The Nuremberg Chronicle (Liber Chronicarum)

[Hartmann Schedel], Liber Chronicarum (Nuremberg: Anton Koberger, 1493), Folio CLXXXVII verso.Special Collections, University of Maryland Libraries.

The Nuremberg Chronicle is best known for its vivid and compelling illustrations, particularly those of European cities. The task of illustrating the work fell to two of Nuremberg's most well known artists, Michael Wohlgemut and his stepson Wilhelm Pleydenwurff. Albrecht Dürer, one of the greatest artists of the German Renaissance, trained in their workshop from 1486 to 1489 and some art historians have found similarities between selected illustrations and Dürer's later work, including the above woodcut of four dancing couples. However, more recent scholarship asserts that the woodcut was based on another illustration produced in Wohlgemut's workshop for Jacobus de Voraigne's Legenda Aurea, published in 1488.

Click on the images below to learn more about the production and meaning of the Nuremberg Chronicle.

Chronicles	Schedel's Sources	The Artists	Illustrations	Book Design	Worldview

Exhibit Bibliography| Web Links| Nuremberg Chronicle Home | Exhibits Home