The Augsburg Passion from 1480

Anton Sorg the Younger (c. 1430–1493) was one of the most prolific and successful printers and publishers of the 15th century, shaping the German-language book market and the incunable period like no other. incunable are books printed before 1500. Between 1475 and 1493, he produced around 240 of them in various editions in his Augsburg printing workshop, which had its own paper mill. He focused on the contemporary demand and therefore concentrated primarily on German and Latin devotional but also theological practical literature. On November 18, 1480, he published the so-called Augsburg Passion, containing a true medieval bestseller: Heinrich von St. Gallen's treatise on the Passion of Christ, Extendit manum, written at the end of the 14th century – the most widely distributed and best-preserved German Passion narrative of the Middle Ages. It tells the story of the Passion of Christ in a folksy manner, incorporating earlier theological treatises. Anton Sorg illustrated his incunable edition of the popular work with 28 full-page, vibrantly colored woodcuts and a large yellow-pink champie initial that marks the beginning of Heinrich's text after the rubricated preface.