the Rhine, and reached Venice after fifteen days of travel. There they spent three weeks gathering provisions for the trip, touring relics and other sites, and contracting with the captain of one of the two galleys that transported pilgrims east that season. Holy Land pilgrimage was an organized affair, with galleys licensed by the state, and upon arrival at the eastern Mediterranean port of Jaffa (now Tel Aviv), pilgrims were handed off from the care of their captains to Franciscan monks, the Latin Church’s representatives in the region, who would take responsibility for shepherding them through their stay. The Peregrinatio group set sail on June 1, hopping among the ports of Parenzo (today Poreč, Croatia, June 3–4), Zara (Zadar, Croatia), Corfu (June 12), Modon (Methoni, Greece, June 15–16), Rhodes (June 18–22), and Cyprus (June 26–27), before arriving in Jaffa at the end of June just before the second galley of pilgrims, who had been cruising on a parallel course. There they were held in immigration detention until Mamluk officials arrived to process them, after which they were released to the Franciscans, who led them by donkey into Jerusalem on July 11 via a stopover in Rama.
A highlight of their time in the Holy City was the overnight lock-in at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher from July 12 to July 13, when the noblemen of the party were dubbed Knights of the Holy Sepulcher in a ceremony during the vigil.15 They also climbed the Mount of Olives; walked the Via Dolorosa, the path Jesus took from his imprisonment to his crucifixion; visited the Franciscans at their base on Mount Sion; and took excursions out of town to Bethlehem, Jericho, the River Jordan, and the Dead Sea. After ten days, most pilgrims began the trip back to Jaffa for the voyage home, but the Peregrinatio party and some others decided instead to make the arduous trek south to Saint Catherine’s Monastery at the foot of Mount Sinai. They waited in Jerusalem until August 24, in the meantime getting a chance to enter some sites that had been closed to the larger contingent, in particular the birthplace of the Virgin Mary, which had been converted to a (very prestigious) madrasa.
The expedition through the Egyptian desert to Mount Sinai took thirty days, and from Saint Catherine’s they took to the desert again for eleven more days, heading west to Cairo, one of the world’s largest cities, which they explored for twelve days against the background of Ramadan. They admired a troupe of exotic animals, a new mosque commissioned by the sultan, and the sultan himself holding court in the palace. Merchants in the market mistook them for a lot of slaves, offering to purchase them from their guides for ten ducats each (150r, ll. 30–35). On October 19 they embarked for a week-long passage downriver to Alexandria, where Count Johann succumbed to illness on October 31 and was buried with all the ceremony Breydenbach could muster in the Coptic Church of Saint Michael. The Peregrinatio mentions his death only briefly, but the description of Count Johann in the register of pilgrims making the trek to Saint Catherine’s monastery reads as eulogy: “Lord Johann of blessed memory, a Count of Solms and Lord of Münzenberg, in years the youngest and least, but in nobility and mind like no other, indeed, the foremost.”16 They were finally able to take ship for Venice on November 15, but, delayed by rough weather, they did not make it into port until January 8. The two noble survivors, Breydenbach and Bicken, donated a stone relief of the Virgin and Child to the Mainz Cathedral of Our Lady in thanksgiving for their safe return (figure 5).17
In Jerusalem, the Peregrinatio pilgrims’ path dovetailed with that of two others who would write their own accounts of the journey. Felix Fabri, a Dominican preacher from Ulm who traveled in another galley on the way east, was on his second trip to the Holy Land, and he would go on to compose four texts about his travels: a Latin account known as his Evagatorium in Terrae Sanctae, Arabiae et Egypti peregrinationem (Wanderings in the Holy Land, Arabia, and Egypt on pilgrimage); a guide to spiritual pilgrims called Sionpilger (Sion pilgrims); an abridged redaction of the Latin account in German; and a rhymed itinerary of his first pilgrimage in 1480.18 Paul Walther von Guglingen, an Observant Franciscan, had made his way to Jerusalem in July 1482, penniless in true mendicant style, and he stayed there for a year at the monastery on Mount Sion, until Breydenbach invited him and Fabri to continue on to Egypt with the Peregrinatio party. He made productive use of his extended stay in the Holy Land, compiling information—albeit strongly and at times vituperatively biased toward his Latin Christian point of view—about the peoples and languages of the region, in particular Muslims and Arabic.19 The text recognizes this when it tags him in the list of pilgrims who made the trip to Mount Sinai as one of two friars, “who know many languages” (137v, ll. 4–6).
Fabri shared a galley with Breydenbach’s group on the voyage back to Venice (158r, ll. 5–9), and Fabri reports that once there, Breydenbach invited him over to his accommodations, where they talked about the planned Peregrinatio and where Fabri had to turn down an offer to return with Breydenbach to Mainz.20 In his Evagatorium, Fabri repeatedly praises Breydenbach and the Peregrinatio, albeit enough to suggest a bit of name-dropping, and Breydenbach returns Fabri’s admiration in describing him in the list of Sinai pilgrims: “a very learned teacher of Holy Scripture and a renowned, serious preacher in Ulm, who has been to Jerusalem before, an experienced father” (137v, ll. 13–15). This testimony suggests that the two authors shared not just a formative journey, but also a common outlook on the legacy of the experience. Fabri’s accounts provide extensive corroboration of the Peregrinatio’s description of events, often filling in details of elements that the disciplined Peregrinatio text mentions only with succinct restraint or passes over altogether.21
Shortly after Breydenbach’s return to Mainz in early 1484, a new prelate, Berthold von Henneberg, was elected by the canons of Mainz Cathedral, and it is Henneberg’s arms that stand at the head of the Peregrinatio text. Henneberg vacated the position of dean of the cathedral chapter to assume his new rank, and Breydenbach was selected as his replacement. In that first year as dean, Breydenbach was also the impresario for another highly influential and visually ambitious book, an herbal called the Gart der Gesundheit (Garden of health), printed in March 1485 by Peter Schöffer, with text assembled by a local physician, Johann von Cube (figures 11, 21).
Throughout his career Breydenbach accumulated numerous additional positions that culminated in these years to signal his growing duties as one of the archbishop’s closest aides. For the cathedral chapter, he administered the largest town in their territory, as well as the goods and finances of the chapter itself, which included their library. Henneberg granted Breydenbach the privilege of traveling to Rome to represent Mainz at the coronation of Pope Innocent VIII in August 1484 and to retrieve the papal confirmation of the archbishop’s election and the pallium for his formal investiture. While there, Breydenbach was given the honorary dignity of apostolic protonotary. In addition, he continued under Henneberg in the office of chamberlain to the archbishop, a role that occasioned his travel to attend state occasions and involved him in the governing of the city of Mainz, both in conjunction with the town council and the courts and in the oversight of the university there. Already in 1477 under a previous archbishop, Breydenbach had presided as chamberlain over the trial for heresy—and conviction—of a member of the Erfurt faculty who had written against indulgences and other doctrines. Breydenbach’s standing in the diocese leaves no doubt that he functioned during the years of the publication of the Peregrinatio in a way that was compatible with the archbishop and his policies. These details of Breydenbach’s biography also explain how he could afford the pilgrimage and underwrite publishing projects, as it is generally assumed, lacking other evidence, that he funded the printing of the Peregrinatio out of his own pocket.
The Role of Erhard Reuwich
Erhard Reuwich of Utrecht has a name, though there is meager biography or artistic history to attach to it. The Peregrinatio repeats that name three times: (1) in the front matter, where Breydenbach’s bringing along a painter promotes his authorial diligence and initiative; (2) in the colophon that identifies Reuwich as the printer; (3) and at the beginning of the second division of the book, where Breydenbach lists the travelers who trekked to Mount Sinai. There he is “the
