Beschreibung:

SCHEDEL, Hartmann (1440-1514). Liber chronicarum . Nuremberg: Anton Koberger for Sebald Schreyer and Sebastian Kammermeister, 12 July 1493. First edition of the famous Nuremberg Chronicle, a history of the world from the Creation to his own time, remarkable for its illustration and graphic design, with wonderful depictions of cities and important early printed maps of Europe and the world. 'This compilation of sacred and profane history was the most elaborate printed book of its time' (Campbell). Albrecht Dürer godson of Koberger, was an apprentice to Wolgemut, one of the chief artists for the book, from 1486 to 1489 and almost certainly involved in the production of the woodcuts. These include Biblical events, pictures of human monstrosities, portraits of kings, queens, saints and martyrs, and allegorical pictures of miracles. The Ptolemaic world map (Shirley 19) is based on Mela's Cosmographia (1482), and is one of only three 15th-century maps showing Portuguese knowledge of the Gulf of Guinea of about 1470. The map of northern and central Europe is by Hieronymus Münzer (1437-1508) after Nicolas Khyrpffs, and is claimed to be the first modern map of this region to appear in print. Although published later than the map of Germany in the 1482 Ulm Ptolemy, it was constructed earlier. This first edition of the Nuremberg Chronicle was published in Latin; a German edition appeared five months later. Such was its immediate success, a number of pirated editions swiftly appeared. HC *14508; BMC II, 437 (IC. 7451-3); Polain(B) 3469; CIBN S-161; BSB-Ink. S-195; Bod-Inc. S-108; Schramm XVII, 6-7, 9; Schreiber 5203; Goff S-307. Maps: Campbell, The Earliest Printed Maps, 1472-1500, 1987, pp. 152-159; Shirley Mapping the World , 19). Imperial folio (431 x 315mm). 324 leaves (of 328, fo CCLXI which is blank excepting headline replaced with facsimile on Whatman paper watermarked 1816, without blank fos 55/6 and 61/5-6). 1809 woodcut illustrations printed from 645 blocks (Cockrell's count). German foliate initial opening text with acanthus decoration in blue and red on a green ground, initials in table in red or blue, red capital strokes throughout (title cut-down and mounted within 19th-century red and brown rules, leaves 1/3-4 with repaired marginal chips, Sarmatian supplement bound at end, map of Europe possibly supplied soiled and with marginal losses, the whole map remargined and two-thirds of the second leaf reinforced not affecting colophon, folio XCV with marginal chip repaired, leaf CIX with corner repaired affecting marginal woodcuts with ink facsimile replacement, the passage on CLXIXV about Pope Joan apparently once censored with pasted overslip removed evidenced by staining, loss of one letter and iconoclasm to child in accompanying woodcut, ink erasure of four words on CCXXXII about an Abbess' authority, occasional light soiling and minor marginal tears and repairs). 19th-century diced calf over wooden boards (rebacked, rubbed, heavily to head of spine with joints splitting). Provenance : sparse marginalia at beginning in a contemporary hand – Rev. J. Bowen (fl. 1834, magistrate, of Portland Place, Bath, 19th-century ownership inscription on title).