{"product_id":"georg-ruxner-s-famous-tournament-book","title":"Georg Rüxner’s Famous Tournament Book","description":"\u003ch3\u003eThe First Edition of the Great German Tournament Book with Hundreds of Woodcuts in a Contemporary Pigskin Binding\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRüxner, Georg. \u003cem\u003eAnfang, ursprung, unnd herkommen des Thurnirs in Teutscher nation […]\u003c\/em\u003e. Simmern, Hieronimus Rodler, 1530.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe great printed monument to the culture, mythology, and self-image of the German knightly nobility, issued in 1530 at the court of Duke Johann II of Palatinate-Simmern and illustrated with hundreds of woodcuts depicting tournaments, heraldry, dynastic ceremony, and aristocratic spectacle.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePrinted in the monumental Neudörffer Dürer-Fraktur typeface associated with the artistic world of Emperor Maximilian I and the \u003cem\u003eTheuerdank\u003c\/em\u003e, Rüxner’s \u003cem\u003eTurnierbuch\u003c\/em\u003e attempted nothing less than a complete history of German tournaments from their legendary origins under Henry the Fowler to the final great tournament at Worms in 1487. The work became one of the foundational visual and genealogical books of the German aristocratic imagination.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eEdition \u0026amp; Physical Description\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLarge folio (approximately 319 × 208 mm).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIllustrated with a large historiated title initial, full-page imperial arms, a double-page folding plate, 135 mostly half-page but occasionally two-thirds-page and full-page woodcuts, approximately 247 heraldic woodcuts, and the printer’s device, all executed in woodcut. Numerous large blank initial spaces remain unfilled, preserving the appearance of the original issue.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eContemporary sixteenth-century pigskin binding over wooden boards on six raised bands, richly blind-tooled with roll stamps and fillets, retaining engraved brass cornerpieces and clasps. The present copy survives in exceptionally fresh condition overall and remains one of the finest preserved examples of this notoriously rare first edition.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch2\u003eA Final Self-Portrait of Chivalric Germany\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBy the time Rüxner’s book appeared in 1530, the great age of medieval tournaments already belonged increasingly to memory.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe last documented tournament described in the volume had taken place at Worms more than forty years earlier, and the social foundations of the old tournament nobility were beginning to fracture under the pressures of territorial politics, urban expansion, bureaucratic government, and new forms of aristocratic legitimacy.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRüxner’s response was to preserve the entire world ceremonially in print.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe book does not merely recount tournaments. It defines who belonged to the aristocratic order itself. Through genealogies, heraldic sequences, participant lists, coats of arms, and elaborate historical narratives, the \u003cem\u003eTurnierbuch\u003c\/em\u003e attempted to stabilize noble identity at the very moment when that identity was becoming historically unstable.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn this sense, the volume functions simultaneously as chronicle, heraldic archive, aristocratic theatre, and social manifesto.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch2\u003eDuke Johann II and the Court at Simmern\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe project emerged directly from the artistic ambitions of Duke Johann II of Palatinate-Simmern, known as “Hans vom Hunsrück.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAlthough ruler of only a relatively small territory, Johann II descended directly from King Rupert of the Palatinate and maintained close political and dynastic connections to the Habsburg world of Maximilian I. Like Maximilian, he cultivated literature, print culture, genealogy, and knightly representation as instruments of political prestige.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAt Simmern he established a court printing press under the direction of his secretary Hieronymus Rodler. Between 1530 and 1535 the press produced several lavishly illustrated works devoted largely to aristocratic and chivalric subjects, of which the \u003cem\u003eTurnierbuch\u003c\/em\u003e was the first and most celebrated.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe typography itself consciously evokes Maximilian’s great propaganda books. The text is printed in Neudörffer’s Dürer-Fraktur, among the earliest major Fraktur types developed in the wake of the \u003cem\u003eTheuerdank\u003c\/em\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch2\u003eGeorg Rüxner and the Invention of Tournament History\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRüxner introduces himself proudly as “Georg Rüxner genannt Hierusalem Eraldo und Khündiger der Wappen” — herald and knower of arms. He claimed to have translated and corrected earlier tournament traditions from older Low German sources allegedly supplied by Johann Kirchberger of Magdeburg.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eModern scholarship has shown that the earliest tournaments described in the book are largely fictional constructions. Yet from the fifteenth tournament onward the material becomes considerably more historically reliable. This mixture of invention and documentation was entirely characteristic of Renaissance aristocratic historiography, where genealogy, memory, prestige, and political legitimacy often mattered more than strict factual accuracy.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRüxner’s larger purpose was clear: to demonstrate continuity between the medieval tournament nobility and the aristocratic order of the sixteenth century.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch2\u003eThe Woodcuts\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe extraordinary visual richness of the volume was central to its prestige.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe double-page folding plate presents the theatrical chaos of a tournament melee unfolding across a crowded city square, while the remaining woodcuts depict combats, feasts, processions, heraldic ceremonies, mounted encounters, and aristocratic festivities. The illustrations are generally attributed to Duke Johann II himself and remain of major importance for the study of Renaissance tournament culture, costume, armour, and ceremonial life.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAlthough many cuts are reused repeatedly throughout the book, this repetition itself mirrors the ritualized and codified nature of tournament culture. Heraldry becomes a visual language of aristocratic continuity.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe approximately 247 coats of arms further transform the volume into a printed heraldic theatre of the Holy Roman Empire.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch2\u003eProvenance\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFrom the collection of Hans Dedi (1918–2016), chairman of the Quelle-Schickedanz group, acquired at the Tenner sale in Heidelberg, 6 May 1980, lot 829. The present binding appears originally to have belonged to a work by Melanchthon, traces of whose name remain partially legible on the spine.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch2\u003eLiterature\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBM STC German 760; Brunet IV, 1471; Ebert 19557; \u003cem\u003eFünf Jahrhunderte\u003c\/em\u003e 79; Graesse VI\/1, 188; Muther 1783; Neufforge 425; Rahir 625; VD16 R 3541; Vinet 2037.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFor a fuller scholarly description and illustrations, see \u003cem\u003eWunderkammer\u003c\/em\u003e Catalogue 90, number 43:\u003cbr\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/issuu.com\/heribert-tenschert\/docs\/katalog_90_vol_1_web?utm_source=chatgpt.com\"\u003eWunderkammer Catalogue 90, Volume I\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Atelier Zweig Rare Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46860607848636,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0736\/1285\/3436\/files\/Ruxner-1.png?v=1779492351","url":"https:\/\/atelierzweig.com\/products\/georg-ruxner-s-famous-tournament-book","provider":"Atelier Zweig Rare Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}