Early Printed Illustration

Johannes Andreae (d. 1348). 
Super arboribus consanguinitatis et affinitatis.
[Augsburg: Günther Zainer, not after 1473]. (06800)

Bridwell Library’s earliest printed book with woodcut illustrations, this treatise on the legal definition of Christian marriage features two full-page diagrams depicting the “Tree of Consanguinity” and the exhibited “Tree of Affinity.” The book was published by Augsburg’s first printer, Günther Zainer, an early producer of books with woodcuts. The text was compiled by Johannes Andreae, a Bolognese canon lawyer, who explained that consanguinous marriages between couples sharing direct blood lines or between relatives as close as third cousins were forbidden. Marriages of affinity among in-laws, involving a deceased spouse’s first cousin, niece, or nephew were also prohibited. The two woodcuts in the form of family trees helped to clarify the allowable marital relationships and lines of inheritance.