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 FUNDAMENTALS OF STRATEGY
‘The book is easy to follow and easy to understand. It is well structured and covers the relevant issues
in strategy. A strength of the book is that it has a lot of practical examples, successfully conveying to
students that strategy is of practical relevance.’
Ingo Kleindienst, Aarhus University
FUNDAMENTALS
OF STRATEGY
‘It is short and to the point. The 3 circle model and the breakdown into chapters of focus all make it
more accessible and give a framework to both teaching and learning. The case studies to exemplify
models are also very useful.’
Mark Ellis, Sheffield Hallam University

‘The main strengths are the concise overview given into the subject of strategic management as well as
its clear structure, the interesting illustrations and case studies.’
Dr Krystin Zigan, University of Kent FOURTH EDITION

From the author team of the market-leading text Exploring Strategy, comes a new edition of
Fundamentals of Strategy. Designed to help student and business executives boost their academic
GERRY JOHNSON
and professional careers, Fundamentals of Strategy is the most concise and easy to follow overview
of the fundamental issues and techniques of strategy.
RICHARD WHITTINGTON

EDITION
FOURTH
Fundamentals of Strategy, 4th edition
KEVAN SCHOLES
• Delivers the essential concepts and techniques of strategy in a new 8-chapter structure. This allows
additional space to unpack the fundamentals in depth, and at times more critically.
DUNCAN ANGWIN

JOHNSON •WHITTINGTON • SCHOLES •ANGWIN •REGNÉR

• Revamped final chapter on ‘Strategy in action’, raising implementation issues such as organisational
structure, management processes and strategic change.
PATRICK REGNÉR
• Covers up-to-date topics including business models, sustainability and entrepreneurial start-ups.
• Engages the reader with real-world strategy problems and provides insights and strategy examples
from a wide range of international organisations.
• New and updated cases and illustrations featuring small and large organisations from profit and
not-for-profit sectors and operating all over the world.
• Links to online support material.

This book is particularly suited for those engaged in short undergraduate, MBA and executive courses
or engaging with strategy for the first time.

www.pearson-books.com

CVR_JOHNS_04_09067.indd 1 01/11/2017 13:31

 FUNDAMENTALS OF STRATEGY ONLINE
A wide range of supporting resources are available at: www.pearsoned.co.uk/exploringstrategy

Resources for students

 Multiple choice questions that test your understanding of key concepts
 Key concept audio summaries that you can download or listen to online
 Video cases that show managers talking about strategic issues in their own organisations
 Revision flashcards to help you prepare for your exams
 A multi-lingual online glossary to help explain key concepts
 Guidance on how to analyse a case study
 Links to relevant sites on the web so you can explore more about the organisations featured
in the case studies
 Classic cases – over 30 case studies from previous editions of the book

Resources for instructors

 Instructor’s manual, including extensive teaching notes for cases and suggested teaching
plans
 PowerPoint slides, containing key information and figures from the book

 MyStrategyExperience is an engaging and rigorous simulation designed to bring together

the theory and practice of strategy-making in the realistic environment of a dynamic
organisation and industry. The simulation puts students on the board of directors in a
global advertising agency and allows them to make a strategic analysis of the business,
put together a business plan and then make a number of challenging decisions on the
future strategy of the company.
As students set and implement strategy, they will see the impact of their decisions on
financial and non-financial measures of performance within the simulated company.
Students will need to balance strategic opportunities with inherent risk thus attaining
knowledge and insights relevant to their strategic studies.
For more information, contact your local sales representative, or visit www.pearson.com/
uk/educators/higher-education-educators/products-and-services/course-resources-and-
content/simulations/mystrategyexperience.html

vii

F01 Fundamentals of Strategy 09067 Contents.indd 7 06/11/2017 15:36

 CONTENTS
About Fundamentals of Strategy xiii
Getting the most from Fundamentals of Strategy xiv
Acknowledgements xvi

1 INTRODUCING STRATEGY 2
Learning outcomes 2
Key terms 2
1.1 Introduction 3
1.2 What is strategy? 4
1.2.1 Defining strategy 4
1.2.2 The purpose of strategy: mission, vision, values
and objectives 7
1.2.3 Strategy statements 9
1.2.4 Levels of strategy 11
1.3 The Exploring Strategy Framework 12
1.3.1 Strategic position 13
1.3.2 Strategic choices 14
1.3.3 Strategy in action 15
1.4 Strategy development processes 16
Summary 17
Recommended key readings 17
References 18
Case Example: The rise of a unicorn: Airbnb 19

2 MACRO-ENVIRONMENT ANALYSIS 24
Learning outcomes 24
Key terms 24
2.1 Introduction 25
2.2 PESTEL analysis 27
2.2.1 PESTEL factors 27
2.2.2 Key drivers for change 37
2.3 Forecasting 37
2.3.1 Forecast approaches 37
2.3.2 Directions of change 39
2.4 Scenario analysis 39
Summary 43

F01 Fundamentals of Strategy 09067 Contents.indd 8 09/11/2017 20:15

 CONTENTS

Recommended key readings 43

References 44
Case Example: Alibaba: the Yangtze River crocodile 45

3 INDUSTRY AND SECTOR ANALYSIS 48

Learning outcomes 48
Key terms 48
3.1 Introduction 49
3.2 The competitive forces 50
3.2.1 Competitive rivalry 51
3.2.2 The threat of entry 52
3.2.3 The threat of substitutes 54
3.2.4 The power of buyers 55
3.2.5 The power of suppliers 56
3.2.6 Complementors and network effects 56
3.2.7 Defining the industry 59
3.2.8 Implications of the Competitive Five Forces 60
3.3 Industry dynamics 62
3.3.1 Industry structure dynamics 62
3.4 Competitors and markets 65
3.4.1 Strategic groups 65
3.4.2 Market segments 68
3.4.3 Critical success factors and ‘Blue Oceans’ 69
3.5 Opportunities and threats 71
Summary 72
Recommended key readings 72
References 73
Case Example: Global forces and the advertising industry 74

4 RESOURCES AND CAPABILITIES 78

Learning outcomes 78
Key terms 78
4.1 Introduction 79
4.2 Foundations of resources and capabilities 80
4.2.1 Resources and capabilities 80
4.2.2 Threshold and distinctive resources and capabilities 81
4.3 Distinctive resources and capabilities as a basis
of competitive advantage 83
4.3.1 V – value of resources and capabilities 84
4.3.2 R – rarity 85
4.3.3 I – inimitability 85
4.3.4 O – organisational support 87

ix

F01 Fundamentals of Strategy 09067 Contents.indd 9 06/11/2017 15:36

 CONTENTS

4.4 Diagnosing resources and capabilities 88

4.4.1 VRIO analysis 88
4.4.2 The value chain and value system 90
4.4.3 Activity systems 94
4.4.4 Benchmarking 96
4.4.5 SWOT 97
4.5 Dynamic capabilities 100
4.5.1 Innovation 101
Summary 105
Recommended key readings 105
References 106
Case Example: Rocket Internet – will the copycat be imitated? 108

5 STAKEHOLDERS AND CULTURE 112

Learning outcomes 112
Key terms 112
5.1 Introduction 113
5.2 Stakeholders 114
5.2.1 Stakeholder groups 115
5.2.2 Stakeholder mapping 116
5.3 Owners and governance 117
5.3.1 Ownership models 117
5.3.2 Corporate governance 121
5.3.3 How boards of directors influence strategy 123
5.4 Ethics and social responsibility 125
5.4.1 Corporate social responsibility 125
5.4.2 The ethics of individuals and managers 127
5.5 Organisational culture 127
5.6 Strategic drift 132
Summary 136
Recommended key readings 136
References 136
Case Example: Barclays Bank: Governance issues and culture clashes 138

6 BUSINESS STRATEGY AND MODELS 142

Learning outcomes 142
Key terms 142
6.1 Introduction 143
6.2 Generic competitive strategies 144
6.2.1 Cost leadership strategy 146
6.2.2 Differentiation strategy 149

F01 Fundamentals of Strategy 09067 Contents.indd 10 06/11/2017 15:36

 CONTENTS

6.2.3 Focus strategy 151

6.2.4 Hybrid strategy 153
6.2.5 The strategy clock 154
6.3 Interactive strategies 156
6.3.1 Interactive price and quality strategies 156
6.3.2 Game theory 158
6.4 Business models 162
6.4.1 Value creation, configuration and capture 163
6.4.2 Business model patterns 164
Summary 165
Recommended key readings 166
References 166
Case Example: The IKEA approach 167

7 CORPORATE STRATEGY AND DIVERSIFICATION 172

Learning outcomes 172
Key terms 172
7.1 Introduction 173
7.2 Strategy directions 174
7.2.1 Market penetration 175
7.2.2 Product development 177
7.2.3 Market development 178
7.2.4 Conglomerate diversification 178
7.3 Diversification drivers 179
7.4 Vertical integration 182
7.4.1 Forward and backward integration 182
7.4.2 To integrate or to outsource? 183
7.5 Value creation and the corporate parent 184
7.5.1 Value-adding and value-destroying activities
of corporate parents 184
7.5.2 The portfolio manager 186
7.5.3 The synergy manager 189
7.5.4 The parental developer 189
7.6 The BCG (or growth share) matrix 190
7.7 International diversification strategy 192
7.8 Mergers, acquisitions and alliances 196
7.8.1 Comparing acquisitions, alliances and organic
development 198
Summary 199
Recommended key readings 199
References 199
Case Example: Virgin – is the brand more than Richard Branson? 202

xi

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 CONTENTS

8 STRATEGY IN ACTION 206

Learning outcomes 206
Key terms 206
8.1 Introduction 207
8.2 Structural types 208
8.2.1 The functional structure 208
8.2.2 The divisional structure 210
8.2.3 The matrix structure 211
8.2.4 Choosing between structures 213
8.3 Systems 213
8.3.1 Planning systems 213
8.3.2 Cultural systems 215
8.3.3 Performance targeting systems 215
8.3.4 Market systems 218
8.4 Organisational configuration: The McKinsey 7-S framework 218
8.5 Leading strategic change 220
8.5.1 Strategic leadership roles 220
8.5.2 Leadership styles 221
8.5.3 Types of strategic change 223
8.5.4 Identifying levers for change: forcefield analysis 227
8.5.5 Steps for strategic change: Kotter’s change model 227
Summary 229
Recommended key readings 230
References 230
Case Example: Sergio Marchionne – motor of change 231

APPENDIX: EVALUATING STRATEGIES 234

Introduction 234
Organisational performance 234
Evaluation criteria 236

Glossary 242
Index of Names 246
General Index 248

xii

F01 Fundamentals of Strategy 09067 Contents.indd 12 09/11/2017 20:15

 ABOUT FUNDAMENTALS
OF STRATEGY

Based on the 11th edition of the market-leading Exploring Strategy, this book concentrates
on the fundamental issues and techniques of strategy. The book will particularly suit those
on short courses in strategy focused on strategy analysis, or studying strategy as part of a
wider degree, perhaps in the sciences or engineering. Students can be sure that they have the
essential materials in this book, while knowing that they can easily go deeper into particular
topics by referring to the complete Exploring Strategy. There they will find extended treat-
ments of the issues covered here, as well as greater attention to issues of strategy development
and change and the role of the strategist. Exploring Strategy also offers more cases and
deeper exploration of issues through ‘Thinking Differently’ modules, ‘strategy lenses’ and
‘commentaries’. A brief contents of Exploring Strategy can be found on pp. xv and xvi.
Teachers familiar with Exploring Strategy will find that the definitions, concepts and
the content of Fundamentals of Strategy are entirely consistent, making it easy to teach
courses using the different books in parallel.
Fundamentals of Strategy has eight chapters, with the emphasis on what Exploring
Strategy terms the ‘strategic position’ and ‘strategic choices’ facing organisations. Under
‘strategic position’, Fundamentals introduces macro-environmental and industry analysis,
strategic capability and strategic purpose (which includes a discussion of culture and strat-
egy). Under ‘strategic choices’, the book addresses business-level strategy, corporate-level
strategy, international strategy, and mergers and acquisitions. The final eighth
chapter, ‘Strategy in action’, raises implementation issues such as organisational structure,
management processes and strategic change. There is also an appendix providing the basics
of strategy evaluation.
We believe that Fundamentals of Strategy brings the proven benefits of Exploring Strat-
egy to the growing number of students on shorter courses. We hope that you will enjoy using
it too.
A guide to getting the most from all the features and learning materials of Fundamentals
of Strategy follows this preface.

Gerry Johnson
Richard Whittington
Kevan Scholes
Duncan Angwin
Patrick Regnér
November 2017

xiii

F01 Fundamentals of Strategy 09067 Contents.indd 13 06/11/2017 15:36

 GETTING THE MOST FROM
FUNDAMENTALS OF STRATEGY

Fundamentals of Strategy builds on the established strengths of Exploring Strategy, proven

over eleven best-selling editions. A range of in-text features and supplementary resources
have been developed to enable you and your students to gain maximum added value to the
teaching and learning of strategy.
• Outstanding pedagogical features. Each chapter has clear learning outcomes, practical
questions associated with real-life Illustrations, and concise end-of-chapter case exam-
ples through which students can easily apply what they have learnt.
• Up-to-date materials. Fundamentals of Strategy is based on the latest 11th edition of
Exploring Strategy. Our references are up to date, so that you can easily access the latest
research. Cases and examples are fresh and engage with student interests and day-to-
day experience.
• Range of examples. This edition maintains the wide range of examples used in the text,
Illustrations and cases. We draw from all over the world, and use examples from the
public and voluntary sectors as well as the private.
Fundamentals of Strategy does not include any longer cases. If you wish to supplement
the book with any of the case studies included in Exploring Strategy, please consult your
local Pearson Education representative to find out what their Custom Publishing pro-
gramme can do for you.
• Attractive text layout and design. We make careful use of colour and photography to
improve clarity and ease of ‘navigation’ through the text. Reading the text should be an
enjoyable and straightforward process.
• Teaching and learning support. A wide range of supporting resources are available
at: www.pearsoned.co.uk/exploringstrategy, including:
Resources for students
• Multiple choice questions
• Key concept audio summaries
• Video cases
• Revision flashcards
• A multi-lingual glossary
• Links to relevant websites
• Classic cases

xiv

F01 Fundamentals of Strategy 09067 Contents.indd 14 06/11/2017 15:36

 GETTING THE MOST FROM FUNDAMENTALS OF STRATEGY

Resources for lecturers

• Instructor’s manual
• PowerPoint slides
• Teachers’ workshop. We run an annual workshop to facilitate discussion of key chal-
lenges and solutions in the teaching of strategic management. Details of forthcoming
workshops can be found at www.pearsoned.co.uk/strategyworkshop.
• Complementary textbook. Exploring Strategy provides deeper and more extensive cover-
age of the theory and practice of strategy. A brief table of contents from the 11th edition
is listed below:
1 Introducing strategy
PART I THE STRATEGIC POSITION
2 Macro-environment analysis
3 Industry and sector analysis
4 Resources and capabilities
5 Stakeholders and governance
6 History and culture
Commentary on Part I The strategy lenses
PART II STRATEGIC CHOICES
7 Business strategy and models
8 Corporate strategy and diversification
9 International strategy
10 Entrepreneurship and innovation
11 Mergers, acquisitions and alliances
Commentary on Part II Strategic choices
PART III STRATEGY IN ACTION
12 Evaluating strategies
13 Strategy development processes
14 Organising an strategy
15 Leadership and strategic change
16 The practice of strategy
Commentary on Part III Strategy in action

xv

F01 Fundamentals of Strategy 09067 Contents.indd 15 06/11/2017 15:36

 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Pearson would like to thank the following members of the Advisory Board:
Dr. Aneesh Banerjee, Cass Business School
Mrs Sheena Davies, University of Portsmouth
Mark Ellis, Sheffield Hallam University
Dr. Sathyajit Gubbi, University of Groningen
Ingo Kleindienst, Aarhus University
Dr. Krystin Zigan, University of Kent

We are grateful to the following for permission to reproduce copyright material:

Figures
All figures within this book except where otherwise credited are from Exploring Strategy,
11th ed., Pearson Education Ltd (Johnson, G., Whittington, R., Scholes, K., Angwin, D.
and Regnér, P. 2016) (c) Pearson Education Ltd. Figure 1.2 from The Alchemy of Growth:
Practical Insights for Building the Enduring Enterprise, Texere Publishers (Baghai, M.,
Coley, S. and White, D. 2000) figure 1.1, p, 5, copyright 2000, reprinted by permission of
Texere Publishers, a member of the Perseus Books Group and copyright © 1999, 2000
McKinsey & Company. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission; Figure on page 41
from Last Call For Datatopia Boarding Now! Four Future Scenarios On The Role of Infor-
mation and Technology, in, Society, Business and Personal Life, 2030, figure 1, p. 6 (2014),
Gartner, Inc.; Figure 3.2 from Competitive Strategy: Techniques for Analyzing Industries
and Competitors, The Free Press (Porter, M.E. 1998). Copyright © 1998 by M.E. Porter,
reprinted with the permission of The Free Press, a division of Simon & Schuster Inc. All
rights reserved; Figure 3.3 from The Right Game, Harvard Business Review, July-August,
pp. 57–64 (Brandenburger, A. and Nalebuff, B. 1996), Copyright © 1996 by the Harvard
Business School Publishing Corporation. All rights reserved; Figures 4.4 and 4.5 from Com-
petitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance, The Free Press (Porter,
M.E. 1985). Copyright © 1985 by M.E. Porter, reprinted with the permission of The Free
Press, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved; Figure 4.6 from Bjorn Haug-
stad, ’Strategy as the international structuration of practice. Translation of formal strategies
into strategies in practice’, Doctoral dissertation, Saïd Business School, University of Oxford
(2009); Figure 5.2 from Strategic Management: A Stakeholder Approach, Pitman (Freeman,
R.E. 1984), © Pearson Education Ltd; Figure 5.3 from From client to project stakeholders:
a stakeholder mapping approach, Construction Management and Economics, 21(8), pp.
841-8 (Newcombe, R. 2003), figure 3, reprinted by permission of the publisher, Taylor &
Francis Ltd, http://www.tandfonline.com; Figure 5.5 from David Pitt-Watson, Hermes Fund

xvi

F01 Fundamentals of Strategy 09067 Contents.indd 16 06/11/2017 15:37

 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Management; Figure 6.2 from Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior
Performance, The Free Press (Porter, M.E. 1985) p. 12 . Copyright © 1985 by M.E. Porter,
reprinted with the permission of The Free Press, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc. All
rights reserved; Figure 6.5 from The Essence of Competitive Strategy, Prentice Hall
(Faulkner, D. and Bowman, C. 1995), © Pearson Education Ltd; Figure 6.6 from Hyper-
competition: Managing the Dynamics of Strategic Maneuvering, The Free Press (D’Aveni,
R. and Gunther, R. 1994) p. 50, copyright © 1994 by Richard A. D’Aveni, reprinted with
the permission of The Free Press, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved;
Figure 7.2 from Corporate Strategy, Penguin (Ansoff, H.I. 1988) chapter 6, reprinted by
permission from the Ansoff Family Trust; Figure 7.4 from Corporate Level Strategy, Wiley
(Goold, M., Campbell, A. and Alexander, M. 1994) © 1994 Wiley. Reproduced with per-
mission of John Wiley & Sons, Inc., reproduced with permission of J. Wiley, in the format
Book via Copyright Clearance Center; Figure 8.5 from Structure is not organization, Busi-
ness Horizons, 23, pp. 14-26 (Waterman, R., Peters, T.J. and Phillips, J.R. 1980), McKinsey
& Company, reproduced with permission; Figure 8.6 from Exploring Strategic Change, 4th
ed., Prentice Hall (Balogun, J., Hope Hailey, V. and Gustafsson, S. 2016) figure 2.2 , p. 23,
© Pearson Education Ltd.

Tables
All tables within this book except where otherwise credited are from Exploring Strategy,
11th ed., Pearson Education Ltd (Johnson, G., Whittington, R., Scholes, K., Angwin, D.
and Regnér, P. 2016) (c) Pearson Education Ltd. Table 3.1 from Exploring Strategy, 11th
ed., Pearson Education Ltd (Johnson, G., Whittington, R., Scholes, K., Angwin, D. and
Regnér, P. 2016) Table 3.2 , © Pearson Education Ltd. Table 1 on page 75 after Zenith, Janu-
ary 2016; Table 3 on page 76 after Zenith, September 2015; Table 4 on page 76 from eMar-
keter.com; Table on page 108 from Attack of the clones, The Economist, 06/08/2011, © The
Economist Group Limited, London.

Text
All Case examples within this book except where otherwise credited are from Exploring
Strategy, 11th ed., Pearson Education Ltd (Johnson, G., Whittington, R., Scholes, K.,
Angwin, D. and Regnér, P. 2016) (c) Pearson Education Ltd. Illustration 1.2 from Samsung
Electronics, www.samsung.com, and The University of Southampton Simply Better: The
University Strategy, http://www.southampton.ac.uk/about/strategy.page, reproduced with
permission; Quote on page 82 from Tony Hall, Chief Executive of the Royal Opera House,
Royal Opera House Annual Review, 2005–6, p. 11, reprinted by permission of Royal
Opera House; Illustration 6.2 from Volvo takes a lead in India, Financial Times,
31/08/2009 (Leahy, J.), © The Financial Times Limited. All Rights Reserved; Illustration
7.3 from Berkshire Hathaway, extracts from Annual Reports, the material is copyrighted
and used with permission of the author.

Photos
Alamy Images: Jim West 6, Richard Baker Farnborough 202, Russell Hart 19; Funders and
Founders: image courtesy of Anna Vital, 20; Dieter Mayr Photography: 108; Getty Images:
Jerome Favre/Bloomberg 138; Rex Shutterstock: Bloxham/LAT 231.

xvii

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 1 INTRODUCING
STRATEGY

Learning outcomes
After reading this chapter you should be able to:

• Summarise the strategy of an organisation in a ‘strategy statement’.

• Distinguish between corporate, business and functional strategies.
• Identify key issues for an organisation’s strategy according to the Exploring Strategy
Framework.

Key terms
business-level strategy p. 11 strategy purpose: mission, vision, values,
capabilities p. 9 objectives pp. 8–9
corporate-level strategy p. 11 strategy p. 4
Exploring Strategy Framework p. 12 strategy statements p. 9
strategic choices p. 14 three horizons framework p. 5
strategic position p. 13

M01 Fundamentals of Strategy 09067.indd 2 03/11/2017 01:10

 1.1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 INTRODUCTION

Claudia, a junior at a leading firm of strategy consultants, had just arrived with two senior
colleagues at the headquarters of a medium-sized company considering its next strategic
move. Its CEO began the meeting by outlining the business the company was in and some
of the history behind the firm’s significant success in European markets. The recent entry
into Europe of new aggressive competitors threatened their performance and the Board
was wondering whether the company should globalise. The CEO then asked how the con-
sultants might approach this problem. The consulting partner explained they would carry
out a systematic strategic analysis of the company’s situation and Claudia knew this would
be her responsibility – to gather and analyse appropriate data. She would need to under-
stand how the company had been so successful to date, the challenge posed by competitors
and the broader opportunities and threats from the wider environment. She knew she could
access key company executives to understand what resources, processes and people were
supporting the current strategy and also what might support international expansion. She
would have to consider the direction in which the business might expand, the methods of
expansion that might be most appropriate as well as other strategic options. Through this
analysis she would hope to inform the CEO’s decision about what the strategy for the
company might be and perhaps gain further work to help implementing a strategic
direction.
The problem presented by the CEO to the consultants is one of strategy. It is concerned
with key issues for the future of the organisation. For instance, how should the company
compete in the future with aggressive new entrants? What growth options are there for the
company? If going global is a good strategy, what would be the optimal method to achieve
this outcome and what might be the resourcing implications? All of these strategy questions
are vital to the future survival of the organisation.
Strategy questions naturally concern entrepreneurs and senior managers at the top of
their organisations. But these questions matter more widely. Middle managers also have
to understand the strategic direction of their organisations, both to know how to get top
management support for their initiatives and to explain their organisation’s strategy to
the people they are responsible for. Anybody looking for a management-track job needs
to be ready to discuss strategy with their potential employer. Indeed, anybody taking a
job should first be confident that their new employer’s strategy is actually viable. There
are even specialist career opportunities in strategy, for example like Claudia, as a strat-
egy consultant or as an in-house strategic planner, often key roles for fast-track young
managers.
This book addresses the fundamental strategic issues of importance to managers, employ-
ees, consultants, investors and bankers. It takes a broad approach to strategy, looking at
both the economics of strategy and the people side of managing strategy in practice. Funda-
mentals of Strategy is relevant to any kind of organisation responsible for its own direction
into the future. Thus the book refers to large private-sector multinationals and small entre-
preneurial start-ups; to public-sector organisations such as schools and hospitals; and to
not-for-profits such as charities or sports clubs. Strategy matters to almost all organisations,
and to everybody working in them.

M01 Fundamentals of Strategy 09067.indd 3 03/11/2017 01:10

 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCING STRATEGY

1.2 WHAT IS STRATEGY?1

In this book, strategy is the long-term direction of an organisation. Thus the long-term direc-
tion of Amazon® is from book retailing to internet services in general. The long-term direc-
tion of Disney® is from cartoons to diversified entertainment. This section examines the
practical implication of this definition of strategy; distinguishes between different levels of
strategy; and explains how to summarise an organisation’s strategy in a ‘strategy
statement’.

1.2.1 Defining strategy

Defining strategy as the long-term direction of an organisation implies a more comprehen-
sive view than some influential definitions. Figure 1.1 shows the strategy definitions of
several leading strategy theorists: Alfred Chandler and Michael Porter, both from the
Harvard Business School, Peter Drucker from Claremont University, California and Henry
Mintzberg, from McGill University, Canada. Each points to important elements of strategy.
Chandler emphasises a logical flow from the determination of goals and objectives to the
allocation of resources. Porter focuses on deliberate choices, difference and competition.
Drucker suggests that it is a theory about how a firm will win.2 Mintzberg, however, takes
the view that strategy is less certain and uses the word ‘pattern’ to allow for the fact that
strategies do not always follow a deliberately chosen and logical plan, but can emerge in

‘. . .the determination of the long-run goals and objectives of an

enterprise and the adoption of courses of action and the allocation of resources
necessary for carrying out these goals’
Alfred D. Chandler

‘Competitive strategy is about being different. It means deliberately choosing a

different set of activities to deliver a unique mix of value’
Michael Porter

‘a firm’s theory about how to ‘a pattern in a stream of ‘the long-term direction of an

gain competitive advantages’ decisions’ organisation’
Peter Drucker Henry Mintzberg Exploring Strategy

Figure 1.1 Definitions of strategy

Sources: A.D. Chandler, Strategy and Structure: Chapters in the History of American Enterprise, MIT Press, 1963, p. 13; M.E. Porter, ‘What is
Strategy?’, Harvard Business Review, 1996, November–December, p. 60; H. Mintzberg, Tracking Strategies: Towards a General Theory, Oxford
University Press, 2007, p. 3; P.F. Drucker, ‘The Theory of the Business’, Harvard Business Review, 1994, September–October.

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end of this edition there is a beautifully-designed cut of the printer’s
device, which is probably the work of the same artist. V.87
A painter, named Nicholas Emanuel Deutsch, a contemporary of
Urse Graff, and who resided at Bern, is said, by Sandrart, to have
been of a noble English family, and the same writer adds that he left
his own country on account of his religion. The latter statement,
however, is not likely to be correct, for there are wood-cuts, with this
artist’s mark, dated “Bern, 1518;” which was before the persecution
in England on account of the doctrines of Luther had commenced. In
J. R. Füssli’s Dictionary of Artists it is stated that he was of a French
family, of the name of Cholard, but that he was born at Bern in
1484, and died there in 1530. He was a poet as well as a painter,
and held one of the highest offices in the magistracy of Bern.
Within the first thirty years of the sixteenth century the practice
of illustrating books with wood-cuts seems to have been more
general than at any other period, scarcely excepting the present; for
though within the last eight or ten years an immense number of
wood-cuts have been executed in England and France, yet wood
engravings at the time referred to were introduced into a greater
variety of books, and the art was more generally practised
throughout Europe. In modern German and Dutch works wood 315
engravings are sparingly introduced; and in works printed in
Switzerland and Italy they are still more rarely to be found. In the
former period the art seems to have been very generally practised
throughout Europe, though to a greater extent, and with greater
skill, in Germany than in any other country. The wood-cuts which are
to be found in Italian books printed between 1500 and 1530 are
mostly meagre in design and very indifferently engraved; and for
many years after the German wood engravers had begun to give
variety of colour and richness of effect to their cuts by means of
cross-hatchings, their Italian contemporaries continued to adhere to
the old method of engraving their figures, chiefly in outline, with the
shadows and the folds of the draperies indicated by parallel lines.
These observations relate only to the ordinary wood engravings of
the period, printed in the same page with type, or printed separately
in the usual manner of surface printing at one impression. The
admirable chiaro-scuros of Ugo da Carpi, printed from two or more
blocks, are for effect and general excellence the most admirable
specimens of this branch of the art that ever have been executed;
they are as superior to the chiaro-scuros of German artists as the
usual wood engravings of the latter excel those executed in Italy
during the same period.

In point of drawing, some of the best wood-cuts executed in Italy

in the time of Albert Durer are to be found in a folio work entitled
Triompho di Fortuna, written by Sigismond Fanti, and printed at
Venice in 1527. V.88 The subject of this work, which was licensed by
Pope Clement VII, is the art of fortune-telling, or of answering all
kinds of questions relative to future events. The volume contains a
considerable number of wood-cuts; some designed and executed in
the very humblest style of wood engraving, and others, which
appear to have been drawn on the block with pen-and-ink, designed
with great spirit. The smallest and most inferior cuts serve as 316
illustrations to the questions, and an idea may be formed of them
from the three here given, which occur under the question: “Qual
fede o legge sia di queste tre la buona, o la Christiana, l’Hebrea,
o quello di Mahumeto?” V.89 In English: “Which of these three
religions is the best, the Christian, the Jewish, or the Mahometan?”
Several larger cuts are executed in a dry hard style, and evidently
drawn by a person very inferior to the artist who designed the cuts
executed in the manner of pen-and-ink drawings. The following is a
fac-simile of one of the latter. It is entitled “Fortuna de Africo,” in a
series of twelve, intended for representations of the winds.
 The following cut, which appears in folio 38, is intitled “Michael
Fiorentino,”—Michael Angelo; and it certainly conveys no bad idea317 of
the energetic manner in which that great artist is said to have used
his mallet and chisel when engaged on works of sculpture. This cut,
however, is made to represent several other sculptors besides the
great Florentine; it is repeated seven times in the subsequent pages,
and on each occasion we find underneath it a different name. The
late T. Stothard, R.A. was of opinion that wood engraving was best
adapted to express pen-and-ink drawing, and that the wood
engraver generally failed when he attempted more. His illustrations
of Rogers’s poems, engraved on wood by Clennell and Thompson,
are executed in a similar style to that of the following specimen,
though with greater delicacy.
 Certain wood-cuts with the mark A. G., executed towards the
conclusion of the fifteenth century, have been ascribed to an artist
named Albert Glockenton. Bartsch, however, says that the name of
the artist is unknown; and he seems to consider that Sandrart had
merely conjectured that those letters might represent the name
Albert Glockenton. For no better reason the letters I. V. on a tablet,
with two pilgrim’s-staffs crossed between them, which are to be
found on several old chiaro-scuro wood engravings, have been
supposed to represent the name, John Ulric Pilgrim. This name
appears to be a pure invention of some ingenious expounder of
monograms, for there is not the slightest evidence, that I am aware
of, to show that any artist of this name ever lived. The chiaro-scuros
318
with this mark were probably executed in the time of Durer, but
none of them contains a date to establish the fact. Heineken
considers them to have been the productions of a German artist;
and he refers to them in proof of the art of chiaro-scuro having been
practised in Germany long before the time of Ugo da Carpi. It is,
however, highly questionable if they are of an earlier date than
1518; and it is by no means certain that the artist was a German. By
some persons he has been supposed to have been the inventor of
chiaro-scuro engraving, on no better grounds, it would seem, than
that his pieces are without a date.
Next to the Germans, in the time of Albert Durer, the Dutch and
Flemings seem to have excelled in the art of wood engraving; but
the cuts executed in Holland and Flanders are generally much
inferior to those designed and engraved by German artists. In a
considerable number of Dutch wood engravings, of the period under
review, I have observed an attempt to combine something like the
effect of cross-hatching and of the dotted manner mentioned at
page 232 as having been frequently practised by French wood
engravers in the early part of the sixteenth century. In a series of
cuts from a Dutch prayer-book, apparently printed between 1520
and 1530, this style of engraving is frequently introduced. Where a
German artist would have introduced lines crossing each other with
great regularity, the Dutch wood engraver has endeavoured to attain
his object by irregularly picking out portions of the wood with the
point of his graver; the effect, however, is not good. In the border
surrounding those cuts, a Dance of Death is represented, consisting
of several more characters than are to be found in the celebrated
work ascribed to Holbein, but far inferior in point of design and
execution.
An artist, named John Walter van Assen, is usually mentioned as
one of the best Dutch wood engravers or designers of this period.
Nothing further is known of him than that he lived at Amsterdam
about 1517. The mark supposed to be Van Assen’s is often ascribed
by expounders of monograms to another artist whom they call
Werner or Waer van Assanen.
A considerable number of French works, printed in the time of
Albert Durer, contain wood engravings, but few of them possess
much merit when compared with the more highly finished and
correctly drawn productions of the German school of the same
period. The ornamental borders, however, of many missals and
prayer-books, which then issued in great numbers from the Parisian
press, frequently display great beauty. The taste for surrounding
each page with an ornamental border engraved on wood was very
generally prevalent in Germany, France, and Flanders at that period,
more especially in devotional works; and in the former country, and 319
in Switzerland, scarcely a tract was printed—and the Lutheran
controversy gave rise to many hundreds—without an ornamental
border surrounding the title. In Germany such wood engravers as
were chiefly employed in executing cuts of this kind were called
Rahmen-schneiders—border-cutters,—as has been previously
observed at page 190. In England during the same period wood
engraving made but little progress; and there seems to have been a
lack of good designers and competent engravers in this country. The
best cuts printed in England in the time of Durer are contained in a
manual of prayers, of a small duodecimo size. On a tablet in the
border of one of the cuts—the Flight into Egypt V.90—I perceive the
date 1523. The total number of cuts in the volume is about a
hundred; and under each of the largest are four verses in English.
Several of the smaller cuts, representing figures of saints, and
preceding the prayers for their respective days, have evidently been
designed by an artist of considerable talent. As most of the wood-
cuts which constitute the ornaments or the illustrations of books
printed at this period are without any name or mark, it is impossible
to ascertain the names of the persons by whom they were designed
or engraved.
The manner of wood engraving in intaglio so that the figures
appear white on a black ground, so frequently adopted by early
Italian wood engravers, was sometimes practised in Germany; and in
one of the earliest works containing portraits of the Roman
emperors, V.91 copied from ancient medals, printed in the latter
country, the cuts are executed in this style. The subject of the work
is the lives of the Roman emperors, written by Joannes Huttichius,
and the portraits with which it is illustrated are copied from medals
in a collection which had been formed by the Emperor Maximilian,
the great promoter of wood engraving in Germany. The first edition,
in Latin, was printed by Wolff Köpffel, at Strasburg, in 1525; and a
second edition, in German, was published at the same place in the
succeeding year. The cut on the next page, of the head of Nero, will
afford an idea of the style in which the portraits are executed, and320
of
the fidelity with which the artist has in general represented the
likeness impressed on the original medals.
Besides Durer, Burgmair, Cranach, and Schaufflein, there are
several other German painters of the same period who are also said
to have engraved on wood, and among the most celebrated of this
secondary class the following may be mentioned: Hans Sebald
Behaim, previously noticed at page 253; Albert Altdorffer; Hans
Springinklee; and Hans Baldung Grün. The marks of all those artists
are to be found on wood-cuts executed in the time of Durer; but I
am extremely doubtful if those cuts were actually engraved by
themselves. If they were, I can only say that, though they might be
good painters and designers, they were very indifferent wood
engravers; and that their time in executing the subjects ascribed to
them must have been very badly employed. The common working
formschneider who could not execute them as well, must have been
a very ordinary wood-cutter, not to say wood-engraver,—by the
latter term meaning one who excels in his profession, and not a
mere cutter of lines, without skill or taste, on box or pear-tree.

Albert Altdorffer was born at Ratisbon in 1480, and afterwards

became a magistrate of his native city. The engravings on wood and
copper containing his mark are mostly of a small size, and he is
generally known as one of the little masters of the German school of
engraving. V.92 Hans Springinklee was a painter of some eminence,
and according to Doppelmayer, as referred to by Bartsch, was a pupil
of Durer’s. His mark is to be found on several wood-cuts; and it
occurs in one of the illustrations in the Wise King. Hans Baldung
Grün was born at Gemund in Suabia, and studied at Nuremberg
under Albert Durer. He excelled as a painter; and the wood-cuts
which contain his mark are mostly designed with great spirit. The321
earliest wood engraving that contains his mark is a frontispiece to a
volume of sermons with the date 1508; and the latest is a group of
horses, engraved in a hard, stiff manner, with the name “Baldung”
and the date 1534. V.93 He chiefly resided at Strasburg, where he
died in 1545. He is mentioned by Durer, in his Journal, by the name
of “Grün Hannsen.”

We may here conveniently introduce fac-similes on a reduced

scale of two rather interesting wood engravings given by Dr. Dibdin
in his Bibliomania, and copied from an early folio volume, entitled
Revelationes cœlestes sanctæ Brigittæ de Suecia, printed at
Nuremberg by Anthony Köberger, m ccc xxi. mensis Septembris,
which some read 1500, on the 21st of September, others 1521, in
the month of September. The first of these cuts is curious as
representing the simplicity of an ancient reading room, with its
three-legged joint stool, such as is so prettily described by Cowper,
Task, I. v. 19; the other cut describes a punishment which is said 322
to
have been revealed to St. Bridget against those ladies who have
“ornamenta indecentia capitibus et pedibus, et reliquis membris, ad
provocandam luxuriam, et irritandum Deum, in strictis vestibus,
ostensione mamillarum, unctionibus, &c.” The artist is unknown, but
seems to be among the best of the Nuremberg school.
It cannot be reasonably doubted that
Durer and several other German painters of
his time were accustomed to engrave their
own designs on copper; for in many instances
we have the express testimony of their
contemporaries, and not unfrequently their
own, to the fact. Copper-plate engraving for
about sixty years from the time of its
invention was generally practised by persons
who were also painters, and who usually
engraved their own designs. Wood engraving,
on the contrary, from an early period was
practised as a distinct profession by persons
who are never heard of as painters. That
some of the early German painters—of a period when “artists were
more of workmen, and workmen more of artists” V.94 than in the
present day—might engrave some of the wood-cuts which bear their
marks, is certainly not impossible; but it is highly improbable that all
the wood-cuts which are ascribed to them should have been
executed by themselves. If any wood-cuts were actually engraved by
Durer, Cranach, Burgmair, and other painters of reputation,
I conceive that such cuts are not to be distinguished by their
superior execution from those engraved by the professional
formschneider and brief-maler of the day. The best copper-plates
engraved by Albert Durer can scarcely be surpassed by the best
copper-plate engraver of the present day,—that is, supposing him to
execute his work by the same means; while the best of the wood-
cuts which he is supposed to have engraved himself might be readily
executed by a score of modern wood engravers if the subject were 323
drawn for them on the block. In the age of Durer the best wood-cuts
are of comparatively large size, and are distinguished more from the
boldness and freedom of their design than from any peculiar
excellence of engraving: they display, in fact, rather the talent of the
artist than the skill of the workman. Though wood engraving had
very greatly improved from about the end of the fifteenth century to
the time of Durer’s decease, yet it certainly did not attain its
perfection within that period. In later years, indeed, the workman
has displayed greater excellence; but at no time does the art appear
to have been more flourishing or more highly esteemed than in the
reign of its great patron, the Emperor Maximilian.

V.1 Chiaro-scuros are executed by means of two or more

blocks, in imitation of a drawing in sepia, India ink, or any
other colour of two or more shades. The older chiaro-
scuros are seldom executed with more than three blocks;
on the first of which the general outline of the subject and
the stronger shades were engraved and printed in the usual
manner; from the second the lighter shades were
communicated; and from the third a general tint was
printed over the impressions of the other two.
V.2 This print is one of the valuable collection left to the
Museum by the Rev. C. M. Cracherode, and the following
remark in that gentleman’s writing is inserted on the
opposite page of the folio in which it is preserved: “The
Presepe is a plain proof that printing in chiaro-scuro was
known before the time of Ugo da Carpi, who is erroneously
reputed the inventor of this art at the beginning of the
sixteenth century.” The print in question is certainly not a
proof of the art of engraving in chiaro-scuro; and Mr. Ottley
has added the following correction in pencil: “But the white
here is put on with a pencil, and not left in printing, as it
would have been if the tint had been added by a wooden
block after the copper-plate had been printed.”
V.3 Bartsch describes this print in his Peintre-Graveur, tom.
vi. p. 364, No. 4; but he takes no notice of Joseph holding a
candle, nor of its wanting a light.
V.4 Some single cuts executed in this manner are supposed
to be at least as old as the year 1450. The earliest that I
have noticed in a book occur in a Life of Christ printed at
Cologne about 1485.
V.5 In a folio of Albert Durer’s drawings in the Print Room at
the British Museum there is a portrait of “Fronica,
Formschneiderin,” with the date 1525. In 1433 we find a
woman at Nuremberg described as a card-maker: “Eli.
Kartenmacherin.” It is scarcely necessary to remind the
reader that the earliest German wood engravers were card-
makers.—See chapter ii. p. 41.
V.6 The following is Bartsch’s French version of this letter,
which is given in the original German in Von Murr’s Journal,
9er. Theil, S. 53. “Cher Michel Beheim. Je vous envoie les
armoiries, en vous priant de les laisser comme elles sont.
Personne d’ailleurs ne les corrigeroit en mieux, car je les ai
faites exprès et avec art; c’est pourquoi ceux qui s’y
connoissent et qui les verront vous en rendront bonne
raison. Si l’on haussoit les lambrequins du heaume, ils
couvriroient le volet.”—Bartsch, Peintre-Graveur, tom. vii.
p. 27.
V.7 In Durer’s Journal of his visit to the Netherlands in 1520
there is the following passage: “Item hab dem von
Rogendorff sein Wappen auf Holz gerissen, dafür hat er mir
geschenckt vii. Ein Sammet.”—“Also I have drawn for Von
Rogendorff his arms on wood, for which he has presented
me with seven yards of velvet.”—Von Murr, Journal zur
Kunstgeschichte, 7er. Theil, S. 76.
V.8 Bibliographical Tour, vol. iii. p. 442, second edition.
V.9 The Baron was the collector of the wood-cuts published
with Becker’s explanations, referred to at page 226, chapter
iv. The anecdote alluded to will be found in Dr. Dibdin’s
Bibliographical Tour, vol. iii. pp. 445, 446. The Baron sold a
rare specimen of copper-plate engraving with the date
m. cccc. xxx. to the Doctor, and it seems that he also sold
another impression from the same plate to Mr. John Payne.
There is no doubt of their being gross forgeries; and it is
not unlikely that the plate was in the Baron’s possession.
V.10 “Dieser Hieronymus hat allhier im breiten Gassen
gewohnt, dessen Wohnung hinten ins Frauengässlein ging.”
V.11 Neudörffer, quoted in Von Murr’s Journal, 2ter Theil,
S. 158, 159.
V.12 At the end of the first edition of the cuts illustrative of
the Apocalypse, 1498, we find the words: “Gedrukt durch
Albrecht Durer, Maler,”—Printed by Albert Durer, painter;
and the same in Latin in the second edition, printed about
1510. The passion of Christ and the History of the Virgin
are respectively said to have been “effigiata” and “per
figuras digesta”—“drawn” and “pictorially represented” by
Albert Durer; and the cuts of the Triumphal Car of the
Emperor Maximilian are described as being “erfunden und
geordnet”—“invented and arranged” by him.—Bartsch,
Peintre-Graveur, tom. vii. p. 28.
V.13 The time that a German artist spends in travel from
the expiration of his apprenticeship to the period of his
settling as a master is called his “wander -jahre,”—his
travelling years. It is customary with many trades in
Germany for the young men to travel for a certain time on
the termination of their apprenticeship before they are
admitted to the full privileges of the company or fellowship.
V.14 It has been stated, though erroneously, that Albert
Durer was a pupil of Martin Schongauer, or Schön, as the
surname was spelled by some writers, one of the most
eminent painters and copper-plate engravers of his day. It
has been generally supposed that he died in 1486; but, if
an old memorandum at the back of his portrait in the
collection of Count de Fries can be depended on, his death
did not take place till the 2d of February 1499. An account
of this memorandum will be found in Ottley’s Inquiry into
the Origin and Early History of Engraving, vol. ii. p. 640.
V.15 On a passage, in which Durer alludes to his wife, in
one of his letters from Venice, 1506, to his friend Bilibald
Pirkheimer, Von Murr makes the following remark: “This
Xantippe must even at that time have vexed him much; and
he was obliged to drag on his life with her for twenty-two
years longer, till she fairly plagued him to death.”—Journal,
10er Theil, S. 32.
V.16 Bartsch is decidedly of opinion that Michael
Wolgemuth was not an engraver; and he ascribes all the
plates marked with a W, which others have supposed to be
Wolgemuth’s, to Wenceslaus of Olmutz, an artist of whom
nothing is positively known.
V.17 This subject has also been engraved by Israel Von
Mecken, and by an artist supposed to be Wenceslaus of
Olmutz. It is probable that those artists have copied Durer’s
engraving. On the globe in Israel Von Mecken’s plate the
letters are O. G. B.
V.18 This caution is in the original expressed in the
following indignant terms: “Heus, tu insidiator, ac alieni
laboris et ingenii surreptor, ne manus temerarias his nostris
operibus inicias cave. Scias enim a gloriosissimo
Romanorum imperatore Maximiliano nobis concessum esse
ne quis suppositiciis formis has imagines imprimere seu
impressas per imperii limites vendere audeat: q’ per
contemptum seu avariciæ crimen secus feceris, post
bonorum confiscationem tibi maximum periculum
subeundum esse certissime scias.”
V.19 Von Murr says that the subject of this picture was the
martyrdom of St. Bartholomew, the saint to whom the
church was dedicated; and that the painting afterwards
came into the possession of the Emperor Rudolf II. and was
placed in his gallery at Prague. It seems that Durer had
taken some pictures with him to Venice; for in his fifth
letter he says that he has sold two for twenty-four ducats,
and exchanged three others for three rings, valued also at
twenty-four ducats.
V.20 In the Venetian dialect of that period Giovanni Bellini
was called Zan Belin; and Durer spells the name
“Sambellinus.” He was the master of Titian, and died in
1514, at the age of ninety.—Von Murr, Journal, 10er Theil,
S. 8.
V.21 Von Murr says that he cannot discover what Jacob is
here meant. It would not be Jacob Walsch, as he died in
1500. The person alluded to was certainly not an Italian.
V.22 Bilibald Pirkheimer was a learned man, and a person
of great authority in the city of Nuremberg. He was also a
member of the Imperial Council, and was frequently
employed in negociations with neighbouring states. He
published several works; and among others a humorous
essay entitled “Laus Podagræ”—The Praise of the Gout. His
memory is still held in great respect in Germany as the
friend of Albert Durer and Ulrich Hutten, two of the most
extraordinary men that Germany has produced. He died in
1530, aged 60.
V.23 The kind of engraving meant was copper-plate
engraving. Durer’s words are: “Ich hab awch dy Moler all
gesthrilt dy do sagten, Im Stechen wer ich gut, aber im
molen west ich nit mit farben um zu gen.” The word
“Stechen” applies to engraving on copper; “Schneiden” to
engraving on wood.—Von Murr, Journal, 10er Theil, S. 28.
V.24 The title at length is as follows: “Epitome in Divæ
Parthenices Marie Historiam ab Alberto Durero Norico per
figuras digestam, cum versibus annexis Chelidonii.”
Chelidonius, who was a Benedictine monk of Nuremberg,
also furnished the descriptive text to the series of twelve
cuts illustrative of Christ’s Passion, of which specimens will
be found between page 246 and page 250.
V.25 The cuts of these two works appear to have been in
the hands of the engraver at the same time. Of those in the
History of the Virgin one is dated 1509; and two bear the
date 1510; and in the Passion of Christ four are dated
1510.
V.26 The Latin title of the work is as follows: “Passio Domini
nostri Jesu, ex Hieronymo Paduano, Dominico Mancino,
Sedulio, et Baptista Mantuana, per fratrem Chelidonium
collecta, cum figuris Alberti Dureri Norici Pictoris.”
V.27 The Latin title of this work is “Passio Christi,” and the
explanatory verses are from the pen of Chelidonius. Durer,
in the Journal of his Visit to the Netherlands, twice
mentions it as “die Kleine Passion,” and each time with a
distinction which proves that he did not mean the Passion
engraved by him on copper and probably published in
1512. “Item Sebaldt Fischer hat mir zu Antorff [Antwerp]
abkaufft 16 kleiner Passion, pro 4 fl. Mehr 32 grosser
Bücher pro 8 fl. Mehr 6 gestochne Passion pro 3
fl.”—“Darnach die drey Bücher unser Frauen Leben,
Apocalypsin, und den grossen Passion, darnach den klein
Passion, und den Passion in Kupffer.”—Albrecht Dürers
Reisejournal, in Von Murr, 7er Theil, S. 60 and 67. The size
of the cuts of the Little Passion is five inches high by three
and seven-eighths wide. Four impressions from the original
blocks are given in Ottley’s Inquiry, vol. ii. between page
730 and page 731.
V.28 Inquiry into the Origin and Early History of Engraving,
vol. ii. p. 782. The objections to the general truth of Vasari’s
story appear to be much stronger than the presumptions in
its favour. 1. The improbability of Albert Durer having
visited Venice subsequent to 1506; 2. The fact of Marc
Antonio’s copies of the cuts of the Little Passion not
containing Albert Durer’s mark; and 3. The probability of
Mark Antonio residing beyond the jurisdiction of the
Venetian government at the time of his engraving them.
V.29 There is a copy of this head, also engraved on wood,
of the size of the original, but without Durer’s, or any other
mark. Underneath an impression of the copy, in the Print
Room of the British Museum, there is written in a hand
which appears to be at least as old as the year 1550,
“Dieser hat ehaim gerissen”—“H. S. Behaim drew this.”
Hans Sebald Behaim, a painter and designer on wood, was
born at Nuremberg in 1500, and was the pupil of his uncle,
also named Behaim, a painter and engraver of that city.
The younger Behaim abandoned the arts to become a
tavern-keeper at Frankfort, where he died in 1550.
V.30 In the edition with Latin inscriptions, 1523, are the
words, “Excogitatus et depictus est currus iste
Nurembergæ, impressus vero per Albertum Durer. Anno
mdxxiii.” The Latin words “excogitatus et depictus” are
expressed by “gefunden und geordnet” in the German
inscriptions in the edition of 1522. A sketch by Durer, for
the Triumphal Car, is preserved in the Print Room in the
British Museum.
V.31 Bibliographical Tour, vol. iii. p. 438. Edit. 1829.
V.32 Ibid. p. 330.
V.33 The two last names are, in the first edition, pasted
over others which appear to have been “The Gate of
Honour” and “The Gate of Relationship, Friendship, and
Alliance.” The last name alludes to the emperor’s
possessions as acquired by descent or marriage, and to his
power as strengthened by his friendly alliances with
neighbouring states.
V.34 “Item wist auch das Ich K. Mt. ausserhalb des Tryumps
sonst viel mancherley Fisyrung gemacht hab.”—“You must
also know that I have made many other drawings for the
emperor besides those of the Triumph.” The date of this
letter is not given, but Durer informs his friend that he had
been already three years employed for the emperor, and
that if he had not exerted himself the beautiful “work”
would not have been so soon completed. If this is to be
understood of the Triumphal Arch, it would seem that the
designs at least were all finished before the emperor’s
death.—Von Murr, Journal, 9er Theil, S. 4.
V.35 In the process of etching the plate is first covered with
a resinous composition—called etching ground—on which
the lines intended to be etched, or bit into the plate, are
drawn through to the surface of the metal by means of a
small pointed tool called an etching needle, or an etching
point. When the drawing of the subject upon the etching
ground is finished, the plate is surrounded with a slightly
raised border, or “wall,” as it is technically termed, formed
of rosin, bee’s-wax, and lard; and, a corrosive liquid being
poured upon the plate, the lines are “bit” into the copper or
steel. When the engraver thinks that the lines are corroded
to a sufficient depth, he pours off the liquid, cleans the
plate by means of turpentine, and proceeds to finish his
work with the graver and dry-point. According to the
practice of modern engravers, where several tints are
required, as is most frequently the case, the process of
“biting-in” is repeated; the corrosive liquid being again
poured on the plate to corrode deeper the stronger lines,
while the more delicate are “stopped out,”—that is, covered
with a kind of varnish that soon hardens, to preserve them
from further corrosion. Most of our best engravers now use
a diamond point in etching. Nitrous acid is used for “biting-
in” on copper in the proportion of one part acid to four
parts water, and the mixture is considered to be better after
it has been once or twice used. Before using the acid it is
advisable to take the stopper out of the bottle for twenty-
four hours in order to allow a portion of the strength to
evaporate. During the process of biting-in a large copper-
plate the fumes which arise are so powerful as frequently
to cause an unpleasant stricture in the throat, and
sometimes to bring on a spitting of blood when they have
been incautiously inhaled by the engraver. At such times it
is usual for the engraver to have near him some powerful
essence, generally hartshorn, in order to counteract the
effects of the noxious vapour. For biting-in on steel, nitric
acid is used in the proportion of thirty drops to half a pint
of distilled water; and the mixture is never used for more
than one plate.—When a copper-plate is sufficiently bit-in, it
is only necessary to wash it with a little water previous to
removing the etching ground with turpentine; but, besides
this, with a steel plate it is further necessary to set it on
one of its edges against a wall or other support, and to
blow it with a pair of small bellows till every particle of
moisture in the lines is perfectly evaporated. The plate is
then rubbed with oil, otherwise the lines would rust from
the action of the atmosphere and the plate be consequently
spoiled. Previous to a steel plate being laid aside for any
length of time it ought to be warmed, and the engraved
surface rubbed carefully over with virgin wax so that it may
be completely covered, and every line filled. A piece of thick
paper the size of the plate, laid over the wax while it is yet
adhesive, will prove an additional safeguard. For this
information respecting the process of biting-in, the writer is
indebted to an eminent engraver, Mr. J. T. Wilmore.
V.36 The account of the naming of John the Baptist will be
found in St. Luke’s Gospel, chap. i. verse 59-64.
V.37 Durer’s Journal of his Travels is given by Von Murr, 7er
Theil, S. 55-98. The title which the Editor has prefixed to it
is, “Reisejournal Albrecht Dürer’s von seiner
Niederländischen Reise, 1520 und 1521. E. Bibliotheca
Ebneriana.” In the same volume, Von Murr gives some
specimens of Durer’s poetry. The first couplet which he
made in 1509 is as follows:
“Du aller Engel Spiegel und Erlöser der Welt,
Deine grosse Marter sey für mein Sünd ein Widergelt.”
Thou mirror of all Angels and Redeemer of mankind,
Through thy martyrdom, for all my sins may I a ransom
find.
This couplet being ridiculed by Bilibald Pirkheimer, who said
that rhyming verses ought not to consist of more than eight
syllables, Durer wrote several others in a shorter measure,
but with no better success; for he says at the conclusion,
that they did not please the learned counsellor. With Durer’s
rhymes there is an epistle in verse from his friend Lazarus
Sprengel, written to dissuade him from attempting to
become a poet. Durer’s verses want “the right butter-
woman’s trot to market,” and are sadly deficient in rhythm
when compared with the more regular clink of his friend’s.
V.38 Subsequently, Durer mentions having delivered to the
Margrave John, at Brussels, a letter of recommendation
[Fürderbrief] from the Bishop of Bamberg.
V.39 As Durer was at Cologne about the 26th July, it is
probable that he would arrive at Antwerp about the last day
of that month.
V.40 The maid, Susanna, seems to have been rather a
“humble friend” than a menial servant; for she is
mentioned in another part of the Journal as being
entertained with Durer’s wife at the house of “Tomasin
Florianus,” whom Durer describes as “Romanus, von Luca
bürtig.”
V.41 The Assumption of the Virgin is celebrated in the
Roman Catholic Church on the 15th August.
V.42 Albrecht Dürer’s Reisejournal, in Von Murr, 7er Theil,
S. 63-65.
V.43 This “gross Fischpein” was probably part of the back-
bone of a whale.
V.44 The stiver was the twenty-fourth part of a guilder or
florin of gold, which was equal to about nine shillings
English money of the present time; the stiver would
therefore be equal to about four pence half-penny. About
the same time, Durer sold a copy of his Christ’s Passion,
probably the large one, for twelve stivers, and an
impression of his copper-plate of Adam and Eve for four
stivers. Shortly after his first arrival at Antwerp, he sold
sixteen copies of the Little Passion for four guilders or
florins; and thirty-two copies of his larger works,—probably
the Apocalypse, the History of the Virgin, and the Great
Passion,—for eight florins, being at the rate of sixteen
stivers for each copy. He also sold six copies of the Passion
engraved on copper at the same price. He gave to his host
a painting of the Virgin on canvass to sell for two Rhenish
florins. The sum that he received for each portrait in pencil
[the German is mit Kohlen, which is literally charcoal],
when the parties did pay, appears to have been a florin.
V.45 In Von Murr the words are “Am Donnerstage nach
Marien Himmelfahrt,”—On the Thursday after the
Assumption of the Virgin. But this is evidently incorrect, the
feast of the Assumption being kept on 15th August. The
“Marien Opferung”—the Presentation of the Virgin—which is
commemorated on 21st November, is evidently meant.
V.46 Luther’s safe-conduct from Worms to Wittenberg was
limited to twenty-one days, at the expiration of which he
was declared to be under the ban of the empire, or, in
other words, an outlaw, to whom no prince or free city of
Germany was to afford a refuge. Luther, previous to leaving
Worms, was informed of the elector’s intention of secretly
apprehending him on the road and conveying him to a
place of safety. After getting into the wood, Luther was
mounted on horseback, and conveyed to Wartburg, a castle
belonging to the elector, where he continued to live
disguised as a knight—Junker Jörge—till March 1522.
Luther was accustomed to call the castle of Wartburg his
Patmos.
V.47 Durer, though an advocate of Luther, does not seem to
have withdrawn himself from the communion of the Church
of Rome. In his Journal, in 1521, he enters a sum of ten
stivers given to his confessor, and, subsequently, eight
stivers given to a monk who visited his wife when she was
sick. The passage in which the last item occurs is curious,
and seems to prove that female practitioners were then
accustomed both to dispense and administer medical
preparations at Antwerp. “Meine Frau ward krank,—der
Apothekerinn für Klystiren gegeben 14 Stüber; dem Mönch,
der sie besuchte, 8 Stüber.”—Von Murr, Journal, 7er Theil,
S. 93.
V.48 This inducement for Erasmus to stand forth as a
candidate for the honour of martyrdom is, in the original, as
simple in expression as it is novel in conception: “Du bist
doch sonst ein altes Menniken.” Literally: For thou art
already an old mannikin. Erasmus, however, was not a spirit
to be charmed to enter such a circle by such an invocation.
As he said of himself, “his gift did not lie that way,” and he
had as little taste for martyrdom as he had for fish.—In one
or two other passages in Durer’s Journal there is an allusion
to the diminutive stature of Erasmus.
V.49 Von Murr, Journal, 7er Theil, S. 88-93. In volume X,
p. 41, Von Murr gives from Peucer, the son-in-law of
Melancthon, the following anecdote: “Melancthon, when at
Nuremberg, on church and university affairs, was much in
the society of Pirkheimer; and Albert Durer, the painter, an
intelligent man, whose least merit, as Melancthon used to
say, was his art, was frequently one of the party. Between
Pirkheimer and Durer there were frequent disputes
respecting the recent [religious] contest, in which Durer, as
he was a man of strong mind, vigorously opposed
Pirkheimer, and refuted his arguments as if he had come
prepared for the discussion. Pirkheimer growing warm, for
he was very irritable and much plagued with the gout,
would sometimes exclaim “Not so:—these things cannot be
painted.”—“And the arguments which you allege,” Durer
would reply, “can neither be correctly expressed nor
comprehended.”—Whatever might have been the particular
points in dispute between the two friends, Pirkheimer, as
well as Durer, was a supporter of the doctrines of Luther.”
V.50 Corpus Christi day is a moveable festival, and is
celebrated on the first Thursday after Trinity Sunday.
V.51 St. Margaret’s day is the 20th July.
V.52 Durer says that this astronomer was a German, and a
native of Munich.
V.53 Ulrich Varnbuler was subsequently the chancellor of
the Emperor Ferdinand I. Durer mentions him in a letter
addressed to “ Hernn Frey in Zurich,” and dated from
Nuremberg on the Sunday after St. Andrew’s day, 1523.
With this letter Durer sent to his correspondent a humorous
sketch, in pen and ink, of apes dancing, which in 1776 was
still preserved in the Public Library of Basle. The date of
this letter proves the incorrectness of Mr. Ottley’s
statement, in page 723 of his Inquiry, where he says that
Durer did not return to Nuremberg from the Low Countries
“until the middle of the year 1524.” Mr. Ottley is not more
correct when he says, at page 735, that the portrait of
Varnbuler is the “size of nature.”
V.54 It is supposed that Shakspeare, in alluding to the
“dozen white luces” in Master Shallow’s coat of arms,—
Merry Wives of Windsor, Act I,—intended to ridicule Sir
Thomas Lucy of Charlecotte, Wiltshire, before whom he is
said to have been brought in his youth on a charge of deer-
stealing.
V.55 Etliche Underricht zu Befestigung der Stett, Schloss,
und Flecken; Underweysung der Messung mit der Zirckel
und Richtscheyt; Bucher von Menschlicher Proportion. All in
folio. Those treatises were subsequently translated into
Latin and several times reprinted. The treatise on the
Proportions of the Human Body was also translated into
French and printed at Paris in 1557. A collection of Durer’s
writings was published by J. Jansen, 1604.
V.56 This letter is addressed to “Johann Tscherte,” an
architect residing at Vienna, the mutual friend of Pirkheimer
and Durer.—Von Murr, Journal, 10er Theil, S. 36.
V.57 Those three engravings are respectively numbered 1,
60, and 67 in Bartsch’s list of Durer’s works in his Peintre-
Graveur, tom. vii. The Adam and Eve is nine inches and
three-fourths high by seven inches and a half wide,—date
1504; St. Jerome, nine inches and five-eighths high by
seven inches and three-eighths wide,—date 1514;
Melancolia, nine inches and three-eighths high by seven
inches and one fourth wide,—date 1514.
V.58 Isaiah, chapter xxxv. verse 9.
V.59 One of the largest wood-cuts designed by Cranach is a
subject representing the baptism of some saint; and having
on one side a portrait of Frederick, Elector of Saxony, and
on the other a portrait of Luther. The block has consisted of
three pieces, and from the impressions it seems as if the
parts containing the portraits of the elector and Luther had
been added after the central part had been finished. The
piece altogether is comparatively worthless in design, and is
very indifferently engraved.
V.60 Burgmair also made the designs for a series of saints,
male and female, of the family of the emperor, which are
also engraved on wood. The original blocks, with the names
of the engravers written at the back, are still preserved,
and are at present in the Imperial Library at Vienna.
V.61
“Solche Gestalt unser baider was,
Im Spigel aber nix dan das!”
A small engraving in a slight manner appears to have been
made of the portraits of Burgmair and his wife by George
Christopher Kilian, an artist of Augsburg, about 1774.—Von
Murr, Journal, 4er Theil, S. 22.
V.62 The original title of the work is: “Die gevarlichkeiten
und eins teils der Geschichten des loblichen streytparen
und hochberümbten Helds und Ritters Tewrdanckha.” That
is: The adventurous deeds and part of the history of the
famous, valiant, and highly-renowned hero Sir Theurdank.
The name, Theurdank, in the language of the period, would
seem to imply a person whose thoughts were only
employed on noble and elevated subjects. Goethe, who in
his youth was fond of looking over old books illustrated with
wood-cuts, alludes to Sir Theurdank in his admirable play of
Götz von Berlichingen: “Geht! Geht!” says Adelheid to
Weislingen, “Erzählt das Mädchen die den Teurdanck lesen,
und sich so einen Mann wünschen.”—“Go! Go! Tell that to a
girl who reads Sir Theurdank, and wishes that she may
have such a husband.” In Sir Walter Scott’s faulty
translation of this play—under the name of William Scott,
1799,—the passage is rendered as follows: “Go! Go! Talk of
that to some forsaken damsel whose Corydon has proved
forsworn.” In another passage where Goethe makes
Adelheid allude to the popular “Märchen,” or tale, of
Number-Nip, the point is completely lost in the translation:
“Entbinden nicht unsre Gesetze solchen Schwüren?—Macht
das Kindern weiss die den Rübezahl glauben.” Literally, “Do
not our laws release you from such oaths?—Tell that to
children who believe Number-Nip.” In Sir Walter Scott’s
translation the passage is thus most incorrectly rendered:
“Such agreement is no more binding than an unjust
extorted oath. Every child knows what faith is to be kept
with robbers.” The name Rübezahl is literally translated by
Number-Neep; Rübe is the German name for a turnip,—
Scoticè, a neep. The story is as well known in Germany as
that of Jack the Giant-Killer in England.
V.63 Charaktere Teutscher Dichter und Prosaisten, S. 71.
Berlin, 1781.
V.64
Nec sic incipies, ut scriptor cyclicus olim:
“Fortunam Priami cantabo, et nobile bellum:”
Quid dignum tanto feret hic promissor hiatu?
 Parturiunt montes; nascetur ridiculus mus.
Ars Poetica, v. 136-139.
In a Greek epigram the Cyclic poets are thus noticed:
Τοὺς κυκλίους τούτους τοὺς αὐτὰρ ἔπειτα
λέγοντας
Μισῶ λωποδύτας ἀλλοτρίων ἐπέων.
V.65 Dissertation sur l’Origine et les Progres de l’Art de
Graver en Bois, p. 74. Paris, 1758.
V.66 The kind of character in which the text of Sir
Theurdank is printed is called “Fractur” by German printers.
“The first work,” says Breitkopf, “which afforded an example
of a perfectly-shaped Fractur for printing, was
unquestionably the Theurdank, printed at Nuremberg,
1517.”—Ueber Bibliographie und Bibliophile, S. 8. 1793.—
Neudörffer, a contemporary, who lived at Nuremberg at the
time when Sir Theurdank was first published, says that the
specimens for the types were written by Vincent Rockner,
the emperor’s court-secretary.—Von Murr, Journal, 2er
Theil, S. 159; and Lichtenberger, Initia Typographica,
p. 194.
V.67 The title of the volume is “Der Weiss Kunig. Eine
Erzehlung von den Thaten Kaiser Maximilian des Ersten.
Von Marx Treitzsaurwein auf dessen Angeben zusammen
getragen, nebst von Hannsen Burgmair dazu verfertigten
Holzschnitten. Herausgegeben aus dem Manuscripte der
Kaiserl. Königl. Hofbibliothek. Wien, auf Kosten Joseph
Kurzböckens, 1775.”
V.68 In the Imperial Library at Vienna there is a series of
old impressions of cuts intended for “Der Weiss Kunig,”
consisting of two hundred and fifty pieces; it would
therefore appear, supposing this set to be perfect, that
there are fourteen of the original blocks lost. Why a single
modern cut has been admitted into the book, and thirteen
of the old impressions not re-engraved, it perhaps would be
difficult to give a satisfactory reason.
V.69 Charaktere Teutscher Dichter und Prosaisten, S. 70.
V.70 Bibliographical Tour, vol iii. p. 330.
V.71 The subjects of those sixteen cuts are chiefly the
statues of the emperor’s ancestors, with representations of
himself, and of his family alliances. Several of the carriages
are propelled by mechanical contrivances, which for
laborious ingenuity may vie with the machine for uncorking
bottles in one of the subjects of Hogarth’s Marriage à la
Mode. In the copy before me those engravings are
numbered 89, 90, 91, 91, 92, 92, 93, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97,
99, 101, 102, 103.
V.72 Breitkopf, Ueber Bibliographie und Bibliophile, S. 4.
Leipzig, 1793. Von Murr, Journal, 9er Theil, S. 1. At page
255 I have said: “Though I have not been able to ascertain
satisfactorily the subject of Durer’s painting in the Town-hall
of Nuremberg, I am inclined to think that it is the Triumphal
Car of Maximilian.” Since the sheet containing the above
passage was printed off I have ascertained that the subject
is the Triumphal Car; and that it is described in Von Murr’s
Nürnbergischen Merkwürdigkeiten, S. 395.
V.73 Jobst and Jos, in this inscription, are probably intended
for the name of the same person. For the name Jobst, Jost,
Josse, or Jos—for it is thus variously spelled—we have no
equivalent in English. It is not unusual in Germany as a
baptismal name—it can scarcely be called Christian—and is
Latinized, I believe, under the more lengthy form of
Jodocus.
V.74 The printed numbers on those two cuts are 105 and
106, though the descriptions are numbered 120 and 121 in
the text. The subjects are, No. 105, two ranks, of five men
each, on foot, carrying long lances; and No. 106, two ranks,
of five men each, on foot, carrying large two-handed
swords on their shoulders.—Perhaps it may not be out of
place to correct here the following passage which occurs at
page 285 of this volume: “Bartsch, however, observes, that
‘what Strutt has said about there being two persons of this
name [Hans Schaufflein], an elder and a younger, seems to
be a mere conjecture.’” Since the sheet containing this
passage was printed off, I have learnt from a paper, in
Meusel’s Neue Miscellaneen, 5tes. Stück, S. 210, that Hans
Schäufflein had a son of the same name who was also a
painter, and that the elder Schäufflein died at Nordlingen, in
1539. At page 281, his death, on the authority of Bartsch,
is erroneously placed in 1550.
V.75 The name of Cornelius Liefrink occurs at the back of
some of the wood-cuts representing the saints of the family
of Maximilian, designed by Burgmair, mentioned at page
278, note.
V.76 In all the blocks, the tablets and scrolls, and the upper
part of banners intended to receive verses and inscriptions,
were left unengraved. In order that the appearance of the
cuts might not be injured, the black ground, intended for
the letters, was cut away in most of the tablets and scrolls,
in the edition of 1796.
V.77 That part of the flail which comes in contact with the
corn is, in the North of England, termed a swingel.
V.78 The substance of almost every rhyme and inscription
is, that the person who bears the rhyme-tablet or scroll has
derived great improvement in his art or profession from the
instructions or suggestions of the emperor. Huntsmen,
falconers, trumpeters, organists, fencing-masters, ballet-
masters, tourniers, and jousters, all acknowledge their
obligations in this respect to Maximilian. For the wit and
humour of the jesters and the natural fools, the emperor,
with great forbearance, takes to himself no credit; and
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