Beschreibung:

SCHEDEL, Hartmann (1440-1514). Liber chronicarum. Nuremberg: Anton Koberger for Sebald Schreyer and Sebastian Kammermeister, 12th July 1493. Imperial 2 o (470 x 322 mm). Collation : [1-2 6 3 8 ; 4 6 5-7 4 8-11 6 12 2 13 4 14-16 6 17 2 18-19 6 20-25 4 26-29 6 30 2 31 6 32 4 33-35 6 36 2 37 4 38-61 6 ]. (1/1r xylographic title, 1/1v blank, 1/2r index; 4/1r Creation-Ultimate Age of the World, 54/6v blank, 55/1r Sarmation supplement, 55/5v verse on the exploits of Maximilian, 55/6 blank (55 6 bound in at end), 56/1r supplements to the Sixth Age and description of Europe, 61/1v map of Germany, 61/4v colophon, 61/5-6 blank). 327 leaves (of 328; without blank 61/6), ff. CCLVIIII-CCLXI left blank except for printed headlines for readers' manuscript supplements. 64 lines and headline, table and parts of text double column. Gothic types: 9:165 (headings), 15:110b (text). 1809 woodcut illustrations from 645 blocks (Cockerell's count) by Michael Wolgemut Wilhelm Pleydenwurff and their workshop, including the young Albrecht Dürer; the illustrations include 29 double-page town views, 8 full-page cuts and double-page maps of the World [Shirley 19] and of Europe by Hieronymus Münzer after Nicolas Khrypffs. 2- and 3-line printed Lombard initials. 7- to 14-line initial spaces. (Marginal dampstaining, some leaves with repairs to blank margin mainly at beginning and end, minor worming). Contemporary Italian goatskin sides laid down on restored leather binding. Provenance : Early marginalia (on title and a few text leaves) -- purchased from Scribner Rare Books, New York, 17 December 1968. FIRST EDITION, TALL COPY of the most extensively illustrated book of the 15th century. The publication history of the Nuremberg Chronicle is perhaps the best documented of any book printed in the 15th century, owing to the survival of the contract between Koberger and his financial partners Sebald Schreyer and Sebastian Kammermeister, the contract between Koberger and the artists, and the manuscript exemplars of both the Latin and German editions (see A. Wilson The making of the Nuremberg Chronicle 1976). Albrecht Dürer godson of Koberger, was apprenticed to Wolgemut from 1486-89, exactly during the period Wolgemut's shop was busy creating the woodcuts for this volume. For Cockerell's analysis of a copy owned by William Morris and his now traditional count of the woodcuts, cf. P. Needham William Morris and the art of the book (1976). HC * 14508; BMC II, 437 (IC. 7451-3); CIBN S-161; Schreiber 5203; Goff S-307.