Ep. 195 – Engraving the German Renaissance

History of the Germans

Last year I went to an exhibition at the Städel museum in Frankfurt that was entitled Holbein and the Renaissance in the North. That is the elder Holbein, the father of the Holbein who came to England. This exhibition has now ended, but there is still a great summary available on the Städel website.

Though obviously not present at the exhibition, one key focus was the Fugger chapel in the church of St. Anne in Augsburg, one of the earliest and most significant Renaissance building north of the Alps. I wanted to kick off this episode with this chapel and then move on to Holbein, Burgkmair etc. But as I dug deeper and deeper into the late 15th and early 16th century art in Southern Germany, the more connections and links emerged that I hope you will find as fascinating as I did.

Links to artworks:

Fugger chapel: Die Fuggerkapelle | St. Anna Augsburg

Riemenschneider Heilig Blut Altar: The Altar of the Holy Blood | Reliquarian

The Hare: Young Hare, 1502 - Albrecht Durer - WikiArt.org

Schongauer St. Anthony: Martin Schongauer | Saint Anthony Tormented by Demons | The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Rhinocerus: Albrecht Dürer | The Rhinoceros | The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Ritter, Tod und Teufel and other works: Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528) - The Metropolitan Museum of Art

The music for the show is Flute Sonata in E-flat major, H.545 by Carl Phillip Emmanuel Bach (or some claim it as BWV 1031 Johann Sebastian Bach) performed and arranged by Michel Rondeau under Common Creative Licence 3.0.

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To make it easier for you to share the podcast, I have created separate playlists for some of the seasons that are set up as individual podcasts. they have the exact same episodes as in the History of the Germans, but they may be a helpful device for those who want to concentrate on only one season.

So far I have:

The Ottonians

Salian Emperors and Investiture Controversy

Fredrick Barbarossa and Early Hohenstaufen

Frederick II Stupor Mundi

Saxony and Eastward Expansion

The Hanseatic League

The Teutonic Knights

The Holy Roman Empire 1250-1356

The Reformation before the Reformation