Annales, non tam de Augustorum vitis, quam aliorum Germanorum gestis.   (Mainz, Johann Schöffer, August 1521.

£2,500 · Offered by Maggs Bros Ltd

First edition of the medieval chronicle of Regino, Abbot of Prüm. It originally ended in 906 but was continued until 967 by a Trier monk, probably Adalbert von Magedeburg. The editor, humanist, cartographer and jurist Sebastian von Rotenhan (see ADB XXIX, 299 ff.), whose impressive woodcut portrait is printed towards the end of the work, dedicated his edition to Emperor Charles V. “Abbot Regino of Prüm (d.915) was the last great historian of the Carolingian Empire, which spanned around a million square kilometres of continental western Europe during the eighth and ninth centuries. His Chronicle is the essential account of the empire’s collapse, while its brief continuation by Adalbert, archbishop of Magdeburg, is one of the key accounts of the rise to power of the Ottonians, the first great German dynasty” (Maclean). The present work is wonderfully illustrated. Alongside Anton Woensam’s four-part title border with scenes, at the foot, from the story of Lucretia, are two crisp, full-page woodcuts at the end of the work, showing a richly detailed half-length portrait of Rotenhan, and his coat of arms opposite (not in Muther). While the arms have been attributed to Dürer (see Passavant, III, no.319) Heller categorises them and the portrait under ‘Incorrectly attributed works’ (see Heller, Dürer , II, no.2144, under ‘Blätter, welche irrig zu den Dürerischen Kipferstichen gerechnet werden’). In a close study of the style in this and other works, Else Thormählen has instead attribu

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