Hans VI. Tucher, Reise in das Gelobte Land: 1. Druckausgabe, Augsburg: Schönsperger 1482

Description

Hans VI Tucher (1428-1491), who came from an important Nuremberg patrician family, had visited the Holy Land with his council colleague Sebald Rieter (1426-1488) and had written a travelogue which was to become extremely popular in the late Middle Ages. Tucher commissioned the Augsburg printer Johannes Schönsperger with the first edition of the book. The first edition with its initial in the Mayflower pattern and the Schwabacher typeface (forerunner of the Fraktur script) was a beautifully looking book but it was not carefully executed: it had many misprints and minor interventions in the text not approved by the author. The passage in which Tucher's office as Nuremberg councillor was mentioned was omitted in the opening section. Tucher, who was not amused by such things because he attached considerable value to the estate he belonged to, immediately distanced himself from the first edition. Immediately after its publication, Tucher commissioned the Nuremberg printer Konrad Zeninger to produce a new, "authorised" edition. In an unusually long colophon he justified the new edition with the shortcomings of the first. Such a public reprimand is probably unique in the incunabula period. Schönsperger, who had to fear permanent financial damage, reacted quickly. Within a few weeks, he launched a version on the market in which he incorporated all the corrections from the Nuremberg authorised edition. Three editions of Tucher's travel report had been published by August 1482.