Hartmann Schedel: Liber chronicarum
鈥淲hat is the use of a book,鈥 thought Alice, 鈥渨ithout pictures?鈥 - Lewis Carroll
Alice would have liked Hartmann Schedel鈥檚 Liber chronicarum, also known as the Nuremberg Chronicle. Published in 1493 in Nuremberg by Europe鈥檚 largest printer, Anton Koberger, this ambitious illustrated world history was commissioned by two of the town鈥檚 merchants. Schedel, a medical doctor, humanist, and book collector, assembled the text from a variety of classical and medieval sources, doubtless drawing on his own large personal library.
.jpg "This opening shows a cityscape, a further illustration, and multiple portraits")
Michael Wolgemut and Wilhelm Pleydenwurff were brought in to design and illustrate the work, incorporating over 1800 images from over 600 individual woodcuts, more than any other previously published volume. A young Albert D眉rer, who was apprenticed to Wolgemut whilst the book was in preparation, may have had a hand in some of the designs. _2.jpg "Frederick II (on another page, the same woodcut is used for Sigismundus)")
_2.jpg "This Biblical scene shows the construction of Noah's Ark")
The work was revolutionary in its juxtaposition of related images with text. In a chronicle covering the whole span of history from the Creation to the time of publication, with a look forward to the Last Judgment, the woodcuts include depictions of Biblical characters, legendary scenes, European cityscapes, and portraits of rulers and popes.
Many of the larger illustrations were sold separately as prints, often water-coloured. Some copies of the book also had their illustrations hand-coloured. As was often the case with books of this period, many of the woodcuts appear in the text more than once, with just the captions changed.
.jpg "Cityscape of Basilea")
The Library鈥檚 copy is the Latin edition, published in June 1493, produced for the religious and political elites. A slightly shorter, vernacular German edition followed in December of the same year aimed at the literate upper-middle classes. .jpg "The Dance of Death")
Besides occupying a key place in the history of book illustration, the Nuremberg Chronicle provides a wonderful insight into Renaissance knowledge and the fifteenth-century humanist understanding of the world.
This article was contributed on 30 May 2013 by Kathryn McKee, Special Collections Librarian.