The most extensively illustrated book of the fifteenth century. A magnificent copy in contemporary hand-colour of the first illustrated encyclopaedia of world history.

The first edition of the Liber Cronicarum, often known as the Nuremberg Chronicle in English-speaking circles. Compiled by the German polymath Hartmann Schedel (1440-1514) as a universal history of the Christian world, the text is divided into 11 ages, comprising a year-by-year account of notable events from Creation down to the time of publication, and a historical and geographic survey of the city-states and nations of medieval Europe, the Holy Land, and the Near East.

Famed for its series of over 1800 woodcuts from the workshop of Michael Wolgemut, which draw on an array of biblical and historical sources. It is the most extensively illustrated book of the fifteenth century, and probably includes early contributions by Albrecht Dürer, who was godson to the printer Anton Koberger, and apprenticed to Wolgemut from about 1486 to 1490 when he set out on his Wanderjahr. The 29 double-page views of towns include early depictions of Paris, Rome, Vienna, Nuremberg, Venice, Constantinople, and Jerusalem (before and after its destruction); all appearing here in full contemporary colour with a particularly fine finish, the skies heightened in white showing sunlight scattering the clouds.

'In many cases, we find in the Chronicle the first known illustrations of the cities in question, along with the story of their foundation, the etymology of their names and a painstaking list of facts about the cultural life, economy and trades flourishing there in the period around 1490' (Stephen Fussel).

Two double-page maps open and close the text. The first depicting the world (Shirley 19), based on Mela's Cosmographia of 1482, one of only three fifteenth-century maps to show Portuguese knowledge of the Gulf of Guinea. The second, of northern and central Europe by Hieronymus Münzer (1437-1508), one of the first modern maps of the region to appear in print. This is closely associated with Nicolas of Cusa's Eichstätt map, with which it is thought to share a common manuscript source of circa 1439-1454. Although published later than the map of Germany in the 1482 Ulm Ptolemy, it was constructed earlier.

The publication history of the Chronicle is one of the best documented of any incunabula, with the contracts between Schedel and his merchant-partners Schreyer and Kammermaister surviving in the Nuremberg Stadtsbibliothek. Whilst the German and Latin editions were planned simultaneously, this edition was published five months earlier, being printed between May 1492 and October the following year.

First edition; imperial folio (47.5 x 32 cm); 1809 woodcuts printed from 645 blocks (Cockerell's count) by Michael Wolgemut, Wilhelm Pleydenwurff and their workshop, including Albrecht Dürer, all in contemporary hand-colour, including 2 double-page maps depicting the world (Shirley 19) and Europe, 29 double-page views of towns, and 9 full-page illustrations, text in Latin, xylographic title, illuminated opening initial in blue modelled in white on gold ground within fictive frame, red capital strokes for first 20ff, a few early MS annotations in pen in Latin, MS note in pen to f.CLXXXIII verso bottom margin 'hac suitor recta priusquam tuor in suis coloribus justa inditium heraldii' ('see here the display of heraldry in their true colours before the court'), ffCCLVIII-CCLXI blank as issued but for heading and foliation, MS notes in pen in English to f.CCL recto, watermark 'P' to f.CCLXI, De Sarmacia bound before CCLXVII 'This section is sometimes found bound between ff. 266-7' (Fairfax Murray), CCLXV with one word deleted and 'homines' added in the fore-margin, ff I and CCLXII supplied from contemporary copies, some discolouration and staining, occasionally corrosive where a heretic has been censored, some offsetting, gathering 9 browned and with some oxidation to colour pigments, a few tears and holes skilfully restored; seventeenth-century English calf, expertly rebacked, original spine laid down, later red morocco lettering-piece, upper and lower boards with narrow border of gilt triple fillet and blind foliate roll, skilfully restored, very good.

ISTC is00307000; Fairfax Murray 394; BMC II p.437; Hain *14508; CIBN S-161; BSB-Ink. S-195; Bod-inc. S-108; Schreiber 5203; Goff S-307.