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The Mainz Merlon Mystery
- The Mainz Merlon Mystery
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RE: The Mainz Merlon Mystery
ReneZ > 20-08-2025, 11:49 PM
Yes, this image has caught the attention in Voynich discussions before. I am not sure if it is also used outside the Nuremberg chronicles.
One may wonder if it is possible to find a place that combines all the important elements from this illustration - it won't be Mainz - or not, but it is of course possible that it is just that: a combination of known elements.
The onion dome is one indicator, beside the ghibelline crenellations, and also the rocky hills are not found everywhere. Fortifications right next to a river (or lake?).
Nürnberg is just about possible. Salzburg seems to fit even better. An interesting puzzle but it may very well just be an imaginary place. -
RE: The Mainz Merlon Mystery
MarcoP > 21-08-2025, 10:56 AM
(20-08-2025, 11:39 PM)Bernd Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Medieval AI slop. Looks like the entire chronicle was clickbait
Quote:The author of the text, Hartmann Schedel, was a medical doctor, humanist, and book collector. He earned a doctorate in medicine in Padua in 1466, then settled in Nuremberg to practice medicine and collect books. According to an inventory done in 1498, Schedel's personal library contained 370 manuscripts and 670 printed books. The author used passages from the classical and medieval works in this collection to compose the text of the chronicle. He borrowed most frequently from another humanist chronicle, the Supplementum Chronicarum by Giacomo Filippo Foresti of Bergamo. It has been estimated that about 90% of the text is pieced together from works on humanities, science, philosophy, and theology, while about 10% of the chronicle is Schedel's original composition.
OK, I understand that this is a joke, but I don’t get it. How does the anachronistic derision of the Nuremberg Chronicle follow from the quote? Isn’t copying from other sources the way all encyclopedias have always worked, including Isidore, the Encyclopédie and Wikipedia? One of the “great innovations” of AI slop is that it isn’t copied from other sources: AI grinds and mixes sources that it doesn’t understand at all, and regurgitates something new, made up on the basis of a statistical algorithm.
The Nuremberg Chronicle was made with the goal of selling and making money, but this doesn’t automatically make it “clickbait”. Most books have always been published with the goal of profit: the book industry is an industry and survives by making a profit. I don’t know much about the Nuremberg Chronicle, and it is possible that they reused engravings just because people loved illustrated books. But, having a small figure for paragraphs about individual cities or popes, also makes the layout of the text easier to navigate, rather than a uniform text-wall. We know that illustrations in manuscripts often worked similarly, I am thinking of the totally unrecognizable plants in so many illustrated herbals. And some of the city illustrations in the Chronicle, like You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., are wonderfully detailed and informative.
Personally, I think the Chronicle was an amazing work: an affordable encyclopedia that summarized human knowledge and made it available to a wide public was a step forward out of the middle ages and towards democracy. The idea of creating a German edition for the home market and a Latin edition for the international market was also brilliant, in my opinion. -
RE: The Mainz Merlon Mystery
N._N. > Today, 09:15 AM
(20-08-2025, 11:39 PM)Bernd Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
Quote:The author of the text, Hartmann Schedel, was a medical doctor, humanist, and book collector. He earned a doctorate in medicine in Padua in 1466, then settled in Nuremberg to practice medicine and collect books. According to an inventory done in 1498, Schedel's personal library contained 370 manuscripts and 670 printed books. The author used passages from the classical and medieval works in this collection to compose the text of the chronicle. He borrowed most frequently from another humanist chronicle, the Supplementum Chronicarum by Giacomo Filippo Foresti of Bergamo. It has been estimated that about 90% of the text is pieced together from works on humanities, science, philosophy, and theology, while about 10% of the chronicle is Schedel's original composition.
This approach was basically the standard not only for encyclopedias as MarcoP mentioned, but for scholarship in general for most of the medieval and early modern period. Research was not primarily based on experiments and observation, but on the compilation of authoritative texts. The concept of compilation did not have the negative reputation of copying without one's own contributions. Instead, it was considered a proof of the author's education and understanding of the classics. This only changed in the so-called scientific revolution (which is a difficult concept on its own) in the 16/17th century and even later for what would today be the humanities, social sciences etc.
Especially in early prints, the re-use of depicitions of cities was extremly common, mainly to save time and money. The woodcuts may have remained with the printer or the artist, which means it might be worth looking into earlier books published by the same people to identify what they were first used for.
However, in this case, Mainz may just be one of the generic towns created for the Weltchronik. This version digitized from the Staatsbibiliothek München even has a * symbol for each picture which was supposed to be authentic: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. Basically, this could be used to rule out a number of cities as the original inspiration with some degree of confidence. However, if the picture is just a copy of an older picture or the combination of different features found in Nürnberg or elsewhere, this would lead nowhere.
In any way, what I find interesting about this ist how the use of swallowtail merlons in a depiction of Mainz in 1493 seemed apparently not completely out of place. It might just simply not have mattered to the publishers, but the extent of their use in 15th century German manuscripts is always interesting to me. -
RE: The Mainz Merlon Mystery
Koen G > Today, 09:20 AM
What I find puzzling is that Mainz was an important city not too far removed from the Nuremberg makers, both geographically and culturally. Them using a stock image for it, or randomly slapping swallowtail merlons on the walls is just kind of weird. But not impossible, I guess. -
RE: The Mainz Merlon Mystery
N._N. > 7 hours ago
I just realized I had the wrong link in my post above - that's what you get for trying to post the permanent urn instead of copying from the browser... You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
To your last point, Koen: From my check, Mainz is actually the only city within the borders of Germany and Austria today that apparently has no original depiction. Next closest to Nürnberg are Metz and some cities in Northern Italy. A book on city depictions in the Weltchronik 1888 unfortunately does not mention Mainz in particular beyond not listing it as accurate: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. There is a bunch of additional literature on the matter, for example why Mainz is in a list with other cities supposedly founded by the Trojans. However, this is not freely available online and probably not helpful enough to justify ordering it from the library. -
RE: The Mainz Merlon Mystery
Koen G > 5 hours ago
Very interesting! So it is indeed an aberration.
I have a completely uneducated guess on why the makers of the chronicle chose to depict Mainz with swallowtail merlons. If I understand the text above the image correctly, it goes to great lengths to paint Mainz as a Roman city, preferring the origin of its name in Roman times rather than from the Main river. (This is actually true!). It also appears to say that some of the architecture in the city still betrays its Roman origin.
They clearly knew swallowtails came from Italy (see the Venice image for example). So what if they thought these fitted with the city's origin? After all, swallowtail merlons had existed for many centuries by the time this woodcut was made.
In other words: the text emphasizes that Mainz has Roman origins and still shows the signs of that. So why not put some "Roman" flair on the walls? -
RE: The Mainz Merlon Mystery
Rafal > 4 hours ago
Quote:In Medieval Latin, the name was shortened in the 6th century and henceforth written and pronounced “Moguntia” or “Magantia.” In the 7th century, the city name changed to “Mogancia,” “Magancia urbis,” or “Maguntia,” and in the 8th century to “Magontia.” In the 11th century, the name had returned to ‘Moguntiacum’ or “Moguntie.” In general, the city's name was often influenced not by actual linguistic development, but by the prevailing “fashion” of pronunciation. In the 12th century, the city was referred to as “Magonta,” “Maguntia,” “Magontie,” and “Maguntiam.”
I have nothing clever to add so I'll tell you an useless anecdote
Did you know that in Polish language a lot of names of German towns are in its Latin form? I'm not sure but it can be the only language that does it this way.
So Meinz is Moguncja in modern Polish. There is also Monachium, Norymberga, Koblencja, Brema, Wormacja, Akwizgran, Kilonia, Getynga and some other.
It's sometimes a source of confusion but may help you to read old Latin chronicles if you are Polish
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RE: The Mainz Merlon Mystery
Mauro > 3 hours ago
(4 hours ago)Rafal Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I have nothing clever to add so I'll tell you an useless anecdote
Did you know that in Polish language a lot of names of German towns are in its Latin form? I'm not sure but it can be the only language that does it this way.
So Meinz is Moguncja in modern Polish. There is also Monachium, Norymberga, Koblencja, Brema, Wormacja, Akwizgran, Kilonia, Getynga and some other.
It's sometimes a source of confusion but may help you to read old Latin chronicles if you are Polish
With the same disclaimer as Rafal's.. Italian does that too: Magonza, Monaco, Norimberga, Coblenza, Brema, (no Italian name for Worms that I know of), Aquisgrana, Colonia, Gottinga. But I readily admit with Italian it's less surprising than with Polish!