The Cologne-based publishing house Taschen is renowned for its original, lavishly illustrated large-format albums. One of them is a facsimile edition of the so-called "Book of Miracles", which appeared in the middle of the 16th century in the "free imperial city" of Augsburg.
The Augsburg manuscript, the cover of which has not survived (and therefore its name is conditional), is a collection of about two hundred drawings, very skillfully made in gouache and watercolors, with brief explanations under them: what kind of extraordinary event described here is being discussed, and what foreshadows what - what kind of catastrophe, epidemic, war - it was. There are 167 original pages and 23 copies, which replaced the original sheets in the 19th century, when the Book of Miracles was re-bound. By the way, in the process of preparing the publication, the Taschen publishing house managed to find four original sheets torn from it. Of course, they were also included in the publication.
Such illustrated collections of miraculous omens and "signs of fate" were not uncommon in the 16th century who believed in supernatural phenomena. But The Book of Miracles is special. Such a high artistic level and such a wide historical coverage - from the signs described in the Old Testament to the natural disasters of the middle of the 16th century - cannot be boasted by any of these publications. This is a true masterpiece of the early Renaissance, so it is not surprising that an accidentally found old manuscript not so long ago made so much noise.
At the same time, many of the formidable omens described in it and the shocks that followed them - from the Flood and the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple to meteor showers, comets, earthquakes and hurricanes - have already been described more than once in the Bible, ancient chronicles or scientific treatises.
Even if you look at these colorful "horror stories" through the eyes of a modern person, they make a strong impression, especially when combined with dryish, laconic, purely informative captions under the pictures. They are in the original language, modern German, and in English and French. For example, such a signature: “In 1552 from the birth of Christ, on May 17, such a terrible hurricane with hail broke out over Dobrecht in Holland that people thought it was the end of the world. This lasted about half an hour. Many of the hailstones were in pounds and eight lots (about 600 grams - ed.). From those who fell to the ground there was a monstrous stench.
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Of course, it would be interesting to know what kind of natural phenomenon we are talking about, but today we can only guess about it. Major volcanic eruptions, as a result of which solidified pieces of lava and sickeningly smelling sulfur would fall from the sky, did not seem to have happened in May 1552. Meteor Rain? Maybe. But it’s impossible to establish for sure. But we can say with confidence that this description is close to reality. The unknown author of The Book of Miracles took this very seriously, and many of its apocalyptic horrors (at least close in time to the middle of the 16th century, when the book was created) took place in reality, no matter how incredible their descriptions seemed to us.
For example, the Lisbon earthquake of 1531. Then about two hundred houses were destroyed, more than a thousand people died under the rubble. The Augsburg manuscript tells (and shows) bloody signs and flashes of fire in the sky and a huge whale that rises into the sky. Well, the first thing is all right, but the whale is in the sky ?!
Meanwhile, in 1531 in Lisbon there really was an earthquake, and a very strong one. In addition, the details of another terrible Lisbon earthquake - 1755 are well known. It completely destroyed the city. Then lightning flashed in the sky, later fires began (signs and flashes!). And then a huge tsunami literally covered the harbor and center of Lisbon. So if not a whale, then at least a very large fish on the crest of a giant wave that hit the city could well correspond to the description of the catastrophe of 1531 in the "Book of Miracles".
Drawings of tailed comets, volcanic eruptions, large meteorites, lunar eclipses, three or even five Suns in the sky look even more realistic. The latter phenomenon is quite common and is called parhelium. There is no mysticism here. The cause of parghelium is a cloud of tiny ice crystals. The sun's rays, falling on such a cloud, are refracted - and “doubles” of the luminary appear.
In general, certain celestial phenomena are found most often in the "Book of Miracles", but it also talks about, so to speak, "ground" disasters, such as, for example, the plague of locusts, which in 1527 brought great troubles to Poland, led to crop failure, mass loss of livestock and hunger.
Many of the described phenomena seem no less mysterious and frightening today than they were five or six centuries ago. One of the pictures, for example, depicts a creepy creature in scales, with a donkey's head, a woman's chest, one human hand and a trunk instead of the other, one leg with a hoof, and the other with a bird's paw … And it is written that the corpse of this monster was carried into January 1496 on the Roman waterfront of the Tiber. As Shakespeare wrote, "there are many things in the world, friend Horatio, that our sages never dreamed of …"
