One of Only Three Known Copies from the Library of the Dukes of Bourbon-Parma

Missale Magdeburgense. Nuremberg, Georg Stuchs, 1503.

One of the great monuments of early German liturgical printing: the monumental Magdeburg Missal printed in Nuremberg by Georg Stuchs in 1503, preserved in its original binding and surviving in only three known copies. Measuring over 41 × 28 centimetres, the volume comes from the celebrated liturgical collection of the Dukes of Bourbon-Parma, regarded as the greatest collection of liturgica in the history of bibliophily.

Edition & Bibliographic Information

Π8 a-z6 τ6 ʃ6 ṫ6~ ť6 &6 Π12 aa-zz6 A-B6 C4 D6 = 8 leaves, 168 numbered leaves, 12 leaves, leaves 169–329 [recte: 328]. Leaf number 306 skipped in numbering but complete as issued. Double-column printing throughout in black and red.

With full-page coloured canon woodcut, large historiated T-initial depicting the Sacrifice of Isaac, and numerous red-printed ornamental initials and lombards in woodcut. Large folio (413 × 280 mm).

The edition constitutes the sixth overall printing of the Missale Magdeburgense. Its extraordinary scale reflects the liturgical function of the book itself: the priest was required to read and sing from the volume at some distance from the altar, necessitating exceptionally large and highly legible type.

Physical Description & Binding

Contemporary black calf over bevelled wooden boards on five raised bands with nineteenth-century handwritten spine label. Covers decorated with blind fillet frames enclosing central panels filled with lozenge foliage ornament. Preserved with renewed central and corner bosses and renewed clasps, together with several surviving leather page markers, some terminating in button forms. Housed in a black half-morocco chemise and slipcase lined in felt and signed:

“James Brockman”

Binding stabilized with discreet repairs and small restorations. First leaves slightly finger-soiled with faint marginal dampmark near the gutter; several leaves with marginal tears or small restored losses, frequently at the position of former leather page markers. Canon leaves lightly browned and finger-marked from liturgical use. Otherwise the strong paper remains remarkably clean and bright throughout.

Most remarkably, the volume survives in its original binding — an exceptional survival for a monumental working missal of this scale.

Georg Stuchs and the Great Age of Missal Printing

The Nuremberg printer Georg Stuchs ranks among the most important producers of liturgical books in early German printing. His workshop supplied dioceses across Central and Eastern Europe, extending as far as Hungary, Poland, and Sweden. Contemporary scholarship described him as:

“der bedeutendste Missaledrucker”

the most significant printer of missals of his age.

Stuchs owed much of his success to the exceptional quality of his typographic material. According to Strehler, his workshop employed seventeen different typefaces distinguished equally by beauty and readability. Printing such massive liturgical books also demanded extraordinary technical skill because of the continual alternation between black and red printing throughout the text.

Unlike many contemporary missals, the present Magdeburg Missal remains visually restrained. It lacks diocesan saints, episcopal heraldry, calendrical diagrams, and devotional kiss images. Instead, the decoration focuses almost entirely upon the canon section and its full-page crucifixion woodcut.

The Canon Woodcut and the Art of Devotion

The artistic and spiritual centre of the volume is the magnificent full-page crucifixion woodcut opening the canon of the Mass. Earlier canon woodcuts used by Stuchs in the 1490s had gradually evolved from relatively naïve compositions into increasingly monumental and emotionally refined images.

The present woodcut introduces yet another variant. The cross rises so high that it touches the upper border of the composition, itself transformed into a T-shaped Tau cross. Mary and John stand below, no longer overwhelmed by theatrical grief but quietly consoled. Unlike earlier versions, angels no longer collect Christ’s blood in chalices. Instead, the blood streams directly from the wounds in vivid red lines across the pale nearly colourless body of Christ.

The colouring is extraordinarily restrained and sophisticated: delicate green, yellow, red, and reddish brown applied with exceptional subtlety. The body of the dead Christ remains almost entirely uncoloured, while the crown of thorns alone appears vividly green — a striking symbol of hope and renewal.

Tenschert perceptively suggests that the missal may once have lain open for long periods at precisely this image within a sunlit late Gothic church. The canon leaves remain visibly more browned and finger-marked than the rest of the volume, bearing witness to centuries of devotional use.

From Magdeburg to Bourbon-Parma

At some point after the Reformation transformed the Archbishopric of Magdeburg into a Lutheran territory during the 1560s, the missal likely left ecclesiastical use and eventually entered the ministerial library of St. Mary’s Church in Uelzen. The prosperous Hanseatic town lay relatively close to Magdeburg, though within the Diocese of Verden, suggesting the book may have arrived there through processes of secularization.

During the nineteenth century, books from the Uelzen library were dispersed, allowing Duke Charles II of Parma to acquire the present missal for his extraordinary liturgical collection. That collection later passed to Duke Robert of Parma and became one of the legendary aristocratic libraries of Europe.

Provenance

First blank leaf with eighteenth-century ownership inscription:

“Ex Biblioth. Vlzenensi”

and slightly later circular stamp:

“Ministerial-Bibliothek Uelzen.”

Front pastedown with illustrated bookplate of Duke Charles II of Parma (1799–1883).
Later inherited by Duke Robert of Parma (1848–1907), Schwarzau am Steinfeld; his sale, Paris 1932, lot 101.

Literature

Not in Adams or Alès; Baumann no. 110; not in BM STC German; Bohatta no. 146; not in Graesse; Proctor 10964; cf. Schramm XVIII, pp. 9–10 and illustrations 613, 615, 619, 626; VD16 M 5587; Weale/Bohatta no. 574.

For a fuller scholarly description and illustrations, see Wunderkammer Catalogue 90, number 70:
Wunderkammer Catalogue 90, Volume II