Art in Books: Lambrecht Hopfer’s Crucifixion (c. 1525–50) in the Opuscula of Saint Bonaventure (1497) – A post by Elizabeth Upper
Comments Off on Art in Books: Lambrecht Hopfer’s Crucifixion (c. 1525–50) in the Opuscula of Saint Bonaventure (1497) – A post by Elizabeth Upper Cambridge University Library is one of the world’s greatest repositories of books, and many of these books contain artworks. Some were printed with the text (book illustrations), some were added to the text after printing (painting and illumination), some were bound into a volume, and some were pasted on by later collectors. Regardless of the kind of image, pictorial elements in books can provide art historians and bibliographers with important information about the interrelated ways in which both kinds of printed material, books and art, were collected, used and valued over the centuries.
The copy of the Opuscula of Saint Bonaventure, Brescia: Bernardinus de Misintis, for Angelus Britannicus, 31 December 1497 (ISTC ib00930000; Inc.4.B.23.12[3713]) has a print of the Crucifixion with the Virgin and St John pasted onto the verso of the third upper free endpaper [Fig. 1]. The iconography, or standard visual formula, is a devotional image of the Crucifixion that traditionally faces the start of the Canon of the Roman Catholic Mass (Canon missae) in missals. The print is undated, and it is signed ‘LH’, the monogram of Lambrecht Hopfer (Augsburg, active ca. 1525–1550), in the lower right corner.
Lambrecht Hopfer’s Crucifixion in the 1497 Opuscula (Inc.4.B.23.12[3713])
