Hans VI. Tucher, Reise in das Gelobte Land: Autograph, Fragment II, um 1480

Description

The fragment consisting of eight sheets originally belonged to the Coburg manuscript (LB, Ms. Sche. 18) with the popular travelogue from the Holy Land by the Nuremberg patrician Hans VI Tucher (1428–1491). It contains the beginning of the second part, i.e. the departure to the Saint Catherine's Monastery and the itinerary from 5 to 24 September 1480. This is seamlessly followed by the text in Coburg. There's no dispute that this is a theft. The entire manuscript had probably reached Coburg with Sebastian Schedel's book collection (1494-1541), a descendant of Hartmann Schedel (1440-1514). It was acquired around 1690 by the Privy Councillor and Coburg Chancellor Johann Conrad von Scheres, called Zieritz. The Nuremberg sheets, separated from the manuscript before 1960, appeared in antiquarian bookshops in 1985 and were acquired by the Dr Lorenz Tucher Foundation in 1994. This fragment contains the earliest stage of the text in the history of its origin. It does not begin with the usual invocation of the Trinity of God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God is followed by Mary and the Nuremberg city patron saint Saint Sebald. Although this introduction fell victim to editing in the next editorial stage, the significance of the veneration of Sebald in Nuremberg around 1480 is attested to and Tucher's efforts to promote it.