WANCKEL, Nicolaus.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Ein kurtze vermerckung der heyligen Stet des heyligen landts, in und umb Jerusalem, First and only edition of one of the first Franciscan pilgrimage guides to the Holy Land, listing the holy sites in Jerusalem and Palestine, besides the regulations of the knights of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The work is scarce in commerce: we have only traced one copy in auction records. Our online institutional search returns fifteen locations.Nicolaus Wanckel was an Observant Franciscan from southern Germany; this work was printed seven years after his stay in the Holy Land. It is intended as a practical travel guide, consisting of a preface, an appraisal of Jerusalem, and chapters on the holy places, pilgrim routes, and rules for the Knights of the Holy Sepulchre. Wanckel lived for a year as custodian in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre before he was taken into custody by the Egyptian Sultan and brought to Cairo. He was to become a messenger to the pope regarding the conflict between the Knights of Rhodes and the Sultanate. Through the detailed woodcut, Wanckel represents Jerusalem as the centre of a circular cosmos and emphasizes the role of the Franciscans there. Contextualized in this Holy Land guide, the chain of the rosary becomes a cosmological circle that symbolizes a heavenly Jerusalem with "pronounced eschatological connotations. The presence of St Francis in the upper right-hand corner of the image does allude to the Franciscan custodia Terrae Sancta. Moreover, the stigma

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