Imperator ‒ Kaiser ‒ Cyesars

This publication is a thematic continuation of the basic work on George of Nuremberg’s oldest German-Italian language textbook dating from the year 1424 that was published - also as Viennese memorandum - in 1972. This time it deals with Latin-German-Czech vocabularies for the Habsburg family in the 15th century. It first concentrates on an illuminated glossary for Ladislaus Postumus by Johannes Holubarz (Rome, Cod. Pal. Lat. 1787) with a Viennese copy (CVP 2945), believed to have been produced for the young crown prince Maximilian. The column that was originally written in Central German was Bavarianised. Holubarz, of whom there is also evidence in the chronicles of Michel Beheims and Jakob Unrest, can definitely be considered a central figure in Central-European history. A codicological contribution opens up new perspectives on Bohemian book illumination, the origins of Gothic type and Maximilian’s textbooks. At Christmas 1489, Maximilian (I) was given a Trialogus (CVP 2868), which draws on Prague’s 14th-century Claretus tradition and appears in a modernised version in the form of the Viennese Dictionarius trium linguarum of 1513, the first full Latin-German-Czech glossary print. All Habsburgian glossaries show – in the spirit of Aeneas Silvius Piccolominis – a renunciation of scholastic learning while still remaining pure word lists. According to the history of their tradition, there was a cultural gap between Bohemia and Austria in the 15th century, and Vienna was a centre for early glossary printing.