Valentin Wagner
Title page.
Kronstadt was called Corona in Latin.
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The knight
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agner was born 1510-1520 in Kronstadt and died 2/9 1557.
He was humanist teacher, rector, Lutheran pastor and reformer.
He lived in the part of Transylvania that's inhabited by the Siebenbürger Saxons.
The area is (presumably) named after the seven fortified cities, one of which is Kronstadt
(Romanian: Braşov; Hungarian: Brassó; Latin: Brassovia or Corona).
Wagner received his education in Krakow and Wittemberg (1542) among others under Melanchthon.
He returned to Kronstadt in 1542, where he worked for the Reformer Johannes Honterus.
In 1544 he became the first schoolmaster of the newly opened Protestant school.
After the death of Honterus in 1549, Wagner took over the printing shop and published books,
the most important one being
The New Testament in Greek and Latin: Novum Testamentum, 1557
(picture: 1,
2, 3).
The same year — shortly before his death — he published
the book to the left. As the front page states, it consists of two parts.
The second part was
"Praecepta vitae Chri[s]tianae, et alia quaedam epigrammata, carmine elegiaco".
I.e.: "Instructions for a Christian life, and some other epigrams, in elegiac couplets".
Wagner had written and published that book back in 1554, and now he bundled this three years old publication
together with copies of Holbein's woodcuts.
The first part had the title:
"Imagines mortis selectiores, cum δεκαστίχοις".
I.e.: "A careful choice of pictures of death, with [poems] consisting of ten lines".
The pictures are coarse copies of Holbein's dance of death,
which Wagner has probably cut himself. Each image is accompanied by a Latin verse consisting of ten lines
(Greek: δεκάστιχος = consisting of ten lines).
According to the preface, Wagner wrote these poems himself.
He also claimed to have used
an edition containing Georgius Aemilius' text as source.
The verses were printed along with a long row of Bible quotes.
Some of these are clearly the same
that were used in the French editions of Simulachres,
but this is far from always the case.
Thanks to Mischa von Perger for information and corrections.
External link
Titlepage
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Other interpreters of Holbein's dance of death
Melantrich was from Czechia.
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Hollar was also from Czechia.
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Valvasor was from Ljubljana in Slovenia.
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Dances of death
Holbein's dance of death
Wagner
