Nuremberg Chronicle, Signed (4 results)

Hardcover. First Edition, Second Printing. Tall quarto, 255 pages. In Very Good condition with Very Good minus condition dust jacket. Spine is beige with black lettering. Dust jacket has mild soiling and staining along head of front cover, an open chip along the front head joint, small tears along tail edges and corners, and a 1 in. closed tear along the rear head edge. Boards fully bound in charcoal cloth with mild shelving wear along spine head. Mild bending wear along tail fore corner of front free endpaper. Contains a letter from Adrian Wilson [Author] to William Gardiner, signed in his hand, bound with adhesive to the front free endpaper verso. Between the front endpapers are two letters of correspondence between Wilson and Gardiner: a carbon copy of Gardiner's letter to Wilson and Wilson's reply, written entirely in his hand. Shelved in Rm. A. The Nuremberg Chronicle (also known as the "Liber Chronicarum") "is, after the Gutenberg Bible, probably the most celebrated of early printed books. It is a compendium of history, geography and the wonders of the world as viewed from medieval Nuremberg, with some 1800 illustrations provided by the multiple use, for different subjects, of 645 beautiful woodblocks." (n.b., quote from "The Nuremberg Chronicle Designs" by Adrian Wilson, printed for The Roxburghe Club of San Francisco and the Zamorano Club of Los Angeles, 1969). Wilson became renowned for his printing and book design work at his San Francisco printing operation, The Press at Tuscany Valley, throughout the 1960s and 70s. In 1967, he released influential title in the genre of Books on Books, THE DESIGN OF BOOKS. Book making perforated the entirety of Wilson's life. With the help and interest of his wife, Joyce Lancaster Wilson, Wilson invested his attention in studying the entire production process of THE NUREMBERG CHRONICLE, the first known book to include a rudimentary map of Europe, a plethora of woodcuts, and a history of the world beginning at creation. The book that came out of it, Wilson's THE MAKING OF THE NUREMBERG CHRONICLE, is an astute and thorough study on one of the earliest examples of exemplary book making. This particular copy includes correspondence between William Gardiner, an English author, and Adrian Wilson. 1395292. Special Collections.

253, [3] pp. Ephemera laid-in at rear. With numerous b/w & color illustrations. Folio. 35cm x 25cm. Wilson "was an American book designer and author of the influential 1967 work entitled The Design of Books. In 1947, he studied architecture at the University of California, Berkeley but soon left, first to join Jack Stauffacher at the Greenwood Press, and afterwards to join the University of California Press. He developed an interest in early book illustration, leading to his The Making of the Nuremberg Chronicle (1976), and (with his wife) A Medieval Mirror (1984), an account of early printed editions of the Speculum Humanae Salvationis. Hart was born in San Francisco, California. He received a bachelor's degree from Stanford University, followed by a Ph.D. from Harvard University. At the University of California, Berkeley, Hart served as chairman of the English department. He was also the university's vice chancellor from 1957 until 1960. In 1969 he was appointed director of the University of California, Berkeley's Bancroft Library. He was a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and of the American Antiquarian Society." [Wiki] Here, on a preliminary blank, the Wilson's inscribe, in a calligraphic hand, the book to Hart, "For Jim Hart / in deep apprecation for / serving on The Book Design Foundation / and launching this book at / The Bancroft Library / Adrian & Joyce Wilson" A Nr Fine copy in a VG+ jacket. Black & white cloth binding. Map eps. Dust jacket 1st edition (Cf. Wilson #177). PRESENTATION copy, INSCRIBED by both Wilsons to Jim Hart.

No binding. Condition: Fine. Linocut on paper.  Image of the biblical fall of Babylon based on a woodcut on f. 65r in the Nuremberg Chronicle (1493). Fine. (6 1/4 by 7 1/2 in.; 162x191 mm). Signed, titled, and dated by the artist.

Original leaf from the Nuremberg Chronicle, the most extensively illustrated book of the 15th century. The dates on the leaf fall within the Sixth Age, covering late antiquity and the early Middle Ages. The leaf narrates events concerning the popes of the period, beginning with Joannes Octavus (Pope John VIII, 872-882), Martinus Secundus (Pope Martin II), Adrianus Tertius (Pope Adrian III), and Stephanus Quintus (Pope Stephen V). It discusses their reigns and related historical events - political and religious turmoil, wars, and ecclesiastical matters of the late 9th century - reflecting how world history was understood from a biblical and papal perspective in the late 15th century. Illustrated with a vertical line of woodcut portraits of each Pope to the right of the leaf and with a group woodcut of a church council to the bottom left corner. Matted and framed. In fine condition. The entire piece measures 17.5 inches 22.25 inches. A beautiful presentation. Published in 1493, the monumental Nuremberg Chronicle remains the most extensively illustrated book of the 15th century. Albrecht Durer, the printer Koberger's godson, is thought to have contributed to the celebrated series of c.1800 woodcuts while working for the workshop of Michael Wolgemut. The publication history of the Nuremberg Chronicle is perhaps the best documented of any book printed in this period: the contracts between Schedel and his partners Schreyer and Kammermaister, and between Schedel and the artists, all survive in the Nuremberg Stadtsbibliothek, as do detailed manuscript exemplars of both the Latin and the German editions (see A. Wilson, The Making of the Nuremberg Chronicle, Amsterdam: 1976). The Nuremberg Chronicle also includes two double-page maps: a world map (Shirley 19) based on Mela's Cosmographia (1482), and a map of northern and central Europe by Hieronymus Munzer (1437-1508) after Nicolas Khyrpffs. The world map is one of only three 15th-century maps showing Portuguese knowledge of the Gulf of Guinea of about 1470. The map of Europe is closely associated with Nicolas of Cusa's Eichstatt map, with which it is thought to share a common manuscript source of c. 1439-54. It is therefore claimed to be the first modern map of this region to appear in print. Although published later than the map of Germany in the 1482 Ulm Ptolemy, it was constructed earlier (Campbell, The Earliest Printed Maps, 1472-1500, 1987). BMC II, 437; Schreiber 5203; Goff S-307; ISTC is00307000. Hartmann Schedel was a medical doctor, humanist and book collector. He earned a doctorate in medicine in Padua in 1466, then settled in Nuremberg to practice medicine and collect books. According to an inventory done in 1498, Schedel's personal library contained 370 manuscripts and 670 printed books. He compiled this elaborate history of the world from âthe first day of creationâ to his own time in an effort to correct what he felt was a slight to German history by other chroniclers. He divided his work into the usual six ages of the history of mankind, adding a seventh in which he foretold the coming of the Antichrist, the destruction of the world, and judgment day. The invention of printing is mentioned on verso of leaf CCLII: âborn in Germany⦠in the city near the Rhine [i.e. Mainz]⦠in the year 1440â; on verso of leaf CCXC is a brief account (not appearing in the subsequent German edition of the same year) of the âPortuguese voyage of discovery along the coast of Africa in 1483 [1484], under the direction of Diego Cam and Martin Behaim of Nuremberg, which has been used as a basis for the unwarranted theory that the expedition reached Americaâ (Sabin). The legacy of the volume rests on its illustrations. âThere are 1809 woodcuts printed from 645 different blocks. They picture the major events of the Old and New Testaments, episodes in the lives of many saints, portraits of prophets, kings, popes, heroes, and great men of all centuries, freaks of nature, and panoramic views of cities. Nuremberg artists Michael Wolgemut and Wilhelm Pleydenwurff were responsible for the production of the book⦠The wood blocks were designed by the two masters and their assistants, including the young Albrecht Dürer, who was apprenticed to Wolgemut at the time. The printing was carried out under the supervision of the great scholar-printer Anton Koberger, whose illustrated books were famous throughout Europeâ (Legacies of Genius 5).