Encounters with the Levant: the late medieval illustrated Jerusalem Travelogue by Paul Walter von Guglingen

Abstract

The late medieval illustrated Jerusalem travelogue by the Franciscan friar Paul Walther von Guglingen has heretofore received scant scholarly attention, perhaps owing to the unusual nature of some of its images. Guglingen charts decidedly Islamic spaces with his maps and plan, instead of the conventional sacred shrines of Christianity; these topographical features are interlaced with personal travelling experiences. Illustrations of flora and fauna encountered along the way are the result of careful observation, and meticulous recording. The author experiments with forms to visually represent his own lived experience. In all cases, text and image are closely intertwined and testify that non-religious aspects form a legitimate aspect of this pilgrimage account. Consideration of the illustrations in Guglingen’s Itinerarium, alongside, for example, those in the travelogue of his famous travel companion Bernhard von Breydenbach, allows us to illuminate more facets of the late medieval pilgrimage experience.

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Mediterranean Historical Review
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Encounters with the Levant: the late medieval
illustrated Jerusalem Travelogue by Paul Walter
von Guglingen
Marianne P. Ritsema van Eck
To cite this article: Marianne P. Ritsema van Eck (2017) Encounters with the Levant: the late
medieval illustrated Jerusalem Travelogue by Paul Walter von Guglingen, Mediterranean Historical
Review, 32:2, 153-188, DOI: 10.1080/09518967.2017.1396769
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/09518967.2017.1396769
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Encounters with the Levant: the late medieval illustrated Jerusalem
Travelogue by Paul Walter von Guglingen
Marianne P. Ritsema van Eck*
Department of Medieval History, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
The late medieval illustrated Jerusalem travelogue by the Franciscan friar Paul
Walther von Guglingen has heretofore received scant scholarly attention, perhaps
owing to the unusual nature of some of its images. Guglingen charts decidedly Isla-
mic spaces with his maps and plan, instead of the conventional sacred shrines of
Christianity; these topographical features are interlaced with personal travelling
experiences. Illustrations of flora and fauna encountered along the way are the result
of careful observation, and meticulous recording. The author experiments with forms
to visually represent his own lived experience. In all cases, text and image are clo-
sely intertwined and testify that non-religious aspects form a legitimate aspect of this
pilgrimage account. Consideration of the illustrations in Guglingen’sItinerarium,
alongside, for example, those in the travelogue of his famous travel companion
Bernhard von Breydenbach, allows us to illuminate more facets of the late medieval
pilgrimage experience.
Keywords: medieval; travelogue; maps; illustrations; pilgrimage; Jerusalem
Introduction
During the later Middle Ages considerable numbers of pilgrims travelled to Jerusalem
each year, and hundreds of pilgrimage accounts describing this experience have come
down to us.
1
While the holy pilgrimage is the main subject of these accounts, they also
reflect wider developments in travel literature at the time. In the words of JaśElsner
and Joan-Pau Rubiés, this period witnessed “the ultimate relocation of the paradigm of
travel from the ideal of pilgrimage to those of empirical curiosity and practical
science”.
2
While the surviving illustrated Jerusalem travelogues are far outnumbered by
those without illustrations, they offer remarkable insights on this development, portray-
ing ethnographical, zoological and herbological subjects, as well as depictions of Chris-
tian pilgrimage sanctuaries. The illustrated accounts associated with pilgrims such as
Bernhard von Breydenbach, Arnold von Harff, Konrad Grünemberg and Niccolò da
Poggibonsi have attracted some scholarly attention.
3
This article focuses on the illustrations in Paul Walther von Guglingen’s Jerusalem
travelogue, which have received relatively little attention. Guglingen’s account not only
portrays flora and fauna, but also offers visual renderings of Islamic spaces and build-
ings, rather than the Christian ones more commonly depicted in this type of account.
The two maps and a plan contained in Guglingen’s travelogue were schematically ren-
dered in Matthias Sollweck’s 1892 edition.
4
However, although Andres Betschart does
refer to these images in the appendix to his study of illustrated Jerusalem travelogues,
*Email: m.p.ritsemavaneck@uva.nl
© 2017 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives
License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduc-
tion in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.
Mediterranean Historical Review, 2017
Vol. 32, No. 2, 153–188, https://doi.org/10.1080/09518967.2017.1396769

they have not been analysed and some of the locations they portray were misidenti-
fied.
5
The lack of attention for these maps so far may be connected to their exceptional
nature: they are quite different from the maps, plans and city views commonly found
in late medieval Jerusalem travelogues. Although Frederike Timm briefly mentions the
existence of the depictions of animals and plants in Guglingen’s travelogue, these have
remained uninvestigated so far.
6
The maps and illustrations in Guglingen’s travelogue certainly warrant our attention
because they involve a greater degree of empirical curiosity than that expressed by zoo-
logical and herbological subjects in contemporaneous illustrated accounts. Guglingen’s
illustrations of flora and fauna are based first and foremost on his own acute
observation of the natural specimens, which is quite unusual for the genre. Likewise,
the maps and plan embedded within his Jerusalem travelogue represent a distinctly
personal gaze: Guglingen exclusively charts what he experienced as impressive
personal encounters with non-Christian sanctuaries, instead of the Christian shrines he
visited as a pilgrim. Moreover, these topographic features are of considerable interest in
themselves: they include an exceptional graphic itinerary map, a unique plan of the
newly built Ashrafiyya madrasa, as well as a map of Hebron with a plan of the
Ibrāhīmīmosque.
These maps, the plan and illustrations demonstrate that, even for a very devout
Observant Franciscan friar travelling in the last decades of the fifteenth century, illus-
trating a Jerusalem travelogue could involve mainly secular subjects.
7
Guglingen’s illus-
trations reflect exceptional attention for representing personally observed experience, as
well as empirical curiosity for the natural and cultural world of the Levant. The rela-
tively prominent place of curiosity about both these things in late medieval pilgrimage
literature has long been acknowledged by several scholars.
8
However, this has often
been interpreted as a sign foretelling the demise of devout medieval pilgrimage as a
form of travel, which was losing its legitimacy in favour of curiosity-driven Early Mod-
ern travel, perhaps most influentially by Justin Stagl.
9
Based on Guglingen’s illustra-
tions, this article argues against the idea that curious, rather than devout, engagement
with one’s surroundings would be a delegitimizing force for late medieval pilgrimage.
These eye-catching illustrations of the natural world, as well as the maps, most cer-
tainly represent a legitimate part of his pilgrimage experience, as do the ostensibly reli-
gious aspects of Guglingen’s verbal account of his pilgrimage. In order to substantiate
this point, the author and his manuscript will first be introduced, the six illustrations
depicting flora and fauna in the travelogue that have been absent from scholarship will
be analysed, and finally the two maps and the plan are examined.
The author and the manuscript
Most of what we know about Guglingen comes from his own travelogue, although he
is also mentioned by a few fellow pilgrims: Felix Fabri, Joos van Ghistele and Bern-
hard von Breydenbach.
10
At the beginning of his pilgrimage account Guglingen offers
a short autobiography.
11
On 28 August 1481, aged 59, he departed from his convent in
Heidelberg.
12
Together with his companion, friar Johannes Wild, he made the journey
to Italy on foot, hiking from convent to convent, and then departed from Venice by
boat. They disembarked at Jaffa on 14 July 1482.
13
After visiting the Holy Places as a
pilgrim, Guglingen asked Paul of Caneto, the guardian of the Franciscan convent at
Mount Zion, for permission to enter the convent.
14
154 M.P. Ritsema van Eck

After having spent almost a year as a friar of the Franciscan custodia terrae
sanctae, by the end of June 1483, Guglingen was asked by Paul of Caneto to leave for
Europe again to deliver a document to the papal curia in Rome.
15
Shortly afterwards,
on 13 July a large company of German pilgrims arrived; among the members of this
company Guglingen first mentions Bernhard von Breydenbach, and last but not least
Felix Fabri.
16
Bernhard von Breydenbach invited Guglingen to join their party on their
route to St Catherine’s shrine in Egypt.
17
Thus, travelling via Egypt, Guglingen finally
delivered his missive to Rome on 10 February 1484.
18
Here the travelogue ends; how-
ever, we know he travelled farther to northern Europe, holding various offices within
the Franciscan order, finally serving as confessor of the Poor Claires of Söflingen, until
he died at Ulm in 1496.
19
In his travelogue, Guglingen relates events in chronological order and keeps a very
precise record of time, giving the date and often the time of the day for each event.
This suggests that he must have kept a diary during his travels, into which he also cop-
ied important documents; these are often recorded in the travelogue. Based on these
very precise notes, he must have then composed the travelogue upon return, for it is
written in retrospect. The travelogue is preserved in a single paper manuscript kept at
the Staatlichen Bibliothek in Neuburg and der Donau.
20
It measures 220 mm x 315 mm
and is written by a single hand throughout in a cursive gothic minuscule, 45 to 50 un-
ruled lines per page. The manuscript is bound between woodblocks and leather; the
binding appears to be modern. At the bottom corner of the page the paper has been
worn away, apparently by frequent turning of the pages. The manuscript does not have
original folio numbers, but a modern pagination in pencil does exist throughout. There
are 396 pages, of which the travelogue takes up 122, and the subsequent treatise on the
Holy Land, also authored by Guglingen, occupies the remaining 274.
21
The provenance
of the manuscript is not known prior to the moment that Sollweck discovered it in the
library of the study seminary at Neuburg.
22
The manuscript should be dated to the end of the fifteenth century, which is in
keeping with its script.
23
It cannot have been written prior to Guglingen’s return home
in 1484, and may well have been written by his own hand before his death in 1496.
This is supported by a number of features of the manuscript that suggest it may be a
first draft of the text: it has a varying number of un-ruled lines per page, and it is writ-
ten in cursive script. Moreover, the text of the travelogue is fairly unstructured: its lay-
out betrays little planning or standardization: there are only five rubricated section
headings in 122 pages of text, only two of which head significant sections of the text.
24
The collation of the quires of the Neuburg manuscript, as well as cross-referencing
between the travelogue and the treatise on the Holy Land, indicate that the manuscript
was planned as a whole, combining the travelogue and the treatise.
25
Already in 1491, Nikolaus Glassberger, contemporaneous chronicler of the Francis-
can order, referred to a now-lost version of Guglingen’s treatise, which was more elab-
orate than the one found in the Neuburg manuscript. Moreover, Glassberger reports
that this expanded version was written for a noble patron, which presupposes a much
more formal redaction of the text than can be found in the Neuburg manuscript, which
appears like an informal draft.
26
Accordingly, both the travelogue and the treatise found
in the Neuburg manuscript were most likely written down some time before 1491. This
dates the production of the Neuburg manuscript to Guglingen’s own lifetime, making it
very likely to be an autograph. This has bearing on another important feature of the
manuscript, namely that the nine illustrations closely embedded in the text of the travel-
ogue were executed with the same pen used to write the text. The extremely close
Mediterranean Historical Review 155

relationship between these illustrations and the text of the travelogue strongly suggests
that they were indeed conceived by Guglingen himself.
Exotic flora and fauna: monsters and trees
The six illustrations in the Neuburg manuscript testify that curious interest in the natu-
ral world of the Levant forms an intrinsic part of the pilgrimage experience Guglingen
projects with his travelogue. The function of these illustrations is to clarify and comple-
ment Guglingen’s textual description of impressive phenomena he encountered along
his route. The author takes pains to render the exotic intelligible and imaginable for his
readers, alongside his perhaps more easily recognizable, non-illustrated, religious expe-
riences. As a Franciscan friar, Guglingen was aware of St Bonaventure’s theology of
the essentially Good Creation: elsewhere in his writings Guglingen interprets marvel-
lous creatures as expressions of the greatness of God.
27
Thus, rather than a delegitimiz-
ing (or even entirely secular) aspect, these illustrations are not a curious sidetrack, but
an integral part of this pilgrimage account.
Guglingen’s illustrations are not mentioned in Sollweck’s edition of the travelogue:
they include a crocodile (Figure 3), a sea monster (Figure 4), two exotic trees (Figure 5
and Figure 6), and a total and a partial lunar (Figure 2) eclipse. Unlike Guglingen’s
maps and plan, these natural specimens can more easily be contextualized in the main
thematic categories of images often found in late medieval Jerusalem travelogues; illus-
trations of exotic animals and plants are a reasonably common feature in these texts.
28
What stands out about Guglingen’s illustrations is that they are based on careful empiri-
cal observation. Here we do not find depictions of (semi-)mythical creatures or material
drawn from earlier visual or textual sources, but an attempt to record the natural world
with care and precision. Guglingen minutely describes his subjects verbally, as well as
visually, and occasionally invites his readers to carefully examine his drawings.
This approach to the flora and fauna of the Levant is remarkable within the genre
of illustrated Jerusalem travelogues. This becomes clear, for example, when we com-
pare it to the presentation of the plate with animals of the Holy Land by Reuwich in
Breydenbach’sinfluential Peregrinatio (Figure 1).
29
The caption of the plate invokes
what Elizabeth Ross calls the conceit of the artist-viewer: “These animals are truthfully
[veraciter] depicted as we saw them in the Holy Land.”
30
However, the majority of
them, including a unicorn, go back to medieval stock images, rather than eyewitness
observation.
31
Furthermore, the plate is found on the back of the fold-out Holy Land
map, “text-external”in the words of Frederike Timm, and has a very loose relationship
with the text of the travelogue; only three of the eight animals are mentioned at all.
32
Conversely, Guglingen’s illustrations of flora and fauna are all embedded in the text of
the travelogue, next to the portions of the text that discuss their particular subjects. Fur-
thermore, the relationship between text and image is very close, as it was with the
maps and the plan described above. The only Jerusalem travelogue that is somewhat
comparable to Guglingen’s in this respect is the earliest illustrated manuscript copy of
Niccolò da Poggibonsi’sLibro d’Oltramare, possibly dating back to the late fourteenth
century.
33
Otherwise, Guglingen’s travelogue stands quite apart from the much more
formal illustrations depicting animals in Breydenbach’sPeregrinatio, copies of the trav-
els of John Mandeville, and later printed editions of Poggibonsi’sLibro.
34
Guglingen has included illustrations whenever he experienced objects or events as
in some way impressive or remarkable. For example, he twice records and depicts a
lunar eclipse, both of which occurred during his stay in Jerusalem. Guglingen notes the
156 M.P. Ritsema van Eck

date, the time of day and describes how it occurred. The first time it concerns a partial
eclipse (Figure 2) on p. 62 (17 mm in diameter), and the second time Guglingen refers
Figure 1. Plate with animals of the Holy Land by Erhard Reuwich in Bernhard von Breyden-
bach’sPeregrinatio in Terram Sanctam (Mainz, 1486). BSB München: 2 Inc.c.a. 1725, fol. 131v.
urn:nbn:de:bvb:12-bsb00051697-6. © [BSB München]. Reproduced by permission of the Bay-
erische Staatsbibliothek München.
Mediterranean Historical Review 157

his readers to the illustration of a full eclipse on p. 77 (16 mm in diameter).
35
Both
eclipses are shown as small circles embedded in the body of the text, partially darkened
in the first case and entirely black in the second. Guglingen’s reasons for describing
and depicting these lunar eclipses cannot be gauged beyond the fact that he perceived
them as occurrences remarkable enough to be visualized in his diary-like travelogue.
36
The remaining four illustrations of exotic fauna and flora in Guglingen’s travelogue are
also inspired by impressive encounters, and are characterized by an extremely close
relationship between text and image, as well as a preoccupation with careful observa-
tion and description of these specimens.
A crocodile and a fetz
Together with giraffes, elephants and camels, as well as a number of mythical animals,
the crocodile has been a likely suspect in Jerusalem travelogues since the early days of
Holy Land pilgrimage.
37
In the second half of the seventh century, the Holy Land pil-
grim Arculf already describes crocodiles living in the Nile.
38
In late medieval Jerusa-
lem, travelogue illustrations of crocodiles also appear.
39
On his peregrinations,
Guglingen too comes across a crocodile, describes it and includes a drawing of it:
Item, on that Sunday, in the evening around compline, I saw one whole, big, dead, and
disembowelled dragon or crocodile, whose length with tail was a solid seventeen feet,
large as a one-year-old calf, having four feet, with scales so hard that a gunshot cannot
Figure 2. A partial lunar eclipse, reproduced by kind permission of the Staatliche Bibliothek
Neuburg an der Donau, Sign: 04/Hs. INR 10 (Eigentümer: Studienseminar Neuburg an der
Donau), p. 62.
158 M.P. Ritsema van Eck

hurt him, his head is long, the mouth extending truly three hand-spans, by which I
measured, with many long and very sharp teeth.
40
This terse description consists of personally observed detail, supplemented with few
elements from existing textual traditions.
41
In the manuscript, it is immediately fol-
lowed by the phrase “as it appears to those who observe this form of beak or mouth”
(Figure 3).
42
The illustration measures 142 mm x 33 mm, is embedded in the text of
the travelogue, and renders the silhouette of a crocodile in the shape of a scaly birdlike
creature with folded wings, on two legs, with a long, toothed beak. The correct number
of feet is given in the caption: “in total four feet.”
43
In addition, the name of the animal
and the length of its snout are indicated: “dragon or crocodile / beak three hand
spans.”
44
The animal’s birdlike appearance may be inspired by Guglingen’s interpreta-
tion of its snout as a type of beak.
45
Two dashes of rubrication highlight the snout with
many long and sharp teeth as Guglingen described above. His preoccupation with the
exact length of the snout is in character with his nature as a “devoted fact finder”,
which is discernible throughout the travelogue.
46
Guglingen includes another illustration of an exotic animal that is much less com-
monly found in illustrated Jerusalem travelogues: a sea monster he calls a “fetz”(Fig-
ure 4). Felix Fabri, member of the same company of pilgrims as Guglingen, reports to
have seen the same animal and calls it “felchi”, and says they are “calves of the sea”.
Sollweck suggests it might have been a sea cow, even though its habitat does not cur-
rently include the Mediterranean Sea.
47
Arnold von Harff may have spotted that species
in the sea by Madagascar in the late 1490s, where he reports to have seen a fight
between “sea oxen”and a “sea cow”called “falchges”, and gives an illustration.
48
Apart from the illustration in Von Harff’s travelogue, the illustration of the mysterious
sea animal in Guglingen’s travelogue stands quite on its own. He too compares it to a
calf, as well as many other things:
Item, on the second Sunday of Advent, around vespers, a small boat arrived with three
men inside. They had seized a sea monster, whose name is sea fetz. [MS: of such figure
and form as placed here] The aforesaid beast or sea monster has a head like a calf without
scales or hair, like the head of a salmon, a short neck, the shape of the body like a sack
full of water without back and ribs; it has only two flippers next to the neck, on which it
has several very sharp nails. Its skin has a grey colour like ashes, its hair is very fine, its
tail has no scales or fins but is fourfold. Its flesh is not eaten because of the stink, its hair
is good only for a whip.
49
Figure 3. Crocodile, reproduced by kind permission of the Staatliche Bibliothek Neuburg an
der Donau, Sign: 04/Hs. INR 10 (Eigentümer: Studienseminar Neuburg an der Donau), p. 120.
Mediterranean Historical Review 159

Embedded in this section of text, the fetz is represented by an illustration measuring
97 mm x 35 mm. It features a head with humanoid facial features, two pointy ears and
a goatee, a single paw-like neck flipper, and a plump, elongated body that terminates in
a tail consisting of four rectangular flaps.
Both illustrations –of the crocodile and of the fetz –function as a clarification and
demonstration to go along with Guglingen’s careful and detailed accounts of these unu-
sual creatures. Like the textual descriptions, the illustrations portray the animals in
terms of comparison. More well-known visual templates are adapted to render the exo-
tic: the humanoid features of the fetz’s head and the birdlike appearance of the croco-
dile. Both text and image display a keenness for careful observation and meticulous
record.
Trees in the balsam garden
The balsam garden was a regular station in the pilgrimage to Egypt and the shrine of
St Catherine during the late medieval period.
50
This mode of depicting the balsam garden, which resonates with hortus conclusus
iconography, is also encountered in the late Tractatus de Herbis. Collins, Medieval
Herbals, 122, 253, 256–7, 266, 269; Arad, “As if You Were There”, 310–11.
According to legend, the holy family rested at this location close to the village of
Al-Matariyyah, on their flight into Egypt.
51
On 7 October 1483, around four in the
afternoon, when a dragoman arrived from Cairo, Guglingen and his fellow pilgrims
entered the balsam garden. Guglingen first describes an enormous fig tree with a
hollow trunk, where Mary was supposed to have placed the infant Christ.
52
Next they
came to another fruit tree, most likely a banana tree:
And there we found a reasonably large tree, not wooden but entirely green, which is called
musa,orbappirus; they have very green leaves: eight feet long and two and a half feet
broad. We secretly took the fruit, which is very sweet, like sugar, when it is ripe. And
from that tree and its leaves, paper, on which we write, takes its name; because the leaves
have perfect lines and when they will have been made dry, they will be white and suitable
for writing.
53
Figure 4. Sea monster called fetz, reproduced by kind permission of the Staatliche Bibliothek
Neuburg an der Donau, Sign: 04/Hs. INR 10 (Eigentümer: Studienseminar Neuburg an der
Donau), p. 116.
160 M.P. Ritsema van Eck

Following this description, a pen drawing is announced: “The form and appearance
of that tree and its fruit appear clearly to those who diligently examine this tree,
depicted here with a pen, etc.”
54
To the right there is a drawing of the tree with a cap-
tion that indicates that it is called musa or bappirus (Figure 5).
55
The illustration mea-
sures 112 mm x 104 mm, and shows a tree with three big leaves protruding from its
trunk. The leaves have straight pinnate veins, and from the crown of the tree two
branches slope down on either side of the trunk, splitting into several sub-branches,
and ending in rectangular fruits. In the next paragraph on the manuscript page the
description of this particular tree concludes with: “Item, this tree grows up from the
ground in one year, and it makes very broad leaves and very sweet and medicinal
fruits, and is of a most green colour as was said above, etc.”
56
The function of the illustration yet again is to complement Guglingen’s verbal
description of the tree, and to clarify its form and substance to the reader, as he explic-
itly states. He invites his readers to “diligently examine”the illustration in order to
form an impression of the shape of the trunk, the leaves and their fine straight lines, as
Figure 5. Musa tree, reproduced by kind permission of the Staatliche Bibliothek Neuburg an
der Donau, Sign: 04/Hs. INR 10 (Eigentümer: Studienseminar Neuburg an der Donau), p. 100.
Mediterranean Historical Review 161

well as the position of the fruits. Although Guglingen is not the only traveller to
include an illustration of a banana tree, this insistence on careful examination of the
image is remarkable.
57
In addition, his illustration is extraordinary because of its resem-
blance to an actual banana tree, which strongly suggests the image is based on personal
observation; this is supported by the close relation between the image and text.
After having seen the musa tree, the pilgrims visit the balsam garden proper. In
small groups of six members of the company at a time, they are led in to see the bal-
sam trees. Guglingen writes: “The balsam tree is like some small bush, whose leaves
are usually sevenfold on truly soft and fat branches, and when it is mature the balsam
is extracted from the entire bush with sticks.”
58
He sees the dragoman cut a branch and
the balsam run out immediately. Guglingen then relates that there are three drafts of
balsam, the first being the best, although this is not normally given to Christian pil-
grims.
59
He then refers to the illustration (Figure 6): “The form of this tree and the
kind of leaves appear clearly in the bush here beside, depicted simply with a pen.”
60
The illustration measures 85 mm x 86 mm and shows a bush with a thick trunk and 11
branches with rounded leaves. In this case, Guglingen wants the reader to observe the
shape of the leaves in particular, as is also twice indicated in the caption: “the form of
Figure 6. Balsam tree, reproduced by kind permission of the Staatliche Bibliothek Neuburg an
der Donau, Sign: 04/Hs. INR 10 (Eigentümer: Studienseminar Neuburg an der Donau), p. 100.
162 M.P. Ritsema van Eck

the leaves / the form of the leaves / Balsam Tree.”
61
Again, the illustration serves to
clarify the description of the tree, and to help the reader to imagine how it looks.
To my knowledge, Guglingen’s travelogue is the only Jerusalem pilgrimage account
that includes an illustration of the balsam tree. Late medieval herbals do offer images
of the tree from the late thirteenth century onwards, going back to earlier Arabic her-
bals, rather than naturalistic renderings.
62
In this context, it seems pertinent to refer to
the Gart der Gesundheit, a herbal printed in Mainz in 1485 on the initiative of Guglin-
gen’s travel companion, Bernhard von Breydenbach, and in collaboration with, amongst
others, Erhard Reuwich. In the preface, Breydenbach claims that he gathered informa-
tion for this herbal on his Holy Land pilgrimage, bringing an artist along to portray
these plants correctly.
63
Although 77 of the 381 images of plants in the Gart were not
adapted from earlier herbal depictions, and are occasionally quite true to nature, the
image of the balsam tree, which Reuwich must have seen near Cairo, is based on ear-
lier illustrative traditions. The woodcut on fol. 74v of the Gart is a rather generic
depiction of a plant, with little baskets hanging from two of its branches, derivative of
bottles or pots for balsam collection seen in earlier herbals (Figure 7).
64
Breydenbach’s
herbal project employs the conceit of the personal viewing of the Holy Land by the
author-artist, whereas Guglingen’s observations are genuinely first-hand.
65
He shows a
keen interest in the balsam tree, continues to discuss its annual cycle of planting and
harvest, and relates that it is watered from the nearby fountain of Mary:
And the Saracens say that it does not want to grow in any other place or ground except in
this garden, nor does it want to be irrigated with any other water than that from the glori-
ous fountain of Mary. Whether either of these things is true, I know not.
66
Rather than being credulous of all he is told, Guglingen clearly trusts to his own
careful observation more. The same goes for all of his illustrations of the natural world
in his Jerusalem travelogue: they are based on direct observation and accompanied by
meticulous descriptions. The goal of these illustrations is to help readers form the best
possible impression of what Guglingen clearly perceived as a significant part of his tra-
vel experience. Since we know that Guglingen was wont to interpret Creation as an
expression of the greatness of God, these illustrations are not a delegitimizing intrusion
of irreverent curiosity on what ought to be a devout pilgrimage, but instead an intrinsic
part of the same.
67
A map of Hebron and surroundings
The maps and plan in the Neuburg manuscript likewise represent aspects of Guglin-
gen’s pilgrimage experience he considered legitimate, even though they plot out Islamic
rather than Christian spaces. The first map in the travelogue, which shows the Cave of
the Patriarchs in Hebron and its surroundings, exemplifies Guglingen’s approach to
mapmaking: using a clever combination of cartographic conventions as a story-telling
device, to visually represent foreign spaces he was personally impressed by. This map
is associated with an excursion that he made on 7–10 April 1483.
68
The circular map
on manuscript p. 75 measures 92 mm in diameter, has east at the top, and prominently
features the plan of a fortified building, as well as the peaks of two mountains towards
the west (Figure 8). The situation of valleys of Mambre and Hebron, associated with
these mountains, is described by Guglingen, and his description concludes with a refer-
ence to a circular map: “as will appear more clearly to those who are observing the
sphere of the situation of the city, found below.”
69
However, at this point there is no
Mediterranean Historical Review 163

Figure 7. Balsam tree, in Gart der Gesundheit (Mainz: Johannes von Cuba, 1485). BSB
München: 2 Inc.c.a. 1602, fol. 74v. urn:nbn:de:bvb:12-bsb00057068-8. © [BSB München].
Reproduced by permission of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München.
164 M.P. Ritsema van Eck

map in sight; it only appears after three manuscript pages with a detailed description of
Guglingen’s own stay at Hebron.
70
The map then visually sums up the most important
elements of that experience. Indeed, it is difficult to appreciate this map without first
considering Guglingen’s personal encounter with Hebron, which is why the same
approach will be adopted here.
Guglingen writes that on 7 April 1483, in the first hour after lunch, he set out from
Jerusalem to go to Bethlehem, in the company of fellow friars and pilgrims. In the mid-
dle of the night, they continue from Bethlehem on the way to Hebron. This experience
frightens Guglingen immensely: it is pitch dark, they can barely discern the rocky and
mountainous roads, and have to be very quiet not to attract highwaymen. Then, the ass
that Guglingen is riding starts to bray loudly, and the noise reverberates between the
mountains, casting its rider into a state of panic. No robbers appear, however, and in
the morning they continue to travel through what Guglingen identifies as the Valley of
Tears, where Adam and Eve did penance in a cave for 100 years. This valley is
separated by only one mountain from the Valley of Hebron; the company climb this
mountain and look out on Hebron, at which point Guglingen first refers to the map.
71
Upon arrival in Hebron the company first has lunch at the house of their dragoman,
after which they set out to visit the Damascene field, just outside the city. The pilgrims
Figure 8. Map of Hebron and surroundings, reproduced by kind permission of the Staatliche
Bibliothek Neuburg an der Donau, Sign: 04/Hs. INR 10 (Eigentümer: Studienseminar Neuburg
an der Donau), p. 75.
Mediterranean Historical Review 165

perceive this as an important location, because it was generally believed that God had
formed Adam from the soil of this particular field.
72
Guglingen, impressed and hum-
bled by this belief, takes up some soil and says a prayer.
73
Then, after remarking on
the thriving glassblowing industry at Hebron, Guglingen turns to discuss a square pond,
which he saw in the city. He explains that at two corners of this pond Muslims come
to wash their genitals, hands and feet after having sinned, and they then go to the
southern corner of the pond to pray. Guglingen is disgusted when seeing a man put this
custom into practice.
74
Guglingen then discusses Hebron’s main monument: the Ibrāhīmīmosque in which
the double cave, or duplex spelunca, is situated. In these caves the Old Testament patri-
archs Adam, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and their wives were supposedly buried.
75
He is
impressed by the building: “This mosque is very great and powerfully walled-in with
high walls like a fortress.”
76
The same day the dragoman tries to find a way for the
pilgrims to enter this mosque, but he returns with the news that it is not possible.
Guglingen is relieved, because he has often heard it can be dangerous to enter mos-
ques. However, the next day a number of pilgrims decide to offer money for a safe
visit, and the dragoman goes to negotiate again. At this point, Guglingen becomes very
anxious, and fervently prays to Christ to only allow this excursion to take place if it
will not be to the detriment of their souls and bodies.
77
The dragoman returns and says that for a ducat and a half a person they can enter
the mosque at night, while all the lights will be extinguished: the guards have been
bribed, but other visitors of the mosque should not see them. The Franciscan guardian
of Mount Zion, who is among the company, exclaims that they will not enter in such a
manner, after which there is much discussion within the company about how to pro-
ceed. To resolve this situation the guardian eventually appeals to Guglingen, as the
most senior friar present, to give his opinion. Guglingen responds by giving a long
speech, expressing the following doubts: first, if the lights of the mosque are suddenly
extinguished, this will immediately create suspicion among those praying there; it is
very likely the pilgrims will be apprehended and forced to convert to Islam or be
killed. Moreover, they are most likely already suspected of wanting to enter the mosque
because they have been walking about town all day.
78
To conclude his argument,
Guglingen discredits the sanctity of the site, saying he does not believe the patriarchs
are buried there: this excursion is not worth a martyr’s crown.
79
Convinced by this speech, the company abandon the plan, to Guglingen’s relief.
The episode concludes with the phrase: “The layout of the mosque and the city appear
more clearly in this circle, to those who are observing and considering single things,
and the valleys of Hebron and Mambre, etc.”, next to which the map is shown on
manuscript p. 75 (Figure 8).
80
At the end of Guglingen’s narration of his stay at Heb-
ron, the map provides a visual summary: it shows the arrangement of the most impor-
tant elements of this episode in space, after the reader has just read it: the Ibrāhīmī
mosque, the pond, the Damascene field and the valleys the company passed through on
the way to Hebron.
The mosque with the cave of the patriarchs figures prominently in this map. We see
its rectangular walls, marked on the map with the words “a very strong wall with bat-
tlements”, which had impressed Guglingen as strong and high.
81
At two corners, the
two minarets are indicated, sticking out flat to the sides. On the right hand side of the
structure we see the steps leading up to the entrance, marked “ascent to the fortress”
and “entrance”.
82
This rendering of the outer structure corresponds roughly to the
actual configuration of the building. Inside the walls, where Guglingen did not enter,
166 M.P. Ritsema van Eck

the plan does not represent reality at the time.
83
What looks like a courtyard is marked
with the words: “fortress / fortress in which the temple is.”
84
In the middle of this
courtyard the shrine itself is indicated by the words “cave temple”, and rendered in the
shape of a small western church with a “choir”.
85
In the nave of this church plan there
are two rectangles, which could possibly represent the cenotaphs of Rebecca and Isaac,
or alternatively the two caves themselves.
Just below the mosque, to the west according to the orientation of the map, there is
a small square structure with the caption “pond”.
86
This element represents another
impressive event during the episode at Hebron: the pool in which Guglingen saw a
man wash himself. Semicircles at two corners inside the rectangular pond indicate
where the washing occurs, while a third rounded shape that juts out towards the south
represents the place where visitors of the pool would go to pray, after washing. We are
reminded of this to the right-hand side of the map; in the southern direction this is indi-
cated with the words “Muslims pray to the south”.
87
The location of the first highlight
of Guglingen’s stay at Hebron is indicated north of the mosque, to the left: “Damascene
field.”
88
The phrase “the city of Habra without wall”indicates in two places that Heb-
ron lacks city walls.
89
Finally, to the west we see the valleys of Hebron and Mambre
and the peaks of two mountains: “Hebron valley / the mountain between Mambre val-
ley and Hebron / Mambre valley / mountain”, associated with Guglingen’s unnerving
nocturnal ride towards Hebron.
90
Although late fifteenth-century educated Europeans were familiar with a variety of
cartographic forms –Ptolemaic maps, town plans, charts and so forth –medieval maps
representing small areas, such as this one, are relatively rare, and according to P.D.A.
Harvey often seem to be the work of original minds, unaided by precedent or exem-
plar.
91
Indeed, it is highly unlikely that Guglingen was inspired by an exemplar map of
Hebron. He was certainly familiar, however, with the so-called T-O world map.
92
Guglingen’s treatise on the Holy Land twice features a T-O world map, and it seems
that he took the circular design of this type of map as a starting point for his map of
Hebron and surroundings, also orienting it with east at the top.
93
Into what he per-
ceived as a conventional cartographic framework, he then inserted representations of
structures and locations in and around Hebron: the mosque, the pond and the Dama-
scene field, as well as mountains and valleys through which he travelled to the city.
Apart from T-O maps, Guglingen may also have been familiar with architectural
ground plans of buildings, for he shows the Ibrāhīmīmosque in plan.
94
This is unchar-
acteristic of medieval mapping, which typically shows such objects pictorially, rather
than in plan.
95
Guglingen has inventively used the cartographic devices he knew, to provide the
readers of his travelogue with a tool to navigate this eventful episode of his travels. He
recapitulates it by supplying a visual overview of the main elements of his impressive
encounter with these foreign spaces. In line with his lively and autobiographical style
of writing, Guglingen’s approach to map-making involves plotting the locations associ-
ated with impressive personal experiences in space. With this map of Hebron and sur-
roundings, he has found an ingenious way to sum up and represent his personal
pilgrimage experience in the form of a map.
A plan of the Ashrafiyya madrasa
Like the map of Hebron, the next plan in the travelogue also represents a building that
Guglingen interpreted as a mosque. In both cases, he underplays the possible meaning
Mediterranean Historical Review 167

and importance these spaces might have to Christians, while nevertheless taking the
effort to draft a plan. He clearly saw these topographic representations as an acceptable
part of his Jerusalem travelogue, for which he felt no need to apologize. While Guglin-
gen had argued against entering the Ibrāhīmīmosque in Hebron because of the dangers
involved, he blithely entered and exuberantly admired the attractions of a madrasa on
the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. He saw no harm in visiting this building with three
fellow friars, on 20 April 1483, around 11 o’clock, since there was no danger involved:
they had explicit permission from the Mamlūk authorities to do so.
96
Guglingen writes
he was introduced to “a mosque, or a temple, or a chapel belonging to the Sultan”.
97
In reality, it was a school recently built by Sultan Qāʾit Bāy (r. 1468–96): the today
partially ruined Ashrafiyya madrasa.
98
Guglingen visited the structure only one year
after its completion in 1482, and he is aware of this, referring to it as “newly con-
structed”. He believed the Sultan lived on the ground floor of the building, while the
upper floor was a mosque. It is this “mosque”, the main rooms of the madrasa that his
plan represents: “The form of this mosque appears more clearly in the figure depicted
above”(Figure 9).
99
The plan on manuscript p. 76 represents the madrasa’s upper storey (now no longer
extant), and when compared to modern reconstructions of the floor plan, it seems that
Guglingen succeeded quite well at providing its general outlines.
100
The plan measures
55 mm x 101 mm, including the frame around it, which holds indications of the cardi-
nal directions: east is again at the top. Contained within this frame is the floor plan of
the madrasa, which consists of a northern wing or īwānand a southern īwān, with a
connecting central court, or såhn, between them. Notes in the plan express the grandeur
Figure 9. Plan of the former upper floor of the Ashrafiyya Madrasa, reproduced by kind per-
mission of the Staatliche Bibliothek Neuburg an der Donau, Sign: 04/Hs. INR 10 (Eigentümer:
Studienseminar Neuburg an der Donau), p. 76.
168 M.P. Ritsema van Eck

of the madrasa; the loggia and the central court are preciously adorned: “window / floor
/ all very precious.”
101
The south wing has “more than forty bottle-shaped lamps”, and
amiḥrāb, which Guglingen interprets as an “altar”; the 10 blocks placed against the
walls of this wing quite accurately indicate the position of the windows, when com-
pared with modern reconstructions.
102
Guglingen erroneously asserts that the north
wing has “as many windows as other part”, and also notes in his plan that this wing is
“fifteen steps”long and “ten steps”broad.
103
These indications of dimension suggest
Guglingen made an effort to measure the north wing, although his overall plan is not
to scale. In the text of the travelogue, he also reflects on the size of the building, and
confesses himself impressed by it: “This mosque is very preciously and curiously con-
structed with white, black, and red marble, and also porphyry in various colours,
namely of green and blue, and mixed colours, various uncommon splits, which I cannot
describe, neither very broad nor long, but reasonably high”; he is not afraid to praise
this outstanding Mamlūk monument.
104
Elizabeth Ross has argued that Reuwich captures the façade of the madrasa, just left
of the Dome of the Rock on his Holy Land vista in Breydenbach’sPeregrinatio (1486)
“with relative accuracy”.
105
Guglingen does not represent the madrasa pictorially, but
instead provides a markedly more accurate plan, as he did with the Ibrāhīmīmosque in
Hebron. This confirms the impression that Guglingen was somehow acquainted with
the concept of drafting floor plans of buildings, and deemed it an appropriate way to
represent the building, rather than drawing its façade. The plan must have been based
on Guglingen’s personal observation. This becomes clear from the accurate indication
of the locations of windows in the south wing,which cannot be gleaned from the text
of the travelogue, nor is it likely that a later Bavarian scribe had access to this
information.
The words “Temple of Solomon”in the plan indicate that the Dome of the Rock
(Qubbat al-Ṣakhrah) is situated east from the madrasa on the Temple Mount; the tag
“Temple of Solomon”is placed just under the cardinal direction “east”.
106
In the text
of the travelogue, Guglingen also writes that the madrasa is situated “next to the temple
of Solomon”.
107
It is unlikely that the small rounded element below the words “temple
of Solomon”is a pictogram representing the Dome of the Rock itself; more probably,
it represents the octagonal lantern crowning the central court of the madrasa.
108
It is pertinent to note that Guglingen provides a description and a plan of the Ash-
rafiyya madrasa, which he perceives as a newly built mosque, and not of the Dome of
the Rock, which in his day was commonly interpreted as the Temple of Solomon by
Christian pilgrims, and hence an important Christian monument.
109
Yet, he uses this
well-known landmark solely to make clear in his plan where the madrasa is situated,
approximately. Guglingen’s choice to provide a plan of the madrasa, a building he
knows to be entirely Islamic, exemplifies the complex paradigm of late medieval pil-
grimage. He describes the building in terms of awe and admiration that remind more of
the exclamations of a modern tourist appreciating Islamic architecture, than of a late
medieval Jerusalem pilgrim on “unholy”ground. Furthermore, Guglingen clearly con-
siders his visit to the madrasa as valid a part as any of his travelling experiences, to be
put before a Western audience, providing a plan to better convey the marvels of this
building to his readers. The intended audience of Guglingen’s travelogue –be it Fran-
ciscan or secular –is hard to gauge, other than that his readers needed to be versed in
Latin. In any case, the author seems not to have been concerned that these topographic
representations might detract from his travelogue as a pilgrimage account. As is the
Mediterranean Historical Review 169

case with the map of Hebron, text and image work together to represent Guglingen’s
impressive personal encounter with the Islamic spaces of the madrasa.
A map of Cairo and surroundings
The same holds for the last map in the travelogue, which likewise –and perhaps even
more so than the previous map and plan –plots personal experiences on a topographi-
cal plane. Once again, the author chose to represent Islamic monuments primarily. It is
a remarkable map of Cairo and its surroundings, which charts the itinerary of Guglin-
gen and his companions around the city on 14 October 1483 (Figure 10). This almost
full-page map measures 215 mm x 190 mm, and is oriented with south at the top,
which may be a result of the company’s approach to the city from the north.
110
Its
main organizing principle is the dotted line representing Guglingen’s route. Written tags
and few symbols along the way mark sites described in the travelogue. The map is
enveloped by a more general discussion of the city of Cairo, which starts on manu-
script p. 102. The map itself appears on p. 104, while the description of Cairo contin-
ues on manuscript p, 105 with the words: “In this, depicted and described, city …”
Then, at the bottom of p. 105, begins the account of the extensive exploration of the
city of Cairo; this is the tour that the map depicts. Unlike in the case of the map of
Hebron –which is placed at the end of the adventure that inspired it –this map of
Cairo, although based on a personal itinerary, also serves as a more general depiction,
contextualized within a broader description of the city. Nonetheless, the map portrays
Cairo entirely through the lens of personal experience: text and image almost seam-
lessly work together in canvassing Guglingen’s tour of the city.
The travelogue and the map can be read in parallel, the dotted line tracing all the
locations the company visited, in the order of the narrative. This path starts in the lower
left-hand corner of the map, from the northeast; the first location that it passes is the
“desert”.
111
Then, representing the company’s movements on 7 October 1483, the path
passes the “balsam garden”, then enters the “city”of Cairo, and leads straight up to the
place where Guglingen’s company stayed: “our lodgings”.
112
Here they stay 12 days,
according to the main text of the travelogue, but are unable to go out much because of
the hostile attitude of the local population. On 14 October, however, the company
leaves for an extensive tour of the city, with the help of two formerly Christian drago-
men. One of these was a German-speaking native of Basle called Sefogel, and Guglin-
gen did his best to ride next to him so that he might question the man about the
city.
113
Thus, based on the expedition of 14 October, the path on the map exits “our
lodgings”again, in a northwestern direction until it arrives to a “bridge over the arm of
the Nile”.
114
This feature is represented pictorially by a rectangular shape showing the
arches of a bridge, seen from the side. In the text of the travelogue Guglingen writes:
“And we began to ride north, and descended west, and we came to the shore of the
Nile, where we saw many great ships from Alexandria and other parts of the world.”
115
Next, the path bends south, and the text of the travelogue continues: “then we fol-
lowed the Nile up-river towards the south.”
116
The map indicates: “here the water
encloses part of the city”, and most likely this refers to the islands in the Nile.
117
In
the main text of the travelogue Guglingen describes various things he saw along the
way, such as a market place, and the local practice of hatching chicken eggs in
ovens.
118
“Then, having seen these things, we rode towards the south to the city of
Babylon, which is not great Babylon, where Nimrod advised the sons of Noah to build
170 M.P. Ritsema van Eck

a tower to heaven, …but Babylon minor”.
119
On the map the path enters an enclosed
area, under the cardinal direction “south”, this is the Babylon Fortress in Old Cairo.
120
But before the path enters there, a sidetrack appears, bending off to the right
towards the place on the banks of the Nile where Guglingen was to embark to leave
Cairo five days later. The map indicates: “This is the shore and Bolacko, and there are
Figure 10. Map of Cairo and surroundings, reproduced by kind permission of the Staatliche
Bibliothek Neuburg an der Donau, Sign: 04/Hs. INR 10 (Eigentümer: Studienseminar Neuburg
an der Donau), p. 104.
Mediterranean Historical Review 171

many ships in the Nile.”
121
The map also depicts the course of the Nile itself, denoted
as “Here flows the Nile which comes from paradise”.
122
Just before the path enters the
Babylon Fortress, the map offers a comment on the dilapidated state of Old Cairo:
“and it once was a city but now this area is almost entirely abandoned.”
123
Within the
walls of the fortress, the company visited a few of the many churches, including the
church of St George, and the one on the spot where the holy family had stayed: Abu
Sarga.
124
The latter impresses Guglingen greatly, and is indicated on his map, within
the walls of the fortress: “The city of Babylon or wall, the church of Mary where she
lived for seven years.”
125
The company leaves the Babylon Fortress by another gate than the one they entered
by, as the path on the map indicates. Guglingen narrates: “Afterwards we rode out of
Babylon towards the right hand and we approached a canal in a very high wall through
which water of the Nile runs to the fortress of the Sultan.”
126
The map shows that the
company passed under the aqueduct that leads to the Citadel of Cairo, here represented
on the map as a wall that leads up to a square structure marked with the words “for-
tress of the Sultan”.
127
They rode north into the Muqattam hills, first climbing up to a
“high rocky mountain”, and then to the “height of the mountain”indicated on the
map.
128
There the company enjoyed a vista of Cairo, and Guglingen is duly stunned:
Then we rode to the highest mountain of all, and from there we looked at the parts of the
city. There, I secretly gave myself to careful consideration of the extent of the city and the
multitude of mosques, and I could altogether not believe it.
129
The number of mosques in Cairo is a fond subject of speculation for Guglingen.
130
From the “height of the mountain”the path on the map takes a northwestern direction
and terminates in the eastern medieval necropolis of Cairo, which houses the graves of
the caliphs: “Here are the graves of the kings, up to the foot of the mountain of the
fortress.”
131
At the centre of Guglingen’s itinerary map are a number of written markers not
directly associated with the depicted route. These include a tag in the middle of the
map, which also supplies a title: “This is the disposition of the city of Cairo, not sur-
rounded by a wall.”
132
Further tags at the centre of the map thrice point out the pres-
ence of the city in this area, twice the presence of “many mosques”, once to a “big
pond”, as well as to various vegetable gardens with palms and trees.
133
All in all, there is a remarkably close affinity between the episode of Guglingen’s
visit to Cairo in the text of the travelogue and its representation on the map. Text and
image are highly intertwined, and together they underscore his personal experience of
the city. This map, unlike that of Hebron, is not enclosed in a circular frame inspired
on the T-O maps that Guglingen knew. Instead, he devised a type of map that would
best express his personal experiences in and around Cairo: an itinerary map. It repre-
sents a route, a personal itinerary, linking Guglingen’s point of departure with his desti-
nation, via the places between those two. This was a highly unusual type of map
during the medieval period, as itineraries most often took the form of a list of place
names.
134
Although Guglingen generally relies on written tags to identify locations, the
map also contains a few modest pictorial elements: the bridge; the River Nile; the aque-
duct; and the citadel of Cairo. Consequently, it might perhaps even be considered a gra-
phic itinerary map, like the splendid map in the Chronica Maiora by Matthew Paris
(ca. 1200–59): “the only known medieval graphic itinerary”, according to Catherine
Delano-Smith.
135
172 M.P. Ritsema van Eck

Figure 11. Nile Delta, detail of the Holy Land map by Erhard Reuwich in Bernhard von
Breydenbach’sPeregrinatio in Terram Sanctam (Mainz, 1486). BSB München: 2 Inc.c.a. 1725,
fol. 131r. urn:nbn:de:bvb:12-bsb00051697-6. © [BSB München]. Reproduced by permission of
the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München.
Mediterranean Historical Review 173

Figure 12. Cairo, Niccolò da Poggibonsi’sLibro d’Oltramare, Biblioteca Nazionale de Firenze,
MS II.IV.101, f. 39v. © [BNC Firenze]. Reproduced by permission of the Ministero per i Beni e
le Attività Culturali della Repubblica Italiana / Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze.
174 M.P. Ritsema van Eck

Guglingen’s motivations for creating such a highly unusual type of map are not
directly apparent. There is no indication that the map was intended as a tool for a vicar-
ious travel experience around Cairo, a function suggested for Matthew Paris’map.
136
Rather than an imagined pilgrimage, this map could have offered a virtual tour around
predominantly (but not exclusively) Islamic monuments in and around Cairo. However,
Guglingen says nothing to this effect in his travelogue, and it seems more likely that
he chose the perspective of a personal route because he was keen to depict his highly
individual encounter on 14 October 1483 with this foreign city, which had so deeply
impressed him.
Although his approach is unconventional, Guglingen is not the only Jerusalem pil-
grim to include a reasonably elaborate visual perspective on Cairo in his account: the
famous view on the Holy Land in Breydenbach’sPeregrinatio in Terram Sanctam by
Erhard Reuwich also includes Cairo, the balsam garden, and Babylon fortress on the
right-hand-side wing of the fold-out Holy Land map (Figure 11).
137
The illustrated
manuscripts of the pilgrimage account of Niccolò da Poggibonsi, a Franciscan friar
travelling around a century and a half earlier, also include an elaborate view of the city
of Cairo (Figure 12), as do later printed editions, which are often anonymized or misat-
tributed to Fra Noé Bianchi.
138
In both cases, the city is visualized as an agglomeration
of buildings and architectural elements, only some of which are particular to Cairo
itself.
139
Like so many non-specific medieval and early modern city views, they repre-
sent the concept of a city through a stylized portrayal of towers and buildings.
140
By
contrast, the organizing principle of Guglingen’s maps is a route around the city,
instead of a view of it; moreover, he mostly uses written tags instead of architectural
symbols to convey the presence and features of the city, such as for example its
multitude of mosques, signalled at the centre of his map.
Guglingen’s map does not so much represent Cairo as aim to convey his personal
experience of that city and its surroundings. Whereas, for example, the side wings of
the Holy Land map by Reuwich in Breydenbach’sPeregrinatio represent paths the
company did not actually take, and at times fail to show their actual route, with
Guglingen we can literally trace his route, and associate each location with the eye-wit-
ness description in the text.
141
In fact, Guglingen interlaces personal stories in all three
of his maps, giving them, in the words of Michel de Certeau, the character of a “tour”
rather than a “map, a totalizing stage …from which the describers have disap-
peared”.
142
In this sense, Guglingen’s maps and plan are reminiscent of the antiquarian
sylloge Quaedam Antiquitatum Fragmenta (1465) by the Italian humanist Giovanni
Marcanova. This manuscript sylloge contains a narrative to guide the reader through an
urban topography, enhanced by illustrations of inscriptions in specific spatial contexts.
Likewise, the illustrations are the work of a narrator who is also a fervent admirer of
the sites he chooses to depict, so as to create a personally involved guide.
143
However,
instead of an antiquarian desire to make the past visually accessible, Guglingen aims to
portray the cultural landscape of the Levant, while evoking the affective experience of
a traveller-guide.
Conclusion
The maps and plan in Guglingen’s travelogue convey personal travel experiences,
rather than emphasizing Christian shrines per se, or the holy city of Jerusalem, as one
might expect. Other illustrated Jerusalem travelogues that incorporate topographical fea-
tures typically provide maps and plans of Jerusalem itself, the Holy Sepulchre church,
Mediterranean Historical Review 175

and the aedicule of the Holy Sepulchre.
144
Instead, Guglingen maps buildings that he
perceives as mosques, such as the Ashrafiyya Madrasa in Jerusalem and the Cave of
the Patriarchs in Hebron, and his map of Mamlūk Cairo features “many mosques”.In
all three cases, Guglingen records personal encounters with decidedly Islamic spaces,
rather than Christian sites. In this respect, the maps and plans in Guglingen’s Jerusalem
travelogue are truly exceptional. The only mosque that ever really attracted the atten-
tion of Christian pilgrims was the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem.
145
Their interest,
however, was sparked by a traditional identification of this structure as the original
Temple of Solomon, thereby turning it into a Christian hallmark of Jerusalem in their
eyes, rather than an Islamic sanctuary.
146
Remarkably, Guglingen has made no attempt to Christianize the Islamic spaces his
illustrations represent, and accepted Mamlūk reality for what it was. For example, the
composition of his map of Cairo and surroundings, and indeed Guglingen’s report of
the excursion that inspired it, testify to a large and vivid interest in this foreign city, its
many mosques, as well as other monuments. The illustrations of Levantine flora and
fauna in Guglingen’s travelogue are likewise inspired by his personal experiences along
the way. While these illustrations can more easily be contextualized within the corpus
of late medieval illustrated Jerusalem travelogues, Guglingen’s images are unusual
because they are based on acute observation, and the associated descriptions show a
meticulous attention to detail normally lacking in such accounts. The function of these
images in Guglingen’s Jerusalem travelogue is to help the reader form an accurate
impression of these plants and animals. By means of short phrases in the text of the
travelogue, Guglingen directs the reader’s attention to the pen drawings, and even urges
his audience to examine them diligently, as in the case of the banana tree.
Guglingen exclusively chose to illustrate the natural and the cultural world of the
Levant, yet not the shrines of Christianity he visited as a pilgrim. This focus seemingly
supports the view that curious engagement with remarkable sites and phenomena
encountered by pilgrims overseas eventually undermined late medieval pilgrimage, as
well as its literature.
147
Justin Stagl has influentially summed up this point of view,
observing that late medieval pilgrimage literature increasingly reflects curiositas rather
than pietas, and concludes that “pilgrimage was losing its legitimacy”, thus opening the
way for early modern secular travel.
148
This thesis about the secularization of travel
has recently been at least partially debunked by research demonstrating that pilgrimage
by no means ended at the turn of the sixteenth century, as is often assumed, but instead
remained “alive and well and early modern”.
149
Moreover, the argument for curiosity
as a delegitimizing force for pilgrimage also entails the presupposition that interest for
anything but the devout in medieval pilgrimage literature was quite generally experi-
enced as affecting the validity of pilgrimage at its core, at the time. While the maps
and illustrations in Guglingen’s Jerusalem travelogue cannot disprove this at a macro
level, they can offer a unique perspective on how curious travel and devout pilgrimage
could be two sides of the same coin.
These illustrations, the maps and plan, demonstrate that Guglingen’s Jerusalem
account projects a religious experience that does not conflict with curiosity about new
environments. The illustrations are the most eye-catching feature of the travelogue, cer-
tainly requiring more time and attention to design and draft than plain text. It is unli-
kely that Guglingen would have taken this trouble, if he had suspected that by doing
so he would delegitimize his travelogue as an account of pilgrimage. Moreover, we
should not forget Guglingen’s credentials as a very devout Observant Franciscan friar
who took his Jerusalem pilgrimage very seriously indeed. In the opening statements of
176 M.P. Ritsema van Eck

his travelogue Guglingen places his conversion to the Franciscan Observance and his
inspiration to go on pilgrimage both on the same level of a divine calling.
150
Piety per-
meates all aspects of his mental world: at several points in the travelogue he bursts out
in fervent prayer; and once settled in Jerusalem, he devises a complex and time-con-
suming personal routine for visiting and meditating on a long list of sacred sites.
151
Moreover, while the illustrations of flora and fauna may seem secular to our modern
eyes, Guglingen would have seen the outstanding creations they portray as signs of the
greatness of their Creator.
152
Within his brand of Franciscan spirituality, paying atten-
tion to the natural landscape one passes through as a pilgrim is equivalent to an act of
devotion, not an unwanted distraction.
The visual features in Guglingen’s Jerusalem travelogue represent things that would
be unknown to his readership, and therefore difficult to picture. The Christian Holy
Places would already be known and imaginable to a Western audience, based on previ-
ous reading of religious texts, as well as via visual representations.
153
This may well
explain why Guglingen chose to illustrate visually only those particular aspects of his
pilgrimage experience that he knew would be truly novel to his readers. At the same
time, the illustrations in no way detract from the religious experience that his pilgrim-
age account aims to convey. Guglingen’s illustrated Jerusalem travelogue presents a
case for interpreting the combination of curious and devout elements as congruous ele-
ments in (late) medieval pilgrimage literature, be it illustrated or not. Rather than as a
sign of decay that furthers a particular narrative about the development of early modern
travel, the herbological, zoological and ethnographical illustrations in Jerusalem travel-
ogues may be taken at face value, as a valid part of pilgrimage.
Acknowledgements
I am indebted to Guy Geltner, Michele Campopiano, Karlijn Olijslager, Sanne Klaver and the
anonymous peer reviewers for their encouragement and valuable comments on previous drafts of
this paper, as well as to the librarians at the Staatliche Bibliothek in Neuburg an der Donau for
their kind assistance.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Funding
This work was supported by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) [grant
number 360-50-070].
Notes
1. For a well-documented discussion of the number of pilgrims and their accounts in this, and
later, periods, see: Shalev, Sacred Words and Worlds,74–80.
2. Elsner and Rubiés, “Introduction”, 31.
3. Timm, Der Palästina-Pilgerbericht, 101–5; Blair Moore, “The Disappearance of an
Author”, 357–411; Betschart, Zwischen Zwei Welten.
4. von Guglingen, Fratris Pauli Waltheri Guglingensis Itinerarium in Terram Sanctam et ad
Sanctam Catharinam, 161, 166, 228–9.
Mediterranean Historical Review 177

5. Betschart has misidentified the first plan, which is in reality a map of Hebron, not of the
Temple Mount in Jerusalem. He also follows Sollweck’s misidentification of the second
plan as a court of law or “mehkeme”. Betschart, Zwischen Zwei Welten, 300.
6. Timm, Der Palästina-Pilgerbericht, 105, 453.
7. The text of Guglingen’s travelogue is characterized by a remarkably animated and candid
style, in comparison to most contemporaneous pilgrimage accounts. He elaborately records
every stage of the journey: the places where he stayed, the people he met, the conversa-
tions he had, his difficulties, hopes and fears. Donald Roy Howard concludes that Guglin-
gen’s lively and personal style “shades off into autobiography”. Howard, Writers and
Pilgrims,36–8, 92.
8. Zacher, Curiosity and Pilgrimage,3–59; Howard, Writers and Pilgrims, 53.
9. “A comparison of late medieval pilgrim reports shows that less and less attention was paid
to religious actions and sentiments, whereas the distance covered became increasingly more
important. This tallies with contemporary complaints that pietas meant less to many pil-
grims than curiositas. Pilgrimage was losing its legitimacy.”Stagl, A History of Curiosity,
47–9; Christian K. Zacher hints at the same; Zacher, Curiosity and Pilgrimage, 12, 157;
cf. Howard, Writers and Pilgrims, 16, 55–6, 106–7; such points of view have not remained
entirely unchallenged; Shalev, Sacred Words and Worlds,82–4; cf. Noonan, The Road to
Jerusalem,11–14.
10. Bosselmann-Cyran, “Das Arabische Vokabular”, 153–5; Guglingen, Itinerarium, XII.
11. He indicates that he spent the first 18 years of his life studying in poverty. He then pro-
fessed to the rule of St Augustine, and lived as a canon for another 18 years. Then at the
age of 36 he became a Franciscan, and again 23 years later, aged 59 he became a Holy
Land pilgrim. Guglingen, Itinerarium,1–3; Guglingen is recorded serving as vice-guardian
at the convent of Heilbrunn near München in 1477, and in 1480 as vice-guardian of the
convent of Heidelberg. Tabulae Capitulares Vicariae 1454–1516, 691, 694.
12. Guglingen, Itinerarium, 12.
13. Guglingen, Itinerarium, 96.
14. Guglingen, Itinerarium, 122.
15. Guglingen, Itinerarium, 171–2.
16. “Specialiter dominus generosus Bernhardus de Breidenbach …venerandus ac religiosus
pater, frater Felix, ordinis sancti Dominici.”Guglingen, Itinerarium, 175–6.
17. Guglingen, Itinerarium, 175–8.
18. Guglingen, Itinerarium, 265.
19. Guglingen refers to a crown of thorns that he made for himself in Egypt, which he took
with him to lower Germany. Guglingen, Itinerarium, XII, 211–2, 278; Nikolaus Glass-
berger, contemporaneous chronicler of the Franciscan order, records that after serving in
Jerusalem, Guglingen went on to become guardian of the convent in Basle (Switzerland),
as well as confessor of the Poor Claires of Söflingen, nowadays enclosed within the city
of Ulm (Baden-Württemberg). Glassberger, Chronica fratris Nicolai Glassberger, 475;
other sources report that he served as preacher and later as praeses at Bönnigheim (Baden-
Württemberg) in the period 1487–93, before becoming the first reformed confessor of the
sisters at Söflingen. Tabulae Capitulares, 698, 706, 774, 778, 806; Frank, Das Klaris-
senkloster Söflingen, 132; Necrologium Provinciae Argentinae, 271.
20. Staatlichen Bibliothek in Neuburg an der Donau, 04/Hs. IHR 10: “Itinerarium in Terram
Sanctam. Waltherus, Paulus”.
21. I examine this other part of the manuscript, the treatise, in more depth elsewhere. Ritsema
van Eck, “Custodians of Sacred Space: Constructing the Franciscan Holy Land through
Texts and Sacri Monti (ca. 1480–1650)”(PhD diss., University of Amsterdam, 2017), 19–
29, 33–75, 117–56.
22. Guglingen, Itinerarium,I.
23. The catalogue of the library at Neuburg dates the manuscript to “ca. 1490”, without further
motivation. The watermark in the paper is not helpful in this case. It measures 30 mm high
x 27 mm broad, and is similar to, but not a match with examples found around three dec-
ades later, ca. 1520, cf. Picard nos. 152874–7, 152790, 152803. “Triple Mount –in shield
–above saltbarrel –one rim/hoop/band below”in the Piccard Watermark Collection,
http://www.piccard-online.de/start.php (accessed on 10 September 2015).
178 M.P. Ritsema van Eck

24. The travelogue begins with an enlarged rubricated initial and rubricated title: “Incipit
itinerarium fratris pauli waltheri de Guglingen continenes gesta vie versus Iherusalem et
sanctam katharinam et in reversionem”(p. 1). Of the five section headings, three head
insignificant portions of text, and may be derivative of an exemplar: on p. 62 two rubri-
cated section headings: “De quodam Apostata a fide”and “De duobus aliis Apostatis”, and
on p. 63 “Nota de facto quodam contigit in die Sabbe Abbatis”. Only the remaining two
headings, “Sequitur egressus de iherusalem versus Alkeyr”(p. 88) and “Ingressus
Alkeyrum”(p. 101), signal important sections of the narrative of the travelogue. There are
18 rubricated initials articulating the text, which can be subdivided into three orders: (1)
the large incipit initial of the first page; (2) three medium initials that signal the moments
of setting sail from Venice (p. 41), arrival at Jaffa (p. 51) and leaving Jerusalem for Cairo
(p. 88); (3) 14 smaller initials, placed within the text sometimes without any apparent logic
(pp. 6, 31, 33, 37), derivative of an exemplar (pp. 54–7: Rama, Lidda, Emaus, Ramatha,
Anathot, Sylo), or following section headings (pp. 62 (twice), 63, 101).
25. Collation: 1
8
2
12
3
8
4
12
5
8
6
12
7
7
wants 2 after p. 122, 8
12
9
8
10
12
11
5
wants 5, 6, 7 after
p. 206, 12
8
13
12
14
8
15
11
wants 1 after p. 264, 16
8
17
12
18
8
19
12
20
7
wants 1 after
p. 366, 21
8
wants 9, 10, 11, 12 after p. 396. The travelogue takes up the first six quires, as
well as the first leaf of the seventh quire, the following leaf has been cut out, then on the
third leaf of the seventh quire the treatise starts. An example of cross-referring between
travelogue and treatise: in the travelogue Guglingen writes that while he lived at the
Franciscan convent in Jerusalem, he occupied himself with gathering materials for, and
composing, his treatise on the Holy Land in the library of that convent, also referring to
the treatise itself: “que habentur foliis et sequentibus”. Guglingen, Itinerarium, 181. Since
foliation was never added, all the spaces for cross referencing other folios within the
manuscript were left blank.
26. Nikolaus Glassberger more than once refers to a more expanded version (at least 10,
instead of 8, books) of Guglingen’s treatise in an appendix to a compilation of Franciscan
chronicles; this autograph manuscript was completed in 1491 and is now preserved at the
convent of Hall in Tirol. Nikolaus Glassberger, Chronica XXIV Generalium Ordinis
Minorum, XVI, XXIV, 654–57; cf. Guglingen, Itinerarium, XII–XIII.
27. This concerns book VIII of Guglingen’sTreatise on the Holy Land. Ritsema van Eck,
“Custodians of Sacred Space”,63–8; Delio, “From Metaphysics to Kataphysics”, 161–79;
Bowman, “The Cosmic Exemplarism of Bonaventure”, 181–98.
28. Betschart, Zwischen Zwei Welten,63–78.
29. Cf. reproduction 23 “Tiere”in Bernhard von Breydenbach, Peregrinatio, ed. Mozer.
30. ”Hec animalia sunt veraciter depicta sicut vidimus in terra sancta”, Bernhard von Breyden-
bach, Peregrinatio, ed. Mozer reproduction 23 “Tiere”; Ross, Picturing Experience,39–44,
49.
31. Timm, Der Palästina-Pilgerbericht, 229–42.
32. Timm, Der Palästina-Pilgerbericht, 100, 277.
33. Alongside numerous illustrations of architectural subjects, the manuscript Florence, Bib-
lioteca Nazionale Centrale, MS II.IV.101 also shows an elephant, a giraffe, a saddled goat,
an ostrich and two more exotic goats. These too are simple pen drawings and are embed-
ded in the text of the travelogue, possibly based on eyewitness observation of the animals
themselves. Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, MS II.IV.101, fols. 41r–v, 54r; some
of these animals also appear in later printed copies of the text, cf. Blair Moore, “Seeing
through Text”; idem, “The Disappearance of an Author”.
34. Betschart, Zwischen Zwei Welten,63–78.
35. The partial eclipse on manuscript p. 62 is described as follows: “Demum steti in monte
Syon per dei gratiam usque ad diem Octobris et VII calendas Novembris, et erat sabatina
dies. Et in ipsa die de sero circa primam horam noctis, vel secundum Alamanos circa sex-
tam horam, facta est talis ecclipsis lune et duravit ad mediam noctem, tunc paulatim reces-
sit, et erat serenissima; facta anno Christi 1482 die ut supra.”Guglingen, Itinerarium, 127;
the full eclipse on manuscript p. 77 is described thus: “Anno domini 1483 die 22 Aprilis,
que erat cal. Maii, in ipsa nocte, et sequenti die erat festum sancti Georgii martiris et dies
Martis et serenissima, cum autem essem una cum socio deputatus ex sorte ad vigilandum
super domus propter timorum latronunculorum et predonum, de quibus supra dictum est,
ipsa nocte circa decimam horam secundum alamanos incepit obscurari luna et considerante
Mediterranean Historical Review 179

me vidi incipere eclipsim, que paulatim crescebat, et circa horam undecimam erat totaliter
eclipsata sive tenebrosa [MS: in hunc modum hic depicta]. Et stetit usque ad horam
duodecimam, priusquam incepit decrescere. Et in illa parte, in qua incepit tenebrari, in
eadem incepit clarescere. Et quando erat eclipsis in summa perfectione, tunc luna apparuit
rubicunda; et infra secunda et primam post mediam noctem recesserat totaliter.”Guglingen,
Itinerarium, 167.
36. Although Sollweck does not mention these two illustrations, he does note his surprise
about Guglingen’s attention for the lunar eclipses, as they were “ja doch kein seltenes
Ereignis”. Guglingen, Itinerarium, 127; The physical properties of lunar eclipses were well
understood during the Middle Ages, however the understanding of lunar eclipses as a natu-
ral and predictable phenomenon did not impede their interpretation as a bad omen. Guglin-
gen does not seem to interpret the eclipses he saw as bad omens, nor connect them to any
particular misfortune. Bartlett, The Natural and the Supernatural,51–70.
37. Malkiel, “The Rabbi and the Crocodile”,115–48.
38. In De Locis Sanctis Adamnan records: “Arculf relates that crocodiles live in the river Nile,
quadrupeds of no great size, very voracious, and so strong that one of them, if it can find
a horse or an ass or an ox eating grass on the river bank, suddenly rushes out and attacks
it, or even seizing one foot of the animal with its jaws, drags it under the water, and com-
pletely devours the entire animal.”Adamnan, The Pilgrimage of Arculfus, Book 2, chapter
28.
39. There is a crocodile among the animals, real and mythical, on the plate by Reuwich in
Breydenbach’sPeregrinatio, cf. reproduction 23 “Tiere”in Bernhard von Breydenbach,
Peregrinatio, ed. Mozer; the illustrated travelogue by the German knight Arnold von Harff
too shows a crocodile, as well as 10 more images of animals. Betschart gives a reproduc-
tion of the life-like illustration of a crocodile in the Maria Laach manuscript. Betschart,
Zwischen Zwei Welten,68–70, 199; Groote’s edition of von Harff’s travelogue gives draw-
ings (not reproductions) of the images found in the manuscript tradition. Von Harff, Die
Pilgerfahrt, 82; another travelogue to include a plate of a crocodile is that by the French
explorer and naturalist Pierre Belon. His Observations describe a journey to the Levant,
and from the second edition in 1554 onwards give a: “portrait du crocodile, poussion du
Nil”. Belon, Voyage au Levant, 44; the French cosmographer André Thevet travelled to the
Levant in the years 1549–1552, his Cosmographie de Levant (1554) contains an illustra-
tion of a crocodile too. Thevet, Cosmographie de Levant, 140.
40. ”Item in ipsa dominica de sero circa completorium vidi unum totum grandem draconem
sive crocodillum mortuum et exenteratum, cuius longitudo cum cauda erat bene decem et
septem pedum, magnitudo ut vittulus anniculus, quatuor habens pedes, squame eius duris-
sime, ita quod bormardus non potest ei nocere, caput eius longum, os vero trium palmarum
mearum, quibus mensuravi, cum dentibus multis et longis, acutissimis”. Guglingen,
Itinerarium, 261.
41. In classical as well as bestiary traditions, the crocodile is often described as a four-legged
creature with particularly sharp teeth and an impenetrable hide. Malkiel, “The Rabbi and
the Crocodile”, 139; cf. 118, 120, 126 and 130.
42. “Sicut patet intventibus hanc formam rostri uel oris”, Neuburg: 04/Hs. IHR 10, p 120.
Sollweck has omitted this reference to the illustration from his edition, as well as any men-
tion of the pen drawing found directly below it.
43. “In toto 4 pedum”(Figure 3).
44. “Draco sive cocodrillus / Rostrum trium palmarum”(Figure 3).
45. Several descriptions of the crocodile ranging from antiquity to the fifteenth century include
a myth about a particular bird eating waste from the crocodile’s mouth, since it purportedly
lacked an anus and was therefore unable to defecate. It seems unlikely that Guglingen’s
choice for representing the crocodile in the shape of a bird was inspired by this myth,
since his textual description fails to mention this myth. In addition, the crocodile and the
bird feature as clearly distinct creatures, even in their symbiotic relationship, in this tradi-
tion. Malkiel, “The Rabbi and the Crocodile”,115–48.
46. Howard, Writers and Pilgrims, 37.
47. Guglingen, Itinerarium, 254.
180 M.P. Ritsema van Eck

48. Cf. Arnold von Harff, Die Pilgerfahrt, 147. Von Harff reports another fight between two
sea animals: a sea dragon and a whale, of which the travelogue also includes an illustra-
tion. Arnold von Harff, Die Pilgerfahrt, 137.
49. “Item in die dominica secunda Adventus circa versperas venit una parva barca cum tribus
viris. Hii prendiderant monstrum marinum, cuius nomen est fetz marinum. [MS: talis fig-
ure et specie ut h(ic) po(nitur).] Habuit predicta bestia sive monstrum marinum caput ut
vitulus sine squamis et sine pilis sicut caput salmonis, collum breve, forma corporis sicut
sacculus plenus aqua sine dorso et sine costis, duas solum habuit pennulas iuxta collum, in
quibus habuit ungwes plures acutissimmas. Pellis eius griseo colore ut cinis pili eius sub-
tilissimi, cauda eius absque squamis et pennulis sed quadruplex. Carnes eius non comedun-
tur propter pessimum fetorem, pellis eius cum crinibus sola valet pro corio.”Guglingen,
Itinerarium, 254.
50. Reuwich’s Holy Land map in Breydenbach’sPeregrinatio shows this garden as a walled-
in area filled with trees close to Cairo (Figure 11), as does the Sinai map by the contempo-
raneous pilgrim and Italian nobleman Gabriele Capodilista.
51. There are several versions of this apocryphal legend, all of which feature at least a tree
and a holy fountain. Halikowski Smith, “Meanings behind Myths”, 101–28; Ross, “Necta-
nebus in his Palace”,74–9. Guglingen is aware of this tradition, as he mentions “the foun-
tain of Mary”and relates that next to it he said Mass for the feast of St Francis, which
had been two days earlier: “Illum fontem et precipue locum, ubi celebravi et ubi requievit
virgo Maria, Saraceni habent in reverentia, ymo ibi permittunt ymaginem virginis Marie.”
Guglingen, Itinerarium, 217.
52. Guglingen takes a chip of this tree as a personal relic, and the pilgrims eat its fruits.
53. “Et ibi reperimus satis magnas arbores non lignee sed totaliter viridi coloris, que vocatur
muse, alio nomine bappiri, habentes folia viridissima in longitudine octo pedum et in lati-
tudine duorum cum dimidio, de quibus recepimus clam fructus, que est dulcissimus ut
zuckerus, quando est maturus. Et ex illa arbore et eius foliis sumpsit nomen bappirus, in
qua scribimus; [p. 100] habent enim folia lineas perfectissimas, et cum fuerint facta arida,
erunt ad scribendum apta et alba.”Guglingen, Itinerarium, 218.
54. “Forma et species illius arboris et ipsius fructus pate[t] clare diligenter inspicientibus
arborem cum calamo hic depictam etc.”Neuburg: 04/Hs. IHR 10, p 100. This line is not
included in text of the modern edition.
55. “Item hec arbor vocatur proprio nomine musa, Sed alio nomine Bappirus semini generis
quia habet etiam in foliis secundum lineas formam bappiri ut supra dictum est etc.”; see
Figure 5.
56. “Item hec arbor crescit uno anno de terra, et facit folia latissima fructumque dulcissisum et
multum medicinalem, viridissimi coloris, ut dictum est supra etc.”Guglingen, Itinerarium,
218–19.
57. Niccolò da Poggibonsi’sLibro d’Oltramare contains a chapter with an equally detailed
description of “apples of paradise”, and the earliest illustrated manuscript of the text has a
pen drawing of this tree. Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, MS II.IV.101, fol. 53v.
This illustration also appears in later illustrated copies, such as that attributed to “Gabriel
Muffel”, cf. Betschart, Zwischen Zwei Welten, 76. For the description in the Libro d’Oltra-
mare see da Poggibonsi, A Voyage Beyond the Seas (1346–1350), 121–2; both André The-
vet’sCosmographie de Levant (1556) and his Cosmographie Universelle (1575) contain a
plate of the “mose”tree. In the first case the plate is certainly not based on eyewitness
observation, and the text only briefly dwells on the tree and takes an anecdotal tone. “Et là
se trouve le Mose, qui est un arbre qui porte son fruit semblable au concombre: les Grecs
& Cretiens dus païs, les Iuifs aussi, disent que c’est le fruit duquel mangea Adam: il est
tressauoureus à manger sur tous els fruis qui sont au païs le Levant: les fueilles son si tres-
grandes & si largers que lon pouroit facilement enueloper un enfant d’un dedens: & ne
pense point que au Monde il y ait arbre qui ait la fueille d’une telle largeur.”André The-
vet, Cosmographie de Levant, 185–6; in the case of the Cosmographie Universelle the
plate shows a recognisable banana tree, while the description is a much-expanded version
of that in the Cosmographie de Levant. Thevet, Cosmographie Universelle, 182–3.
58. “Est autem arbor balsami quasi quidam rubus parvus, cuius folia sunt septuplicia ut com-
muniter, rami vero molles pre pingwendine, et tempore maturitatis balsam extrahitur totus
rubus cum radicibus.”Guglingen, Itinerarium, 219.
Mediterranean Historical Review 181

59. “Et ut dicitur, nullus datur Christianis purus, sed, falsificant eum, ut experientia docuit in
nostris dominis peregrinis, qui magnam pecuniam expendiderunt, ut haberent purum, sed
fuerunt decepti.”Guglingen, Itinerarium, 219.
60. “Forma arboris et species foliorum apparet clare in rubo hic ante calamo simplicter
depicto.”Neuburg: 04/Hs. IHR 10, p. 100. This sentence was left unedited in the modern
edition.
61. “Forma foliorum / foliorum forma / Arbor Balsami”; see Figure 6.
62. Collins, Medieval Herbals, 121–2, 257, 266, 269.
63. Ross, Picturing Experience,44–7; on the function of naturalistic renderings of plants in
early modern printed books, see Kusukawa, Picturing the Book of Nature, 100–77.
64. Cf. Collins, Medieval Herbals, 257,266, 269.
65. Ross, Picturing Experience, 49.
66. “Arbor balsami optimi saporis; in stipite et in ramusculis est liquor balsami; et omni anno
crescit de novo, et transplantatur sic: tempore Maii accipiuntur parvuli ramusculi et plan-
tatur ad terram bene eis colatam, et demum sepius adaquatur cum aqua de fonte Marie vir-
ginis, de quo supra dictum est; tunc crescit. Et tempore mensis Novembris extrahitur totus
rubus et exprimitur balsamus. Et dicunt Sarracenei, quod in nullo alio loco nec alia terra
vult crescere nisi in illo orto, nec etiam nulla alia aqua vult irrigari nisi de fonte gloriose
Marie. Utrum verum sit, nescio.”Guglingen, Itinerarium, 220.
67. Ritsema van Eck, “Custodians of Sacred Space”,63–8; Delio, “From Metaphysics to Kata-
physics”, 161–79; Bowman, “The Cosmic Exemplarism of Bonaventure”, 181–98.
68. Guglingen, Itinerarium, 149–62.
69. “… Et est satis et pulchra et ampla, absque tamen muro, et respicit vallem mambre, qui
erat possesor vallis, que tendit ad civitatem, sicut clarius patebit inspicientibus speram situs
civitatis, que infra habetur.”Guglingen, Itinerarium, 153–4.
70. Neuburg: 04/Hs. IHR 10, pp. 72–4; the map is found on p. 75.
71. Guglingen, Itinerarium, 149–54.
72. Hilhort, “Ager Damascenus”, 131–44.
73. “Et de terra eisdem agri recepi quandam massam, recognoscens me humiliter et omnes
homines, tam nobiles quam ignobiles, originaliter secumdum carnem de illa terra proprie
processisse per propagationem, dicebamque aliqua Pater noster.”Guglingen, Itinerarium,
155.
74. “Et ego vidi oculis meis et alii confratres mei sic se lavare virum turpiter coram omnibus.”
Guglingen, Itinerarium, 156.
75. Guglingen, Itinerarium, 159. Adam is not always included in this list, but Guglingen
includes him. Also see De Geïntegreerde Taalbank,Historische Woordenboeken op het
Internet: Vroegmiddelnederlands Woordenboek [The integrated language depository, histori-
cal dictionaries on the internet: Early Middle Dutch Dictionary], s.v “spelunca duplex”.
https://gtb.inl.nl (accessed 5 March 2013).
76. “Ista musca est valde magna et circummurata fortissime cum murris altis sicut castrum.”
Guglingen, Itinerarium, 156.
77. Guglingen, Itinerarium, 157–8.
78. Guglingen, Itinerarium, 159.
79. “Et dico pro persona mea: si ego intrarem, magis esset ex curiositate quam ex devotione.
Credo enim pye , qoud non sint corpora ibi cum illis maledictis Saracenis nec Ade nec
Abrahame nec alicuius patriarche nec sanctorum uxorum eorumdem.”Guglingen, Itinerar-
ium, 159.
80. “Dispositio musce et civitas clarius patet in hac spera intuentibus et considerantibus singula
et vallis Ebron, et vallis Mambre etc.”Guglingen, Itinerarium, 161. Sollweck edits this
phrase not as the conclusion of the Hebron episode, but as a caption to his rendering of
the map, on the next page.
81. “Murus fortissimus cum quadratis”, see Figure 8.
82. “Ascensus in castrum / introitus”; see Figure 8.
83. The interior of the mosque presents a diversion away from the personally observed: since
Guglingen did not enter the mosque, as he made so sure of himself, his representation of it
must have been based on his own imagination, and possibly oral descriptions by the drago-
man, or pilgrims who did enter. Cf. Vincent and Mackay, Hébron, Plate II; Pringle, The
Churches, 223–39.
182 M.P. Ritsema van Eck

84. “Castrum / castrum in qui est templum”; see Figure 8.
85. “Templum spelunca”, and “chorus”; see Figure 8.
86. “Piscina”; see Figure 8.
87. “Mauri orant ad austrum”; see Figure 8. It is unclear whether Guglingen means they
always pray to the south, or only means to point out the southern corner of this pond. The
“choir”of his church plan in the Ibrāhīmīmosque is oriented towards the south, which
might indicate Guglingen believed Muslims always pray toward the south.
88. “Ager damascenus”, see Figure 8.
89. “Civitas abra sine muro”; see Figure 8. Here Guglingen uses the Arabic denomination for
the city, which he most likely picked up from the dragoman of his company.
90. ”Vallis Ebron / mons inter vallem mambre et ebron / vallis Mambre / mons”; see Figure 8.
91. Harvey, “Local and Regional”, 464, 473, 484.
92. Edson, Mapping Time and Space,4–5, 14–15; We can only speculate about whether
Guglingen knew of maps of Jerusalem and the Holy Land, one of the few medieval tradi-
tions of regional cartography. Harvey, “Local and Regional Cartography”, 473–6;. Harvey,
Medieval Maps of the Holy Land; Röhricht, “Karten und Pläne”(1891): 8–11, 87–92,
137–41; 15 (1892): 34–9, 185–8; 18 (1895): 173–82.
93. I discuss these maps in more depth elsewhere.
94. Koepf, Die gotischen Planrisse; Harvey, “Local and Regional Cartography”, 470.
95. Harvey, “Local and Regional Cartography”, 466.
96. Guglingen, Itinerarium, 165.
97. “Et per eius famulum introductus ad musceam sive templum sive capellam domini regis
Soldani noviter constructam juxta templum Salomonis.”Guglingen, Itinerarium, 165.
98. Sollweck identifies the building as a Mehkeme, or a court of law.
99. “Et in superiori parte est musceta, in parte autem inferiori est habitatio regis et suorum
famulorum. Huius muscete forma clarius patet in figura hic superius depicta.”Guglingen,
Itinerarium, 166. For a modern reconstruction of the plan of the upper storey of the
madrasa: cf. Walls, Geometry and Architecture, 43.
100. Cf. Walls, “Al-Ashrafiyya”,7–13; Walls, Geometry and Architecture,7–17, 41–4;
Burgoyne, Mamluk Jerusalem, 589–605.
101. ”Fenestra / pavimenta / omnia valde preciosa”; see Figure 9.
102. “Austrum”,“ampule plus quam xl
e
”,“ara”; see Figure 9; cf. Walls, Geometry and Archi-
tecture, 43; Burgoyne, Mamluk Jerusalem, 600–1.
103. “Aquilo”,“tot fenestras quot alia pars”,“passus xv / passus x”; see Figure 9. Here
Guglingen’s assertion about the number of windows is not correct: the north wing has two
windows less than the south wing; cf. Walls, Geometry and Architecture, 43.
104. “Hec musceta valde pretiose et curiose contructa ex lapidibus marmoreis albis, nigris et
rubeis necnon ex lapidibus porhpireys variorum colorum scl. viridi, blavei et mixti coloris,
scissuris variis et raris, quas nequo describere, non nimis lata nec longa, satis tamen altis.”
Guglingen, Itinerarium, 166; “The Madrasa al-Ashrafiyya was undoubtedly the most
impressive of all the Mamluk monuments to be built in Jerusalem.”Walls, “Al-Ashra-
fiyya”,7.
105. Ross, Picturing Experience, 155–7. The intended structures, between the Dome of the
Rock and the Bab al-Silsila Minaret on Reuwich’s Holy Land map, may only represent
the Ashrafiyya madrasa with very relative accuracy indeed. These tripartite structures
might be interpreted as representing the three bays of the madrasa; however, they appear
as three independent buildings freely imagined by the artist. These three structures each
have their own separate roofs, while the roof with the central lantern crowing the madrasa
is missing. Moreover, the three tall arches of the middle building/part, possibly represent-
ing the loggia of the upper floor of the madrasa, run the whole length of the building, the
placement of the windows is otherwise inaccurate, and the conspicuous entrance porch of
the madrasa is missing. Cf. with the reconstruction of the façade by Walls in
“Al-Ashrafiyya”, 7; or in Burgoyne, Mamluk Jerusalem, 599.
106. ”Templum salamonis”and “oriens”; see Figure 9; cf. Walls, Geometry and Architecture,
11–14.
107. “Iuxta templum Salomonis”, Guglingen, Itinerarium, 165.
108. Cf. Walls, “Al-Ashrafiyya”, 7, 9, 12. Guglingen may have placed the lantern above the
loggia, instead of the central court, because from the Temple Mount it could not be seen
Mediterranean Historical Review 183

where exactly on the roof of the madrasa the lantern was based; alternatively the lantern
was a bit of an afterthought, added when the central part of the plan was already crowded
with words.
109. Krinsky, “Representations of the Temple”,1–19; Blair Moore, “Textual Transmission”,
51–78.
110. Maps of the Holy Land often have east at the top, the direction of the pilgrim’s approach
to the country from the west. Harvey, “Local and Regional Cartography”, 475.
111. “Desertum”; see Figure 10.
112. “Ortus balsami”,“civitas”,“hospitium nostrum”; see Figure 10; Guglingen, Itinerarium,
218–21.
113. “Hospitium nostrum”; see Figure 10; Guglingen, Itinerarium, 231, cf. 227, 235, 236–7.
114. “Pons per brachium nili”; see Figure 10.
115. “Et incepimus equitare in aquilone et descendimus versus occidentem, et pervenimus ad
litus Nili, ubi reperimus multas et magnas naves de Alexandria et de aliis partibus mundi,
que apportabant mercimonia et victualia in magna copia.”Guglingen, Itinerarium, 231.
116. Guglingen, Itinerarium, 231.
117. “Hic aqua circumdat partem civitatis”; see Figure 10.
118. Guglingen, Itinerarium, 232.
119. “Demum hiis visis equitavimus versus austrum ad civitatem Babilonam, non tamen est illa
magna, ubi Nemroth consuluit filiis Noe edificare turrem usque ad celum, …sed illa
Babilonia dicitur minor …” Guglingen, Itinerarium, 233. Apocryphal traditions associate
Nimrod with the tower of Babel, which was commonly conflated with Babilon; Sivefors,
“Conflating Babel and Babylon”, 293–323.
120. “Austrum”; see Figure 10; Gabra, “The Fortress of Babylon”,16–33.
121. “Hic est litus et Bolacko et stant hic multe naves in nylo”; see Figure 10. For the
departure from Cairo see Guglingen, Itinerarium, 237–8.
122. “Hic fluit nylus qui venit de paradiso”; see Figure 10.
123. “Et fuit olim civitas sed modo in illa parte penitus desolata”; see Figure 10.
124. “In eadem civitate Babilonia sunt plures ecclesie Christanorum. Et introducti primo visi-
tavimus ecclesiam beate Marie virginis, in qua est locus, ubi Maria cum filio suo Ihesu et
Joseph morata est septem annis, et est valde devotus locus, et ibi peregrini nostri domini
dederunt largam elemosinam.”Guglingen, Itinerarium, 233.
125. “Civitas babilo / nia sive muro / Ecclesia beate Marie / ubi habitavit per septem annos”;
see Figure 10.
126. “Demum equitavimus extra Babiloniam versus dexteram manum, et appropinquavimus
canali in altissimo muro in quo currit aqua de Nylo ad castrum Soldani.”Guglingen,
Itinerarium, 234.
127. “Castrum soldani”; see Figure 10; Wensinck et al., “Cairo”, 77, 83.
128. “Altus mons lapideus”,“altitudo montis”; see Figure 10.
129. “Demum equitavimus altissimum montem inter omnes montes, et in illo speculavimus sin-
gula civitatis. Et ibi diligenter ego me dedi occulte ad considerandam amplitudinem civi-
tatis et multitudinem muscearum, et omnino non potui credere, sicut supra scriptum est ex
relatione aliquorum”. Guglingen, Itinerarium, 234.
130. He has been told 60,000, but is incredulous of that number. Guglingen, Itinerarium, 226,
228–9.
131. “Hic sunt cimiteria regum usque ad pedem montis castri”; see Figure 10; El Kadi,
Architecture for the Dead.
132. “Hec est dispositio civitatis alkayri absque muro per circuitum”; see Figure 10.
133. Read from east to west: “Civitas Alkayrum”,“Muscee multe”,“Civitas”,“Civitas in
meliori parte”,“Muscee multe”,“Grandis piscina”,“hic sunt diversa ortilicia cum palmis
et variis arboribus”; see Figure 10.
134. Delano-Smith, “Milieus of Mobility”,16–68; Harvey, “Local and Regional Cartography”,
495–6.
135. Delano-Smith, “Milieus of Mobility”, 35, 46–9.
136. Connolly, “Imagined Pilgrimage”, 598–622.
137. Cf. reproduction 22 h “Jerusalem mit Hl. Land”in Breydenbach, Peregrinatio, ed. Mozer.
138. Blair Moore, “Seeing through Text”, 402–15, see esp. 405–9; cf. Blair Moore, “The
Disappearance of an Author”.
184 M.P. Ritsema van Eck

139. In the case of the plate by Erhard Reuwich in Breydenbach’sPeregrinatio the view on
Cairo is made up out of historical buildings as well as generic architectural elements.
Timm, Der Palästina-Pilgerbericht, 247.
140. Schulz, “Jacopo de’Barbari’s View of Venice”, 425–74, esp. 454–64; cf. Harvey, “Local
and Regional Cartography”, 469.
141. Timm, Der Palästina-Pilgerbericht, 279.
142. de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life, 120–1.
143. Griggs, “Promoting the Past”,27–36.
144. Betschart, Zwischen Zwei Welten,93–117.
145. In terms of the visual representation of secular spaces by late medieval Holy Land
pilgrims, the illustrated Jerusalem travelogue associated with the German knight Konrad
von Grünemberg offers a good example. It contains a vivid description of a visit to a bath
house, as well as an illustration of this impressive building. Goldfriedrich and Fränzel,
Ritter Grünembergs Pilgerfahrt,117–19.
146. Krinsky, “Representations of the Temple”,1–19; Blair Moore, “Textual Transmission”,
51–78; the visualization of Jerusalem on Reuwich’s Holy Land map is designed to obliter-
ate any Islamic presences, and turn Jerusalem into a decidedly Christian city. Beebe,
“Jerusalem of the Mind’s Eye”,411–13.
147. Zacher, Curiosity and Pilgrimage, 12, 157; Howard, Writers and Pilgrims, 16, 55–6,
106–7.
148. Stagl, A History of Curiosity,47–9.
149. Noonan, The Road to Jerusalem, 235; also see Shalev, Sacred Words and Worlds,82–4.
150. Guglingen, Itinerarium,1–3.
151. Guglingen, Itinerarium, 181–6.
152. Ritsema van Eck, “Custodians of Sacred Space”,63–8; Delio, “From Metaphysics to
Kataphysics”, 161–79; Bowman, “The Cosmic Exemplarism of Bonaventure”, 181–98.
153. Blair Moore, “Seeing Through Text”, 410.
Notes on contributor
Marianne P. Ritsema van Eck has received her doctorate from the history department of the
University of Amsterdam (UvA) with a dissertation entitled “Custodians of sacred space: Con-
structing the Franciscan Holy Land through texts and sacri monti (ca. 1480-1650)”. Currently,
she is a research fellow at the Sangalli Institute for Religious History and Cultures in Florence
(Italy). She specializes in late medieval and early modern religious history, particularly its expres-
sions at the intersection of textual and material culture.
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