Melodious Fame of the Saints.... Here Is the Prayer of the Saints. Here Are Those Who Keep God's Commandments Together with the Beliefs of Jesus! The Most Sad Funeral Some Time Ago of the Most Luminous Prince and Gentleman Mr. Christian Albrechts Markgraf of Brandenburg at Magdeburg in Prussia..

Onolzbach, Prussia: Jeremias Kretschmann, 1692. 4to. Early if not original unbound boards with utilitarian modern brown cloth tape spine. 229pp, 26pp. 3 large foldout steel engravings. Very good. Internal tight and nice, with almost no age toning and no foxing; unbound boards are age toned but nice, while serviceable modern spine is plain but strong and functional. Printed entirely in German, this funeral book mourns the death at age 17 of this young German gentry (1675-92). The rough title translation above continues at length, in part: "In the City Church of Onolzbach Thursday the 29th of the Christian Month 1692. Morning with a Very Large Crowd in a Christian Funeral Sermon and Delivered for Printing on the Orders of Gottfried Händeln Doctor of Holy Scripture High Prince of Brandenburg General Superintendent of Churches..." The text itself, boldly printed in large heavy Gothic typefaces, consists of a sermon, texts, prayers, etc. First foldout engraving is a dense religious allegory featuring a trumpet-blowing angel astride an imposing tomb, on the side of which flutter a host of putti hoisting ten pictorial shields, each with scroll text; the second is a portrait of the young gent in finery and armor; and the third features two images (one from each side) of his enormous, highly decorated casket. Publisher Kretschmann (1646-ca. 1701) was an Ansbach printer/publisher and edited that city's firs newspaper.