The Nuremberg Chronicle is one of many attempts to tell the history of mankind, from the creation of the world to the Last Judgment. The historian and physician Hartman Schedel worked on the creation of a book with a volume of 336 pages, spending about 7 years on it. According to various estimates, the circulation of the incunabula, published in 1493, was 1400-1500 copies in Latin and 700-1000 copies in German. Most of the texts describe Western European cities, the rest is a simplified retelling of biblical stories.
Illustrations deserve special attention: images of cities, mythological creatures, famous personalities, etc. In total, there are 1809 drawings (in some copies they are colored by hand), made using 645 cut engravings. Such a large number of illustrations is explained by the fact that many of them are repeated, and some of them several times. First of all, this applies to images of cities, because due to the lack of reliable sketches, a number of duplicates had to be made. Schedel commissioned engravings from the workshop of Wilhelm Pleidenwurff and Michael Wohlgemuth, Albrecht Dürer's teacher. There is an assumption that Dürer himself could also participate in the design of the book.
Urban panoramas, despite their inaccuracy and unreliability, are still of interest to historians, who can learn a lot of information about medieval architecture, the planning of districts, and the arrangement of fortifications. The most realistic images of European German and Italian cities. At the same time, due to the use of the same printing forms, the Italian cities of Verona and Perugia are similar to each other, and the French Marseille is similar to Nicaea (Asia Minor).
The Nuremberg Chronicle was extremely popular, as evidenced by its large circulation. This success prompted Johann Schensperger, a book printer from Augsburg, to issue his own Nuremberg Chronicle in his printing house without the permission of Hartmann Schedel. Within seven years of the publication of the original incunabula, three smaller pirated editions appeared. And although these books also sold well, Shenshperger soon went bankrupt.
