Beschreibung:

CHRONICLE of Nuremberg 1449-1603: Ein schönne unndt kürtze Cronica alter ergangenen geschichten Insonderhait von der kayselichen Reichstat Nurmberg ; SCHEMBART BOOK; Nurmbergische Rahts Wahll , register of officeholders and elected members of the Nuremberg council from 1447-1603, in German, illustrated manuscript on paper, Nuremberg, 1603 A splendid authorial copy of a 1603 chronicle of the city of Nuremberg combined with pictorial presentation of its most celebrated public spectacle and precise records of the city's civic appointments and government. The Schembart Lauf was a carnival parade for Shrove Tuesday that originated in 1349 as a privilege granted by the emperor Charles IV to the butcher's guild of Nuremberg. Sometimes riotous (the dancers would run through the streets in extravagant costumes brandishing lances and bunches of leaves that concealed fireworks), the event was banned in 1539. Books recording the carnival's participants and their different costumes from year to year started to be made almost immediately after the Schembart Lauf was banned in an attempt to get the festival restored. 325 x 195mm, 440 leaves (119 blank and 2 with pasted-on extensions), complete, foliation 1-439, skipping a leaf after 188, twenty-four pages painted in full colour showing a continuous procession beneath panels of text, two of these pages with fold-out extensions, sixty-four illustrations of full-length masked and costumed figures identified by coats of arms and beneath text panels outlining the carnival that year (creasing, tears and some losses from lower edges of ff.179-188 and 283-314, one of the fold-out extensions mostly lacking). Contemporary panelled pigskin stamped in blind, tools including Annunciation, Baptism of Christ, Crucifixion and Resurrection, brass cornerpieces and two fore-edge clasps and catches (rubbing at spine-bands, small leather loss in spine and split at head and foot, lacking one clasp), brown cloth box with leather lettering-piece. Provenance : Wilhelm Kress von Kressenstein (1560-1640), engraved armorial bookplate inside upper cover — Princely House of Liechtenstein, their shelfmark on upper paste-down; purchased from H.P. Kraus 1956 — Paul and Marianne Gourary, their sale, Christie's New York, 12 June 2009, lot 314. Content : 'A fine and short chronicle of tales of long ago especially about the imperial Reichstadt of Nuremberg, when and where it was given the name, and how it was at first, also of its destruction and reconstruction and what sort of wars it went through, I have briefly assembled and as best I could manage and see I have written', chronicle of Nuremberg from its foundation to 1603 ff.1-224, including an illustrated account of a military procession that came through the city on July 30 1592 ff.178v-188bis; verse chronicle on the origin of the Schembart Lauf ff.281-282, followed by the illustrations and text for the Schembart costumes from 1449-1539 and the float for 1539 ff.283-315; account of events of 1539 ff.316r Nuremberg Rahts Wahll , records of the members elected to the town council 1477-1603 ff.324-335; entries from the register of the Greater and Lesser Councils of Nuremberg recording all those nominated and appointed members and office-holders from 1560-1603 ff.343-381; table with the names of the officers from 1596-1603 ff.418v-422; excerpt from the oath of office to be read in full council ff.430-432. Folios 224v-280v, 317-323v, ff.335v-342v, 381v-418, 422v-429v and 433v-439v blank.