Schedel, Hartmann

Das Buch Der Croniken....[Register Des Buchs Der Croniken Und Geschichten Mit Figure[N] Und Pildnussen Von Anbegin Der Welt Bis Auf Dise Unsere Zeit. ]

      Nürnberg (Anton Koberger), 1493. (10), cclxxxvi, (1)ff. (several misnumbered), plus 2 blank leaves. 645 woodblocks, repeated to a total of 1, 809 impressions. Stout folio. 431 x 307 mm. Contemporary stamped pigskin over heavy wooden boards, recently rebacked; remains of one metal clasp and one leather thong. The first German edition of the Nuremberg Chronicle, printed simultaneously with the Latin edition (Liber Chronicarum) in July 1493, but published some five months later, on 23 December. The most extensively illustrated book of the fifteenth century and quite arguably the greatest, the Nuremberg Chronicle--a massive history of the world from Creation to the time of its publication--is filled with woodcuts of exceptionally high quality by Michael Wolgemut and Wilhelm Pleydenwurff depicting a vast range of Biblical and historical subjects, and including many detailed views of contemporary European cities, which are of great topographic interest. The significance of Wolgemut's and Pleydenwurff's innovations for the development of a new woodcut style----also to be seen in their ?Schatzbehalter? of 1491--is underscored both by the fact that here they are the first artists ever to be named in the colophon of a book, and by the almost certain participation of Wolgemut's young apprentice Albrecht Dürer, whose Apocalypse illustrations are remarkably close to these. The text, which was translated from the Latin by Georg Alt, covers not only the Old and New Testaments, and classical and mediaeval history, but such recent and contemporary events as the invention of printing in Mainz, the exploration of the Atlantic and of Africa, the heresy of Wycliff and the Hussites, and other subjects. This vernacular German edition was the first history of the world printed in any language other than Latin, and it is notably rarer than the Latin, having been printed in a considerably smaller edition. Title-page trimmed at all sides; some 50 leaves have been remargined and extended and fitted into the binding; intermitt