SCHEDEL, Hartmann (1440-1514) - Liber chronicarum.... Lot 197

SCHEDEL, Hartmann (1440-1514) - Liber chronicarum. Nuremberg: Anton Koberger per Sebald Schreyer e Sebastian Kammermeister, 12 luglio 1493. An ancient coloured copy of the first edition of the most famous illustrated book of the 15th-century. The Nuremberg Chronicles are remembered for the numerous and splendid woodcut illustrations, to which Albrecht Dürer who was part of the workshop of Michael Wolgemut and Wilhelm Pleydenwurff also contributed (Wilson, The Making of the Nuremberg Chronicle, Amsterdam: 1976). Walter L. Strauss in the text Woodcuts and woodblocks (New York: Abaris book, 1980) attributes some woodcuts to the young artist. The work also includes two important double-page maps: a beautiful map of the world based on Pomponius Mela's Cosmographia of 1482 (Shirley 19), and a map of northern and central Europe by Hieronymus Münzer (1437-1508) by Nicolas Khyrpffs. The world map, found here in good condition and coloured on a yellow background, is one of only three 15th-century maps showing the Gulf of Guinea as it was known by the Portuguese around 1470. The map of Europe is instead strictly associated with the map of Eichstätt by Nicola di Cusa, with which it is believed he shares a common source of manuscripts of the years 1439-54; it is therefore considered the first modern map of the area to be printed. Although published after the 1482 Ptolemy of Ulm map of Germany, it is believed to have been created earlier (Campbell, The Earliest Printed Maps, 1472-1500, 1987). Folio imperiale (430 x 281mm). 326 leaves (of 328 without the last two blank 61/5-6, woodcut title, ca.1809 woodcut illustrations printed from 645 wooden blocks by Michael Wolgemut, Wilhelm Pleydenwurff and their workshop to which Albrecht Dürer belonged, with antique hand-colouring [count by SC Cokrell, Some German Woodcuts of the Fifteenth Century, Kelmscott Press: 1897, pp. 35-6]; two coats of arms just sketched in pen to the large woodcut of the Creation. (The first