Doctoral Diploma

Stadtarchiv Nürnberg, E29/I, 964
Doctoral Diploma of the University of Bologna for Sixtus Tucher, 1485

Sixtus Tucher (1459-1507) was one of the two sons of Anton I Tucher, the Vorderster Losunger, i.e. head of the Nuremberg city regiment. His education and upbringing did not focus on being a merchant, Sixtus in fact embarked on the career of a clergyman and scholar. First he attended the University of Heidelberg, then he went to Italy to study both laws – as was customary at the time. Here he attended the universities of Padua, Pavia and finally Bologna, where he graduated on 2 December 1485. His further career took him to Ingolstadt as a professor and finally back to his home town of Nuremberg as provost of St. Lorenz.

Sixtus Tucher paid a lot for his doctorate. The Tucher coat of arms can still be seen below the centre line on this magnificent piece with a colourful floral decorative initial. The golden letters of the invocation line "IN CHRISTI NOMINE AMEN. GLO[riosa]" are highlighted in purple, green and blue. Above it is the magnificent Christ monogram IHS.

Like numerous other parchment documents in the Tucher family archives, this one had also been severely shrunk and stuck together by the effects of heat during the Second World War. It was carefully unfurled in an elaborate restoration process at the Cologne University of Applied Sciences. As a result, it still bears witness to its former owner’s pride in his juris doctorate, which he obtained with distinction.

Antonia Landois