Faksimile Blog

DOMI exclusiv GmbH has been dedicated to producing premium art and knowledge products in Austria and Germany since it was founded in 2013. DOMI exclusiv cooperates with renowned partners such as the Müller & Schindler and Faksimile Verlag GmbH publishing houses to offer only the highest quality facsimiles and other knowledge products to lovers of books and art. Its top priority is a single...

With views and plans of Canterbury, Seville, Rotterdam, Dortmund, Schleswig, Munich, Copenhagen and Malmö, the Civitates Orbis Terrarum lives up to its name and is the oldest comprehensive collection of realistic city views from around the world.

The word “apocalypse” comes from the Greek word apokálypsis, which means “uncovering” or “unveiling”. In Christian texts, it is generally translated as “revelation”. In the context of the Bible, apocalypse refers to the Revelation to John (or the Book of Revelation), the last book in the New Testament.

Gianlucido Gonzaga originally commissioned this missal in 1442. The Italian painter and book artist Belbello de Pavia, who was one of the most important late Gothic illuminators, produced this unique liturgical manuscript together with the calligrapher Pietro Paolo Marono. Marono also wrote the text of the famous Bible of Borso d'Este. However, production of the missal was often interrupted after...

What does “facsimile” actually mean? A facsimile is a faithful copy or reproduction of a historically valuable document such as a script, a book or a drawing.

A cartouche is visible in the southern Pacific Ocean on the terrestrial globe that identifies Gerhard Mercator (1512-1594) as its creator.

Gerhard Mercator was born Gerhard Kremer southwest of Antwerp in Flanders in 1512. He later adopted the Latin name Gerardus Mercator as was common practice among scholars at that time.

Commissioned by Charlemagne himself between 781 and 783, the Godescalc Evangelistary is a magnificent liturgical manuscript of outstanding importance in terms of both art and history.

The Egyptians created the first accurate images of the constellations long before our era as we know from burial objects in the tomb of the ancient Egyptian official Senenmut from the middle of the second millennium BC.

This week, 6 May [2019], marks the 160th anniversary of the death of Alexander von Humboldt, who was probably the best-known natural scientist of his time and whose work has continued to have an direct impact right down to the present day. But we will be able to celebrate a far more important anniversary this September because Humboldt was born in Berlin on 14 September 1769 – 250 years ago.

After the catastrophe of World War II, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) was founded on 16 November 1945. This new organisation's guiding principle is also part of its constitution: "Since wars begin in the minds of men and women, it is in the minds of men and women that the defences of peace must be constructed."

The oldest surviving globe in modern history was created in the same year as Christopher Columbus discovered America and is the work of the German cloth merchant Martin Behaim, who was born in Nuremberg in 1459. There is evidence that Donnus Nicolaus Germanus created a globe of the earth and the heavens for Pope Sixtus IV in 1477, making it the earliest globe in modern history, but we do not know...

Among the many treasures in Vienna's Kunsthistorisches Museum is a collection of over 50 drawings by an unknown artist from Bohemia, which is commonly known as the "Model Book". It has been open to the public again since the end of 2012 as part of the museum's art collection. The original purpose of the work has remained shrouded in mystery to this day.

This medical house book originated in Nuremberg in the 15th century and contains health rules for the layman, which were attuned to the all-powerful influence of the cosmic forces. With its well-balanced design, the Codex Schürstab occupies an outstanding position among Old German compilations.

We generally do not know medieval illuminators by name and only their works have survived. This is not the case with William de Brailes from Oxford. In the 13th century, he created the Oxford Bible Pictures, a pure cycle of pictures with biblical scenes that are entirely in early Gothic style.

The Book of Hours of Bona Sforza (1494-1547), Duchess of Bari and Milan, who became Queen of Poland and Grand Duchess of Lithuania when she married King Sigismund I (as his second wife) in 1518, is a special masterpiece of Renaissance illumination.

The Histoire d`Amour sans paroles from the early 16th century tells a moving and timeless story about the fate of two lovers . The special thing about this manuscript is that it provides a comprehensive account of courtly life at the end of the Middle Ages despite having very little text (“sans paroles”).

After the first prime of Carolingian book art, outstanding examples of this art also appeared during the era of the Ottonian rulers. This undoubtedly includes the Salzburg Pericope Book, which was probably created shortly after the turn of the millennium for Archbishop Hartwig who was archbishop from 991 to 1023. A pericope or evangelistary comprises the biblical passages used in worship during...

Hunting has fascinated people throughout the ages, so it is not surprising that the subject also appears in medieval manuscripts. The best-known testimony to this fascination is the "Livre de chasse" by Count Gaston III of Foix-Béarn, which he wrote between 1387 and 1389. He was given the nickname Phoebus, in reference to the ancient god Apollo, because of his striking blond hair.

The Islamic world, with its unique variety of cultures, has produced outstanding gems of book art and calligraphy for well over a millennium, and these are now available as facsimiles for the first time. The Müller & Schindler publishing house has recently produced a collection of twenty individual pages, which are available either individually or as a selected collection of twelve leaves in a...

In the pre-Renaissance period of the 14th century, also known as the "Trecento" (Italian for 300, an abbreviation of the year 1300), important movements emerged in Italian art that proved to be extremely important in the Renaissance era and subsequent centuries. The way in which the human being was depicted changed noticeably at this time and began to show spatial perspective. The Florentine...

Christine de Pizan was just four years old when she was presented to the French King Charles V at the court of Paris in 1368. She was the daughter of a Venetian scholar named Tomaso Benvenuto and was from her earliest years part of the entourage of patrons and sponsors of education and the arts that the French ruler surrounded himself with. She was decisively influenced by this company and also...

One of the most beautiful manuscripts from the Renaissance period is the Book of Hours of Isabella of Castile, which is also known as the "Libro de Horas de la Reina Isabel la Católica". The best Flemish illuminators of their time created this manuscript during the late 15th century. These illuminators belonged to the Ghent-Bruges school, which represented the pinnacle of Flemish book art. Among...

Chantilly Castle is a Renaissance chateau 50 kilometres north-east of Paris and a monument in stone to French history over the last few centuries. Originally built as a medieval castle, it was rebuilt around the 16th century by Anne de Montmorency, the army commander, into a magnificent Renaissance chateau, and it was also provided with a large park. The Dukes of Condé resided in Chantilly from...

Parker Library in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, MS 53

This bestiary was created in about 1300 at Peterborough Abbey in the East of England. Its 100 miniatures show the known animal world of the time, as well as animals from the world of fables, such as unicorns, sirens and the phoenix, against gold backgrounds and in gold frames.

Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich, Clm 4456

The Sacramentary of Henry II is considered one of the last gems of Ottonian book art. Henry II, king of the East Frankish Empire, commissioned it before his coronation as emperor in 1014 for ceremonial use in church services in Regensburg. He had the most important illuminators of the time at his disposal, the artists at the Benedictine monastery of...

Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, SCHK.XIII.18

Created in about 800 at Charlemagne's Palace School, the Codex Aureus on purple pages developed into the most important book of the Middle Ages. It was part of the imperial regalia and played a central role at the coronation of every Roman-German king.

In der spannenden Übergangszeit zwischen Mittelalter und Neuzeit ist eines der schönsten Kostbarkeiten der Buchmalerei überhaupt entstanden: das von Albrecht Glockendon für Johann II. von Pfalz-Simmern ausgeschmückte Bußgebetbuch. Johann II. (1492-1557), Pfalzgraf bei Rhein, Herzog in Bayern, Graf zu Sponheim, meist einfach nur »Herzog Hans« genannt, war nicht nur in seinem Kleinstaat im...

The art of facsimile reproduction can also be used to preserve historical masterpieces of cartography for posterity. Facsimiles of maps or atlases can be used to preserve rare and culturally significant printed historical maps and collections of historical manuscript maps and large-scale topographic works, which often contain hand-coloured elements in addition to the printed ground plans.

(Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Vienna, Codex 2773)

No ancient story still fascinates us as much as the one about the fall of the city of Troy. The story also had special significance in the Middle Ages and many nobles tried to trace the origins of their families back to Trojan heroes.

In 2019, one of the most beautiful works of 13th century French illumination will be available in a facsimile edition for the first time: the Royal Psalter of Sainte-Chapelle (Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal, Ms. 1186).

The New Year brings the book of hours (horarium in Latin, livre d'heures in French and Stundenbuch in German), as a prayer and devotional book for the Liturgy of the Hours, to the fore. Books of hours were private devotional books used by the wealthy nobility in the late Middle Ages and they had their artistic peak in Flanders and France in the 14th and 15th centuries.

Christmas, our annual celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ, is very close. The life of Jesus is naturally an extremely popular subject of medieval book art and is therefore also the motif of many miniatures. When considering miniatures, we inevitably think of the magnificent images that European art has produced in manuscripts over the centuries.

This is oldest translation of the Gospels from Latin into Old English. In it, Mediterranean and Celtic influences merged into a wealth of shapes that provided a foundation for the development of Western art.

A facsimile is a faithful copy or reproduction of a historically valuable document such as a manuscript, a book or a drawing.

Nikola Eterović, the Apostolic Nuncio to Germany, invited Michael Kriegler, DOMI exclusiv's managing director, and his colleague Gero Stapelfeldt to the Apostolic Nunciature in the Neukölln district of Berlin.

The Travels of Sir John Mandeville. For people who were into culture in the 14th and 15th century in Europe, Sir John Mandeville's book entitled "The Wonders of the Earth - The Travels of Sir John Mandeville" was probably the equivalent of a travel blog or a travelogue by someone like Andreas Altmann for us today.

The page for April from the St Albans Psalter. Medieval manuscripts often contain calendars. Whenever using a codex required guidance about time in the course of the year, it naturally made sense to include the necessary information in the book.

154 original manuscripts from more than 40 libraries. A strictly limited edition of the illuminated Bible of Mercy appeared in December 2016. Each volume has a handwritten limitation number and comes in a luxury case to protect its precious binding.

A new owner. Faksimile Verlag GmbH, which is based in Simbach am Inn, resumed business on 1 September 2017. Charlotte Kramer, owner of Müller & Schindler Verlag and daughter of the former managing director of Faksimile Verlag of Lucerne, Dr Manfred Kramer, will continue Faksimile Verlag of Lucerne's tradition-steeped business.