Gregor Reisch a ikonografie na prahu novověku

The today almost unknown German Carthusian Gregor Reisch (ca. 1467–1525) was one of the leading figures in intellectual life in the early modern age. This is due primarily to his book Margarita philosophica, which was first published by Johann Schott in Freiburg in 1503, although it was prepared seven years earlier. It is the first scientific encyclopaedia compiled in the German-speaking region. Later editions were still being published in the 17th century, and it was widely used in teaching at universities. Margarita contains not only a considerable amount of factual information, but also about twenty extremely interesting depictions of allegories and personifications. In most cases they represent the first printed illustration of their kind, and as such played a significant role in the visual codification of iconography in the early modern age. This aspect of Reisch's book has, however, so far not received the attention it deserves, and so the author attempts to show, on the basis of two examples, how and why these illustrations are important. Firstly he analyses Reisch's personification of Friendship and endeavours to establish its place in the iconographic tradition leading from the illumination of mediaeval manuscripts to the early Baroque Iconologia of Cesare Ripa. In the second part of the article the author discusses the complex relationship between the bath scene depicted in Reisch's book and the well-known print Männerbad, created in ca. 1496–1497 by Albrecht Dürer.