Tobias Stimmer’s Dramatic Chronicle of the Fall of Jerusalem Bound in 1578 for a Landgrave of Hesse

Hegesippus. Egesippi / des Hochberühmten Fürtrefflichen Christlichen Geschichtschribers / fünff Bücher: Vom Jüdischen Krieg / vnd endlicher zerstörung der Herrlichen vnd gewaltigen Statt Jerusalem. Strasbourg, Theodosius Rihel, 1578.

An extraordinary survival of Reformation-era German book culture: the German translation of the Jewish War attributed to Hegesippus, magnificently illustrated with Tobias Stimmer woodcuts in bold contemporary hand-colour and preserved in one of the most beautiful and culturally complex German bindings of the sixteenth century — a monumental painted wax-mosaic binding dated 1578 and executed for a Landgrave of Hesse.

Edition & Bibliographic Information

)(6 A–T6 V4 X6 = 6 leaves, 118 numbered leaves, 5 leaves (index), 1 blank leaf. Printed with narrow marginal columns; index in double columns. Title printed in black and red.

Illustrated with a large multi-figural woodcut title border, 21 woodcut illustrations by Tobias Stimmer (some repeated), and printer’s device on final leaf, all contemporary hand-coloured. Folio (333 × 218 mm).

The text combines the German translation of Josephus’ Bellum Judaicum tradition with the Christianized version attributed to “Hegesippus,” translated and edited by the Alsatian pastor Conrad Lautenbach (1534–1595). Lautenbach had already translated Josephus into German in 1571; this edition, printed by Theodosius Rihel, sought to provide a more overtly Christian interpretation of the destruction of Jerusalem.

Physical Description & Binding

Contemporary brown calf binding dated 1578 over five raised bands, with roll-tool decoration in spine compartments and richly gilt armorial supralibros. The front cover bears the Hessian arms signed “I V S”; the rear cover the Württemberg arms signed “A H.” Both are enclosed within broad frames composed of twelve large panel stamps filled with interlaced strapwork painted in orange, brown, white, pink, turquoise, and dark green over a gold ground. Outer borders formed from triple gilt fillets. Entirely gilt and punched edges.

Preserved in a modern brown half morocco case lined with velour. Capitals and corners expertly restored; minor rubbing to colours; clasps lacking; occasional minimal offsetting from the colouring and slight dampstaining to final leaf margins.

The binding is among the most spectacular examples of German Renaissance wax-mosaic decoration. Its dazzling polychrome entrelacs ornament reflects direct French influence filtered through Protestant refugee networks extending from Lyon and Heidelberg into central Germany.

Tobias Stimmer and the Mannerist Apocalypse of Jerusalem

The volume’s extraordinary visual power derives equally from its contemporary hand-colouring. Tobias Stimmer’s woodcuts — originally prepared for Rihel’s illustrated Josephus editions — have here been coloured with unusual boldness and sophistication.

The anonymous colourist alternates between opaque blocks of violent red and yellow flame, delicate translucent washes over rocky landscapes, and strikingly mannerist effects, including lilac shield bosses and corpses rendered in blue-pink tonalities. The colouring transforms Stimmer’s already dramatic compositions into something approaching late sixteenth-century painted history scenes.

Protestant Germany and the Destruction of Jerusalem

The text emerged from the intensely confessional atmosphere of late sixteenth-century Protestant Germany. Conrad Lautenbach presented the destruction of Jerusalem as a terrifying “example of divine vengeance against sin,” asking why God had abandoned even His chosen people to annihilation.

The translation reflects broader Protestant attempts to create a distinctly German religious literature. Lautenbach emphasized that the work had been translated into a “common and current German language” for “all pious Germans in my beloved fatherland.”

His patronage network reveals a vast Protestant cultural axis stretching from Saxony through Hesse and Württemberg into Alsace and the French Huguenot diaspora. The book itself became an embodiment of these connections.

Johann von Sachsen, Protestant Networks, and French Influence

The binding provides remarkable evidence of these same international Protestant relationships. The Hessian arms are signed “I V S,” identifying the Marburg bookbinder Johann von Sachsen (or Sachse), whose tools were documented by Adolf Schmidt and Konrad Haebler. The Württemberg arms bear the monogram “A H,” almost certainly referring to the Leipzig binder Ambrosius Hirsch, who likely collaborated with Johann von Sachsen shortly before establishing his own workshop.

Most fascinating of all is the large painted entrelacs panel stamp. Scholars associated related tools with the Huguenot binder Jacques de Septgranges (Jacob van Sevenhoven), who fled Lyon after the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre of 1572 before settling in Heidelberg and Frankenthal.

The binding therefore becomes a material document of Protestant migration and artistic transmission: French ornamental forms displaced by religious violence and re-emerging in central German princely bookbinding.

A Dynastic Protestant Alliance

The combined Hessian and Württemberg arms reflect the dynastic alliance between the two Protestant princely houses. The most probable first owner was either Landgrave Ludwig IV of Hesse-Marburg (1537–1604) or Wilhelm IV of Hesse-Kassel (1532–1592), both connected through marriage to the Württemberg dynasty.

The binding’s political symbolism therefore extends far beyond mere heraldry. Against the great Habsburg Catholic axis stretching from Vienna to the Low Countries, the book embodies what Tenschert describes as a countervailing Protestant line running from Saxony through Hesse and Württemberg into the French Protestant diaspora.

Provenance

Probably Landgrave Ludwig IV of Hesse-Marburg (1537–1604) or Wilhelm IV of Hesse-Kassel (1532–1592).
Latin ownership inscription dated 1781 on front pastedown.
Baron H. de Bethmann I, Paris, 21 April 1923, lot 10 (catalogue clipping mounted on pastedown).
Bookplate of Cortlandt F. Bishop; his sale, 1948, lot 143 (£425).
Through the New York bookseller Emil Offenbacher to Cornelius John Hauck (1893–1967); Christie’s, New York, 26–28 June 2006, lot 214 ($72,000).

Literature

Not in Adams; Andresen III, p. 155, no. 155b (later edition); BM STC German 388; Chrisman, p. 84, A5.2.15; Muller III, 547, no. 63; VD16 H 1263.
For Tobias Stimmer: Bendel; Stimmer, Katalog; Thieme/Becker 32, pp. 57ff.

For a fuller scholarly description and illustrations, see Wunderkammer Catalogue 90, lot 93: Wunderkammer Catalogue 90, Volume II