Lucus Brandis (c. 1450–1500) was a German printer and typographer active in the last quarter of the fifteenth century. He was educated at Leipzig University, but there is little other information about his youth. His apprenticeship in the printing trade is unrecorded, but he would begin printing under his own name in Merseburg in 1473. At the end of that year, he moved to Lübeck and began preparing for his most ambitious work, the ‘Rudimentum Novitiorum’, a 474-sheet tome that was finally completed in 1475. Following this publication, he produced a handful of more common books: breviaries, psalters, and short theological works such as Josephus’s ‘De bello Judaico’. Like many printers of the period, his shop suffered financial hardships, and he was forced to supplement his income by working as a typecaster for the printer Bartholomaus Ghotan. Historical records after this are few. Brandis’s last publication appeared in 1499. A year later an order from a Lübeck court warned him not to flee town without settling his debts.  

The ‘Rudimentum Novitiorum’ contains two maps from medieval sources: a world map based on a T-O design and a map of Palestine from an account of the Holy Land by Burchardus de Monte Sion from Magdeburg (fl. 1274–1291).

The World Map
Based on a T-O design, this map presents locations in a receding landscape that terminates in the Far East at the walled city of Paradise. This naturalistic effect presents plausible geographical knowledge without yielding up the system of the T-O scheme. Each continent is shown as an island and each country as a separate hill, surmounted either with a sovereign’s bust or with the conventional symbol for a town separated by imaginary waterways. These are real places and they are set in (reasonably) accurate relation to one another. Collectively, the map is not dissimilar to contemporary paintings depicting the earth like the exterior panels of Hieronymus Bosch’s ‘Garden of Earthly Delights’ which presents the earth as a flat, circular landscape lying under a spherical dome of heaven. 

The mythological aspects of the map include illustrations of the phoenix, the Trees of the Sun and the Moon, and the figures of the Devil and the armless man. Traditionally, medieval maps were bounded at the west and east by the Pillars of Hercules and Paradise respectively. The ‘Rudimentum Novitiorum’ places the pillars astride the entrance to the Mediterranean and shows, at the other extremity, an enclosed mound from which flows the four rivers of Paradise. It is also worth noting that next to Sweden (Gothia), “Vinland” is named on the world map. This is, however, likely to be Finland, as opposed to a representation of the Viking colony in the Americas.

The Map of Palestine
In contrast to the world map, the map of Palestine admits an entirely “observed” view by presenting the Holy Land from a bird’s-eye perspective, the first printed map to use this projection. It is oriented with east at the top and extends from Damascus and Sion in the north to the Red Sea in the south. Jerusalem is shown as a walled city at the centre of the map, with Calvary nearby. Eight heads around the periphery represent the winds or compass directions. As with the world map, each town or country is represented as a hillock bounded by either walls or waterways. The map likely originates from an account of the Holy Land by Burchardus de Monte Sion from Magdeburg (fl. 1274 – 1291), a Dominican priest who spent ten years in the region during the thirteenth century. While no maps are known in manuscript copies, the ‘Rudimentum Novitiorum’ contains a version of Burchardus’s travels in Armenia, Palestine, and Egypt, demonstrating considerable knowledge of his work, including the priest’s measurements of the stones of the Pyramids of Gizeh.

Predating Schedel’s famous ‘Nuremberg 

’ by nearly twenty years (see: SC-B-1493-Schedel-Nuremburg

), the ‘Rudimentum Novitiorum’ was the first world chronicle in print and contains some of the earliest known printed maps in Europe. While repeating the basic T-O format found in earlier works like Zainer’s 1472 edition of 

’s ‘Etymologies’ (see: SC-B-1472-Isidore-Etymologies-1Ed-TOMap), the chronicle packs the map with rich details and shows countries in topographical relationship to each other. 

Bursting with biblical references, fabled beasts, and legendary civilizations, the map harkens back to the elaborate tradition of Medieval wall maps like the Hereford Map and the Ebstorf Map. While subsequent works like the Bologna Ptolemy would begin to produce maps based on Ptolemaic or portolan projections, the ‘Rudimentum Novitiorum’ is a hybrid of sorts, preserving medieval traditions and simultaneously providing the latest geographic information.

The ‘Rudimentum Novitiorum’ (Handbook for Novices), is the earliest known printed European chronicle of the world. It was an educational work, conceived and written by an anonymous theologian, which describes six ages of the earth beginning with the creation and culminating with the contemporary era. As part of this history, it features two maps: one of the world and one of Palestine. This hand-coloured volume is especially rare with only a handful of comparable copies known. 

The chronicle’s world map is a fascinating blend of the traditional medieval T-O map with current geographic knowledge and awareness. Myths, legends, and historical figures wander the earth in conjunction with more contemporary characters such as the Pope in Rome. Many actual places, such as Egypt, Greece, and Italy are marked while simultaneously Paradise is depicted as a physical location to the far East from which flow the four rivers of Paradise. 

The Map of Palestine eschews the schematic formula for a bird’s eye view. Jerusalem is depicted in the centre with Damascus and Sion to the north and the Red Sea to the south. The map likely originated from an account of the Holy Land by Burchardus de Monte Sion from Magdeburg (fl. 1274 – 1291), whose work is quoted extensively in the ‘Rudimentum Novitiorum’.


The title ‘Rudimentum Novitiorum’ (Handbook for Novices) and the overall tone of the book point to an intended audience of young clerics. It was also intended to be an affordable compendium of knowledge; as the colophon states: ‘so that the poor who cannot aﬀord many books have at hand a digest of many books in one’. The author was almost certainly a cleric, presumably a member of the cathedral chapter of Lübeck. The text demonstrates considerable theological learning and an extensive handle of authoritative sources. In addition to biblical and patristic texts, the author quotes frequently from Thomas Aquinas and Nicholas of Lyra and makes extensive use of historical works such as Peter Comestor’s ‘Historia scholastica’ and Vincent of Beauvais’s ‘Speculum historiale’. Contemporary regional historiography is presented as well including the Chronicon Slavicum and the chronicle of the Lübeck bishops.

Hybrid mappa mundi world map

Lineage of Christ

Building Jerusalem 

Lineage of Jacob

Biblical lineage and city view

Lineage of Adam and Eve; illustrated letter A

Lineage of Noah; Noah's Ark

The building of cities; text leaf

Abraham and Isaac

Church lineage

Biblical lineage; illustration of tribal camp

The story of Moses

Biblical lineage and woodcut

Map of the Holy Land

Lineage and story of King David; illustrated letter D

Text leaves with woodcut illustrations

Biblical lineage and woodcut city views

Lineage of Mary and Christ; illuminated letter O

Church lineage; text page with marginalia

Lineage in the Church

The ‘Rudimentum novitiorum’ is the first printed chronicle of the world and the first work to contain detailed printed maps. It is also the earliest dated printed work from Lübeck. Decorated with exquisite hand-coloured woodcuts, this exceedingly rare book is one of only a handful of known copies that are complete. 

Modern dark brown pigskin over oak boards, decorated in blind, antique; preserved in a modern brown cloth clamshell box.

Folio. Gothic type, double column, 47 lines, 473 leaves, including the blank leaf [11] bound at the beginning. [10] leaves of woodcut genealogical chains descending from God and Adam and Eve to John the Baptist (leaf [10] supplied), leaves 12 – 446 numbered by hand in red “i-ccccxxxiii” (with errors), two magnificent double-page woodcut maps of the world, at leaves lxxiv – lxxv, and Palestine at leaves clxii – clxiii, numerous full-page woodcut genealogical chains and column- wide illustrations and woodcut vignettes all exquisitely hand-coloured, 12- and 7- line initials coloured alternately in salmon, green, pink, or blue with contrasting filling on burnished gold grounds in coloured frames, and penwork initials alternating between red and blue, rubricated throughout.

Fundamentals for Novices

Rudimentum Novitiorum

The First Chronicle of the World with Printed Maps

The Epitome of the World Divided into Six Parts According to the Six Ages, Previously Unknown Anywhere, which pleased to be called the Rudiments of Recent Things