Early XV century Block book Ars Memorandi Page illustrating the Gospel of St Matthew
Matthew the Apostle or Saint Matthew) was, according to the Bible, one of the twelve Apostles of Jesus and according to Christian tradition, one of the four Evangelists. The Ars memorandi addresses young theologians of moderate the help of illustrations, the block-book is intended to serve as an aide-memoire to the content of the four Gospels. In contrast to the Biblia Pauperum with c. 14 editions, the Ars memorandi was printed in only three editions (the first of which in three issues) with only very minor differences. However, the useful aidememoire was adapted by the pioneers of printing with movable type. Incunabula editions with copies of the illustrations of the Ars memorandi include, for example, the Memorabiles evangelistarum figurae, which combines the images with mnemotechnical verses by Petrus of Rosenheim. It was republished in several editions under the title Rationarum Evanglistarum at Thomas Anshelm’s press in Pforzheim between 1502 and 1522. Images and text are presented opposite one another so as to be mutually explicable. The texts, on the left-hand side contain short surveys of some chapters of each Gospel, while the right-hand side shows a full-page image of the respective Evangelist’s additional decoration comprises the chapter numbers and is intended as a guide to remembering the principal characters and subjects of the relevant Gospel. Mnemotechnical tools of this kind go back to the Venetian Jacobus Publius and were especially popular with the the members of this order it was important to memorise each chapter of the Bible in order to quote from the Scriptures in sermons and places where copies of the Ars memorandi are found imply a Southern German origin for this genre. Manfred von Arnim suggests the city of Nuremberg for our book, after having compared the quality of the woodcuts, the draperies and the crosshatchings with the woodcut of Creussners’s Simon Tridentinus
Size: 3021px × 4066px
Photo credit: © 19th era / Alamy / Afripics
License: Royalty Free
Model Released: No
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