Murr, Christoph Gottlieb
Nuremberg 1733 – 1811 Nuremberg

Merkwürdigkeiten der Fürstbischöf­lichen Residenzstadt Bamberg.

Nuremberg, ‘In der Grattenauerischen Buchhandlung’, 1799

octavo (192 × 115 mm), (152) ff., signed π⁴ A–S⁸ T⁴ and paginated (8) 1–292 (4), plus two folding letterpress tables (here both inserted after p.120).

provenance Georg Karl (Ignaz Johann Nepomuk) von Fechenbach zu Laudenbach (1749–1808), Fürstbischof von Würzburg 1795–1802, his engraved armorial exlibris G.C. v. Fechenbach on paste-down, and inventory/shelfmarks on endleaves Nr. 2257 | N.6 | R 54 with last also written on a paper spine label — Hartung & Hartung, Auktion 112 (‘Dabei Teil i der Bibliothek des fränkischen Adels­geschlechts von Fechenbach’), Munich, 8 November 2005, lot 1037

A few pages lightly spotted, otherwise in fine state of preservation.

bound in a contemporary half-calf binding, the flat spine divided into six compartments by a gilt foliage tool, lettering-piece.

Only edition of this work celebrating the treasures of Bamberg, commencing with a classified bibli­ography of publications about the city, an historical outline, a list of the productions of the local mint, accounts of the contemporary civic administration and state of commerce (including the papermaking, printing, book and print-selling trades). The author then turns eagerly to his principal subject, the ‘Kost­barkeiten’ preserved within the churches and monasteries of Bamberg, by its university, and other secular institutions.

The architecture, sculpture, tombs and monuments, paintings, and objects stored in the treasury of the Cathedral (SS. Peter und Georg) consume forty-pages, while another forty-five pages (relegated to an appendix) are devoted to the description of the magnificent manuscripts collected or commissioned by the emperor Henry ii, who had founded the bish­opric of Bamberg in 1007. In his entry for the Kollegiatstift St. Stephan, Murr devotes several pages to the eleventh-century manuscript ‘Bamberg Apocalypse’, providing important testimony about its now-lost jewelled binding with dedicatory inscription ‘Henric Et Kunigunt Haec Tibi Munera Promunt’ (during secularisation the manuscript and binding were separated, and of the latter only an agate in the Schatzkammer der Residenz, Munich, has survived). Murr was escorted around the uni­versity by its librarian, ‘Herr Grundel, ein Exjesuit’, and shown thirteen volumes of Chinese works on astronomy, astrology, and the calendar, and a manu­script of Albucasis on surgery ‘aus dem xiii Jahr­hunderte’, besides collections of coins, shells, and coral.

Murr is interested equally in the printed books in the Bamberg libraries: he tells us that the Dominicans possessed 214 incunables (a dozen are described, pp.130–134); and the Carmelites 469 incunables (nearly one hundred are described, pp.160–170). In an appendix (pp.251–286), Murr lists the books he believes were printed at Bamberg during the fif­teenth century, commencing with Ulrich Boner's Der Edelstein, printed by Albrecht Pfister, on 14 February 1461 (Murr examined the copy at Wolfenbüttel, still the only one known: ‘Das Papier ist stark, nicht sonderlich weisz, und hat den Och­senkopf zum Zeichen’, p.234); then the thirty-six line Bible, noting inter alia ‘P. Alexander bey den Capuzinern in Bamberg, hat neun Pergamentblätter von dieser angeblich Pfisterischen Bibel gesammlet’ and ‘Auch ich hatte Fragmente davon von alten Einbänden’ (p.261).

This book is rare outside Germany: two copies (in British Library and Cambridge University Library) are located in the United Kingdom by copac, and three copies only (Library of Congress, University of Chicago, Florida State University) in North America by the National Union Catalog and WorldCat.

Our copy is from the library of last Fürstbischof von Würzburg, Georg Karl von Fechenbach zu Laudenbach, afterwards (1805–1808) Bischof von Bamberg. The contents of Schloß Laudenbach were dispersed by auction at Cologne in 1889 (Lugt 48326); the archive sold privately in 1969 to the Staatsarchiv Würzburg (Hatto Kallfelz, Archiv der Freiherren von Fechenbach zu Laudenbach, Teil 1: Das Familienarchiv, Munich 1988); and the remaining manuscripts and printed books, most in fine state of preservation, are now entering the market via the Munich auctioneers Hartung & Hartung.

references J.J. Lentner’sche Hofbuchhandlung, Bibliotheca Bavarica (Munich 1911), no. 6877; Gerhard Pfeiffer, Fränkische Bibliographie (Würzburg 1965–1978), no. 2752