A Tall Copy of the Nuremberg Chronicle, The Most Extensively Illustrated Book of the Fifteenth Century
Liber chronicarum.
Nuremberg: Anton Koberger for Sebald Schreyer and Sebastian Kammermeister, 1493.
Full Description:
[SCHEDEL, Hartmann. Liber chronicarum. Nuremberg: Anton Koberger for Sebald Schreyer and Sebastian Kammermeister, 12 July 1493].
First edition of the Nuremberg Chronicle, preceding the German language edition (23 December 1493) by just over five months. Large folio (16 15/16 x 12 inches; 430 x 305 mm). Gothic type. Sixty-four lines and headline. Table and parts of the text in double columns. 325 leaves ([20], CCLVI, [5], [I, blank], CCLVII-CCXCIX). Woodcut title and 1,809 woodcut illustrations, of which 1,164 are repeats, from 645 blocks (Sydney Cockerell’s count in Some German Woodcuts of the Fifteenth Century (Hammersmith: Kelmscott Press, 1897), pp. 35-36) by Michael Wolgemut, Wilhelm Pleydenwurff, and their workshop, including (supposedly) the young Albrecht Dürer, including two double-page maps of the world and of Europe, twenty-nine town views extending across two pages, and eight full-page cuts. One large (fourteen-line) iniatial in blue, red and brown, other large (four-, six-, seven- and eight-line) iniatials in red and blue. This copy contains the three numbered leaves (CCLVIIII-CCLXI) blank except for headlines, and the five additional (unnumbered) leaves containing the De Sarmacia regione and the poem on Maximilian, and the subsequent blank. The portrait of Pope Joan ("Johannes Septimus," verso of leaf CLXIX), usually missing, is present and unmutilated. The double-page map of Europe is free from restoration, with full margins visible.
Sixteenth-century calf over wooden boards, neatly rebacked, retaining the original spine. A few marginal restorations and minor repairs, several leaves reinforced at inner margin, a few leaves slightly smaller and probably supplied. A few early ink marginalia. Overall a very good, unusually clean copy and an extremely tall copy of a book which is seldom found so close to its original uncut size. Housed in a custom clamshell, gilt-stamped.
The most extensively illustrated book of the fifteenth century. The artists, Michael Wolgemut, the well-known teacher of Albrecht Dürer, and his stepson, Wilhelm Pleydenwurff, are mentioned in the colophon. The woodcuts comprise religious subjects from the Old and New Testament, classical and medieval history, and a large series of city views (including Augsburg, Bamberg, Basel, Cologne, Nuremberg, Rome, Ulm, Vienna), as well as a double-page map of Europe and a large Ptolemaic world map.
The text is a year-by-year account of notable events in world history from the creation down to the year of publication, including the invention of printing at Mainz, the exploration of the Atlantic and of Africa, as well as references to the game of chess and to medical curiosities, including what is believed to be the first depiction of Siamese twins. The passage relating to the alleged discovery of America in 1483 by Martin Behaim and Jacobus Canus appears on the verso of leaf CCXC.
BMC II, p. 437. Fairfax Murray, German, 394. Goff S-307. Hain *14508. Harrisse 13. Polain 3469. Proctor 2084*. Sabin 77523. Schreiber 5203. Updike, Printing Types, I, p. 65. See Wilson, The Making of the Nuremberg Chronicle (1976).
HBS 69654.
$150,000.
Price: $150,000.00
Item #69654