Description

After Johann Gutenberg's Bible (1453-56), the Nuremberg Chronicle is the most famous 15th-century publication and an early bestseller, documenting history from the creation of the world to the voyages of discovery in the 1490s. The book's large scale (18.11 x 12.59 x 3.5 inches), unprecedented number of illustrations (1,809 woodcuts printed from 645 woodblocks), and great length (over 600 pages) made it the most ambitious printed publication since the invention of movable type just a few decades earlier. Wolgemut and Pleydenwurff illustrated the text and provided complete manuscript layouts, an unusual procedure at the time but nonetheless successful in closely integrating the images and text, producing an extraordinarily cohesive unit.