 186–203 and Lenz Kriss-Rettenbeck, Ex voto. Zeichen, Bild und Abbild im christlichen Votivbrauchtum (Zürich, Freiburg i. Br.: Atlantis, 1972). For gall and bladder stones see Maria Angela König, Weihegaben an U. L. Frau von Altötting. Von Beginn der Wallfahrt bis zum Abschluß der Säkularisation (München 1939), p. 35; Kriss-Rettenbeck, Ex voto, p. 19. 146 Martin Eisengrein, for example, reports the cure from bladder stones as one of the miracles performed at the Bavarian shrine at Altötting (see Eisengrein, Unser liebe Fraw zu Alten Oetting, pp. 160r–161r).

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Certainly, all this is not to imply that the Wunderzeichen relics and some of the other sacred objects were indistinguishable from relics in the narrower sense. While Eisengrein’s argument does open up the possibility for any and all objects to be used by God as a tool, it is the utility, apparent in miracles worked to human benefit, that he posits as the defining characteristic of both relics proper and potentially any other material object. The miraculous grains and the flour found in the earth come closest to embodying that trait, because they were given by God to relieve hunger. While all of the objects under consideration, as bits of nature “sanctified by the presence of the divine” were suitable to stimulate devotion,147 the question whether they might also have been perceived to be invested with efficacious powers – the trait that would make them functionally indistinguishable from relics even in the narrower sense of the word – is more difficult to affirm.148 In this sense the miraculous nuts, the petrified wood, the sheath struck by lightning, and particularly the bladder stones are more akin to votive objects than to relics in their function as material evidence for miracles that had occurred.

Strategies of Authentication Miracles had become a matter of dispute during the time of the Reformation. Although it is a misconception to assume that Protestants generally denied the possibility of miracles and consistently argued that all miracles had ceased after the time of the apostles,149 their theologians certainly rejected the idea of any miracles performed by Mary, the saints, or their relics, as well as the related practice of pilgrimage.150 Controversy on this matter was so ferocious because miracles were a valuable tool in attracting the faithful, and could be used as a strong argument for the truth of a particular faith. Furthermore, the possession of relics that worked miracles or of places where they happened afforded both symbolic and economic power. The verification of relics and

147

See Kaufmann, “Mastery,” p. 43. This possibility is also suggested by Kaufmann, see Kaufmann, “Mastery,” p. 37. 149 For this doctrine, see D. P. Walker, “The Cessation of Miracles,” in Hermeticism and the Renaissance. Intellectual History and the Occult in Early Modern Europe, ed. Ingrid Merkel and Allen G. Debus (Washington, London, Toronto: 1988): 111–124, p. 111. For the problems of this assumption, see Dürr, “Prophetie und Wunderglauben” and Soergel, Miracles and the Protestant Imagination. 150 See Dürr, “Prophetie und Wunderglauben,” p. 21f. That some of these practices nonetheless persisted among the populace has repeatedly been pointed out by Robert Scribner, see for instance Robert W. Scribner, “The Impact of the Reformation on Daily Life,” in Mensch und Objekt im Mittelalter und in der frühen Neuzeit. Leben – Alltag – Kultur, ed. Gerhard Jaritz (Wien 1990): 315–343. 148

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miracles had been an issue for religious authorities since the Middle Ages.151 However, as Klaus Schreiner has argued, during the Middle Ages the concept of ‘truth’ in regard to relics was much less bound to their material identity, and more to the intentions and the belief of the worshipper. As long as it happened bona fide, venerating a false relic, or even forging evidence to authenticate a highly dubious relic did not necessarily pose a moral problem.152 Despite the fact that there was increasing opposition to this stance since the late twelfth century, there was always some leeway with regard to the criteria that determined the truth of a relic.153 The criterion that seems to have gained increasing importance in both theory and practice was whether an object that was claimed to be a true relic was indeed able to work wonders or not. The performance of miracles as the primary criterion of authenticity is what ultimately underlies the argument Eisengrein makes: any object can become a divine tool and thus be worthy of veneration. So while on the one hand the relation of a particular relic to the body of a particular saint may not have become more important, or may even have diminished,154 on the other the question of the reality of miracles became ever more pressing during the time of confessional conflict. As Catholics found themselves in the position of having to vindicate the efficacy of relics and the reality of miraculous events, objects authenticating miraculous events assumed a status of higher importance. These developments became manifest in the surge of votive practice during the Counter-Reformation, and also, I argue, by the inclusion of a considerable number of ‘relics’ of miraculous events in the Munich Kunstkammer. This heightened desire for authentication in the religious context coincided with developments in the field of secular knowledge that also increasingly de151 See Arnold Angenendt, Heilige und Reliquien. Die Geschichte ihres Kultes vom frühen Christentum bis zur Gegenwart (München: Beck, 1997), pp. 162–166; James Bentley, Restless Bones: The Story of Relics (London: Constable, 1985), pp. 216–227; Klaus Schreiner, “Zum Warheitsverständnis im Heiligen und Reliquienwesen des Mittelalters,” in Saeculum 17 (1966): 131–69, pp. 133f. 152 “‘Veritas’ im Bereich der Reliquienverehrung meint nicht nur die objektive Sachwahrheit heiliger Reste, sie bezieht sich auch auf die innere Wahrhaftigkeit jener, die danach verlangten, ihre Kirche mit dinglichen Unterpfändern göttlichen Schutzes auszustatten.” (Schreiner, “Warheitsverständnis,” p. 163, and passim). 153 “Bei allem Bemühen um eine strengere Normierung der Lüge blieb stets ein ungeklärter Rest, der nicht in exakte Begrifflichkeit gefaßt werden konnte und deshalb auch fürderhin die Möglichkeit offen ließ, Unwahrhaftigkeiten mit dem Hinweis auf höhere Zwecke und göttliches Geheiß zu rechtfertigen.” (Schreiner, “Warheitsverständnis,” p. 168). 154 Schreiner cites some evidence for an increasingly indifferent attitude to the actual relation between saint and relic in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and concludes: “Diese enge Verklammerung zwischen den bei Gott weilenden Heiligen und ihren irdischen Relikten hat spätestens seit der frühen Neuzeit merklich an Überzeugungskraft eingebüßt.” (Schreiner, “Warheitsverständnis,” 146).

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manded the verification of information and heightened the interest in material objects. The reasons for this development were complex; the humanist endeavors in recovering lost knowledge about antiquity by way of its material traces, i.e. antiquarianism, appear to have been a contributing factor,155 the rise of an urban mercantile culture and its consumption of commodities played a role,156 and so did the voyages of discovery that caused a flood of objects fitting into no received explanatory matrix and demanding an investigation of particulars.157 We may speculate that the heightened emphasis on the importance of material objects in the religious context that we encounter in Eisengrein’s treatise was also partly due to these epistemological changes. As material objects played an increasingly important role both in the field of secular knowledge production and in religious practice, they also rose to a higher status as means of authentication. Large parts of Eisengrein’s argument are concerned with the defense of the sanctity of Altötting as a pilgrimage site and the reality of the miracles happening there.158 While he defends the viability of the place and the practice of pilgrimage mostly by historical argument, he seeks to authenticate the local miracles by means of witnesses, written documents, and objects. In his argument, Eisengrein deems the authenticating power of votive imagery and of the manuscript books recording the local miracles to be on a par with that of “living witnesses”.159 This is a strong statement for the authenticating authority of material objects. This shows that in the religious context, objects and events were tightly woven together in a web of mutual testimony: while relics were objects of both actual and symbolic efficacy that demanded authentication, votive offerings served to authenticate miracles, and miracles, in turn, were the primary means to authenticate relics.160 Just as at Altötting, in the Munich Kunstkammer written documents and objects worked together in their authenticating function. When Fickler, the author of the Munich inventory, carefully records circumstantial information for most of the objects in the Wunderzeichen group, he often took this information from written documents placed with them. Sometimes these docu155

See Paula Findlen, “Possessing the Past: The Material World of the Italian Renaissance,” in The American Historical Review 103 (1998): 83–114. 156 See Lisa Jardine, Worldly Goods: A New History of the Renaissance (New York: Norton, 1998) Pamela H. Smith and Paula Findlen, eds, Merchants and Marvels. Commerce, Science, and Art in Early Modern Europe (New York, London: Routledge, 2002). 157 See Daston and Park, Wonders, p. 147. 158 For a general overview of the argument of Eisengrein’s treatise, see Soergel, Wondrous in his Saints, pp. 99–131. 159 See Eisengrein, Unser liebe Fraw zu Alten Oetting, pp. 86v f. 160 See Angenendt, Heilige und Reliquien, p. 162. On the authenticating function of votive offerings, see also Christopher S. Wood, Forgery, Replica, Fiction. Temporalities of German Renaissance Art (Chicago 2008), pp. 219f.

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ments consisted of personal testimony by witnesses to the miracle, sometimes there must have been labels providing basic circumstantial information. In the case of the former, Fickler explicitly states that a letter accompanied the object, such as in the case of the miraculous nuts, the knives in the sheath, the petrified wood, and the bladder stone of Archbishop Ernst. In other cases, the presence of accompanying labels, although it is not stated, seems likely, because this is the most probable way for Fickler to have obtained his circumstantial knowledge, such as in the case of the provenance of the miraculous grains. Especially significant is the use of broadsides as accompanying documents within the collection. In the case of the miraculous flour that a poor man in Bohemia found while digging in the ground in 1590, Fickler quotes almost verbatim from a broadside that had been published in Augsburg by Bartholomaeus Käppeler.161 This inclusion of a broadside within a Kunstkammer is remarkable for several reasons. Michael Schilling has discussed the role of broadsides as collectibles, and has also pointed to their presence in Kunstkammer collections. However, he only discusses broadsides included in such collections for aesthetic reasons, broadsides used as advertisements for collectibles by dealers, and broadsides that functioned as reproductions of objects to be taken home by the visitor as a souvenir.162 In the case of the Munich Kunstkammer, the broadside fulfilled not aesthetic, but documentary functions, and did so in a much more emphatic sense than in the instances Schilling discusses. In Munich, the broadside served as a source of information for the visitor (and the author of the inventory), but also as a means of authentication. In a reciprocal process, within the context of the Kunstkammer the broadside, the documentary print medium par excellence, assumed a new function as a means to authenticate material objects. These material objects in turn served to authenticate the event reported in the printed account, similar to the way text and image within the broadside itself were engaged in a process 161 See Bartholomäus Käppeler, Warhafftige Newe Zeytung/ Von einer grossen vnd zuuor weil die Welt sthet nit erhörter Wunderthat: Wie Gott der Allmechtige einem armen Menschen/ wohnhafft inn der Statt Kaurschim/ im Königreich Böheim/ 5. Meil von Prag gelegen/ da er seiner Kinder hungers halben/ bey einer Strassen in der Erde Leim graben wollte/ gar ein schönes Mehl erzeiget hat/ Darauß vil Leuth das Brot gebachen/ die Knödl/ vnd Brey den Kindern gekocht haben/ in diesem jetz lauffenden 1590. Jar/ den 22. tag May (Augsburg s. a.). Fickler’s entry runs as follows: “In ainem langleten gestättl, darinen ein Meel welches Gott einem armen Mann wohnhafft in der Statt Kaurschin in Böheim, 5 meil von Prag, welcher seiner Kinder hungers halber bey ainer straßen in der Erden laim graben wellen, bescheret hat, daraus ander mehr leuth guet brot gebachen, auch Preyn und mueß ihren khindern gekhocht, Geschehen im Jar 1590 den 22 tag May.” (F. 2105). 162 See Michael Schilling, Bildpublizistik der frühen Neuzeit. Aufgaben und Leistungen des illustrierten Flugblatts in Deutschland bis um 1700 (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1990), pp. 302–308.

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of mutual authentication.163 Moreover, broadsides and labels accompanying objects used very similar strategies. In the case of the presentation of the bladder stones of Archbishop Ernst, for instance, a written label gave the date, weight, the name of the surgeon who performed the operation, as well as the payments made to him, his brother, and his servant. This is very closely analogous to the circumstantial information found in broadsides documenting remarkable occurrences in text and image. Looking at the religious context, relics were also often accompanied by written documents for purposes of authentication. Parchment strips that provide the name of the saint were obtained from the bishop or the pope and placed next to the relic in order to prove its authenticity.164 Unfortunately, evidence is lacking for written documents that might have accompanied votive objects in the sixteenth century, which is hardly surprising given the ephemeral nature of votive objects themselves and especially of any accompanying notes.165 However, painted votive panels often consisted of an image depicting the accident or illness that led to the offering, a short verbal description of it, and a testimony to the miraculous healing.166 For instance, some of the rare surviving sixteenth-century examples, the cycle of votive panels at Altötting, show such a structure. These panels were not offerings made by individual votants, but were a propagandistic project carried out on behalf of church officials between 1490 and 1540167 – therefore, their need for effective rhetorical strategies in the service of authentication was particularly strong. By giving the names, dates, and exact circumstances of the events, the texts and images work together in the service of the authentication of local miracles in a way very similar to broadsides reporting prodigies. The assemblage in the Munich Kunstkammer, by presenting the visitor not just with 163 On the strategies of authentication within the broadside itself, see Franz Mauelshagen, “Was ist glaubwürdig? Fallstudie zum Zusammenspiel von Text und Bild bei der Beglaubigung außergewöhnlicher Nachrichten im illustrierten Flugblatt,” in Wahrnehmungsgeschichte und Wissensdiskurs im illustrierten Flugblatt der Frühen Neuzeit (1450–1700), ed. Wolfgang Harms and Alfred Messerli (Basel: Schwabe & Co, 2002): 309–338. 164 The German word for these strips was “Authentiken” (see Angenendt, Heilige und Reliquien, p. 162). The presence of such notes at Altötting in confirmed by Eisengrein: “Was aber für Hayltumb noch verhanden/ hab ich/ als ich jhme mit fleiß nachsuochet/ die zettel so darbey seien alters halber ains guoten thails nit lesen künden” (Eisengrein, Unser liebe Fraw zu Alten Oetting, p. 65r f.). 165 However, as Kriss-Rettenbeck has argued, there is at least some evidence that this was practiced in some places. The documents he discusses are inscriptions on walls attesting the presence of a votant at the holy site at a certain time, and letters and prayers addressed to the saint (Kriss-Rettenbeck, Ex voto, pp. 47–53). 166 On votive panels in general, see Lenz Kriss-Rettenbeck, Das Votivbild (München 1958), and Kriss-Rettenbeck, Ex voto, pp.155–270. 167 See Robert Bauer, “Die Mirakeltafeln im Umgang der Gnadenkapelle zu Altötting,” in Oettinger Land 9 (1989): 202–222, p. 202.

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painted images, but with objects that were physical remnants of miraculous events, accompanied by written testimonies, authenticating labels and printed documents, made use of very similar strategies.

Sacralizing a Catholic Dynasty and its Territory By pointing out these parallels, I do not wish to claim one-to-one correspondences of status or of function between the Wunderzeichen objects and relics or votive offerings. Rather, I would like to suggest that the sacred associations that clearly were attached to an object like the cedar branch from Palestine may have extended to other objects in this group, as these associations were likely active in the minds of contemporary viewers. Therefore, simply casting these prodigy objects as mirabilia collected out of mere curiosity or a fascination with the wondrous misses important aspects of the function that they performed in the context of the Munich Kunstkammer. For contemporary observers, these objects – remnants of divine interventions, fragments of sacred places, bodily remains if not of saints, then of people upon whom God has bestowed particular grace – had a significance beyond their wondrousness, and this significance, I argue, was due to their resonances with relics and votive offerings. Their particular interest lay in their ability to make certain claims to the status of the territory and the ruling dynasty, and to give these claims a high degree of authority based on their status as true documents, a status achieved by strategies similar to those familiar from religious, but also from secular contexts. Thus, in the presentation of the bladder stones that had been cut from Duke Ernst of Bavaria, uncle of Albrecht V and Archbishop of Salzburg, there was certainly no attempt to elevate Archbishop Ernst to the status of a saint. The representation of a member of the Wittelsbach dynasty by a part of his body, within the conception of this collection as a whole, functioned in the service of a ‘sacralization of the dynasty’, just as many objects in this group were means of a sacralization of the territory: as physical remnants of Godly interventions in the regular process of nature, the Wunderzeichen objects in the collection were invested with devotional meanings, and as we have seen in the case of the nut tree, could indeed trigger ‘pilgrimages’ of large numbers of people. On terms similar to those of relics, they represented the reality of the presence of the holy in the world.168 More specifically, they represented that presence in particular places, namely in the Bavarian territory or other Catholic lands. That not all these prodigious relics came from Bavaria, but some 168 This is how Hans Belting characterized the affinity of images and relics (see Hans Belting, Likeness and Presence. A History of the Image before the Era of Art (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1994), p. 302).

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also from Bohemia or the area of Venice does not contradict this overall argument. This expansion of scope beyond the primary focus of the Bavarian territory functions to set the events in Bavaria in a larger context; it is similar to the way earlier territorial historiography was usually not limited to the history of a particular territory, but always presents it in the larger context of the history of the Holy Roman Empire.169 Thus, by means of the Wunderzeichen relics in their collection from Bavaria and beyond, the Munich dukes proved that miracles really happen, and that they happen in territories of Catholic faith, most prominently, of course, in their own. Thus, these miracles ultimately served to reinforce the legitimacy of the Wittelsbach family’s rule over the Bavarian lands. Prodigies traditionally were perceived to be of particular importance to rulers. Through Conrad Lycosthenes’ 1552 edition of Iulius Obsequens’ Prodigiorum liber,170 educated sixteenth-century viewers were aware of the significance accorded to prodigies in the Roman republic, where they had been deemed to be of significance to the administration of the state.171 Entirely in line with this tradition, the collection of prodigies in the Munich collection, by documenting the sacred nature of Bavaria as a Catholic territory and of other lands adhering to the Catholic faith, functioned at the heart of a Kunstkammer that Quiccheberg had argued to be useful for the government of the state. If we see the Wunderzeichen collection of the Munich court in these contexts, it is not surprising that the larger part of the prodigies represented in this group are of a positive kind. It may not be accidental that especially monstrous births are conspicuously absent here, in spite of the fact that the Kunstkammer did hold a considerable number of objects representing these most precarious of all natural prodigies.172 Monstrous births, which were often 169 See Moeglin, Dynastisches Bewußtsein, pp. 12f.; see also Dieter Mertens, “Landeschronistik im Zeitalter des Humanismus und ihre spätmittelalterlichen Wurzeln,” in Deutsche Landesgeschichtsschreibung im Zeichen des Humanismus, ed. Franz Brendle, Dieter Mertens, Anton Schindling and Walter Ziegler (Stuttgart 2001): 19–31, pp. 20, 23. Departing from this principle of contextualizing territorial history is seen as an important step toward modern territorial historiography, as can for instance be observed in the work of Johannes Aventinus (see Alois Schmid, “Die Kleinen Annalen des Johannes Aventinus aus dem Jahre 1511,” in Deutsche Landesgeschichtsschreibung im Zeichen des Humanismus, ed. Franz Brendle, Dieter Mertens, Anton Schindling and Walter Ziegler (Stuttgart 2001): 69–95, p. 87). 170 See Iulius Obsequens, Iulii Obsequentis Prodigiorum liber ab urbe condita usque ad Augustum Caesarem cuius tantum extabat fragmentum, nunc demum historiarum beneficio, per Conradum Lycosthenem...integriati suae restitutus (Basilea: Oporinus, 1552). This edition is listed in the catalogue of the court library, but had not passed the censorship (see Cbm. Cat. 107; see my explanation of the censorship issue in note 8 of this chapter). 171 On Roman prodigies, see Rosenberger, Gezähmte Götter. 172 “Innerhalb dieser ‘Wunderzeichen’ kam den Monstra eine besondere Bedeutung zu. In ihrem Fall war die eigene Gattung – der Mensch – ganz unmittelbar und fundamental vom Aufstand der Natur betroffen, und das christliche Fundament von der Ebenbildhaftigkeit des

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interpreted as apocalyptic portents,173 are set in a very different context in the collection, a context that can broadly be defined as reflecting the relationship of art and nature and the status of documentary reproduction, which will be the subject of the next chapter.174 The distribution and representation of prodigies within the Munich Kunstkammer is thus only properly understood if seen in the Counter-Reformation context within which this collection functioned. The materiality and testimonial approach of the Munich court’s way of documenting the sacralization of the Catholic Bavarian territory resonates strongly with Counter-Reformation religious practice and its emphasis on objects. The Catholic concern with the authentication of miracles on the one hand, and the confrontation with Protestant usurpation of natural Wunderzeichen on the other, led to a unique collection of prodigious relics structured by confessional interests.

Menschen mit Gott wurde durch ihre Existenz grundsätzlich angegriffen.” (Ewinkel, De monstris, p. 7.) 173 See Soergel, “Die Wahrnehmung der Endzeit” and Philip M. Soergel, “The Afterlives of Monstrous Infants in Reformation Germany,” in The Place of the Dead in Early Modern Europe, ed. Bruce Gordon and Peter Marshall (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000). 174 See table no. 2 of the Kunstkammer, where documentary images of monstrous births (F. 138–140, 145) are grouped with maps (F. 135, 141, 169), architectural imagery (F. 136, 148), a portrait (F. 142), a genealogical chart (F. 137), a broadsheet (F. 144), battle scenes (F. 153, 154), natural history images (F. 155, 156, 161, 168), the inventory of the duchess’ jewelry by Hans Mielich (F. 157), but also some religious representations (F. 143, 146, 158– 159, 166–167).

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Collecting Reproductions: The Epistemology of the Imago Contrafacta and the Status of Documentary Imagery In the spring of 1580, Duke Wilhelm V of Bavaria received a letter from Elector August of Saxony regarding the autopsy that had been performed on his father Albrecht V who had passed away in late October 1579. Attached to the letter was a picture showing one of the large kidney stones that had been found in Albrecht’s body, part of which was shaped like a head (fig. 3). This image was clearly modeled on the image of the kidney stone that had accompanied the autopsy report issued by Albrecht’s physician Thomas Mermann (fig. 4) In the letter, August told Wilhelm that he had received this picture as proof of the rumor that this kidney stone, which had caused Albrecht’s death, was shaped like the head of a Jesuit. The Lutheran Saxon elector, who had been on friendly terms with the deceased Catholic duke of Bavaria despite their confessional differences, now wanted to know whether there was any truth to this story, and if the image was indeed an authentic portrait of the stone in question. Of course, Wilhelm hastened to respond that this was a case of impudent slander, motivated by confessional antagonism.1 August left the source of this rumor unnamed, but the intention behind its dissemination was obvious to both dukes: Albrecht had vigorously promoted the implementation of the Jesuit Order in Bavaria, and the alleged wondrous deformation of his 1 The letters and the autopsy report seem to have been discovered by Ebner (see Franz Ebner, “Ein Bericht über die Sektion der Leiche Herzog Albrechts V. von Bayern,” Jahresberichte des historischen Vereins für Straubing und Umgebung 3 (1901): 35–37), and Duhr drew further attention to this story (see Bernhard Duhr, Geschichte der Jesuiten in den Ländern deutscher Zunge im 16. Jahrhundert (Freiburg im Breisgau 1907), pp. 696f.). Recently, Glaser mentioned it in Hubert Glaser, “nadie sin fructo. Die bayerischen Herzöge und die Jesuiten im 16. Jahrhundert,” in Rom in Bayern. Kunst und Spiritualität der ersten Jesuiten, ed. Reinhold Baumstark (München: Hirmer, 1997): 55–83, pp. 66f., 70. The documents are preserved at Bayerisches Hauptstaatsarchiv, Abt. III Geheimes Hausarchiv, Korrespondenzakten 609/5 1/3, and Hausurkunden 1257 1/2; I have discussed the circumstances and implications of this incident at length in Katharina Pilaski, “‘... eines Jesuiter kopff gleich’: Der Nierenstein Albrechts V., ein anti-jesuitisches Gerücht und die Evidenz der Bilder,” in Wissensaustausch in der Medizin des 15. bis 18. Jahrhunderts, ed. Sonia Horn (Wien 2007): 179–197.

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kidney stone insinuated that the Jesuits had dominated him to the point that they impressed their image on a part of his body.2 To refute this calumny, Wilhelm included a different picture in his letter, one that showed the stone without the disconcerting deformity (fig. 5).3 In his subsequent reply, the Saxon elector declared himself to be entirely satisfied with Wilhelm’s assertion that the picture he first received was false. Despite the somewhat disturbing fact that in Wilhelm’s picture, the stone was shown from an angle that hid the area where the alleged face of the Jesuit might have been visible, August accepted this image as visual evidence disproving the rumor. He emphasized that along with Wilhelm’s “thorough report” (grundtlichen bericht) it was the second image, to which he referred as the “true contrafect”, that had convinced him. Although Wilhelm’s added offer to dispatch a servant with the stone itself to August’s court will have served its rhetorical purpose by implying that Wilhelm had nothing to hide, the way both sides treated pictures as useful evidence in this matter is striking. The authenticating authority accorded to Wilhelm’s image of the kidney stone reveals an attitude that granted pictorial representation of a certain kind a high evidential status. When Wilhelm referred to the ‘true’ portrait of the stone, he used the term contrafect, a German derivative of the concept of imago contrafacta, or contrafactum. As Peter Parshall has argued, the widespread sixteenth-century application of this term laid strong claims to the documentary authenticity of an image.4 It was often used to denote depictions of objects or events in special need of authentication, such as monstrous births or wondrous celestial phenomena. It was also very often applied to less improbable subjects, most importantly to portraits, to factual images of plants, and even to depictions of battles. Its application signals the picture’s function as a conveyor of fact, denying the role of the artist as a source of creative invention. Therefore, it is perhaps not accidental that August, in his initial letter that accompanied the image of the deformed stone, avoided the term. The two dukes used “contrafect” only to designate what they both agreed to regard as the stone’s “true” portrait. In this chapter, I inquire into the function of such imagines contrafactae within the Munich Kunstkammer, and explore the contexts that shaped their 2 On Albrecht and the Jesuits in Bavaria, see Glaser, “Die bayerischen Herzöge und die Jesuiten,” pp. 60–70. 3 The image is preserved at Sächsisches Staatsarchiv, Hauptstaatsarchiv Dresden, 10024 Geheimer Rat (Geheimes Archiv), Loc. 8506/2, fol. 184. Color reproductions of it, along with those of the picture sent by August and of the illustrated autopsy report upon which the latter was based, can be found in Katharina Pilaski, “Der Jesuit im Nierenstein. Eine Merkwürdigkeit aus dem Wittelsbacher Hausarchiv,” in Aviso. Zeitschrift für Wissenschaft und Kunst in Bayern 4 (2005): 20–21. 4 See Parshall, “Imago Contrafacta.”

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perception. This issue is central to our overall understanding of this collection for several reasons. First of all, the wide use of images as conveyors of fact rather than as aesthetic objects is a highly distinctive feature of this particular Kunstkammer. Fickler’s inventory lists countless artifacts that were meant to function in a documentary, and even substitutive way. Many of these artifacts are labeled by various cognates of contrafactum and thus claimed to be truthful images conveying factual knowledge. These included various types of imagery: casts, in either plaster or metal, of animals and parts of their bodies, casts of human body parts, and casts of fruit and vegetables; three-dimensional reproductions of fruit and other natural objects carved in wood; two-dimensional reproductions of animals, parts of animals, plants, and monstrous births, often on paper or painted in watercolor on canvas, and a large number of intaglio prints in a chest of drawers (F. 121a). The Kunstkammer furthermore contained several chorographical representations, most importantly the limewood models by Jakob Sandtner of the largest cities of the Bavarian territory and of Jerusalem. It also held wooden reproductions of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, as well as representations of it on canvas. A large part of the two-dimensional documentary imagery was assembled in books. Among these was a copy of Philip Apian’s collection of maps of the Bavarian territory (F.81). Besides this volume, the book collection consisted largely of tomes containing printed or hand-drawn images reproducing antique architecture and sculpture, costumes, weapons, animals, landscapes, and jewelry. Famous among them are the multi-volume collection of drawings of antique coins and their descriptions put together by Jacopo Strada, the painted inventory of the duchess’ jewelry by Hans Mielich (F.157), and the two editions of the Small Landscapes published by Hieronymus Cock (F.63).5 Another large group of images routinely labeled as ‘contrafactae’ were portraits. Dispersed throughout the Kunstkammer were innumerable small round relief portraits in wax, and the Kunstkammer’s painting collection also largely consisted of portraits.6 Many of these were conceived as sets, and documented historical and contemporary personages of a famous, infamous, or ordinary character. Secondly, the issue of contemporary perceptions of documentary imagery is central to the Munich Kunstkammer’s epistemology, and this becomes particularly clear from the central role such imagery played in Samuel Quiccheberg’s treatise. As I have discussed in Chapter 2, both circumstantial evidence 5

On Strada’s numismatic works, see Dirk Jacob Jansen, “Jacopo Strada's Antiquarian Interests: A Survey of his Musaeum and its Purpose,” in Xenia 21 (1991): 59–76, pp. 64–67. On the Small Landscapes as an instance of imago contrafacta, see Parshall, “Imago Contrafacta,” pp. 570–572. 6 The inventory lists the paintings in a separate section (F. 2587–3385, and F. 3373– 3381). On the painting collection, see Diemer, “Gemälde.”

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and the particular characteristics of the Munich Kunstkammer suggest that the Flemish physician exerted strong influence upon the conception of this particular Kunstkammer. Quiccheberg, incessantly stressing the value of this type of collection for the production of practically applicable knowledge through the investigation of objects and images, primarily thought of images as conveyors of facts. Art as aesthetic pleasure was also a part of his program, but as such it figured in a special section devoted to the documentation of artistic achievement.7 If much of the imagery from the Munich Kunstkammer was destroyed in the looting of the collection during the Thirty Years War,8 this was due not only to its largely ephemeral nature (plaster casts, images carved in wax, unframed paintings and drawings on paper and canvas), but more importantly to the fact that the documentary claims of these objects gradually lost appeal to collectors since the late sixteenth century. As the idea of the Kunstkammer started to gravitate towards that of a curiosity cabinet in which only the precious, strange, and rare found its place, art collections became more and more focused on objects and images with aesthetic value rather than documentary function.9 This process began in Munich in 1606, when Maximilian I, Albrecht V’s grandson, transferred a number of more valuable items from the Kunstkammer into his Chamber Gallery, a step that marked the beginning of the end of the Munich Kunstkammer. 10 This development can already be observed earlier in Prague. Rudolf II largely excluded paintings from his Kunstkamner, and the aesthetic quality of the artificialia was a much greater priority for him. Casts and reproductions on paper were scarce in his collection; the documentary aspect so central in Munich was largely absent.11 To Quiccheberg’s encyclopedic project, however, images were indispensable; they alone could guarantee the comprehensiveness of representation he had in mind by functioning as substitutes for objects that could not be obtained in original. One of the first steps of my investigation will therefore be a close analysis of Quiccheberg’s reflections on the status of reproductions vs. original objects. However, in order to consider the deeper epistemological issues involved in the perception of documentary imagery 7

See Quiccheberg’s fifth class, most clearly inscriptions 1 and 2. See Seelig, “Kunstkammer” (2008), pp. 91–95. 9 See Gabriel Kaltemarckt’s treatise written for the Saxon Elector Christian I in 1587; Kaltemarckt recommends the concentration of the collection to be on paintings, apparently arguing against former Elector August’s Kunstkammer that contained a large number of tools. The treatise is published with commentary in Barbara Gutfleisch and Joachim Menzhausen, “‘How a Kunstkammer Should Be Formed’: Gabriel Kaltemarckt’s Advice to Christian I of Saxony on the Formation of an Art Collection, 1587,” in Journal of the History of Collections 1 (1989): 3–32. 10 On the disintegration of the Munich Kunstkammer, see Seelig, “Kunstkammer” (1986), pp. 124–127; Seelig, “Kunstkammer” (2008), pp. 88–91. 11 See Seelig, “Kunstkammer” (1986), pp. 117f.; Seelig, “Kunstkammer” (2008), p. 79. 8

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and the status of reproductions in the Munich collection, we need to reach beyond the stated goals of artistic reproduction that can be extracted from Quiccheberg’s text. I have opened this chapter with the anecdote about Albrecht’s allegedly deformed kidney stone, because these letters are a rare and unusually detailed account of how sixteenth-century viewers used and responded to documentary images that functioned as a substitute for an original object. Instead of going through the trouble of dispatching a servant with the stone itself to the Dresden court, Wilhelm sent a pictorial representation, and August indeed accepted the image as proof of the stone’s true shape. The function of substitution could be described as the ultimate achievement of the documentary image, based on unconditional faith in the truth of representation. Of course, in this particular case, the Saxon elector’s trust in the honesty of the Bavarian duke factored strongly into his readiness to assume the picture’s authenticity. Not to accept the image as true would have resulted in a serious diplomatic disturbance, as August’s repeated apologies for even daring to inquire about the matter make evident. Nonetheless, the centrality of the role the conterfecte assume in this diplomatic exchange is striking. The force of their rhetorical impact, both in the case of the slanderous image and in the case of its refutation, was rooted in a widespread propensity to regard the ‘counterfeited’ image as a suitable means of authentication. What were the cultural contexts that shaped this attitude toward the contrafactum, this willingness to accept an image as a substitute for an original object, despite the obvious fact that it might have been manipulated? In order to approach this question, I shall invoke both the natural-philosophical discourse about the relationship between art and nature – which, as is well known, plays a central role in the early modern Kunstkammer overall – as well as the context of religious practice in Counter-Reformation Bavaria, expanding my central argument that the confessional context played a formative role for this particular Kunstkammer’s inception and function. Parshall has identified an “enhanced sense of presence” as a core characteristic of the concept contrafactum, the vernacular derivatives of which were re-translated into Latin as effigies in contemporary dictionaries.12 This term traditionally denotes an image that functions as a substitute for a person or an object, and it has often been argued that this capacity to substitute is grounded in the idea that the represented subject is virtually present in the image, which implies in the extreme that the image is not perceived as an image, but as the thing itself. This idea of the presence of the archetype within its representation is at the center of much of the debate about the power of images and the 12 Parshall, “Imago Contrafacta,” p. 561. Parshall cites Josua Maaler’s Die Teütsch Spraach (Zürich 1561), and Christopher Plantin’s Thesaurus Theutonicae Linguae (Antwerp 1573).

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idea of the authentic image, since the ultimate authentic image would be that which ceases to be an image, and becomes a recreation of what it represents.13 The precise role of this conflation of image and prototype for the concept of the imago contrafacta remains open to discussion, however, and it certainly leads us onto methodologically precarious territory.

‘Bildmagie’ and the Question of Contemporary Perception In response to Walter Benjamin’s famous argument that the reproduction, as opposed to the original, is characterized by a lack of authenticity, and that the process of reproduction, especially by mechanical means, is liable for a loss of the original’s aura, scholars such as David Freedberg have contended that “adequate reproduction achieves a power and efficacy that may closely approximate that of the image represented”.14 According to Freedberg, the reproduction is able to appropriate the original’s aura, a process he attributes to an inclination to conflate the image with what it represents. This fusion of image and prototype is at the basis of the concept of Bildmagie, or the magical status of images, which Horst Bredekamp has set in contrast to the idea of representation. While a ‘representation’, in his definition, retains a noticeable distance from the object that is being depicted, a magical image is predicated on the idea of a quasi-identity of image and prototype.15 Indeed, the earlier scholarship16 constantly links the perception of the presence of the original in its image to the idea of the image’s magical efficacy, but later scholars have

13

The fusion of image and prototype is the central tenet of David Freedberg, The Power of Images. Studies in the History and Theory of Response (Chicago, London: University of Chicago Press, 1989), and also of Hans Belting, Das echte Bild. Bildfragen als Glaubensfragen (München: Beck, 2005). 14 Freedberg, The Power of Images, p. 126. For Benjamin’s argument, see Walter Benjamin, Illuminations (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1968), pp. 217–251. 15 See Horst Bredekamp, Repräsentation und Bildmagie der Renaissance als Formproblem (München: Carl Friedrich von Siemens Stiftung, 1995), p. 8. Bredekamp’s distinction between representation and Bildmagie is not only problematic for the implications of the term Bildmagie, to be discussed below. Also, the term ‘representation’ can, from a historical perspective, hardly be restricted to the sense he suggests, as the historical uses of the concept of repraesentatio equally allow for the idea of ‘real presence’ of the represented object in its representation (see Hofmann, Repräsentation, passim). 16 See especially Julius Schlosser, “Geschichte der Portraitbildnerei in Wachs. Ein Versuch,” in Jahrbuch der Kunsthistorischen Sammlungen des Allerhöchsten Kaiserhauses 29, no. 3 (1910): 207–221; Aby Warburg, “Bildniskunst und Florentinisches Bürgertum,” in Gesammelte Schriften, ed. Aby Warburg (Leipzig 1932): 89–126, 340–352; Ernst Kris and Otto Kurz, Legend, Myth, and Magic in the Image of the Artist: a Historical Experiment (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1979).

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pointed out that this connection is highly problematic.17 Whether a sixteenthcentury viewer perceived an image as virtually identical to its prototype does not necessarily entail a belief in any magical powers inherent in it. The idea that an image perceived as identical to its prototype has ‘executive’ powers obviously stems from the fact that such powers may have been attributed to images of Christ or the saints, yet even in these cases, it is equally problematic to invoke the concept of magic. Using this term means effectively to assume the position of Protestant critics of the veneration of images, who denounced this practice as superstitious. Most importantly, as much as the religious use of images may have shaped the perception of images in general, there is no reason to extend the notion of the executive power of this particular kind of image to any other type, because the power of the holy image resides in the power of the represented figure. In the case of reproductions the prototype of which does not hold supernatural powers, there is no reason to assume that the image should be endowed with them. The fusion of image and prototype, especially in conjunction with the idea of the magical image, has often been described as characteristic of a ‘primitive’ mindset, a mindset incapable of performing the intellectual task of differentiating between the real and its shadow, and has in anthropological scholarship been associated with non-Western cultures.18 Art historians since the late nineteenth century, however, have tended to see this way of responding to images as an anthropological constant inherent to the deeper strata of human cognition that are particularly active when rational thinking is somehow impaired.19 Freedberg, despite his claims to the historicity of his approach, merely alters this idea by arguing, on the basis of psychoanalytical theory, that such ‘primitive’ responses to images are a function of the human unconscious and take effect when the “repressive overlay” of our civilization fails.20 He thus contends that the propensity toward fusing image and prototype is a vital component of our modern response to images. In opposition to similar arguments, the German anthropologist Wolfgang Brückner, in his in17

Even Freedberg argued against the invocation of magic in this context, although his vague use of the term ‘efficacy’ still carries some baggage of this link (see Freedberg, The Power of Images, pp. 201f. and passim). 18 See Freedberg, The Power of Images, pp. xxi f. 19 Ernst Kris and Otto Kurz also see the conflation of image and prototype as occurring primarily “among primitive peoples,” but also with the mentally ill and immature (see Kris and Kurz, Legend, Myth, and Magic, pp. 76f.). The idea of Bildzauber as associated with superstition also underlies Aby Warburg’s argument in Warburg, “Bildniskunst,” (p. 99), as well as Schlosser’s assessment of the naturalism of wax portraits in Schlosser, “Geschichte der Portraitbildnerei in Wachs,” p. 210. 20 “The term ‘primitive’, however, may still retain its usefulness if we acknowledge it in connection with feelings and emotions that precede the repressive overlay that education in civilized cultures endows us with.” (Freedberg, The Power of Images, p. 43).

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vestigations of votive practice and the use of effigies in regal funeral ceremonies, has repeatedly called for an analysis of the specific historical circumstances of the uses of images and the concept of representation. Instead of postulating anthropologically constant responses to images, Brückner concentrated on rational discourse about juridical functions of effigies and the uses of images as signs.21 While Brückner’s emphasis on historical specificity and his dissatisfaction with generalizations regarding anthropological constants, especially if predicated on psychoanalytical theory, pointed in the right direction, I do not think that this exempts us from considering how images and their status in relation to their prototypes were perceived within a particular historical situation. It is easy to agree with Brückner that “it cannot be the goal of historical scholarship to discern a universally valid meaning of cultural objectivations, but that we rather want to advance the knowledge of historically and locally specific concrete variables,”22 but we should be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. At stake is not the discovery of anthropological constants, but the reconstruction of historical ways of seeing.23 This is an admittedly very difficult and elusive undertaking, and it is therefore alien to Brückner’s methodological outlook, which only accepts as historically valid what is explicitly stated in written documents. Brückner’s averse stance towards understanding the substitutional function of images as somehow based on the perception of a fluidity between the image and its prototype is, however, not only due to his positivistic approach and general lack of sympathy for the consideration of what he considers to be ‘irrational’ responses to images, but also to the fact that he, responding to the earlier literature, sees this issue as intimately related to the idea of Bildmagie. If we let go of this questionable connection, the more general issue of what structured sixteenth-century perceptions of images as authentic reproductions of the objects they represent remains worthwhile and indeed necessary to discuss, and its consideration is essential to understanding how these images functioned within the context of the universal collection.

21 See especially Brückner, “Volkstümliche Denkstrukturen”; Wolfgang Brückner, Bildnis und Brauch. Studien zur Bildfunktion der Effigies (Berlin 1966). 22 “[...] es nicht Ziel historischer Forschung sein kann, einen allgemeingültigen abstrakten Ursinn kultureller Objektivationen zu ergründen, sondern daß wir vielmehr die Erkenntnis raum- und zeitgebundener konkreter Variabilitäten fördern wollen.” (Brückner, Bildnis und Brauch, p. 12, my translation.) 23 The issue of reconstructing historical ways of seeing has been most insightfully discussed by Michael Baxandall, see especially Michael Baxandall, Painting and Experience in Fifteenth-Century Italy: A Primer in the Social History of Pictorial Style (Oxford, New York 1972) and Michael Baxandall, Patterns of Intention. On the Historical Explanation of Pictures (New Haven 1985).

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Looking at the phenomenon of the sixteenth-century trust in images that resulted in their profuse utilization in various cultural fields such as natural history, news reporting in broadsheets, and collecting, and in their suitability as means of authentication, we may thus ask: if certain images were perceived as valid substitutions for original objects, does that mean that this trust in images was based on a greater propensity on the part of the sixteenth-century audience to perceive the reproduced object or person as actually present in the image? What were the discourses and cultural practices in the period that shaped the habits of mind that resulted in this perception of certain images as authentic reproductions, and that may have been liable for their abundant use in the Munich collection? In an effort to reconstruct this aspect of contemporary reception, I suggest looking at two main contexts: the discourse about the relationship of art and nature, and the use of reproductions in contemporary votive practice. Both of these may be seen as particularly active in the minds of the viewers of the Munich Kunstkammer. While the parallelism and intersections of art and nature were, as is well known, the central topos of the Kunstkammer’s epistemology,24 the use of reproductions in votive practice was particularly present in the context of a court that was actively engaged in the reactivation and promotion of traditional Catholic devotional practices. However, before branching out into these wider cultural contexts, let us look more closely at the reproductive imagery in the Munich collection, and then at its discussion in Quiccheberg’s treatise.

Reproduction and Knowledge of Nature I shall largely focus my argument in this chapter on the life-size three-dimensional reproduction, because it is the kind of image that makes the strongest and most obvious claims to a quasi-identity with its prototype, especially when produced by the technique of casting from life. There were many objects of this kind in the Munich Kunstkammer. As an example, let us look at one of the large tables in the southern gallery.25 There were a number of wooden containers holding plaster casts of fish, shellfish, and small reptiles, as well as several kinds of fruit and nuts, all made by the Habsburg emperor Maximilian II.26 These objects, which do not survive, were examples of the 24

See Bredekamp, Antikensehnsucht; Daston and Park, Wonders, pp. 255–301. Fickler’s table no. 24 (F. 1455–1488). 26 “[F. 1455:] Ein hülzene viereckhete Cassa, in deren ein grund von Möhrmüeß, clainem khiß und Meehrmüscheln belegt, darauf Visch und Kreps, Natern, Ädexl, ein frosch, conterfetisch von Gipß formiert, von Kayser Maximilian des andern hand gemacht. [F. 1456:] In einem hülzen Mielterl ein eßen fisch von ferhen, karpfen, häring etc. conterfetisch in Gypß goßen. [F. 1457:] Ein Sechseckhet hülzen gestätl, inwendig schwarz, umb und umb mit 25

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life-casting technique that the Nuremberg goldsmith Wenzel Jamnitzer and the Parisian potter Bernard Palissy had made popular in courtly circles.27 Jamnitzer worked for the Habsburg emperors, and the Munich dukes also coveted his works.28 There is certainly no doubt that these reproductions served aesthetic functions. Showing the beauty of nature, and stunning the viewer by the artist’s ability to imitate it in minute detail, they delighted him through visual deception familiar from Pliny’s anecdote of Zeuxis and Parrhasius. The uncertainty created on the part of the viewer whether these creatures were works of art or creations of nature was aesthetically pleasing in a way that was highly fashionable among humanistically educated viewers familiar with the Plinian legend. Certainly, however, aesthetic pleasure grounded in the familiarity with ancient topoi of visual deception by artistic skill was not the only component of contemporary interest in these artworks. Particularly within the context of an encyclopedic collection, such casts were also expressive of an interest in factual knowledge about these natural creatures, and they served as documentary reproductions of these animals’ existence and individual form. The documentary functions of these reproductions become more evident if we look at some of the casts that were juxtaposed with those made by Maximilian. Placed on the same table with these, we find a plaster cast of a deformed lemon (F. 1460), plaster casts of the “large and inept” hands of a peasant from the Bavarian village Ettal (F. 1459), and casts of another peasant’s hands that had seven fingers each (F. 1462). In the case of these objects, the documentary function of their reproductions is patent. They differ from the reproductions of generic reptiles, fish, and fruit made by Maximilian in that they reproduced specific and unique objects. As reproductions of wondrous objects, these casts thus fulfill a similar documentary function as, for instance, images in broadsides reporting monstrous births. It has already been pointed out in the previous chapter that, as Lorraine Daston and Katharine schwarzem Laufwerckh, auf weiß gemahlt. Auf dem luckh das Reichswappen, darumben geschriben MAXIMILIANVS II. ROMANORUM IMP. Darinnen steht ein blätl von Maiolica, darauf ligen gebratne und roche Feigen, Zibeben, Weinbörl, Mandelkhern und Lebzelten, alles Conterfetisch.” 27 On Jamnitzer, see Smith, The Body of the Artisan, pp. 74–80 and passim, with further literature. On Jamnitzer in the context of the Kunstkammer, see Meadow, “Quiccheberg and the Copious Object.” On Palissy, see ibid. pp. 100–106, and Léonard N. Amico, Bernard Palissy et ses continuateurs: à la recherche du paradis terrestre (Paris: Flammarion, 1996). 28 Thus Albrecht’s son Ferdinand wrote to his father from Prague on September 30th, 1578: “Sonst hatt der Jaimitzer von Nürnberg den prunnen, so er gemacht herbracht sambt ainem grossen wäxen billt, den haben mir jr Mt. gezaigt, jst ain sollich werckh, dergleichs jch mein lebenlang kaines gesehen hab, künstlich vnnd schön, vnnd alles von sylber, jst souil sach durchainander, das jchs nitt describiern kan, will aber sehen obs müglich wär, das jch ain abris daruon könde zuwegs bringen.” (Hauptstaatsarchiv München, Kurbayern Äußeres Archiv 1973, fol. 144v.)

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Park have shown, such “marvelous particulars” played an important role in the development of a more empirical approach to natural inquiry, as they did not fit into the received systems of knowledge about natural processes. Traditional Aristotelian ‘science’ was concerned with demonstrative explanation of causes, and was therefore incapable of and not interested in explaining marvelous aberrations from nature’s regular course.29 The rising interest in such phenomena during the sixteenth century therefore prompted a more ‘empirical’ approach to nature, one that – contrary to the idea of ‘experience’ in Aristotelian science – did not use observations merely in order to exemplify knowledge gained by means of logical deduction.30 If we conceive of the Kunstkammer, as I have done in Chapter 2, as expressive of precisely this new interest in the production of knowledge by the investigation of objects, then not only the prodigy ‘relics’ discussed in Chapter 3, but also the reproductions of such monstrous aberrations played an epistemological key role in the context of this collection. They were not merely objects of aesthetic pleasure, but objects of knowledge, and they epitomized the importance of such particulars for this new approach to the investigation of nature. Thus, on the most obvious level, these casts fulfill the purely practical function of substituting for objects that were impossible or difficult to keep in the collection in original, either because they were parts of living beings (as in the case of the peasants’ hands), or because they were perishable. However, it does not seem to have been entirely impossible to include such perishable objects in the Kunstkammer. For instance, the inventory lists a “Mißgewächs von einem Schweinsfueß” (F. 1736), and since Fickler seems to be meticulous about the fact of reproduction and the technique employed, even at the risk of frequent repetition, we might assume that he was here referring to an original object, possibly in dried form. Similarly, on the table discussed above, reproduction and original were placed side by side: next to “ein eßen fisch von ferhen, karpfen, häring etc. conterfetisch in Gypß goßen” (F. 1456), were also “ein kopfstuckh von einer ferhen, ain zipfl von einer pratwurst, sambt zway kurzen Wurstzipfelen” (F. 1458). Two conclusions may be drawn from this observation: either the reproduction was valued for its own sake, or original and reproduction, in the eyes of contemporary viewers, were regarded as largely interchangeable. I would like to suggest that both may have played a role. Pamela Smith has made a convincing argument for an intimate connection between the development of naturalistic representation and a rising esteem for an approach to natural inquiry that was based on bodily engagement with natural objects and materials, and on first-hand observation. Her somewhat 29 See Daston and Park, Wonders, pp. 135–172, and pp. 215–253; see also Daston, “Marvelous Facts.” 30 On this issue, see Daston, “Marvelous Facts,” p. 260.

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emphatic use of the concept of ‘the body’ notwithstanding, her argument that representing and reproducing nature was a form of knowing it also is essential to an understanding of the status of reproductions within the Munich Kunstkammer. The artist’s ability to reproduce nature by means of art implied a claim to knowledge of nature that resulted in a higher social esteem for the mechanical arts and their artisanal practitioners, but also contributed to a transformation of scholarly discourse about how knowledge of nature could be gained.31 The “artisanal epistemology” that Smith postulates is essentially the epistemology of the Kunstkammer. The enhanced social recognition that artisanal practice enjoyed is also expressed in the widespread engagement of German princes in the activity of wood-turning, which was valued as an application of technological knowledge.32 In regard to the subject of this chapter, it is therefore of particular interest that some of the casts in the collection were made by Emperor Maximilian II, and we also find some made by Wilhelm V’s brother Ferdinand (F.1390), who had a particular interest in the technique of casting.33 There could be no stronger sign for the value accorded to the technique of reproduction by casting than the fact that the emperor himself, along with many other princes, engaged in this practice. As Smith has shown, the production of images of nature by the technique of life casting is closely related to the practice of alchemy.34 In order to produce a cast, the artist had to possess intimate knowledge of the materials he uses, the mixture of metals, ceramics, and glazes, and their manipulation in order to obtain the desired result. The life-cast thus made particularly strong claims to the artist’s knowledge of nature, but in principle this claim to knowledge is inherent to any form of artistic replication of natural objects.35 The interest in the technique of life-casting and its products is thus embedded in the larger phenomenon that courts were particularly hospitable environments for the new forms of knowledge production that were based on the increasing interest in the mechanical arts, and here the practice of alchemy played a central role.36 Alchemy, as a practice the main goal of which was the 31

See Smith, The Body of the Artisan. See Klaus Maurice, Der drechselnde Souverän. Materialien zu einer fürstlichen Maschinenkunst (Zürich 1985). 33 See Diemer, Kunstkammer, vol. 1, p. 450. 34 See Smith, The Body of the Artisan, pp. 78f. 35 See Smith, The Body of the Artisan, pp. 74–80, 95–110. 36 With regard to German courts (particularly the court of Hesse), and with regard to alchemy this phenomenon has been extensively investigated by Bruce Moran: Moran, “German Prince-Practitioners”; Moran, Science at the Court of Hesse-Cassel; Moran, The Alchemical World of the German Court; Bruce T. Moran, Patronage and Institutions: Science, Technology, and Medicine at the European Court, 1500–1750 (Rochester, N.Y.: Boydell Press, 1991); Bruce T. Moran, “Alchemy, chemistry and the history of science,” in Studies in His32

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manipulation and alteration of natural substances by artificial means, played a key role in this process.37 Due to its non-academic status, alchemy, ever since it took root in Western epistemology in the thirteenth century through the work of Roger Bacon, had been a field of discourse that functioned like a laboratory for the development of ideas breaking with received epistemological traditions.38 In the sixteenth century, the major figure for the dissemination and popularization of alchemical ideas, their application in the context of medicine, and their development into a new epistemology with implications beyond its narrower fields of application was the German philosopher and medical practitioner Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim, better known as Paracelsus.39 Paracelsus advocated an approach to nature that was based on empirical inquiry, and in his philosophy, he accorded an extraordinarily high status to human art.40 Although we have no evidence that the Munich dukes engaged in any kind of ‘scientific’ activity apart from wood and ivory turning, Albrecht was clearly sympathetic to alchemical and Paracelsian ideas, as is evident from the fact that he sent a book by Paracelsus to Elector August of Saxony in 1566, soliciting his opinion,41 and especially from his patronage of the medical doctor Johann Albrecht Wimpinaeus, which has been discussed in Chapter 2. Wimpinaeus served as Albrecht’s personal physician until the duke passed away, and was afterwards alimented by the court until his own death. 42 He published four editions of Paracelsian works with the Munich court printer Adam Berg, and hoped to gain patronage for a complete edition of Paraceltory and Philosophy of Science 31, no. 4 (2000): 711–720; Bruce T. Moran, “The Kassel Court in European Context. Patronage Styles and Moritz the Learned as Alchemical Maecenas,” in Landgraf Moritz der Gelehrte. Ein Kalvinist zwischen Politik und Wissenschaft, ed. Gerhard Menk (Marburg: Trautvetter & Fischer, 2000): 215–228. See also the general overview of the state of research on this topic by Walther, “Fürsten, Höfe und Naturwissenschaften.” 37 See Smith, The Body of the Artisan, pp. 82–93, 140–151. 38 For an overview of the development of alchemy, see Debus, The Chemical Philosophy. 39 The best overview of the development of Paracelsianism (especially with regard to the confessional aspects of its reception) and its impact on fields beyond medicine is still TrevorRoper, “The Paracelsian Movement.” For Paracelsus’ role for the development of an “artisanal epistemology”, see Smith, The Body of the Artisan, pp. 82–93, and passim. 40 See Smith, The Body of the Artisan, p. 84. 41 Albrecht V to August of Saxony on 7 June 1566, Sächsisches Staatsarchiv, Hauptstaatsarchiv Dresden, Loc. 8511/2, fol. 15r/v. 42 Wimpinaeus’ connection to Ingolstadt is well documented in the secondary literature. See Kobolt, Baierisches Gelehrten-Lexikon, pp. 755–757; Wolfgang Kornelius Ramminger, Die von A. F. von Oefele nicht bearbeiteten Ärzte-Bio-Bibliographien aus dem Album Bavariae iatricae seu catalogus celebriorum aliquot medicorum von Franz Josef Grienwaldt 1733 (Erlangen-Nürnberg, Diss. 1968), pp. 148–152; Seifert, Die Universität Ingolstadt, pp. 236f.; Schöner, Mathematik und Astronomie, pp. 384, 387, 401; Liess, Geschichte der medizinischen Fakultät, pp. 177f.; Boehm, Biographisches Lexikon, pp. 7f. (C. Schöner). My knowledge about his connection to the court is based on my archival research.

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sus’ œuvre, an effort that remained unsuccessful.43 First-hand exploration of nature and intimate knowledge of it, as opposed to adhering to received ideas of the ancients and their followers was closely associated with the name of Paracelsus. This is what Wimpinaeus argued in the preface to his edition of Paracelsus’ Archidoxa, and he specifically stressed that Duke Albrecht was not only a patron to those who explore nature, but was himself “experienced in nature.”44 Paracelsus likened the work of the sculptor to that of God, and argued that this art required intimate knowledge of nature in order to be accomplished. Michael Baxandall, with reference to Paracelsus’ remarks on sculpture, has suggested that this scholar’s ideas, despite his eccentricity, may have represented more commonly held views on the topic. 45 While he adhered to the Platonic notion that an image was only a shadow of reality without inherent power, he granted that craftsmen “who work in sculpting make a similitude”, and that their work proceeded “from the Maker of animate images.”46 When Paracelsus refers to “Nature’s Maker” as “the Maker of animate images”, this notion of nature as divine art is obviously conceived on the basis of Platonic ideas that had become commonplace by the sixteenth century.47 Ranking sculpture above painting, Paracelsus was apparently likening the sculptor’s work to that of the carpenter, who in Plato’s view made objects with a higher

43

Wimpinaeus, probably after failing to obtain Albrecht’s patronage, contacted Elector August of Saxony about this matter, who, in a letter of 30 July 1570, only referred him back to his own duke, while promising a contribution after the completion of the work (Hauptstaatsarchiv Dresden, Cop. 356a, fol. 331v–332r). 44 He claims that Paracelsus, had he lived until this day, “wurd E. F. G. solche vnnd dergleichen seine Bücher selbst dedicirt vnnd zugeschriben haben/ als einem hochloeblichen Fuersten/ der nit allein ein Mecænas [sic] zu vnsern zeitten aller gelehrten vnd natur erkündiger ist/ vnnd deren ein vnzal hin vnd wider mit grossem kosten erhelt: sonder auch fuer sich selbst gelehrt/ vnd der natur erfarn ist: vnnd neben andern Potentaten/ der welt mit verstand/ weißheit/ gerechtigkeit/ rath vnd macht fuerleucht.” (Paracelsus, Archidoxa (unpaginated)). 45 See Michael Baxandall, The Limewood Sculptors of Renaissance Germany (New Haven and London 1980), p. 161. 46 “wiewol diejenigen kunstreichen, so in biltwerken handeln, etwas gleichförmigs machen. wiewol es one kraft ist, so gehet doch ir kunst aus dem fabricatore der lebendigen bilder.” (Paracelsus, Astronomia Magna: oder die gantze Philosophia sagax der großen und kleinen Welt/ des von Gott hocherleuchten/ erfahrnen/ und bewerten teutschen Philosophi und Medici (1537/38, first published in 1571), in: Paracelsus, Sämtliche Werke, Karl Sudhoff, ed. (München, Berlin: Oldenbourg, 1922–33), vol. 12, pp. 92f. I modified the English translation given in Baxandall, Limewood Sculptors, p. 161. See also Smith, The Body of the Artisan, pp. 86f.). 47 See A. J. Close, “Philosophical Theories of Art and Nature in Classical Antiquity,” in Journal of the History of Ideas 32 (1971): 163–184, pp. 163–170. See also A. J. Close, “Commonplace Theories of Art and Nature in Classical Antiquity and in the Renaissance,” in Journal of the History of Ideas 30 (1969): 467–486.

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degree of reality than paintings.48 In any event, despite the fact that Plato was convinced of the inferiority of human to divine art, his idea of nature as divine art implied an “organic unity and continuity, rather than opposition, between art and nature”49, and for Paracelsus and his readers, who had strong interests in the powers of human art and in their continuous enhancement, the inferiority of human art might easily become secondary in the argument. Certainly, Paracelsus’ idea that the work of the sculptor was akin to the work of God raised the status of artificial reproductions, and it needs to be taken into consideration before we reduce the function of reproductions of natural objects in the Kunstkammer to mere ‘second-choice’ substitution. Reproduction was an achievement in itself, and those objects in the Kunstkammer were thus accorded a value sui generis. It was this value that made them so particularly apt as substitutional objects.

Quiccheberg on the Functions of Images The intrinsic pragmatism of Quiccheberg’s treatise, which has been discussed in Chapter 2, is essential for understanding the idea underlying the establishment of the Kunstkammer in the 1560s. Although Quiccheberg places some emphasis on the marvelous, he does not limit the range of objects to be included in the collection to the strange and rare. In his encyclopedic scheme, the broadest range of both natural and man-made things was to find its place. To achieve his stated goal of comprehensive representation, Quiccheberg accords an equal status to original objects and their reproductions through art. Already in the title of the treatise, he puts the value of objects and images on a par, postulating that the theater was to house “exemplary objects and exceptional images of the entire world.”50 The purpose of this collection, and thus of the images it contains, is clearly formulated by Quiccheberg in the title: “It is recommended that these things be brought together here in the theater, so that by their frequent viewing and handling one might quickly, easily and carefully be able to acquire a unique knowledge of things and admirable prudentia.”51 Therefore, the announcement of a collection of “objects and images” is not simply a reference to a museum that contains paintings, 48

See Close, “Philosophical Theories of Art and Nature,” p. 166. See Close, “Philosophical Theories of Art and Nature,” pp. 167, 169. 50 “[…] singulas materias et imagines eximias” (Quiccheberg, Inscriptiones, title page; Translation, Meadow and Robertson, Quiccheberg, Inscriptiones). 51 “quae hic simul in theatro conquiri consoluntur, ut eorum frequenti inspectione tractationéque, singularis aliqua rerum cognitio et prudentia admiranda, citò, facilè ac tutò comparari possit.” (Quiccheberg, Inscriptiones, title page; Translation, Meadow and Robertson, Quiccheberg, Inscriptiones; I slightly modified this translation to preserve the concept of prudentia). 49

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prints, and drawings along with other objects. Throughout Quiccheberg’s text it becomes clear that he thought of images as substitutional means of documentation, more precisely as substitutional objects that, as reproductions, had a value of their own. This is particularly evident in Quiccheberg’s third class, which is devoted to naturalia. Almost every inscription stipulates that not only the natural objects themselves, but also their reproductions should be included. And this is not simply for conservational reasons: in the first inscription, Quiccheberg calls for “[m]arvelous and very rare animals, such as unusual birds, insects, fish, shells and the like,” which he says should be “in some manner or by conservation kept free from decay and dried.”52 Despite the fact that he thought conservation by drying or other means entirely possible, his second inscription demands the inclusion of casts of those animals that were suitable for reproduction by the technique of casting. These animals are, according to Quiccheberg, to “appear alive thanks to artistry”. He recommends the use of coloring, “so that they are thought to be real.”53 This is not simply a call for objects that deceived the viewer through Zeuxian deception. Within the context of this class devoted to objects that conveyed knowledge of nature, the inclusion of reproductions points to Quiccheberg’s interest in the production of knowledge by means of the reproduction of nature. This becomes most evident in the seventh inscription, which is devoted to metals and mineral ores. Here, Quiccheberg equally calls for the addition of “all these substances imitated by artifice; metals that have been annealed, and other[s] that have been smelted and separated, some more and some less so.”54 With this reference to alchemy, Quiccheberg is evoking a field of discourse that, as we have seen above, accords a high status to the human manipulation of natural processes, and the central goal of which was the replication of natural objects and processes by means of art. Quiccheberg, in this inscription, is thus evidently casting the artificial manipulation of nature as a part of nature itself (which is the overall topic of the third class), implying that he thought of the products of human artifice as virtually natural, and accorded them an epistemological status tantamount to the creations of nature. Thus, in inscription four of the same class, he aligns reproductions of human body parts with 52 “Animalia miraculosa & rariora: ut rarae aves, insecta, pisces, conchae, ect. […] à corruptione, quovis modo vel conditione conservata, & exiccata.” (Quiccheberg, Inscriptiones, Inscriptio III, 1; (Translation, Meadow and Robertson, Quiccheberg, Inscriptiones). 53 “qua arte apparent omnia viva […] quibus postremum coloribus ferè subvenitur, ut vera esse putentur.” (Quiccheberg, Inscriptiones, Inscriptio III, 2; Translation, Meadow and Robertson, Quiccheberg, Inscriptiones). 54 “Denique artificio ista omnia imitata: & metalla ignem gradatim experta, aliaque plus, alia minus excocta segregataque.” (Quiccheberg, Inscriptiones, Inscriptio III, 7; Translation, Meadow and Robertson, Quiccheberg, Inscriptiones). A similar reference to alchemical processing is contained in inscription III, 11, where earthen objects and liquids are found, “both naturally produced and manufactured or purified” (“tàm spontanei, quàm factitii, & excocti”).

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various skeletons; his inclusion of prostheses shows that he thought of those artificial limbs as truly functional reproductions that were not only useful in the context of a museum. Likewise, in inscription six, he calls for herbs and flowers, as well as their reproductions cast in metal, and even woven from silk, “or depicted by some new art.”55 A good example of the implementation of this principle in Munich is found on Table 11 in the Kunstammer’s northern gallery, where the skull of a monkey and its reproduction are directly juxtaposed.56 When Quiccheberg reflects explicitly on the function of images, he does so in the context of his exposition of the print collection that was to be included in the Kunstkammer.57 Stating the prints’ function as means of knowledge production again, he stresses the value of images for this purpose: “Therefore, then, the small bundles and materials of this foundation are constantly increased through the more industrious [of its] patrons in such a way that it seems possible to acquire knowledge of the greatest number of disciplines from these images alone; for sometimes the simple examination of any picture stands out more in the memory than an extended reading of many pages.”58

This is a reference to the ancient topos of the value of images for mnemonic purposes. While in Cicero’s Orator these images were to be produced in the mind (De Oratore II, 354), the idea that images perform mnemonic functions has in post-antique times come to be applied to pictures. Cicero’s argument, in conjunction with Horace’s idea that “what the mind takes in through the ears stimulates it less effectively than what is presented to it through the eyes” (Ars Poetica, lines 180–182), eventually led to Thomas Aquinas’ and Bonaventure’s assertions that one aspect of the value of images was that they fixed

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“aut nova quadam arte depicta” (Quiccheberg, Inscriptiones, Inscriptio III, 6; Translation, Meadow and Robertson, Quiccheberg, Inscriptiones). 56 “Ain von holz geschnittner Todtenkopff einem Natürlichen gleich” (F. 818), and “Ein Affen Todtenkopffl” (F. 819). 57 On Quiccheberg’s concept of an engravings collection, see Brakensiek, Sammeln von Druckgraphik, pp. 40–81, esp. 57–81. Elizabeth Hajos has argued earlier that Quiccheberg conceived of an engravings collection as a collection of art objects, i.e. a collection with primarily aesthetic functions (Elizabeth. M. Hajos, “The Concept of an Engravings Collection in the Year 1565. Quiccheberg, Inscriptiones vel Tituli Theatri Amplissimi,” in Art Bulletin 40 (1958): 151–56). This is hardly convincing, as Quiccheberg’s own statement quoted below shows, which assigns this collection a function for the production of knowledge, and thus parallel to the function of the Kunstkammer as a whole. 58 “Subinde ergo huius instituti fasciculi et materiae à diligentioribus patronis adeo augentur, ut quam plurimarum disciplinarum ex his solum imaginibus cognitio acquiri posse videatur, plus enim quandoque praestat memoriae inspectio solum alicuius picturae quam diuturna lectio multarum paginarum.” (Quiccheberg, Inscriptiones, Digressiones (on inscriptio V, 3); Translation, Meadow and Robertson, Quiccheberg, Inscriptiones).

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the things or stories represented more firmly in the mind.59 This tradition provides the basis for the function accorded to images in Giulio Camillo’s Idea del Teatro, upon which Quiccheberg may have drawn when he developed the idea of a print collection within his collection of objects.60 Quiccheberg, however, rids Camillo’s use of images of any magical implications, taking a purely pragmatic approach. Thus the print collection, as laid out by Quiccheberg in the third inscription of the fifth class, was conceived as a miniature version paralleling the entire Kunstkammer.61 We may take this idea of the print collection as an assemblage parallel to the collection of objects as another expression of Quiccheberg’s conviction that art is able to substitute for natural objects. With the allusion to the classical topos of the value of images for mnemonic functions, however, Quiccheberg touches on a slightly different issue from the one that is the topic of this chapter. While within the rhetorical tradition (the importance of which for Quiccheberg’s treatise I have laid out in Chapter 2) the value of images as a source of knowledge is contrasted with the textual transmission of information, this chapter is concerned with the function and status of images, or more precisely reproductions, in relation to original objects. Within the traditional opposition of texts and images to which Quiccheberg is referring, objects assume a place on the side of images. I have argued above that the novelty of Quiccheberg’s encyclopedic project consists in his transposition of a textual collection into the realm of objects. In his theatrum, he uses images to substitute for objects, thereby implying a fluidity between original objects and their reproductions. This fluidity can only be understood if set in the larger contexts of sixteenth-century epistemology.

Mechanical Reproduction and the Idea of the Impressed Image As Peter Parshall has noted, the term contrafactum was most often applied to prints. He attributes this primarily to the prevalence of labeling in this textreceptive medium, and to the fact that printed broadsheets, as news reports, often required a specific emphasis on the truth of the reported incident.62 Furthermore, Parshall and Landau point out that “the replicated image had an important edge as a means of conveying fact, and at the same time a special 59 See Freedberg, The Power of Images, pp. 162f. See Thomas Aquinas, Commentarium super libros sententiarum: Commentum in librum III, dist. 9, art. 2, qu. 2; Bonaventure, Expositio in quatuor libros sententiarum, lib. 3, dist. 9, qu. 2. 60 See Brakensiek, Sammeln von Druckgraphik, p. 49. 61 See Brakensiek, Sammeln von Druckgraphik, pp. 63f. 62 See Parshall, “Imago Contrafacta,” pp. 563–566; David Landau and Peter W. Parshall, The Renaissance print, 1470–1550 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994), p. 237.

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liability. On the one hand, a replicated image could have the authority that comes with being widely familiar. On the other, the presence of an identical image simultaneously available to many allowed for independently checking its accuracy.”63 Beyond these pragmatic factors, we may consider whether the particular connection between printed images and the use of the term contrafactum might also be related to the impersonalized method of their production. Parshall has pointed out that the denial of authorship was intrinsic to the idea of contrafactum.64 The implied objectivity of representation called for a negation of individual agency in its production. The print, as a mechanical way of reproducing a drawing, is one step removed from its author, the process of its multiplication is independent of its original creator. It is thus not accidental that prints labeled by the term contrafactum, usually omitted any reference to authorship. This return of the anonymous author to the pictorial arts in northern Europe, however, was “confined to the ‘observed’ as opposed to the purportedly ‘invented’ image,”65 but the anonymity of imagines contrafactae was of course not confined to prints. It is also at the basis of the fact that the huge collection of paintings within the Munich Kunstkammer was listed in the inventory virtually without reference to the painters of these images: most of them were serving a documentary purpose, and the painter was only the impartial mediator of fact. Even more than prints, casts, as mechanical reproductions, were an especially effective method of producing imagines contrafactae. While in printing the technique of mechanical reproduction is used to replicate an image (a drawing or painting) that had an author, even if he remained undisclosed, the cast reproduces nature in an unmediated way. Its mode of production is inherently anti-inventive: the goal is to reproduce the form of the natural object exactly as it is in reality. Although the arrangement of individual casts on a writing casket or a table dish leaves room for compositional artistic invention, the reproduction itself does not.66 As a mechanical impression on physical matter, the cast is a trace of its prototype, and this prototype must have been present at the initial moment of 63

Landau and Parshall, The Renaissance print, p. 239. See Parshall, “Imago Contrafacta,” pp. 567-72. 65 Parshall, “Imago Contrafacta,” p. 572. 66 This is one of the central points in Andrea Klier’s argument for the artistic invention inherent in life-casts, who also contends that even the cast as a mechanical reproduction always shows traces of subsequent modelling and polishing, and is therefore not entirely free of artistic invention (see Andrea Klier, Fixierte Natur. Naturabguß und Effigies im 16. Jahrhundert (Berlin: Reimer, 2004)). This is certainly true, but whether this kind of refining qualifies as ‘invention’ in period terms is highly questionable; furthermore, it is important that the stated goal of the artist producing the cast was the highest possible degree of faithfulness to nature, and the effacement of invention. 64

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its production. Because of this, as Hans Belting has recently argued, the impressed image can make a particularly legitimate claim to authenticity, to offering proof of the existence and form of what it reproduces.67 In this respect, the life-cast is related to the idea of the sudarium of Veronica, the piece of cloth showing the physical impression of Christ’s face. As an acheiropoieton, an image not made by human hands, it embodied the idea of the ultimate denial of human authorship, and may therefore be seen as the epitome of the authentic image.68 Belting points to the inherent ambiguity of the typical image showing the Veronica sudarium, which is based on the idea of the impression of the face into a piece of cloth, but transforms it into a pictorial representation of a face.69 This process may be compared to the creation of the sculpture of a lizard from the negative mold made from the original animal. The resulting representation is one that assumes the status of a reproduction. Thus, it is precisely the mechanical nature of reproduction that guarantees its authenticity. The authenticating functions of images impressed on matter have been investigated by Katharine Park on the basis of the legends of Margarita of Città di Castello, a fourteenth-century saint inside whose heart were found three small stones bearing impressions of the holy family, and of Chiara of Montefalco, another saint whose heart displayed impressions of the instruments of the Passion.70 Although these were not mechanically reproduced images, they were images not made by human hands. Similar to the idea that a mother was able to alter the shape of the fetus in her womb through the force of her imagination, these images were thought to be caused by the deceased saints’ pious imagination and divine visionary experience.71 As images produced by divine intervention, they were perceived as posthumous authentication for the saints’ piety and their supernatural visions. Their claims to authenticity were enhanced both by their divine origin and by the fact that they were direct impressions onto bodily matter. The rumor about the impression of a Jesuit’s head onto Albrecht’s kidney stone, with which I opened this chapter, seems like a negative inversion of the basic idea of these legends. Ascribing a simi67

See Belting, Das echte Bild, p. 50. On the concept of acheiropoieton, see also Joseph Leo Koerner, The Moment of SelfPortraiture in German Renaissance Art (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1993). 69 See Belting, Das echte Bild, p. 50. 70 On Margarita, see Park, “Impressed Images,” passim; on Chiara, see ibid. pp. 264f., and Park, “The Criminal and the Saintly Body,” as well as Grabner, “Gallensteine als Heiligenattribut.” 71 On the parallelism of these legends with the idea of deforming fetuses, see Park, “Impressed Images,” pp. 262f. In period sources, this notion can for instance be found in a disputatio over which the Ingolstadt professor Johannes Lonnaeus Boscius presided in 1582 (see Boscius, Concordia, §XXIV). 68

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larly authenticating function to the deformation, it was meant to certify Albrecht’s mental obsession with an order that the opposing confessional side liked to cast as possessing demonic powers.72 Park has linked the idea of the impressed image to the Aristotelian notion of the impression of form on matter, the “fundamental type of physical causation”.73 Such impressed images could not only be produced by mechanical means or by supernatural causes, but also by natural processes.74 In the peripatetic-scholastic tradition, the factors of causation ascribed to images made ‘by nature’ were either chance or the stars.75 Thus, Albertus Magnus explains the generation of fossils, which he classifies as a phenomenon of natural magic, by astral influences.76 The idea that nature is able to produce images is already found in Pliny’s Natural History, where the phenomenon is attributed to fortune. Alberti and Leonardo used this idea and, in conjunction with the notion that the artist, by way of his imagination, can discern figural forms in natural objects, transformed it into the founding myth of artistic creation.77 Nature as artist and the ability of the artist’s (or any viewer’s) creative imagination are both exemplified by the kidney stone anecdote: as Wilhelm will immediately have discerned, the slanderous image of the Jesuit’s head (fig. 3) was based on the image that accompanied the official autopsy report concerning Albrecht’s postmortem (fig. 4). Both images show the same stone from exactly the same angle, but in the picture accompanying the rumor, the mushroom72

On the kidney stone anecdote, see Pilaski, “Nierenstein Albrechts V.” The alleged demonic nature of the Jesuits became a topos of Protestant polemics against the Society of Jesus. Bernhard Duhr goes as far as calling it a “Protestant dogma” (see Duhr, Geschichte der Jesuiten, p. 826). The idea had been voiced early on by the Lutheran theologian Johannes Wigand in 1556 (Johannes Wigand, Verlegung aus Gottes wordt des Catechismi der Jhesuiten (Magdeburg 1556)). In 1580, Johann Fischart calls the Jesuits “the last fart of the devil” and repeatedly labels them as “Sataniten” (Johann Fischart, Die Wunderlichst Unerhoert Legend und Beschreibung. Des Abgeführten/ Quartirten/ Gevierten und Vierecketen Vierhörnigen Hütleins (Lausanne 1580), p. C5). This association with the devil allowed Protestants to ascribe to the Jesuits all kinds of harmful occult powers (see Duhr, Geschichte der Jesuiten, pp. 830–838), as well as the counterfeiting of miracles (see for instance Fischart, Die Wunderlichst Unerhoert Legend, C5). 73 See Katharine Park, “Impressed Images: Reproducing Wonders,” in Picturing Science, Producing Art, ed. Caroline A. Jones and Peter Galison (New York: Routledge, 1998): 254– 271, pp. 256–264. 74 See Park, “Impressed Images,” pp. 256f. 75 See Daston and Park, Wonders, pp. 126f. 76 See Albertus Magnus, De mineralibus et rebus metallicis, pp.186, 191–193. See also Park, “Impressed Images,” p. 258. 77 See Pliny, Natural History, XXXVI.iv.14 and XXXVII, iii, 5; on the transformation of the ancient idea of chance images into the founding myth of painting and sculpture in Renaissance art theory, see H. W. Janson, “The ‘Image Made by Chance’ in Renaissance Thought,” in De Artibus Opuscula XL, Essays in Honor of Erwin Panofsky, ed. Millard Meiss (New York 1961): 254–66.

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shaped part of the stone projecting at the top had slightly been altered to show a face, making the projection resemble a head.78 The kidney stone, displaying a figured image, is thus teetering on the border between nature and art. This blurring of the boundary between the natural and the artificial is the central topos of the Kunstkammer, and inherent to countless objects within the collection.79 The idea of nature’s own ability to produce images is not only expressive of its creativity, but can also be exploited in favor of images serving as means of authentication. In the case of the kidney stone, an image impressed on a natural object, whether by Albrecht’s imagination, or by demonic powers, or just by chance, was used to ‘prove’ the duke’s obsession with the Jesuit order. The image produced by nature, as another version of an image not made by human hands, ceases to be a mere reproduction, but is natural in itself. As I shall argue, this blurring of the boundary between art and nature also played a central role for the sixteenth-century belief in the value and authenticity of the reproduction of natural objects.

78 The autopsy report is preserved at Bayerisches Hauptstaatsarchiv, Abt. III Geheimes Hausarchiv, Hausurkunden 1257 1/2. The loci classici for the artist’s imagination projecting figural forms into natural objects are found in texts by Alberti and Leonardo; see Leone Battista Alberti, De statua (Napoli 1999), p. 22: “Artes eorum, qui ex coporibus a natura procreatis effigies et simulacra suum in opus promere aggrediuntur, ortas hinc fuisse arbitror. Nam ex trunco glebave et huiusmodi mutis corporibus fortassis aliquando intuebantur lineamenta nonnulla, quibus pululum immutatis persimile quidpiam veris naturae vultibus redderetur. Coepere id igitur animo advertentes atque adnotantes adhibita diligentia tentare conarique possentne illic adiungere adimereve atque perfinire quod ad veram simulacri speciem comprehendendam absolvendamque deesse videretur. Ergo quantum res ipsa admonebat lineas superficiesque istic emendando expoliendoque institutum adsecuti sunt, non id quidem sine voluptate. Hinc nimirum studia hominum similibus efficiendis in dies exercuere quoad etiam ubi nulla inchoatum similitudinum adiumenta in praestita materia intuerentur, ex ea tamen quam collibuisset effigiem exprimerent”; and for Leonardo see Martin Kemp, Leonardo on Painting (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2001), p. 222: “And this is, if you look at any walls soiled with a variety of stains, or stones with variegated patterns, when you have to invent some location, you will therein be able to see a resemblance to various landscapes graced with mountains, rivers, rocks, trees, plains, great valleys and hills in many combinations. Or again you will see various battles and figures darting about, strange-looking faces and costumes, and an endless number of things which you can distill into finely-rendered forms.” See also Ernst H. Gombrich, Art and Illusion. A Study in the Psychology of Pictorial Representation (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 1959), pp. 105– 109, 181–202, and passim. 79 See Bredekamp, Antikensehnsucht. On the idea of nature as an artist in the early modern period, see Daston and Park, Wonders, pp. 255–301.

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Reproduction and the Relationship between Art and Nature If we want to assess the epistemological status of reproductive imagery for sixteenth-century viewers, especially that of images depicting natural objects, it is crucial to consider more generally contemporary ideas of the relationship between art and nature.80 What the status of the artificial object or image in relation to its natural prototype was hinges on the way contemporaries construed the ontological status of artificial products and processes. The perception of a reproduction as authentic may be raised if its viewer attributes to art the power to produce objects virtually identical to nature. The debate about the relationship between art and nature was a vital matter not only in art theory, but first and foremost in natural philosophy. At the center of this debate in the sixteenth century was the question whether art, understood as the entirety of human manipulations of natural processes and objects, was able to yield products that imitated nature so perfectly in every respect that they were indistinguishable from it and could actually be called natural. The standard view on this philosophical issue, which has garnered quite a bit of attention from historians of science as it played a significant role in the development of the ‘new science’ of the seventeenth century, is that the relationship was that of a dichotomy.81 According to Aristotelian theory, art and nature differed from each other essentially, because, as Aristotle elaborated in his Physics, a natural object has “within itself the principle of its own making”, while for an object of art, this principle is found “in some external agent.”82 Therefore, art could never produce objects that are indistinguishable from nature, i.e. objects that are indeed ‘natural’. However, as has been mentioned above, Anthony Close has pointed out that even though the products of art were generally subordinated to those of nature, the relationship has since Plato been viewed as one of organic continuity rather than as one of opposition.83 In codified philosophical discourse, as Lorraine Daston and Katharine Park have shown, arguments for the dissolution of this boundary between art and nature were not put forward until the seventeenth century, in the works of Francis Bacon and René Descartes.84 According to Daston and Park, the Kunstkammer, which preceded these developments in natural philosophy, although essentially despised by the two philosophers for the sensibility of 80 For the discussion of the relationship between art and nature in the classical tradition, see Close, “Commonplace Theories of Art and Nature,” and Close, “Philosophical Theories of Art and Nature.” 81 See for instance Heikki Mikkeli, “Art and Nature in the Renaissance Commentaries and Textbooks on Aristotle's Physics,” in Res et Verba in der Renaissance, ed. Eckhard Kessler and Ian Maclean (Wiesbaden: Harrassowith, 2002), 117–130. 82 Aristotle, Physics, 192b. 83 See Close, “Philosophical Theories of Art and Nature,” pp. 167, 169. 84 See Daston and Park, Wonders, pp. 255–301.

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wonder it embodied, played an inspirational role.85 They argue that it “was in such collections of rarities and marvels (and only later in natural history and natural philosophy) that art and nature first mingled and ultimately merged.”86 While it is dignifying to grant the Kunstkammer the status as a site of philosophical innovation, the idea that it served as merely playful inspiration helping Bacon and Descartes to develop their innovative ideas seems hardly convincing and too much of a geistesgeschichtliche perspective.87 The relationship of the Kunstkammer to its philosophical context was certainly no one-way street in either direction, rather, these collections were serious participants in a discourse that had for quite a while been concerned with the idea of art’s ability to produce objects that, as Bacon later put it, differed from nature “only in the efficient”. 88 This discussion did just not always happen in quite so prominent places, and these ideas had not yet been developed into a coherent philosophical system. Pamela Long, on the basis of her investigations of the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, the works and writings of Leonardo, Dürer, Serlio, and Vesalius, has shown how the Aristotelian distinction between physical science (concerned with nature) and technology (concerned with art) was gradually eroded between the 1490s and the 1540s, such that art and nature became ever more closely associated and even interchangeable.89 Even as early as the thirteenthcentury in the alchemical and magical tradition, one author was able to contend “that human works and natural works are identical as to essence (secundum essentiam), even if they differ according to their means of production (secundum artificium).”90 This statement is, as William Newman has observed, “effectively identical” to the above-cited later assertion by Bacon.91 The medieval alchemical tradition that ascribed extraordinary powers to human art had great impact on alchemical discourse in the sixteenth century, most prominently on the writings of Paracelsus.92 The high status Paracelsus accorded to the powers of human art have recently been analyzed by Pamela

85

See Daston and Park, Wonders, pp. 290–293. Daston and Park, Wonders, p. 260. 87 See Daston and Park, Wonders, p. 290. 88 See Francis Bacon, Descriptio globi intellectualis, in The Oxford Francis Bacon, vol. 6, ed Graham Rees (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), p. 103. On Bacon’s distinction between art and nature, see Sophie Weeks, “Francis Bacon and the Art–Nature Distinction,” in Ambix 54 (2007): 101–129. 89 See Long, “Objects of Art/Objects of Nature.” 90 William Newman, “The Homunculus and His Forebears: Wonders of Art and Nature,” in Natural Particulars: Nature and the Disciplines in Renaissance Europe, ed. Anthony Grafton and Nancy G. Siraisi (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1999): 321–345, p. 325. 91 See Newman, “Homunculus,” p. 325. 92 See Newman, “Homunculus,” pp. 326–332. 86

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Smith, and the relevance of these ideas to the technique of life-casting has been discussed above. Naturalistic representation, as Pamela Smith has argued, is one way in which artists asserted their knowledge of nature, and this idea also affects the issue of the authenticity of images. Comparing, for instance, the two depictions of Albrecht’s kidney stone (figs. 3 and 5), it is obvious that the contrafect showing the ‘true’ stone that Wilhelm sent to August is executed in a much more detailed and naturalistic manner than the first image that showed the head of the Jesuit. Instead of depicting the stone floating in front of a black background, the anonymous artist reproduced it lying on a yellow surface, on which it cast subtle shadows. Wilhelm’s reproduction is also characterized by a much higher degree of sculptural definition and surface texture. On a very simple level, naturalism implied knowledge because it presumed autopsy and close scrutiny: the observation of these details implied that the picture was drawn in front of the original object, and therefore the image’s naturalism doubtless contributed to its power to act as a convincing reproduction. Although I shall discuss the limited necessity of true verisimilitude for a representation to be perceived as authentic below, there is no doubt that naturalistic depiction was an effective means of convincingly claiming true knowledge. According to Smith’s argument, however, these claims went beyond the assertion of autoptic inspection, and implied knowledge of the hidden processes of natural production. A fascinating document that confirmed that sixteenth-century naturalists were indeed reflecting about naturalism as a power beyond visual illusion is a letter written by the Zürich naturalist Conrad Gessner to his humanist friend Georg Fabricius in Saxony on 22 June 1554.93 In this letter, which was published posthumously in Gessner’s Epistolae medicinales in 1577, Gessner raves about some images of insects and plants that he had received as a gift from a friend named Valentinus Gravius. It remains, unfortunately, quite unclear of what kind these images were. While Gessner first speaks of colors and lines, thus apparently referencing colored drawings, other remarks in his letter seem to point to life-casts.94 The source of Gessner’s fascination was the 93 See Konrad Gessner, Epistolarum medicinalium Conradi Gesneri, philosophi et medici Tigurini, libri tres (Zürich 1577), pp. 131r–132r. 94 Gessner speaks of the gift having come in several bundles (fasciculi), and he lauds the colors expressed ad vivum, as well as the naturalism of the line art. (“Est in eis quod oculos oblectet & pascat, varij ad viuum expressi colores: & quod maius est, ipsa singulorum forma figuraque ita vndiquaque omnibus lineamentis expressissima, rectis, obliquis, transuersis, curuis, crispis, longis, breuibus, tantis ommino & totidem talibusque, quanta, quot & qualia producere ipsa natura solet.”) However, in the beginning of the letter, he tells Fabricius that he showed the images to friends and “to our goldsmiths,” which suggests that some kind of metalwork was involved in their production, as does his later reference to the reproduction of nature “in silver”. According to Peter Parshall, whom I would like to thank for his comments

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extreme naturalism of the images, at which he often looked with great pleasure and admiration, because “it seems to me that I am not so much looking at images of things, but at the things themselves.”95 This is, of course the familiar topos of visual deception that is traditionally expressed in the Plinian anecdote of Zeuxis and Parrhasius, and Gessner, inevitably, quotes this story as an example for his assertion that those artists will be most lauded who imitate nature most closely.96 However, both his quote of the Plinian legend and his repetition of the idea that it is the central purpose of art to imitate nature are embedded in reflections about the relationship between art and nature that go beyond familiar topoi of visual illusion. As Pamela Long has pointed out, the story of Zeuxis and Parrhasius is one of deception, implying a fundamental skepticism toward art’s value for the truthful representation of knowledge.97 Gessner’s letter, which merits discussion in some detail, underscores Long’s contention that the attitude toward naturalistic depiction and the ideas about its functions had changed by the middle of the sixteenth century. Preceding his quote of the anecdote of Zeuxis and Parrhasius, Gessner writes: “The art, regardless of what kind it may be, that creates such peculiar images of things as I perceive in the gifts from Gravius, seems to me to represent not so much likenesses of things, but the things themselves, and as I would say in a Platonic way autò tò autò. Such that if the material were not different, no difference would be perceived at all.”98 This latter remark is, of course, another rhetorical strategy to emphasize lifelikeness, similar to the frequently used laudatory topos that a sculpture was so lifelike that it seemed as if it were moving.99 However, the reference to Plato takes this beyond the on this issue, the references to goldsmiths and silver are unlikely to refer to prints. He agreed that it seems as if Gessner is first talking about colored drawings, and later about life-casts, and that the matter remains confusing. 95 “Illis etiam seorsim saepe me recreo; & magna cum voluptate & admiratione inspicio: non enim tàm rerum icones in eis, quàm res ipsas spectare mihi videor.” (Gessner, Epistolarum medicinalium [...] libri tres, p. 131r.) 96 “Celebrati sunt olim pictores quidam ab ex quisita et ipsam prae se ferente naturam imitatione, precipuè Parrhasius & Zeuxis aemuli: nam cum hic vuas [sic] pictas detulisset tanto successu, vt in scenam aues aduolarent: ille detulisse linteum pictum traditur, ita veritate repraesentata, vt Zeuxis alitum iudicio tumens, flagitaret tandem remoto linteo ostendi picturam, atque intellecto errore concederet palmam, ingenuo pudore, quoniam ipse aues fefellisset, Parrhasius autem se artificem.” (Gessner, Epistolarum medicinalium [...] libri tres, p. 131r.) 97 See Long, “Objects of Art/Objects of Nature,” p. 64. 98 “Ars verò illa, quaecunque est, quae tàm proprias rerum icones effingit, quales in Grauij muneribus intueor, non tàm similes rerum imagines quàm res ipsas repraesentare mihi videtur, & vt Platonicè dicam autó to autó. Ita vt nisi materia foret diuersa, differentia planè nulla perciperetur.” (Gessner, Epistolarum medicinalium [...] libri tres, p. 131r.) 99 See Kris and Kurz, Legend, Myth, and Magic, pp. 69–71; Palissy also uses this topos to describe his own work: “[…] les langrottes, & lyzards, & ce pour cause qu’ils Ars verò illa,

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use of rhetorical tropes, and suggests that Gessner’s thinking about these images involved deeper reflections about the powers of art and its relation to nature. The quote autò tò autò can be found in various works of Plato, and is commonly translated as “one and the same”, “just this same thing”, or “the samein-itself”.100 Most relevant for Gessner seems its use in the context of the Timaeus, a work that contains Plato’s views on the creation of the world and on matters of physics and physiology.101 Plato uses the expression autò tò autò at the end of his explanation of the Golden Mean, in order to express the idea that all the terms in this ideal mathematical proportion are interchangeable and form a unity.102 The larger philosophical issues addressed in the Timaeus are beyond the scope of this book; suffice it to say that the principle of the unity of all matter was a central tenet of this text, and as Arthur John Hopkins has argued, this made it one of the foundational texts for alchemical discourse.103 Gessner’s further elaborations on the identity of image and prototype make it clear that it is exactly this discourse within which his reflections need to be situated. In a crucial passage, Gessner argues that, just like Zeuxis and Parrhasius, praise was due to the works of “this new and very elegant art”

quaecunque est, quae tàm proprias rerum icones effingit, quales in Grauij muneribus intueor, non tàm similes rerum imagines quàm res ipsas repraesentare mihi videtur, & vt Platonicè dicam autó to autó. Ita vt nisi materia foret diuersa, differentia planè nulla perciperetur.” (Gessner, Epistolarum medicinaliumadprochent si pres du naturel, qu’il ne leur reste que le mouvement.” (Bernard Palissy, Architecture & Ordonnance de la Grotte Rustique de Monsieur le Duc de Montmorency Connestable de France (Paris 1919), p. 10). 100 See Plato, Theaetetus 166a3, 166b5, 205a6; Phaidros 261d1; Alcibiadis 130d4; Gorgias 510d7; Timaeus 32a2. I would like to thank Cornel Zwierlein for decoding Gessner’s abbreviated Greek and providing me with the references to Plato’s works. 101 See R. G. Bury “Introduction to the Timaeus,” in Plato VII. Timaeus, Critias, Cleitophon, Menexenus, Epistles (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1942): 3–15, p. 13. On the Timaeus and its reception, see also Thomas Leinkauf and Carlos Steel, eds, Platons Timaios als Grundtext der Kosmologie in Spätantike, Mittelalter und Renaissance (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2005); Gretchen Reydams-Schils, ed, Plato's Timaeus as a Cultural Icon (Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 2003). 102 “For whenever the middle term of any three numbers, cubic or square, is such that as the first term is to it, so is it to the last term, – and again, conversely, as the last term is to the middle, so is the middle to the first, – then the middle term becomes in turn the first and the last, while the first and last become in turn middle terms, and the necessary consequence will be that all the terms are interchangeable, and being interchangeable they all form a unity.” (Plato, “Timaeus,” in Plato with an English Translation, vol. 7, Timaeus, Critias, Cleitophon, Menexenus, Epistles (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1942): 16–253, p. 59 [my emphasis]). 103 See Arthur John Hopkins, “A Modern Theory of Alchemy,” in Isis 7 (1925): 58–76, pp. 59–61.

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“that do not take anything away from nature, in which nothing is superfluous, and nothing is wanting, to the point that they aptly and truly resemble their archetypes, as if the nature of things had permitted a transmutation of material, while preserving the form, [as if it had permitted] the things themselves, true and alive, to be transformed from their original substance into the substance of silver.”104

As mentioned above, it is not clear what kind of image Gessner is discussing here, but he is possibly reflecting on the art of life-casting.105 In any event, this is an unusually strong statement about the ‘naturalness’ of artificial reproductions of nature, and it is phrased in the terms of the alchemical practice of the artificial transmutation of metals. As has been discussed above, life-casting as a technique was intimately related to the practice of alchemy. If Gessner, in this letter, is indeed talking about casts, his reflections confirm this connection; if he were instead talking about prints, it would show that even two-dimensional reproductions of natural objects could be thought of in alchemical terms. Whichever technique Gessner had in mind, the essential point is that his view of the images he received from Gravius, his perception of their naturalistic character was shaped by discourses about the unity and essential interchangeability of art and nature. It was this idea, I argue, that was the central reason not only for the sixteenth-century fascination with naturalistic representation, but also for trust in images as means of authentication. The idea of the essential fluidity between the artificial and the natural raised the epistemological status of pictorial representation and enhanced its capacities of authentic reproduction. The blurring of boundaries between the artificial and the natural is also the underlying principle in a case of the invention of natural objects that Paula Findlen has investigated.106 When apothecaries fabricated dragons, they were producing ‘natural’ objects that are nonexistant in nature. This activity was a “demonstration of professional skill”, and these apothecaries thus equally made claims to knowledge of natural processes that enabled them to manipu-

104 “Eodem iure nouae huius elegantissimae artis opera praedicari merentur, quae ne hilum quidem à natura discedunt, in quibus nihil redundat, nihil desideratur, adeò scitè & verè suis similia archetypis, vt si quam materiae, salua interim forma, mutationem rerum natura admitteret, res ipsas veras & viuas è substantia pristina in argenteam abijsse [...].” (Gessner, Epistolarum medicinalium [...] libri tres, p. 131v). 105 Since, for the reasons discussed above, the images Gessner received from Gravius were most likely colored drawings, he may here be inserting a general reflection on the art of life-casting as the technique achieving the closest imitation of nature; his reference to the novelty of the art seems to point in this direction, although he may also have been referring to prints. 106 See Paula Findlen, “Inventing Nature. Commerce, Art, and Science in the Early Modern Cabinet of Curiosities,” in Merchants and Marvels. Commerce, Science, and Art in Early Modern Europe, ed. Pamela H. Smith and Paula Findlen (New York, London: Routledge, 2002): 297–323.

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late nature.107 However, this is a slightly different process from the act of reproducing nature, with which Gessner was concerned. To reproduce nature exactly is a much more humble undertaking than the inventive fabrication of dragons. In reference to the latter practice, Gessner accused the apothecaries of engaging in a fraudulent business for monetary purposes, speaking of “apothecaries and others who usually dry rays and shape their skeletons into varied and wonderful forms for the ignorant.”108 The creative invention of nature, as fascinating as even Gessner may have found it, was obviously not fit for the purposes of documenting natural facts, which were the primary interest of Gessner as a natural historian. Concluding our consideration of the impact of natural-philosophical discourse about the relationship between art and nature on the perception of images as documentary reproductions, it seems to be not so much a confusion of image and prototype (in the sense of primordial responses to images) that is at work here. Rather, what matters is the idea that art could, by virtue of the knowledge about natural processes on the part of the artist, produce things that were ‘virtually’ natural, and could thus assume a status of equal value and veracity, and on the basis of this make valid claims for authentic representation. In the business of reproducing objects for inclusion in the Kunstkammer, authenticity was paramount, as the veracity of the reproduction was essential to the fulfillment of its function within this collection aimed at the representation of knowledge about the world.

Reproductions in Votive Practice In the southern gallery of the Munich Kunstkammer, placed on table no. 23 next to an elaborate example of a Handstein (a mountain made of gold and silver ores adorned with mythical figures, cast animals and gilded herbs), the visitor encountered “three arms cast in plaster, one of Duke Albrecht V, the other of Count Ulrich of Montfort, the 3rd of a Bohemian, the name of which is not known anymore, which was of such strength that he, while two barrels of sweet wine were hanging from each of his arms, was able to lift a third one with his hands, hold it and drink from it.”109 Juxtaposed to this strange group of objects were “two feet of a stag cast in plaster, painted black.”110 The 107

Findlen, “Inventing Nature,” pp. 306f. Konrad Gessner, Historia animalium (Zürich 1558), 4, p. 945 (quoted from Findlen, “Inventing Nature,” p. 305). 109 F.1444, see Diemer, Kunstkammer, vol. 1, pp. 464f.; on the Counts of Montfort, see ibid. vol. 2, pp. 938f. 110 “Hinder obgeschribnem Castn, ligen drey von Gyps goßne Arm, einer von Herzog Albrecht V., der ander von Graf Ulrich von Montfort, der 3. von einem Böheim, deßen nam 108

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Handstein, an object peculiar to the Kunstkammern of the sixteenth century where it was collected in large numbers, is an elaborate manifestation of the intersection of art and nature, and of nature’s artful reproduction. Working with the natural materials of the site he was reproducing, the artist recreated a natural setting on a small scale. The juxtaposition of the Handstein with plaster casts underscores the argument made in this chapter, that reproductions were not merely second-choice substitutes for original objects, but were valued themselves as objects of art that replicated objects of nature. In many cases, they also served as documents of the specific shape of natural objects. What, in this context, was the function of the three plaster casts of arms of distinguished persons, one of which came with an accompanying anecdote? Imagining the duke with the two noblemen engaging in communal casting activity of their arms, it seems that these casts were created to document the three men’s physical strength, possibly the outcome of a strength contest. They provided authentic testimony to the physical shape of the three men, and to the prodigious strength of the Bohemian, whose name nonetheless fell into oblivion. In seeking to understand what shaped the perception of reproductions on the part of sixteenth-century viewers, we may gain further insights by looking at a practice unrelated to natural inquiry, but specifically concerned with the use of reproductions as means of authentication: the practice of donating replicas of body parts or entire human figures to saintly patrons at pilgrimage sites, an important part of Catholic votive practice, which was immediately familiar to the creators and visitors of the Munich Kunstkammer. Expanding the discussion in Chapter 3 regarding the centrality of material objects in Catholic devotional practice, the consideration of this larger context will also provide further corroboration to the argument that the Munich Kunstkammer’s Counter-Reformation context was particularly receptive to its epistemology. The practice of donating ex-votos was an important part of pilgrimage practice, and at the time the collection was set up, the dukes of Bavaria were actively engaged in reviving and promoting pilgrimages within their territory, most importantly to the shrine at Altötting in Lower Bavaria.111 At Altötting as at any other pilgrimage site in the Christian world, people who had suffered from physical injury or illness offered reproductions of their afflicted body parts. An offering of this sort was the fulfillment of a promise made while praying to the local patron saint for a cure, in which the ailing person pledged nit mehr bewußt, welcher so großer sterckh gewesen, das er an iedem Arm ein lägl mit süeßem Wein hangend, und die 3. in baiden henden aufheben, halten, und daraus Trinckhen mögen” (F. 1444) Next to this lay “Zwen hirschfüeß in Gyps abgoßen, schwarz angestrichen.” (F. 1445). 111 On the efforts of the Bavarian dukes to revive pilgrimage practice in their territory see Soergel, Wondrous in his Saints.

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to make a pilgrimage and offer a gift in exchange for being healed. If his or her prayers were heard, the votant then frequently offered what is commonly today called an ex-voto, a reproduction, usually in wax or silver, of the cured body part at the pilgrimage site.112 If he had the means, as in the case of the Wittelsbach Palatine Elector Ottheinrich in 1518, he might even place a fullfigure sculpture of himself in the church.113 The art historical literature on ex-votos has tended to understand this practice of offering effigies as suffused by magical thinking.114 The supposed verisimilitude of the ex-voto reproduction is seen as the essential characteristic of the genre, and the effigy, understood as effectively substituting for the original body part or the whole person, seemed to function as a magical prop confirming the votant’s prayer. Votive reproductions are thus portrayed as the epitome of Bildmagie, as prime examples of a confusion of image and prototype rooted in prelogical thinking. On the basis of this state of research, one might argue that the prominence of votive offerings in contemporary Catholic devotional practice in Bavaria was a cultural phenomenon revealing or shaping habits of mind that tended toward a fusion of image and prototype with regard to three-dimensional reproductions of body parts. This would therefore have accorded the reproduction a status almost equal to that of the original object in contemporary perception. However, as has been laid out above, Bildmagie is a highly problematic concept, and arguments regarding a confu112

On votive practice in general, see Kriss-Rettenbeck, Ex voto; on votive practice in Altötting, see König, Weihegaben. 113 “An vnser lieben Frawen Annunciatae Festag/ hat diß würdig Gottshauß im Gebürg persönlichen mit vil Rittern vnd seinen vom Adel andächtig besucht der Durchleuchtig vnd Hochgeboren Fürst vnd Herr/ Herr Otthainrich Pfaltzgraff bey Rhein/ Hertzog in Obern vnd Nidern Bayrn/rc. vnnd selbst mündlich angezaigt/ auch einzuschreiben befolhen/ Wie er selbiges Jahrs auff einem Rennen oder Thurnier einen Schenckel wurtz abgebrochen hab/ darüber er in so grosse Gefahr vnd Tods Schröcken gerhaten seye/ daß jhne seine Herren vnd Hoffgesind mit grossem Trawren vnd Schmertzen/ ob dem laiden Zuostand/ länger als ein halbe Stund/ ohn eintziges Zeihen deß Lebens/ für tod haben vmbgezogen. In disen grossen vnnd äussersten Nöthen/ haben sich etliche seiner Getrewen befunden/ die auß sonderarer Andacht jhr Vertrawen zuo dem H. grossen Nothhelffer Wolffgango gesetzt/ vnnd jhn auß schuldigistem Mitleyden/ zuo dessen wrdeigen gottshauß mit einem wächsinen Bild/ welliches so schwär/ als jhr Fürstl. Gnaden sein solt (das dann noch// heuttigs tags bey S. Wolffgangs Altar/ neben anderen gossen Herren/ König vnd Fürsten Stands Personen Bildern zusehen) persönlich Kirchfahrten zuraisen verlobt.” (Johann Christoph, S. Wolffgangs deß Beichtigers vnd Bischoffen zuo Regenspurg Herkommen/ Leben vnd Ableiben (Salzburg 1599), p. 105v). 114 See Warburg, “Bildniskunst,” p. 99, and Schlosser, “Geschichte der Portraitbildnerei in Wachs,” p. 210, and more recently Freedberg, The Power of Images, pp. 136–160, who, while rejecting the idea of magic, essentially follows the same line of argument as the earlier authors. The idea of magic was also central to the phenomenon’s assessment in the folkloristic and anthropological literature, see for instance Rudolf Kriss, Die Volkskunde der altbayerischen Gnadenstätten (München 1953), vol. 3, p. 130.

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sion of image and prototype tend to be based on assumptions about anthropological constants of primordial responses to images, whether grounded in ideas about ‘primitive’ mindsets or the psychoanalytical ‘unconscious’. As Wolfgang Brückner and most recently Hugo van der Velden have argued, these interpretations have no sound backing in the historical sources documenting votive practice.115 In his recent reassessment of the phenomenon, Van der Velden defined votive practice as constituted by the tripartite mechanism of vow, action, and reciprocation.116 Within this mechanism, reproductions of body parts are only one specific kind of possible gift. In regard to these “iconic gifts”,117 he especially challenged the idea that verisimilitude was an intrinsic factor of their effectiveness.118 He points to the fact that most iconic votive gifts were not accurate reproductions of specific body parts, but were generic and mass-produced objects.119 The degree of verisimilitude depended on the financial means of the votant and was merely an instrument of distinction setting apart gifts by more affluent donors.120 True verisimilitude was thus more likely found in effigies like the one Elector Ottheinrich presented to St. Wolfgang. In Van der Velden’s view, the central function of verisimilitude in iconic votive gifts was to enhance their “fictional” effectiveness: the individualized likeness, which is primarily found in full-figure votive portraits, rather than catering to “distorted causal thinking” of a magical sort, strengthened the portrait’s power to simulate the votary’s presence; the viewer, however, recognized this presence as fictional.121 Most of the iconic votive gifts found at Altötting were indeed probably mass-produced and generic, and the fact of generic mass-production is certainly hard to reconcile with Freedberg’s contention that “the felt efficacy [...] of the exactly lifelike” was the defining characteristic of the reproductions used in votive practice, and that the “pursuit of verisimilitude” was the constituting factor of the genre.122 Freedberg, however, acknowledging the schematic character of many votive reproductions and images, has argued that such standardized replicas still presented “the closest possible form of realism available to maker and consumer”, and that verisimilitude was nonetheless the

115 See Brückner, “Volkstümliche Denkstrukturen,” with a critical overview of the earlier literature. For a more recent critique of previous scholarship and a new assessment of the phenomenon of votive practice, see Hugo van der Velden, The Donor's Image: Gerard Loyet and the Votive Portraits of Charles the Bold (Turnhout: Brepols, 2000), pp. 191–285. 116 See Van der Velden, The Donor's Image, p. 193. 117 See Van der Velden, The Donor's Image, p. 219. 118 See Van der Velden, The Donor's Image, pp. 223–245. 119 See Van der Velden, The Donor's Image, p. 233. 120 See Van der Velden, The Donor's Image, pp. 235–237. 121 See Van der Velden, The Donor's Image, p. 237. 122 See Freedberg, The Power of Images, p. 157.

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ultimate, if often unattainable, goal.123 This line of reasoning is in fact not too far away from Hugo van der Velden’s argument that the degree of verisimilitude depended on the means of the votary.124 Yet the fundamental difference between Freedberg’s and Van der Velden’s positions lies in the fact that Freedberg sees verisimilitude as a – to put it in Aristotelian terms – final cause of votive reproductions, while Van der Velden reduces its importance to that of a device of distinction enhancing their visual impact, and denies its role as a characteristic essential to these objects’ effectiveness. The essential characteristic to him is the fact that the reproduction was given ex voto, i.e. in fulfillment of a vow. Both of these positions remain unsatisfying. A more convincing way to describe the function of verisimilitude in the context of votive practice may be to stress two points. First, we may argue that although ‘iconic gifts’ were by no means the only manifestation of votive practice, they were indeed the form that most clearly fulfilled one central function of the votive gift: to authenticate the miracle that the patron had performed by documenting the nature of the affliction. Secondly, rather than casting, as Freedberg does, verisimilitude as an intrinsic urge underlying the production of votive imagery (a position that does, indeed, still carry some undertones of Bildmagie, even if it is psychoanalytically reformulated), it seems more plausible to say that verisimilitude was the central claim of reproduction per se, and it was central to the rhetoric of authentication. This means that verisimilitude, even if not achieved by a schematic representation, is still an implicit claim of the act of offering a reproduction rather than another kind of gift. By way of this rhetorical claim of likeness, even a schematic reproduction of a limb acted as an authentic representation, postulating the presence of the healed body part, and by metonymy of the entire person. It is this claim to the authenticity of representation that provides the basis for the ability of the reproduction to convince the viewer of the authenticity of the miracle. A similar mechanism can, incidentally, be observed in the case of imagines contrafactae. As Parshall has keenly observed, the term contrafactum was ap123

Freedberg, The Power of Images, p. 157. Freedberg is also right to caution against any universalist definition of successful verisimilitude – as Ernst H. Gombrich has shown, the perception of a representation as naturalistic is highly conventional, and therefore not historically constant (see Freedberg, The Power of Images, p. 201; see Gombrich, Art and Illusion). Therefore, the mass-produced, schematic representations may still have given enough clues to reality for the average sixteenth-century beholder in order to satisfy his desire to offer a ‘true’ representation. Nonetheless, sixteenth-century perceptions of naturalistic representation cannot have been entirely different from ours, as the existence of images attests that at the time of their creation as well as today were and are valued as particularly lifelike. Thus, it remains indeed questionable that the achievement of verisimilitude was the essential goal driving the production of those objects. 124 See Van der Velden, The Donor's Image, pp. 235–237.

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plied to images with very different degrees of naturalism. It is a term that denotes a function – the claim to factual authenticity – rather than particular formal characteristics.125 Even the rather crude woodcuts commonly illustrating popular broadsheets sometimes used a strategy that functioned as an abbreviated form of naturalism: the reproduction of an element in original size. In a Zürich broadsheet published in 1570 that reported a miraculous shower of grain in various places throughout Southern Germany, one of the grains is depicted at a larger scale than the others, and is marked by a cross. The text refers to this sign as indicating the reproduction of a grain in original size.126 By giving this reproduction, the broadsheet’s anonymous author based the claim to the authenticity of his report on the implication that it was grounded in his first-hand knowledge of the grains themselves.127 He thus claims the presence of the original object at the time of the image’s production, a claim evoking the idea of the presence of the object in the image, in an entirely nonmagical way. Without having to claim knowledge of the object in question, but also with the intention of evoking the presence of the original objects, the Margrave of Brandenburg employed the depiction in original size when trying to sell a unicorn horn to the Duke of Bavaria in the late 1570s.128 This “contrafect” was meticulously drawn in ink on a series of sheets glued to each other, which added up to a length of nearly seven feet. An obvious practical explanation for this life-size reproduction is that it could be used in order to gauge whether the object would fit into a particular place within the collection. It seems not unreasonable to assume, however, that the sender also had some hope that the duke would be almost as impressed by this image as he would have been by seeing the original, and that the reproduction, evoking the presence of the original object, would be perceived as particularly trustworthy and authentic. This strategy of evoking presence is frequently used in votive objects as well. Due to the lack of surviving examples this is difficult to assess, but it is not unlikely that the waxen reproductions of limbs were frequently executed in approximate original size. This conjecture is strengthened by the fact that the sources frequently postulate an identity of weight between the body part 125

See Parshall, “Imago Contrafacta,” pp. 555f. Ein warhafftige/ doch wunderseltzame geschicht/ So gesehen worden/ von etlichen namhafftigen Personen zu Zwispalen/ in dem Laendlein ob der Ens/ dem Hauß Osterrich zuogehoerig Deß gleichen auch zuo Ried im Bayerland/ in der Graffschafft Ortenburg/ bey Mattikhofen/ dises louffendenn M. D. LXX. Jars/ Am 14 tag Junii (Zürich: Christoffel Schwytzer, 1570) (Harms VII, 4). 127 The importance of autopsy in the authentication especially of wondrous phenomena in the sixteenth century has been discussed by Robert Jütte in Jütte, “Ein Wunder wie der goldene Zahn”, pp. 33–35. 128 See Hauptstaatsarchiv München, Kurbayern Äußeres Archiv 4854, fol. 169r (Libri Antiquitatum, vol. 4). 126

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and its waxen reproductions that were placed in South German churches.129 The effigy of Elector Ottheinrich is a case in point, as it reproduced him not only in appearance, but also in weight.130 This correspondence in size and weight between reproduction and original seems to reveal a quest for physical identity beyond mere visual illusion, as the image thus shared corporeal properties with its prototype. This identity of physical properties beyond the visible (as in the case of weight) endowed the reproduction with a higher degree of presence, and thus, of authenticity. For Martin Eisengrein, the Bavarian ducal councilor and chief CounterReformation propagandist for the revival of pilgrimage practice in Bavaria, the authentication of miracles was the central aim of the practice of giving votive gifts. In his 1571 treatise propagating the pilgrimage to the shrine at Altötting in Lower Bavaria, which I have discussed in the previous chapter, Eisengrein defended the reality of miracles, the veneration of saints and relics, as well as the practice of offering votive gifts.131 In his discussion of votive offerings, he concentrates exclusively on iconic gifts, thus suggesting that this was indeed the most common form of votive offering at the shrine. Advertising the miracles the Virgin Mary, the shrine’s patron saint, performed at this site, Eisengrein affirms their truth by appealing to the written documentation found in miracle books, as well as to the presence of “living witnesses” (“lebendige zeugen”). Addressing the function of iconic votive gifts, he puts their value on a par with that of the living witnesses themselves, arguing: “What could they [the Protestants] say to this? They cannot deny it, because we can push before their eyes the people themselves to whom help has been granted, or the waxen commemorative signs, which they have hung up in the chapel for giving thanks and for eternal memory.”132 Shortly after this, Eisengrein again affirms the interchangeability of living witnesses and votive reproductions: “In principle it is no different to see the waxen images in the chapel of Our Lady than as if those to whom help has been granted

129 See Christoph, S. Wolffgangs deß Beichtigers vnd Bischoffen zuo Regenspurg Herkommen/ Leben vnd Ableiben, pp. 125r/v, 129v/130r, and passim. 130 See Christoph, S. Wolffgangs deß Beichtigers vnd Bischoffen zuo Regenspurg Herkommen/ Leben vnd Ableiben, p. 105v. 131 See Eisengrein, Unser liebe Fraw zu Alten Oetting. On this treatise, see Soergel, Wondrous in his Saints, pp. 99–158. 132 “Was woellen sie nun sagen hierzuo? Dann laugnen künden sie es nit/ weil wir jhnen die jhenigen selbst/ denen dann geholffen worden/ oder ja die waechssine denckzaichen/ woelche sie zuor dancksagung unnd ewiger gedaechtnuß der sacheniin [sic] der Capellen auffgehenckt haben/ under augen stossen künden” (Eisengrein, Unser liebe Fraw zu Alten Oetting, p. 87r).

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were standing there themselves and spoke”.133 The evocation of spoken testimony as a means of convincing the readers or the viewers of the reproductive imagery underscores their function as rhetorical devices in a discourse fiercely concerned with the authentication of miracles in the context of confessional strife. It is precisely this authenticating function that makes the use of reproductions in votive practice important as a contextual phenomenon for understanding the use of reproductions in the Munich Kunstkammer. Certainly, the schematic votive reproductions offered at Altötting differed in significant ways from the reproductions in the Munich Kunstkammer. In contrast to the three arms cast in plaster, or the reproductions of the deformed hands of peasants found in the Munich collection, they were not made by the technique of casting, and probably not even individually modeled on their prototypes, but were run-off-the-mill replicas bought from local sellers. In both cases, however, the reproductions served as means of authentication. The reproductions of limbs offered as votive gifts were placed in the church in order to prove to everybody that the votary had indeed been cured by the saintly patron. They thus attested to the truth of a miraculous event, and thereby fulfilled an important function within Counter-Reformation arguments about the reality of miracles. In a similar vein, many of the casts in the Munich collection reproduced deformed objects, which, although probably not regarded as miraculous, were phenomena in particular need of authentication. I have shown in the previous chapter how this collection made particularly wide use of material objects as evidence for prodigious events in the Bavarian territory, and how this aspect can be related to the importance of material objects within Catholic devotional practice. The ample presence of reproductive imagery, especially of prodigious objects, I would like to argue, may equally be seen as a result of the prominence of reproductions in the authentication of bodily miracles in contemporary pilgrimage practice. To contemporary observers familiar with this practice, their use in this context made them particularly convincing as means of authentication. The fact that the reproductions in the Munich Kunstkammer are casts or individualized carvings, and therefore more lifelike than the schematic reproductions at the shrine of Altötting, is on the one hand a result of the different social status and financial means of those for whom they were produced: unlike the average pilgrim, the Duke of Bavaria could afford to have these objects custom-made. Indeed, casting seems to have been one of the functions of the custodian of the Kunstkammer, Matthias Schelling, as Fickler’s inventory suggests when listing a chest of drawers that contained “molds for casting in

133 “Das es im grund anderst nichts ist/ wann man inn unser frawen Capellen/ die waechsine Bilder herumb stehn sicht/ als wann die jhenigen denen geholffen worden/ selbst da stuenden und sprechen [...]” (Eisengrein, Unser liebe Fraw zu Alten Oetting, p. 90v).

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plaster, and similar things, that belong to the Kunst-Kamerer”.134 On the other hand, the lifelikeness of the reproduction was simply not of such eminent importance when a cured, i. e. healthy body part was being represented. It was the deformation of the objects in the Kunstkammer that made their individualized representation truly necessary. In conclusion, we may argue that although the offering of reproductive votive images was an age-old practice that was neither regionally nor temporally specific to Counter-Reformation Bavaria, these images assumed a particular relevance in the confessional age. While the votive imagery in Altötting is not specifically expressive of a particular way of seeing in the second half of the sixteenth century, it was certainly acutely present in the minds of contemporary observers assessing the value of reproductions of natural objects. Without postulating an identical response to these reproductions in their respective contexts, I would like to suggest that the familiarity of contemporary observers with the religious practice of substituting body parts and testifying to a miraculous cure by means of reproductions contributed to their willingness to accept such reproductions in collections as representations with a high degree of presence and legitimate claims to authenticity. Being accredited means of authentication within devotional practice, reproductions of nature were deemed suitable objects of knowledge within the context of universal collecting.

The Imago Contrafacta and the Question of the Historicity of Perception The ubiquity of the imago contrafacta, the most widely used type of image complementing and partially substituting for the objects in the Munich Kunstkammer, can also be observed in the process of its assembly. In the Libri Antiquitatum, the body of letters partially documenting the acquisition of collectibles in Munich, conterfecte were profusely referenced as documents and advertisements for objects offered for sale to the Munich dukes.135 The ubiquity of this concept is what makes the investigation of the habits of mind that may account for its profusion and structured the contemporary reception of this particular type of image so central to the epistemology of the Kunstkammer. My initial question – how sixteenth-century viewers perceived the status of pictorial or sculptural reproductions of natural objects in relation to their prototypes, and why they were so particularly inclined to grant these reproduc134 135

“Mödl zum Güpßguß, und dergleichen, dem Kunst-Kamerer zugehörig” (F. 3367). Hauptstaatsarchiv München, Kurbayern Äußeres Archiv 4851–4856, passim.

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tions a status of authenticity – is certainly elusive. Ultimately, the issue that is at the center of the scholarly discussion about the ‘power of images’, namely whether a conflation of image and prototype played a part in the appreciation of such imagery, and whether this inclination was in any way stronger than it is in the case of modern viewers, cannot be answered here. The sources I investigated do not yield any conclusive evidence on this matter. A few concluding reflections on the implications of this discussion, however, are in order. To postulate a particular propensity on the part of the sixteenth-century viewer toward a fusion of image and prototype would mean to suppose that this viewer had a lower capacity of rational reflection about the issue of representation. This argument would essentially liken the reception of the imago contrafacta to that of the cult image. The contrafactum, as a specific type of representation, would thus have taken advantage of habits of mind that in the longue durée of changing ways of perception stemmed back to earlier periods, living on not only in the religious context, but also in the documentary image that functioned as a statement of fact. The imago contrafacta would thus break the neat teleology of the process of rationalization that Hans Belting has described as the development from the image as a true presence of its prototype (manifested in the icon), to the image as an aesthetic object.136 This view of the concept of contrafactum would be compatible with Freedberg’s argument that the inclination to conflate sign and signified is an ever-present factor in the response to images, an anthropological constant. It would not, however, provide any backing to Freedberg’s idea that this ‘irrational’ tendency in the perception of images is subject to cultural repression. If we are going to postulate the presence of such a tendency within contemporary modes of perception, then we might more convincingly do so by describing the imago contrafacta as an entirely ‘rational’ type of image that exploits an inclination on the part of viewers that was shaped by their approach to images in the religious context, in a way that is completely free of any associations of Bildmagie. Without any implications of Bildmagie, a particular ‘sense of presence’ seems indeed to have played a role in the appreciation of the imago contrafacta. It is not accidental that the concept originated, as Parshall has shown, in the reproduction of an icon.137 This fact in conjunction with the observation that the idea of contrafactum came into being at a time when the development of the self-reflexivity of the image that Belting and Kruse describe is already well under way, and that it reached peak popularity simulta-

136

See Belting, Likeness and Presence; Hans Belting and Christiane Kruse, Die Erfindung des Gemäldes: das erste Jahrhundert der niederländischen Malerei (München: Hirmer, 1994). 137 See Parshall, “Imago Contrafacta,” pp. 556–558.

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neously with the idea of the artwork as a display of creative invention,138 shows first and foremost that there is no clean teleology in historical processes. The imago contrafacta of a natural object may be seen as another manifestation of Christopher Wood’s concept of ‘substitution’ in Northern Renaissance Art.139 Just as the reproduction of an icon was perceived as effectively identical to its prototype as long as it convincingly referenced an authentic original, the reproduction of a natural object was considered a suitable substitute for its prototype by virtue of its similitude, which, while it could be rhetorically abbreviated to parameters such as original size or weight, conveyed the idea that its production had required eyewitness status on the part of its maker, or which even testified to the immediate contact inherent to the technique of casting. Like the continuous sense of history that Wood sees at the root of the sixteenth-century viewer’s propensity to conflate two images from historically distant periods, the subsitutional capacity of reproductions of natural objects was partially based on perceptions regarding the power of art to reproduce nature in a way that granted the artificial reproduction a status of virtual identity to its prototype. This conclusion departs both from Belting’s evolutionary approach and from Freedberg’s belief in anthropologically constant responses to images. Most certainly, however, it contradicts Van der Velden’s idea of an “actualist” approach to the understanding of historical reception. With this term borrowed from geology, Van der Velden argues “that it should be possible to explain the historical use of a certain category of images by consistently applying the same fundamental rules as are deemed applicable to the use of images in general.” According to Van der Velden, “one cannot postulate the existence of different stages of magical-primitive and aesthetic-advanced uses of images.”140 This line of reasoning appears to forget that unlike geological processes, the laws of physics do not govern human actions. As an argument carrying the idea of anthropological constants to an extreme, it not only calls an obviously problematic teleological model of historical development into question, but it negates history altogether. In order to be able to understand historical reactions to a particular type of image, we need to examine contextual practices and discourses that shaped the perception of viewers at any given point in time. As we have seen in regard to the imago contrafacta, the discourse about the powers of art to repro138

See Parshall, “Imago Contrafacta,” pp. 555f. See Wood, Forgery, Replica, Fiction, pp. 32–53. Wood first developed this theory of substitution in collaboration with Alexander Nagel in Alexander Nagel and Christopher Wood, “Towards a new model of Renaissance anachronism,” in Art Bulletin 87 (2005): 403– 432. See also Alexander Nagel and Christopher Wood, Anachronic Renaissance (New York 2010). 140 Van der Velden, The Donor's Image, pp. 231f. 139

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duce nature provided an important basis for the ‘rationalization’ of the notion of presence of the represented object in its image. Additionally, votive practice was a field of experience in which reproductions played a role as means of authentication that could be exploited for purposes of the representation of knowledge within the Kunstkammer. Especially in the context of votive practice, authentication was clearly a rhetorical act. Primarily, authenticity was a claim to be made, and its success depended not only on the techniques employed (a particular method of reproduction, or the achievement of verisimilitude, both of which claimed the presence and knowledge of the prototype), but also on the authority of the speaker. The integrity of the image’s originator was paramount to its credibility. Thus, the ‘true’ contrafect of the kidney stone was not only superior to the slanderous version in terms of the depiction’s naturalistic appearance, its credibility also depended to no small extent on the honorable reputation of its sender, Duke Wilhelm V of Bavaria. The trustworthiness of the witness was an important issue not only in legal practice, but also remained a constituting factor in the communication of knowledge among scholars well into the seventeenth century.141 Recognizing the role the imago contrafacta played in the context of the universal collection enhances our understanding of the concept of the Kunstkammer as a site for the representation of universal knowledge, while in turn opening perspectives on the functions and status contemporaries assigned to the idea of contrafactum. With my excursions into contemporary discourse about art’s power to reproduce nature and the function of reproductions in Counter-Reformation votive practice, I hope to have provided some insight into those discourses that shaped sixteenth-century perceptions of reproductive imagery and engendered the idea of its suitability as a means of authentication.

141

See Jütte, “Ein Wunder wie der goldene Zahn”, pp. 21–32, and Steven Shapin, A Social History of Truth. Civility and Science in Seventeenth-Century England (Chicago 1994).

Conclusion This book has grown out of my interest in the topical tradition, early modern conceptions of the production of knowledge, and the history of science. As I have argued, the Kunstkammer was a transposition of an encyclopedic collection into the realm of objects. Rather than as an early and somewhat ‘curious’ stage in the development of the modern museum, the Kunstkammer is more appropriately understood in period terms when we describe this type of collection as a culmination of the topical approach to knowledge. This approach – manifest up to this time in topically organized textual collections of bits and pieces of knowledge – in the Kunstkammer was transposed into a spatial setting, a transposition that was a logical extension of the epistemology underlying the topical tradition, and which was spurred by the new interest in the mechanical arts and the empirical investigation of nature. I embarked on this project driven by the fascination with the necessary breadth of its scope. As a universal collection, understanding the Munich Kunstkammer requires venturing from the art historical field into a broad range of contextual areas. One of my main aims was to offer a prosopography of the Munich court, in order to place the Kunstkammer in the context of its immediate audience. It turned out that both the comparatively chaotic cataloguing of the Munich archives, as well as the almost complete lack of scholarly groundwork about the structure and organization of the Munich court and its staff allowed me only to trace selected figures of the court’s intellectual milieu. It would be highly desirable to undertake a systematic study, on the basis of archival sources and printed publications, of councilors, scholars, and staff and their interests at and around the Munich court at the time of its major expansion under Albrecht V.1 1

The only studies that go in this direction so far are Reinhardstöttner, “Zur Geschichte des Humanismus”; Dausch, Zur Organisation des Münchner Hofstaats; Heinz Lieberich, “Die gelehrten Räte. Staat und Juristen in Baiern in der Frühzeit der Rezeption,” in Zeitschrift für bayerische Landesgeschichte 27 (1964): 120–89; Scharbert, Die Entwicklung des Münchner Hofstaats. For studies of individual figures, see Mayer, Hundt; Luzian Pfleger, “Martin Eisengrein (1535–1578). Ein Lebensbild aus der Zeit der katholischen Restauration in Bayern,” in Erläuterungen und Ergänzungen zu Janssens Geschichte des deutschen Volkes, Bd. 6, Teil 2, ed. Ludwig Pastor (Freiburg im Breisgau 1908); Gruber, Philipp Apian; Wilhelm Maasen, Hans Jakob Fugger (1516–1576). Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des XVI. Jahrhunderts (München, Freising: 1922); Hermann Kellenbenz, “Hans-Jakob Fugger. Handelsherr, Hu-

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The abundance of natural objects in the collection led me into extensive study of sixteenth-century natural history and philosophy as well as medicine, and my particular focus on the prodigious objects required exploring the intersections of these fields with contemporary theology and confessional arguments regarding natural wonders. Given the multitude of fields of discourse that the Kunstkammer represented, my explorations could only be fragmentary, giving few definitive answers and uncovering several areas in which future specialized research is needed. This is particularly true for the issue of the confessional structure of early modern approaches to wondrous phenomena.2 The lack of any substantial research on controversial confessional issues attached to prodigies, and especially of the perspectives taken within a Catholic context made it necessary for me to develop my arguments almost entirely from my own selective investigations of primary sources. On the other hand, those art objects in the Munich Kunstkammer with which I was primarily concerned led me to pursue research on period perceptions of artificial reproduction and documentary images rather than more conventionally art historical lines of inquiry. Here again I encountered a lack of substantial groundwork, as there is still no systematic study that firmly anchors our understanding of sixteenth-century perceptions of documentary reproductions and imagery in period sources. Just as the anachronistic projection of modern notions of the museum back onto the Kunstkammer obscures its understanding in period terms, the application of modern notions of ‘art’ as a primarily aesthetic mode of representation bars us from understanding the range of objects included in the Kunstkammer as well as the functions that various types of those artificialia served. My research on the Kunstkammer has shown how pervasive the idea of the imago contrafacta was in sixteenthcentury visual discourse, and a comprehensive investigation of this issue would not only enhance our understanding of collections that worked with such images, but more generally of sixteenth-century conceptions of art. To see the Kunstkammer in the way I proposed in this book forces us to rethink some of our basic assumptions about the functions of princely collections. Certainly, every collection is an individual product of its particular contextual situation, and the Munich Kunstkammer is in some ways a special case due to the presence and direct involvement of Samuel Quiccheberg, whose ideas, as I have shown, had considerable impact on the conception of the collection and its reception, while their impact at other courts was probamanist, Diplomat (1516–1575),” in Lebensbilder aus dem Bayerischen Schwaben Schwäbische Forschungsgemeinschaft bei der Kommission für Bayerische Landesgeschichte. Veröffentlichungen, Reihe 3, ed. Adolf Layer (Weißenhorn: Konrad, 1980): 48–104; Meadow, “Hans Jacob Fugger.” An invaluable resource is also Hartig, Hofbibliothek. 2 For the attitude towards prodigies in the Lutheran tradition, see Philip Soergel’s recent study: Soergel, Miracles and the Protestant Imagination.

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bly limited. The fact that so few copies of his treatise survive suggests that only a very small number was originally published, while Quiccheberg’s untimely death prevented him from producing the more extensive work that he had planned. Nonetheless, given the close conceptual connection of universal collections to the topical and encyclopedic tradition I have demonstrated, it may be fruitful to reconsider the aims and expectations that guided the establishment of such collections at other courts. Especially our understanding of the Dresden Kunstkammer, with its focus on tools and instruments, would benefit from a reevaluation with regard to the sixteenth-century interest in the mechanical arts and conceptions regarding their relationship to nature. Considering the implications of Quiccheberg’s ideas also suggests that the divide between collections of scholars and collections of princes was perhaps not as wide as we might think, and that the interest of princes in courtly representation (in the sense of the ostentatious display of power and affluence) was closely intertwined with their belief that these collections were instrumental for the production of knowledge that was potentially useful to them or to the world at large. Quiccheberg stresses that his advice is addressed to anyone who is interested in collecting, and that the breadth of scope to be attained is mainly a matter of means.3 True universality, of course, could only be achieved by a ruler who had the resources to collect examples of virtually everything. Quiccheberg sees no essential difference between the natural history collections of scholars such as Gessner or Aldrovandi and the princely Kunstkammer. And Gessner, for example, recognized the value of princely collections as a resource for his own research. In 1564, in his correspondence with Crato von Krafftheim (the personal physician to Emperor Ferdinand I, and later Maximilian II) Gessner discusses bezoar stones, and receives information, images, and even pieces of a bezoar from the imperial collections.4 He then reports to his friend Achilles P. Gasser, a physician and geographer with whom he entertained a similar exchange about bezoar stones, about the information he had gotten from the court.5 In one of these letters, Gessner also mentions that the emperor had received a particularly wondrous bezoar stone from Spain, and that this was doubtless not the only one he had obtained through the Fuggers.6 These letters demonstrate that courtly collections were not only resources for the physicians at the individual courts, but also functioned as part of a network of correspondence and exchange between rulers, 3

See Quiccheberg, Inscriptiones, at the beginning of Admonitio seu consilium. See Gessner, Epistolarum medicinalium [...] libri tres, fol. 16v, 18r, 19v, 20r/v, 22r. 5 See Gessner, Epistolarum medicinalium [...] libri tres, fol. 33v, 35r. On Gasser, see Karl Heinz Burmeister, Achilles Pirmin Gasser (Wiesbaden: Pressler, 1970), and Karl Heinz Burmeister, “Achilles Pirmin Gasser (1505–1577) as Geographer and Cartographer,” in Imago Mundi 24 (1970): 57–62. 6 See Gessner, Epistolarum medicinalium [...] libri tres, fol. 33v. 4

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scholars, and merchants, in the service of the production of knowledge. It would seem that the representation of this knowledge in the context of the court of a prince served primarily symbolic and only secondarily practical purposes, thus functioning as ‘representation’ in the sense of the visual display of power. At the time of the Munich Kunstkammer’s foundation, Albrecht was not only, like any territorial ruler, faced with the continuing necessity to assert his status among the imperial estates in the context of an ever more complex confessional-political situation, but he was at the same time in the process of centralizing and consolidating his rulership over his own territory in an unprecedented way. He certainly expected the establishment of such a splendid collection to demonstrate his power both to other rulers abroad and to his domestic subordinates. However, as I hope to have demonstrated, the collection’s symbolic function was inseparable from the belief in its pragmatic value, not only because courtly representation, far from being merely symbolic, was an essential part of pre-modern politics,7 but also because the availability of the pragmatic knowledge represented in the collections was perceived as an indispensable requirement for maintaining and expanding good rulership over a territory. The Kunstkammer, as it was conceived in the second half of the sixteenth century, was thus a culminating result of the new understanding of the importance of pragmatic knowledge for the prudent and effective exertion of princely power.

7

See Gerd Althoff, Spielregeln der Politik im Mittelalter. Kommunikation in Frieden und Fehde (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1997), p. 13.

Fig. 1: Jakob Sandtner, Model of the City of Munich (detail), 1570 (view of the Kunstkammer building from northwest), limewood, Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Munich.

Figures

Fig. 2: Reconstruction of the Munich Kunstkammer’s layout by Lorenz Seelig (with kind permission by the author; first published in Lorenz Seelig, “Die Münchner Kunstkammer,” in Jahrbuch der Bayerischen Denkmalpflege 40 (1986): 101–38).

180 Figures

Fig. 3: Drawing of Duke Albrecht V’s kidney stone, sent to Duke Wilhelm V by Elector August of Saxony on 21 March 1580 (Bayerisches Hauptstaatsarchiv, Abt. III Geheimes Hausarchiv, Korrespondenzakten 609/5 1/3).

Figures

181

Fig. 4: Report of the Autopsy of Duke Albrecht V., 1579 (Bayerisches Hauptstaatsarchiv, Abt. III Geheimes Hausarchiv, Hausurkunden 1257 1/2).

182 Figures

Fig. 5: Drawing of Duke Albrecht V’s kidney stone, sent to Elector August of Saxony by Duke Wilhelm V on 13 April 1580 (Sächsisches Staatsarchiv, Hauptstaatsarchiv Dresden, 10024 Geheimer Rat (Geheimes Archiv), Loc. 8506/2, fol. 184).

Figures

183

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Index of Historic Personages Agricola, Georgius 57, 114 (n.101) Agricola, Rudolf 49f., 51, 59 Alberti, Leone Battista 155, 156 (n.78) Albertus Magnus 76 (n. 159), 115 (n.103), 155 Albrecht IV, Duke of Bavaria 22, 24, 36 Albrecht V, Duke of Bavaria 1f., 9, 14– 16, 18–20, 22, 24, 26f., 31–38, 41, 42 (n. 5, 7, 8), 43, 45, 63, 66–68, 73, 75, 77–88, 90f., 93, 99, 105, 108, 110, 132, 135f., 138f., 144 (n. 28), 147f., 154– 156, 159, 163, 175, 178, 181–183 Aldrovandi, Ulisse 57, 177 Amman, Jost 33 Anna of Austria, Duchess of Bavaria 15, 18f., 24, 72f., 84 (n.192) Apian, Philipp 29, 32–35, 38, 67, 86, 87 (n. 203, 204), 137, 175 (n. 1) Aquinas, Thomas 69, 151 Aristotle 51 (n. 45), 58, 60–62, 69, 157 August, Elector of Saxony 7, 30, 34, 83f., 111 (n. 92), 135f., 138 (n. 9), 139, 147, 148 (n. 43), 159, 181, 183 Aventinus, Johannes 33, 87, 133 (n. 169) Averroes 82 Avicenna 82 Bacon, Francis 157f. Bacon, Roger 147 Berg, Adam 45, 81, 99 (n. 44, 45), 116, 118 (n. 114), 147 Boaistuau, Pierre 125 Bonaventure 151 Boscius, Ioannes 1, 102, 154 (n. 71) Camerarius, Joachim 92 Camillo, Giulio 47, 56, 74, 152 Cardaneus, Michael 89f., 95, 116–119 Cardano, Girolamo 114 Castner, Gabriel 88

Castner, Jodocus 88 Charles the Great 18 Charles, Duke of Aumale 15 Chiara of Montefalco 125, 126 (n. 143), 154 Christoph, Duke of Württemberg 33 Cicero, Marcus Tullius 47, 62 (n. 96), 70, 151 Cock, Hieronymus 137 Cortoneus, Petrus 75, 87 Delrio, Martin 101 Descartes, René 157f. Elizabeth I, Queen of England 18 Ernst of Bavaria, Archbishop of Salzburg 90, 130–132 Ernst of Bavaria, Elector-Archbishop of Cologne 85f., 88 (n.209) Fabricius, Georg 159 Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor 15, 18, 19, 22, 24, 73 (n. 143), 177 Ferdinand II, Archduke of Austria 7 Ferdinand of Bavaria 22, 144 (n. 28), 146 Fernando Álvarez de Toledo y Pimentel, Duke of Alba 22 Fickler, Johann Baptist 2 (n. 3), 7, 9, 12– 15 (n. 45), 16 (n. 53), 18, 23 (n. 90), 24 (n. 99), 29, 115, 129f., 137, 145, 170 Fincel, Job 92, 95 (n. 22), 97 (n. 31) Francis I, King of France 47 Freyberg, Pankraz von 29, 38 Fuchs, Leonhard 57 Fugger family 29, 177 Fugger, Hans Jakob 2, 37, 41f., 53, 67, 77, 78 Galen 82, 125 (n. 141)

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Index of Historic Personages

Gessner, Conrad 57, 60, 113, 159–163, 177 Goltwurm, Caspar 92, 95 (n. 22) Goltzius, Hubert 45 Gravius, Valentinus 159, 160, 162 Habsburg family 15f., 18f., 22, 24, 117, 143f. Hagel, Balthasar 102f., 113f., 124 Hainhofer, Philipp 13 Hamer, Stefan 103, 109 Henry I, Duke of Guise 15 Henry II, Holy Roman Emperor 18 Henry III, King of France 15f. Hermes Trismegistus 82 Hippokrates 82, 125 (n. 141) Hoefnagel, Georg 68 Hundt, Wiguleus 76, 86 Irenaeus, Christoph 92, 95 (n. 22) Jamnitzer, Wenzel 144 Käppeler, Bartholomaeus 104 (n. 68), 130 Karl, Archduke of Styria 117f. Kircher, Athanasius 75 Klostermair, Martin 87f. Krafftheim, Crato von 177 Lasso, Orlando di 79 Lauther, Georg 78f., 86 Leonardo da Vinci 155, 156 (n. 78), 158 Ludwig IV, Holy Roman Emperor 14, 18 Ludwig X, Duke of Bavaria 22, 36 Ludwig, Duke of Württemberg 111 Luther, Martin 91 (n. 6), 97–99 (n. 41), 104 (n.67) Lycosthenes, Conrad 47f., 92, 113 (n. 95), 133 Manger, Michael 106f. Margarita of Città di Castello 126 (n. 143), 154 Maria Jakobäa of Baden, Duchess of Bavaria 24, 73 (n. 143) Martellus, Hugolin 118f. Mary I, Queen of Scotland 18 Maximilian I, Elector of Bavaria 29, 138 Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor 28, 36

Maximilian II, Holy Roman Emperor 25 (n. 102), 99 (n. 45), 143f., 146, 177 Melanchthon, Philipp 51, 101 (n. 58) Menzel, Philipp 84, 85 (n. 195) Mermann, Thomas 84, 85 (n. 195), 135 Mielich, Hans 134 (n. 174), 137 Müller, Ludwig 73, 85f. Mylaeus, Christopher 47f. Niphus, Augustinus 113 Oldekop, Johann 98 Ortenburg, Joachim von 110, 112 Ottheinrich, Elector Palatine 80, 85 (n. 197), 165f., 168 Paleotti, Gabriele 101 Palissy, Bernard 144, 160 (n. 99) Pantaleon, Heinrich 42 (n. 7), 52, 53 (n. 54), 76, 83 (n. 188) Paracelsus 76 (n. 159), 80–83, 85 (n. 197), 147–149, 158 Paré, Ambroise 125 Parrhasius 144, 160f. Perrière, Guillaume de la 47f. Plato 82, 148f., 157, 160f. Pliny the Elder 60, 102 (n. 62), 144, 155 Pracher, Jakob 111 Pythagoras 76 (n. 159), 82 Quiccheberg, Samuel 1–5, 12, 20–23, 34, 41–44, 51–60, 62, 63, 64, 68–79, 81, 83 (n. 188), 85 (n. 196), 86–88, 93, 133, 137–139, 143, 149–152, 176f. Quintilian 48, 70 Rabus, Johann Jakob 98 (n. 40), 100, 101 (n. 53) Ramus, Petrus 44f., 50–52, 57, 76 Rasch, Johannes 98 (n. 40), 99–101, 103 Refinger, Bartholomäus 32 Reisacher, Sebastian 52, 75–79, 85f., 88 Renata of Lorraine, Duchess of Bavaria 18 Reuchlin, Johannes 76 (n. 159), 77 Romano, Giulio 14 Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor 4, 84, 138 Salm, Niclas von 89f., 116

Index of Historic Personages Sandtner, Jakob 13 (n. 36), 26–28, 38, 137, 179 Scaliger, Julius Caesar 113 Staphylus, Friedrich 79, 98 (n. 40) Thanmüller, Johann 66, 78, 80, 84 (n. 192) Titian 14 Ulrich, Count of Montfort 163 Valerius Maximus 59 Vergil, Polydore 101 Weinher, Peter 34f. Wick, Johann Jakob 93, 107 (n. 76) Wilhelm IV, Duke of Bavaria 22, 24, 33, 36, 87

209

Wilhelm V, Duke of Bavaria 9, 14f., 22, 24, 30–32, 34, 84, 90, 99, 135, 146, 174, 181, 183 Wimpinaeus, Johann Albrecht 66, 75, 77– 86, 147f. Wittelsbach family 4f., 14–16, 18–20, 24– 26, 36, 80, 93, 106 (n. 72), 116, 124, 132f., 165 Witzel, Georg 98, 100f. Wolf, Hieronymus 29, 53 Zeuxis 144, 160f. Ziegler, Hieronymus 33, 87f. Zwichem, Viglius van 47 Zwinger, Theodor 44, 47f., 51–54, 56, 58f., 61–64, 69, 80 (n. 176)

Index of Subjects Alchemy 72, 74, 75 (n. 149), 85 (n. 196), 87, 114, 146f., 150, 158, 161f. Altötting 126 (n. 146), 129, 131, 164–166, 169–171 Ambras Kunstkammer 7, 9, 108 (n. 78) Apocalypticism 91 (n. 6), 92, 97 (n. 31), 98, 99, 100, 102, 104, 134 Aristotelianism 3, 49, 50, 51 (n. 45), 52 (n. 48), 54, 57, 58, 60–64, 69, 79, 100– 102, 113f., 145, 155, 157f., 167 Art and nature 11, 108 (n. 79), 124, 134, 139, 143, 148, 156–164 Astrology 87, 97, 99 (n. 45), 101 (n. 58) Authentication 94, 97, 109, 112, 119, 127–134, 136, 139, 143, 154–156, 162–164, 167–174 Aviary 67, 72f. Avvisi 89 (n. 2), 95, 111 (n. 92), 116f. Bavarian estates 5, 9, 36–38, 110 Bildmagie 140–142, 165–167, 172 Bladder stones 66, 90f., 115, 124–127, 130–132 Books in the Munich Kunstkammer 11, 16f., 23, 34, 137 Broadsheets 22, 93, 95–97, 103–115, 130–132, 134 (n. 174), 143f., 152, 167f. Cabbala 75, 77 Cartography 29, 32–34, 38, 66f., 86 Catholic Church 5, 14, 19, 38, 81, 85 (n. 197), 95 Catholic League 15 Centralization of princely power 5, 35–39, 66, 77, 88 Chorography 7, 11, 20, 26–28, 33f., 38, 137 Coins 16f., 83 (n. 188), 137 Comets 99–103

Confessionalization 38 Council of Trent 38 Counter Reformation 81, 93, 96, 101, 103, 116, 118, 120, 124, 128, 134, 139, 164, 169, 170f., 174 Crusade 28, 103, 124 Coats of arms 7, 25, 29, 34 Construction of Munich Kunstkammer building 2, 3 (n. 6), 8f., 20, 36, 42, 63 Courtly staff 66–68, 175 Craft objects 11, 17, 19, 21, 108, 123 Craftsmanship 11, 62 (n. 91), 64 (n. 104), 65, 67f., 148 Demons 76, 92, 94, 101, 155f. Diet at Ingolstadt (1563) 30 (n. 126), 37, 110 Documentary imagery 10f., 17, 22, 27, 13f., 134 (n. 174), 135–174 Dresden Kunstkammer 7, 177 Empiricism 4, 44, 57–74, 83, 107 (n. 76), 112–114, 145, 147, 175 Exotica 10–12, 17, 22, 43, 123 Fossils 28f., 115, 123, 155 Genealogy 17, 21f., 28, 34, 55, 58 (n. 74), 66, 79, 86, 134 (n. 174) Gold found in the Bavarian territory 31, 39 Grain showers 90, 105–116, 127, 130, 168 Gregorian calendar reform 89, 95, 116– 119 Handsteine 11, 163f. Historia 59–61, 64 Hofzahlamtsrechnungen 32 (n. 137), 41, 66 (n. 113), 67f., 79 (n. 166), 84 (n. 192), 85 (n. 196), 111f.

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Holy Roman Empire 18f., 37, 133 Imago Contrafacta 135f., 140, 171–174, 176 Imperial Chamber Court 110 Ingolstadt 1, 26–28, 30 (n. 126), 33f., 37f., 53 (n. 52), 66, 75–79, 82, 87f., 98 (n. 40), 99 (n. 44), 102, 110f., 113, 147 (n. 42),154 (n. 71) Jesuits 19, 38, 70, 79, 80f., 88–90, 95, 102f., 113, 116, 124, 135f., 154–156, 159 Kunstkammer inventory 2 (n. 3), 7, 9, 11, 15 (n. 48), 12f., 20, 23, 30f., 86, 89f., 93f., 105, 106 (n. 72, 73), 108, 115f., 129f., 137, 145, 153, 170 Life-casting 72, 143f., 146, 150, 159, 162, 164, 170, 173 Loci communes 45, 48–50, 53, 55 Lostage 118 Lullism 74, 78, 85 (n. 196) Lutheranism 37, 96–101, 103f., 110, 135, 155 (n. 72), 176 (n. 2) Mantua 14, 117 Materiality 5, 11, 54, 56, 58, 63, 90, 92, 94, 101, 108, 116f., 119–124, 127–130, 134, 145f., 164, 170 Mechanical arts 1, 59, 61f., 65, 146, 175, 177 Miracles 89–134, 155 (n. 72), 167–171 Mnemonics 55 (n. 68), 74, 151f. Mineral samples 10, 28–32, 38, 150 Mining 29f., 66, 84 (n. 191) Monstrous births 91, 95, 99, 102, 125, 133f., 136f., 144f. Munich court library 11, 32–34, 72 (n. 140), 78, 85, 92 (n. 8), 133 (n. 170) Natural magic 68 (n. 124), 74–76, 155, 158 Natural philosophy 61, 70, 92, 95–97, 99– 102, 113, 157f., 163

Naturalia and artificialia 10f., 54 Naturalistic representation 145, 159f., 162, 165–167, 173f. Numerology 74 Ortenburg, County of 105, 109f. Pearls found in the Bavarian territory 31f. Pharmacy 67, 72f., 84 Portraits 10–27, 38, 58 (n. 74), 72, 104 (n. 68), 134 (n. 174), 136f., 141 (n. 19), 166 Pragmatic knowledge 3, 38, 44, 52, 54– 56, 66, 68f., 73–75, 88, 122, 149, 152, 178 Prague Kunstkammer 7, 9, 138 Print collection 11, 16f., 23, 55, 72, 137, 151f. Prints 16f., 23, 28, 33, 35, 72, 137, 150– 153, 162, 167 Prodigies 5, 10, 12, 17, 32, 38, 89–119, 123–125, 129–134, 145, 170, 176 Protestantism 80f., 91–93, 96–104, 107f., 110, 115f., 118, 120, 127, 134, 141, 155 (n. 72), 169 Prudentia 57, 69f., 149 Reformation 91 (n. 6), 93 (n. 11), 96f., 100f., 104 (n. 67), 108 (n. 76), 127 Relics 5, 19f., 25f., 38, 94, 98, 119–129, 131–134, 169 Reproductions 4, 5, 10, 17, 19 (n. 74), 23, 26–28, 91, 95, 123, 130, 134, 137–146, 149–154, 156f., 159, 162–174, 176 Rhetoric 8, 12, 47–51, 55f., 70, 88, 131, 136, 139, 152, 160f., 167, 169, 173 Territorial administration 31–33, 36f., 43, 63, 66–69, 71, 133 Theatrum metaphor 1, 34, 42 (n. 7), 43f., 46–48, 51, 53f., 56–63, 69, 71, 74, 152 Thirty Years War 138 Votive practice 94, 126, 127–132, 142f., 163–171, 173f.