University of Virginia Library

A Volume from the Library of Sebald Pirckheimer: Libri Impressi Cum Notis Manusciptis, VIII
by
Curt F. Bühler [1]

The Pierpont Morgan Library recently acquired a copy of Ovid's Metamorphoses printed at Parma by Andreas Portilia in 1480 (Hain 12160). Below the colophon on the last printed page of the volume (PML 46607) there is a note which now reads: "Rubrica per me sebaldum Pirkeymer anno m cccc lxxx & Octaua epiphanie."[2] It is with the identity of the Sebald Pirckheimer who rubricated the volume that we are now concerned.

This copy of the Metamorphoses also bears the stamp of the Royal Society in London, which plainly tells the history of the volume.[3] It will be recalled that Wilibald Pirckheimer's[4] library remained in the family till 1636, when Hans Hieronymus Imhoff sold the books to Thomas Howard, second Earl of Arundel. Thirty-one years later, his grandson, Henry Howard (sixth Duke of Norfolk), presented his library (including the Pirckheimer books) to the Royal Society. The greatest part of these books was sold by the Society in 1873 to the antiquarian bookseller Bernard Quaritch, and the present volume appears in his General Catalogue of Books (London, 1874, p. 1444, no. 18109) with this description: "Ovidii Metamorphoseos libri, folio, with MS. notes by Pirckheimer, who writes his Christian name Sebald, a few rude drawings on the margins, bd. Rare £ 12. Parma, Andreas Portilia, 1480."

However, to return to the inscription as quoted above, history records only three contemporary Sebald Pirckheimers, all descended from Hans Pirckheimer the second (d. 1400). His grandson Sebald,[5] through the family of his first marriage (to Katharina Graser), died at an early age shortly after the turn of the century and can thus be excluded from our consideration. Sebald's nephew and namesake, in turn, was married to Katharina Praun, became a member of the "grosser Rat" of Nürnberg in 1477, suffered a catastrophic bankruptcy in 1492 and thereupon retired to the Carthusian monastery in Nürnberg.[6] He also appears in the records as "Sebald the Carthusian", but such books as he had (mostly on moral philosophy) he left to his Charterhouse. The third Sebald[7] was Wilibald's younger brother, concerning whom precious little is known; he and Wilibald were, of course, the great-great-grandsons of Hans Pirckheimer II by his second wife (Katharina Teufel). Dr. Hans (d. 1501), the father of the boys, records Sebald's birth (Arundel MS. 449, f. 278v) as "Anno domini 1475 quinto kalendas februarii, quae fuit dies sabathi."[8] In 1475, January 28th did fall on a Saturday, thus establishing the fact that Dr. Hans was using the "style of the Circumcision" (January 1st) as the beginning of the year;[9] this was then the

customary style at Nürnberg. This Sebald was certainly still alive on 26 April 1485, when he was mentioned in the will of his step-grandmother, Walpurg Dönninger (Doniger).[10] It is generally assumed, on what authority I have been unable to discover, that he died before his mother; the death of Barbara Löffelholz Pirckheimer took place on 21 March 1488.

Since the Ovid we are discussing subsequently turned up with other books from Wilibald's library, it seems reasonable to suppose that his brother was not only the former owner of the volume but also the author of the note. But on 13 January 1480, Sebald Pirckheimer was not yet five years old; even in the fifteenth century children were not so precocious that they could rubricate volumes at this early age!

Fortunately, modern technology can here come to our aid and offers a solution for our problem. In studying the inscription, one notes that the "-aua" is written in a different colored ink, with the last two letters written beyond the edge of the type-page and extending well into the inner margin. Examination by microscope suggests that another letter lies below the first "a". Further, only the characters "aua" have offset on the opposite (blank) page. The fourth letter of "epiphanie" seems to have been an "f" over which another hand has written a "p". The "-hanie" may also have been written at the same time and with the same ink as the "-aua". In the infra-red photograph of the inscription taken by the Library's expert photographer, Mr. Mark D. Brewer, almost the entire passage disappeared, the only characters clearly surviving being the "-aua" and "-phanie." Incidentally, the rubrication in the colophon (capital strokes and underlinings) made by the same ink also disappeared in this process.

It is plain by now that the original inscription has been tampered with. Furthermore, close examination reveals that it is equally probable that the original letter under the beginning of "-aua" was an "o". This now suggests that the inscription be read as: "Rubrica per me sebaldum Pirkeymer anno m cccc lxxx & Octo. epif." It would, of course, have been quite possible for Sebald Pirckheimer to have rubricated the volume, and drawn some of the crude but interesting sketches in it, by 6 January 1488 when he was almost thirteen years old. In any event, that is how the present writer reads the inscription. But why, then, was the date altered? The only explanation that is at all plausible is that some later reader "corrected" the date to agree with the year of the colophon (M.CCCC-LXXXX) without noting that the inscription now proclaims the astonishing fact that the book was rubricated before it ever was printed (Idibus MaiisMay 15th)!!

Since we are now assured that Sebald Pirckheimer was alive in January 1488 and did not die shortly after 1485,[11] a further deduction becomes possible. Among the "carmina mea quae Paduae composui anno domini 1491," there is a poem by Wilibald addressed to his "most gracious" grandfather ("Ad avum obsequentissimum")

in which reference is made to the "iuvenes nepotes."[12] Now Wilibald arrived in Padua to commence his studies there in the autumn either of 1488 or 1489 (the authorities disagree).[13] Dr. Emil Reicke, in editing this poem, assumed that the word "nepotes" had to refer generally to descendants rather than specifically to grandsons, since he maintained (without offering evidence to that effect) that by this time Wilibald was the sole surviving grandson. May one not assume, just as readily, that Sebald was still alive at the time of the writing of this poem or, at least, that Wilibald in far-off Padua still thought that his brother was alive in Nürnberg? Such an interpretation would certainly underscore the words "avus" and "nepotes", and give them a natural and proper relationship. In that case, it is clear that Sebald was either still alive or Wilibald believed he was so when Wilibald was a student at Padua.

Notes