Author: Hartmann Schedel

Language: Latin

Date: 1493 AD

Pages: 763

History/Description: "The Nuremberg Chronicle" is an illustrated biblical paraphrase, and world history, that follows the story of human history as it relates to the Bible. It includes the histories of a number of important Western cities. It's written in Latin by Hartmann Schedel, with a German translation by Georg Alt. Both the Latin and German versions were printed by Anton Koberger in Nuremberg, Germany. It's one of the first books to integrate illustrations and text. It is estimated that 1400-1500 Latin version were printed and 700-1000 German versions were printed. The larger illustrations were also sold separately as prints, often hand colored with watercolors.To Latin Scholars, the book is known as Liber Chronicarum (Book of Chronicles). To English speakers, it's referred to as the Nuremberg Chronicle, after the city it was published in. To German speakers it's called Die Schedelsche Weltchronik (Schedel's World History) in honor of the author. Hartmann Schedel was a medical doctor, humanist, and book collector. According to an inventory done in 1498, Schedel's personal library contained 370 manuscripts and 670 printed books. He used passages from the classical and medieval works in this collection to compose the text of the Nuremberg Chronicle. He borrowed most frequently from another humanist chronicle, called Supplementum Chronicarum, by Jacob Phillip Foresti of Bergamo. It's been estimated that about 90% of the Nuremberg's text is pieced together from works on humanities, science, philosophy, and theology, while about 10% of the content is  Schedel's original composition.

Reproduction Details: The hardcover books are made with two pieces of real wood on the inside. The leather is a 4 oz cowhide, from a small supplier in New York state. The Glue we use to attach the leather to the wood is made at our facility, and is a period correct wheat glue. Along the spine, we use a modern perfect binding, with modern glue, to make the binding last longer. We also add three layers of mull cloth to the outside of the perfect binding, drying in between each layer, a traditional way to make the binding stiff, strong, and resilient.