2 folios from Liber Chronicarum.

Woodcuts, 45,5 x 31 cm, laid paper, Gothic Latin text and 22 woodcuts (sm. cuts in paper around edges, not affecting the image or text, slightly stained).

Folios 91 and 108 from the 1st Latin edition of the Nuremberg Chronicle, the most extensively illustrated book of the 15th c. The 2 editions (Latin and German) were planned simultaneously, each with its own specially designed new type, and both with the same woodcuts; the Latin ed. preceded the German by about 5 months. The text is a universal history of the Christian world from the beginning of time to the early 1490s, written in Latin by the Nuremberg physician and humanist Hartmann Schedel (1440-1514). The woodcuts represent the Ascension of Mary Magdalene, St Luke painting the Virgin, the martyrdom of St John the Evangelist, Samson with the Gates of Gaza and King Saul.
Ref. ISTC is00307000. - GW M40784. - Goff S-307. - Polain 3469. - A. Wilson, The making of the Nuremberg Chronicle (1976). - C. Reske, Die Produktion der Schedelschen Weltchronik in Nürnberg (2000).