First edition of an important portrait book of the Popes by Tobias Stimmer and an example of his flourishing partnership with Bernhard Jobin and Johann Fischart; the Protestant leaning Fischart does not dwell on the content in his preface and instead provides a critical response to Vasari and a defence of German artists.
Panvinio’s original Latin text is found here with the German translation of Johann Fischart (1546-90) for the first time, the well-known Protestant satirist and the brother-in-law of the printer Jobin. Although signed by Jobin, the substantial foreword in German is attributed to Fischart by Thöne and Pinette (see Tanner below) and contains valuable information on German art and artists. It provides a fascinating critique on Vasari - his influential first illustrated edition had only recently been published, in 1568 - and though Fischart’s tone is unashamedly nationalistic, his preface is highly informative as an early comparative study of German and Italian artists.
“It contains valuable information about German art history and observations prompted by the first critical reading of Vasari’s Vite by a German. One central purpose of the preface was to defend German artists against perceived slander by the Florentine painter, architect and author. Fischart felt strongly that Vasari’s Vite diminished or simply ignored the German contribution to European art, and he wanted to draw attention to this slight. The preface not only gave Fischart the opportunity to rebut Vasari’s view of art history, it also provided him with a vehicle for praising German artists, particularly Hans Holbein, who had been a citizen of Basel and had made his career there. The special tribute to Holbein was included to please both Jobin’s benefactor, the bishop, and his mostly Protestant clientele in Basel … Fischart’s emphatic criticism of Vasari and his attempt to heighten the awareness of the quality of artists north of the Alps predates van Mander’s nationalist aspirations in his Schilder-boeck of 1604 by several decades.” (Glowa, 2013).
Tobias Stimmer’s fine woodcut portraits of the Popes contrast dramatically with the copper engraved portraits found in the 1568 Rome edition published by Lafréry, on which they are based, and are further enhanced by Stimmer’s elaborate mannerist frames. Stimmer’s use of frames to enclose his portraits may well have been influenced by their use in the illustrated Vasari referred to above.
Provenance: 18th? century round ink armorial stamp of ‘Bibliotheca Bernensis’ on title-page; a few neat 20th century pencil notes.
Title a little soiled at edges, some light finger marks at corners, a few minor stains.
VD16 P247. Adams P187. BMSTC (German), p. 673.
Josef Glowa, “The role of art in the cultural competition between Germans and Italians in the sixteenth century: Johann Fischart’s response to Vasari’s Vite (1568)” in Simiolus: Netherlands Quarterly for the History of Art, Vol. 37, No. 3/4 (2013–2014), pp. 187-203.
P. Tanner, Tobias Stimmer, Kunstmuseum Basel, 1984, pp. 226/227, no. 107.
