Contents
Chapter 1—Introduction: The Pilgrims and their Project
Bernhard von Breydenbach and his Pilgrimage
The Role of Erhard Reuwich
Chapter 2—The Authority of the Artist-Author’s View
The Censorship Edict of 1485
Breydenbach’s Self-Presentation as an Author
The Artist as Eye-Witness
These Animals are Truly Depicted as We Saw Them
Gart der Gesundheit (Garden of Health)
The Artist-Author’s View in Petrarch and Van Eyck
Appendix
Chapter 3—Mediterranean Encounters: Lady Venice, Holy Land Heretics, and Crusade
Crusade in the 1480s and the Turks Tithe
Mainz Printing and the Selling of Crusade
The Peregrinatio’s Journey between Venice and Heresy
Other Heretics of the Holy Land
Venice Influenced, Venice as Influence
What They Took from Peter Ugelheimer and What They Left Behind
Chapter 4—The Map of the Holy Land: Art-Making as Cartography
Mappae Mundi
The Burchard Map of the Holy Land
Portolan Charts
The Pilgrims’ Itinerary and Itineraries of Other Travelers
Netherlandish Pictorial Space
Chapter 5—The View of Jerusalem: Perspectives on a Holy City
The Centripetal View from Mamluk Monuments
The Franciscan Indulgenced View
Putting Islam at the Forefront of a Christian View
The Meaning of al-Haram al-Sharif for the Pilgrimage of 1483–84
Coda: The View from the Jewish Quarter
Bibliography
Index
Elizabeth Ross is Associate Professor of Art History at the University of Florida.
“Bernhard von Breydenbach’s account of his pilgrimage from Venice
to the Holy Land and Egypt revolutionized book publishing when it
appeared in 1486. Erhard Reuwich’s accompanying woodcuts include
highly detailed, multiblock foldout plates. Thanks to Elizabeth
Ross’s beautifully written text, I feel like an armchair traveler
peering over the artist’s shoulder as he documents the exotic
people, cities, and creatures his party encountered. Part
detective, part ethnographer, and always a sensitive art historian,
Ross deftly explores the book’s creation, reception, and claims of
authority and truthfulness. This is the best study in any language
of the Peregrinatio in terram sanctam.”—Jeffrey Chipps
Smith,University of Texas at Austin
“One of the most popular books of the early printing industry,
Bernhard von Breydenbach's Peregrinatio in terram sanctam (Journey
to the Holy Land) was published in Mainz in 1486 and had many later
editions. Breydenbach and his painter/publisher companion, Erhard
Reuwich, set themselves ambitious goals. The book was intended, in
the first instance, as a practical guide for pilgrims to Jerusalem.
Equally important, as Ross discusses at length, was the embedded
argument for the return of the sacred lands of the East to
Christian control. The first in-depth analysis in English, this
study explores both the artistic and intellectual achievements of
the Peregrinatio. Beautifully produced, it includes large color
plates of the seven famous woodcut views of cities along the route
from Venice to the East that set a model for later chronicle books.
Especially rich is the chapter on Reuwich’s extraordinary foldout
combination map and topographical view of Jerusalem, presented here
as a synthesis of multiple sources, from portolan charts to
15th-century Netherlandish ‘world landscapes’—all of it distilled
via firsthand viewing. A valuable contribution to the Peregrinatio
literature.”—D. Pincus Choice
“This study is a monograph in the proper sense, a broadly cast and
well integrated interpretation of a major marking point in the
history of travel, geography, religious politics, and book
printing. Regarding the many unresolved problems—for example
Reuwich's pictorial sources, the precise circumstances of the
book's production, the texture of the narrative and its basis in
actual experience—Ross is fully informed and ventures no
unsupported conclusions. . . . The design [of Ross’s book] is
notably generous and the production exceptional, appropriate to the
study of an important monument in the history of the book. . . .
Above all there is the elegance and clarity of the writing:
measured, jargonfree, and often commanding as well. Not only is
this book a pleasure to read, but also the care taken in the
research and the soundness of the author's judgment are manifest
throughout.”—Peter Parshall The Medieval Review
“The persistence of scholarship on aspects of cross-cultural
encounters between Christian Europe and the Muslim East in the
medieval and early modern period is testament to an ongoing
interest in the multifarious ways in which Europeans engaged with,
represented, and perceived their eastern counterparts. Ross makes a
valuable contribution to scholarship in the field and concurrently
to our understanding of authority and representation in early
printed works.”—Amanda van der Drift Parergon
“Elizabeth Ross writes convincing arguments in elegant prose.
Moreover, her book is a refreshing, jargon-free study, dripping
with ideas and analysis.”—Kathryn M. Rudy The Historians of
Netherlandish Art
“Ross provides an engaging account of how text and image work
together in the Peregrinatio in terram sanctam. The narrative she
constructs, however, does more than simply tell us about the making
of a single book. It also suggests new ways for scholars to look at
how authors and artists collaborated in the earliest days of
European printing to construct meaning and authority through
carefully recorded, and meticulously packaged, experience.”—Eric J.
Johnson Sixteenth Century Journal
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