Pelc AHAS 8angl

Milan PELC

Illustrated broadsheets in the print collection of Johann Weichard Valvasor in Zagreb. A preliminary study

The print collection of Johann Weichard Valvasor (1641–1693), now in the possession of the Zagreb diocese, also includes a rich and almost unstudied store of prints belonging to the so-called popular Bildpublizistik of the 17th century, usually called illustrated broadsheets. These are sheets of various contents which is presented through a characteristic combination of image and text, the latter being reduced to a minimum in some cases and very prolonged in others. As to their contents, the illustrated broadsheets in the Valvasor collection fall into two main groups, a religious one and a secular one. Like the rest of his prints, Valvasor also had his broadsheets bound into individual albums. Thus, most of the religious subjects are found in Albums I and II, and the secular ones are gathered mainly in Album VIII. Both the former and the latter are characteristic for their moral-instructive tone with a more or less explicit educational aim. The broadsheets of secular contents are close to the so-called genre prints, but they were frequently intended for information or propaganda. They often depicted topical political themes and stylized the pictorial and textual message in harmony with the propagandistic expectations of secular or ecclesiastical authorities. Such is the case of the broadsheets which feature topical events at the Viennese court (three weddings of Emperor Leopold I), unsuccessful Turkish siege of Vienna in 1683 and Christian victories in Hungaria after the Turkish defeat, etc. By means of satirical and allegorical conceptions of the images and the texts (“topsy-turvy world”, “the forge of female heads”, and the like), numerous illustrated broadsheets criticize vices and defects of contemporary society, particularly the relationship between the two sexes, inclination to bodily pleasure (alcohol, excessive food, tobacco), whims of the fashion, immorality, etc. Therefore they are, together with genre prints and paintings, called “the mirror of the daily life”. Many a theme illustrated in these broadsheets originates in the late Middle Ages (memento mori, memento stultitiae, the girdle of innocence, etc.). These are “long-lived” formulas of contents which, in one way or another, intensely pervaded the communication of western society for more than half a millenium.

Almost all of the illustrated broadsheets in the Valvasor graphic collection were published by German and Austrian publishers. Valvasor probably purchased them while on his travels abroad, or they were provided by his friends and acquaintances in Graz, Salzburg, and Nuremberg. But none of these broadsheets bears the owner's signature of the painter Jurij Bobič (Georg Wubitsch), from whom Valvasor bought a larger amount of prints for his collection. Most of Valvasor's broadsheets were issued by two publishers in Nuremberg, Paulus Fürst (or his heirs) and Johann Hoffmann. Paulus Fürst ran his branch shops in Vienna, Leipzig, Frankfurt, Graz and Linz, and Johann Hoffmann ran them in Vienna. Of special interest are Valvasor's contacts with the engraver Matthias Greischer during the early 1680s, when for a shorter time the artist lived in Valvasor's Bogenšperk/Wagensberg castle (presumably around 1680). In the vicinity of the imperial court in Vienna (nächts bey der Kayser: Burg) Greischer had a publishing “enterprise” and he could supply topical broadsheets to Valvasor, of which many were published by himself. He published several prints jointly with Johann Martin Lerch, who was also active in Vienna as an engraver and publisher between 1660 and 1690. Both Greischer and Lerch published quite a number of broadsheets which featured wars with the Turks in Hungary after the siege of Vienna in 1683. The illustrated broadsheets in Valvasor's collection considerably add to the knowledge about the (unsufficiently researched) outputs of these two Viennese engravers and publishers. Besides these, the collection also includes a number of broadsheets by other German nad Austrian publishers, such as Jacob Koppmayer from Augsburg, Johann Radlmayr from Linz, Johann Kaspar Manasser from Graz, Jacob Sandrart, Johann Leonhard Buggl and Johann Alexander Böner from Nuremberg, etc. A comprehensive study of illustrated broadsheets in the Valvasor graphic collection will essentially improve the knowledge about the publishing activities of the above-mentioned and some other publishers of the second half of the 17th century on the German-speaking territory. Furthermore, the collection includes several illustrated broadsheets that have not been published in scholarly literature before, so their scientific presentation will additionally illuminate the field of popular Bildpublizistik of the early modern age. The present paper is thus meant to be an anticipation of a detailed study and presentation of the entire body of illustrated broadsheets in Valvasor's graphic collection.