Liber cronicarum
THE NUREMBERG CHRONICLE
THE ILLUSTRATED INCUNABLE PAR EXCELLENCE
Nuremberg: Anton Koberger for Sebald Schreyer and Sebastian Kammermeister, 12 July 1493. First edition.
Folio (16 5/8” x 11 13/16”, 422mm x 300mm): 325 leaves, foll. [20] (wood-cut register-title, blank, 38pp. register), I-CCXCVIIII CCC, [5] (10pp. De Sarmacia). With some 1809 woodcuts, integral to the text, by Michael Wolgemut, Wihelm Pleydenwurff and almost certainly Albrecht Dürer.
Bound in later dark mottled sheep (rebacked, with the original back-strip laid down), with a gilt fillet border. On the spine, six raised bands. Title (OPVS.CHRONIC./HANN.SCHEDEL.) gilt to red sheep in the second panel. Marbled end-papers.
Rebacked, with the original back-strip laid down. Recently conserved by Brockman (full report available). Initials (register–XV) and end-matter (CCXCI–end) mounted onto guards; the register (“title”) leaf short by 20mm at the fore and 10mm at the bottom. Leaves CCLXIIII and CCLXVII supplied from another example (with some hand-coloring at the initials). Lacking the final blank after De Sarmacia. Leaf CLXXXVIII with loss to the lower gutter margin, supplied in facsimile. Various old repairs (including one in thread to the eighteenth leaf of the register). Leaf XCVIII slit horizontally. Leaf CCXCVI soiled at the fore-edge. Generally quite a clean copy, with good margins (albeit some shaved head-lines). Scattered marginalia (one (CXVIIIr) dated to 1555), mostly in secretarial hand. Armorial ex-libris of the convent of the Grands Augustins in Lyon and of Lionel H. Pries to the front paste-down. Pries’s bibliographical cuttings pasted to the recto of the initial binder’s blank (including a detailed typescript describing the present copy). Obliterated bookplate adjacent to the Grands Augustins ex-libris. Armorial bookplate of Poinsac to the rear paste-down.
The Nuremberg Chronicle, known in German (and especially the German edition of December 1493) as Schedelsche Weltchronik or by its Latin title (Liber cronicarum or C(h)ronicae), never stated outright but inferred from the register-title: REgistrum/ huius ope=/ris libri cro=/nicarum/ cu[m] figuris et ÿmagi[ni]=/bus ab inicio mu[n]di: (register of this work, a book of chronicles with figures and images from the beginning of the world), is second only to the Gutenberg bible in importance among incunables (books printed in the XVc).
Hartmann Schedel (1440–1514) is the historian who compiled the text of the Chronicae, but in some ways his was the least important role in the process of the book. In the era of printing’s infancy (incunabula means “swaddling-clothes”), the printers and publishers (including investors) were often the more important agents in the creation of a book. Schedel lived on the same street as nearly all of his partners in the venture (now called Burgstrasse; Schedel was at no. 19): Anton Koberger (printer, no. 3), Sebald Schreyer (publisher, no. 9), Sebastian Kammermeister (or Kammermaister, publisher, no. 15), Michael Wolgemut (with his step-son Wilhelm Pleydenwurff, no. 21; and his godson Albrecht Dürer, no. 27; illustrators). This extraordinary neighborhood of book-producers came together to produce something that far surpassed the long-established genre of chronicles to which it belongs. Two colophons give different accounts of the work’s completion; we know that it was begun in December of 1491. The first colophon (fol. CCLXVIr) gives 5 June 1493 as the date of completion. The second (fol. CCCv), which is fuller and gives the names of the publishers, gives 12 July 1493.
Orthodox chronology, whose twin lights are Eusebius and St. Augustine, posits that there are seven ages of the world, the first being Genesis and the seventh the Apocalypse. Since the fourth century, attempts were made to align the history of the bible with modern history. The jubilee year of 1500 was identified by some as the likely date of the Apocalypse, which made the 1490’s an ideal time to complete a history of the first six ages of the world. Indeed, the three textless folia (CCLVIIII-CCLXI) are preceded by an explanation:
Cartas aliquas sine scriptura pro sexta etate deinceps relinquere convenit. iudicio posterior[um] q[ui] eme[n]dare addere. atq[ue] gesta principum & privatorum succedentium perscribere possunt. Non eni[m] omnia possumus omnes...
(CCLVIIIv)
It is appropriate to leave some pages in a row without text for the sixth age, at the discretion of those hereafter who are able to add, correct, and to write out the deeds of princes and of private men to come; since everyone cannot do everything…
The marvel of the Nuremberg Chronicle is not its text, which largely copies and cobbles together extant chronicles. Rather, it is the link between the rich tradition of illustrated and illuminated manuscripts and illustrated printed works, and the sophistication of its integration of text and image is both sublime and well-documented; the layout manuscript for the book survives in the Stadtbibliothek Nürnberg, and Schedel’s own copy of the Chronicle with his comments and supplements is in the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek. (Adrian Wilson’s Making of the Nuremberg Chronicle (Amsterdam: Nico Israel, 1976) is an indispensable resource for the development of the work.)
Ultimately, the lasting draw of the Chronicle, of which 1,205 copies survive according to the census in the Gesamtkatalog der Wiegendrucke, is its extraordinary woodcuts and their contribution to the overall layout. Pages vary quite widely: some are single wide columns, others two columns or combinations; still other pages or even openings are fully illustrated (including two two-page maps, one of the world (Shirley 19) and one of Europe). The cuts themselves vary widely in sophistication, from the almost modernist repeated cut of locusts to detailed city-views (for which the Chronicle is perhaps most famous) and the tight repertory of kings and queens, popes and popesses (Pope Joan on fol. CLXIXv is unmutilated; often zealous owners have scratched out her image or her description), which do not vary based on era or nationality.
The earliest mark of ownership may well be the German words written CCLVIIIIv, which might be rendered “Peter Fleÿscher von der heÿenstadt an der Gart”. The hand contemporary with the book, and may well relate to a person or event in the final years of the XVc. The marginal note at the tail of the first page of the text (fol. Ir), uncovered following conservation, may be transcribed (albeit with many uncertain passages): “Ce Livre est à [.] bourdin notaire et secret[air]e du Roy ma[je]ste qui le honnera [. .] luy rende/ [. . .] le viij/ [signed] Bourdin”. Although critical passages elude decipherment, the inscription connects the book to a royal secretary and notary, perhaps Jacques I Bourdin (d. 1534), who served in this role to François I, or Jacques II Bourdin (d. 1567), who served Henri II. Bourdin appears to be claiming that the king honored him (with the book?), perhaps in the eighth year of his reign, which, for Henri II, would correspond to the date of 1555 found in the marginalium to CXVIIIr. Could this be a royal presentation copy from Henri II to one of his courtiers?
The armorial bookplate of the Poinsac family (d’or à trois pals de gueules, au chef d’azur chargé de trois molettes d’argent) appears to be XVIIc in style. The family chateau is in the Vivarais (the départment of the Ardèche), and while other examples of the bookplate are known, theirs does not appear to be a major collection. The next point of ownership is the armorial bookplate (XVIIIc in style) of the convent of the Grands Augustins in Lyon, established in 1301, whose library, especially of early material, was extremely fine but broken up in the time of the Revolution. Lionel “Spike” Pries (1897–1968) was a Seattle-based architect who studied at U.C. Berkeley and then at the University of Pennsylvania. Pries directed the Art Institute of Seattle (now the Seattle Art Museum) 1931–1932. Doubtless the clippings of various examples of the book on the market in the 1930’s, as well as a typescript describing the present example, are his.
BMC II, p. 437; BSB-Ink S-195; Gesamtkatalog der Wiegendrucke M40784; Hain (rev. Copinger), Repertorium bibliographicum II.2 *14508; Klebs, Incunabula scientifica et medica 889.1; ISTC no. is00307000; Sabin 77523; Shirley 19.
Item #6JLR0183
Price: $75,000