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Place of creation/publication
Austria -- Vienna, -- publication place.
Item Details
Call number
273027
Folger-specific note
From dealer's description: "MUSICAL BANQUETS FOR THE NEW EMPEROR NO COPY IN AMERICA KILIAN, Bartholomäus. Warhaffte Beschreibung. Wie es mit der Erbhuldigung... gelaist, abgeloffen und was für Caeremonien dabey gehalten worden. Vienna: Johann Jacob Kürner, 1652. Small folio [29 x 18.5 cm]. (14) pp, plus engraved frontispiece signed by Kilian and with 6 very large folding etched plates, up to 60 x 39.5 cm. Bound in original publisher’s white vellum, tooled with the arms of Ferdinand IV on both covers. Rebacked and recased, with endpapers renewed. A few plates with repaired closed tears near stubs; folds of plates occasionally strengthened on versos; Plate III with patch of abrasion at far right, near margin, affecting the robes of several of the onlookers. Bookplate of André Gutzwiller, Swiss banker and collector (fl. 1958-1994). Impossibly rare sole edition of this remarkable festival book offering a glimpse of the archetypal Habsburg ceremony: the Erbhuldigung, or ‘Act of Hereditary Homage’, which replaced the coronation ceremony in Austrian lands. This would appear to be the fourth recorded complete copy, with an allegorical frontispiece and six very large etched plates by the engraver Bartholomäus Kilian (1630-1696). These depict not only the festive processions for the new Emperor Ferdinand IV, but also three detailed views of the banquets and associated amusements held for the city’s dignitaries, one of the few visual records of the ‘Innenräume’ of the Hofburg in the 17th century. “Depictions of the inner rooms of the Old Hofburg in general are of great rarity; the few which survive are mostly thanks to the publications which were produced relating to the commemoration of the so-called ‘Erbhuldigung’. The earliest of these is [the present work]…” (Dreger, p. 211 trans.). The splendid allegorical frontispiece featuring a pantheon of Habsburg rulers above a cityscape of Vienna, while the plates depict the procession of the emperor; the official ceremony in the interior of St Stephan’s Cathedral, with the ‘Pledge of Allegiance’ performed on the 5th September 1651; a banquet table with a steady stream of waiters bearing roasted fowl etc., flanked by a table with musicians providing entertainment; an even more elaborate banquet scene, with hundreds of guests and musicians performing on elevated stages on the sides; and a third equally lavish banquet scene. Alongside a seating plan for the dignitaries, the text records that many of the courses included local delicacies from each region of the Habsburg empire. OCLC shows the Municipal Library of Passau and the University Library of Darmstadt; the other copy noted in VD17, at the Herzog August Bibliothek, lacks all of the plates and a portion of the title-page. Rare Book Hub shows one copy at auction in the last 50 years, making £5,250 ($8,000) in 2010 (Christie’s)." Ordered from Editio Altera, D9779, 2024-11-22, email quote.
