
1522–1540
The Nuremberg patrician and priest Hieronymous Baumgärtner was educated at the University of Wittenberg under Martin Luther and others, returning home a staunch Lutheran. His engraved ex libris insists on his erudition by quoting several types of memento mori imagery (the skull, hourglass, and clock), and mottos in Latin, Hebrew, and Greek commenting on the vagaries of time. A requisite addition, his central family coat of arms, includes a fleur-de-lis and a bird.