Nürnberg - SCHEDEL, Hartmann - Liber chronicarum.... Lot 1139

[Nürnberg] - SCHEDEL, Hartmann - Liber chronicarum. Nürnberg, A. Koberger for S. Schreyer & S. Kammermeister, 12 July 1493, imperial folio, old calf over wood (rubbed), edges bevelled inside, spine on 5 raised bands (joints splitting, head & tail def., old repairs), metal clasps and catches (1 clasp gone), [20]-ccxci-[7] ff. (the unnumbered additional ff. “De regno polonie et eius initio”, are in our copy bound between ff. 266-267. Without the final 2 blanks, ff. 183-184 inserted from a sl. (1 cm) shorter and rubricated copy, occ. marg. dampstaining or soiling, bottom margin of f. 122 and last 2 ff. strengthened). Very good and complete copy. Cfr. ill. 1st ed. of the most extensively illustrated book of the 15th c. The 2 editions (Latin and German) were planned simultaneously, each with its own specially designed, new type, and both with the same woodcuts; the Latin ed. preceded the German by about 5 months. The text is a universal history of the Christian world from the beginning of times to the early 1490s, written in Latin by the Nürnberg physician and humanist Hartmann Schedel (1440-1514), with on f. 252v the famous reference to the invention of printing in 1440. The Chronicle also incorporates geographical and historical information on European countries and towns. The narrative is divided into 11 parts, the so-called world ages. Illustration: xylographic title-page; 1809 woodcut ills printed from 645 blocks by Michael Wohlgemut, Wilhelm Pleydenwurff and their workshop, including Albrecht Dürer. The woodcuts show religious subjects from the Old and New Testament, classical and medieval history, and a large series of city views incl. Augsburg, Basel, Byzantium, Cologne, Florence, Jerusalem, Nürnberg, Prague, Rome, Venice, Vienna. Included are 2 double-page maps: a world map, folio XIII (Shirley 19) (splitting c'fold, c. 10 cm) based on Mela's “Cosmographia” (1482), and a map of northern and central Europe (lower margin trimmed to woodcut border &