Hartmann Schedel / Wohlgemut / Pleydenwurff / Durer - The Nuremberg Chronicle (Liber Chronicarum) - Sapienza Medica e Tommaso Becket (Folium CCII) - 1493

This original sheet is an incunabulum from 1493, sourced 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 written by the German humanist Hartmann Schedel, printed by the famous 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 aetās mundi" (Sixth Age of the World), dedicated to the Christian era. The text masterfully interweaves biographies of the highest doctrinal and scientific minds of the ancient and Islamic worlds with the complex dynastic twists of Europe and the great assemblies or martyrs who defended Church liberties.
The front of the sheet (bearing the woodcut pagination CCII at the top right) celebrates the intellectual heritage of Arab medicine and philosophy in medieval times, intertwining it with the great Western religious chronicles. The left column hosts the vertical and finely hand-colored portraits of three among the most eminent physicians of Islam, flanked by the leading ecclesiastical authorities: the celebrated Persian scientist Avicenna (Avicenna medicus), praised for the breadth of his intellect and his treatises on logic, physics, and mathematics; the Cordovan philosopher Averroës (Averrois comentator), remembered for his dense and learned commentaries on Aristotle’s works; and the Andalusian physician Avenzoar (Avenzoar medicus), renowned clinician esteemed by Averroës himself. Immediately below stands the solemn portrait of Saint Thomas Becket (S. Thomas archieps cantuariensis), the inflexible Archbishop of Canterbury, central to the political disputes with King Henry II of England over ecclesiastical rights, culminating in his dramatic martyrdom in the cathedral. To the left of the text unfold carved woodcut friezes and initials, a devotional and artistic phenomenon that spread widely in early modern volumes to visually mark biographical sections.
Turning the page, the back shifts attention to the supreme papal authorities and the great historical events of the mid-twelfth century, under the woodcut heading Linea summorum pontificum. The right column hosts the vertical portraits of two popes who marked the medieval era: Pope Adrian IV (Adrianus quartus), the only English-origin pope in Church history, noted for the political tensions with the heresy of Arnulph of Brescia and for the imperial coronation of Frederick Barbarossa; and Pope Alexander III (Alexander tertius), a famed jurist and Sienese pope who supported the Italian free comuni and the Lombard League in the long military conflict against the same Swabian emperor. The bottom part of the page unfolds as a dense and erudite historiographical treatise on the wars and rifts that shook Italy and Europe before the papal-imperial reconciliation achieved in Venice. The text describes in detail the Roman deliberations, the attempts to pacify the Western kingdoms, the preparations to consolidate the frontiers of Christendom, and the events of the conclave, offering XVth-century scholars a universal guide to understanding the morals and changes of peoples through the centuries.

Dimensions 43 x 31 cm
Will be shipped by courier