Johannes Hinderbach (1418-1486) and his copies of Decades

For the past four months, I have been studying on a collection of Decades copies once owned by Johannes Hinderbach. These manuscripts have been really insightful as they contain several annotations of Hinderbach. I thought it useful to write something about these manuscripts as they are so fascinating.

First, few words about Johannes Hinderbach (1418-1486). He was a German-born diplomat, who had studied in Vienna and in Padova. From the latter he graduated as doctor utriusque iuris (doctor of canon and civil law) in 1447. Most of the 1450s Hinderbach worked as an ambassador of the Holy Roman Empire and visited Italian peninsula multiple times. He could be called as an expert in the Italian affairs and therefore he accompanied emperor Frederick III (1415-1493) to Rome in 1452, where the emperor was officially crowned by pope Nicholas V (r. 1447-1455). In 1465, Hinderbach was elected as prince-bishop of the alpine city of Trento, and he would hold that position the rest of his life.

Immediately after his election, Hinderbach entrusted a copyist Hugo Haemste, to copy several Roman manuscripts for his library in Trento. Six of these were copies of Biondo's works. The first decade is now in the Biblioteca Comunale in Trento (shelfmark W3387) and it is digitized here. The second and third decade are now in the Austrian National Library in Vienna (Shelfmarks are Ser. Nov. 2961 and Ser. Nov. 2962).

The margins of these manuscripts are adorned by dozens of annotations by Hinderbach. He was clearly a fan of Biondo and his writings, and sought to learn as much from them as possible. It is thrilling to see his person dripping from the annotations. Hinderbach commented on Biondo's use of sources, compared historical events to his own time and in many instances criticized Biondo for not using certain sources and erring sometimes in the names of certain rulers. All this indicates that Hinderbach saw Biondo's works as sources of information and that information needed to be correct.

One of the most frustrating thing when studying these manuscripts is the thick Gothic cursive of Hinderbach. It is at times almost illegible with thick ink, fast ductus and small space in the margins. However, I have discovered that the more you stare at it, the more you will understand. You can try to decipher it yourself below. You can find the transcription in the last quote of the post.

ÖNB, Ser. Nov. 2961, f. 61v

 

What is noteworthy is Hinderbach's style of arranging information on the page (see the image below). He reserves the top margin for running titles, which give a broad theme of the page. The outer and inner margins are reserved for lifting key information from the main text. This could be names of persons or places. This pedagogical tool helped the reader to find the desired information much faster. The lower margin was reserved for personal comments of Hinderbach. These could be just few lines or whole paragraphs in length. Specifically in these comments, Hinderbach reveals some of his judgements about the contents of Decades.

ÖNB, Ser. Nov. 2961, f. 6v

 

Moreover, an insightful thing about Hinderbach is his inquisitive nature, and he lets it show in the margins. Whenever he has questions, he writes them down and makes notes to compare the information in Decades to some other work. At one instance (f. 3v in W3387), Hinderbach admits his ignorance about the fact that Tacitus also wrote about the time of Domitian and makes a note to study this further:

Ergo Cornelius Tacitus pervenit et scripsit usque ad tempora Domitiani quod nesciebam. Vide et perquire.

(Therefore, Cornelius Tacitus arrived and wrote until the times of Domitian, what I did not know. Look and find out.)

On another instance, Hinderbach finds a discrepancy in Biondo's Decades regarding the origin of the Bohemians, the Dalmatians and the Slavs. He then writes in the margin that he must check this information in hystoria domini Pii olim Eneam Silvium cardinalis, referring to the History of Austria, written by his close friend and colleague, Enea Silvio Piccolomini, also known as pope Pius II. "Vide et perquire" ("look and find out") seems to have been the modus operandi of Hinderbach. These intertextual annotations are vastly interesting in regards to using historical texts. It also shows that readers did not read these text in a vacuum but possibly consulted several texts simultaneously.

Possibly one of the most tragic comments from Hinderbach comes in the second decade (f. 61v-62r in Ser. Nov. 2961), when Biondo had just described the regency of German empress Agnes of Poitou (c. 1025-1077). Hinderbach adds details about her burial and the current state of her grave:

Agnes imperatrix a filio henrico et suis ab administratione regni est repulsa que in viduitate sua multis annis vixit et Rome in palatio lateranensis habitavit et huius mortua apud Sanctum petrum ad latus altarum dextrum Sancte petronelle sepelcri eligit ut elegans ipsi epithaffium ibid in fornice insuperatum ostendit, cuius sepultura heu multum indigne hoc anno cum ceteris eiusdem capelle monumentis diruptum perlustratumque […] [Atque] ossa huic vide dispersi omnibus plane […]. Indigna [profecto] Romano pontifice rebus cui onum ecclesiarum religiosorumque locorum maxime vero defunctorum cura inventionisque ratio in [propriis] habenda esset.

Trans: Empress Agnes was repulsed from administration of the kingdom by her son Henry and his family, and she lived many years as a widow at the Lateran Palace in Rome. At her death she chose to be buried at Saint Peter's, under the right side of the altar of Saint Petronella, as the elegant epitaph on the arch above [currently] shows. Alas, on this year, her tomb, along with the rest of the monuments of the same chapel, has been unworthily torn up and searched, [...] And look at the bones scattered all over the place [...]. [This is] unworthy for an established Roman pontiff to whose matters belong the responsibility of the churches and religious places, especially those of the deceased, which should be held in proper care and status.

Hinderbach laments the despicable condition of the tomb and clearly feels that the papacy has neglected its duties in maintaining the tombs inside St. Peter's. This criticism towards the neglect of Roman buildings is often stated by Biondo as well. The annotation has a possible date in it, January of 1466. Even though the actual manuscript was completed in April 1466, the date could point to the time when Hinderbach visited Agnes' grave at St. Peter's. He was in Rome between 1465 and 1467, making this assumption possible.

Hinderbach's annotations in the copies of Decades have thus far been the most interesting ones, because they reveal so much of the owner. Multiple annotations still remain to be studied and I am looking forward to what I might find next.