4. In 1488, a MS. of Schiltberger’s travels was in the possession of a Receiver of Revenue, named Matthias Bratzl, who caused it to be bound in one volume, with MSS. of Marco Polo, St. Brandon, Sir John Mandevile, and Ulrich of Frioul, and then wrote on the fly-leaf a note to the following effect:—“Having acquired the herein-named books, I have had them bound together, and have added a valuable and accurate map. Should the reader of these writings not know where the countries are, whose customs and habits are described, they are to look into the map. The map will also serve to complete what may be wanting in the books, and indicate the roads by which the travellers went. The map and the books quite agree. Whoever inherits this volume after my death, is to leave the different books together, and the map with them.” When Gottlieb von Murr, the distinguished bibliographer and antiquary (1733–1811), saw the volume, the map was missing.
This MS. was originally at Munich, but being sent to Nuremberg for the purpose of being published, was there kept in the city library. Schlichtegroll, the biographer, sanctioned the loan of it to Penzel, who turned its contents into modern German, producing the editions of 1813 and 1814. Penzel died at Jena in 1819, leaving his body to the anatomical theatre, his books to the public library, and all his debts to the grand-duke of Weimar. He had not returned the MS., and it was never afterwards recovered. Neumann thinks that it may have been in the author’s own handwriting.
[1]Die Handschriften der Fürstlich-Fürstenbergischen Hofbibliothek zu Donaueschingen. Geordnet and beschreiben von Dr. K. A. Barack, Vorstand der Hofbibliothek. Tübingen, 1865, p. 326.
[2]Communicated by Dr. Joh. Priem of Nuremberg.
[3]Completed from Panzer, Annalen der älteren deutschen Litteratur etc., 1788–1805, i, 41.
[4]Communicated by Dr. Joh. Priem of Nuremberg.
[5]Bibliotheca sive supellex Librorum impressorum in omni genere scientiarum maximam partem rarissimorum et Codicum Manuscriptorum etc. Nuremberg.
[6]Printed by Anton Sorg, Augsburg, 1481.