Hartmann Schedel / Wohlgemut / Pleydenwurff / Durer - The Nuremberg Chronicle (Liber Chronicarum) - Ordine Domenicano e Ordine Francescano (CCIX) - 1493

This original sheet is an incunable from 1493, coming 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 famous publisher Anton Koberger in Nuremberg and illustrated with woodcuts from the workshop of Michael Wolgemut and Wilhelm Pleydenwurff. The page belongs to the section titled “Sexta etas mundi,” dedicated to the Christian era. The text masterfully intertwines the complex and tumultuous political vicissitudes of the Holy Roman Empire with the providential advent of the great mendicant orders that revolutionized spirituality in the thirteenth century.

The front of the sheet (which bears in the upper right the woodcut number Folio CCIX) is entirely dominated by the biography and the deeds of the emperor Frederick II of Swabia (Fridericus secundus), inserted in the right column under the Linea imperatorum with a solemn portrait depicting him wearing a crown and scepter. The dense historical narration traces the main stages of his reign: from his rise under the protection of Pope Innocent III to the heated and repeated doctrinal and political disputes with the Holy See, culminating in the excommunications imposed on him by Pope Gregory IX and Pope Innocent IV. The text also alludes to his campaigns in the Holy Land, to the complex dynastic dynamics with his son Conrad and King Manfred, and ends at the bottom with the chronicle of a prodigious solar eclipse and of terrifying natural catastrophes that shook Europe in that period.

Turning the page, the back shifts the focus to the extraordinary religious and intellectual flourishing of the Middle Ages, celebrating the birth of the two principal pillars of mendicant monasticism through two large and detailed woodcuts. The upper part hosts the view of a monastery entitled Ordo predicatorum (Order of Preachers or Dominicans), founded by Saint Dominic of Guzmán; its papal approval of the Augustinian rule and the unwavering zeal in defending the faith against heresies are praised. In the lower section stands the view of the Ordo minorum (Order of Friars Minor or Franciscans), the institute founded by Saint Francis of Assisi; the text celebrates their radical embrace of evangelical poverty, humility, and the immense doctrinal expansion throughout the Christian world, recalling eminent doctors of the order such as Saint Anthony of Padua and Saint Bonaventure of Bagnoregio. The page closes by mentioning the devastations inflicted by the Tartars (Tartari) and the capture of Jerusalem by the sultan Saladin.

Dimensions 44 x 31 cm
It will be shipped by courier.