[portrait by Tobias Stimmer; alternative source]
Stephan Brechtel the Elder (1523 - 1574) was a mathematician by primary occupation but was also a gunsmith, globe, sundial and surveying equipment maker/decorator and he trained in the art of calligraphy in Nuremberg under the scribe, Johann Neudörfer. He was active in his native Bamberg and Leipzig, as well as Nuremberg, where he was a town councillor, and considered himself to be a pious scientist.
Images from three Stephan Brechtel manuscripts are seen above:
- University of California, Berkeley, Bancroft Library UCB 021 in German gothic humanist script at the Digital Scriptorium.
- Columbia University, New York, Rare Book and Manuscript Library Plimpton MS 300, a paper and parchment manuscript; also at the Digital Scriptorium.
- BSB Cod.icon. 390 'Wappenbuch des Heiligen Römischen Reiches' (Holy Roman Empire Coat of Arms book) is an enormous manuscript of >1000 pages (the second last image above) available from the Bavarian State Library in Munich.
- Der Lebensweg Stephan Brechtels (The Life of Stephan Brechtel) [trans.]
- Die Nürnberger Schreibmeisterfamilie Brechtel (The Brechtel family of calligraphers from Nuremberg) [trans.]
- Stephan (+ Familie) Brechtel at Nuremberg Astronomy [trans.]
- Previously: calligraphy.
- And to repeat an unanswered tweet from the other day: if any benevolent reader has greasemonkey script writing skills and feels like taking a crack at generating a script to enlarge images on search result pages at the British Museum Prints database, please contact me: peacay == gmail == com.
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