Hartmann Schedel / Wohlgemut / Pleydenwurff / Durer - The Nuremberg Chronicle (liber Chronicarum) - San Bernardino / Francesco Sforza e re Alfonso - 1493

This original leaf is an incunabulum from 1493, extracted from the Liber Chronicarum, printed in Nuremberg by Anton Koberger with the unmistakable textual and iconographic layout impressed by Michael Wolgemut and Wilhelm Pleydenwurff's workshop. The front of the page opens with the chronicle and the woodcut portrait of Alfonso V of Aragon, called the Magnanimous (Alfonsus rex), King of Naples, whose military exploits, the long siege, and the conquest of the Neapolitan kingdom are celebrated, as well as his deep love for the arts and letters that characterized his humanist court. Immediately below is space for the portrait and the dramatic biography of Cardinal Giuliano Cesarini (Julianus cardinalis), papal legate and fervent defender of the Christian faith, who lost his life in 1444 following the disastrous Battle of Varna against the Ottoman Turks. The lower section of the front celebrates the figure of Francesco Sforza (Franciscus Sforzia), Duke of Milan, depicted in armor, describing his political ascent, his marriage to Bianca Maria Visconti, his military virtues, and the great architectural works he promoted in the city of Milan, including the construction of the Sforza Castle and the monumental Ospedale Maggiore. Turning the page, the back hosts an ample biography accompanied by a woodcut portrait of Saint Bernardino of Siena (S. Bernardus or S. Bernardinus), famed Franciscan preacher and reformer of the Order of Observant Minorites, noted for his extraordinary oratorical gifts, for the diffusion of the trigram of the name of Jesus, and for the numerous miracles performed in life and after death, which occurred in 1444. The leaf concludes with the historical and religious chronicle of the great Jubilee of 1450, proclaimed in Rome by Pope Nicholas V, describing the immense influx of pilgrims from all over Europe, the dramatic crowd incidents that occurred on the Ponte Sant’Angelo, and the subsequent plagues of pestilence and natural calamities that struck Italy and Europe in that same period.

Dimensions 42 x 30 cm
It will be shipped by courier