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an old book with a black and white drawing on itan old book with a drawing of a man on a horsean old book with a drawing of a spiral on itan old book with a drawing of a spiral in the middle of itan old book with a black and white drawing of a man and a woman sitting on the groundan old book with a drawing of a tree on itan old book with a drawing of a boat in the middle of itan illustration of a page from a manuscript with a picture of a man and womanan old book with a drawing of a city in the middle of itan old book with a drawing of a city in the middle
ALDE

24 - [SCHEDEL (Hartmann)]. [Liber chronicarum].
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Estimate €15,000 - €20,000
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Description
[SCHEDEL (Hartmann)]. [Liber chronicarum]. A register of this work, comprising chronicles with illustrations and images from the beginning of the world. Nuremberg, Anton Koberger for Sebald Schreyer and Sebastian Kammermeister, 12 July 1493. Imperial folio (445 x 315 mm), fawn sheepskin, filleted borders, cold-stamped fans at the corners and a central rosette, plain spine with three large raised bands, smooth edges (18th-century Italian binding). First edition of the ‘Nuremberg Chronicle’, the most famous of the illustrated incunabula and one of the masterpieces of book history. The mock-ups and contracts preserved in Nuremberg indicate that the plan by the publishers Sebald Schreyer and Sebastian Kammermeister to commission the printer Anton Koberger and the physician and humanist Hartmann Schedel to produce a magnificent illustrated universal history, encompassing both biblical and secular subjects, predated 1490. The Latin edition, intended for an international audience, was printed between May 1492 and July 1493 on two or three different presses, with a print run of 1,400 or 1,500 copies. The German edition was completed on 23 December of the same year. Both editions feature the same illustration. ‘The high point in the printed illustration of books north of the Alps during the 15th century’ (Bettina Wagner). The work is illustrated with over 1,800 engravings printed from 645 woodblocks designed and engraved by Michael Wolgemut, Wilhelm Pleydenwurff and the young Albrecht Dürer, godson of Anton Koberger and apprentice to Wolgemut from 1486 to 1489, to whom the majestic ‘Last Judgement’ is notably attributed. Among these engravings are two double-page maps – a world map based on the cosmography of Pomponius Mela and a map of Central Europe by Hieronymus Münzer after Nicolas Khyrpffs – and some forty city views, most of them double-page, which are often, at least in the case of the Germanic cities, on accurate observations. A copy with wide margins, complete with the chapter on the Kingdom of Poland (De Sarmacia regione Europe, [5] ff.). A few leaves contain marginal annotations and early handwritten additions. A copy belonging to Gian Galeazzo Dottula, with a handwritten ex-libris from the late 16th century in Latin (‘ Hic liber est Joannis Galeatii Doctulæ et fratrum”), accompanied by the coat of arms of this noble family from Bari, drawn in pen, full-page, on the first blank endpaper and repeated at the bottom of f. 264. A long handwritten inscription in Latin mentioning Brother Agostino Sanseverino, of the Order of the Hermits of St Augustine, and Sigismundo Dottula, of Bari, dated 19 March 1568 at the archiepiscopal palace in Bari, appears following the colophon, on the verso of f. [300]. From the library of Luigi Serra, Duke of Cassano (1747–1825), with a coat-of-arms ex-libris on the first blank endpaper (mounted over the Dottula coat of arms). The Nuremberg Chronicle is described in the catalogue of incunabula from his library (1807, p. 36). In 1819–1820, the Neapolitan collector sold the most valuable part of his library to Lord George Spencer for 30,000 ducats; this was described by T. F. Dibdin in a supplement to the catalogue of the Bibliotheca Spenceriana published in 1823 – a supplement in which, under no. 215, a copy of the German edition of the Nuremberg Chronicle is listed, but not the Latin edition, of which Lord Spencer owned another copy (1814, III, no. 667). Significant worm damage, browning and old paper repairs in the margins and at the back of the volume, mostly sparing the printed text but occasionally affecting a few characters or the central part of the double-page engravings. The title page has been cut out around the engraving and reattached to a blank leaf. Missing are the 2 ff. CCLIX–CCLX (blank, except for the running title and pagination), formerly replaced by blank leaves with the text added in manuscript; the original f. CCLXI has been retained. The blank leaf between ff. CCLXVI and CCLXVII is also missing. Scattered water stains, small corner tears, and a tear at the corner of ff. 153, 183–184, 190, 193, 226–227 (resulting in the loss of several lines). Binding rubbed with some scuffing. ISTC, is00307000 – HC, *14508 – Goff, S-307 – Pr 2084 – BMC, II, 437 – GW, M40784 – CIBN, S161 – Brunet, I, 1860.
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About the sale Antique books – Alchemy & the occult sciences
Auction location
Auction time 11/04/2026 at 2:00 PM
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See original version (French)
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