[Hartmann Schedel], Das Buch der Chroniken und Geschichten (Nuremberg: Anton Koberger, 1493) Facsimile, with an introduction and appendix by Stephen Fussel (Chronicle of the World). Cologne: Taschen, 2001.
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[Hartmann Schedel], Das Buch der Chroniken und Geschichten (Nuremberg: Anton Koberger, 1493) Facsimile, with an introduction and appendix by Stephen Fussel (Chronicle of the World). Cologne: Taschen, 2001. |
This facsimile represents a hand-colored German edition of the Chronicle. Art historians have long-considered that the addition of hand coloring to prints and woodcuts to be an attempt to compensate for technical deficiencies and that improvements in printmaking by the end of the 15th century made color unnecessary. However, the existence of works such as the Nuremberg Chronicle , hand-colored in the printer's workshop, indicates the color was considered part of the book's design, rather than a consequence of poor production. In some parts of the Chronicle, the coloring enhances the meaning of the illustration and the significance of using a particular color is even given to the reader in the accompanying text.
The map shown here is based on a Ptolemaic map published in 1482 in Pomponius Mela's Chorographia. Ptolemy's influence is seen in the representation of the Indian Ocean as a sea, in the land bridge joining Asia and Africa and in the badly distorted shape of India. Contemporary knowledge of the world is demonstrated in the rendering of the outlines of Asia, Africa and Europe, including the recent Portuguese discovery of the Gulf of Guinea. However, the map does not represent the most recent discoveries of the day such as Bartolomeus Diaz's circumnavigation of the Cape of Good Hope or the recent discovery of America. The diversity of those inhabiting the earth is shown in the images to the right of the map with the descriptions of these people drawn from a range of classical sources as well as contemporary traveler accounts.
Click on the images below to learn more about the production and meaning of the Nuremberg Chronicle.
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