This beautiful color woodcut is an illustration from The Nuremberg Chronicle, a monumental and beautifully illustrated book of world history by Hartmann Schedel, Illustrated by Wilhelm Hans Pleidenwurf and Michael Wolgemut in Nuremberg in 1493. A fine example of Hartmann Schedel's inscrutable view of Venice, perhaps the single most influential secular illustrated book of the 15th century and one of the iconic printed works of the 15th century. The view of Venice is one of the earliest views of the city available and, in fact, the only large-format 15th-century illustration of the city available to collectors. This view is essentially a smaller illustration of Venice, adapted from a larger illustration of Venice in Breydenbach's Peregrinatio, which was illustrated by the Dutch artist Erhard Reuwich, active in Mainz in the 1480s.
Konrad Cletis (145-1508), he drew from his important library the sources of this immense work. A cosmographic encyclopedia with 1,089 engravings describing the ages of the world since Creation, the book opens with the story of the biblical heptameron. It was printed by Anton Koburger, a great German bookseller of the late 15th century who contributed to the development of woodcarving. Michael Wolgemut and his son-in-law Wilhelm Pleydenwurff executed the illustrations around 1490, at a time when their studio was at its peak and the young Albrecht Dürer had just finished his apprenticeship there. The views of cities, some authentic, others invented or copied from older models, have an interest both artistic and topographical.
Hartmann Schedel (1440 - 1514) is a German humanist scientist, physician, historian and chronicler. Author of the first published world chronicle. One of the first cartographers to use machine printing. Schedel was also a notable collector of books, art and old master prints. An album he had bound in 1504, which once contained five engravings by Jacopo de' Barbari, provides important evidence for dating de' Barbari's work.
Michael Wolgemuth is a German painter, engraver and woodcarver. Representative of the Nuremberg school of painting. Albrecht Durer studied in his workshop in 1486-89.
Hans Pleydenwurff (also Pleidenwurff; 1420 – 9 January 1472) was a German painter.
The reverse side has text. This is an original print, with original handcoloring