Hartmann Schedel / Wohlgemut / Pleydenwurff / Durer - The Nuremberg Chronicle (Liber Chronicarum) - Grandi Umanisti e Invenzione Stampa (Folium CCLII) - 1493

This original sheet is an incunabulum from 1493 originating from the Liber Chronicarum, also known as the Nuremberg Chronicle, one of the most celebrated and monumental works in the early history of printing. The text was drafted by the German humanist Hartmann Schedel, printed by the renowned publisher Anton Koberger in Nuremberg, and illustrated with woodcuts from the workshop of Michael Wolgemut and Wilhelm Pleydenwurff. The page is part of the section titled "Sexta etas mundi," dedicated to the Christian era. Through a dense and celebratory narrative, the sheet highlights the cultural flowering of European Renaissance Humanism in the fifteenth century, pairing portraits of influential cardinals, historians, and philosophers with the epochal introduction of movable type printing.

The front of the sheet (top annotated with the woodcut numbering CLII) focuses on key figures in the politics and ecclesiastical, philosophical culture of the Quattrocento. The left column is enriched by three woodcut portraits. The first at the top depicts the King of Hungary Matthias Corvinus (Mathias hungarie rex), a famous Renaissance sovereign and patron. Immediately below is the portrait of the German theologian and philosopher Nicolaus of Cusa (Nicolaus de Cusa cardinal), among the greatest thinkers of the century, renowned for his mathematical and philosophical studies. At the bottom of the page appears the solemn portrait of the Byzantine cardinal and humanist Giovanni Bessarion (Bessarion cardinal grecus), a fundamental figure for the safeguarding and dissemination of Greco-Rreek culture in the West after the fall of Constantinople.

The back of the sheet opens with a text of exceptional documentary and encyclopedic value: the solemn celebration of the invention of printing (Ars imprimendi libros), described as an art born precisely in Germany, near the Rhine (in Mainz in 1440), which made it possible to save and spread the vast knowledge of classical antiquity. Beneath this section, the left column presents a vertical series of portraits dedicated to the leading exponents of humanism and the medical science of the time: the humanist Nicolaus Perotti (Nicolaus perotus), the theologian Robert Caracciolo (Robertus de licio), the famous physician and Veneto lecturer Matteo Ruinus (Matheolus perusinus medicus) — explicitly cited by Hartmann Schedel as his esteemed master —, the famous historian and humanist Bartolomeo Platina (Platina historicus), the philologist Domizio Calderini (Dominicus calderinus), and finally the scholar Francesco Filelfo (Marius philelphus). The Latin texts trace their biographies, celebrating their stylistic elegance, teaching, and literary works.

Dimensions 42 x 30 cm
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