Macedonia, a province of the Byzantine Empire. Hartmann Schedel . Albrecht Drer (illustrator) Publication Date: 1493 Condition: Very Good

Title:Macedonia, a province of the Byzantine ...

Publisher:Anton Koberger, Nuremberg.

Publication Date:1493

Binding:No Binding

Book Condition:Very Good

Edition:1st

Woodcut illustration from sheet 273 of the Nuremberg Chronicle. Historic minor worm holes, virtually unnoticeable. Some very slight foxing. On recto are 6 lines of text with a two-line Lombardic style initial and on the verso are 33 lines of printed text, including three Lombardic style two-line initials and section titles in larger typeface. Mounted on white art boards with blue marbled border. Image 23 x 23 cm. The text includes the following:Appollonia. The Emperor Augustus. Venetians. Noblest of all mountains, Olympus. Pliny. Helen. Homer, the poet. The violence of the Persians. Athens. Peleponese topography and history. A milestone in the history of publishing, the Nuremberg Chronicle (Liber Chronicarum) of 1493 was a hugely ambitious book documenting the entire history of the world back to the Creation with a sprawling text by German scholar Hartmann Schedel and extensive woodcut illustrations.The financing, design, and production of this monumental volume over a five-year period involved many prominent members of Nuremberg society. The young artist Albrecht Drer, who would later go on to revolutionize the art and craft of book illustration, was employed in the workshop as a key illustrator for the project. Wolgemut and Pleydenwurff, were to provide the layout of the chronicle,& oversee the production of the woodcuts. The publisher and printer was Anton Koberger, the godfather of Albrecht Drer, who in the year of Drer's birth in 1471 ceased goldsmithing to become a printer and publisher. He quickly became the most successful publisher in Germany, eventually owning 24 printing presses and having many offices in Germany and abroad, from Lyon to Buda. The Chronicle was first published in Latin on July 12, 1493 in the city of Nuremberg. This was quickly followed by a German translation on December 23 1493. An estimated 1400 to 1500 Latin but only 700 to 1000 German copies were published. A document from 1509 records that as many as 539 Latin versions but only 60 German versions had not been sold. Approximately 400 Latin and 300 German copies survive, scattered around the world in museums and collections. The text for the Latin and German editions of the Chronicle are set in very different typefaces, an Italian Rotunda and Schwabacher, respectively. Historians credit the book for being at the root of a subsequent custom for using different type for different languages (e.g. Roman for Latin texts and Fraktur for German). Bookseller Inventory # 4336