1493 SCHEDEL, H. - This is the second time Iceland appears on a printed map, authored by Hieronymus Münzer. A woodcut printed map, published in 1493, in Hartmann Schedel’s Liber Chronicum, or The Nuremberg Chronicle.

A woodcut colored map of much of Europe, from the Black Sea to France and from the Adriatic to Scandinavia and Iceland. Scandinavia resembles that of the Ulm Scandinavia, but Greenland, seemingly lacking space North of Scandinavia, has been moved to the East!
The first modern map of the area. The second printed map of the North, and the second time Iceland appears on a printed map. Published in 1493 in Hartmann Schedel ’s Liber Chronicum, or The Nuremberg Chronicle.
With Latin text colophon on verso. The map is also deemed to be the first printed map of Germany, even if it shows a larger area, including all of Poland, Lithuania etc.
One of the earliest depictions of Iceland on a printed map.

W. B. Grinsberg characterized this map as the first modern map of northern and central Europe. The map ranges from the British Isles to Constantinople. The designer has been identified as Hieronymus Münzer (1437-1508), who trained as a physician. The Münzer map is one of the earliest to depict the Scandinavia peninsula.

Nordenskold credits the map of the north in the Zamoyski codes as the prototype for this map. The source for the central European portion is a 1460 manuscript map of Germany by Cardinal Nicolas Cusanus (also Nicholas of Cusa), printed posthumously at Eichstätt in 1491.

The woodblock cutter was Michael Wolgemut, the well-known teacher of Albrecht Dürer. Wohlgemut was Albrecht Dürer's tutor between 1486-1490. Since the young Dürer was active in Wohlgemut's printers shop during the time the woodblock for the Nuremberg Chronicle was produced, he may also have collaborated, since some of the cuts bear a remarkably close resemblance to his Apocalypse illustrations.

Read more about the Liber chronicarum or Nuremberg Chronicle. [+]

Nuremberg Chronicle

The Liber Chronicarum was commissioned by two wealthy Nuremberg merchants and brothers-in-law, Sebald Schreyer and Sebastian Kammermaister.

They contracted Michael Wohlgemut (1434-1519) and his stepson Wilhelm Pleydenwurff (c.1460-1494) to make the woodcuts for the book and draw up layouts showing the setting of the type and the placement of the woodcuts. Hartman Schedel (1440-1514), a physician and humanist scholar, supplied the text. Schedel supplied little original material but relied heavily on others, including Jacob Philip Foresti of Bergamo, whose Supplementum Chronicarumn was reproduced almost word for word. For some of the contemporary material, he drew heavily upon Historia Bohemica, Rome 1475, by Aneas Sylvius Piccolomini.
While Liber Chronicarum contains much historical material, it also leaves room for accounts of curiosities, myths, and fables.
As notable as the material contained in Liber Chronicarum is what it leaves out. For example, it does not record the death of Lorenzo di Medici, nor the adoption of Roman law in Germany. The famous printer, Anton Koberger (1445-1513), the largest printer and publisher in Germany at the time, was employed to print the book.
At his height, Koberger ran 24 presses and employed 100 craftsmen. The Latin edition was published on 12 July 1493, and a German edition, translated by George Alt, the city scribe of Nuremberg, was published on 23 December 1493.

Perhaps the most important features of the Liber Chronicarum are its design and illustrations. The layouts for the illustration and typesetting of the book survive and show that the woodblock subjects were sketched at first and the text was then inscribed to fit within the remaining space. The result is a marriage of text and illustration unlike anything seen before.
The artists produced 14 basic page layouts, with several variations, for the book. They cut 645 different blocks and used them several times for the final 1809 illustrations, often using the same cut to illustrate different towns or people. For example, the woodcut that is used to represent Damascus on fol. XVIII is used to represent Verona on fol. LVII and is also used to represent Mantua and Naples elsewhere in the work.
However, in some depictions of the more important cities, such as Jerusalem and Constantinople, an effort has been made to include recognizable landmarks. For example, the woodcut of Biblical Jerusalem depicts the Temple of Solomon and other landmarks.
Some see evidence of the hand of Albrecht Dürer in some of the illustrations. Although this is possible, as he was apprenticed to Wohlgemut, other scholars doubt it.

In 1552, Schedel's grandson, Melchior Schedel, sold about 370 manuscripts and 600 printed works from Hartmann Schedel's library to Johann Jakob Fugger. Fugger later sold his library to Duke Albert V of Bavaria in 1571. This library, one of the largest formed by an individual in the 15th century, is now mostly preserved in the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek in Munich.
Among the surviving portions of Schedel's library are records of the work's publication, including Schedel's contract with Koberger for publication and the financing by Sebald Schreyer and Sebastian Kammermeister, as well as the contracts with Wohlgemut and Pleydenwurff for the original artworks and engravings. The collection also includes the original manuscript copies of the work in Latin and German.

The Nuremberg Chronicle receives much scholarly attention nowadays, but the fact that some 800 examples of the Latin edition and 400 of the German edition still exist also testifies to the popularity of the Liber Chronicarum in its own time.
In fact, it is estimated that around 1500 copies of the Latin edition and 1000 of the German edition were printed. It was popular enough to be pirated.
Three years after the first edition was complete, Johann Schönsperger (d. 1520) of Augsburg printed a German version and went on to produce a Latin edition and another in German.

Further reading and books used in the compilation of this piece:
Adrian Wilson. The making of the Nuremberg chronicle. Amsterdam: Nico Israel, 1977.
Hartmann Schedel. Chronicle of the world: the complete and annotated Nuremberg chronicle of 1493, introduction and appendix by Stephan Füssel. Köln, London : Taschen, 2001.
Text by Hugh Cahill, Senior Information Assistant, Foyle Special Collections Library