Missale secundum ritum Augustensis by MISSAL. Use of Augsburg - 1555

Dillingen: S. Mayer, 1555. THE CANON IS PRINTED ON VELLUM. The full-page Crucifixion, facing initial "T" and circular Paschal Lamb are FINELY COLORED BY A CONTEMPORARY HAND. Contemporary pigskin over beveled wooden boards (worn). A Biblical bust portrait roll forms the outer and inner rectangles; the center has two horizontal repetitions of a Virtue roll with a triple rule cross between; spine blind-ruled, 18th-century manuscript title, one catch.  For this luxury production, Matthias Gerung supplied two full-page woodcuts, two full-page frames, eleven oblong blocks, sixty-one text blocks and four sets of initials.  His undated Crucifixion opens the Canon. Dated 1555, his magnificent full-page block of the Virgin and Child flanked by Augsburg's patron saints, Ulrich and Afra, occupies the title verso. His title frame incorporates a landscape, allegories, the Prince Bishop's arms and vestments, Risen Christ and portraits of Ulrich and Afra. Gerung's full-page architectural frame appears eleven times, each with a different oblong biblical scene in the bottom panel. His sixty-one text woodcuts narrating the life of Christ combine two suites. In one, the scenes fit into decorative cartouches. In the other, the scenes and borders are integral.  Gerung designed four sets of highly ornamental initials for the Missal. The two larger sets are factotums, filled with inserted grotesques, swags, scenes, figures, etc., often obscuring the letter itself. To ensure the accuracy of the priest's oral performance, the artist tucked a roman version of the letter into each factotum's frame. One of the smaller sets shares this convention.  THIS IS THE PRINTER'S "MOST TECHNICALLY AND ARTISTICALLY SIGNIFICANT WORK" (Bucher, tr.) AND THE ARTIST'S MOST IMPORTANT SINGLE EFFORT IN WOODCUT. The 1555 the Peace of Augsburg allowed Prince-Bishop Otto Truchseß von Waldburg to commission this magnificent service book, employing the stridently Catholic printer, Sebald Mayer (d. 1576), and the stridently anti-Catholic painter and miniaturist, Matthias Gerung (c. 1500-70). It is Mayer's first folio - his first use of these stately types and of the four full-page blocks. It is his most extensive use of the factotum materials. Gerung illuminated the celebrated Ottheinrich manuscript Bible (1530/2), designed tapestries, decorated churches and executed portraits. A good copy (scattered soiling and foxing, two leaves slightly wormed touching woodcuts). ¶Weale, Bibliographia liturgica Catalogus missalium ed. Bohatta 109; Bucher, Bibliographie...Dillingen 20; Hollstein's German...Woodcuts X: 55,73-7; Dodgson, Catalogue of Early German...Woodcuts II: 213,2 & 218,14; VD 16 M 5556.