Rome

1493 · 25185 — Nuremberg: Anton Koberger for Sebald Screyer and Sebastian Kammermeister 1493. First Edition with the German text. The bi-folium with fine hand-colouring to the Rome view. This is one of the large double-page city-view woodcuts from the workshop of Mighael Wolgemut and Wilhelm Pleydenwurff beneath 22 lines of text. It is handsomely and finely handcoloured in blues greens yellows reds grays etc. Double-page folio ca. 540 x 380 mm handsomely mounted framed and glazed. Leaves LVII and LVIII. In fine condition and very well preserved and presented. FROM THE FIRST EDITION OF THE NUREMBERG CHRONICLE ARGUABLY THE GREATEST ILLUSTRATED BOOK OF THE 15TH CENTURY. The artists Michael Wolgemut the well-known teacher of Albrecht Dürer and his stepson Wilhelm Pleydenwurff have been praised and admired for over five-hundred years for their contributions to one of the monuments of early printing. David Bland calls it "a marvelous book and a landmark in the history of illustration" and through the ages it has more than fulfilled Koberger's prophecy that it would be "the delight of the men of learning and of everyone who had any education at all."<br> A HIGHLY IMPORTANT INCUNABLE the “Nuremberg Chronicle†is the most extensively illustrated book of the fifteenth century and after the Gutenberg Bible the most celebrated book printed in the fifteenth century. Its 1809 woodcut illustrations 1164 excluding repeats depict popes saints and other religious figures kings and emperors historical and biblical genealogies mythological and fanciful creatures natural phenomena and views of all the major cities of the known world as well as a brilliant creation sequence. In addition to the full-sheet maps of the world and of Europe twenty-nine city views such as this one span two pages and eight other cuts excluding the xylographic title page are full-page. The colophon explicitly acknowledges the contributions of the artists Michael Wolgemut and Wilhelm Pleydenwurff. Albrecht Dürer was at that time a pupil in Wolgemut's workshop and there is good evidence that he did many of the preliminary drawings for woodcuts and may even have cut some of them see Adrian Wilson THE MAKING OF THE NUREMBERG CHRONICLE. Anton Koberger, for Sebald Screyer and Sebastian Kammermeister unknown