Leaf from the Hohenlandenberg Missal

NUREMBERG: DÜRER AND HUMANISM

This Crucifixion scene once formed part of an immense, four-volume missal commissioned by Hugo von Hohenlandenberg, bishop of Constance. The illumination is the work of an unknown artist closely associated with Albrecht Dürer. The figures are nestled within a landscape, in which the echoing forms of the winding river and road generate a continuous recession toward the horizon. The manuscript’s patron—the bishop—kneels in the foreground with his arms occupying the lower margin. Like many of his elite peers, he fought continuously with the citizens of his city over issues of legal jurisdiction and finance, a struggle that led to his forced abdication in 1529.