Die Heiligen Reysen gein Jherusalem zu dem heiligen Grab …

BREYDENBACH, BERNHARD VON.

Peter Drach der Jüngere, circa

[Speyer

1505]

Third German edition of the Peregrinatio ad terram sanctam . Seven large folding woodcut plates. Text illustrations including Near-Eastern alphabets, people and costumes. The Pattloch copy.

Roehricht 401.

Breydenbach’s account of his 1483 pilgrimage from Mainz to the Holy Land is the first illustrated travel book printed. Fellow traveler Erhard Reuwich, the first painter known to have published a book, created its fine woodcuts. His illustrations include the first use of panoramas to depict cities. Leaving in April 1483 and arriving back in January 1484, Breydenbach and his colleagues traveled first to Venice, where they stayed for three weeks. They then took a ship for Corfu, Modon and Rhodes - all still Venetian possessions. After Jerusalem and Bethlehem and other sights of the Holy Land, they went to Mount Sinai and Cairo. Following a boat down the Nile to Rosetta, they journeyed back to Venice.