Siebmachers Wappenbuch

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Emblem of the Holy Roman Emperor

() is a roll of arms first published in 1605 as two heraldic multivolume book series of armorial bearings or coats of arms of the nobility of the Holy Roman Empire, as well as coats of arms of city-states and some burgher families. Founded and compiled by Johann Ambrosius Siebmacher (1561 – 23 March 1611), a German heraldic artist, copperplate engraver, etcher and publisher from Nuremberg, these works became an important source of heraldry of the German-speaking regions.

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Page extract from Alter Siebmacher, illustrating the coat-of-arms of ducal families

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Page from Neuer Siebmacher, illustrating the coat-of-arms of dukes of Pommerania and counts of Barby

The Old Siebmacher

The Alter Siebmacher was compiled in 1605–1608, and represents the contemporary heraldry during the final two centuries of the Holy Roman Empire. Its two volumes were completed by Johann Siebmacher. His work was continued to six volumes with additional supplements by Paul Fürst, Wolfgang Gottlieb Fürst, Rudolf Johann Helmers, Christoph Weigel the Elder and Gabriel Nikolaus Raspe. The supplemented works were also published under the titles of their respective publishers, such as: Fürstsches Wappenbuch, Helmersches Wappenbuch, Weigelsches Wappenbuch or Raspes Wappenbuch.

The New Siebmacher

The Neuer Siebmacher, Siebmachers großes und allgemeines Wappenbuch was compiled in 1854–1967 by Adolf Matthias Hildebrandt, Maximilian Gritzner, and Gustav A Seyler. The General-Index of the whole work has been edited by Hanns Jäger-Sunstenau. Later Ottfried Neubecker had published all burgher arms of the New Siebmacher without the text as a sort of illustrated glossary organized by the heraldic charges.

See also

• German heraldry

External links

• On line version of Johann Siebmachers Wappenbuch von 1605
• Supplement volume to the New Siebmacher - Gründsätze der Wappenkunst verbunden mit einem Handbuch der heraldischen Terminologie by Maximilian Gritzner
• Annotated Heraldry Bibliography by François Velde about Siebmacher
• Original 17th Century B&W version Johann Siebmachers Wappenbuch. Contains six volumes, 1,200 pages, 16,000 names, completely cross-referenced; thousands of corrections to the original Index.
• Index of Siebmacher's Armorials - The database contains the family names and titles (more than 137,000 entries) of the General-Index zu den Siebmacherschen Wappenbüchern 1605-1967 (General Index of Siebmacher’s Armorials 1605–1967).