The Munich-Besançon Prayer Book of Maximilian I is the emperor's personal copy of a limited edition Christian prayer book printed in Augsburg by Johann Schönsperger 1514. It was embellished in the following year by the most prestigious German artists of the sixteenth century, including Albrecht Dürer and Lucas Cranach. The book's many marginal vignettes are executed in delicate colored inks. The two portions preserved in the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek and the Bibliothèque municipale de Besançon comprise about two-thirds of the original, the rest having been lost.
We have 2 facsimiles of the manuscript "Munich-Besançon Prayer Book of Maximilian I":
- Das Gebetbuch Kaiser Maximilians I facsimile edition published by Quaternio Verlag Luzern, 2017
- Albrecht Dürers und Lukas Cranachs Randzeichnungen zum Gebetbuche Kaiser Maximilians I in der Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek zu München facsimile edition published by Riehn & Reusch, 1922