Exceptional Works: Wunderzeichenbuch

Folio 67, Comet and fiery shaft, 1351 (detail): “In the year A.D. 1351, in the month of December, a comet was seen in the sky around midnight. Afterwards heavy winds sprang up and a fiery shaft was seen to fall from the sky, which then presaged great disagreement between the pope and the emperor.”

“The Book of Miracles unfolds in chronological order divine wonders and horrors.… Each page fully illuminated, one astonishing, delicious, supersaturated picture follows another.”

—Marina Warner, “The Book of Miracles,” The New York Review of Books, 2014

Anonymous

Wunderzeichenbuch (Book of Miracles), c. 1552

167 drawings, gouache, watercolor, and inscriptions on paper

8 1/2 x 13 x 2 1/2 inches (21.6 x 33 x 6.3 cm)

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An extraordinary and unique medieval artifact, the Augsburg Wunderzeichenbuch (Book of Miracles) is a sixteenth-century manuscript containing over 160 hand-painted images depicting miraculous events and natural wonders.

While the book follows an existing tradition, its documentation of natural phenomena is dazzling. From impressive depictions of atmospheric effects to extensive recordings of comets (the second largest collection at the time), the Wunderzeichenbuch fuses the superstitious with the scientific—in many ways anticipating the later rise in empirical scientific illustration.

Installation view, Seen in the Mirror: Things from the Cartin Collection, David Zwirner, New York, 2021

The book is exemplary for its skillful depictions of miracles, which range from the Old Testament to predictions of the end of time. While it is believed that the book was completed by multiple artists over the course of several stages, the name of one artist has been identified by an inscription he left beside a number of texts. He has been identified as the son of Hans Burgkmair the Elder, a prominent engraver and painter throughout the early sixteenth century with artistic ties to Hans Holbein the Elder.

“[The manuscript] is a substantial addition to our knowledge of mid-sixteenth-century Europe’s flourishing interest in miraculous signs. As a singular, privately commissioned work, the Augsburg manuscript offers a privileged view into the world of a collector of such phenomena.… The work also reflects the importance of Augsburg as a political, religious and financial centre … and as a place of production of magnificent illuminated manuscripts.”

—Joshua P. Waterman, “Miraculous Signs from Antiquity to the Renaissance,” in The Book of Miracles, 2013

Georg Braun and Frans Hogenberg, Map of Augsburg from Civitates orbis terrarvm, 1575

“The pictures carry with them the spirit of the times, when people put together puzzling collections of objects in wunderkammern, and were perturbed and impressed by freaks of nature.… They remain beguiling visions, dazzling violations of the natural order.”

—Horatia Harrod, “A Miraculous Renaissance Rediscovery,” The Tele graph, 2013

Folio 1, The Deluge, Genesis 7:11–14: “In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened. And rain fell upon the earth forty days and forty nights. On the very same day Noah and his sons, Shem and Ham and Japheth, and Noah’s wife and the three wives of his sons with them entered the ark, they and every beast, according to its kind, and all the livestock according to their kinds, and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, according to its kind, and every bird, according to its kind, every winged creature.”

“[The] Book of Miracles does not begin with the Fall, but with the Deluge.… The magnificent miniature shows Noah’s Ark battling through the flood, beneath darkened skies and the lashing rain, while people and animals fight for their lives in the waters flooding the landscape all around.”

—Till-Holger Borchert, “The Book of Miracles,” in The Book of Miracles, 2013

Hans Holbein the Younger, Noah’s Ark, 1538. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Many of the illustrations directly quote from existing works, making use of woodcuts and engravings by artists such as Hans Sebald Beham, Albrecht Dürer, Hans Holbein the Younger, and Wenzel von Olmütz as a basis for further elaborations. Rather than a lack of originality, these borrowings reflect engagement in a rich artistic exchange and participation within a living pictorial tradition.

Folio 5, Moses parting the Red Sea, Exodus 14:27–29: “So Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and the sea returned to its normal course when the morning appeared. And as the Egyptians fled into it, the LORD threw the Egyptians into the midst of the sea. 28 The waters returned and covered the chariots and the horsemen; of all the host of Pharaoh that had followed them into the sea, not one of them remained. But the people of Israel walked on dry ground through the sea, the waters being a wall to them on their right hand and on their left.”

Folio 5 (detail)

“Signs and wonders manifest God’s irruption into the human world: when the Israelites flee from persecution in Egypt, the Red Sea heaves up in a great tsunami, parts to let them through safely, then closes over the Pharaonic army in hot pursuit.… As is the tradition in religious painting, the Jews are dressed in the fashion of the good burghers of sixteenth-century Augsburg.… The scrolling lines on the huge waterspouts are pleasingly light of touch and quick with energy, and a feature of this artist’s best work.”

—Marina Warner, 2014

Folio 34, Comet, 1007: “In the year A.D. 1007, a wondrous comet appeared. It gave off fire and flames in all directions. As it fell to earth it was seen in Germany and Italy.”

“The pages of the Book of Miracles contain a great many comets. Together with an illustrated treatise on comets produced around 1587 in Flanders, the manuscript contains probably the largest early collection of comet pictures. In Antiquity these celestial apparitions were considered portents of serious misfortune lasting several years. Although this attitude changed in the Middle Ages, when comets were viewed in a positive light as messengers from God, Reformation-minded Humanists subsequently returned to the gloomy interpretation of comets as bringers of bad luck.”

—Till-Holger Borchert, 2013

Folio 50, Comet, 1184 (detail): “In the year A.D. 684, a comet appeared for three months. This was followed by such heavy rain, storms, wind and thunder as had never been heard before. And this element acted as if it wanted to destroy the city of Rome completely, and a great many livestock died in terrible ways. And people died from the lightning in the sky they saw.”

Folio 110, Comet, 1527 (detail): “In the year 1527, on the eleventh of October, at four o’clock in the morning, this comet was seen in Westrich for five quarters of an hour and then it disappeared again. It was extremely long and yellowish-red, like a diluted blood in colour. At the front the head was like a bent arm, as if it had a sword in its hand and was poised to start striking with it. And at the point of the sword there were three big stars and from the stars there issued a cloud-coloured stream, which was longer than the comet’s tail, just as it is painted here.”

Folio 109, Plague of locusts in Poland, 1527: “In the year 1527 a terrible wind from Turkey carried great hordes of locusts into the kingdom of Poland, which then caused great harm to the people and livestock. The locusts were grey and gold colour, just as is painted here.”

“The book’s leaves present a remarkable insight into a Renaissance Europe that—torn as it was by religious divisions and factional politics—frequently pictured itself as living at the end of time.”

—Tim Smith-Laing, “Signs and Wonders,” Apollo Magazine, 2014

Folio 106, Parhelia over Vienna, 1520: “In the year 1520, on the seventh day of the month of January, three suns, which are called ‘Parahelios’, were seen in Vienna in Austria from sunrise until ten or a little later.”

“The two mock suns that appeared over Vienna in January 1520 belonged to a series of unusual celestial phenomena that were observed in the skies above the city over several days and nights.… The atmospheric handling of colour that distinguishes the illustrations of these Vienna events is perhaps the most important artistic achievement within the Book of Miracles.”

—Till-Holger Borchert, 2013

Pamphilus Gengenbach, Illustrated broadsheet on celestial phenomena over Vienna, January 1520. Surviving pamphlets and at least one illustrated broadsheet from the time report up to seven distinct occurrences

Folio 107, Lunar halo over Vienna, 1520 (detail): “In the year 1520, on the 6th day of the month of January, this sign around the sun, which is called ‘Halo Maximus’, was seen in Vienna at three o’clock in the afternoon.”

Folio 103, Halo and torch over Vienna, 1520 (detail): “In the year 1520, on the fourth of January, this sign was seen in Vienna for three hours until five after midday. It is called ‘Halo’ and is like the moon.”

Folio 49, Three moons, 1174: “In the year A.D. 1174, three moons appeared in the German lands with the sign of a cross through their middle, separate and entirely over them, so that the moons were shining behind it.”

Folio 119, Whale and earthquake in Lisbon, 1531: “In the year 1531, on the twenty-sixth and the twenty-eighth of January, bloody and fiery signs were seen at night in the sky in Lisbon in Portugal on the twenty-sixth day and then on the twenty-eighth a great whale was seen in the sky. This was followed by great earthquakes, so that about two hundred houses collapsed and more than a thousand people were killed.”

“In 1531, around two hundred years before the terrible earthquake in Lisbon, which galvanized Voltaire’s revolt against the idea of Divine Providence, the city was shaken and ‘more than a thousand people killed.’ The inscription says that a whale was seen in the sky, along with streaks of blood, but in the picture the beast rages in his more natural element.”

—Marina Warner, 2014

Folio 90, Tiber monster, 1496: “In A.D. 1496, in the month of January, at the time the Tiber burst its banks high and wide near Rome: what wondrous creature appeared, found dead where the raging and the might of the Tiber’s waters had subsided, and was in this shape and form, as it is painted there.”

“This marvellous hybrid was left stranded and dead after the flooding of the river Tiber in 1496 subsided. Like medieval images of the Devil, the creature’s form is ambiguously male and female, reptilian and mammalian.… But to modern eyes … this monster has an appealing fancifulness, not so much threatening as comic.”

—Marina Warner, 2014

Lucas Cranach the Elder, Der Bapstesel zu Rom (The Papal Ass or The Pope Ass of Rome), 1523

“This fantastical creature became notorious in 1523, when Martin Luther and Philipp Melanchthon included it in a polemical anti-Catholic pamphlet with woodcut illustrations by the workshop of Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472–1553).… Melanchthon fashioned the Tiber monster as the ‘Papal Ass’ (‘Papstesel’), standing for the corrupt body of the Roman Church as a whole.… Although the creators of the Book of Miracles must have been aware … the avoidance of any hint of anti-papal polemics in the caption and the greater adherence to the original engraved version of the monster … are characteristic of the middle path trodden by Protestants among Augsburg’s elite.”

—Joshua P. Waterman, 2013

Folio 158, Wondrous wheat, bearded grapes and Margaretha Weiß, 1547, 1539: “In the year 1547 this lovely wheat grew in the county of Flanders, three miles from Ghent, in various shapes and forms—some pressed closely together, some with divided ears, as well as with four, eight, twelve, up to fifteen ears on one stalk, just as is painted here. A wonderful miracle in the year 1539, concerning a young girl from Roth in the Diocese of Speyer, who refrained from taking any physical sustenance for two years and twelve weeks. Alt this time too such hairy grapes grew beside the Neckar and the Rhine, as above. – Margaretha Weiß von Roth, thirteen and a half years old.”

“In a few pictures the artists seem to have suffered from a sort of miracle fever, piling together unrelated stories in a frenzy: in one example, we see not only Margaretha Weiss von Roth, who survived without food for two years and 12 weeks, but also a wondrous stalk of wheat with 11 ears, and a bunch of grapes that grew a full beard.”

—Horatia Harrod, 2013

Folio 171, Hail in Dordrecht, 1552: “In A.D. 1552, on May 17, such a terrible storm with hail descended on Dordrecht in Holland, that the people thought the Day of Judgement was coming. And it lasted about half an hour. Several of the stones weighed up to a few pounds and 8 lot. And where they fell, they gave a frightful stench.”

“This tremendous picture of a hailstorm on May 17, 1552, over the town of Dordrecht, gives a terminus post quem for the manuscript, as it is the last dated wonder reproduced in the book. The subsequent pages depict scenes of divine retribution from Revelation; in this way reports of strange phenomena are firmly bookended by scripture, and the possibly profane appetite for bizarre and singular occurrences acquires a degree of legitimacy.”

—Marina Warner, 2014

Illustrated broadsheet reporting hail in Dordrecht, 1552

“Its … survival is itself something of a minor miracle.… Yet despite the passage of time … the historic pages reproduced in the Book of Miracles appear fresh, almost contemporary.”

—Ben Marks, “Storybook Apocalypse: Beasts, Comets, and Other Signs of the End Times,” Collectors Weekly, 2014

Owing to its distinctiveness, in 2013 Taschen produced a complete facsimile of the Wunderzeichenbuch. The publication situates the codex in its cultural and historical context and provides an extensive description of the manuscript and its miniatures, as well as a complete transcript of the text.

The Wunderzeichenbuch is on view through December 18, 2021 as part of
Seen in the Mirror: Things from the Cartin Collection at the 20th Street gallery in New York.

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