[WIRRI, Heinrich].

Description

First edition of this lavishly illustrated (in colour) festival book celebrating the wedding of Wilhelm V (1548-1626), Count Palatine of the Rhine (i.e., the Electoral Palatinate) and later Duke of Bavaria, and Renée (1544-1602), Duchess of Lorraine, in Munich in 1568. The Swiss Heinrich Wirri (d.1572) travelled in Germany, Austria and Switzerland as an entertainer at weddings, also participating in small and big local festivals as a singer or actor, including the present, which he then recounted in printed books or broadsides. The present begins with a gallery of the arms of all the illustrious participants, accompanied by German verse, e.g., Wilhelm’s father, Albrecht, Duke of Bavaria; Ferdinand I, Archduke of Austria; the Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg; and the Stadhalter of Augsburg. A large woodcut diagram, with Wilhelm’s arms at the centre, comprises dozens of shields of cities within his domains. Wirri narrates in verse the wedding procession and ceremony (with the order followed in church, the oaths, etc.), with ‘stage directions’ printed as sidenotes, e.g., ‘enters Duke Ferdinand’, ‘enter the Cardinals’, and ‘enter’ numerous ambassadors, from Florence, Spain, Baden, etc., as well as the ‘bridal carriage from Lorraine’. A two-page diagram shows the arrangement of the participants by the altar. The most intriguing feature is the extended folding plate, here remarkably present, showing the arrival of the Archduke of Austria into Munich. The final part illustrates the jousts held after the ceremony, e.g., a tournament with a bucket-shaped helmet, another over a fence, and so on. A very charming festival book.