Schedelsche Weltchronik

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
World map (sheet 12v / 13r): "The world is called umbkrais because it is simbel rotund scheybelt or spherical." At the corners the biblical ancestors of Europe , Asia and Africa are shown: Japhet , Sem and Cham .
Cover: Register of the book of chronicles and stories - with figures and nuts from the beginning of the world up to our time
Double page with text and view of the city of Vienna
Woodcut with a view of the city of Nuremberg
Woodcut with Emperor Heinrich II and his wife Kunigunde

The Schedelsche Weltchronik , also known as the Nuremberg Chronicle , is an illustrated representation of world history. It is the main work of the German historian Hartmann Schedel and was first published in Nuremberg in 1493 in a Latin and a German version. It is the most important illustrated incunable . Michael Wolgemut designed the woodcuts illustrating the work . The personal copy of Hartmann Schedel is located in the Bavarian State Library .

content

The chronicle follows the tradition of medieval chronicles by presenting the history of the world in world ages :

The Latin edition comprises 656 pages, the German 596 pages. The work contains 1809 woodcut illustrations from Michael Wolgemut's workshop , some of which are repeated, however.

The illustrations include 29 double-sided city views and two double-sided maps: a world map and a map of Europe. America is not yet shown on the world map, as the existence of the new continent was only known after Amerigo Vespucci had reported about his South America expedition 1501/1502 (see Mundus Novus ).

production

Michael Wolgemut began in 1487 together with Wilhelm Pleydenwurff , his stepson, with the design work for the woodcuts. Contributions by the young Albrecht Dürer , who was an apprentice at Wolgemut until 1490, are also likely. The artists delivered the woodcuts on January 21, 1492 and received in return a fee of 1,000 Rhenish guilders .

The number of copies is not known. The Latin edition that was distributed all over Europe will have been higher than the German. It was printed by Anton Koberger in Nuremberg . Almost nothing is known about the world chronicle prices at that time. A copy sold in London in 1495 cost 66 shillings 8 pence. The printing of the Weltchronik, which caused immense costs, was not a publishing success, because in 1509 571 copies were still in stock.

The market value of examples still known today depends on their state of preservation. A superbly preserved specimen was auctioned in London in 2010 for around $ 850,000. A copy that is two-thirds of the pages missing was offered for $ 35,000 in 2011.

expenditure

  • Hartmann Schedel: Registrum huius operis libri cronicarum cu [cum] figuris et imagibus [imaginibus] from inicio mudi [mundi] . [Reprint of the Nuremberg, Koberger, 1493 edition]. Quantum Books, Ostfildern [2002?], CCXCIX, ISBN 3-935293-04-6 .
  • Hartmann Schedel: Register of the Book of Cronicles and Stories with Figures and Pildnuts from the beginning of the world to this our time . [ Brought into diss Teutsch by Georgium Alten …]. Reprint [of the edition] Nürnberg, Koberger, 1493, 1st reprint. Reprint-Verlag Kölbl, Munich 1991, CCLXXXVI Bl., IDN: 947020551.
  • Hartmann Schedel: The Schedelsche Weltchronik from 1493. Commented by Rudolf Pörtner, 4th edition (of the new printing) Dortmund 1988 (= Die bibliophilen Taschenbücher , 64.)
  • Hartmann Schedel: World Chronicle. Reprint of [the] colored complete edition from 1493 . Introduction and commentary by Stephan Füssel. Weltbild, Augsburg 2004, ISBN 3-8289-0803-9 .
  • Stephan Füssel (ed.): Schedel'sche Weltchronik . Taschen Verlag, Cologne 2001, ISBN 3-8228-5725-4 .

literature

  • Stephan Füssel (Ed.): 500 years of Schedelsche Weltchronik . Carl, Nuremberg 1994, ISBN 3-418-00372-9 .
  • Bernd Posselt: Conception and compilation of the Schedelschen Weltchronik (= Monumenta Germaniae historica , Schriften, Volume 71), Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 2015, ISBN 3-447-10434-1 (Dissertation Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München 2012/2013, LIV, 600, 16 pages, illustrations).
  • Christoph Reske: The production of the Schedelschen Weltchronik in Nuremberg (= Mainz studies for book studies , volume 10). Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 2000, ISBN 3-447-04296-6 (Dissertation University Mainz 1999, XX, 203 pages, illustrations, 1 CD-ROM (Windows and Mac)).
  • Elisabeth Rücker: Hartmann Schedels Weltchronik, the largest book company of the Dürer period, with a catalog of city views , Prestel, Munich 1988, ISBN 3-7913-0876-9 ( table of contents ).
  • Peter Zahn: Hartmann Schedel's world chronicle. Results of recent research . In: Bavarian Library Forum. No. 24 (1996), pp. 230-248.

Web links

General
Commons : Schedelsche Weltchronik  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikisource: Schedel'sche Weltchronik  - Sources and full texts
GW / digital copies

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Xaver Schnieper: The Schedelsche Weltchronik: an introduction and appreciation . Ed .: Swiss Bibliophile Society. tape 7 , no. 3-4 , 1950, pp. 97 , doi : 10.5169 / SEALS-387655 ( e-periodica.ch [accessed April 15, 2020]).
  2. ↑ Christoph Reske: Schedelsche Weltchronik. In: Historical Lexicon of Bavaria . April 11, 2011, accessed September 23, 2016 .
  3. ↑ Fancy some new bedtime reading? Rare world history book from 1493 found in dusty attic goes on sale for $ 35,000 Mail Online , June 8, 2011