Johann Joachim Prack von Asch, 1587–1612, Liber amicorum (Book of friends). Leaf 119 verso and 120 recto. The Getty Research Institute, 2013.M.24.

LOS ANGELES, CA.- The Getty Research Institute announced this week the acquisition of a rare book that, through personal entries by the owner’s friends and associates, chronicles political, cultural, and personal encounters along the edge of the Christian and Muslim worlds. The book is fully digitized and viewable online.

This liber amicorum (“book of friends”) was compiled by Johann Joachim Prack von Asch, a military attaché of the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolph II’s embassy to the Ottoman court at Constantinople. It is an album containing entries s by Prack’s friends and contacts spanning 1587 to 1612. Most were penned in Istanbul and neighboring Bohemian regions traversed by Prack during his diplomatic travels. The liber amicorum include allegorical scenes, emblems, coats of arms, poetry and mottoes written with calligraphic flourish, as well as figural scenes in watercolor based on Ottoman miniature paintings, which were ubiquitous in the bazaars of Istanbul in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. 

The 25-year time span of the entries parallels the so-called Long War, or Thirteen Years’ War, fought from 1593 to 1606 between the Holy Roman Empire and Ottoman Islam. It also contains traces of the political intrigues that led up to that war—and followed it. One page, for example, bears the arms and inscription of Philip Riedesel von Camberg, general of the Danube Fleet in the Turkish War. Other contributors to the volume’s pages include Dr. Barthlmä Pezzen, Emperor Rudolph II’s chief military representative to the Ottoman court, and Friedrich von Kreckwitz, a diplomatic attaché to the Ottoman court. In 1593, two years after he signed Prack’s book, he was arrested by Ottoman authorities and forced to fight for them against Imperial Catholic forces. 

Other notable entries come from members of the Geizkofler family from Gailenbach, perhaps most notably, Zacharias Geizkofler—minister of treasury and finance to the Holy Roman Emperor. His nephew, Hans, signed Prack’s book on August 25, 1594, at Raab, Hungary. Three days later, he was killed by Ottoman forces when they seized the fortress at Raab. A note indicating this is inscribed under his autograph in the hand of his father, Abraham Geizkofler, whose own inscription appears on the very same page. 

Also of note in this rare volume is the array of Ottoman decorative papers bound into the pages, which present a far wider range of Islamic papermaking art than can be found in any other European liber amicorum from the period. Not only does the manuscript record the hybrid visual culture in Istanbul under the Ottoman Empire, but also the identities of those who inscribed Prack’s album with dates and dedicatory poems. 

Prack’s liber amicorum will be on view at the El Segundo Museum of Art starting June 8 alongside another rare book from a similar genre, a 17th-century “book of friends” (liber amicorum), which last year inspired a 21st-century artistic reinterpretation, LA Liber Amicorum (nicknamed the Getty Graffiti Black Book). The exhibition, SCRATCH, presents the Black Book, the two historical examples, and a full-gallery “open black book” installation curated by local graffiti artists Axis, Cre8, Defer, Eyeone, Fishe, and Miner, who worked with us at the Getty in creating LA Liber Amicorum.  

Johann Joachim Prack von Asch, 1587–1612, Liber amicorum (Book of friends). Leaf 142 verso and leaf 143 recto. The Getty Research Institute, 2013.M.24