Secunda etas mundi. Page from Liber Chronicarum (The Nuremberg Chronicle]

This is a page from Hartmann Schedel's Chronicle of the World, known as The Nuremberg Chronicle, published in 1493. It was then the most famous 15th-century printed book in Europe after Gutenberg's Bible. It was commissioned by two Nuremberg aristocrats, Sebald Schreyer and Sebastien Kammermeister. To illustrate Schedel's text, which was the history of the world from the first day of creation until 1493, the patrons contracted the workshop run by Michael Wolgemut(1433/34-1519) and Wilelm Pleydenwurff (d. 1494). Wolgemut was Nuremberg's principal painter and printmaker of the late 15th century and also the young Albrecht Dürer's teacher, and Pleydenwurff was his stepson and partner.

The author of the text, Schedel (1440-1514), was a wealthy Nuremberg landowner and humanist, while the printer and publisher, Anton Koberger, the owner of the largest printing, publishing and bookselling house in Europe (he was also Dürer's godfather and early patron). The Chronicle was a massive publishing project with 645 woodblocks and total of 1809 woodcuts, a large run of 1000 copies in the Latin edition and 1500 in the German edition; it was widely marketed throughout Europe and sold very well.

This part of The  Nuremberg Chronicle illustrates the long distant 'second age' of world history (hence the Latin title), which began with the building of Noah's Ark. The recto (facing page) of Folio (page) 20/XX depicts an imaginary view of Nineveh (now in northern Iraq) which is described in the text. The illustration is purely imaginative and as not based on any knowledge of what Nineveh looked like: instead, we have here a typical fortified medieval city of Europe, with its grim walls and turrets. The approach is by the usual tower gate, surmounted by a statue of a medieval king in his robes of state, crowned, and holding a sceptre in his extended right hand. The figure is large and out of proportion to the surrounding architecture. Within the walls and to the left on an elevation is the castle, resembling the one that towers over Nuremberg. To the right is a huge structure, apparently a church, with towers and no spires, terminating in domes of various proportions. The circular walls of the city sweep inward toward the recessed city gates, giving those on the battlements at either side full command of the approach.

The verso (reverse), is part of a spread over two pages (Te Papa does not have a copy of Folio XXI). It comprises a genealogy, depicting the lineage of Christ, featuring portraits of his early, Old Testament ancestors including Abraham and Sarah, and Nachor and Milcah (Genesis 11:29), followed by Laban and Rebecca, etc.  

See: Morse Library of the Nuremberg Chronicle, http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=nur;cc=nur;rgn=div1;view=text;idno=nur.001.0004;node=nur.001.0004%3A 4

Dr Mark Stocker    Curator, Historical International Art       March 2017