NUREMBERG AT HIS HIGHWAY "Nurembergga", woodcut from a Latin edition of the famous "Liber chronicarum" by Hartmann Schedel, printed by Anton Koberger in 1493. With beautiful original 15th century hand-colouring. Dimensions: 34 x 52.5 cm. The imperial city of Nuremberg (German: "Reichsstadt Nürnberg") was a free imperial city - independent city-state - within the Holy Roman Empire. After Nuremberg gradually gained its independence from the viscounty of Nuremberg in the High Middle Ages and acquired a significant part of the territory of Bavaria in the War of Succession of Landshut, it grew to become one of the largest and most important imperial cities, the unofficial capital of the German Empire. Nuremberg's cultural flowering, which began in the 15th century, made it the centre of the German Renaissance. Nuremberg traded with almost the entire then known world and its wealth was known as "the imperial treasury". It was said that the city's revenues were greater than those of the entire kingdom of Bohemia. Nuremberg had trading offices in many cities, such as the Nürnberger Hof in Frankfurt. Many famous artists lived and worked in Nuremberg at this time, such as Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528), Martin Behaim (1459-1507) built the first globe and Peter Henlein (c. 1485-1542) made the first pocket watch. Also noteworthy from this period are the woodcarver Veit Stoss (1447-1533), the sculptor Adam Kraft (c. 1460-1508/09) and the master caster and sculptor Peter Vischer the Elder (c. 1460-1529). Hartmann Schedel's Liber Chronicarum: Das Buch der Croniken und Geschichten, popularly called the Nuremberg Chronicle (after the city of publication), was the first secular book with the style of abundant illustrations previously reserved for Bibles and other liturgical works. The project for the Nuremberg Chronicle was initiated by the artist Michael Wolgemut (1434/37-1519), who together with Wilhelm Pleydenwurff (ca. 1450-94) conceived and executed the illustrations and engravings (one of Wolgemut's pupils was the young Albrecht Dürer, but he is no longer believed to have worked on the chronicle). In order to finance this expensive and very risky undertaking, Wolgemut received the support of two wealthy patrons, Sebald Schreyer (1446-1520) and his brother-in-law Sebastian Kammermaister (1446-1520), after which the famous Nuremberg printer Anton Koberger (ca.1440-1513), agreed to do the printing. The Nuremberg physician and humanist Hartmann Schedel (1440-1514) was commissioned to write the work. The various sources from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance that were used, came from authors that Schedel studied as a student (in Leipzig and Padua), among others Bede, Vincent of Beauvais, Martin of Tropau, Flavius Blondus, Bartolomeo Platina and Philippus de Bergamo. Like most incunabula (i.e. books printed before 1501), the work was published in Latin, although a German version was also produced a few months later. The work was intended as a history of the world, from the beginning of time to the 1490s, with a final section devoted to the expected Last Days of the World. It is undoubtedly the most important illustrated secular work of the 15th century and its importance rivals the early printed editions of Claudius Ptolemy's Geographia and Bernard von Breydenbach's Peregrinatio in Terram Sanctam in terms of its significance for the development and dissemination of illustrated books in the 15th century. The picture of Nuremberg is the only two-page textless picture of a city in the book. Clearly, not all cityscapes were accurately depicted, but Nuremberg's importance as an imperial city, with a vibrant merchant and intellectual class, was realistically portrayed, from the labelled spires of the churches of St. Sebaldus and St. Lorenz to the many other architectural features such as the castle (one of Europe's most formidable medieval fortifications), the towers, city gate and bridge, as well as the paper mill in the lower right-hand corner. Price: Euro 2.150,- (incl. frame)
