Rare first edition in German of the painter Hubert Goltzius s lives of the ancient and modern Roman emperors, from Julius Caesar to Charles V and Ferdinand II, beautifully illustrated with over one hundred chiaroscuro woodcuts derived from portraits on coins, published in the same year as editions in Latin and Italian. Chiaroscuro printing involves one or more coloured woodblocks, relief being achieved through the use of the natural white of the paper to provide highlights. Goltzius was the first artist from any country to adapt the chiaroscuro print successfully to the requirement of full-scale book illustration (Bialler, p. 30). This was his earliest published work of numismatics, and was, in its size and scale ‚Äö without precedent in the field of numismatics (ibid., p. 31). Goltzius's catalogue inhabits a common trope employed by countless humanists and antiquarians of the period: adjoining the Habsburg dynasty of Holy Roman Emperors to an historical account of the ancient Roman emperors. Goltzius, however, added the element of basing portraits of the emperors on their portrayals on coins, his putative numismatic evidence (which cannot have always been strictly accurate) lending credence to the idea of a continuous Roman imperatorial lineage. Initially the series was to include 148 medallions, but a number remained uncompleted for the first three editions. In the Latin edition, presumably the earliest, Goltzius employed an etched line block to provide the outlines, and one or two tone blocks depending on the colouring. In this edition, however, a number of the medallions are printed using a woodcut line block and only one tone block, which removed the need for printing on two presses (one for the etched block and another for the woodblocks), and reduced the number of runs through the press. Van Mander stated that the etched line blocks were made by Goltzius himself, and the woodblocks by Joos Gietleughen (Bialler). This was an impeccably well-researched book, as demonstrated by the long catalogue of authors cited, in Latin, Greek, Hebrew and German. Goltzius begins with an historical catalogue of the triumphs won by consuls and triumvirs of ancient Rome, from the foundation of the city by Romulus to the death of Augustus. This is followed by a quote from Ammianus Marcellinus, the ancient Roman soldier in the army of Julian the Apostate. Each coin portrait is then accompanied by a brief life of the emperor in question, compiled from these sources. There is also a genealogy of the Austrian Habsburg dynasty. The final portrait of Ferdinand II differs from that in the Latin edition, showing him only as a bust, as opposed to a half-portrait holding sceptre.
