Stella Wisgrill // "Seen […] as if in a clear mirror with pure shine." Vision and the Politics of Self-Knowledge in Emperor Maximilian I’s Fürstliche Chronik (1518)
This project investigates the epistemic and political significance of vision and self-knowledge in the so-called Fürstliche Chronik Kaiser Maximilians Geburtsspiegel (1518), a monumental genealogical chronicle commissioned by the Holy Roman Emperor, Maximilian I. Despite comprising six volumes and over 1,300 folios of text and illuminations, the Fürstliche Chronik is typically seen as a mere auxiliary to the emperor’s better-known printed gedechtnus works. Here, however, it emerges as an innovative and richly layered site of artistic and intellectual experimentation. Building on my doctoral research, I aim to prepare an article manuscript for submission to a peer-reviewed journal that will stand as a complimentary output to a book project based on my dissertation.
Through close analysis of the chronicle’s visual metaphors – especially its use of convex mirrors and eye-like peacock plumage – the project explores how image and text work in tandem to present vision and reflection as a privileged means of political self-fashioning and historical knowledge. These mirrored and reflective models not only assert Maximilian’s claimed relations across historic and mythical noble houses, but also stage complex interactions between princely, artisanal, and scholarly authority. Beyond reassessing the significance of the Fürstliche Chronik as an imperial commission, I set out to highlight is role as a compelling case study in the politics of visual cognition and genealogical argumentation on the eve of the Reformation. 
A key objective of the project is to contextualise the Fürstliche Chronik’s production within the dynamic intellectual and artistic networks of the Upper Rhine. Particular attention will be given to clarifying the author Jacob Mennel’s connections to the Freiburg Carthusian scholar Gregor Reisch and to the circle of Hans Baldung Grien, whose workshop may have been involved in the chronicle’s illuminations. By situating the Fürstliche Chronik within these intersecting spheres of knowledge production, the project highlights the chronicle’s role as a site of collaboration as well as contestation between scholarly, artisanal and princely agents, where visual forms were utilised to negotiate and produce claims to lasting political and epistemic legitimacy.