The Nuremberg Chronicle (Liber Chronicarum)

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

The Chronicle contains 1804 illustrations created from 652 woodblocks, meaning that many images were used more than once. In the two pages shown here an identical image is used to represent both the land of the Amazons and the city of Alexandra. The same city is also used in other parts of the book to represent Athens, Pavia, Austria, Carinthia, and Prussia. The repetition of woodcuts was a common practice during this time, both in order to save money and because many readers of the Chronicle accepted these as idealized renderings of distant locales. However, there are 32 authentic city views in the Chronicle, based on both contemporary illustrations and models already existing in the printer's archives.

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

Note the drawing of the pointing hand, called a "fist" on the page above. Although this particular mark is not very instructive, marginalia in incunabula can often give hints as to how a book was used. For instance, scholars of this time period have found, through examining marginalia, that early modern readers engaged in active reading, writing commentaries and opinions in the margins and cross-referencing and comparing multiple sources. One of the characteristics of humanistic reading was a preoccupation with meteorological phenomena, famine, astrological events and local events. These types of occurrences were frequently underlined or highlighted in books of chronicles. This particular text summarizes a classical history of Alexander the Great; and the pointer highlights a specific encounter between the Greeks and Amazons.

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