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.
Leaf from the “Hohenlandenberg Missal”
Illuminated by the Master of the Hohenlandenberg Missal for Bishop Hugo von Hohenlandenberg
(1460–1532)
Germany, Nuremberg or Constance, ca. 1510
The Morgan Library & Museum, MS M.955
Purchased as the Gift of the Fellows, with the Special Assistance of Four Members of the Board of Trustees, Mrs. Gordon S. Rentschler, and Mrs. G. P. Van de Bovenkamp (Sue Erpf Van de Bovenkamp) in Memory of Armand G. Erpf, 1973