Nel 1908 Erika Tietze-Conrat dedicò un saggio alle Icones Biblicæ Veteris et Novi Testamenti, una Bibbia illustrata pubblicata ad Augsburg nel 1680 dal celebre incisore ed editore Melchior Küsel. La studiosa aveva messo a fuoco la peculiarità di questa Bilderbibel, basata sulle fonti grafiche usate da Küsel per ambientare le 241 scene del Vecchio e del Nuovo Testamento, tramite una curiosa opera di interpolazione e di ‘plagio creativo’. Tuttavia, soprattutto le prospettive architettoniche inserite da Küsel nelle sue tavole, meritano ulteriori approfondimenti, per riconoscerne le fonti. A distanza di oltre un secolo il presente studio si propone di integrare l’esame delle stampe tratte da quelle di importanti incisori come Maarten van Heemskerck, Wenceslaus Hollar, e Jean Le Pautre. L’intento è quello di spiegare le dinamiche produttive di questa tipologia di pubblicazione, il cui successo coincideva con la fondazione delle prime accademie d’arte in Germania, spesso rivolte a un pubblico di collezionisti e conoscitori, coinvolgendoli in un gioco di più o meno scoperte citazioni dalle fonti più note. Ma la ricerca si allarga all’esame dei criteri di manipolazione delle immagini d’architettura nell’Europa del Seicento, come venne elaborata da una delle più recettive e importanti botteghe editoriali dell’epoca.
Dissemination, plagiarism and architectural prints in Seventeenth–century Europe. The case of Melchior Küsel’s Bible
In 1908 Erika Tietze–Conrat wrote an article on the Icones Biblicæ Veteris et Novi Testamenti, an illustrated Bible published in Augsburg in 1680 by Melchior Küsel. The scholar had fully understood that the peculiarity of this Bilderbibel lied not only in the 241 plates that Küsel had added as a setting and background for the many stories taken from the Old and New Testaments, but also in the selection of iconographic sources. Almost all the prints were not the result of Küsel’s inventions; he had created new versions from famous originals of diverse origins, which had come into his possession or were reproduced during his intense activity as a printmaker and print publisher in Germany, Austria and Italy. Tietze–Conrat had discovered Küsel’s curious work of “interpolation” and had drawn up a list of 110 “inspired” Bible plates by matching them with the originals that had inspired them. However, her research was limited to identifying the most famous paintings, already reproduced and in circulation in seventeenth century Europe through so–called “reproductive printmaking”. The architectural perspectives that Küsel had also included in his repertoire had therefore been left out of Tietze–Conrat’s praiseworthy research work. More than a century on, the present article adds the pairs related to architecture, including authors such as Galeazzo Alghisi, Maarten van Heemskerck, Wenceslaus Hollar, and Jean Le Pautre. The aim is to find an explanation for this publication — which came at the time of the founding of the first German art academies — which does not renounce invention and indirectly bears witness to a desire to fascinate less educated readers as well as to capture an audience of collectors, to offer experts a sort of game of more or less covert references and quotations. This study also intends to explore the matter of the diffusion and the criteria for manipulating images of architecture in seventeenth century Europe, starting from the cases identified in this unique Bible by one of the most receptive and ambitious print workshops of the time.
