Description
Description of Hartmann Schedel's The Nuremberg Chronicle
These remarkable text leaves are from Hartmann Schedel’s work Æneas Sylvio Chronicon Ætatu Mundi (Liber Chronicarum or Nuremberg Chronicle). It was compiled by Dr. Hartmann Schedel, illustrated and engraved by Michael Wohlgemuth, Wilhelm Pleydenwurff and Albrecht Dürer, and printed and published by Anton Koberger. The Nuremberg Chronicle is a pictorial history of the world from creation to the time of printing. These prints are from the Latin Edition printed in 1493 (there was also a German Edition).
With the Gutenberg Bible being printed only a few decades earlier, this project, which consists of over 600 pages and 1809 images taken from 645 actual woodcuts, was an immense undertaking. In fact, it was the first successful printing of a world history.
In 1493, Nuremberg was the most industrially and artistically advanced city of its time. This is evident in the publication of the Nuremberg Chronicle. Nuremberg was the first city in Germany to make paper, yet Anton Koberger found the existing choices unacceptable. The laid, chain-linked, watermarked paper was devised specifically for use in the Nuremberg Chronicle, and quickly gained popularity after its publication.
The woodcuts shown in the chronicle were well above the standards of their time. The art of goldsmithing greatly contributed to the production of these plates. No one was more skilled in the art of fine engravings than goldsmiths. The finished products were larger and more finely detailed plates than anything else that had yet been produced.
The images in the Nuremberg Chronicle present the history of the world from a specifically Christian viewpoint. They combine secular and biblical scenes, saints, and moralities as the true history of the world.
The Nuremberg Chronicle is and will remain a great indication of the height of evolution of engraving in the 1490’s.