Registrum huius Operis libri cronicarum cum figuris et ymagibus ab inicio mundi

Hartmann Schedel

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Compiled by the physician, humanist, and cartographer Hartmann Schedel, this book describes in text and images the world from its creation until Schedel’s own late medieval time. The Liber Chronicarum, more commonly known as the Nuremberg Chronicle, was the most profusely illustrated book of the 15th century. Two Nuremberg artists, Michael Wolgemut and Wilhelm Pleydenwurff, collaborated on the publication with Schedel. The most influential images in the book were the 53 views of cities and countries in Europe and around the Mediterranean. Drawings of the actual sites were used whenever possible, but in many instances the artists invented views that were reused to represent various different cities.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.

Metropolitan Museum of Art