By KATHLEEN CASSEDY
To commemorate the 440th anniversary of the Saxon State Library, a major exhibition of 185 rare artifacts from its collections will be presented at the Library from April 11 through July 13.
"Dresden: Treasures from the Saxon State Library" will offer a rich sampling of German and general European culture from the High Middle Ages through the 19th century.
This is the first of two articles on the exhibition.
The Saxon State Library originated in 1556 when Elector Augustus (reigned 1553-1586) began systematic collecting for his personal library in Dresden, the capital of Saxony.
Dresden began as a German settlement around the seventh century and was founded as a town in 1206, when it was part of the Holy Roman Empire. In 1356, Saxony became one of seven principalities whose rulers elected the Holy Roman Emperor. (The Holy Roman Empire existed from 962 to 1806 and initially included Germany, Prussia, northern Italy and Burgundy, France.)
Under the auspices of Saxony's ruling elector princes and nobility, Dresden was, by the end of the 16th century, one of Europe's most cosmopolitan cities. As befits a great city, the library and its collections grew dramatically. Princes and, later, library administrators and scholars carefully developed and enhanced the collections.
"During the first half of the 18th century, under the rulers Augustus I (Augustus the Strong) and his son Augustus II, Saxony reached the pinnacle of its cultural influence, manifested in the spectacular baroque architecture of the capital city. Dres-den became a major European culture center, where monarchs fostered the arts and made significant additions to the city's art museum and library collections," said Dr. Billington in the exhibition's accompanying catalog.
Treasures in this exhibition were chosen for their beauty, rarity and historical significance. They include rare manuscripts from the Middle Ages, early examples of the art of printing and bookbinding, maps, copper etchings, woodcuts by Albrecht Durer, paintings of Dresden, and auto-graphed or annotated scores by Johann Sebastian Bach, Johannes Brahms, Robert Schumann, Heinrich Schatz, Antonio Vivaldi and Richard Wagner.
Twenty-four items are from the Reformation, including Martin Luther's translation of the Bible - the first into German. Others include portraits of the Electors, a treatise on fencing and jousting, illustrations of fancy dress processions and other aspects of Dresden's city life.
"The idea for this exhibition originated in 1992, shortly after the collapse of communism, when I had the opportunity to visit the Saxon State Library," said Dr. Billington.
"During the decades of communist rule, the Saxon State Library was our most reliable exchange partner, even when it could have been to their detriment; their staff was always responsive to the needs of the Library of Congress," said Margrit B. Krewson, German/Dutch area specialist at the Library, who has been instrumental in organizing and fundraising for this exhibition.
For the past four years the two libraries have collaborated to produce "Dresden: Treasures from the Saxon State Library," which will open in Dresden at the Stadtmuseum in early August, following its showing here.
The exhibition follows two other Library-sponsored exhibitions featuring European collections: "Creating French Culture: Treasures from the Bibliotheque nationale de France" (1995) and "Rome Reborn: The Vatican Library and Renaissance Culture" (1993).
The French exhibition represented an entire nation's history over 11 centuries. The Vatican exhibition illustrated the Catholic Church's influence and expansion during the Renaissance. The Saxon State Library exhibition explores how its treasures were collected by one library in a single city.
Saxony's ruling elector princes showed great vision in transforming Dresden into one of Europe's cultural capitals, attracting the greatest artisans, architects, sculptors, poets, musicians, artists and scholars of the day through their patronage. The creative arts flourished, and some of the most talented artists and intellectuals of Europe spent time in Dresden during its Golden Era. Many used the resources of the library, which became available to the public in the early 18th century under Augustus the Strong.
The exhibition is organized into 13 categories. This article will cover the first six. These are: Rare Manuscripts; the Art of Printing; Fine Bindings of the Renaissance; the Clerical Reformation; the Bible; and the Electoral Library, which focuses on the origin of the Saxon State Library.
A second article (to be published in the next issue) will cover manuscripts and other artifacts that relate to specific cultural icons of Dresden: the Electoral Hofkapelle, the renowned court musical group of singers and instrumentalists; and the Frauenkirche - the oldest church in Dresden, which was rebuilt as a Protestant Cathedral in the early 1700s.
Other categories, highlighting cultural periods associated with Dresden, include the Augustan Era; Twilight of a Century (mid- to late-17th century); the Age of Goethe; and Romanticism. From Faraway Lands, the final section, shows exquisite manuscripts produced outside Europe.
When Elector Augustus began collecting in the mid-16th century, Saxony was already a wealthy state. His father, Elector Moritz, who reigned from 1521 to 1553, had great political power, and the state prospered from the riches of its mines.
Silver, minerals and semiprecious stones had been discovered in the Erzgebirge (Ore Mountains), to Dresden's east, in the 12th century, and by the 16th century the mining industry was thriving. Artisans created fine objects from the raw materials, and the new merchant class grew increasingly prosperous.
The exhibition has several items that reflect the importance of mining in Saxony. A Handbook on Mining and Metallurgy by 16th century Saxon scholar Georg Agricola remained the standard work until the 18th century. Colored engravings in the 1830 book Depiction of Saxon Metal Workers document various aspects of a miner's life, such as his rich festive dress, workplace and tools.
This prosperity gave Saxony's rulers, nobility and wealthy bourgeoisie the luxury of collecting great works of art and literature. Prince Augustus invited Italian artists to his court in Dresden, Saxony's capital since 1485, and founded an art gallery in 1560. He was personally involved in the development of his library, concentrating on literature in German and foreign languages, manuscripts, incunabula (books printed before 1501) and maps. He perused catalogs from the book fairs in neighboring Leipzig and commissioned diplomats to buy works for him when they traveled abroad.
A 1580 handwritten catalog lists 2,345 works in his collection from all fields - the classics, theology, history, medicine, surgery, law, mathematics, architecture, astronomy, tournaments and festivals, warfare, mining, numismatics, mineralogy, biology and agriculture. This catalog can be seen in the exhibition.
A 1575 manuscript that explains how to remove kidney stones is among the medical works from this era. An illustration shows how the surgeon's assistant restrains the patient during the operation. There is also a 1543 work on anatomy, written by a professor of surgery who acquired his knowledge through cadaver dissections.
From the start, the Saxon State Library's collections were primarily purchased, rather than confiscated from monasteries or by foreign conquest, as was the case in other countries. Prince Augustus's library was already impressive, since few other libraries held more than 300 books. During this time, many books were so valuable they were often chained to desks or lecterns. Once Augustus began to acquire literature systematically, he summoned to court the most acclaimed bookbinders of the day to bind a large portion of his collection. Of these, the greatest were Jakob Krause, formerly at the court of the wealthy merchant and banking Fugger family, and his assistant Caspar Meuser.
In Dresden, Krause meticulously produced more than 1,000 bindings. He used white parchment, pigskin or costly calfskin to make the bindings, which bore the coat of arms, insignia and often the portrait of Prince Augustus. His bindings were basically a German Wittenberg style with Italian, French and oriental ornamentation. Three books bound by him are in the exhibition.
Meuser was naturally influenced by Krause, but developed his own style using elaborate leaf ornamentation. Among his works in the exhibition is a unique heart-shaped prayer book, which belonged to Princess Anna, the wife of Prince Augustus.
Prince Augustus collected few medieval manuscripts, since they were transferred to the University of Leipzig and Saxon private schools after monasteries closed following the Reformation. Several centuries later, many were given to the Saxon State Library. At the end of World War II, the Saxon State Library had 2,384 incunabula; more than half of these were then confiscated and taken to Russia.
The sampling in the exhibition includes 14th-century copies of works by Ovid and Petrarch, medieval histories of Meissen and Bohemia, a 14th century genealogy of Frankish kings, and a Troyes edition of the Dance of Death, a popular theme in the 15th and 16th centuries.
The Saxon State Library has 2,800 editions of the Bible in 72 languages. Sixty-three Bibles are incunabula, usually in Latin or French. A number of 19th-century New Testament editions were printed for missionaries in African and Asian languages. Highlights of Bibles in the exhibition include:
- A 1479 Bible produced on vellum in Venice by the renowned printer Nicolaus Jensen. The Antiqua type re-creates the letter forms of Roman inscriptions in modern print, reflecting the ideals of humanism, a popular movement at the time. In this copy, the major initials are illuminated and the smaller ones are in blue or red.
- A 1514 Bible in Hebrew, Chaldaic, Greek and Latin, printed in Spain. This Bible is considered the first and finest polyglot Bible. It was commissioned by a cardinal and is based on ancient manuscripts from the Vatican Library. Only 600 copies of this six-folio work were printed between 1514 and 1516. The printing bill came to the astronomical sum of 50,000 gold guilders. (During this period, a schoolmaster earned less than 10 guilders a year.)
- An early-15th-century manuscript of the Bible translated into English by John Wycliffe, a "pre-Reformer." Wycliffe saw the disparity between biblical teachings and the practices of the Catholic Church at that time. In 1380 he translated the Bible into colloquial English with the assistance of Nicholas of Hereford.
By 1595 the Dresden Court Library had 5,668 monographs and 91 maps and copper engravings. After this date, its growth was slowed by the Thirty Years' War and the plague.
Following Johann Gutenberg's invention of movable type in 1448 and the advent of oily ink and cheaper paper made from linen, books became more affordable. A thriving book business grew in the cities of Leipzig, Frankfurt and Wittenberg. The Protestant Reformation could not have occurred so quickly or spread so widely if the printing industry had not yet been developed. Luther's articles, treatises and other works were printed and distributed in large numbers during this period.
In the mid-19th century, the Dres-den Library acquired 317 original prints - many from Saxon private schools - from the Reformation period. About 24 of these are shown in the exhibition.
Martin Luther (1483-1546), an Augustinian monk, was a popular theology professor at the University of Wittenberg, founded by Grand Duke Elector Frederick the Wise of Saxony in 1502. Elector Frederick became Luther's supporter. His portrait is displayed in the exhibition in the 1586 book Authentic Representations and Portraiture of All the Grand Dukes.
Luther did not originally intend to start a massive Reformation, but like many other clergy and learned men, he was disturbed by the Catholic Church's controversial practice of selling indulgences in exchange for absolution of past, present and future sins.
In 1517, when Luther (reportedly) posted his 95 Theses for the Disputation on the Power of Indulgences on the door of Frederick's castle church (in those days church doors often served as bulletin boards), he was seeking to provoke theological debate. Instead he started a revolution. Luther chose All Saint's Day to distribute his 95 Theses, knowing they would reach an audience of churchgoers. The theses were first printed in Latin and German editions in Leipzig, Nuremberg and Basel. Word of mouth also helped spread his 95 Theses, which led to spontaneous demonstrations after only one week.
Luther's colloquial writing style was popular with the reading public. At the time, the official language of the government, the church and scholars was Latin, which very few lay people could read. When Luther wrote in High German, it became the standard German literary language.
In the next two years, 38 of Luther's manuscripts were printed in 113 editions in Leipzig alone.
The argument over indulgences developed into a dispute over the pope's granting of salvation. Luther attracted many learned men and women as followers, including the painter Albrecht Durer (1471-1528), who supported Luther in letters and pamphlets. Highlights from the Reformation section of the exhibition include:
- The Passion of Our Lord Jesus. This sketchbook by Durer was printed in Nuremberg in 1511 and contains the master's original drawings and his autographed manuscript of Book 1 of Guidelines for Proportions. The work includes three woodcut series of Biblical themes, which were created over a period of time, then gathered in one volume and printed with the Latin verses of Benedict Chelidonius.
According to The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe by Elizabeth Eisenstein, "Between 1517 and 1520, Luther's 30 publications probably sold well over 300,000 copies. . . . For the first time in human history a great reading public judged the validity of revolutionary ideas through a mass medium which used the vernacular language [and] the arts of the journalist and cartoonist."
By 1520 Wittenberg had become the center of the Reformation and the publishing of reformist writing. Pope Leo X tried to silence Luther for heresy, but Elector Frederick the Wise managed to have Luther tried at the Imperial Diet in Augsburg, rather than in Rome. Luther was asked to recant but refused. The Edict of Worms followed, imposing an imperial ban on Luther and his followers; their writings were ordered burned.
This did not stop the prolific Luther. In 1520 he published three principal Reformation theses in Wittenberg, and all are in the exhibition:
- Address to the Christian Nobility of the German Nation, in which Luther urges the Christian nobility to reform and places himself at the head of a reform movement driven by laymen.
- The Babylonian Captivity of the Church. In this work Luther argues against the Catholic Church's sacramental teaching. He considered only baptism and communion sacraments. The title page displayed features a portrait of Luther.
- On the Freedom of a Christian, in which Luther argues against papal authority and states that believers can have a direct relationship with God.
To protect Luther, Frederick the Wise convinced the monk to disguise himself as "Junker Georg" and seek refuge at Wartburg Castle. While in hiding, Luther translated the New Testament into German, based on a Latin translation by Desiderius Erasmus, the great scholar and theologian. Both Erasmus's and Luther's New Testaments are in this exhibition.
- The New Testament, translated from the original Greek by Erasmus. This expanded and revised edition in 1519 was printed by Johann Froben with woodcut borders by Urs Graf.
- Luther's New Testament in German. Luther completed his translation
in 11 weeks. By September 1522, 3,000 copies had been printed. They sold
so quickly that three months later the publisher issued a second edition,
which was known as the December Testament. The Book of Revelation is
illustrated with 21 woodcuts from the Wittenberg workshop of Lucas Cranach,
who modeled them after Durer's woodcut Apocalypse figures.
Luther next worked to translate the Old Testament into German. Already, Luther's New Testament had reached a record printing: 87 High German editions, 19 Low German editions, one Danish, one Swedish and three Dutch translations. - Luther's German translation of the entire Bible, published in 1534, is considered his greatest linguistic accomplishment. The Bible is richly illustrated with decorative initials and 117 woodcuts by Cranach, who had also illustrated Luther's New Testament. An unbound copy of the Bible sold later that year at the Leipzig book fair for two guilders, eight groschen.
Followers began to apply Luther's teachings to church life. Saxon priests began to teach according to the Gospels. Both monks and nuns left monasteries, and priests took marriage vows, as did Luther, who married in June 1525. Many monks became pastors and proclaimed the Reformation. Luther wrote books to instruct pastors in baptism, marriage and the performance of catechism and mass. Many of these works are in the exhibition.
Influenced by the ideas of the Reformation, the Austrian Swabian peasants led a revolt. The Program of the Twelve Articles by the Swabian Peasants During the Peasants War of 1524-1526 was drafted in Swabia in March 1525. This rare surviving manifesto, which is in the exhibition, shows how these peasants used the Gospels to argue their right to free elections of the clergy and free use of the forests. The document went through 25 printings within a few weeks. Most were confiscated and destroyed when the rebellion was put down.
On July 6, 1539, the first evangelical worship service was held in Dresden. In 1555, the Religious Peace of Augs-burg granted freedom of worship to Protestants.
The favorite art form of Protestantism is music. Luther himself composed 41 hymns. His "A Mighty Fortress is Our God" is still sung in churches today.
Among exhibition highlights of musical manuscripts from the Reformation period are:
- A rare pre-Reformation choir book from the early 16th century, which was acquired from the St. Annen Kirche in Annaberg in 1968 and restored by the Saxon State Library.
- A hymnal prepared by Johann Spangenberg, at Luther's request, is the earliest collection of liturgical music for Protestant services.
The treasures of the Saxon State Library have endured more than four centuries of war and political and religious turmoil, including the fire bombings of Dresden during World War II. Now, because of the reunification of Germany, Westerners have their first chance in 40 years to view these artifacts from one of the world's outstanding cultural institutions.
"Dresden: Treasures from the Saxon State Library" will be on view April 11 through July 13, Monday through Friday 10 a.m. - 5:30 p.m., in the Southwest Pavilion of the Jefferson Building.
Kathleen Cassedy is a free-lance writer/editor working in the Public Affairs Office.