Acknowledgements
Acknowledgements and their expressions of gratitude are a familiar genre; nonetheless, the variant on the praise of contemporaries – supervisors, examiners, colleagues, family – voiced here is no empty topos. First and foremost, my thanks go to Horst Bredekamp, whose aid and support were, from the very beginning, decisive in guiding the dissertation on which the original German edition of this book was based. Achatz von Müller offered benevolent criticism, friendly advice and sparkling conversation in its concluding stages. I also wish to thank him for the opportunity for discussion with students in co-taught seminars on ‘Reality c. 1500’ at the University of Basel. Helga Möbius’s constant, critical insistence has also contributed greatly to my general academic education. Without exception, all the libraries and archives consulted in the writing of this book were friendly, obliging and infinitely helpful. My particular thanks are due to the staff at the Gesamtkatalog der Wiegendrucke, who not only granted me access to their treasure house of books but also shared their knowledge with me. Konstanze Mittendorfer of the Department of Incunabula, Old and Rare Books at the Austrian National Library generously facilitated my access to the numerous objects of my desire. Giulia Bartrum, Department of Prints and Drawings, British Museum, smoothed my path to the only known copy of the first edition of the Wittenberg Relic Book. In the Parish of St. Nicholas (Hall in Tyrol) Father Jakob Patsch and Cornelia Sonderegger granted me free access to the manuscript by one of my heroes, Florian von Waldauf. A stipend from the Gerda Henkel Stiftung (Düsseldorf) supported the work on my doctoral thesis. Thanks for support are also due to the Geschwister Böhringer Ingelheim Stiftung für Geisteswissenschaften in Ingelheim am Rhein, the Christine Bonjour Stiftung (Basel) and the Miranda Floh Stiftung.
My gratitude goes to Philipp Zitzlsperger, Silke Tammen, Yvonne Northemann, Markus Leo Mock, Christian Taaks and Jan Henkel for informative, interested conversations. I owe a particular debt to Sabine Heiser and Dorothea Klein for their friendly, energetic support on the home stretch of my doctoral dissertation. I also wish to thank my family, especially Dirk Schumann, Sonia Cárdenas and Nora Butter, who from the very beginning have been at my side in my struggle with Nuremberg City Council, printers, the Bishops of Bamberg, a burgher of Vienna, a royal counsellor and emperors, kings and princes of the Empire; and who are also my anchor on the shore of the turbulent ocean of academia. Above all I wish to thank my mother, Marguerite Blume-Cárdenas, who was the first to read the manuscript of my doctoral dissertation, even before it was submitted to the Faculty of Philosophy III at the Humboldt University, Berlin, in September 2010.
This book is dedicated to the memory of my beloved grandmother, Luise Olga Charlotte Kraushaar (neé Szepansky) (1905–1989).
Livia Cárdenas
Basel/Berlin, June 2013