Page depicting Constantinople with added hand-colouring

The Nuremberg Chronicle, written in Latin by Hartmann Schedel, with a version in German translation by Georg Alt, is one of the best documented early printed books and, appearing in 1493, is an incunabulum. Constantinople (Κωνσταντινούπολις Konstantinoúpolis, or gr ἡ Πόλις hē Polis, Latin: la CONSTANTINOPOLIS Hartmann Schedel ( February 13, 1440 &ndash November 28, 1514) was a German physician humanist and Historian, one

As was common at the time, the book did not have a title page. Latin scholars refer to it as Liber Chronicarum (Book of Chronicles) as this phrase appears in the index introduction of the Latin edition. English speakers have long referred to it as the Nuremberg Chronicle after the city in which it was published. English is a West Germanic language originating in England and is the First language for most people in the United Kingdom, the United States German speakers refer to it as Die Schedelsche Weltchronik (Schedel's World History) in honour of its author.

The illustrations in many copies were hand-coloured after printing.

Contents

The Chronicle is an illustrated world history, in which the contents are divided into seven ages:

• First age: from the Creation to the Deluge
• Second age: up to the birth of Abraham
• Third age: up to King David
• Fourth age: up to the Babylonian captivity
• Fifth age: up to the birth of Jesus Christ
• Sixth age: up to the present time (the largest part)
• Seventh age: Outlook on the end of the world and the Last Judgement

Publication

Omens from a coloured copy

The Chronicle was first published in Latin on 12 July 1493 in the city of Nuremberg. The story of a Great Flood (also known as the Deluge) sent by a Deity or deities to destroy Civilization as an act of Divine retribution is a Abraham ( Ashkenazi   Avrohom or Avruhom; ابراهيم, {{Unicode|Ibrāhīm}}; Ge'ez: David, Arabic: داوود or داود dawud, "beloved" was the second king of the united Kingdom of Israel according to the Hebrew Bible The Babylonian captivity, Babylonian exile, is the name typically given to the deportation and exile of the Jews of the ancient Kingdom of Judah to Jesus of Nazareth (7–2 BC / BCE —26–36 AD / CE) In Christian eschatology, the Last Judgment or Day of the Lord is the judgment by God of every human who ever lived An omen (also called portent or presage) is a phenomenon that is believed to foretell the Future, often signifying the advent of change Latin ( lingua Latīna, laˈtiːna is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Events 1191 - Saladin 's garrison surrenders ending the two-year Siege of Acre. This was quickly followed by a German translation on 23 December 1493. The German language (de ''Deutsch'') is a West Germanic language and one of the world's major languages. Events 962 - Byzantine-Arab Wars: Under the future Emperor Nicephorus Phocas, Byzantine troops stormed the city An estimated 1400-1500 Latin and 700-1000 German copies were published. A document from 1509 records that 539 Latin versions and 60 German versions had not been sold. Approximately 400 Latin and 300 German copies survived into the twenty-first century. ^[1] The larger illustrations were also sold separately as prints, often hand-coloured in watercolour. An old master print is a work of art produced by a Printing process within the Western tradition (European or New World Watercolor ( US) or Watercolour ( UK) (and "aquarelle" in French is a Painting method Many copies of the book are also coloured, with varying degrees of skill; there were specialist shops for this. The colouring on some examples has been added much later, and some copies have been broken up for sale as decorative prints.

The publisher and printer was Anton Koberger, the godfather of Albrecht Dürer , who in the year of Dürer's birth in 1471 ceased goldsmithing to become a printer and publisher. Anton Koberger (c 1440/1445 &ndash 3 October 1513) was the German Goldsmith, printer and publisher who printed and published the Nuremberg Albrecht Dürer (ˈalbʀɛçt ˈdyʀɐ ( May 21, 1471 &ndash April 6, 1528) was a German painter, Printmaker He quickly became the most successful publisher in Germany, eventually owning 24 printing-presses and having many offices in Germany and abroad, from Lyon to Budapest. ||-||} Lyon, also known as Lyons in English is a city in east-central France. Budapest ( also /ˈbʊ-/) is the capital city of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary it serves as the country's principal Political, ^[2]

Illustrations

Catching a "lion fish" - a small illustration from a Latin copy. Note the red capital done in pen and ink, and the doodle in the margin below

The large workshop of Michael Wolgemut, then Nuremberg's leading artist in various media, provided the unprecedented 1,809 woodcut illustrations (before duplications are eliminated - see below). A doodle is a type of sketch an unfocused Drawing made while a person's attention is otherwise occupied Michael Wolgemut (formerly spelt Wohlgemuth) (1434 &ndash 1519 German painter and Printmaker, was born and died in Nuremberg For the origins of the technique and non-artistic use see Woodblock printing; for the related technique invented in the 18th century see Wood engraving Sebastian Kammermeister and Sebald Schreyer financed the printing in a contract dated March 16, 1492, although preparations had been well under way for several years. Wolgemut and his stepson Wilhelm Pleydenwurff were first commissioned to provide the illustrations in 1487-8, and a further contract of December 29th 1491 commissioned manuscript layouts of the text and illustrations.

Albrecht Dürer was an apprentice with Wolgemut from 1486-1489, so may well have participated in designing some of the illustrations for the specialist craftsmen (called "formschneider"s) who cut the blocks, onto which the design had been drawn, or a drawing glued. Albrecht Dürer (ˈalbʀɛçt ˈdyʀɐ ( May 21, 1471 &ndash April 6, 1528) was a German painter, Printmaker From 1490-1494 Dürer was travelling. A drawing by Wolgemut for the elaborate frontispiece, dated 1490, is in the British Museum. The British Museum is a Museum of human history and culture in London.

A typical opening, uncoloured

As with other books of the period, many of the woodcuts, showing towns, battles or kings were used more than once in the book, with the text labels merely changed; one count of the number of original woodcuts is 645. The book is large, with a double-page woodcut measuring about 342 x 500mm. ^[2] Only the city of Nuremberg is given a double page illustration with no text. The illustration for the city of Venice is adapted from a much larger (and, it must be said, finer) woodcut of 1486 by Erhard Reuwich in the first illustrated printed travel-book, the Sanctae Perigrinationes of 1486. Erhard Reuwich ( Reeuwijk) was a Dutch artist as a designer of Woodcuts and a printer, who came from Utrecht but then worked in This and other sources were used where possible; where no information was available a number of stock images were used, and reused up to eleven times. The view of Florence was adapted from an engraving by Francesco Rosselli. Florence ( Italian: Firenze Florentia and Fiorenza) is the Capital City of the Italian region of Tuscany Francesco Rosselli (b 1445 Florence d before 1513 Florence was an Italian miniature painter and an important Engraver of maps and Old master prints He is described ^[3]

References

Aristotle, anachronistically portrayed as a scholar of the Nuremberg Chronicle's own time. Aristotle (Greek Aristotélēs) (384 BC – 322 BC was a Greek philosopher a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great.

1. ^ "About this book - Latin and German Editions", Beloit College Morse Library
2. ^ ^{a b} ,Giulia Bartrum, Albrecht Dürer and his Legacy, British Museum Press, 2002, pp. Beloit College is a selective private coeducational Liberal arts College in Beloit Wisconsin, USA, and a member of the Associated Colleges 94-96, ISBN 0-7141-2633-0
3. ^ A Hyatt Mayor, Prints and People, Metropolitan Museum of Art/Princeton, 1971, nos 43 & 173. ISBN 0-691-00326-2

External links

Commons has well over 400 images from the Book

• Beloit College's extensive account of their version of the Chronicle, with illustrations
• on-line exhibition from MIT, of an uncoloured copy
• the original woodcut world map
• More views from the Metropolitan Museum's uncoloured copy: Rome, Nuremberg, saints
• Online images of an uncoloured copy from the State Library of Victoria