Rem’s Hybrid Book
The entire 1617 imprint of Isselburg’s Emblemata Politica, lacking the allegorical title page, is inserted after the emblem manuscript. Thus, the manuscript and printed political emblems adjoin each other at the center of the book and form its core. The volume concludes with sixty leaves (=120 pages) containing descriptions of Nürnberg monuments and encomia to the town’s leading citizens—in particular, to the “septem viri,” the seven patrician members of the inner town council and the most powerful men in the city. Internal evidence dates the manuscript to after 1617 and no later than 1620.
The monuments described here by Rem situate the emblems in a much larger context, well beyond the allegories of the Great Hall. The Latin and German texts assembled in this customized book underscore the considerable civic pride in the political relationship between the emperor and the town council and citizenry of this important mercantile city. The manuscript contextualizes the emblems within the broad concepts of good government and justice and emphasizes the virtues of the patrician class that governed Nürnberg during the early modern period. The various elements of Rem’s hybrid print and manuscript book work in synergy to express the highest political and social ideals of the Free Imperial City.
It is unclear why the book was never published, although a few indicators suggest that the window of opportunity simply closed after 1620. Georg Rem died in 1625. Peter Isselburg left Nürnberg in 1622, although he returned to Nürnberg in 1630 and died there at about that time. By 1620, the Thirty Years’ War had escalated, bringing the defenestration at Prague (1618), the death of Emperor Matthias (1619), the election of Prince Elector Friedrich V of the Palatinate (1596–1632) as the next king of Bohemia, and the Protestants’ loss at the Battle at White Mountain (1620). These historical circumstances all likely delayed the publication project until it was eventually abandoned.
