Walter Isenberg’s Illustrated Chronicle of the Rise of the Habsburgs
A Rare Augsburg Woodcut Book Celebrating the Election of Charles V
Isenberg, Walter. Wie die mechtige Erbkünigreich vnnd Fürstentumb Hispania, Hunngern vnnd Gelldern […] zu den loblichen heüsern Osterreich vn[d] Burgundi kommen sein […] herrn Karl Erwölten Römischen vn[d] Hispanischen Künigen. Augsburg, Johann Schönsperger, 1520.
An exceptionally rare Augsburg woodcut chronicle printed in 1520 to commemorate the election of Charles V as King of the Romans, tracing the dynastic rise of the Habsburgs from Burgundy and Maximilian I to the new ruler of a European empire.
Produced by Johann Schönsperger, the printer of Maximilian’s monumental Theuerdank, the book belongs directly to the final phase of the great imperial propaganda projects associated with the Habsburg court. Richly illustrated with 23 large woodcuts and conceived as a dynastic memorial work, it stands among the most ambitious small-format historical publications produced in Augsburg immediately after the death of Maximilian I.
Edition & Physical Description
Folio (approximately 272 × 191 mm), printed with generous margins and retaining deckle edges (témoins).
Illustrated with a large title woodcut and 23 text woodcuts printed from 19 blocks, together with ornamental initials, paragraph marks with penwork-like extensions, and decorative typographical flourishes recalling the visual language of the Theuerdank.
Modern vellum binding with manuscript spine title and two leather ties. The present copy survives remarkably broad-margined and virtually untrimmed, preserving the full visual effect of the original Augsburg printing.
Johann Schönsperger and the Afterlife of Maximilian
The book was issued only months after the death of Emperor Maximilian I in January 1519.
Johann Schönsperger had served as Maximilian’s printer and had recently produced the first editions of the emperor’s great autobiographical chivalric epic, the Theuerdank. The present volume consciously continues that visual and political tradition.
The author, Walter Isenberg of Memmingen, had served as one of Maximilian’s military secretaries. In the unstable political transition following the emperor’s death, the work was dedicated to Maximilian’s grandson Charles V, newly elected King of the Romans in Frankfurt in 1519. The chronicle was intended not merely as history but as a dynastic legitimization of Habsburg rule across Europe.
Ironically, Charles himself could scarcely read the text. Raised in Flanders, he spoke Dutch, French, and Latin far more fluently than German.
The Rise of the Habsburg Dynasty in Woodcuts
The narrative unfolds through a remarkably economical yet sophisticated sequence of woodcuts covering four generations of Habsburg dynastic history.
The story begins with Charles the Bold of Burgundy recounting his own life to his daughter Mary of Burgundy. From there the illustrations move through the marriage alliance with England, the arrival of Margaret of York in Flanders, tournaments, hunting scenes, military campaigns, and finally the death of Charles at the Battle of Nancy in 1477.
Maximilian then enters the narrative. We see the young archduke seeking permission to marry Mary of Burgundy, his arrival in the Netherlands, the conflicts with the Flemish uprisings, and later the marriage negotiations between Philip the Fair and Joanna of Castile. The final sequence introduces the next generation: Charles V travelling to Spain, Ferdinand to the Low Countries, and finally Charles enthroned at Frankfurt at the conclusion of the volume.
The reuse of certain woodblocks throughout the cycle was not simply practical economy but a deliberate visual strategy. Similar scenes recur across generations to reinforce the legitimacy and continuity of Habsburg succession. Only Charles V remains visually singular: he appears alone at both the opening and conclusion of the book, the entire dynastic narrative converging upon him.
Augsburg Woodcut Illustration
Particularly striking is the monumental title woodcut.
Charles V appears half-length holding sceptre and wearing the collar of the Order of the Golden Fleece above the imperial eagle, framed by a dense heraldic border of imperial arms. The design is stylistically connected to the circle of Hans Weiditz and is noticeably finer than the remaining cuts in the book.
The other illustrations, executed by unknown Augsburg masters, retain the energetic narrative clarity characteristic of late Maximilian-period woodcut production. Their combination of dynastic ceremony, warfare, courtly festivity, and political symbolism transforms the volume into a visual history of Habsburg Europe itself.
Rarity
The work survives in only a very small number of copies and was already considered rare by the eighteenth century.
This is the only edition ever printed. Modern scholarship continues to describe the book as scarcely obtainable today.
Literature
Geisberg 799–816; Graesse III, 431; Hiler 468; Lipperheide Cg 13; Muther 957; Schottenloher, Bibliographie III, 31604; VD16 I 346; Zapf II, 144.
For a fuller scholarly description and illustrations, see Wunderkammer Catalogue 90, number 41:
Wunderkammer Catalogue 90, Volume I
