A Fifteenth-Century Woodcut of the Death of the Virgin in a Manuscript of Der Stachel der Liebe

• Autores: Richard S. Field
• Localización: Studies in iconography, ISSN 0148-1029, Nº. 24, 2003, págs. 71-137
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • Part of a special section presenting fresh scholarly approaches to the first printed images in Europe. The writer attempts to reconstruct the context into which a 15th-century woodcut of the Death of the Virgin was inserted and to evaluate that context for its relevance to Nuremberg. The woodcut is in a German manuscript from the first half of the 15th century (Rush Rhees Library, University of Rochester). The text of the manuscript is Der Stachel der Liebe (The Thorn of Love), prayers and meditations on the Passion, exhortations to identify with the pain of Christ's sufferings, and a long series of questions and answers intended to guide the reader in his or her quest for the contemplative life. The writer concludes that his goal of providing new evidence for the production of woodcuts in Nuremberg during the first third of the 15th century has not been sustained. Even the probable Nuremberg provenance of the Death of the Virgin does not prove its fabrication there.