The Nuremberg Chronicle

October 10, 2011 10:47 AM

The Nuremberg Chronicle is one of the earliest printed books. The author, Hartmann Schedel, sets out a history of the world as understood at the time, relying heavily on the Bible. It is perhaps best known today for its wealth of images (some favorites: Creation of Birds, Map of the World, Half Horse, Stoning of St. Stephen and Apocalypse). The Beloit College website has a lot more information about the book and its context. They even have an English translation which is fully searchable.
posted by Kattullus (11 comments total)

These images are amazing, thanks for posting.
posted by Corduroy at 10:58 AM on October 10, 2011

It's sometimes called the Schedelsche Weltchronik, but maybe only in German. If I've got my early modern German texts in order, this is the one that space after the apocalypse left blank, so you could fill in the apocalypse as it happened in your neighbourhood.
posted by hoyland at 11:02 AM on October 10, 2011 [2 favorites]

The members of the incoming class of 1497 have never known a world before the Wars of the Roses.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 11:05 AM on October 10, 2011 [3 favorites]

"Over eighteen hundred illustrations appear in the book, compiled from about six hundred and fifty woodblocks. Many of the portraits appear multiple times and even some of the city maps are reused (some of those are imaginary views or adaptations from other artists and predictably, the closer to Nuremberg, the more accurate was the map)."

There's a number of versions of Liber Chronicarum online.
posted by peacay at 11:15 AM on October 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

I like how even while their creation is underway, birds are already eating each other. That is pretty true to how birds act, in my experience. Hawk's gotta eat, man.

I think that Half Horse image should become the MeTa pony request icon.
posted by GenjiandProust at 11:21 AM on October 10, 2011

You might be a geek if your first thought is to go through this looking for images of furniture or tools. For values of you equal to me.

I found an auger!
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 11:26 AM on October 10, 2011

I like how even while their creation is underway, birds are already eating each other. That is pretty true to how birds act, in my experience. Hawk's gotta eat, man.

I also note that it also looks like two are mating.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:27 AM on October 10, 2011

I also note that it also looks like two are mating.

Perhaps Schedel had already worked out that sex and violence sells (althugh, in this case, to... birds?), or this may be the first Rorschach-style test ("What do you see, Herr Mittenschrank? Birds mating, eh? Hmmmm, very interesting. Flagellate the Demons of Lust out of yourself!") Obviously, treatment needed a bit of work, but it was a promising direction....
posted by GenjiandProust at 11:34 AM on October 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

As I look at these images, I can't get this music out of my head.
posted by homunculus at 12:49 PM on October 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

@homunculus That's fantastic!
posted by Twang at 6:41 PM on October 10, 2011

Twang, there's more here.
posted by homunculus at 7:34 PM on October 10, 2011