[Early German illustrated incunable pages]
Collection:CSM Museum & Study Collection
Date: c.1475 - 1495
Maker: Anton Sorg
Medium: Black printing ink and pigment on laid paper
Object number: P.100.1-3
DescriptionPages of German text illustrated with hand coloured single block woodcuts, probably from a book printed and published by Anton Sorg in Augsburg around the 1470s or 80s. Gunther Zainer had been the first printer in Augsburg, when he was invited to open a press by the Abbot of SS Ulric & Afra (a monastery), which had for a long time been the seat of a famous scriptorium (note how the pages from Sorg's books cling onto certain medieval traditions). Zainer worked in the Abbey's new press, which produced three large scale books of moral instruction in 1472-6. From 1875, Anton Sorg, originally a 'briefmaler' who had learnt to print in Zainer's shop, worked on the Abbey's premises. He printed Biblical and theological texts, but soon turned to vernacular texts, from 1480 printing mainly historical and travel books (such as those of Breydenbach and Marco Polo).
