GLOBAL Nuremberg. 1300–1600

GLOBAL
NUREMBERG
1300–1600

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Literatur:
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GLOBAL
NUREMBERG
1300–1600
Published by Benno Baumbauer,
Marie-Therese Feist, and Sven Jakstat
3

CONTENT
8 FOREWORD Daniel Hess
13 LENDER
ESSAYS
16 THE WORLD IN EXPERIENCE AND CONCEPTION, CIRCA 1500:
COORDINATES FOR AN UNDERSTANDING Daniel Hess
24 NUREMBERG IN THE GLOBAL NETWORKS OF THE EARLY
MODERN PERIOD Benno Baumbauer, Sven Jakstat
30 CROSSING BORDERS: JEWISH MOBILITY AND URBAN INTEGRATION
IN NUREMBERG, 1350–1499 Meyrav Levy
36 METALS FOR THE WORLD: NUREMBERG’S NETWORKS IN THE EUROPEAN
AND GLOBAL MINING INDUSTRY Tina Asmussen
42 GLOBAL LUXURY GOODS IN NUREMBERG Heike Zech
48 VENICE AS NUREMBERG’S GATEWAY TO THE WORLD Henry Kaap
54 NUREMBERG AND JERUSALEM: BETWEEN THE QUASI CENTRUM EUROPAE
AND THE NAVEL OF THE WORLD Florian Abe
60 FEAR AND FASCINATION: NUREMBERG AND THE OTTOMAN
EMPIRE Stefan Hanß
66 NETWORKS AND PROTAGONISTS : NUREMBERG AND THE IBERIAN PENINSULA
IN HIERONYMUS MÜNZER’S TRAVELOGUE (1494–95) Sven Jakstat
72 DÜRER AND THE INDIGENOUS PEOPLES OF THE AMERICAS:
PERCEPTUAL FRAMEWORKS FOR THE UNKNOWN IN RENAISSANCE
NUREMBERG Manuel Teget-Welz
78 TENOCHTITLÁN 1524: THE FIRST MAP OF AN AMERICAN CITY,
PUBLISHED IN NUREMBERG Daniel Astorga Poblete
84 ALBRECHT DÜRER: THE MASTER FROM FIRANG« IN MUGHAL INDIA Monica Juneja
90 GLOBALISM ON THE COAST OF EAST AFRICA AND THE CONSEQUENCES OF
“SPRINGER’S MEERFAHRT” Elgidius E. B. Ichumbaki, Dominicus Z. Makukula

CATALOG
101 PROLOGUE cat. no. 1–3
109 NUREMBERG: PORTRAIT OF A CITY cat. no. 4–20
145 ART, TRADE, AND ECONOMICS cat. no. 21–31
169 LUXURY AND VIOLENCE cat. no. 32–41
193 NETWORKS BETWEEN WEST AND EAST cat. no. 42–52
217 ÜBER DIE ALPEN cat. no. 53–66
247 LONGING FOR THE HOLY LAND cat. no. 67–74
265 OTTOMAN AFFAIRS cat. no. 75–92
303 TO THE AMERICAS VIA THE IBERIAN PENINSULA cat. no. 93–112
345 NUREMBERG – LISBON – CALICUT cat. no. 113–122
ANNEX
374 BIBLIOGRAPHY
396 INDEX OF PERSONS
400 INDEX OF LOCATIONS AND OBJECTS
406 IMAGE CREDITS
407 IMPRINT

6

7

Benno Baumbauer
Sven Jakstat
NUREMBERG IN THE GLOBAL
NETWORKS OF THE EARLY
MODERN PERIOD
▬▬▬▬▬
Fig. 1 Leaf with figures after
Albrecht Dürer, from the Jahangir
Album, India (Agra?), ca. 1608–18,
Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin,
Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Orientalische
Handschriften, Libri picturati
A 117, fol. 5r
|cat. no. 122.1|
1 Schoch, Mende, and Scherbaum
2002, pp. 420–24, cat. no. 241 (Yasmin
Doosry); Dackerman 2011; Werner
2015, pp. 81–87, 89–90.
2 On Fernandes, see Pohle 2000,
pp. 137–38, 219–27; Hendrich 2007,
esp. pp. 169–270; Westermann 2009,
pp. 53–54.
3 Exh. cat. New York 2011, p. 74,
cat. no. 28 (John Guy).
4 See Grebe 2014, pp. 397–99; Keating
2018, pp. 101–4; Natif 2018,
pp. 99–107. On the engraving, see
Schoch, Mende, and Scherbaum
2001, vol. 1, pp. 143–44, cat. no. 55
(Anna Scherbaum).
5 See Keating 2018, p. 104.
6 See the essay by Monica Juneja in
the present volume.
7 Natif 2018, pp. 101, 106.
8 In the case of Dürer’s engraved
Crucifixion, it is assumed that one or
more impressions reached the Mughal
court in 1580, in the context of a Jesuit
mission. See Bailey 1999, p. 115;
Keating 2018, p. 101.
9 See Beach 1965; Rice 2009; Grebe
2014, p. 397.
10 See Saviello 2022, pp. 46–49.
Bailey 1999, p. 114.
A
lbrecht Dürer’s Rhinoceros of 1515 is an
icon of global history |cat. no. 119|. 1 The
story behind this woodcut is so often told
as to require a renewed appreciation of just how
sensational it was at the time. Rhinoceroses were
surrounded by legend in the European imagination,
informed mainly by the ancient author Pliny—
that is, until Sultan Muzaffar Shah II of Cambay in
India gifted a live specimen to Afonso de Albuquerque,
the governor of Portuguese India in Goa. Albuquerque
then had the two-ton animal and its Indian
keeper shipped along the coast of Africa to
Lisbon, where the rhinoceros joined the menagerie
belonging to King Manuel I of Portugal. The mere
existence of this animal served as living proof to
Europeans that the tales told about the wonders of
faraway India must be true. News of the rhinoceros
reached Dürer’s hometown of Nuremberg in a
letter sent by Valentim Fernandes, a printer from
Moravia who was active in Lisbon. 2 After having
undergone all its ordeals, the rhinoceros ultimately
drowned off the coast of Liguria while being
shipped to Rome as a gift to Pope Leo X. But the
creature lived on in Dürer’s woodcut, which made
it probably the most famous example of cultural
exchange between India and central Europe in the
early modern period. At the same time, Dürer’s
Rhinoceros is emblematic of our exhibition’s objective
of telling the story of early globalization from
the perspective of Nuremberg—an undertaking
that hinges on works of art and related objects
with demonstrable historical connections to
Nuremberg or to persons active there.
Dürer in India
Comparatively little attention has been paid to the
reciprocity of the exchange with India, which is
traceable in art and artifacts produced there. The
Ashmolean Museum in Oxford has a brush drawing
of a young man standing isolated and posed in
contrapposto, looking into the distance with a sorrowful
expression |fig. 3|. 3 His curly hair is subtly
modeled, and the drapery folds of his robe are
skillfully arranged. According to the note written
in Persian at the bottom of the sheet, the drawing
was created by Abū’l Hasan, in his thirteenth year,
“on the 11th day of the spring month in 1009” according
to the Islamic calendar—that is, in the
spring of 1600 or 1601 in the European system.
Abū’l Hasan became one of the favorite miniaturists
of the Mughal emperor Jahangir, who ruled
over a vast empire on the Indian subcontinent between
1605 and 1627, including large parts of present-day
India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan.
The model for Abū’l Hasan’s drawing is found
in Dürer’s Engraved Passion of 1511: the figure of
Saint John the Evangelist in the Crucifixion |fig. 2|. 4
It is difficult to say what Abū’l Hasan’s intentions
might have been in extracting exactly this figure
from its Christian iconographic setting. 5 In any
case, the model’s origin in faraway Europe will almost
certainly have played a role. 6 Abū’l Hasan
was probably also fascinated by the engraving’s
artistic quality, which, as Mika Natif has argued,
he sought to imitate and perhaps even surpass
with his fine brushstrokes. 7 But perhaps he also
recognized in Dürer’s figure a universal visual formula
for the expression of human grief and wished
to adopt it for his own purposes.
Works on paper by Dürer and other European
artists found their way to India through Christian
missionaries and merchants, and as diplomatic
gifts. 8 The high regard there for such works is evidenced
by the Jahangir Album, one of the most
prominent examples of Mughal book illumination
|cat. no. 122; fig. 1|. 9 The intricate ornamentations of
the page borders feature several figures based on
European prints, including the same Saint John, a
Virgin and Child by Dürer, and other saints. 10
These figures, most of which come from Christian
images, surround Persian poems written in exquisite
calligraphy. Such an intentionally hybrid, col-
25

1
THE BEHAIM GLOBE
Martin Behaim (design)
Georg Glockendon the Elder (painted decoration)
Nuremberg, 1492–1494
Cloth, parchment, and paper, glued
and painted; wrought iron, painted;
brass, cast, punched, engraved
H. 133 cm; Diam. 51 cm
GNM, inv. no. WI1826
References:
Ravenstein 1908; Dekker 2007,
pp. 141–47, fig. 6.4; Eser 2010;
Schmieder 2021, passim; Hess 2022,
pp. 44–48.
E
very view of the world is shaped by one’s own location and scope of knowledge. The Behaim
Globe surveys knowledge about the world from the perspective of Nuremberg and Portugal at
the very point in time when Christopher Columbus was making his first voyage to the Americas
on behalf of the “Catholic Monarchs,” landing in the Bahamas on October 12, 1492. Because Martin
Behaim (1459–1507) of Nuremberg worked in service to the crown of Portugal |see cat. no. 114|, his
globe gives special emphasis to the western coast of Africa, which is shown dotted with Portuguese insignia.
From the conquest of Ceuta, in 1415, to the rounding of the Cape of Good Hope in 1488, Portugal
had systematically explored that coastline and established trading posts along it. Behaim’s placement
of the southern tip of Africa at the level of Cape Cross, in southern Namibia, demonstrates the relativity
of cartographic knowledge during this period, even in the best-informed circles.
As the oldest surviving globe—on the UNESCO Memory of the World Register since 2023—Behaim’s
creation is the last European cartographic object to lack a representation of the Americas. The news of
Columbus’s landing at the “Indian” islands, transmitted to Europe in a letter of March 1493 and then
disseminated in print publications, reached the makers of this globe too late for inclusion. Apart from
its unique historical status, the Behaim Globe is remarkable for being the first European world map to
include neither the earthly paradise nor the birthplace of Christ or other locations important to the
story of Christian salvation, features that had been standard on late-medieval maps of the world (mappae
mundi). And while Behaim was content to show Mount Ararat and Prester John, he omitted the
sites of ancient legends. The world appears as described by Marco Polo and as rendered in the travelogue
purported to have been written by Sir John Mandeville (but later exposed as a forgery). With motifs
such as the monopod and other such curiosities, the globe draws upon knowledge contained in
even further bygone works of medieval prose—for example, the Lucidarius of about 1190.
A completely new aspect of this representation of the earth is its focus on global resources and the
question of maximally profitable logistics—concerns that continue to dominate the world’s economic
activities to this day. In addition to gold and precious stones, spices such as pepper, saffron, and nutmeg
played a leading role thanks to their great profitability |see cat. no. 38|. Long text passages inscribed
on the globe propagate the idea of transporting these luxury goods directly to Europe to avoid costs associated
with intermediaries and the payment of duties. Commissioned by the Nuremberg city council
and originally kept at the town hall, the globe was intended to motivate Nuremberg’s patricians, who
were already versed in European commerce, to engage in maritime trade, an undertaking that was financially
and operationally risky. The new medium of the terrestrial globe made it easier to conceive
of a world grown larger. Around 1500, Nuremberg understood itself not only as a site of industry and
knowledge production, but also as one of the centers of an increasingly globalized trade, with all the
attendant negative aspects, including the sugar-plantation economy and the slave trade. Beginning in
1471, the fateful “triangular trade” began to take shape, initially involving the Gulf of Guinea and later,
from about 1518–20 onward, expanding to encompass the Caribbean and then Brazil. In the Treaty of
Tordesillas of 1494, Spain and Portugal divided the known world between themselves. World exploration
and world conquest went hand in hand.
Daniel Hess
102

103

16
OSTRICH EGG CUP
Georg Rühl I
Nuremberg, ca. 1615
Ostrich egg, cut, polished; silver-gilt,
chased, cast, punched, etched
H. 50.5 cm; Diam. max. 15.7 cm
GNM, inv. no. HG11771, on long-term
loan from the Freiherrlich von
Scheurlsche Familienstiftung
References:
Exh. cat. Nuremberg 1985, p. 269,
cat. no. 97; Exh. cat. Nuremberg 1992,
vol. 2, pp. 863–64, cat. no. 5.37 (Peter
J. Bräunlein); Bock 2005, p. 261,
cat. no. 86; Tebbe 2007, pp. 162–63,
fig. 127.
D
uring the heyday of goldsmithing in Nuremberg, from the mid-sixteenth to the early seventeenth
century, extraordinary drinking vessels were created by a number of masters who appear
to have specialized in “exotica.” In addition to mother-of-pearl |cat. no. 2|, nautilus shells,
and turban shells |cat. no. 120|, ostrich eggs were also used by these artists. Through ownership of
works fashioned from such materials, art patrons were able to showcase their access to global luxury
goods.
Georg Rühl I (master in 1596, d. before 1635) produced a large oeuvre of highly elaborate works.
About 1615, he created a cup from an ostrich egg encased by three openwork straps. The figural stem
alludes to the ostrich egg’s African origin; it takes the form of a kneeling Black archer wearing a feathered
skirt and equipped with a bow, arrows, and a quiver. The vessel’s tall metal rim depicts an ostrich
hunt taking place on foot and on horseback. The cut-off end of the egg forms the cover, surmounted by
a small ostrich figure holding a horseshoe in its beak. This iconographical detail has its origin in the
Physiologus, the medieval period’s standard text on animal symbolism. Since, according to the Physiologus,
the ostrich could eat iron, in the early modern period this bird became a symbol of strength. That
the cup was indeed used for drinking is suggested by the silver-gilt lining fitted into the eggshell.
Beginning in the eleventh century, ostrich eggs became increasingly sought-after collector’s items,
first as parts of church treasuries and later, in the early modern period, as naturalia in princely cabinets
of curiosities. 1 In religious paintings, they appear as symbols of the virgin birth of Jesus, and in
depictions of the Adoration of the Magi, ostrich egg vessels serve to emphasize the African origin of the
Black king |cat. no. 15|. In Nuremberg, as early as the mid-fifteenth century, the city council presented
ostrich egg cups as gifts to visiting dignitaries and emperors. 2
Ostrich eggs entered Europe through northwestern Africa and Spain, and from there they were
transported further north. Other paths to Europe, similar to those taken by ostrich plumes |cat. no. 39|,
ran along trade routes leading from the areas around Timbuktu and Darfur to northern Africa, especially
Egypt. 3 The Nuremberg patrician Christoph Fürer, during his journey to the Holy Land in 1565–
66, remarked while visiting the market in Cairo, “One also finds beautiful ostrich eggs for 3 medini.” 4
Around 1600, ships brought ostrich eggs, along with other “exotica,” from Alexandria to Venice, and
from there merchants transported them to Nuremberg, as well as to the great trade fairs at Frankfurt
and Leipzig. Ostriches were also native to the Arabian Peninsula and Sinai before being hunted to
extinction in those places in the first half of the twentieth century. 5 Thus, travelers, pilgrims, and
crusaders to the eastern Mediterranean brought back ostrich eggs as exclusive souvenirs. Closer to
their places of origin, the eggs were used—unworked or as parts of vessels and lamps—in Orthodox and
Coptic churches and in mosques. 6
Birgit Schübel
1 Bock 2005, p. 173.
2 Meißner 2018, p. 24; StAN, Rst.
Nbg., AstB 316, fol. 4.
3 Rublak 2021, p. 24.
4 Fürer von Haimendorf 1646, p. 135.
5 Bohms 2024, vol. 2, p. 600.
6 Green 2006, pp. 35–36.
134

135

cat. no. 36

cat. no. 37
181

ACROSS THE ALPS
N
uremberg enjoyed close cultural and economic ties with the cities of
northern Italy. Merchants such as Raffaele Torrigiani of Florence and
Paulus Praun II of Nuremberg maintained offices on opposite sides of
the Alps, respectively, mainly in the lucrative silk trade. Spices and luxury
goods from the Mediterranean region, and even further away, were imported
to Venice and from there brought to Nuremberg, making the German city an
important center for the trade in precious goods. However, not only goods but
also knowledge and artistic motifs were in circulation northward and southward
across the Alps.
In 1516, Torrigiani commissioned Veit Stoß to carve a Raphael and Tobias
group for the Dominikanerkirche in Nuremberg, based on Florentine models.
Decades later, Praun hired the artist Lavinia Fontana in Bologna to paint his
portrait. Fontana’s painting shows Praun as a learned cosmopolitan—as a
Nuremberger who felt at home in Bologna. In pursuit of humanist ideals of
education, many Nurembergers traveled to the Italian peninsula, where they
were able to study both contemporary art and the remains of classical antiquity.
Albrecht Dürer’s trips to Venice exemplify the multidimensional dynamics
and multifaceted nature of cultural exchange. While Dürer’s prints spread
throughout Italy and were greatly admired there, he himself in turn absorbed
pictorial concepts from Italian art. At the same time, in the art of the Venetian
painter Gentile Bellini, Dürer studied depictions of Ottoman figures, which he
later creatively integrated into his own works.
Pictures, writings, and other objects from the period demonstrate not only
the great extent to which Nuremberg was networked with northern Italy; they
also show the lasting effects that this exchange had on Nuremberg’s visual and
material culture.
Laura Di Carlo
◂ cat. no. 57 (detail)
217

88
OTTOMAN
ARCHER
Hans Peisser (model), Pankraz Labenwolf (cast)
Nuremberg, ca. 1540
Bronze, solid cast
H. 22.4 cm; W. 14.5 cm; D. 6.5 cm
GNM, inv. no. Pl.O.2948
References:
Exh. cat. Dresden and Bonn 1995,
p. 78, cat. no. 33b (Holger Schuckelt);
Exh. cat. Brussels and Kraków 2015,
p. 222, cat. no. 119 (Raphael Beuing);
Exh. cat. Nuremberg 2017, p. 190,
cat. no. 111 (Marina Rieß); Söding
2023, pp. 301–11; Kim 2024, pp. 19–
58.
1 Inv. no. 13/175.
2 Inv. no. Pl.O.2851.
3 Söding 2023, pp. 76–82, 301–3,
with references to earlier literature.
4 Kim 2024, pp. 19–58.
5 Kim 2024, pp. 19–58.
T
his bronze statuette shows an archer training his short, tightly drawn bow on an unseen target.
He appears to stride forward resolutely, his forward foot extending beyond the front edge
of the oval base. The artist took particular care to characterize the warrior as a representative
of the Ottoman Empire, using pictorial formulas and motifs that were common at the time. These include
the weapon—a reflex bow, the Ottomans’ most dreaded instrument of war—and the costume, consisting
of a turban wrapped around a tall cap, a tunic bound with a sash at the waist, a pair of knee
breeches, and shoes that leave the ankle exposed. The mustache is another typical element of this
iconographic repertoire.
In sixteenth-century Nuremberg, small-scale works in bronze or brass, including statuettes, medals,
plaquettes, and everyday objects, were important export goods. After the official introduction of the
Reformation and the accompanying decline in commissions for church furnishings, many artists
turned to the production of such works. One of them was Hans Peisser (d. after 1571), thought to be the
creator of the Ottoman Archer. Another cast of the same model is preserved at the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum
in Munich. 1 As with the Nuremberg piece, great care was taken in the cold work, that is,
the working of the surfaces and details after the casting process.
Together with a bronze statuette representing a swordsman, also at the Germanisches Nationalmuseum,
2 the Ottoman Archer has mostly been regarded as part of a once larger group of figures that may
have been conceived for a fountain. It is assumed that these statuettes were either themselves fountain
figures or that they served as models for a large fountain, comparable to the multifigured Neptune
Fountain made by Georg Labenwolf from 1576 to 1583 for Kronborg Castle (Elsinore, Denmark), on which
the basin rim was decorated with six similar warrior figures. 3
However, that interpretation is questionable. Models for large sculptures are unlikely to have involved
such extensive cold work. At the same time, the lack of any pipework for water speaks against
these figures having been intended for installation on a smaller fountain. Furthermore, the warrior’s
format is suitable neither for a large fountain nor a table fountain but instead lies exactly in between.
Dasol Kim therefore recently proposed that the Ottoman Archer was an autonomous work of art intended
for a cabinet of arts (Kunstkammer) or studiolo. Several factors support that idea: the format and
material, the detailed workmanship, the classic style of a statuette with a base reminiscent of ancient
models, and not least the highly topical theme, in the years around 1540, of the threat posed by the
Ottoman Empire. 4
The violent incursion by the army of Sultan Suleiman I into the territory of the Holy Roman Empire
and the siege of Vienna in 1529 had precipitated a collective trauma in Christian Europe. In the Ottoman
Archer statuette, the figure’s forceful, border-crossing footstep is evocative of invasion. Yet, especially
among the humanist elite, fear of the Ottomans existed alongside an interest in and admiration
for the Ottoman Empire and its military. This is exemplified by the fact that original Turkish bows and
arrows eventually became coveted collector’s items |cat. no. 87|. 5
Markus T. Huber
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