The Great Chronicle of the Swiss Confederation with over 2,200 Hand-Coloured Woodcuts

Stumpf, Johannes. Gemeiner Loblicher Eydgnoschaft Stetten / Landen vnd Völckern Chronicwirdiger thaaten beschreibung… Zürich, Froschauer, 1586.

One of the greatest illustrated chronicles of Renaissance Europe and the foundational printed history of the Swiss Confederation: Johannes Stumpf’s monumental Schweizerchronik, presented here in the greatly expanded second edition of 1586 and in an extraordinarily lavish contemporary hand-coloured copy with more than 2,200 woodcut illustrations, maps, coats of arms, city views, genealogies, and historical scenes almost entirely illuminated by hand throughout.

Printed by the celebrated Froschauer press in Zürich, the work stands among the supreme achievements of sixteenth-century historical publishing and remains one of the most ambitious illustrated national chronicles ever produced.

Edition & Bibliographic Information

**8 †6 ††6 †††4 ††††6 a-z6 A-Z6 Aa-Zz6 AA-ZZ6 AAa-ZZz6 AAA-GGG6 = 29 [instead of 30] leaves, 732 numbered leaves. Without the blank leaf **8. Printed with narrow marginal columns throughout; index in three columns. Title printed in red and black.

Illustrated with coloured printer’s device on title, 23 maps including 8 full-page and 5 folding maps, more than 2,200 woodcut illustrations including over 1,800 coats of arms, together with a full-page coloured genealogical tree of the Ottoman emperors, additional tinted genealogical tables and chronological diagrams, and numerous ornamental initials. Nearly all illustrations contemporary hand-coloured throughout. Folio (328 × 212 mm).

Contemporary dark brown calf over bevelled wooden boards on five blind-stamped raised bands, decorated with fillets, roll-tools, and individual stamps, with pierced and chased brass centre- and corner-pieces and two engraved brass clasps. Housed in a brown half-morocco case with gilt spine title.

The spine and boards professionally restored; title remounted; several following leaves repaired at margins; occasional light browning or brown spotting. Despite these restorations, the copy remains an exceptionally imposing and visually dazzling survival.

The Foundation of Swiss Historiography

First published in 1547–48, Stumpf’s Schweizerchronik became:

“die erste und jahrhundertelang einzige gedruckte eidgenössische Geschichte”

the first and for centuries the only printed history of the Swiss Confederation.

More than merely a chronicle, the work functioned as a cultural and political statement of Swiss identity during the age of Reformation and confessional division. It systematically described the cantons, cities, peoples, battles, dynasties, and territories of the Confederation with unprecedented breadth and visual richness, thereby laying what later scholars called the very foundation of Swiss historiography itself.

The present 1586 edition belongs to a later historical moment. Johannes Stumpf’s son, Johann Rudolf Stumpf (1530–1592), revised and expanded the chronicle after the deaths of the great generation of Swiss humanists and reformers. He extended the historical narrative through the year of publication itself, creating a work simultaneously retrospective and contemporary.

The Froschauer Press and the Art of the Illustrated Chronicle

The printing was executed once again by the famed Zürich press “in der Froschow,” though now under new ownership following the death of Christoph Froschauer’s nephew. Unlike the earlier edition, which appeared in two large volumes, the 1586 chronicle compressed the material into a single monumental folio printed in smaller type in order to conserve space.

The visual programme remained astonishing in scale.

Although the number of illustrations was reduced by nearly half from the earlier edition, the volume still contains more than 2,200 woodcuts — an almost unimaginable density of imagery. Numerous worn or repetitive blocks were replaced with new designs. Portrait medallions cut by Rudolf Wyßenbach after Lyonnais coin imagery by Bernard Salomon were introduced, while the famous bird’s-eye view of Zürich was replaced by a dramatic woodcut of the siege of the city.

Maps, heraldry, city views, dynastic trees, battle scenes, and ethnographic images together transform the book into a vast visual encyclopedia of Swiss historical memory.

A Fully Illuminated Renaissance Chronicle

What elevates the present copy into an object of exceptional importance is the near-complete contemporary hand-colouring carried out throughout the volume with remarkable consistency and care.

The colouring not only heightened the visual splendour of the book but compensated for the increasingly worn woodblocks reused from earlier editions. Heraldic devices in particular acquire immense additional significance through colour, since many coats of arms survive nowhere else in comparable visual form. Tenschert notes that the colouring appears to have been executed with careful consultation of other heraldic sources, greatly enhancing the documentary value of the volume.

The result is not merely an illustrated chronicle but an illuminated printed monument situated somewhere between Renaissance historiography, cartography, heraldry, and manuscript tradition.

Switzerland, Europe, and the Ottoman World

Though centred upon the Swiss Confederation, the chronicle situates Swiss history within a far broader European framework. It opens with geographical descriptions of Europe, abbreviated chronicles of Germany, and extensive discussions of France before turning to Switzerland itself.

The inclusion of the coloured genealogical tree of the Ottoman emperors further reflects the sixteenth century’s fascination with imperial succession, geopolitical conflict, and the expanding global consciousness of Renaissance Europe.

Literature

Not in Adams; Barth 10217; BM STC German 839; Brunet V, 572; Ebert 21873; Feller/Bonjour, pp. 180ff.; Graesse VI/1, 516; Leemann-van Elck 1940, pp. 106ff. and 188; Lonchamp, Suisse 2819; Schottenloher, Bibliographie III, 33570b; VD16 S 9865; Vischer C 1090; Wyss, pp. 193ff.
On the illustrations: Leemann-van Elck 1935; Shirley 86 (world map); Weisz.

For a fuller scholarly description and illustrations, see Wunderkammer Catalogue 90, number 65:
Wunderkammer Catalogue 90, Volume II