Add MS 78167

WILLIAM SMITH, ROUGE DRAGON PURSUIVANT: Description of Nuremberg; 20 Aug. 1594. Autograph. The full title (f. 7) reads ‘A Breef Description Of The Famous and Bewtifull Cittie of Noremberg, In Germany: Or rather Certaine notes obserued, of their Goverment, Customes, and Ceremonies: &c. Collected by W. S. Rouge-dragon’. It is surmounted by a coloured frontispiece incorporating the three coats of arms of Nuremberg and of members of eight of its principal families. This is followed (ff. 8v, 9) by a coloured map (197 mm x 238mm) of ‘The Territory of Norenberg’, drawn at a scale of 50mm to the German mile, flanked by the arms of sixteen neighbouring towns, and then (ff. 11v, 12) by a prospect of the city from the west, both of which occupy complete openings. The dedication (f. 13), entitled ‘The Epistle’, to Lord Burghley is preceded (f. 12v) by a full-page representation of his armorial achievement. The survey, which begins with a brief preface (f. 14), describes (ff. 15-37v) the physical situation of the city, with historical notes and lists of the main buildings, the magistracy, the ‘maner of Intertainment of Strangers, and others’, marriage-customs, provisions for the poor and sick, the fire service, and the treatment of malefactors. Texts of safe conducts issued for local merchants (ff. 38-39) and of the oath of the Common council (ff. 39v-41) are followed (ff. 41v-46) by a list of magistrates elected to serve on the Council, 1477-1591, with their various functions within it. The volume concludes (ff. 46v-52) with two hundred and two emblazoned coats of arms of prominent Nuremberg families. Two other manuscripts of the work survive, one in the Nuremburg Stadtbibliothek, which lacks any dedication but includes a plan of the city, and another in Lambeth Palace Library (MS 508), also incorporating the plan, which carries a dedication to Sir George Carey, later 2nd Baron Hunsdon, dated 20 Nov. 1594, while reciting those from an earlier exemplar presented to Edward, Lord Zouche, 20 Sept., and from the present one: see William Roach and Karlheinz Goldmann, ‘William Smith: “A Description of the Cittie of Noremberg” (Beschreibung der Reichsstadt Nürnberg) 1594’, Mitteilungen des Vereins fűr Geschichte der Stadt Nűrnberg, vol. 48 (1958), p. 194, which includes a text, with translation into German, and the three dedications from the Lambeth MS. See also the catalogue of Messrs. Phillips's sale, 15 June 2001, lot 284, and plates, at which the manuscript was purchased.

Paper: ff. iv+54. 222 mm x 350 mm. Contemporary binding of limp vellum, with two tie-holes on each cover; inscription in ink up the spine (f. i) reads ‘[N]oremberg’, with another, undeciphered, at the head. 19th cent. slip-case of brown and green half-morocco lettered between false bands on spine ‘w. s(mith) breef description of noremberg 1594 original ms.’. Thirteen gatherings, all in fours except for the second in which a bifolium now represented by stubs encloses two adjacent bifolia that carry the titlepage and the map. Pages ruled with central text-compartment in red, with guide lines visible in pencil beneath. Extensive use of red in running titles, foliation, sectional and marginal headings, and for words within text. Partial red ink foliation from 1 to 27 (f. 15-41). Initial capitals of sections variously coloured, sometimes enclosing shield of arms. Marginal diagram (f. 37) showing plan of the magistrates’ court. Marginal notes, etc., of important passages made in ink by an unidentified contemporary reader on (ff. 29, 29v, 31v, 33, 35, 37). Word ‘Sir’ pencilled on a front flyleaf (f. 4), with cutting (f. ii) from printed catalogue (item 122), after 1879, pasted below. Tipped in are two letters, formerly inserted loose, to former owners of the manuscript, viz., from Kenneth Francis Gibbs (f. iii) to ‘My dear Turner’, 17 July 1890, and Canon Claude Jenkins (f. v), addressed to ‘Dear Madam’, 15 Feb. 1947.

OR Collating 1⁴ (i, ii stubs); 2⁶ (i, vi stubs, encl. bifolia ii, iii and iv, v); 3-13⁴.