Schedel, Hartmann: Registrum huius operis Libri cronicarum...

... cu(m) figuris et ÿmagi(ni)bus ab inicio mu(n)di.
Nürnberg, 12. Julii 1493. dominus Anthonius Koberger Nuremberge impressit. 328 fol(s).
The Latin first edition of the celebrated "Nuremberg Chronicle", one of the most famous incunabula and among the most ambitious publishing enterprises of the fifteenth century. This monumental work presents a universal history from Creation to its own time within a biblical framework, combining text and image in an unprecedented encyclopedic synthesis.
Printed in the workshop of Anton Koberger in Nuremberg and financed by Sebald Schreyer and Sebastian Kammermeister, the illustrations were produced in the workshop of Michael Wolgemut and Wilhelm Pleydenwurff, where the young Albrecht Dürer was then active.
The volume contains a total of 1,809 woodcut illustrations, including two double-page maps attributed to Hieronymus Münzer (depicting the world and Europe), twenty-nine double-page city views, and eight full-page woodcuts. Printed from 645 individual woodblocks, numerous figurative blocks were reused in different contexts throughout the book. Several of the city views represent the earliest printed depictions of the respective towns, enhancing the work’s topographical and art-historical importance.
Hungarian history is also represented within its pages: portraits of Saint Stephen, Queen Gisella, Saint Kinga, and King Matthias Corvinus appear, alongside views including a fictitious Hungarian town and the fortress of Szabács. Of particular importance is the first authentic printed view of Buda from the time of King Matthias, printed from two blocks and appearing on leaves 138–139. Depicted from the east, this view is one of the most significant iconographic documents of the late medieval Hungarian city.
In 1879, the volume belonged to Henry Robert Meade (1811–1895), an English aristocrat and former Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies. Of particular interest is the fact that his two aunts, Lady Caroline Meade (Countess Pál Széchenyi, †1820) and Lady Selina Meade, were — successively — the loves of István Széchenyi, thus linking the provenance of this copy indirectly to one of the most prominent figures of the Hungarian Reform Era.
19th-century blind-stamped leather.